Noem Won't Rule Out Tear-Gassing Trick-or-Treaters

Summary

Pod Save America: "Noem Won't Rule Out Tear-Gassing Trick-or-Treaters"

Date: October 31, 2025
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Pod Save America, the hosts dissect the latest political developments just days ahead of Election Day. The show covers Donald Trump’s controversial actions both abroad and at home, escalating government crackdowns on immigration and protest, the ongoing government shutdown, and current debates about the Democratic Party’s future direction. The episode features an interview with Zoran Mamdani, progressive mayoral candidate for New York City, who has become a lightning rod for GOP attacks. The tone is direct, sardonic, and urgent, mirroring the turbulent state of U.S. politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Trump’s Asia Trip: Trade "Victory" or Surrender?

[02:44 – 07:08]

• Trump ended a high-profile Asia trip with a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He boasted about ending the trade war by getting China to resume American soybean purchases and sell rare earth minerals in exchange for lowering tariffs and granting China access to advanced Nvidia AI chips.
• The hosts mock Trump’s self-assessment, with Dan Pfeiffer rating the deal “3.7” out of 10.
• Analysis: The hosts argue Trump was outmaneuvered—giving up valuable leverage for superficial wins, harming U.S. interests and exposing his weakness in symmetric negotiations.
  • Quote (Favreau, 05:50): “We'll stop hurting ourselves as a concession, but we'll give you… access to AI chips for what is possibly the most important technological race of history.”

Nuclear Saber Rattling: Testing and Confusion

[07:08 – 11:28]

• Trump announced an intention to resume nuclear weapons testing, disregarding decades of international restraint and uncertainty about the distinction between test systems and actual nuclear warheads.

• Concern that unqualified staff and disregard for nuclear safety could produce catastrophic risks, especially as testing would occur near Las Vegas.

  • Quote (Pfeiffer, 09:07): “I don't know how you feel about an administration staffed with fucking morons... detonating nuclear weapons at America's only test site, which is 60 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada.”

• Puzzlement over Trump's invocation of the "Department of War" — actual nuclear testing is handled by the Department of Energy.

Halloween Crackdown: Tear Gas and Raids

[11:44 – 16:28]

• Amidst a chilling Halloween atmosphere, Illinois Governor Pritzker pleaded for a pause in DHS deportation raids and use of tear gas in children’s neighborhoods. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem refused, calling the request "shameful".

• The hosts highlight reports that American citizens are being swept up in these operations.

  • Quote (Pfeiffer, 13:36): “This idea that it is so important for this fake war... that we have to harass people on Halloween is just. It's like they're living on a different planet. But it's a planet where they do not give a shit about people.”

• Orwellian Denial: Noem falsely claimed no American citizens have been arrested/detained, despite public video and lawsuits to the contrary.

Paramilitary Escalation: Troops in the Streets

[16:28 – 21:10]

• Trump threatens to send active duty military to U.S. cities for “riot control,” describing the enemy as “within.”

• Host concerns: The administration is treating dissent as insurrection, using federal power to suppress protest—despite peaceful demonstrations.

  • Quote (Pfeiffer, 18:12): "They think they are fighting a war with an enemy within... It's a planet where they do not give a shit about people right, who are not them..."

• Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and ICE have engaged in violent tactics, including tear gassing protesters. Oversight is being actively rolled back.

• Example: Congressional candidate Kat Abu Ghazala charged for peaceful protest.

  • Quote (Kat Abu Ghazala, 21:10): "I don't want to go there. But also, I don't regret protesting and exercising my First Amendment right."

ICE & CBP Shake-up: Ratcheting Up Enforcement

[23:54 – 27:04]

• ICE leadership replaced with even more aggressive CBP officials due to unmet deportation quotas set by Stephen Miller.

• Growing focus on mass arrests, including legal residents and citizens, to boost statistics.

  • Quote (Favreau, 25:23): "You could imagine this is partly why they're arresting a lot of American citizens, legal residents, because they get to count it as an arrest, even if it doesn't end up as a deportation."

Trump’s Third Term—Admits "Lame Duck" Status

[27:04 – 29:33]

• Trump, after hinting he'd love a third term, concedes (for now) he’s constitutionally barred from running in 2028, but the hosts remain skeptical about his true intentions.

Government Shutdown: Losing Streak Continues

[31:37 – 42:41]

• The government shutdown’s impacts: SNAP (food assistance) halt, ACA enrollment headaches, and prolonged hardship for working-class Americans.

• Republican-intransigence analyzed—neither side feels political pressure to move, and Democrats are winning the blame game, but with little practical effect.

  • Quote (Pfeiffer, 35:12): "We are winning the fight. And there is no reason that we should fold right now."

• Grim outlook: Real suffering (hungry children, stalled airports) may not move the needle; only elite inconvenience (like air travel disruption) typically ends shutdowns.

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Extended Segment: The Democratic Party’s Branding Crisis

Review of Bazelon’s "Deciding to Win" Report

[46:39 – 68:57]

• The hosts review Simon Bazelon's major report, arguing that Democrats have harmed their brand with positions perceived as too liberal or culturally out-of-touch.

• Findings: Since 2012, Dems have lost most ground with Black & Hispanic moderates/conservatives, and non-college white moderates. The policy most toxic to swing voters involve crime, immigration, and identity.

  • Quote (Pfeiffer, 50:10): “Not just over in 2024, but basically since 2013... Democrats have become seen as much more liberal, much more out of touch with mainstream values.”

• The focus shouldn't just be on advocacy for popular positions, but also on making voters believe Democrats prioritize economic and public safety issues. Persuasion—especially of non-liberal, non-college-educated voters—is essential.

• The hosts note: The left-right spectrum is less relevant; what matters is perceived relatability, trust, and fighting for working-class priorities.

Key Policy Takeaways

• Voters like: Raising minimum wage, protecting Medicare, lowering drug costs.

• Voters dislike: "Abolish the police," free health care for undocumented immigrants, lowering the voting age, and subsidy handouts.

  • Quote (Favreau, 61:04): “Looking at this report, that is where Democrats have the biggest weakness. Abolish the police. Most unpopular policy ever, which no Democrat supports, but, you know, it was a thing in 2020...”

Democratic Brand: Can It Be Fixed?

• The brand may be too tarnished—a fresh face (presidential nominee) might need to break with party orthodoxy in order to succeed in 2028.

  • Quote (Pfeiffer, 64:19): “I think the Democratic Party brand as it currently stands cannot be fixed... If you're running for president, you have to run against the party as it currently stands because frankly, the establishment is not up to the task.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|------------|-------| | 05:50 | Favreau | "We'll stop hurting ourselves as a concession, but we'll give you… access to AI chips for what is possibly the most important technological race of history." | | 09:07 | Pfeiffer | “I don't know how you feel about an administration staffed with fucking morons... detonating nuclear weapons at America's only test site, which is 60 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada.” | | 13:36 | Pfeiffer | "...It's a planet where they do not give a shit about people right, who are not them..." | | 21:10 | Kat Abu Ghazala | “I don't want to go there. But also, I don't regret protesting and exercising my First Amendment right.” | | 25:23 | Favreau | "...this is partly why they're arresting a lot of American citizens, legal residents, because they get to count it as an arrest, even if it doesn't end up as a deportation." | | 35:12 | Pfeiffer | “We are winning the fight. And there is no reason that we should fold right now.” | | 46:39 | Favreau | “There's a debate about a debate...” | | 61:04 | Favreau | “Looking at this report, that is where Democrats have the biggest weakness. Abolish the police. Most unpopular policy ever, which no Democrat supports, but, you know, it was a thing in 2020...” | | 64:19 | Pfeiffer | “I think the Democratic Party brand as it currently stands cannot be fixed... If you're running for president, you have to run against the party as it currently stands because frankly, the establishment is not up to the task.” |

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Interview: Zoran Mamdani, NYC Mayoral Candidate

[79:46 – 93:54]

• Zoran Mamdani discusses running for mayor as the GOP and Trump try to make him the face of the national Democratic Party, using Islamophobic attacks and threats to intimidate.

  • Quote (Mamdani, 87:57): “I hope that this campaign represents to New Yorkers across the five boroughs the possibility of being their full selves in the city that they call home... there is no amount of shrinking themselves into a box that will ever be sufficient.”

• He addresses attempts to use his Muslim identity, his stance on Israel, and economic progressivism against him. Yet, he notes that most New Yorkers remain fundamentally concerned about the cost of living.

  • Quote (Mamdani, 91:52): “With hope comes an immense responsibility to deliver on the promise of it. And I take very seriously that responsibility, because... this is a hope that for many New Yorkers has been the first time they've experienced it in the politics of their city.”

• Mamdani employs humor regarding the “fake Bill de Blasio” Times of London story (“most authentically de Blasio thing ever”), capturing the episode’s blend of the absurd and serious.

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Media Sideshow: Fake Bill de Blasio & Far-Right Meltdowns

[69:35 – 74:18]

• The Times of London error: Quoting the wrong Bill de Blasio (a Long Island wine cellar), enabled by the use of ChatGPT and poor fact checking.
• Katie Miller yelling on Piers Morgan, threatening denaturalization of political foes.

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Action Items

• Volunteer: To canvas for Mamdani (or other candidates), visit zoran4nyc.com/GOTV.
• Voting: Reminders to have a voting plan, especially in key states (Virginia, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, Georgia).

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Conclusion

With chilling stories of civil liberties abuses under Trump, inaction in Congress, and a Democratic Party struggling with its identity, the hosts lament and ridicule ongoing political dysfunction—while encouraging boots-on-the-ground activism. Zoran Mamdani’s interview underscores themes of hope, coalition-building, and resistance to fear-based politics. The episode is a whirlwind tour of both the terrifying and the ridiculous in modern American politics, told with Pod Save America’s characteristic mix of outrage and irreverence.

