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- [00:00]
Host 1
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Jon Favreau
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Jon Lovett
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Host 1
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- [01:11]
Ad Read Announcer 2
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- [01:58]
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Ben Wickler
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- [03:19]
Jon Lovett
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- [03:21]
Tommy Vietor
I'm Jon Levitt. Tommy Vitorin.
- [03:23]
Jon Lovett
New studio looking good, guys. If you're listening to this only, this is the moment that you're gonna want to watch us on YouTube and subscribe to the Pod Save America YouTube channel because we have a brand new studio here. It's awesome in here, all refurbished.
- [03:36]
Tommy Vietor
Look at this.
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Jon Lovett
I know.
- [03:37]
Tommy Vietor
Exciting.
- [03:38]
Jon Lovett
All right, on today's show, we're going to talk about The Democrats new 2028 primary calendar which puts South Carolina first and has already set off a debate about who that helps. We'll also talk about one Democratic leader who seems beyond help, DNC Chair Ken Martin, the subject of not one, not two, but three leak filled stories about the party's financial crisis. Then we'll cover Trump's trip to Michigan and the big Senate race there, as well as the latest with the Iran war and the biggest bombing of the weekend, the President's performance at the rescheduled White House Correspondents Dinner. Finally, Ben Wickler stopped by the studio to talk about the DNC drama, the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary drama, and his brand new drama free book. This is the plan. All right, guys, let's start with the biggest news from over the weekend that will impact the outcome of the 2028 presidential election. We have a new primary calendar. It's here on Friday. The DNC's rules and bylaws committee voted to make South Carolina the first primary state on January 22, 2028. It will tentatively be followed by Nevada on February 1, New Hampshire a week after that, New Mexico a week after that, Michigan the next week, and Finally Virginia on February 29th before a bunch of other states vote in early March on Super Tuesday. The new calendar still has to be approved by the full dnc, which will meet next month. But there's already one potential stumbling block. New Hampshire has a law that requires the state to go at least one week earlier than any other state primary. The DNC's proposed solution is for the New Hampshire Democratic Party to fund and hold its own primary that's separate from the official state primary. But it doesn't sound like New Hampshire Democratic leaders are on board with that plan just yet.
- [05:22]
Jon Favreau
Or Republican leaders.
- [05:23]
Jon Lovett
Or Republican leaders. Right. There's also been some grumbling from a few progressive activists. No, they're putting stuff. I say a few because actually this is like progressives upset with South Carolina and then it's like a Jacobin op ed and like one comment from Hasan Piker. But there's a few progressive. Yes, it was. Because I did my diligence. I started reading and I'm like, okay, this headline is great. Anyway, there's been some grumbling that putting South Carolina first gives an advantage to more moderate establishment candidates. But we'll get into all of this before we get into what we think about the proposed calendar. Do you guys want to talk about why this is such a big deal and how much you think the early state calendar matters?
- [06:01]
Tommy Vietor
I'm just nostalgic for when we were in Iowa rigging the caucus for Buttigieg and this took. This is the thanks we get.
- [06:08]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, we probably shouldn't have rigged it for him to only be revealed like four or five days later. That was real.
- [06:14]
Jon Lovett
But anyway, so much for Iowa.
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Jon Favreau
Tommy missed Deb. Yeah, Iowa. I mean, I think the early state calendar in its totality just could not be more important. It's the whole ball game from the Obama perspective. Like, Obama's not the nominee if he doesn't win Iowa because it gave us huge momentum and it made people all over the country believe that he could win. But also it taught us how to organize. And we put in place those organizing practices in all the future caucus states and mopped up delegates against Hillary Clinton as we went forward. So kept paying out dividends during that long drawn out, awful primary process. The order will also determine what policy areas get highlighted. Like, for example, Iowa being first meant that we talked about ethanol probably far too much for far too long.
- [06:54]
Jon Lovett
Now we may never talk about it again.
- [06:55]
Jon Favreau
It may not be as big of an issue. We now have New Mexico, a southern border state. We'll see if immigration is more salient this time around. In Michigan, we'll probably hear about autos and unions. In Virginia, maybe Doge is an issue again. You have a lot of government employees in Northern Virginia. It also gives more power to different demographics and types of voters. Older voters, white voters, black voters. So that's been a big part of the conversation that we'll get into in a minute. But I do think figuring this out is essential and it really does help and harm specific candidates.
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Tommy Vietor
So I'm counterpoint. I don't know that I agree with that. So I think you're right. The schedule in early 2008 was very important in part because I was perfect for. For Barack Obama to prove that despite being a black candidate, he could put together a coalition of white voters that were hyper engaged and built a great organization on the ground. Had Hillary not had a surprising win in New Hampshire, it probably would have been over sooner. But that allowed the race to go back and forth. But what's interesting is the way the race ultimately goes back and forth. It was told as a momentum and narrative, but in reality it was often more about the demographics of the voters in each state kind of ricocheting back and forth as like the fundamental dynamics of the race didn't shift. On the other side, you have Joe Biden becoming the nominee. He loses in Iowa, he loses in New Hampshire, but he says, wait for South Carolina. He's able to overcome those early losses because they had set expectations. And he comes out of South Carolina with so much momentum that he's able to clean up on Super Tuesday and become the nominee. So I do think it's important to me, what I think is the most important is where the actual swing states fall in the schedule, where Michigan is, for example. But sometimes I think we get into this idea of the order of states mattering, when in reality it's partly about the order, but also about managing expectations and how campaigns fare over the next few contests. It can winnow. But I don't know if it's like
- [09:07]
Jon Favreau
as it's not just order, it's new states too. I mean, like, let's say if it was instead of South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, it was Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona. Like that's sort of what I'm getting. Yeah, Having these new states in there will just changes the issues and demographics.
- [09:20]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, there's two factors here. There's order and then there's states, which is, you know, I do think, I think you can make an argument that order doesn't matter as much as everyone thinks it does. I think that which states, the composition of the states in the early window is hugely important.
- [09:36]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that's what I was getting.
- [09:37]
Jon Lovett
It's the totality of them and especially now that there are five. I think you're probably going to have a slower momentum build over time. But if you have five states in the early window before Super Tuesday, and the two last states are very big states like Michigan and Virginia, both of which are also going to be competitive states in the general election, especially Michigan. You are going to know a lot by the time Super Tuesday rolls around about who can put together a campaign that could win almost any demographic group in any region of the country. And I find it hard unless now Democrats award delegates in each of these states proportionally, unlike Republicans do a lot of winner take all states. So they might, who knows, they might change that for 28 as well on their side. So you could see a situation Super Tuesday and beyond, where it's like an Obama and Hillary fighting out a delegate battle. But I tend to think that having five states go and that many states and that many votes in that period of time is going to pretty much tell you who's the nominee by the time you get to Super Tuesday. But we'll see, right?
- [10:43]
Tommy Vietor
They all, like, by the time you get through those early states, you've been in whiter states, you've been in Latino states, you've been a state with a bigger African American population. By the time you get to Michigan, you have some like, sort of prominent urban areas that have been, you know, strongholds for Democrats. You've gotten a good sense of the entire picture. Could you achieve that same thing if you did swap in a Texas and Oklahoma? Texas is a big Hispanic population. It's also a border state. Oklahoma is a very white electorate. Right. Might bring out more hyper engaged Democrats in the same way that, say, like an Iowa would in the past. Whatever. I think the part of the reason South Carolina was able to play such a big role in 2020 is Biden said explicitly, wait for South Carolina. You can't become a Dem. You will not be. There will not be a Democratic president who doesn't have strong support among African Americans. And then he wins so handily in that state. That kind of proves that case and he kind of is able to march onto the nomination after that.
- [11:33]
Jon Lovett
In terms of how much it matters, though, like, you got to imagine every single campaign in waiting is after Friday's announcement is like now finally starting to plan their strategy. I mean, like, it is everything for a campaign knowing which states go first in, in order. It's like every decision is made around
- [11:51]
Jon Favreau
that, where you travel, what operatives you hire. Like, and also there were people who are talking about waiting until after the midterms to figure this out. I was like, what are you talking about?
- [11:58]
Tommy Vietor
You can't possibly do that, yeah, when I saw that some of the progressives were like sort of. And I had the same thing. It's like, who's actually upset about this? But you know, oh, South Carolina is a boon to more moderate candidates. Well, that's sort of about what you're saying about the African American electorate not being as far to the left as some like the more sort of the wider part of the, of, of, of the Democratic base. But now for the first time you might have, instead of candidates spending six months in, you know, ecru white Iowa, you're going to have people spending months and months and months in South Carolina. And it's like, well, that's a great opportunity for the left to prove that they can appeal beyond their sort of online and sort of more, less diverse audience.
- [12:39]
Jon Lovett
With Iowa and New Hampshire finally being dethroned as the first two contests, how do you guys think that changes the race and strategy of these campaigns?
- [12:46]
Jon Favreau
Well, it's just worth pointing out that both states actually have laws on the books mandating their place in the order. The Iowa law says the caucuses have to be held at least eight days before any other primary or caucus. Iowa officials currently want to punt on that fight until after the midterms for whatever reason. But we'll see what they do. I kind of don't think they're going to fight it. New Hampshire's going to go down swinging in part because you have a Republican governor who is not going to agree to move it. I don't think they have the primary. So then they're going to be asked to pay for a party funded primary. And if they don't, I mean there's real consequences. I mean if a state party refuses to abide by the rules, the penalties are now they lose all their delegates at the 2028 convention. That's up from losing 50% of your delegates. And they have to pay a $270,000 fine and lose DNC membership voting rights until the fine is paid off. So that's pretty serious for them.
- [13:36]
Jon Lovett
And there's penalties for the candidates as well.
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Jon Favreau
Even worse for the candidates. You lose all your delegates from the entire early state nominating window and you're prohibited from participating in DNC rule.
- [13:46]
Jon Lovett
Like so New Hampshire is going to put on a party run, a separate party run primary or else they are just going to take themselves out of the early state window altogether. Those are the only two options because no one's going to deal with these penalties. The state of New Hampshire, the candidates. And so I think what they're all grumbling about right now. And what I saw, like Kathy Sullivan, who was a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman, because I had asked about this on Twitter, and she replied, she's like, look, we are trying spend Money to elect two members of Congress in 2026 and a senator, two House members and a senator. And now we're going to need all this money to put on a primary. That is a big undertaking. So I'm sure maybe some of this will be bargaining to try to get some money from the dnc, which we'll get to just to put on the primary. But that is a big it's a big deal. There's a possibility if New Hampshire bows out because they don't have the money and they don't want to do this. The only other Northeastern state that applied that would slide into that slot is Delaware, which is kind of interesting. Do you guys like where the DNC landed on this group of states in this particular order?
- [14:51]
Tommy Vietor
I would have liked more swing states, but look, I am not maybe I have so much PTSD from 2007, 2008, where the calendar was treated as being this very, very important thing, when in reality, the experience of working for Hillary Clinton in that period was she would always do well enough that she could justify going to the next contest, but not so well as to change the dynamics of the race. And to me, I'm glad Michigan's there. I think it is actually good that you no longer have this situation where the first two contests that draw so much attention and time for so long are these very white places that don't reflect the broader Democratic electorate. But beyond that, I do think in the end, part of the strategy is where you compete, but also part of it is just how you tell a story about where and when you're going to do best.
- [15:45]
Jon Favreau
So I look, I'm sad to see Iowa go because I know all the downsides of caucuses. We've talked about them. But there is it forces you to invest in organizing, and it forces you it incentivizes a nicer brand of politics because you want to be your opponent's second choice for reasons we don't have to get into. So I think that we'll be missing that. I reached out to a bunch of people who worked in politics just to get their opinions on what they'd seen, and there were responses range from it's good and I like it. It's impossible to know yet because of New Hampshire to this is going to boomerang back on US and be a disaster.
- [16:17]
Jon Lovett
What was the argument for that?
- [16:19]
Jon Favreau
That it's just going to be messy. New Hampshire's going to screw everything up. Once we get to Northern Virginia you're going to have DC media market spend people making a big determination and it will just kind of be a mess and who the hell knows about what New Mexico will do? Whatever. Like it's just one person's opinion. I feel my personal take was I feel like the DNC and the RBC did a pretty good job of navigating a very challenging process. I don't think the New Hampshire piece is solved in any way, shape or form. I think we're whistling past the graveyard on that and it's something that's going to have to give there.
- [16:54]
Jon Lovett
What do you think it's going to give? What do you mean?
- [16:55]
Jon Favreau
Like I just, I think New Hampshire is going to fuck around. They don't have the money to pay for this party run process and the Republican governor is not going to move the state. So I just, I don't know what's going to happen here. Um, I think can you end up
- [17:07]
Tommy Vietor
with a primary where just the, the candidates don't participate? Right. I mean Joe Biden won New Hampshire with a write in and they had, the delegates didn't write like it was like that.
- [17:16]
Jon Lovett
No, but that's, it's either they find the money to put on the primary or they're out. There's no other out. You know what I'm saying? Like that's. And it's just, it's going to be up to them to figure out if
- [17:25]
Jon Favreau
they can get the money or you have the DNC threats work. No major candidates actually go there but their super PACs muck around in New Hampshire and stage right in efforts so they can show strength and they get news cycles at it.
- [17:36]
Ben Wickler
Right.
- [17:36]
Jon Favreau
So there's all these weird ways that they could kind of mess around the thing. So who knows on South Carolina? I mean I think South Carolina being first. I agree with you. Like South Carolina first isn't like a massive change. I think it's a reflection that black voters are the base of the party. They're half of the primary electorate there. I think the talking point you always hear from South Carolina people is we have the track record of actually picking the nominee with who we vote for. And like that's true. But that's cause they went the field was winnowed and then it gets to South Carolina. So they voted for, you know, South Carolina voters picked Obama, Clinton and Biden. My guess is South Carolina will now just kind of be the winnower. It will be the filter function that Iowa and New Hampshire were. I do agree it's a real bummer that it's just, it's not a battleground state. Like you do all this organizing in these early states and then the candidates never go back to them.
- [18:19]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And look, the reason that is is because the law's already in the books. And if you look for other states with heavy populations of black voters to go first, you have to find a state with a Democratic trifecta so they can move the primary date and it's a whole mess. So I sort of feel the same about South Carolina, but I think they did. I think for South Carolina going first, they did a really good job of then balancing out the rest of the calendar because you have, I mean, they have diversity, all kinds of diversity. Right. Racial diversity, geographic diversity, ideological diversity. I also like that the first four states are small states. And so the kind of retail campaigning that you got in Iowa, New Hampshire, and this will be true if Delaware takes New Hampshire spot, you get. So you'll have South Carolina, which is a relatively small state. Nevada, same thing. New Mexico, which is brand new to this process, which is pretty small.
- [19:15]
Jon Favreau
I just don't know what to think of that one yet.
- [19:18]
Jon Lovett
New Mexico is interesting. So you have in that state, New Mexico's overall voting eligible population is 45% Hispanic. That is the largest percentage of any state in the country. They also have a significant Native American population. That's the first time that we have an early state with a pretty significant Native American population. Like you said, Tommy, it's a border state, which I think is great. We have a Democratic trifecta there. So they should be able to move that, no problem. It is more non college the voters there than some of the other states, which I also think is helpful because you're going to want to prove that you can win non college voters and not just, not just highly college educated voters. Like you get a new. Like you get a New Hampshire.
- [19:58]
Tommy Vietor
What is the different function that like in their theory that Nevada plays versus New Mexico, Maddo also has a big Latino population. It is compared to other states, a lower percentage of college voters. Also has Las Vegas, which is a huge important center for unions. Right. Is that like, what is the. Like what is the. What is the other than just. This is how it shook out and we. I'm glad. I liked having Nevada early when we were there. That was one of the Last trips
- [20:22]
Jon Lovett
we took before COVID Look, I was on record saying this last time, but boy, am I happy. We'll be spending a lot of time
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Tommy Vietor
in Nevada and we'll have no choice
- [20:29]
Jon Lovett
or just gonna where you have to go.
- [20:31]
Tommy Vietor
What is the theory of the different Role New Mexico vs. Nevada plays? New Mexico as a border state.
- [20:36]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. And I don't even know if there's a theory of it being different. What I took it as is Nevada and South Carolina were battling for first. And you know that South Carolina party chair was like, well, if Nevada goes first, what does that say to black voters? That they don't matter as much. And I think you pointed this out to me. Love it. So does that mean the reverse is true? Then the Latino voters don't matter. And so now by having two states with significant Latino populations, and Nevada also has a significant black population as well, not as much as South Carolina, but it does. Then you get. Then you basically have two states in the early window that have pretty heavy Latino populations.
- [21:10]
Tommy Vietor
I'll make another case for this. Now that I think about it, South Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, these are states that are not that cold in November, December, January.
- [21:18]
Jon Favreau
That is a very good.
- [21:19]
Host 1
That is cool.
- [21:20]
Jon Favreau
That's what we want.
- [21:20]
Host 1
Good for us.
- [21:21]
Jon Lovett
It's just going to be New Hampshire and I guess Michigan, Michigan will be cold, too.
- [21:25]
Jon Favreau
It's going to be very cold.
- [21:26]
Jon Lovett
What do you guys make of the like that South Carolina disadvantages progressives. A progressive candidate, I think it's probably right.
- [21:34]
Jon Favreau
I mean, the South Carolina Democratic primary electorate, it's older, more moderate than Iowa, New Hampshire or Nevada. About 40% of South Carolina Democratic primary voters were college graduates, about half identified as liberal, which is less than earlier contests. This is, I think, 2020 exit polls. They're more likely to be working class, more likely to go to church once a week, older. Biden won South Carolina in 2020 because he won with black voters, but he did especially well with Black voters over 60. He and Bernie actually, I think tied with Black voters under 30. So I do think it's likely to be demographically set up to be more moderate.
- [22:12]
Tommy Vietor
Like as we were saying before, like, if you're saying that you think South Carolina is a way to put a roadblock in front of progressives, you are saying that a black electorate is a roadblock in front of progressives. Now, I think the point that would be made in response is, as Tommy said, a generational thing, not a demographic thing. But of course, it's both. And we have seen even you see this in Michigan playing out that one of Abdul's challenges is trying to kind of build support in the black community. And I feel like this is an opportunity for the left if they want to start building a bigger coalition that can win in contests like this. Right. Like, because South Carolina, that is where Bernie goes down in 2020. Like, if that's that, that is, that is the test. And it may not happen this election. You're right. It may be harder because of this. But also at the same time, even if South Carolina was third, fourth or fifth, this test was always there. The candidate that wins black voters is going to be the nominee.
- [23:15]
Jon Lovett
Well, this is where I think that the order matters maybe less, or at least can cut both ways, because let's say South Carolina does advantage more moderate candidates. Well, then, so a fifth of South Carolina primary voters describe themselves as very liberal, which is relatively low. And then you go to Nevada, and a third of voters there describe themselves as very liberal. So, like, if you're a progressive lefty candidate and you don't do well in South Carolina, you hang on and you go to Nevada, you go to New Hampshire or Delaware, you go to, you try, you know, like, so there's, there's basically, there's a state on the map in that early window for any kind of ideal ideological flavor or, you know, different kind of voter that you can get. So I don't worry as much about that. I wouldn't worry if I was a progressive candidate or if I was an establishment candidate on, like the order that way.
- [24:09]
Jon Favreau
One under discussed change, though, is Nevada going from a caucus state to a primary state, which I think is likely to disadvantage progressives potentially because there's, you know, some progressives tend to organize well in these caucus states and unions tend to do better than unions tend to do really well in caucus states, which is interesting to see how that kind of cuts. I don't know yet.
- [24:29]
Jon Lovett
Oh, yeah. The fact that there's no caucuses means it's disadvantaging. I mean, that's. Yeah, progressives do better in caucuses for sure. But even without the caucus, Nevada will have like a more liberal primary life than South Carolina. Dan made an argument in his Saturday message box that South Carolina going first massively advantages. Kamala Harris, what did you guys think about that?