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For More:

• Listen to the full episode for detailed analyses and further interviews.
• Engage: votesaveamerica.com/vote
• Support progressive journalism: crooked.com/friends

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, like Johnny, Johnny Apple, Zeb.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and I forgot to take a Zbiotics. It'll be there. Fall is here and that means it's time to enjoy cooler weather and some drinks out with friends. Whether you're enjoying a pint at a fall festival or a spooky cocktail at a Halloween party, don't forget to drink a Pre Alcohol before drinking. Be able to celebrate and still wake up feeling great the next day. Go to zebiotics.com crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use Qriket at checkout. Zebiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics.com crooked and use the code CROOKED to check out for 15% off. The Trump administration is keeping everyone's heads on a swivel, but there's not enough time in the day to both hear what's going on and to make sense of it all. So our friends at the Bulwark brought you the Bulwark Takes podcast. On Bulwark Takes, you'll hear from a rotating cast of the Bulwark team as they bring you bite sized news and analysis about the news of the day. They laugh, they cry and they distill what happened and where it's going to take us. You'll get to hear from all the Bulwark stars, people like Sarah Longwell Tim Miller, Sam Stein, JVL and their on the ground reporters. If you've been tempted to tune the news out, now's the time to tune it back in. New episodes of Bulwark takes drop multiple times a Day on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, just a couple days before election Day, Zoran Mamdani talks to Tommy about what's at stake in America's largest city and Republicans effort to make him the face of the Democratic Party. I don't know if you've heard of him, Dan. It's just he's a promising young candidate in the local race.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's that guy running against Cuomo.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, that's right. We've also got lots of news to cover before we get to that. Donald Trump attempting to make deals in Asia as he unleashes even more armed agents into America's cities. Possible movement or not on ending the shutdown. More Democratic infighting over a report and the great Bill de Blasio impostor caper has finally been solved. Let's start with the president, once again celebrating himself for partially containing a fire that he started. Trump ended this week's Asia trip by meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since 2019 with the hope of resolving the trade war that's achieved nothing but economic pain for people in both countries. You may remember this all began with Trump unilaterally imposing record high tariffs on just about everything we buy from China, which led China to retaliate, which has led to a very stupid cycle of escalation and de escalation based on whatever makes Trump mad that day. Problem for Trump is that China isn't some small country he can bully. And as part of Xi's retaliation, China stopped buying American soybeans, which hurt hardworking soybean farmers like Scott Besant. China also said they would limit the sale of rare earth minerals, which the US and the world really need for almost all technology, from phones to cars to planes to military weapons. Good news. After the Trump Xi meeting, China agreed to start buying Scott soybeans and selling rare earth minerals in exchange for Trump lowering the tariffs and in a real head scratcher, giving the Chinese government access to some of Nvidia's AI chips, which could help them better compete for AI dominance with America. Trump was extremely proud of himself for all this. Here he is on Air Force One on the way home from Asia.

[Tommy Vietor]

Overall I guess on the scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12.

[Jon Favreau]

Dan, what number would you give the meeting on a scale of 1 to 10 to 12?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would give him a 3.7.

[Jon Favreau]

3.7. Yeah. Thank you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So I read a bunch of analyses of this deal, and there were two common threads through them. The first one was this looks exactly like all the other trade negotiations that Trump has had with China, where he comes to an agreement, the agreement falls apart, and we get right back to where we were. But the second, I think, more alarming thread was that Trump should basically get taken to the cleaners here. He starts the trade war, she puts in place punitive actions like the refusing to buy soybeans from Scott Besant and restricting access to rare earths. And China then agrees to take off the punitive actions that Trump's initial actions sparked. And then Trump gives him concessions for that. So it's like he got.

[Jon Favreau]

By the way, some of the concessions are lifting tariffs that were hurting Americans.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

So it's like, we'll stop hurting ourselves as a concession, but we'll give you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Also access to AI chips for what is possibly the most important technological race of history.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We're going to give that to China. And this was in the New York Times story. But Xi clearly understands that the best way to negotiate with Trump is to make Trump think he's won so he can go out and convince himself that it was a 12 on a scale of 10. Even though he got played, it was total amateur hour. And it really is the difference. When Trump has the entire massive leverage of the US Economy and US Military behind him, he can win a negotiation. But when he has to be on somewhere near equal footing with another world power, he is totally outclassed.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, and also, Xi is, like Trump, an autocrat, but unlike Trump, has firm enough control over his government that he. And also maybe of his own emotions that he doesn't have the bottomless need for approval and congratulation that Trump does. So he knows that he can pretend that Trump won because he knows that, like, it's. He. He's gonna make out better in the deal. And he doesn't necessarily need the headlines like Trump needs the headlines.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, he can also get any headline he wants.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, Trump's working on that project. Which is another. I was gonna say it's another reason Trump so admires his autocrat friends. I guess Trump didn't think his summit with his fellow autocratic leader of America's top economic and military arrival would be exciting enough. So he surprised all of us with a little nuclear saber rattling that he announced on. Where else but truth Social. The Post said that he, quote, has instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. Isn't that lovely? Some context here. No country has tested a nuclear weapon since 1992, with the exception of North Korea. They haven't since 2017. But Trump's announcement came a few hours after Russia said it completed a successful test of a nuclear capable underwater drone and three days after it claimed to have had a successful test of a nuclear powered nuclear missile. So it's unclear whether Trump wants to resume testing nuclear capable weapons or actual nuclear warhead detonation or whether he knows the difference. And he didn't exactly clear things up when a reporter asked him about this on the way home about resuming nuclear testing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What prompted you to do that right before the meeting had to do with others.

[Tommy Vietor]

They seem to be nuclear testing. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don't do testing.

[Jon Favreau]

We've halted it years, many years ago.

[Tommy Vietor]

But with others doing testing, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

It'S appropriate that we do also.

[Tommy Vietor]

Any details around the testing, sir, like.

[Jon Favreau]

Where, when it'll be announced, you know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We have test sites.

[Tommy Vietor]

It'll be announced.

[Jon Favreau]

There's a lot to unpack there, Dan.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, let's start. I don't know how you feel about an administration staff with fucking morons that recently fired almost everyone who knows anything about nuclear safety detonating nuclear weapons at America's only test site, which is 60 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, a little too close for comfort.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, especially people who love Vegas like we do.

[Jon Favreau]

That's also gonna. That could put a real damper on his plan to hold a midterm Republican convention in Vegas, which apparently he wants to do.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And you say it's not clear whether he means testing capable weapons or actual weapons. But Project 2025 proposed going back to testing actual weapons. And this whole thing is so stupid because, one, there's no reason, there's no itch we're scratching here. As you said, no one has done it other than North Korea for 30 years. And it all happened because the United States negotiated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which because our politics are stupid, we have failed to ratify. But we've adhered to it all this time. So now if the United States starts testing, weap, all the other countries are going to start testing weapons. And when you have people just detonating nuclear weapons everywhere, seems like that could cause some problems.

[Jon Favreau]

Maybe the fact that he couldn't figure out or no one could tell him the difference between test detonating a nuclear weapon or testing devices that could carry a nuclear warhead is troubling. We also don't have the most number of nuclear weapons. Russia does. And. Yeah, and like you said, and the other thing wrong was that we only have one test site here, so. And It's. Someone asked J.D. vance about this too, a reporter, and J.D. vance is like, well, we don't need to test the nuclear weapons, that we have to know that they work, but it's also good to stay on top of it because they're getting old. So it's good to know that they work.

[Tommy Vietor]

But.

[Jon Favreau]

But we don't have to test them. We know that they work. It's like it made no sense whatsoever because there's no, like, there's no. It's.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know why you do that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know why you do that. It seems like I would say that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Russian weapon, though, the undersea drone that causes tsunamis in coastal cities is concerning and seems like something out of a James Bond movie. So.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Especially since it's west coast they're thinking about. Yeah, don't love that. Don't love that. Anyway, I guess. I guess. I guess we should just move on and hopefully, hopefully that's a storyline that doesn't come back in a future episode. What? Everything that happened here. Maybe we'll just forget about it. Maybe, maybe he'll just. And then he's also talking about the Department of War. Also the Department of Energy is the one that conducts nuclear tests, not the Department of War. So that's just another. So don't get too excited, Pete.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I just feel like there's not a lot that Donald Trump knows about this, about the science, the history, the environmental effects. Never seen Oppenheimer.

[Jon Favreau]

You think he's gonna be. Yeah. He's gonna care about the environmental effects?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, but I think he might. Maybe he would cheerlead them. Maybe he's got some friends and donors who would clean them up. I don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, this episode drops on Halloween, where this year, Trump's tariffs have made candy more expensive and his paramilitary force has made trick or treating even spookier on account of all the chemical munitions they keep using to terrorize peaceful American neighborhoods. On Thursday, Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker issued a plea for the Department of Homeland Security to stop their deportation raids in Chicago, if not permanently, then at Least over Halloween weekend. This is relevant because last week there was a kids costume parade in the old Irving park neighborhood in Chicago that had to be canceled because immigration officers were using tear gas nearby. Kids Halloween costumes in a neighborhood. Tear gas? Why do they use tear gas? We don't know. Was there a riot? Was there a huge protest? We. Were they under attack? No, none of the above. Just using tear gas. Here's the ask from Pritzker and here's the swift reply he got from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can we agree that there is no imminent threat that should disrupt their holiday? No child in America should have to.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Go trick or treating in fear that.

[Jon Favreau]

They might be confronted with armed federal agents and have to inhale tear gas. I ask you to restore some sanity.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

For the sake of our children. Absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that we will do to keep communities safe. The fact that Governor Pritzker is asking for that is shameful.

[Jon Favreau]

Just want like the. The government, our federal government that we pay taxes to, the Department of Homeland Security says that it's shameful to request that they don't use tear gas near children who are trick or treating. That's where we are.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. The Chrissy Norm response is just so telling about how they think of the world. Right? Like, you should have empathy and compassion for any human regardless of status. You should particularly have empathy and compassion for every child regardless of status. But this is not even about disrupting the trick or treating or Halloween of undocumented people because ICE is terrorizing entire communities. They're using tear gas on entire communities. They are harassing people and arresting people who have legal status or American citizens. And so this idea that it is so important for this fake war we've made up for the American heritage to that we have to harass people on Halloween is just. It's like they're living on a different planet. But it's a planet where they do not give a shit about people, right. Who are not them, their supporters, you know, in line with what they believe.