- [24:49]
Tommy Vietor
So I saw that and I thought, huh, that's interesting from Dan. And then I went back and looked at the South Carolina polling from before Kamala ended her campaign, and she drops out in the end of 2019 before any votes are Cast. But in the closing weeks of the year, there were polls that had her somewhere between, say, 5 to 12%. I think she sort of was ticking down a bit as we got closer. And so, I don't know, I was like, maybe that's true. Right. But part of the reason she ended her campaign when she did is she just wasn't gaining traction even in a state like South Carolina.
- [25:26]
Ben Wickler
Yeah.
- [25:27]
Jon Lovett
What do you think, Tommy?
- [25:28]
Jon Favreau
I think basically the argument is that black voters are half the electorate in South Carolina, that Kamala Harris has the most support from black voters by far in polls. She has 69% favorability with black voters plus 42. You're right that her, her presidential run in 2020 did not end well in South Carolina or any state. But that was just a bad campaign that didn't end well for her. And I think four years of being VP probably changed a lot of things, I think. Certainly. Look, does it make her the front runner? Yes. But being the front runner is a double edged sword because the early states are not necessarily about winning all the early states, but expectations, management and exceeding expectations in the early states. And when you're the early on front runner and everyone assumes you're going to romp in South Carolina for the following reasons, it puts a big old bullseye on your back and the media looks for better, more interesting stories to tell for them.
- [26:25]
Jon Lovett
That's what I thought. And it's like, as soon as South Carolina is over now, you've got four other states for that month, including two very big ones at the end. And does anyone think that the media, no matter how good of a campaign she's running, is going to be like, yeah, it's the Kamala Harris frontrunner story all through February. Like, that's just not going to happen.
- [26:43]
Jon Favreau
So.
- [26:44]
Tommy Vietor
Right. So it goes from like, oh, wow, South Carolina advantages Kamala Harris to Kamala Harris is the only candidate that has a state. If she loses, it's over.
- [26:51]
Jon Lovett
Right. That's definitely true. Well, and the other thing we haven't talked about is if Wes Moore runs or Raphael Warnock, like she's not the only black candidate that might run for president. And then you could have black candidates splitting votes. You could have. And then, you know, it's interesting, like the two things that you need to know before starting to think about how the race is going to go and plan your strategy as a campaign. One is the early state calendar, which is now locked. Two is the composition of the field. Exactly. You need to know who's running, who's going to split what vote? How they're going to that part we don't know yet. But there is a situation too where if it's just Kamala Harris, if she's the only black candidate running and she's doing really well with black voters in South Carolina, then because the state is more moderate overall and you have a bunch of white moderates running aside from Kamala Harris, then they're all splitting a vote and then maybe the progressive candidate or two does even better. And that's just an example. We have no idea.
- [27:47]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I do think some candidate like Pete Buttigieg, who has historically had a really hard time with black voters, is probably now at a disadvantage. Bernie Sanders, were he to run again, was probably at a bit of a disadvantage for the reasons we just discussed. A lot of the conventional wisdom is also that AOC came out of this new primary process helped because she does well with Latinos and with labor. We'll see if she runs. We'll see if that's true. But I'm mostly with you guys that like a lot of the early attempts to kind of, you know, handicap this race are just silly. We don't know what it's going to look like.
- [28:19]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, exactly.
- [28:20]
Jon Lovett
Ron Brownstein, who digs into these demographics and knows them better than most, he said that the one through line for all of the states is the candidate who's going to be able to do best with black voters and white college educated voters as well is probably going to do the best because aside from Nevada and New Mexico, you don't have a lot of states with non college, big, non college populations. And he was like, you know, last, last candidate to have done that to bring that coalition together is Barack Obama. Right. It's the white libs and the black Democrats. So we'll.
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Jon Favreau
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- [31:30]
Jon Lovett
Speaking of the DNC, seems like Ken Martin had a bad Sunday. The New York Times notice and the Bulwark all ran stories about what the Times calls the troubled, broke Democratic Party. The Times story was certainly the newsiest and most damning for Martin. It includes a story about him throwing his phone at the desk of a junior staffer, which resulted in a formal HR complaint, and another where Martin freaked out on a call about the party's finances because he thought his Staff was planning a coup, and they were like, no, we're just talking about the money. Wow.
- [31:58]
Jon Favreau
No COO Sounds like just the usual
- [32:00]
Tommy Vietor
lull or leave it prep meeting to me.
- [32:04]
Jon Lovett
But the real meat of the story is the party's financial struggles under Martin, which are quite real. We already knew that the DNC is $2 million in debt after taking out a $15 million loan and more than $100 million behind the RNC in fundraising. But apparently the situation is so bad that the DNC is asking vendors not to invoice them until after the midterms. And for the first time, the DNC will not be transferring any money to the House and Senate committees to help them win the midterms. According to the Times, quote, party officials are now reckoning with the fact that they must begin to repay $1.66 million of the loan's principal per month starting in January.
- [32:42]
Tommy Vietor
Otherwise, pretty nice building. Would be shame if something were to happen to it.
- [32:47]
Jon Lovett
What'd you guys make of these stories? Did anything in them make you more worried than you already were?
- [32:52]
Tommy Vietor
Can I just read a great entry in one of my favorite parts of an insider story like this, which is a leak about leaks? Quote, it pisses me off when I see leaks out of this building, Mr. Martin said, according to four people who had heard the remarks, adding, no more.
- [33:09]
Jon Lovett
You know, that's the exact kind of leak that a reporter's like, oh, this
- [33:12]
Jon Favreau
is gonna be good for this.
- [33:13]
Host 1
So funny.
- [33:14]
Tommy Vietor
The no more.
- [33:14]
Jon Favreau
It's just a brutal thing.
- [33:15]
Tommy Vietor
Leaks about leaks.
- [33:16]
Jon Lovett
I love it.
- [33:17]
Tommy Vietor
I love it. It's tough.
- [33:18]
Jon Favreau
So I reached out to some of the DNC staff, Ken Martin's defenders. I can offer that perspective. I don't know if you guys want to start with reflections on the story.
- [33:26]
Jon Lovett
No, no, you can. We'll reflect after you.
- [33:28]
Tommy Vietor
Okay.
- [33:28]
Jon Favreau
So what they would say is, we're just in Bernstein.
- [33:32]
Tommy Vietor
A veto over here. Let's hear about. Okay, thank you for doing the work. I'm grateful to it.
- [33:38]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I'll make one phone call. You have Woodward in this building. So they would point out that through June of 2026, the DNC raised more money than the DNC did in the entire 2017, 2018 cycle.
- [33:50]
Jon Lovett
They love that.
- [33:51]
Jon Favreau
Talking a comparable period. Yeah. When Democrats did not hold the White House, they also argued they had more cash on hand than the DNC did in 2019. So their argument is basically the media narrative is that this is like, some historic disaster, when in fact, like, there's recent precedent that they're actually have Improved upon. They would also say, like, let's look at the investments or were making. The DNC gave $100,000 to the Mississippi Democratic Party right before a special election that broke a Republican super majority. Obviously a good thing. The DNC gave money to South Carolina. Now, for the first time in 50 years, South Carolina recruited a candidate to run in every state House race, statewide race, and congressional race. So there's sort of a talking point where in Ken Substack about this where he's like, with 90% of the races we've overperformed or won, I think that's taking credit for the political environment and people being mad at Donald Trump. But, you know, it's evidence, right? It's results matter. Now, I also talked to some people who worked in the DNC in that period, that 27, 2018 period for Tom Perez, and they'll say the thing you have to remember is that everyone hated the DNC in 2017 because they blamed them for Hillary losing and they blamed them for Bernie getting screwed. So money wasn't really coming in the door.
- [35:00]
Jon Lovett
That was Post weekly.
- [35:01]
Jon Favreau
Yes. They walked into the building with $17 million in debt. The major fundraising team had been laid off, so they were at a standing start. And at least $30 million of Ken's fundraising total was Kamala Harris raising money to retire her own debt. So I think those people would also concede, like, yeah, that 2017, 2018 period fundraising wasn't good, but comparing to the not good period is still bad.
- [35:26]
Jon Lovett
Also, they still, in that election did transfer money to the House and Senate committees, which they're not going to do this year.
- [35:32]
Tommy Vietor
Well, it's also, hey, in this game that we're losing, we actually have more goals than the previous team. Well, you're not playing against the DNC from 2018, you're playing against the Republicans in 2026.
- [35:41]
Jon Favreau
So the last point I think I make in response to the Ken too is like, okay, you're telling us you've raised all this money, but you're still 2 million in debt. Like that suggests mismanagement and misspending. You know what I mean? It's like a double, the talking point is a double edged sword.
- [35:52]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, that's my, my feeling about it. Which is like before sort of diving into all these stories like, oh, there's a massive fundraising problem at the dnc, we're being outraised by a huge amount. And then you read the defense, it's like, wow. Actually, you know, it's, we're out of power, but the Fundraising is actually comparable, if not better. Okay, then where do all the money go out? And then the test is if you really are going to say that we've been, it's not a fundraising issue, we've been using the money to kind of build infrastructure, well, then it's incumbent upon you to show how that's going to benefit Democrats in the midterms and beyond. And then you think, well, hold on, that was the strategy where. So right now, Democratic candidates have been outraising Republican candidates. The Republican House Committee and the Republican Senate Committee are outraising not to the same degree as the dnc, rnc, but are outraising the candidate committees. And the RNC has over $100 million more on hand than the DNC does. Now, before the Supreme Court ruled that the party parties could spend at the same lower rate as candidates, there's an argument to say, you know what, the DNC should raise money, get it out the door for building infrastructure, focus fundraising for the candidates. Those candidates can then buy ads at a cheaper rate than the parties.
- [37:09]
Host 1
But that advantage is now gone.
- [37:11]
Tommy Vietor
That doesn't exist anymore. And so they have more money in their Super PACs, their candidate committees have more money and the RNC has more money. And all of that is just puts, puts the Republicans at a huge advantage for buying ads over the Democrats. And so then you say, well, that is the stat. Like regardless of what money went out the door, like that is the situation right now. So what do you do to get out of the hole? The answer isn't to point to how much worse it could have been or how much different it is. Like we are behind. How do you close that gap?