[Jon Favreau]

She. At that same press conference, a reporter asked her about all the growing number of American citizens that they are detaining, arresting. And this is a quote from Christine Ohm. There's no American citizens who've been arrested or detained. We focus on those that are here illegally. And anything that you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true and false reporting. Like, I get that these people lie a lot and they don't care about lying. That is such A like, that's like pathological that. Does she not? I don't believe that she doesn't know. I don't believe that she's that dumb. I don't think she's the brightest bulb you could know. I don't think she's the brightest bulb in the cabinet for sure. I don't think there's a lot of bright bulbs in the cabinet. But she's definitely not up there. She's bottom of the list. She definitely knows the videos are everywhere. Everywhere. And how many stories have we heard of American citizens? And it's not just that they are detained briefly. They're detained for days. I'm talking to George Reddes, who Tim Miller interviewed. Iraq war veteran who was detained for three days in solitary confinement. He's now suing the federal government. There's so many stories like this. ProPublica just ran a story on this the other week and like to just lie like that. I don't know why we would take any statement from the Department of Homeland Security or any explanation for some kind of, you know, abuse that ICE has committed seriously, because they just lie like this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's Orwellian, right? It is this idea that you can say whatever you want and never be called on it, even when every fact says the opposite and it's staring you in the face. You just lie anyway.

[Jon Favreau]

In other regime news, the Supreme Court has asked the federal government and the state of Illinois both for additional information before they rule on whether Trump can deploy National Guard troops to Chicago over the objections of Pritzker and others. Which means the lower court's block on deployments remains in place for now. Not so much in D.C. where the defense Department is now saying that Guard troops will be in the city at least through February, maybe longer. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is moving forward on Trump's directive from back in August to create quick reaction forces trained in, quote, riot control methods to be deployed in cities as needed. And Trump said a couple times on this trip that they may be soon getting backup from active duty military. Here is Trump talking about this last.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Night when you said you were prepared.

[Jon Favreau]

To send more than the National Guard into American cities?

[Tommy Vietor]

Sure, I would. I would do that if it was necessary.

[Jon Favreau]

I want to enact a certain act.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm allowed to do it routinely. And another, about 50% of residents have used that. And the courts wouldn't get involved. Nobody would get involved. And I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, I could send anybody I wanted.

[Jon Favreau]

Here we are, we're just sending the Marines, the Navy, the army, just into cities now, wherever he wants. He originally made that, made that comment. They asked him about it on Air Force One on the way home. He originally made it to business leaders in Korea. Interesting. You just go to, you go to Korea, you sit down with some business leaders and you're like, hey, I'm going to deploy troops against my own citizens if I want, from all branches of the military.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Why.

[Jon Favreau]

Riot control? There's no riots, but riot control.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, that's the thing, is that they are.

[Jon Favreau]

They want riots.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, I think they actually believe riots are happening. Like, they. They truly do believe. Like, we are now governed by people who believe they're fighting a war. Not with a foreign country, not with a terrorist organization, not even with, you know, quote unquote, narco terrorists like Trend Aragua or anything like this. They think they are fighting a war with an enemy within. Right? That, that includes anyone and everyone who disagrees with the regime, who has a different view of how this country should look, who wants to dissent in any way peacefully, in any way possible. Right? And they have like this sort of. And this has been rhetoric on the right for a long time. They have used this sort of apocalyptic rhetoric about a cultural clash in America, a fight for American heritage. These enemies are destroying us from within. And that's been like part and parcel of Fox News for a long time. But now we're governed by a bunch of people who did not read, who do not know, who aren't in on the joke. They believe it. And now the President, United States is just like, he wants the ability to send in the Navy Seals to Chicago. To what end, right? There's nothing happening. There are people in these cities just walk. Like, is there too much crime in some of these states? Absolutely. Is there some sort of uprising that would require the Insurrection Act? Absolutely fucking not.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I do think they're just. They want. It's true that they believe that, that some of them believe that riots are happening because they see, you know, they buy their own bullshit and they see videos of, like a few protesters here yelling and all that. And so they think it's riot. But I do think that part of this is they want to. They want the, the unruly protests. They want the violence, right? Like, they, they were not happy with no Kings, both because it was huge and because it was overwhelmingly peaceful and that there were barely any arrests out of it across the country. Well, so riot control is. Is currently being handled by masked federal agents who haven't even been waiting for an actual riot before assaulting and arresting whoever they'd like, including American citizens. In Chicago. The scene is so bad that newly empowered Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino was ordered by a federal judge to make daily appearances in court to give assurances that he and his officers aren't violating the restrictions that the judge had put in place on the kinds of force they can use. The Court of Appeals blocked that demand for now. But Bovino, who has been patrolling the city in full battle gear, is still a defendant in a federal lawsuit alleging excessive force. He can be seen in at least one video personally throwing tear gas at protesters, even though that's not allowed. One of the other tactics he and his fellow goons are using targeting the political opposition. On Wednesday, congressional candidate Kat Abu Ghazala, longtime content creator at Media Matters, who we all know well, been on Terminally Online quite a few times. Kat said she'd been charged with federal crimes for protesting outside the ICE facility in Broadview. Lovett spoke with her on Thursday, and everyone should check out that conversation on YouTube. But here's just a quick bite.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think about all the things that I love, you know, my partner, my cat, hot sauce, sleeping, really soft blankets, video games, my family, of course. And, you know, that just doesn't happen in jail. It doesn't happen in the Broadview Processing Center. I don't want to go there. But also, I don't regret protesting and exercising my First Amendment right.

[Jon Favreau]

And this is not a matter of wrongdoing.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

These are my constitutional rights, and the administration wants to punish us for using them. I plan on pleading not guilty and I plan on winning.

[Jon Favreau]

Just really enraging and upsetting. What do you think of any of that, from Greg Bevino to Kat?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it's so disturbing that the way in which the government is being weaponized against people who dissent. Right. We see this with Lamonica McIver, the congresswoman who's being indicted now, fighting for her freedom. We saw the way they handled Senator Alex Padilla many months ago. It's like, this is where we are. This is the sort of thing that if you said a year ago on the campaign trail, you would have been laughed out as having TDS or whatever else. And it's happening here. And they're picking cases to make a point. Right. They pick cat to make a point, to send a message to other people, to not protest, to not show up, send a message to other members of Congress to not go to ICE detention senators and try to get access to see what's happening there.

[Jon Favreau]

And this, this Happened a while ago. Kat was thrown to the ground when it happened, but everyone was released without charges. Then the federal government comes back around and decides to pursue this indictment. I read the indictment, and basically you can see from the footage that there's a bunch of protesters around a car with federal agents in it that's trying to get into the ICE facility. And, you know, they're like, huddled around the car and their hands around the car. And basically, in the indictment, this is what they allege is that they all put their hands on the car. They said someone, like, scratched pig into the side of the car and that the car had to slow down significantly because all the people were around it, put their hands on it. And so that was therefore impeding and obstructing the work of a federal officer because people had their hands touching the car. That's the indictment. So it's like, I mean, I don't know, there'll be a whole case, and so people will present evidence and all that, but. Sure feels like bullshit to me.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, definitely feels like bullshit.

[Jon Favreau]

We haven't had time to talk about the ICE shakeup that leaked the other day. Apparently, they're replacing the heads of a bunch of ICE field offices, in some cases with officers from Customs and Border Patrol, because I guess the ICE officers and Tom Homan, who runs ICE are not tough enough, aggressive enough. Did you ever think we get to the point where ICE is being layered because they're not as aggressive as they need to be? And so I guess now we have to deal with Border Patrol as the new baddies.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Well, Trump and Stephen Miller are put in place impossible to reach goals of numbers of deportations. And so the original ICE people weren't good enough, and they couldn't meet those goals. So they put in new ICE people. Those people aren't good enough. So they're going to put in the CBP people. When those people are good enough, they're going to find new CPP people. And when those people can't do it because it's impossible to do, they are going to put the proud boys in. I don't know, they're just going keep going down the line. And ultimately, even if what they're doing is important on any level, but even if your goal was actually to deport people, who then they're still failing at that, because a lot of the stories from the ICE people and the CBP people say this will lead to more arrests, but it won't lead to more deportations because there are backlogs and they're more focused on the arrests than actually solving the problem they say they should solve. And so it's just, it's just another way. It's stupid, really. It's like it's more incompetence to try to solve a immoral, cruel, and impossible to reach goal.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, they're running into some numbers issues like they want to hit a million deportations. But then Miller's goal was 3,000 arrests per day. Right. And so you could imagine this is probably partly why they're arresting a lot of American citizens, legal residents, because they get to count it as an arrest, even if it doesn't end up as a deportation. Then the people who are awaiting their immigration hearings that they want to deport, this is why they're. And you know, Alex Wagner spoke to an immigrant immigration judge who was fired on Runaway Country. You should go listen to Alex's new podcast. But they're starting to fire all these immigration judges because they want to replace them with immigration judges who are just going to say, yes, sure, deport, deport, deport, deport, so they can clear out the backlot. Now, that is having the unintended effect of creating a larger backlog because they are. They're trying to find now judges to replace the immigration judges that they're firing. It's a fucking mess. But of course, this kind of system is going to lead to a bunch of cowboys, which is what? Customs and Border Patrol is even worse than ice, like, just running rampant through neighborhoods. And the reason I think they like Greg Bovino and C. Customs and Border Patrol now is they're the crew that was in. That has been in Chicago for these last several weeks where some of the worst scenes of violence have been. And so the idea that CBP is just now going to be now going to be in charge of a lot of these cities is fucking terrifying. And Greg Bevino seems like a wacko. I mean, this guy is like, he's the head of this region, but he's like, just dressed in fatigues and throwing tear gas canisters himself, like, just marching into battle. Like, what the fuck is he doing?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, a lot of main character syndrome going on with these people.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my God. Here's what passes for good news these days. After we talked in the Tuesday pot about Trump saying he would, quote, love to serve a third term, Mike Johnson said that he talked to Trump and conveyed that while he sure wished Trump could run again, there probably wasn't time to amend the Constitution before 2028, Trump himself is now conceding as much take a listen and you know, based on.

[Tommy Vietor]

What I read, I guess I'm not allowed to run. So we'll see what happens.

[Jon Favreau]

I have the best numbers for any.

[Tommy Vietor]

President in many years, any president.

[Jon Favreau]

And I would say that if you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Read it, it's pretty clear I'm not allowed to run.