- [37:43]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [37:44]
Jon Lovett
And doesn't seem like there's any answers on that from the dnc. And it's not like they are sort of denying any of the stories.
- [37:54]
Jon Favreau
You didn't throw the phone. It slid next to someone else who didn't own the phone.
- [38:00]
Jon Lovett
Rufus Gifford, who we all know Rufus. He was on the Obama campaign. He was. He was the finance director of the
- [38:07]
Tommy Vietor
DNC through the phone near you.
- [38:09]
Jon Lovett
He worked there for eight years. He wrote the substack today. He loves the place. He was the finance director on Obama's Reelect, on Biden's Reelect. So he's been around for a long time. He didn't have a dog in the fight on Ken versus Ben or anything else. But he said in his substack post the DNC is spiraling towards irrelevance and that Ken Martin is a good man with good Intentions, but simply not meeting this critical moment and his chairmanship is beyond saving.
- [38:37]
Tommy Vietor
Wait till that email goes out where he says to everybody coming to that big DNC meeting, one slice of pizza per person. That's all we can do right now. No second slices at this meeting. We cannot afford it.
- [38:49]
Jon Favreau
I once worked on a campaign where our paychecks were delayed until the next year to make the FEC report look better, so we had more cash on hand. And by the way, it didn't suggest a healthy campaign, that things were going well. But then a reporter called and asked one of our spokespeople if staff had been asked to delay their paychecks to make our FEC report look better. And the this flack said no, because we had just been told that we would not be getting paid over Christmas. We were not asked. So, yeah, that was memory lane.
- [39:18]
Jon Lovett
I mean, I think the question I was like, what can be done about this? Because we're all in this situation together. We all need the DNC to be successful in the Democratic Party to be successful. There is a scenario we were talking to someone where once we have a nominee, the nominee of the party installs their person at the DNC and tries to go around Ken and raises all the money. But, you know, between now and getting a nominee, we need to figure, like, the party needs to figure something out on, like, how to raise the money that we're going to need, especially with the Supreme Court decision, as you said. Love it. Where now the Democratic National Committee, it's going to be really, really important for them to have a ton of money before there's even a nominee.
- [39:59]
Jon Favreau
This is a crisis. You know, like, this is the terrible fundraising and the autopsy report and the interview with you. This is all compounded into a crisis of confidence with DNC leadership. And it is just not going to improve. And it's time to make a change, I think. And I think Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries need to go to Ken Martin and say, we gotta do something different here. And they need to get someone else in there that just has confidence of big donors of parties, et cetera. And yeah, like, we just can't overstate how important this Supreme Court ruling is in terms of erasing the Democratic Party advantage that we used to have, because small dollars would flow to our candidates who would get preferential rates on ad buys, and then you'd have Republican super PACs having to spend 10 times the same amount for the same ad. Now that advantage is gone, and we are. That just makes A hole even deeper. And so, like, like, if I'm Chuck Schumer, like, you're trying to win a Senate majority, if you're Hakeem Jeffries, you're trying to become speaker. This is existential for you?
- [40:59]
Jon Lovett
Well, I mean, beyond those two, because for them it's like, you know, the midterms are in a couple months. They have the. That ship has sailed. Every Democrat running for president, every one of these campaigns, it is in their interest to, like, act together on this, to like, all go to these.
- [41:14]
Jon Favreau
I don't think it should have sailed for the midterms. I think you could get a new person in tomorrow who could bring like a bunch of big donors to send a message and raise $100 million in like a couple of weeks. I really, like, think.
- [41:23]
Jon Lovett
Although I think on that, though, the only reason I say that is because if. Yes, but then why not just send the money right to the DSCC and the dccc? There's no need to give the DNC money before the midterms.
- [41:32]
Tommy Vietor
Sure is. Again, like, I'm, I'm taking Ken's work. Like, I read your long substack. But if you look at like the, the, like what his claim is, then there's actually is a fair amount of money coming in. And so what I don't understand is like, there's this sort of like, hand wringing. Oh, there's nothing we can do before November. If, if you're, if, if there's this little amount of money on hand. But, like, what, something like 8.6 million is coming in every month at the lead. Like, why can't there be a change in priorities where you kind of do say, from this point forward, we are going to be devoting these resources towards winning in November. And this is the amount that's going to be directed towards this as opposed to whatever kind of the longer term kind of money that's going out the door per month is. That's what I don't. That's what I came away. I was confused by.
- [42:14]
Jon Lovett
There's a vicious cycle. And Wickler was, as usual, very generous and kind. Didn't want to shit over Ken Martin. But when there are stories like these, it just deepens the problem. Because now who's going to want to give money to the DNC after reading stories like this? And so it's a vicious cycle. I did think. One more funny moment from the New York Times story is he's got this staff meeting and he's trying to buck everyone up and he says, My success is your success. So the weaker I am, the weaker all of you are,
- [42:50]
Ben Wickler
which is true.
- [42:51]
Jon Favreau
It's just a weird thing to say to your staff.
- [42:53]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [42:53]
Jon Lovett
This seems so inspiring. I don't know if that's the best pep talk I've ever heard.
- [42:56]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think it's a get through. Like the other thing too is any, like, if you're a presidential candidate starting next year and they're like, well, what do you think of Ken Martin? You would just like when, you know, I. The president will choose a new DNC chair.
- [43:09]
Ben Wickler
Right.
- [43:09]
Tommy Vietor
Like, we will have a better, you know, they're all going to say they're going to choose a new DNC chair. So it's just like, let's move that up a little. Let's get this. Get through the midterms, swap this guy out.
- [43:18]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's just like when we swapped Kamala for Biden. I think the DNC raised like a billion dollars in 100 days. There's a lot they could do if we were to make a change. I think in Ken's substack, he says we must communicate and organize year round. Well, one of the things that we learned in this New York Times story is that after the Pod Save America interview, Ken has only done one local TV hit. So I'm not saying he's.
- [43:41]
Jon Lovett
Our people in Erie got a.
- [43:43]
Jon Favreau
Now, it is primarily a fundraising job. Right. We don't expect him out doing. To be out doing message events. But Rufus Gifford in his substack made the point that when the DNC chair does a lot of TV that gets shared, that gets seen by donors, it makes them want to donate and be involved and kind of like keeps you in the mix. And then also you have like, the DNC's got a lot of great staff and they must feel beyond demoralized. And they're supposed to be doing things like year round research in comms and digital on Republicans. They're doing mobilization. They have this big creator program, the rbc. The rules committee just did a really good job on the calendar.
- [44:21]
Tommy Vietor
Need more hype reels for Ken.
- [44:23]
Jon Favreau
And it's just like creators. I just feel bad for this team of people, not just because the phones are flying, but because you feel like your work is getting denigrated in the news all the time and you don't have the leadership you need. And you know, it's important and it must be frustrating not to be able
- [44:39]
Jon Lovett
to fix it just because the phones are flying.
- [44:51]
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As you know, Charlie Favreau is the huge fan of high vitamins and he was telling me that he just solved the halting problem.
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Jon Favreau
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Tommy Vietor
You bet.
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I guess all because he took high vitamins, which tastes delicious by the way.
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Tommy Vietor
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- [48:19]
Jon Lovett
So Michigan's in the early state lineup because it remains one of the most critical swing states. And this fall Senate race there is going to be one of the most hotly contested. The primary already is hotly contested. Trump went there on Monday to tour a GM facility and appear alongside Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate, who will face off against either Abdul El Sayed or Haley Stevens, though neither were mentioned during Trump's speech. He did, however, go hard at the DSA wings of the party.
- [48:44]
Donald Trump
They're siding with the radical left Communists taking over the party they want. In other words, the normal socialists who can destroy a country too, they're not going fast enough. Communism is the greatest threat to our country in history, including Even World War I, World War II, Pearl harbor or 9, 11. I mean, this is a serious threat, in that order.
- [49:08]
Jon Lovett
World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor, 9, 11. What does that mean? I was like the normal socialist. Then he caught himself. He's like the normal socialists who could also destroy the country normally.
- [49:18]
Tommy Vietor
Gotta not forget that that's important to hit.
- [49:20]
Jon Favreau
What was that Cold War fever dream nonsense?
- [49:22]
Jon Lovett
Very weird. I was kind of surprised that Trump held back from mentioning the Senate race. What do you guys think that's about? I think he's suddenly a stickler for the Hatch Act. It was an official event.
- [49:32]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
- [49:34]
Jon Lovett
Neither did Mike Rogers.
- [49:35]
Tommy Vietor
Like, are they.
- [49:36]
Jon Lovett
I thought they would be. I thought he would hit Abdul. I thought it was a whole.
- [49:39]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I mean, Abdul wants a fight with Trump right now. Right. Presumably Democrats would love to watch Abdul be in a fight with Trump right now. So maybe the idea would be if you, if you pick this fight, you're going to take attention into the race and. But they kind of want Abdul to come out of the thing, so I don't know.
- [49:54]
Jon Favreau
Well, that's the thing, right? Like, what you'll hear from Haley Stevens supporters is that Republicans want to face Abdul because they think he's weaker. If that were so, you would think that they would elevate him in this moment right before the primary. It's weird that they didn't. I don't know why. I mean, it could just be because Trump is dumb and forgot his name and like, you know, was supposed to do it in that communist rift.
- [50:13]
Jon Lovett
And there is some evidence too that they do want that because Mike Rogers was like, there was a recording of Mike Rogers on a call with donors saying, like, I think if it's Abdul, we're in good shape. And so, you know, there is evidence for that. But they remarkably disciplined from Donald Trump there. Or maybe it wasn't disciplined. Maybe he just forgot. Maybe he doesn't care.
- [50:30]
Tommy Vietor
Right. Or is there any argument that Trump and Rogers think if they publicly pick a fight with Abdul, it helps Haley Stevens. Is there any. Can you make that argument? Like, that's why, I mean, Rogers is a behind the scenes in the kind of, kind of to try to be like, I'm excited about Abdul, which is a perfect thing to help Haley Stevens. It's not a public fight. Yeah, I don't know.
- [50:49]
Jon Lovett
I don't know, they also might be thinking that if Hayley Stevens wins, you know, they want, they want to. They want to label them both as communists.