[Jon Favreau]

Stupid. What do you think? Fire sale on Trump 2028 merch?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would say that if I was concocting a plot two engaged in a coup that overran the 22nd amendment. The first thing I do is say that I was not engaged in a coup to overrun the 22nd Amendment and stay in power.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, interesting. Oh, so you think. Okay, you think it's not here?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, it's just like it's hard to connect the dots here because at no point was the Steve Bannon Donald Trump plan to solve this problem was to amend the Constitution.

[Jon Favreau]

See, you know what's funny is I was thinking maybe that was the plan. Maybe they think that somehow they were going to get. Because they what they need 3/4 of state legislatures and they have, you know, they have like 50 something percent. They're not quite at 75% yet. But I don't know, maybe they thought they were going to take a bunch of flip a bunch of state legislatures between.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Steve Bannon is a lunatic, but he's not dumb. And if he has a secret plan, it's not amend the Constitution.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, so I guess we get J.D. vance.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is that it's really. Yeah, there's no, no, we all just, I mean, I guess the wrong attitude, John. It's a question of who are we going to beat. We're going to be Donald Trump in 2020 or be J.D. vance Trump.

[Jon Favreau]

No, that's what I meant. Get J.D. vance to run him.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like we're not, we're not going to receive him. We're going to get him.

[Jon Favreau]

Like we get him as the nominee is what I was trying.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then we get him like, okay, okay, let's.

[Jon Favreau]

Careful, careful. You're about to get a knock on the door.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like electorally, electorally, like, like maybe you remember the Get Mitch fund? Like.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. Like, yeah, yeah. We did not die trying though. There's still plenty of time. Yeah, we still might.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We got him. We didn't keep him. That was the problem with Mitch.

[Jon Favreau]

I think we should start calling him lame duck President Donald Trump. He's now, he's now conceded himself. He's a lame duck. And once, you know, once we pretty soon it's not going to Donald Trump.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Admits lame duck status. Fuck. That would have been a great message box. God damn.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the same goes for your dog.

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[Jon Favreau]

All right, speaking of clickbaity topics, let's talk about the latest with the government shutdown. We we talked last episode about how November 1st is the date that the SNAP program will stop providing food assistance to 42 million low income, mostly working Americans. Mostly because the administration is falsely claiming that they can't use the program's emergency funding to keep it going. Even though Trump did just that the last time he presided over a government shutdown. More than two dozen states are suing the administration to keep SNAP functioning. And on Thursday, a federal judge in Massachusetts signaled that she's likely to order the administration to use the contingency funding. But we'll see what she says and what the higher court say. Also, on November 1, people can begin enrolling in a health insurance plan through the Affordable Care act for next year, which, thanks to Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress, will cost more than they have in years. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Wednesday that he expects to start talking to an unnamed group of Senate Democrats about ending the shutdown, quote, pretty soon. Thune said that some Democrats are looking for an off ramp and that he told them if they open the government, he'll ensure they get a vote on health care. But alas, the Senate has since packed up and left town for the weekend. Next week, the shutdown will officially become the longest in US History. First, do you believe, Thune, that some Democrats are looking for an off ramp and are talking to him privately that they might wanna.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do not believe that any Democrat, with the possible exception of John Fetterman, is talking to John Thune. Is it possible that some Democrats are looking for an off ramp and maybe talking to other moderate Republicans, like forming a gang as senators sometimes do in these situations? I think that is very possible. But there is no cabal of Democrats who is going around Chuck Schumer to meet with Jonathan. That is not happening.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I could definitely see that. No, no Thune meetings, but I could see some of the, I could see like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski talking to some moderate friends.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, there's some reporting that like some back channel conversations have happened among people that I seems to be something like the Collins, Murkowski, Angus King, Jeanne Shaheen types. You know, people who on the Democratic side voted against the shutdown last time have been some skeptical. As Angus King originally voted against him, it changes his vote this time. What does that add up to? I don't think very much at this point because the fundamental dynamics have not changed here. Democrats are demanding something that Republicans will not give them, and Republicans are demanding something Democrats will not give them. And people are continuing just to stare at each other.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, so you are in the, in next week's Senate Democratic Lunch meeting. And you are the, you are the new senator from Delaware, as we all know you will be someday. Just pretend. And some of the, some of the moderate Democrats or the Democrats who have joined this informal gang, bipartisan gang, are Saying it is, it is time. The SNAP benefits are running out. The airports are getting delayed. People at home are getting anxious about this. Also, it seems like it's going to be really tough, even if we extend the Affordable Care act subsidies at this point to have that make a difference for next year's plans, because people are already buying the plans. And so now the relief doesn't come till 2027. Didn't we make our point? Shouldn't we just, shouldn't we just figure out a way to save some face and call it a win here? What does, what does Senator Pfeiffer say?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Senator Pfeiffer probably points to the polling presentation we just saw, which includes private polling, like the polling presented by Molly Murphy. Democratic pollsters presented, I think, today or yesterday to congressional Democrats. And the polling in the Washington Post, which shows that we are winning this fight, right? People do they blame Trump and the Republicans. More handling of Trump, how Trump is handling the federal government, the federal budget. His is being seen very poorly by people. Those numbers, the disapproval numbers are going up. We are winning the fight. And there is no reason that we should fold right now.

[Jon Favreau]

When is there a reason to fold at that point?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think. Well, here, this is the question, right? Like, let's be like, I'm no longer the senator from Delaware. I'm new to the caucus.

[Jon Favreau]

It was fun while it lasted.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Look, I mean, look, I'm new to the caucus. It's like maybe my first lunch. Not going to be the one who, like, sides with John Fetterman to try to.

[Jon Favreau]

Not going to be the skunk at the garden party.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Not, not, not at the beginning. No, no. But here, like, here's the question, right? Let's say the courts side and say that people are not going to get SNAP funding, right? So that millions of children are going to go hungry, right? And this is happening at a time which food banks are stretched incredibly thin because the economy sucks and things are too expensive. And so there's limited supplies to help the people, like children who will not eat them. I don't know the right answer. Like, Republicans are never going to care, right? This is always the hard part in. This is always the hard part in debt ceiling negotiations. Everything else is they do not give a shit if these children go hungry. They would rather children go hungry than be forced to lower premiums for American people. Like, that is their position. And so if people are not going to get lower premiums next year, how long do you stay in this fight, right, for what is essentially a symbolic victory of A vote? I don't know the answer to that. And what is hard here is the dynamics are such that no one is feeling political pressure. Not the Democrats, not the Republicans. Both sides think they're winning. I think the Democrats are right and the Republicans are wrong. But politics is so polarized that really. And there aren't a lot of people who are. The House is out. There aren't a lot of senator incumbent senators who are up, who are feeling pressure here, either Democrats or Republicans. It's just like, what. And politics is so fucked up now that the shutdown's the most normal thing happening. So it's not the dominant story. Right. Like in every other shutdown, what brings it to an end is it is the. A number one story in the country. Business leaders, the press, everyone puts pressure on the side, which has always to this point been Republicans and says, give in because you are fucking everything up. That moment is never coming in this media environment. We could just be like this for a very long time. And all of a sudden, so in a couple weeks we start hearing these stories of people who are trying to stretch the money left on their EBT cards from last month to pay for food for a month. Are Republicans gonna react to that? Probably not. So I legitimately do not know what the end game here is, particularly if you cannot actually get people lower premiums for this upcoming year.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, this is. This was, I think, way back when we were talking about the different options for this. I think I said that I would rather them Democrats choose not to engage in a shutdown fight than to engage in one that they give up on about a month in when things are like. Because it's just. It's like if you. And you. You said this a million times before we got into the shutdown, which is like, if you don't know the end game, if you don't know how you're going to get out of it, how are you going to get into the shutdown?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You know? Well, they had an end game. They have not achieved it.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. So I would say, I guess they still do. I mean, they, you know, they could still. They're still looking to get the subsidies extended, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. I mean, you can, you can keep fighting for that. I mean, for sure. I think, like, a lot of the pain points have been avoided to this point. Like the troops are being paid by like slush funds and billionaires, you know, SNAP and WIC funding. Stopping would be. That's a real pain point. You know, ironically enough, I guess there were ground stops all day at Reagan Airport in D.C. because why is the centers are trying to go home because the air traffic control there was air traffic controller shortage. I honestly don't know what the next step is here. We just like because we think we can stare each other for another year in this exact position.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And they just, I mean it is, I just don't know what it says that Republicans have the higher tolerance for pain because they don't give a shit about people. And if they know that then they will always have the upper hand in these fights and that these fights are pointless unless we're willing to say it is fucking horrendous that the administration is causing kids to starve. And if Republicans want to end it, they are free to open up the government tomorrow. They can just change the Senate rules, change the filibuster, made an exception for judges, made an exception for all kinds of other things. Why don't you go ahead and if there's one party that can easily end this by just one little vote, I guess two votes, one vote to change the rules, one vote to reopen the government, you're good to go. And they won't do it. Or another way to do it is to not make people's health care more expensive. That's another way to feed hungry children.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

When Obama won the shutdown debt ceiling fight over Obamacare, he basically had to say, if you wanna push us over the cliff, I fucking dare you. And then I will make sure, because I'm a better communicator than you have a bigger bully pulpit, that I will make sure everyone knows you're the ones who did this. And I will win that fight.

[Jon Favreau]

And we are winning. And like you said, in fairness, Democrats are winning that fight right now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, what I think is fair is that Democrats have, they are winning the fight over who is more blamed, which I think is not the fight.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They have very successfully made this shutdown entirely about making healthcare more affordable. That is a political win.

[Jon Favreau]

Right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That was one of the goals. There was a question of whether they could actually do that. There was. Are you giving health care to illegals? With the Trump argument, they lost their argument. Democrats won the argument. It's all about, are you going to extend the Obamacare tax credits? If not, why not? What they've been unable to do, and this is not even really their fault per se, but is they've not made politics about healthcare.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Politics about a whole bunch of other things. Right. And this is the world we live in.

[Jon Favreau]

And that's out of their control.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is. And so then you get into this fight where it's like, okay, you want to starve children? We'll make sure every fucking person in America knows you're the one starving children. Can you win that fight? That's the question. And is that a fight worth having, given the fact that once again, if you cannot change people's premiums for next year, and you're gonna be. You believe you will be in the majority the next time you can do this in 2027, then it's maybe a different calculus.

[Jon Favreau]

And the most depressing thing is that the people who are gonna be most hurt by food assistance being cut off are not the people who are gonna, like, make a lot of noise about it and come to Congress and protest and talk about it on TV and social media. Right. Which made me think that maybe it's the air traffic control stuff, but that's.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What ended the last shutdown.

[Jon Favreau]

Then the ground stops. Right. Because then you, you know, fortunately, there you have people who are just like, you know, in the media, in politics, talking a lot more, complaining a lot more louder, bigger platforms. Right. Unfortunately. So maybe that does it. But it's pretty bleak. It's pretty bleak. Do you think that one last maybe.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Am I Dan or Senator Dan. Podcast. Podcast.

[Jon Favreau]

You're just podcaster Dan in this.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

If the elections. We have Election Day on Tuesday, if for some reason Democrats in Jersey and Virginia way outperform the polls and it's like a big margin in either state, bigger than expected, do you think that puts any more pressure on Republican members of Congress?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It should. I don't think it will.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Cause they're Democratic. They're states that. Kamala Harris, 1. Right. If all of a sudden, you know, if the Mississippi governor's race was this month and we won Mississippi over this, that could change things. But this is. And even they'll just find they'll create a rationale for why this doesn't matter.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. On the promising the vote thing, the challenge with that is, like, you could see Thune and Schumer work out something.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Where we'll do that in a second.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll do a vote in the. In the. In the Senate, and that probably passes in the Senate. The extension of ACA subsidies, because you probably get enough Republicans on that. But I don't think Mike Johnson brings that up in the House. You'd have to have Mike Johnson on board saying that he'd bring it up in the House and that he'd probably get a fucking revolt from his right. If he ever did that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That deal could only work if Trump was involved in negotiation.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Where he could force Mike Johnson to do it, where he cuts the deal and that's the deal.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, they need to. Trump needs to feel the pressure. And like God knows he's not gonna feel the pressure at least.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, you think. Well, according to him, he has the highest numbers ever.

[Jon Favreau]

That's true. That's true. He does. Foreign is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company. When was the last time you truly trusted the seafood you brought home? Never. Until I started using Wild Alaskan Company and now I trust it. But no, you always question everything when you're getting seafood. Like is the, is it, is it good? Am I just getting it from this, this person who's selling it off the street? Is that, is that the farmer's market? Is that wise?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

John, I've said it to you once before, I've said it again. You gotta stop eating the street fish.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's great. I, I have the salmon all the time. You want to eat more fish, but sometimes it feels like a little bit annoying, honestly, to like remember that you want to eat more fish, especially once you got home. But you have Wild Alaskan salmon, you pop it in the fridge the night before and then you have great fish that night to make when you get home. I love it.

[Jon Favreau]

Me too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Huge fan.

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

[Jon Favreau]

Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me. Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet. Maybe it's time to turn up the heat. Or turn it down.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's time for something that's not too spicy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Try Doritos Golden Sriracha.

[Tommy Vietor]

Spicy but not too spicy.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, we're gonna indulge briefly in our true passion, which is to squabble about Democratic messaging. Not really squabble. Discuss.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Discuss a squabble about Democratic messaging.

[Jon Favreau]

Who knows? Yeah, that's where it is. Discuss a squabble. There's a debate about a debate. If you're very online, if you're plugged into the persuasion versus turnout discourse, which we unfortunately are, you may have seen the Democratic analyst Simon Bazelon published a big new report called Deciding to Win, along with some co authors. The report argues basically that we fucked ourselves in 2024 by adopting positions that aren't popular with persuadable voters. Also not focusing enough on the fabled kitchen table issues that the voters really care about. You know, both of us talked to Simon about. I hadn't known Simon before this, but he reached out and you talked to him. I talked to him, yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I did not know him before this either.

[Jon Favreau]

We're both in the acknowledgments as people who read a draft of the report. So I don't think the report changed too much from when I looked at an initial draft.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

No, I offered thoughts and comments. That was just the one we played.

[Jon Favreau]

Simon and I basically had a conversation and a debate that we'll probably have right now. Just to let you in on what it was like. But why don't you walk people through sort of the basic findings and particularly those findings that you thought were different or new or surprising in any way?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I mean, this report has been characterized as a call for Democrats to become more moderate. And it is that in some ways. Now, the headline in Semaphore from the story that Dave Weigel wrote analyzing the report was something like, report Left Wing Ideas Crush Democratic Brand, or something like that. And I think the report is much more nuanced than that. It's like 100 pages. It involves hundreds of thousands of interviews with voters, discussions with a lot of people like us who agree with some of the report, don't agree with all of the report, but it's a very thorough, very thorough research project. It's based on a report done in 1989 called the Politics of evasion, which became the foundation for Clintonism essentially after we got clobbered in the 1988 election. I think the basic argument of the report is as follows. Not just over in 2024, but basically since 2013, or basically the bulk of the Trump era, Democrats have become seen by voters as much more liberal, much more out of touch with mainstream values. The percentage of voters who say Democrats is too liberal has gone up by huge numbers over that period of time. While, interesting enough among Republicans, the number of voters who see Republicans as too conservative has actually gone down over that same period of time, which I know seems crazy. And we can come back to why that might be. And Simon argues that it's not just perception. This is not just the Fox News calling us liberals or Trump tweeting about us. If you actually look at how Democrats talk and you look at the platform, you look at the words Democrats use, you'll see we've become much more focused in our rhetoric on identity and cultural issues over that period of time. And then Simon looks at what voters want, politicians prioritize, which is economic issues and border security, essentially. And then he looks at public safety, in public safety. But yeah, public safety, you know, that could be crime, immigration, et cetera. Then looks at what voters think Democrats are prioritizing. And it's all the other things, right? They think we prioritize climate change, democracy, guns, identity issues, those sorts of things. And that we're essentially not focused on the things they want us to focus on. And therefore, and there's a lot of sort of specific recommendations in this report, but that the argument here is that Democrats have to change what we're focused on, become much more focused on economic issues in the minds of voters. We have to be willing to run against or break from the positions that voters think we have on issues like immigration, crime, some identity issues that are unpopular, and basically rebuild the Democratic brand since the ground up. Now, Simon would say to you, and the report makes very clear he is not arguing for sort of corporate centrism. He's not saying for centrism at all. We're just trying to find the mushy middle between the two. He gives special credit in the report to politicians like Bernie Aoc and Zorand who have focus like lasers on economic issues. And that has been to their great benefit. The rest of market could learn a lot of lessons from them. But then we could also learn lessons from people like Tom Suozzi, who won a tough election in New York, running in part against Biden's border policies or Jared Goldin, who has won several tough elections in a very red part of Maine, and that you have to be willing to break with the party and break with party orthodoxy on some issues. Fair summary.

[Jon Favreau]

Fair summary. I'm trying to think of anything else that I guess my impression of it was nothing, and this is not a criticism, but nothing in it really surprised me, which I think is that's okay because I think it confirmed a lot of other really good research that we have talked about many times on the show. I think it is in line with some of the exit polling. It's in line with what Cattle has found. It's in line with what Pew found in terms of the electorate and how the electorate has changed over time. One thing you see is that the groups and basically the time horizon of this paper or this, this report is between 2012 and 2024. And you see over that time that the groups of voters that Democrats have suffered the biggest losses with between 2012 and 2024 are Black conservatives, black moderates, Hispanic conservatives, Hispanic moderates, and non college white moderates. There's, you don't have non college white conservatives in here because we've already lost them. And you know, like the biggest, the biggest loss comes from black conservatives, Right? Also like Hispanic conservatives, we probably had lost some of them before 2012 as well. But what really happens is voters of color who black voters, Latino voters, Asian voters to an extent as well, who were voting for Democrats even though they identified as politically moderate or conservative, have now realigned to the Republican Party so that their identity is less salient in their political choice than what they believe about politics, which is that they are more moderate and conservative. And people don't see that the Democratic Party is as welcoming to moderate and conservative voters. And unfortunately for all of us, the vast majority of voters are either moderate or conservative and non college educated and non college educated. And the percentage of voters in the country who identify themselves as liberal is the lowest of all three categories, conservative, moderate and liberal. On top of that, they also find what I think the New York Times and others have found as well, Catalyst, all of them, that the voters who stayed home in 2024 were not more progressive in any way or liberal and in any way than the voters who showed up. And in fact, they looked more like moderate or conservative voters.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They look more like Trump voters. Like these analysis say that if everyone had voted, Trump would have won by a lot more. There are some people who disagree with that. I would say the bulk of the analyses to date suggest that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, and so that's tough news. I think the better news is what I found interesting was sort of the list of policies, because when you say, like, be more moderate on this and don't be more moderate on that, it's like, we talk about it in terms of, like, broad categories. First of all, the broadest category is just, like, you're moderate, you're conservative, you're liberal. Like, what does that mean? Then you go issue by issue. But even when you go issue by issue, within those issues, there are different policies that are more popular or not. So I actually found that, like, the list of, like, most popular Democratic policies, least popular Democratic policies, most popular Republican policies, least popular Republican policies. I found that more illuminating than a lot of the. The other information which I had just seen in other reports.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think. I mean, this is challenging for me because one of my big shticks is that left right is not the right access to understand politics. And I think we were all hung up on that. That's the point I made to Simon when I talked to him about this. And obviously his entire report was basically around that concept. And so I sort of struggle. I find the things that I just went through about the state of the party and how people view the party to be incredibly useful and important. And whether you think we should be more moderate, more liberal, or do stay where we are, but do it differently, you have to reckon with the reality of how people see us. And this isn't a value judgment on the term liberal. It's that people see we're out of touch. Right. There's an interesting chart in there which goes through the percentage of people who said that the Democratic nominee was too liberal. So from Barack Obama ran in 2012, it's like 43% said he was too liberal, and 54% said he was too conservative or just right. For Hillary Clinton, the majority said she was too liberal for Joe Biden. And this is really notable. 39%. Only 39% of voters said he was too liberal because he really had that sort of moderate sort of demeanor. And he's an old white man and all of that. And then for Kamala Harris, once again, a majority said that. And so 50.

[Jon Favreau]

50.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. It is like, I think that's correlation, not causation. But. And also, there's another charter that looks at who say the party is out of touch, the huge rise in the number of voters who think Democratic Party is out of touch and the number of Republican people who think the Republican Party of touch has come down 5% since 2012. Right. And so you have to reckon with the fact that we are not. People do not relate to our party. They do not. The brand is in tatters.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so how do you fix that? And it's not, to me, as simple as become more moderate. Right. Because, like, he's not actually arguing, as far as I can tell, that we have to develop quote, unquote, moderate economic policies. Right. That's not really what he's arguing.