- [50:56]
Tommy Vietor
Right. They don't want to do Brian Kemp treatment.
- [50:58]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, right. If Haley Stevens wins, they're not going to be like, oh, we really wanted to, you know, like they're going to act like she's as left wing as possible. That's what they do. Meanwhile, Abdul, who, as you know, we're all supporting in the race, was quoted in Playbook on Monday morning telling donors on a private call. A lot of these private calls, these zooms, you gotta get these zooms.
- [51:16]
Jon Favreau
They're not that private.
- [51:17]
Jon Lovett
No kidding. So he was telling donors at a private call that all the money and political power being used against him makes him look like David against Goliath, presumably meaning both Haley Stevens and aipac. And how if he wins, he'll have a massive platform and will start primarying Senate moderates, including John Fetterman. What did you guys think of his assessment of things?
- [51:36]
Jon Favreau
Like, I say this with love for Abdul, but I thought it was not good. You know, like my first argument would be, you got to win the general election first and then talk about this stuff like you're spiking the football in the 30 yard line. Let's win the primary, let's win the general. Then you can maybe talk about 2028 if you want. Also, I'm sure what happened was he was trying to pump up donors and supporters, but you have to know this stuff is going to leak. It always leaks. And the ogre comment is getting taken out of the context like people are suggesting.
- [52:01]
Jon Lovett
Sorry, I didn't mention that. He said, this will help me put an ogre on a pike.
- [52:05]
Ben Wickler
Right.
- [52:05]
Jon Favreau
Which is about John Fetterman. People are suggesting he was comparing Haley Stevens to an ogre. It does not sound like he was doing that in any way. But also, don't call John Fetterman an ogre. It's not helpful. I think it kind of plays into this belief among a lot of Democrats that the left wing of the party is far more focused on going after moderate Democrats than Republicans. Let's. I too find John Fetterman very frustrating on a lot of issues, but he's an elected Democrat senator in a swing state. Let's beat the Republicans first and talk about that. And I think my other just like big picture comment for Abdul is take every sentence where you say I and replace it with we. This campaign is not about you and what you're going to do in 28 or whatever. It's about the movement. It's about what we are going to do to make people's lives better. The issues we're gonna elevate, like the way you're gonna fight for Michigan. I just think it was not good.
- [52:57]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. This is the second interview, or this is the second sort of. The first was an interview. This was leaked recording. But the second time we've gotten sort of this sort of tone from him, that semaphore interview, I think, was that at a similar level of like. I don't know, I'd say like hostility and kind of like grandiosity to it. But also it's punditry. And as a rule, if you're a candidate and you're doing punditry, that is a mistake. That is.
- [53:21]
Jon Lovett
If you think of all the great gaffes, always with the donors, with the donors, every country with the donors is the worst is. It's just. That's where it happens all the time.
- [53:29]
Tommy Vietor
That's where Mitt Romney says 52%.
- [53:31]
Jon Lovett
Barack Obama says bitter guns and religion.
- [53:34]
Tommy Vietor
Like that.
- [53:35]
Host 1
Like Hillary.
- [53:35]
Tommy Vietor
I think deplorables was classic. Was that was fundraiser.
- [53:38]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, yeah, fundraiser.
- [53:39]
Tommy Vietor
So. So it's a common trap that you're sort of like analyzing the electorate. And if you're doing that as a
- [53:46]
Host 1
candidate, by the way, which is something
- [53:47]
Tommy Vietor
he understands in his interviews, where he's actually very like, he did an interview with Dasha Burns, and even she was like, my God, you're on message throughout this entire thing, but kind of lets loose when I think he thinks he's in private. The other part of it, too, though, is like, it's got to be frustrating because you're campaigning against Haley Stevens, who's getting all this attention for having this aw, shucks, pure Michigan thing. And then AIPAC's dropping like $30 million on their head. They're like, put a sort of Saladin in his fucking hands.
- [54:18]
Jon Lovett
We'll see what the odds are. I think for progressive candidates that tend to do well, have a sunnier disposition. They do express anger, of course, but there's a sunnier disposition. And what Abdul has nailed is the liberal patriotism. And we saw that when the protester Jake Lang interrupted one of his events and he talked in the. Basically, they shouted him out with the USA chant and Abdul gave the speech. So he's got. He's got that part down. But you can't be. Also, you have to look, you have to be happy all the time and not be.
- [54:54]
Donald Trump
And.
- [54:55]
Jon Lovett
And not be hostile to your opponents. I think that's the, that's the key.
- [54:57]
Tommy Vietor
I also, like, there's something deeper than. This is not about Abdul. There is a, like a bad faith critique from the left that takes, I think, what is largely a true argument about the influence of money in politics. And by the way, it's just worth saying, like, what's happening in Michigan is fucking crazy. This is the biggest outside spend by aipac ever. It's 30 maybe on any Senate race ever, as in a primary, all being dumped on his head like, that is what is on television. And the ad, like, there's two ads that are going around that are like, that are just like really manipulative to say that a duel is bad for women. Right. Taking some quotes out of context. But at the same time, when Whitmer endorses Haley Stevens, it's because she's bought and sold, right? And like, I don't believe Gretchen Whitmer is bought and sold. And I don't think most Democrats in Michigan believe Gretchen Whitmer is like, bought and sold.
- [55:46]
Jon Lovett
She backed Haley Stevens because she probably thinks Haley Stevens has a better chance of winning. That's it.
- [55:51]
Jon Favreau
And it doesn't help you probably to attack in pretty personal terms, a very popular Democrat in the state you are trying to represent. And my guess, you know, there's probably some old bad blood there from 2018 when they ran against you, each other.
- [56:03]
Tommy Vietor
But so when, and when Abdul just
- [56:04]
Jon Lovett
gotta eat, that's the whole, that's, that's running for politics.
- [56:07]
Tommy Vietor
And like, so, like when Abdul is asked in that interview about, like, whether he identifies as a socialist, he says, I don't identify. Like, like what? And he, he actually won't answer where he disagrees with Bernie and aoc. And he says, like, I just don't identify as a socialist. I like, appreciate some version of. I appreciate capitalism. And I'm sorry, I'm just going to be a nuanced guy. I'm a nuanced guy. Right. But that nuance doesn't, like, especially I get why in the heat of a primary. But like, you know, when, like you say the root of our housing problem is, is corporate money, when the root of this problem is corporate money, it's just like, I get why it works on the stump. I get why it's a valuable way of simplifying what's happening. But I think it starts to feel, I don't know, like turning this race into like a black and white mannequin struggle, which is what comes off in these private conversations. Yeah.
- [56:51]
Jon Lovett
So Trump also used the Michigan appearance to provide an update on his on again, off again war in Iran, which suddenly appears to be off again after Trump threatened a massive attack last week. U.S. officials told reporters that the shrinking supply of air defense systems was at least partly responsible for the pause, which Trump, of course, blamed on Biden. We also found out this weekend that the four service members who recently died in the Iran war are no longer listed in the Pentagon's casualty count for the Iran war. Instead, the Pentagon moved the tally of their deaths to a new section generically called Overseas Operations Casualties. They also updated the number of injuries to over 600. Here's what Trump had to say about the war on the flight to Michigan and at his event there.
- [57:33]
Donald Trump
Well, Iran took a beating over the last 14 days and they asked us very nicely, please stop, let's meet. And that's where we are right now. We'll see what happens when the fuel comes down, which it did for a little while. Then they didn't behave and I had to go back. And now they're behaving again. You know, it's like playing a banjo.
- [57:55]
Jon Lovett
Is it like playing a banjo? It's like, in what way is the Iran war like playing a banjo?
- [58:01]
Tommy Vietor
I think I know what that is.
- [58:02]
Jon Favreau
Tell me.
- [58:03]
Tommy Vietor
I think that what he is thinking of is the song that goes back and forth from the film Deliverance. In the film Deliverance, I know that. That is what I think.
- [58:15]
Jon Lovett
I'm still struggling with the back and
- [58:16]
Tommy Vietor
forth because the back and forth.
- [58:17]
Jon Favreau
Who's going to squeal like a pig in this one?
- [58:22]
Tommy Vietor
I think it's us.
- [58:23]
Ben Wickler
Fuck, that sucks.
- [58:26]
Jon Lovett
I don't know. Tommy, what do you think? What's going on right now?
- [58:29]
Jon Favreau
I mean, we're losing the war. The Strait of Hormuz was once uncontested and now it's contested. And I think in the long run, Iran, you guys might have noticed on a map, that's where it is. It's in the Strait of Hormuz. I feel like they have the upper hand there. The New York Times reported that American intelligence agencies believe that Iran's new supreme leader, Mujtabu Khamenei, is far more interested than his father in acquiring a nuclear weapon.
- [58:55]
Jon Lovett
Gee, I wonder why.
- [58:56]
Jon Favreau
So that's good.
- [58:57]
Tommy Vietor
That's not what J.D. vance said. I thought that they were becoming friends.
- [59:00]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. The father had sworn off nukes. There was a fatwa against them. Obviously, people questioned that, but many analysts thought it was a genuine sentiment. And now there's quite an argument for getting a Nuclear weapon. I think the long term impact of the war as is is like just it's going to be sporadic economic disruption for a very long time potentially. And that increases the likelihood of US Service members getting killed or wounded. The same goes for civilians in Iran, by the way, and anyone living in the Gulf, you know, in a base where the Iranians are firing at, I mean, people are getting killed all the time. It is led to. There's just growing instability. I mean, you're now noticing like the Houthis rebels are getting involved in the war where before they had not. There's these reports that the Saudis or the Emiratis are directly engaging with Iran and firing missiles or bombs into their territory. So it's just the war is metastasizing and growing. It's wildly expensive. We have Hegseth and others going to Congress and They want a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget next year. I mean, that's insane. And the munitions issue is a really big long term problem that you can't fix. Like there's all these interceptor missiles, there's the Thaad system, there's the Patriot stockpile that's down by half. There's all these air to air missiles that are running low. There's the TLAM or Tomahawks that would be like. It's all these war games of a US War with China where you run out of Tomahawk missiles in like a week with the full stockpile. And now we're way down on those. And in many cases these cost millions and millions of dollars each and they can take as long as 20, 30 to replenish them. So it just feels like everything he's done has sort of made our posture weaker both in the Gulf and vis a vis China, which Trump ran on telling us was the big geostrategic problem going forward.