[Jon Favreau]

No. Though some liberal policies or progressive policies are unpopular and some are very popular. And I think the difference there is important not just because, you know, the policies that you sign up for are automatically what voters decide the election on, but I do think that, like, some of the values behind those policies are an indicator of, like, messaging and values that we might want to think about. So, like minimum. Raising the minimum wage. Very popular. Right. One of the most popular policies also, like anything about not cutting Medicare and Social Security, adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare, dental vision, like making healthcare better, more accessible, more affordable. For sure. Medicare for all. Not. Not popular. Right. Even though all those other healthcare things were. And so it is interesting, like what becomes popular and what doesn't, even within these buckets, you know? Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think the, the thing that people have to reckon with here is this is sort of another version of popularism, this idea that we should talk about popular things and not talk about unpopular things. You know, almost every Democrat is for raising the minimum wage. It's not like we had a bunch of anti minimum wage Democrats out there who are getting hammered at the polls for not being sufficiently pro minimum wage. The problem is they can't get any attention for the fact that they're pro minimum wage.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so because they need a fight, you need a fight.

[Jon Favreau]

They need a fight for that. Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And this is the real challenge is Democrats do not have the media throw weight to make politics be about what we want it to be about. And so we're constantly fighting on the issues that Republicans want it to be about, but also happen to be the issues that drive conversation and virality in this media age, which is issues of identity. And we've seen that that has been true, basically. Really, if you date back, go back to 2012 when it started to change. Do you remember when the most popular content on the Internet was BuzzFeed? Lists of 10 ways you know you went to UVA in the 90s, or how you know you're from outside of Boston? Because it speaks to your identity and so now, when you have algorithms that are serving content that is based, that they think you're going to engage with, they're looking at. They're using the metadata about your identity to show that to you. And so making politics about some of these other issues and getting attention for them is quite challenging. Right. And so it's easy to say talk more about the economy. The real question is, how do you get people to hear what you're saying about the economy more? And that is, like, what everyone has to reckon with.

[Jon Favreau]

I think there's that. And then I think the other big issue is how do you engage on the issues where. Where Democrats are not as popular as Republicans, are not as trusted as Republicans, and in a way that is still in line with what people want. So my hobby horse is immigration. And, you know, I think everyone should be talking about the armed agents in the streets. And, you know, nope, no policy was tested about whether or not we want armed, masked agents in the streets disappearing people. But when you look through the. And even, you know, you mentioned some of these are cultural identity issues. But when you look at the most unpopular Democratic policies that they tested, like trans issues, they were not in that top. Like, the ones that were most unpopular had to do with public safety and immigration. Those are that. That I like, if I would say even more than cultural identity, stuff like that is looking at this report like that is where Democrats have the biggest weakness. Abolish the police. Most unpopular policy ever, which no Democrat supports. But, you know, it was a thing in 2020, and everyone probably thought a lot of Democrats supported it. Right. Even though no one does now. Abolish prisons. Same thing. Provide free health care to undocumented immigrants. Number three. Which, again, no Democrat supports. But this is what they did in 20.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

They did in 2020.

[Jon Favreau]

They did in 2020.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Lower the voting age to 16. Sorry, Lovett, I know.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I like that idea, too.

[Jon Favreau]

That's the fourth most unpopular policy. Cut police budgets by 10%, which I think a lot of Democrats would say. Some of the more progressive Democrats back in 2020 probably were four, something like that. Increase refugee admissions. Very unpopular. And, you know, subsidize electric vehicle purchases. A lot of this stuff that is subsidies. Right. Student loan forgiveness, free college for everybody, subsidized electric vehicle stuff. That is those economic, I guess you'd call them economic issues. Those economic policies are less popular than economic policies that require more of corporations and rich people, which I think is notable here. So, like, minimum wage, going after tax cheats, making, you know, like, things that don't seem like a handout, but seem like or at least will be perceived as a handout because Republicans will say that but are really taking on corporate power, tend to be much more popular.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And Simon does recommend in the end that no matter what else you do here, you have to have an aggressive critique of the system. Right. The political system, the economic system, corruption, money and politics, all of that. Because one of the challenges here is, and the report doesn't exactly get to this either is it's not just that people don't think we focus on these policies. It's also they don't think that we can deliver on them because we're too weak, we're too much of institutionalists, we're too corrupt. And until you do it. And so my main takeaway from this is I do not believe that Democrats have to move to the center writ large. I think that is an overly simplistic thing. I think we do have to do some things in our we have to come to terms with the fact that we don't just get that the median voter is to the right of the median Democratic politician. And we have to recognize that we have to appeal to those people. We have to persuade those people that we share their values, even if we disagree on some issues. And that the Democrat. This is where this is going to get mildly controversial. I think the Democratic Party brand as it currently stands cannot be fixed. Tell me what the world is where Democratic Party establishment figures go on a whistle stop tour and they remind everyone of what we're doing. Right. Or that a bunch of billionaires get together and they run ads during the Super Bowl. Right. To tell you that Democrats, you know, it's got fdr, Truman, Barack Obama. Right. Like this is the future of the party. Like, no, the way we're going to fix this is actually the way we fixed it the last time the party brand was in town with the nominee, which is a nominee who runs against the party brand and therefore is seen as a different Democrat by this like and so if you're running for president, you have to run against the party as it currently stands because frankly, the establishment is not up to the task. It has failed. Like, this report is an indictment of the Democratic Party over the last 10 years, even as we won elections, a lot of elections, including a presidential election, and the party brand is in tatters in particular over the last four years. And so you basically have to burn the thing down to rebuild it in a new image.

[Jon Favreau]

So this is probably my biggest critique of the report is there's one chart that Simon uses to argue that it's, you know, all the like, we need more to go on Joe Rogan or we need more progressive media or we need to be better at getting attention on social media. And the chart shows that the Democratic politicians in Congress with the biggest social media followings tend to perform. They don't perform better than expectations in that given district. Right. In fact, they perform under expectations in their given state or district. And that some of the Democrats who most over perform their expectations in their district or their state are people who don't have almost any social media following and barely get any attention. And then they have an electability index which shows the same thing of like possible 20, 28 candidates. And it's like, who has performed better than the national average in their last election? You know, and like Andy Beshear in Kentucky, right? Top of the list, Gavin Newsom, bottom of the list because he won California by a lot. But, but not as much as like their, whatever the national. He hasn't. He didn't overperform expectations.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He didn't overperform his own state by more. Right. So if you're running in a Republican state, you're always, if you win a Republican state, you're always going to win that. Right? It'd be mathematically impossible for Gavin Newsom to win California enough, by, enough to have Andy Beshear like numbers.

[Jon Favreau]

And my big problem with this is that may be true for members of Congress who can run an election, especially in a House district where you can go talk to a lot of people, meet a lot of them, tv, reach them by tv, reach them by wherever or even a state when you're running for the. Deciding to win is deciding to win the general election. It is also deciding to win the Democratic primary, which is a national primary. And in order to get the Democratic nomination, like Andy Beshear, who way overperformed in Kentucky is gonna have to get a lot of attention. And to get attention, what is he gonna be able to get attention?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We'll find out his first Wilson at CrookedCon next week.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I say. Like, we'll find out, right? And that is, and it's. So it's, it is about getting attention for the issues like, like it says in this report that people care most about, but there's also like just a lot of intangible factors here about the person's charisma, their ability to excite people, inspire people like you do. And people say, oh, well, you know, we just got to win. But you still have to win a Democratic primary, and that's still going to be Democratic voters.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You still have to win a general.

[Jon Favreau]

Election, and you still have to win a general election.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you cannot win the attention wars or compete in the attention wars and be someone who can go on every podcast and answer all the questions and not get flummoxed and have a quick rejoinder when the right wing media comes after you, then you're not going to win the election and so.

[Jon Favreau]

And be acceptable to the liberal base of the party, even though that does by no means makes up the majority of the general electorate or really even the majority of the Democratic Party. It's about half and half liberal and moderate, even within the Democratic Party. But you need a candidate who liberals will at least be fine with, if not super excited by, and moderates will be. Will get behind. Not an easy task. It's a much harder task than just like picking the most popular policies, I think is where I come down on it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

My last thing I'll say here, I think this for everyone, is that obviously this report, as any report that gets into the future of the Democratic Party does, has created like, massive backlash. People are so pissed about this, they're yelling about it. Here's the thing.

[Jon Favreau]

I'd say I haven't seen much of the backlash. Isn't that weird? Like, I've seen a few tweets here and there, but usually I'm really in the discourse on this. I guess I must have been busy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You haven't been on Blue sky because the screenshot of the acknowledgments with our names in it has made the rounds.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, no. I would say I have not checked Blue sky since the Graham Platner incident.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. But I would say that.

[Jon Favreau]

And before that, the, the post Charlie Kirk assassination incident.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The nicest thing I could say about it is people are curious as to why you and I are on the list with all these other corporate centrist shills. Right. Who are all friends of ours. But it's like.

[Jon Favreau]

Because it's not even, I think that answers itself, guys.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But it's people from, you know, the list. It's like people we've worked with in the past. It's like Democratic strategists who work for progressive candidates like Liz Smith. Like, it's. But the thing I'd say is just like no one knows the answers here. There was no one simple answer of go left, go right or anything else. Like, so let's get all the data, look at everything, and try to have an open mind about all the various things, because we're going to find the solution to this in between the poles of this overly polarized conversation.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, go tell that on Bluesky when you go to your.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm going to do that safe space in this podcast right now.

[Jon Favreau]

When you do. When Senator Dan goes and does a kicks a Q and A on Blue sky.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ama.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, two ridiculous updates we had to fill you in on before we get to Tommy's interview with Zoran Mamdani. First, if you aren't a regular viewer of Piers Morgan Uncensored, which what are you doing with your life? You may have missed this exchange from Wednesday night, in which hit podcaster Katie Miller got into it with liberal commentator Cenk Uygur.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's very normal for a Miller to be completely and utterly lying.

[Jon Favreau]

Pierce, I'm going to be done with.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This if you're going to allow racist.