- [60:42]
Jon Lovett
And now one of the political problems of any war, which is US Service members dying and being injured, now they're handling that by just deciding to do some creative accounting where they hide the deaths from us for as long as they can or the injuries or then now they're listing, listing them as overseas operations casualties is despicable.
- [61:01]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it really is.
- [61:03]
Tommy Vietor
The like the options of, well, he can escalate. Right. It's actually, it sort of mirrors what happens in our domestic politics where Trump's has. Trump has to threaten greater and greater chaos for the markets to take him seriously. And so the markets have to respond more forcefully in order to get him to back off whatever the latest threat is, be it tariffs or some other economic policy that would be destructive going after the Fed. And so now he has to threaten this new. Every single, you know, this is going to be an escalation unlike anything we've ever seen. It's going to make the early stage of the war look like a firework show because he has to, because the only he has to ratchet up the threat because that's I guess, all he has in terms of trying to get some control over, over Iran and get them to sort of relent on the Strait of Hormuz. So that's one dangerous path. The other is some kind of increasing sanctions, economic crackdown. Right. Like to sort of try to squeeze Iran that way. And then finally it's like just saying we did it. But even that option, which is I think something, oh, well, he should just declare victory and walk away. That's not really available anymore because Iran will continue to control the Strait of Hormuz. The, the fake outcome where he says we got a better deal than Obama had, even if it's worse, is not available anymore because we've been so thoroughly sort of bodied by their ability to control the Strait.
- [62:33]
Jon Favreau
I think this, this the way they changed the reporting of casualties is all about trying to get around the War Powers act by saying, oh, the old war ended and this is a new war, I think. But, but it also sounds like they weren't really updating casualties in a timely manner. And then sort of the standard way, like there were reporters kind of watching the website where this is reported out and seeing it kind of bump around last week, go up and down and they're like, what is happening?
- [62:58]
Tommy Vietor
Even now? The numbers aren't all in agreement. Like, yeah, we don't have like a straightforward answer.
- [63:03]
Jon Favreau
The total of the two conflicts, Operation Epic Fury and then whatever they're calling overseas operations now. 18 dead, 624 wounded. And so they've also, they've really not been very transparent about what those, the wounded number means. Yeah, they're like, oh, it's mostly minor concussions that they went back to work, but you know, traumatic brain injuries from, you know, a, a ballistic missile exploding near you. That's a big deal. And it also, it's part and parcel to the Pentagon covering up the cost of the war. Just not being transparent. I have friends who are still in the military or people who are overseas will be like, they're shutting down. You can no longer take photos on some of these bases because they're just so destroyed that they're basically rendered unusable people had to be evacuated from some of these places. The costs of bases just being, like, you know, inoperable for many years to come now has not really been, like, fully calculated.
- [63:53]
Tommy Vietor
You have Hegseth going in front of the Senate and saying, this war cost 35 billion dollars, but we need 80 billion right now in an emergency. And then you're like, well, why don't
- [64:03]
Host 1
you already have 80 billion in cash?
- [64:05]
Tommy Vietor
And he's like, no, no, no. I've already decided what that's going for. And we have to do this because Biden spent all of our money on woke. And it's like, that may work in
- [64:12]
Host 1
a Fox News table.
- [64:13]
Tommy Vietor
What the fuck are you talking about?
- [64:14]
Jon Lovett
How much does WOKE cost? All right. Speaking of bombs, on Friday, the White House Correspondents association held its rescheduled dinner after a gunman interrupted the event back in April. It was a smaller venue with a smaller crowd and more security, but Trump basically gave the speech he'd originally planned on giving, and, boy, did he crush it.
- [64:31]
Donald Trump
The other day, a senator I knew got a text, a great guy from his wife, and she said, when you get home, I want to have you immediately come up the stairs and make love to me. And he said, I can't do both. You know what? You know, in other words, can't go up the stairs and make love. Does anybody get that? I thought that was actually pretty good. That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole fricking stupid speech that they wrote. That was the only good one. And that went down with not exactly great laughter, I think, you know, in other words, you can't go up the
- [65:09]
Jon Lovett
stairs one more time.
- [65:11]
Donald Trump
So we're looking for term limits. Does anybody understand this? We will have this thing on sloppy. Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings you'll ever meet, fighting. I would say I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I'm going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. And they're fighting for a big piece of cheesecake. Big, fat piece of cheesecake. Who the hell wrote that line? Barack Hussein Obama host posted it. Do you know who that is? And he hit me hard. And I have watched this clip thousands of times. They keep playing it because they think that was evening I decided to run for president. It was not. He actually showed a picture of the White House with a big Trump on top. Like, I put a sign. And, you know, I'm sort of doing that when you think about it right now.
- [65:58]
Jon Lovett
We have all said previously that Trump can be genuinely funny, that Was so bad that I almost started feeling sorry for Donald Trump, which has never happened. But like, that was incredibly painful. Especially the sex up the stairs joke when he goes and then he's like, ugh, that was one of the better jokes. And then one more time he's like. Cause it's like the third explanation of the joke.
- [66:22]
Jon Favreau
Did you see that? He stole that joke too.
- [66:24]
Jon Lovett
From Brad Paisley.
- [66:25]
Jon Favreau
From the Brad Paisley lyric.
- [66:26]
Tommy Vietor
Well, it's a classic Borch Belt joke and it could have worked. The reason it didn't work is he. We've done many of these speeches you're trying to get. You're doing stand up 10, 15 minutes.
- [66:38]
Host 1
He was up there for an hour,
- [66:39]
Jon Favreau
an hour, an hour.
- [66:40]
Tommy Vietor
And by the time he gets to that light hearted joke about senators being old, he described how much he hates half the people in the room, called Don Lemon Dutton. He said Adam Schiff has an ugly fat head. He hates Colbert. Compared Kaitlan Collins to Dylan Mulvaney. Calls Josh Dossey unhirable.
- [66:55]
Jon Favreau
Right after he won a Pulitzer, he won an award.
- [66:58]
Tommy Vietor
And then he's like, anyway, anyway, boy, your senators are old these days, right?
- [67:02]
Host 1
So of course, by the time you
- [67:03]
Tommy Vietor
get to that part, like they've been sitting there for 45 minutes. It's brutal.
- [67:06]
Jon Lovett
He's never read the speech. This is the other thing. It's like, you've got to. I know he thinks that he's a genius and can just go off script, whatever. You gotta practice the speech like that. Can you imagine Trump, like practicing jokes? No, I can't.
- [67:20]
Tommy Vietor
But he had like one good Barry Weiss joke. He had a couple like, well structured jokes that he.
- [67:24]
Jon Lovett
Even the Barry Weiss joke, which was good. He didn't, like, he didn't deliver it well. Like he could have delivered it in a funnier way.
- [67:30]
Tommy Vietor
But also I think it was in the prepared remarks. There's like a, like a portion of his stump about Gavin Newsom in California that he seemed to be reading off the teleprompter and it. And so like he says horrible things about Ilhan Omar. He just goes into his sort of vicious and cruel, mean spirited ripping. And so the whole, like, he doesn't. He pokes a little bit of fun at himself here and there, but like, of course there's not gonna be people laughing. It's deeply uncomfortable to be in an event that's supposed to be lighthearted and you just like go for the jugular like you would at a rally. It's just like you're not built for this because you're Such a fucking asshole.
- [68:04]
Jon Favreau
You're not the comedy seller at 11pm you're in front of the most oversensitive group of people you can find. And you're being so mean. By the way, didn't Jerry Nadler hit the GLP1s a couple years ago? And he's lost a ton of weight, too.
- [68:15]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, yeah.
- [68:15]
Jon Favreau
The riffing made no sense.
- [68:17]
Jon Lovett
And he did.
- [68:17]
Host 1
He.
- [68:18]
Jon Lovett
When he talked about Pritzker, the governor of Chicago, he. He mentioned that as well, too. He's like.
- [68:22]
Ad Read Announcer 3
And he.
- [68:22]
Jon Lovett
He's actually looking better. He's looking better.
- [68:25]
Jon Favreau
He's just a dick is really the problem. But it started kind of magnanimous because, like, he did this whole bit at the top about how, like, the last dinner was bad and celebrated the, you know, the cops who kept everybody safe and said how that they had to, you know, they wouldn't let the. The show get canceled because that lets the shooter win. And then just went into this tirade.
- [68:43]
Jon Lovett
And when you looked at all the cuts to the audience when you watch the whole thing, it was like, just silent. And also, I know they say, oh, it's a room full of journalists. They don't like Trump. But all of his administration, all of his people were there. No one was laughing.
- [68:58]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, the funniest thing was when he
- [69:01]
Jon Lovett
got the laugh there and said, I thought that was the best joke of the bunch.
- [69:04]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. The whole thing was very ugly. Right. Because he's going after Kaitlan Collins and all these journalists in this really personal and sort of obviously misogynist way. And then you have, like, the reporters on the dais kind of trying to laugh, and the whole thing was ugly. And so then you have, like, New York Times reporters like Peter Baker being like, we should rethink this dinner, which is. They're on their high horse about the fucking dinner because they haven't gone forever and are glad for that decision.
- [69:29]
Jon Favreau
To their credit.
- [69:29]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, to their credit.
- [69:30]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [69:30]
Jon Favreau
But, yeah, it's like, what did anyone expect from him? Was he going to learn this time? Obviously, this is who he is and what he was going to say. And by the way, like, he says once, he had two jokes about Kaitlan Collins. One was suggesting she looked like Dylan Mulvaney, which you just said. But then also being like, Kaitlan Collins never smiles. He says that to her all the time at press conferences. Every time she asks him a tough question, he's like, what's your problem? You're a pretty girl. Smile. He's a sexist old man. And, like, he doesn't do that as part of a comedy bit. It's part of his stump deflection routine for hard questions like he's just a shithead.
- [70:03]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, he's a shithead. Might be time to retire.
- [70:06]
Jon Favreau
The dinner sucks.
- [70:06]
Jon Lovett
The correspondence dinner now that we've moved it to the the former Trump Hotel, now the Waldorf Astoria. Smaller settings.
- [70:13]
Jon Favreau
And he made a hard pitch for
- [70:14]
Tommy Vietor
the ballroom being we knocked down the arch and we sort of get the gold leaf off the White House and we restore independence to the Department of Justice. At the bottom of that list, we can decide what we want to do with what happened to the White House. Carson.
- [70:27]
Jon Lovett
High class problem for sure. High class problem.
- [70:29]
Jon Favreau
The remaining rump state of media didn't
- [70:32]
Tommy Vietor
stick around for the mentalist. I have to say, I didn't catch the O's.
- [70:35]
Jon Lovett
Didn't you?
- [70:37]
Tommy Vietor
He did do the joke, which was, if you're such a mentalist, how come you didn't know the shooting was coming?
- [70:41]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. The joke everyone made the night of the shooting. Yeah, he ripped off all his worst jokes.
- [70:46]
Jon Lovett
Is this still funny a couple months later? No, it worked.
- [70:49]
Jon Favreau
Crazy.
- [70:50]
Jon Lovett
All right, when we come back, Ben Wickler.
- [70:59]
Host 1
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Tommy Vietor
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Tommy Vietor
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- [73:06]
Jon Lovett
Ben Wither, welcome back to the show.
- [73:07]
Ben Wickler
It's great to be with you. Congrats on the new studio.
- [73:09]
Jon Lovett
Thank you. This is pretty nice. Pretty sweet, pretty fancy. All right, so I want to get to the book, but first I have to take advantage of the entirely coincidental but highly opportune timing of you being here and ask about the messy gubernatorial primary in your beloved state and the messy leadership situation at the dnc, which you ran to be chair of. I know you well. You are far too wise and generous to shit on Ken Martin. I've got that covered. But I really want your honest thoughts on the DNC's financial situation. Ken's argument is that a party is not a savings account, that he chose to spend early on organizers and technology and state party infrastructure. And that's also more or less your argument, the argument you make in the book. But of course, the party is now $2 million in debt while the RNC is sitting on $128.5 million in cash. So do you buy his defense that that's just the cost of investing early?
- [74:11]
Ben Wickler
So I agree that you should invest early. And the goal, what you want, is to be able to do both. You want to be able to both have the money to invest in places that it'll take years to be able to build the power to win statewide. But there's state legislative races everywhere where we can win. And you also want to have the ability to invest in the places where elections are closest and highest stakes and then tip those over the top. And I think the challenge right now is there's not quite enough money to do either. The other thing that's new in this moment is the US Supreme Court ruling that allows parties to invest in unlimited support for federal candidates. Wisconsin had a version of that that was started under Scott Walker. We call it the Scott Walker Loophole. And it is the way that we beat Elon Musk and, you know, who outspent us dramatically, is that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin was able to raise money and then transfer it to our candidate, who got a lower rate for TV ads than the Superbac ads that. That Elon Musk was funding in our state. We also had a better message, better candidate, and didn't have Elon Musk hanging around our neck and huge grassroots organizing. Talk about that in the book. But right now, that means that national committees could do a ton more if they have the money to be able to do it, to support candidates in the places, especially for candidates who don't have huge fundraising abilities on their own, but who have totally winnable seats and who, if they have the funds to get their message out, can win in places that are maybe off the national radar. So this is a time when having more funds at the dnc, having more funds at the other national committees makes an enormous difference. And what I want is for Ken and for the DNC to be as successful as possible. I think there's a huge opportunity in this election, including in a lot of places right now where Republicans aren't investing and don't realize how mad voters are. So if I wave the magic wand, there's a flood of money that comes in and we're able to invest in winning, sometimes in squeakers in a whole bunch of places that expand the map and safeguard the future of American democracy?
- [76:10]
Jon Lovett
Well, yeah. So to what you just said, I mean, you raised and spent $63 million in 2024 for the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
- [76:18]
Ben Wickler
That sounds right.
- [76:19]
Jon Lovett
Which is a little more than the entire Democratic National Committee has raised so far in 2026. Is the honest answer here that spending early only works if you can also raise. And the raising is the failure here?
- [76:32]
Ben Wickler
I think there's a lot of puzzle pieces here. I think that right now there's a kind of vicious circle where there's negative news cycles that then make it hard to go out and say, this is a good time to invest. And I think that starts changing when people see, oh, yeah, if I donate here, it's going to have a big impact on making things better and winning elections. And I think that's. Maybe that change starts right here in the pod, John.
- [76:53]
Jon Favreau
Maybe.
- [76:55]
Ben Wickler
Whatever it is, we can't, as long as we're in circular firing squad mode and not pointing to where we need to throw our shoulders against the wheel to save the country. It's very hard to get out of that cycle. And also the election is 99 days away. There is a huge opportunity to flood the zone in the places where elections are likely to be tightest and where a push can make the difference. And I will add that that is not just the House and Senate races. Like at all levels, there's going to be state legislative contests that have enormous significance. One thing in a I think the New York Times story was about the DNC helping Mississippi break the Republican supermajority at the state level that I love. Like that was $100,000 investment played a role and I'm sure there are a ton of other people involved as well. But breaking Republican supermajorities in deep red states can have an enormous impact on the future of things like redistricting. So part of the argument in my book and my kind of life's work at this moment in the Democratic Party is look at the whole map of how power is built and wielded in this country. The right keeps using its power to rig everything so that only a handful of people can write the rules for all of us. But if you can unrig the system, often at the state and local level, those races are often much less expensive and have huge up ballot consequences. And I think it is good to think as a party about how to fight at all those levels at once
- [78:16]
Jon Lovett
in the interest of fixing things. What would you do about the money situation if you were in Ken's position right now,
- [78:24]
Ben Wickler
which I'm sure Ken is also working on? I try to raise more money so that you have more money to invest in the various things. And that to me the biggest thing is being able to lay out if you invest here is how we're going to be able to win more fights that folks care about. There's often when people think about the corrupting influence of money in politics, which you only have to look at the news to see the corrupting influence of money in politics. But very often it's about policies that particular candidates or elected officials hold. Parties are not where people who want to change policy. It's not where they give. Especially when there's not a Democratic president. What parties do is they help create infrastructure for victories or losses. And so the way to raise money for the Democratic Party is fundamentally to to instill trust, to demonstrate the results that come from those investments. And I for all the kind of debate about the 50 state strategy, I think one of the things that is really helpful is when you see what's being done in particular states with those investments that actually generates electoral victory. And then it makes you enthusiastic about investing. And I think there's a lot of stories like that that I would love to, I'd love to see more of and hear more about. I think about, you know, some of the state parties that are doing amazing work, like North Carolina. There's this huge focus on, on, like local organizing that's going to affect things like the state Supreme Court race. And the country's not thinking about the North Carolina State Supreme Court. But the only reason Republicans have a majority in the US House right now is because Republicans won a state Supreme Court race there in 2020 by 401 votes. 1/100 of 1% of all the votes cast in the state. And that put in place a chief justice who drove the gerrymandering that gave the national Republicans their House majority at this moment. And there's a Supreme Court race there this November. Anita Earls is up for reelection. If she wins, they could win a majority. Democrats could win a majority by 2028. And that could lead to the de gerrymandering of that state and, you know, affect the future of American democracy. And those are the kinds of things that state parties specialize in. And supporting state parties to do that kind of work has a huge effect. I, you know, I'm partial to my own state of Wisconsin, which we can all agree is the best state, but it's also a place where our state party has been deeply involved in state legislative races, mayoral races, state supreme court elections. This fall, we have a chance to win both chambers of the state legislature. And across the country. Most people, I regret to admit, are not thinking about the Wisconsin state legislative battle of 2026. But that fight could dictator proof Wisconsin. Before 2028, we were the closest state in the country to having the election overturned. After 2020, we know Trump is going to try to pull something next time he is in danger of losing power. You, you lock down democracy at the state level, or rather unrig democracy at the state level. That is the best way to defend national elections going forward. And those are the kinds of races that, you know, have supporting state parties right now. And the DNC is doing a lot of supporting state parties can have a huge effect on. So I, I look at the, you know, it is very painful to read stories that are unfolding. Everyone experiences that I'm sure everyone within the DNC is, you know, not thrilled about the story's unfolding. But there are giant opportunities that are right there where a small investment can make a huge outside's impact because Donald Trump's eye of Sauron is not on those races. But we can put our eye on the ball and we can win and we can fight.
- [81:38]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [81:39]
Jon Lovett
I think what I'm most worried about is like, the DNC doesn't play the biggest role in the midterms regardless. Right. The other party committees do and the state parties do certainly play a big role in the 2028 race. And especially with that Supreme Court decision, now will play a big role because people can donate now much more to the DNC and that can help the campaign directly. And the stories are awful to read. No one wants that. We all want the Democratic Party to be successful and the DNC to be successful. I think what strikes me is that because they're coming from inside the DNC and the DNC members, it makes me think that those are people who also don't want bad press, but are at this point, I'd rather talk and have the bad stories and try to fix the situation than continue to see this unfold. And I just saw today Rufus Gifford. I'm sure you know Rufus. Who Finance director of the dnc. He's been finance director, worked there for eight years, loves the place. Said today that the DNC is, quote, spiraling towards irrelevance and said that Ken is a good man with good intentions, but simply not meeting this critical moment. Do you agree?
- [82:48]
Ben Wickler
I am the guy who lost the election for DNC chair and I'm the last person you want to be armchair quarterback. I, like Ken, beat me by organizing me in the DNC race and building trust with voters over years with the same kind of strategy that he and I both think is really critical to winning elections at every level. So I, you know, I don't want to be in the middle of this.
- [83:08]
Jon Lovett
I hear you.