[Jon Favreau]

And bigoted attacks against one of your commentators. He inserted a line that says the Miller's lie.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is that not coded language or therefore we are Jewish? Come on, Pierce. Where are you? Where are you? God, you're so. Katie, if I can. If I can speak. Hold on, hold on, hold on. All the pogroms were just like Ilhan Omas.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, so first of all, Katie Miller, she talks like her husband now. They do the same. They have the same cadence.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Maybe that's how they met at a fascist speech class.

[Jon Favreau]

So he says the Millers lie, and that's anti Semitism.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And two, I guess now she's just. We're just gonna denaturalize people who hurt the feelings of the. The ruling regime. People who are in the ruling regime.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Also, did she just announce some pillow talk about the denaturalization of Ilhan Omar?

[Jon Favreau]

I missed that. Did she say that?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's hard to say what she's.

[Jon Favreau]

Saying because she's so much yelling.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's so much yelling and backtalk. But she says, check your citizenship papers. Hope everything in there was entered correctly, or you're going to end up like Ilhan Omar.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow, I missed that last part. That's a good find. I mean, a bad find, but what the fuck?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's just like, what are we doing?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm telling you, I'm really like this. And they've said it with Mamdani, too. And we've talked about that. The two Republican House members, they just. They're now. And you see it from all the, like, MAGA influencer assholes online. The denaturalization thing is the next thing that's coming, but really tough for Katie Miller that, you know, she's in the. She's in the media space now, but cannot take criticism very well without threats to deport you. So that's where we're at right now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's absolutely disgusting.

[Jon Favreau]

Second big media event you might have missed. The other day, the Times of London briefly posted an interview with former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio about Zoran Mamdani's economic plans, in which de Blasio appeared skeptical of Mamdani's ideas. The problem was, as de Blasio quickly and strenuously pointed out, he never did an interview with the paper. Now, after a global online manhunt, we know who the culprit is. Not a prankster or a Mamdani opponent, but a Long island wine cellar also named Bill de Blasio, whose email address the reporter mistook for the former mayor. He told Semaphore that he chose not to correct the misimpression, figuring that a fact checker would, and used ChatGPT to help formulate his own actual criticism. There are so many amazing parts of the story. What's your favorite?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I really feel like you're the one who should react to this, because I was gonna say.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it really does.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like, have you ever answered questions the Mandalorian without.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, I have. Yeah, I have. No, I told you. I once got an email from someone pretty high up at Disney ABC sending me their notes on the season two of the Mandalorian. And I had to say, well, first I said, I think it's great. And then I quickly looped in the other Jon Favreau who he's emailed to have and who we have been confused for each other once. So it does happen. It does happen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But see, the thing for you is the other Jon Favreau is a popular, famous, cool person who made the Mandalorian and Swingers all these other great stuff. This other guy has been running around with Bill de Blasio's name for years, and he has a total grudge because when they actually met at a Mets game, Bill de Blasio, the mayor, made a joke, and he basically said, how's it going to have my name? He said, I think it sounded like you're fucking killing me with it or something.

[Jon Favreau]

He did. And then he said to Semaphore, who spells D with a lowercase d, because that's the difference. It's the wine cellar. Bill de Blasio is capital D, E, B, L, A, S, I, O. But the mayor is lowercase D, E. New word, Blasio. And so wine cellar says who spells D with the lowercase d and inserts a space between the two parts of his surname. In de Blasio's view, quote, low class Italians use a little D. Take that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Bill de Blasio, the mayor. Take that.

[Jon Favreau]

Big date. You will. There's also a picture of them together. Yeah, that's when they met for the first time. And then this Bill de Blasio that they reached was very upset. He said, I'm Bill de Blasio. I've always been Bill de Blasio. Great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Nice to have a little moment of joy in these dark times.

[Jon Favreau]

That's all. That's all we got. All right, you're about to hear from Zoran Mamdani himself. The real one, not a wine cellar from Queens. It's the real Zoran Mandani. Before we do that, a reminder that depending on where you are, this could be your last chance to vote early in person for Tuesday's election. You know by now that we are hyper focused on the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey. Prop 50 here in California. Find my ballot. It's already counted. Love California. I already got the. I already got the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Get that text. I love that text.

[Jon Favreau]

State Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania. The Public Service Commission race in Georgia. If you know anyone, any of those states, please reach out, make sure they have a plan to vote. They can find all their voting [e-mail] vote. Also, fans of strict scrutiny. Big news by popular demand. Leah, Melissa and Kate are headed to California for their first ever live shows on the West Coast. They'll be at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco on March 6th and then the Palace Theater in LA on March 7th. Before that, they'll be doing a live show at CrookedCon to close out the day. So go to crookedcon.com to get tickets for that. There are only a few tickets left. If you can't make it to CrookedCon, you can get tickets to those California shows [e-mail] events. Lastly, a humble reminder to subscribe to Senator Dan's newsletter. The message box. Get it. Get it now while he can still write it. I guess you can write it as a senator.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Chris Murphy has a substack.

[Jon Favreau]

Ted Cruz is fucking podcasting every day. The message box.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You think I'm quitting this pod when I get election in the Senate?

[Tommy Vietor]

Fuck no.

[Jon Favreau]

I hope you better not. This the message box is all about how Democrats can rebuild our coalition rebrand our party and most importantly, win elections again. Dan, want to give a pitch? I don't know how it could just beat that pitch that I just gave.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But yeah, here's the pitch I'd give. Some would say the newsletter. That message box is a newsletter. I'd say it's my passion project. Right. I have discovered that I have so many takes, so many thoughts, they cannot be contained in one podcast alone. That's why I've had to take to writing.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And also, perhaps more importantly, I have this never ending itch to get back into more granular politics than we do on this podcast. And I really do view message boxes as essentially the equivalent of writing the memos that contain the message guidance, the polling analysis, the political analysis. I used to write for candidates like our former boss, and now I. So now anyone can get those. And so it's become very important to me. I feel like it is like we want people out there. I want everyone who reads messagebox to be able to talk about politics with all their friends and family in a way that can actually persuade them. And so that's sort of the goal there. So the more people that sign up, the more people that sort of expand, you know, it expands exponentially so we can reach more people. And so this part always takes a little piece of my soul. But to sign up, go to crooked.com yeswedan website. We will have to claim back for the Senate race.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes we will. Yes we will.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes we can.

[Jon Favreau]

And you care so much that you're willing to give people a 30 day free trial if they go there for.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Pod Save America listeners only. It's a special. And if you're, if you say to yourself, donald Trump's made everything so expensive, I'm not ready. Even 30 free days is not enough for me. Sign up for free. Sign up for free. I want to convince you to become a paid subscriber. Put a lot of content above the paywall, particularly the stuff that can help you win the arguments with your people. And then next week, get ready because we're going to have a lot of analysis on what happened in the elections and what it means for 2026.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, you heard the man. Cricket.com YesWeDan when we come back, Zoran Mamdani.

[Zoran Mamdani]

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[Jon Favreau]

To put an end to that.

[Zoran Mamdani]

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[Jon Favreau]

Requesting the removal of all your personal information.

[Zoran Mamdani]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Zoran Mamdani]

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[Jon Favreau]

Are you ready to get spicy?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

[Jon Favreau]

Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or turn it down.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's time for something that's not too spicy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Try Doritos Golden Sriracha.

[Jon Favreau]

Spicy but not too spicy.

[Zoran Mamdani]

My guest today is running to be the next mayor of New York City, Zoran Mondani. Thank you so much for doing the show.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be back.

[Zoran Mamdani]

So election day is less than a week away. How are you feeling? What's keeping you guys up at night at this point? Besides, I guess, everything?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, I was talking to my mom this morning and she was asking me which poll that she should actually trust. And I told her none of them because at the end of the day, all of these are just snapshots in time. The only thing that we know for certain is if we get out there and canvas ourselves. And that's what's giving me a lot of confidence, is that we have, we're getting close to a hundred thousand volunteers. We have, I think 92,000 as of last count. And that's going to be the way that we make the case. Because as much as this has been every waking, breathing moment of my life for the last more than a year. You know, I had a friend, Charlie, that went out to canvas the other day. He met somebody that had never heard of me or of the race. They said they were just tuning in. That's the reality for a lot of New Yorkers because they're too busy trying to afford the city they call home to care about the politics of that place.

[Zoran Mamdani]

That's right. And if, if people want to knock some doors. Zoran4nyc.com GOTV is that right?

[Tommy Vietor]

That is exactly right. And I would recommend you come out, you knock where, you know, whatever neighborhood is closest to you. It might even be your own. And if you're not in New York City or you can't make a canvassing shift, you can still phone bank. Because the story of how he won the Democratic primary is as much the 1.6 million doors we knocked as it is the 2.1 million phone calls we made.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Here's my pitch. October, November is a beautiful time in New York City to be outside knocking on doors. You will have conversations with voters that surprise the hell out of you, like, they didn't know there was an election happening. They don't know the difference with the candidates. You will learn something about politics that you did not know. And also you probably will do it with a group of people that are young and excited and inspired by a campaign and not like just talking about Donald Trump. So give it a shot.

[Tommy Vietor]

We should just have you doing the pitches.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm in. I'm in.

[Zoran Mamdani]

I'm sold.

[Tommy Vietor]

The only, the only downside, I'll tell you is after my mom came back from a canvassing shift, she was like, the 25 year old I was paired with walked too fast. I was like, okay, handle that.

[Zoran Mamdani]

That's a good downside. So, like, bigger picture, President Trump has gone all in to defeat you. He got like, Eric Adams to drop out. He's clearing the field. Some of his biggest donors are back in Cuomo. He's overtly threatening to punish the city if you win. What is it like having the full force of the Trump administration coming down on your campaign? And do you think those threats are intimidating voters or make them worry? Like, I don't know, if I vote for this guy, is Trump going to send the National Guard into my city?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I think this campaign shows New York as a glimpse of what it would be like in governing, in that Donald Trump is sparing no effort at trying to stop our campaign. Right. As you've said, pushed Eric Adams out of this race, has made very clear that Andrew Cuomo is his pick. And it's Donald Trump billionaires who put him back in the White House, who've been the ones that are funding Andrew Cuomo's very narrow path back to City Hall. And yet, in spite of all of that, in spite of millions of dollars being spent every single day, we're still seeing an outpouring of support from New Yorkers across the five boroughs. And I think it is New Yorkers who refuse to believe that the two choices in politics are either what we are living through right now in the most expensive city in America, or that it could be worse. Politics has to also offer a vision of life that is better than this and also has to offer the will to deliver on that vision. And that's what is so exciting, is, yes, we will continue to have threats from Donald Trump, but we've also seen those threats existed while he had the most collaborative mayor in New York City history to the Donald Trump agenda. He had Eric Adams, who quite literally knew that his personal freedom was a reality in exchange for him assisting with the administration's immigration agenda. And in spite of that coordination, still, the Trump administration took 80 million from new York City's bank account. Still, they suspended more than 50 million from New York City schools. Still, they look to suspend $18 billion in infrastructure funding. And so we know that the threats. We know that the attempts at intimidation will continue. But I'm confident in our administration and in our city's ability to rebuff them. Yeah.

[Zoran Mamdani]

And we cannot let him dictate elections all over the world or here. I know in this final sprint, you guys are leaving no stone unturned. You're trying to persuade every last voter. In that spirit, have you considered reaching out to the fake Bill de Blasio who did an interview with the Times of London attacking you?

[Tommy Vietor]

I couldn't believe that it was. It was. You know, he. I think he lives on Long Island, Right.

[Zoran Mamdani]

So I reached out. I reached out to the fake Bill de Blasio. I shit you not. It turns out that they emailed dot com.

[Tommy Vietor]

Not a bad. Not a bad attempt. There are a lot of politicians are pretty straightforward contact addresses.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Yeah, that is true. Bill wrote me back. He said he would be happy this morning. The. Well, the Bill de Blasio that was featured in the Times of London. Yeah, Times of London, Bill. He told me he'd be happy to chat. I sent him a list of questions, and he didn't write back. So either he didn't like me. Or he's doing the most authentically de Blasio thing ever by being super late. So we'll find out.

[Tommy Vietor]

I read articles where people reached out to him and then he told them, meet me on the steps of City Hall. Let's fight. Then they showed up, and then they emailed him.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Where were you?

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my God.

[Tommy Vietor]

I don't think there's another guy with my name. But I did meet a grocery store owner named Zahran on Steinway the other day. Shout outs to you.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Shout out that guy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Ah.

[Zoran Mamdani]

I really wanted fake Bill to let me know whether he thought Curtis Solo was saying glazing too much. Like, is it funny? Is it?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Try hard.

[Zoran Mamdani]

What was your take?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, that was the first time I'd heard it, and I. I thought it was quite funny on that stage.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Yeah, it was. It was a good moment. Okay, jokes aside, the Times of London is a Murdoch paper. The fact that this London based newspaper was so desperate to write something shitty about you that they humiliated themselves by interviewing a fake Bill de Blasio, it suggests a level of interest in your campaign from Rupert Murdoch that strikes me as a bit ominous. Like, does that worry you at all? You guys feel ready for, like, four years of the New York tabloid treatment?

[Tommy Vietor]

We are. We're ready for it. We've been living through it, through. Through the course of this campaign. And it's also an opportunity to make the case to each and every New Yorker, as opposed to right, people off. And what I mean by that is, you know, we had this rally at Forest Hills. We had more than 10,000 people there. One of the attendees, I was stepping out onto the stage and a member of our NYPD security detail pulled me aside. They were like, sir, I just want you to know in your line of sight, you will see someone with a MAGA hat. But we checked, and they're here, sincerely. And I walk out and there's a guy with a MAGA for Mamdani hat and a MAGA for Mamdani T shirt. And I say this to you as an example of. There will be many New Yorkers who read the Post as the way that they get their news. And I'm still looking to reach out to them as well. And it was actually the Post that has endorsed a piece of legislation that I introduced quite some time ago, though they probably won't recall. And that's what it means to have a desire to serve each and every New Yorker, not just the ones who already agree with you.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Yeah. And you seem to actually Believe it when you say it. Unlike the President, United States. So this question is a bit of a journey, but bear with me. So the closing message from a bunch of your opponents is like in some part overt bigotry and Islamophobia. There's Cuomo laughing when a radio host like suggested you cheer another 911 Adams and Curtis Lewis said some vile things I'm just not going to repeat. At the same time I'm watching Donald Trump blow up boats off the coast of Venezuela and kind of marry up the war on drugs with the war on terror in just the worst way possible. And for me it's just like the latest reminder that this country has not moved on from the post 911 fear based war on terror policies and politics. And you recently gave this remarkable speech where you addressed the Islamophobic attacks on you and you said, quote, the bigger question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to anti Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were spoken by a Republican or a Democrat. We know only that it was spoken in the language of, of politics in this city. Great speech. Everyone should watch it. It's up on YouTube. It's only 10 minutes long. And my question is, where do you think your campaign fits in that process, in that journey, this like decades long effort now to move past the post 911 politics of fear?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I hope that this campaign represents to New Yorkers across the five boroughs the possibility of being their full selves in the city that they call home. Because I spoke in that, in that speech about how for a long time many Muslims were made to feel as if that safety could only be found in the shadows. And two days after I gave that speech, I went to Abyssinian Church and Rev. Johnson gave a sermon in part in response to my speech, speaking about the allure of the shadows and the necessity of stepping out of those shadows. And he looked at me in the course of that speech and he told me that I was enough. And these are the words that I think many New Yorkers need to hear and understanding that there is no amount of shrinking themselves into a box that will ever be sufficient. And he quoted from the Bible and spoke about Esther. And when she said if I perish, I perish. You know, if, if the cost of, of living up to the moment and what it is demanding of me is to lose myself, it is still worth doing so. And I continue to see in New Yorkers, many of them Muslim, but many of them also not that this feeling of an ever narrowing definition of who gets to belong in the city is the antithesis of what makes so many so proud to be New Yorkers. And I think that there's this tendency to think in an era where we have a bully in the White House, that the only way to take him on is to become the bully ourselves. It's similar to the articles that were written after the presidential election when we saw the right word shift in New York, that in order to defeat the Republican Party, we may have to become the Republican Party. The truth is, in fact, we have to live up to what made so many people excited to be a part of the Democratic Party when we had an affirmative vision for the dignity of working class people. And I think that we have been far too willing to cast so many aside in the hopes of retaining power as opposed to building a coalition that can win power. That is what I hope that we are on the precipice of right now.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Yeah, me too. As you know, at the same time in your opponents in the New York Post, again, like they are closing the campaign by going back to this focus on your views on Israel. Specifically, they're circulating this clip from 2023 where you said, quote, we have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it has been laced by the idf. Was that a reference to just like police training that happens often, including NYPD going to Israel to get training from the IDF for the Israeli police or intelligence.

[Tommy Vietor]

That's what that was a reference to. And I find that no matter how much we have, whether it be the post or whether it be my opponents looking to make the closing message of this race about anything other than the most pressing crisis in New Yorkers lives, I found that New Yorkers, when I actually meet them in person across the five boroughs, it still comes back to the same thing that they told me more than a year ago. Cost of living, cost of living, cost of living. And I think in many ways we see that all Andrew Cuomo has is a vision of the past as it was, as it should should have been. And what we have actually is a vision of the future. And we're going to see the contrast of that only increase over the next five days.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Yeah, when I watch your campaign, when I watch you, I watch your mate, the great rally you did with AOC and Bernie on Sunday. And I see that energy, like it brings me back to 2007, when I was young and working for Barack Obama in Iowa. And like everything was ahead of us. It was all hope and excitement, and there was nothing we couldn't do. And then, you know, of course, as you know, right, like, candidates become, you know, get elected, and you face inevitable setbacks. And sometimes, you know, your supporters can feel frustrated or demoralized. And I just wondered if you have thought about that or worried about, you know, how much hope and excitement there is behind your campaign and how many young people are getting involved and feeling like your campaign is the avenue to get them back into politics and feel that excitement again and how they can prepare themselves for how difficult it is to govern.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I think that with hope comes an immense responsibility to deliver on the promise of it. And I take very seriously that responsibility, because as you've said, this is a hope that for many New Yorkers has been the first time they've experienced it in the politics of their city. For others, it's the first time they've experienced it in years, since the last time they actually engaged with politics. And the things, you know, the things that are written behind me, these cannot just be slogans. These have to be commitments that we deliver on. And it will be hard. It will be difficult. But I continue to believe that what we have seen in our politics in this city for far too long is an unwillingness to even try, an unwillingness to even dream of the life that people actually deserve. And I know that the coalition we've built has proved that impossible is nothing. On many a different juncture over the course of this last year, I know that we can continue to do the same in actually governing this city, delivering on these promises, and showing New Yorkers that when they look for representation in their City hall, they will find it in the struggles that we focus on, because those will be the struggles that New Yorkers are experiencing each and every day.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Final question. What is more annoying? People whining on message boards about Arsenal's playing style or Bill Ackman's tweets?

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, it's. It's tough. It's. It's tough. I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say it's gotta be Arsenal, because at this point, Bill, I've come to expect the tweets. I kind of look forward to the tweets. Feels like you're trying to tweet as many as we would tax you, but you're spending even more than that.

[Zoran Mamdani]

So long.

[Tommy Vietor]

But when it comes to the Arsenal message wars, guys, we've been through the tough years. Come on. Results.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Is Arteta getting fired? If. If Arsenal doesn't win the Premier League.

[Tommy Vietor]

Arteta in I'm not even entertaining that hypothetical. Okay, this is what's wrong with the media. Every other question was there and then you went the wrong way.

[Zoran Mamdani]

Zora Mamdani, thank you so much for doing the show again. That's zoran4nyc.com GOTV if you want to knock on some doors, best of luck next week.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thanks so much man. Appreciate you guys.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Zora and Mamdani for coming on. I'll be back in your feed on Sunday with a great conversation I had with CNN's Abby Phillip about covering Trump, hosting one of the most contentious shows on television, and her fascinating new book about Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns. Talk to you all then.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Bye everyone.

[Jon Favreau]

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 Ilick 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, Carol Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America and Yeast.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

Are you ready to get spicy?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

[Jon Favreau]

Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me. Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet. Maybe it's time to turn up the heat or turn it down.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's time for something that's not too spicy.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Try Doritos Golden Sriracha.

[Jon Favreau]

Spicy but not too spicy.