- [83:09]
Ben Wickler
I'm not running for Dean Censure myself, like I. My goal is to spread a message to a much wider number of people about what everyone can do. I have a chapter in my book about the Democratic Party with the title It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to. Something many people feel at various moments at all levels. And the argument that I make is that the Democratic Party, however you feel about it, it actually has a door that is wide open, shockingly open. It is easier to join the Democratic Party in whatever state people live in than to join the Benevolent Order of the Elks or like any of the old 19th, 20th century social, civic Organizations, there's not some set of boxes that you have to check. You can get involved and then you can revitalize the party where you are. You can turn it into a vessel for organizing and fighting. And I talk to people who are like running for county party chair all across the country who are mad about the way things are going right now, and then they realize, hey, if I get a bunch of people together and we get involved, we can just like take over around here. And then we can start working to flip the city councils and we can win judicial races. We can flip state legislative seats. There are so many blue states where there are people in offices that are not using them to have the biggest impact that they could. And there are so many places in red states where there's very little Democratic Party organization. But if you build enough power, you can push through and you can make huge change. And then in purple states, it is shocking how few votes wind up tipping the entire thing. So if anyone who's frustrated about the Democratic Party right now, become the Democratic Party and build the kind of party that you want to be part of, like it is right there. And it's a vessel for organizing that unlike everything else, it exists everywhere, in every county, in every community. And if we can make it stronger and we can make it a body that fights for things that benefit everyone, then I think it has a huge change on the whole future of the country.
- [85:03]
Jon Lovett
Your book is excellent. It is tailor made for our audience, so I hope everyone buys it. It's called this Is the Plan. Give us the CliffsNotes version of what the plan is.
- [85:13]
Ben Wickler
Sure. So the plan starts with you. Not just you, John, but you, the reader, viewer or listener, and the thing that each of us can do. I have a chapter called Unleash youh Superpower, which is about both the kind of art and science and practice of organizing, of getting people together to do something they wouldn't otherwise do. So I dig into how to have the biggest effect with your volunteer hours. If you can chip in money, the kinds of stuff that makes the biggest difference. And then I map out, drawing on the story of how we unrigged our state legislative maps in Wisconsin, which is this huge multi year fight that took a bunch of different offices. I traced out what we can do nationwide to unrig our system, which right now pretty clearly is a system where a handful of far right billionaires write the rules for everyone else to enrich themselves at all of our expense. So how do we do that? Step one, in 2026, let's absolutely fight for House and Senate majorities, but the states are the most critical battlefield because especially if we win Democratic trifectas in the battleground states, A, you can pass laws in those states that prevent Trump from being able to steal the 2028 election. Elections are run by the states. So this is, you know, if you have people who refuse to play along with coup attempts, it makes all the difference in the world. You can also defame the Electoral College. There's this law called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is a long, nerdy name for an amazing bill that has been passed already in 18 states.
- [86:34]
Jon Lovett
The Nipvik Nipv.
- [86:35]
Ben Wickler
That's what I call it. I came up with a way to pronounce the and the unpronounceable acronyms.
- [86:39]
Jon Lovett
That's great, because every time I say it, I didn't. I've never said the acronym. And I'm always like, it's the National Compact something voter.
- [86:44]
Ben Wickler
Yeah, Nitvid rhymes with lipstick. Nitwik. We got to spread nitwick across the country. If we, if, if no other thing happens, if we all be able find a way to stay nitpick, then I will not be satisfied with the impact of the book, but I'll be happy. So that is a bill that if we pass it through the states where Democrats can win trifectas in 2026, you can, you can make it so that whoever wins the national popular vote wins the presidential election, because states decide where they put their Electoral College votes. It is very, very close to actually happening.
- [87:12]
Jon Lovett
And basically. So it's a. It's like a backdoor way of eliminating the Electoral College because the Constitution gives states the power, the ultimate power, to decide how they assign their electors. So the state legislatures can decide, we're going to assign our electors to the winner of the national popular vote. And then that way you can kind of go around the electoral.
- [87:35]
Ben Wickler
That's exactly it. So I was actually talking to Heather Cox Richardson, a great historian, about this, and she was pointing out to me that originally, overwhelmingly, states gave their Electoral College votes on a proportional basis the way that Nebraska and Maine still do. And then a few states realized, starting with Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, that if he made his state go for whoever won the majority winner take all, that that would give him an advantage. So then every state kind of went to that system. The only way to get back to a proportional system is if enough states decide to jump together. So this is what's special about this law, is that it only takes effect when enough states have passed the law to choose the next president, which means that it's not like you're going to throw away your vote or dilute your power until the moment when everyone holds hands, jumps together, and then all 270/ electoral college votes of states that have passed this law go to whoever wins the national popular vote. And then it transforms this country. We end the era of swing states and safe states. Every person's ballot counts the same. The fight for voting rights laws in every state suddenly affect the whole national picture. It would be complicated and messy, but also glorious. And I want it so bad.
- [88:41]
Jon Lovett
I love it. I've thought about it for a while now and I've been keeping track of how close we're getting to the.
- [88:46]
Jon Favreau
So close.
- [88:47]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, we're pretty close. Now, are you worried about the legal challenges or whether it survives legal challenges? Because there's a few legal arguments about why it might be tricky to pull off. And one of the more practical ones is that it wouldn't get challenged until in the midst of an election.
- [89:04]
Ben Wickler
So it has provisions in it about how to be able to withdraw from it and so forth. It's been scrutinized in a whole bunch of different ways. And I think it looks legally sound to me. I'm not a lawyer myself. I will say, even if it is completely legally legit, I'd say that this Supreme Court might find some basis in which to strike it down. So that goes to another thing I argue for in the book.
- [89:24]
Host 1
There you go.
- [89:25]
Ben Wickler
So, you know, step one, we win the states, we start moving nipvic through the state through more state legislatures. We need 48 more electoral college votes to be able to put it into effect. So win trifectas in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire. Boom. More than enough Electoral College votes. Great. Let's add Alaska while we're at it.
- [89:42]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [89:44]
Ben Wickler
But then 2028 comes along and we existentially have to win presidency, House and U.S. senate. And I think ideally we win a majority of the House delegations in a majority of states so that if Trump once again tries to mess with the Electoral College, if it's still in place in the way that it is right now, and the election goes to a vote in the House of House delegations, that the election's not overturned through another coup attempt, which how close are we
- [90:09]
Jon Lovett
to a majority of House delegations?
- [90:10]
Tommy Vietor
Far.
- [90:11]
Ben Wickler
We are far. Right now. Right Now, Republicans have 30 House delegation majorities and we have two election cycles to be able to change that. And so that is totally doable. And you can. It's far.
- [90:21]
Jon Lovett
It's not crazy far, though.
- [90:22]
Ben Wickler
It's not crazy. Yeah. And there are enough states where we could absolutely be able to win. It means organizing in places like Alaska, where Trump won by 14 percentage points but is now hideously unpopular. And Mary Paltola could win the Senate race. We could win the House race. We could win the governorship there. We could have multi party coalitions in the legislature like Iowa. We could win a majority of the House seats as well as the governorship, the attorney general's race, the US Senate race. There are ways that we can flip House delegation majorities that also, by the way, make life better for people in those states and help win U.S. senate majorities. So big map, big battlefield, lots to do. And my argument to people is work where you are to improve policies, build, organize locally, and then choose some places, maybe one place where elections are really close. It could be adopting a House district. It could be deciding to, you know, adopt a state legislative chamber and pour yourself, get a group of friends together, pour yourself into making a difference in that place, too. This is Vote Save America's Adopt a State project.
- [91:22]
Ad Read Announcer 3
There you go.
- [91:23]
Ben Wickler
Pioneering in this regard. If you do that for a couple hours a month, then, you know, add up enough months and you can have a gigantic impact. Especially if you, you know, find a way to make it fun with your friends. Maybe involving alcohol or, you know, some kind of beverage. Like, there's lots of, there's lots of ways to do this. They can feel really good when you win. This is one of the reasons I think we have so many volunteers in Wisconsin is we've found ways we lean into so many different fights. People have the experience of being part of winning something, often something very close over and over. And it feels incredible to like, stay up late, watch the returns come in, and realize that you helped make the difference in a nail biter election. That changes everything.
- [91:57]
Jon Lovett
So best feeling in the world. Best feeling if you're a political nerd. Yeah. I mean, even if you're not, it'll make, it'll, it'll be a pretty good,
- [92:02]
Ben Wickler
It'll turn you into political. Landslides are great. Love those too. But if we're winning landslides, then our map's not big enough. You know what I mean? There's so many places where one more push can get us over the edge. And let's do those places, too. So 28, we win the federal trifecta, we get through whatever coup attempt it is that Donald Trump tries to pull. And we thank Goodness that we elected pro democracy mayors and governors and attorneys general who fought back against whatever Trump's shenanigans turn out to be. We have a new president, they do an inaugural address. It's a great speech. They have an even bigger crowd than Trump's 2016 inaugural. We're thrilled. And then, and this is a big. And then we have to actually abolish the filibuster and pass fundamental democracy reform to unrig the American system of government. And that is, I go sort of level by level of the American political system in the book and who's working on it where you need to win to be able to change it. But my argument that all kind of rolls up to the plan, and this is the plan, is that we have to add states to unbalance the U.S. senate. We have to reform the U.S. supreme Court. I think term limits is the most interesting option. If the U.S. supreme Court decides that Congress doesn't have the power to do that, then it certainly has the power to expand the number of justices. So there's another option there too. We have to have some combination of a national gerrymandering ban and doubling the size of the House. I'm really interested in proportional representation for U.S. house members with multi member districts. These are ideas that a lot of people don't know about right now. I've read about them in the book. There's lots of countries that do this in American history. These things have happened before. But this system right now, where we've gutted the Voting Rights act, where we can have the country completely rigged after each census and even in between the census, so most House districts, voters have no real say. Where Republicans have a structural advantage in the US Senate, plus a filibuster that only blocks things that Democrats might want to do essentially and allows tax cuts for rich people in confirmation of Supreme Court justices, and then this imperial presidency chosen through the Electoral College that Congress can't act to do anything about because of the filibuster and the courts won't do anything because they have a hammer lock on the U.S. supreme Court. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work to have a country that has a huge diversity of views in which our structures are built to ratchet things just to the right. And so what we've experienced this century is more than any other time in American history, a series of change elections where people are fed up and they vote for change. And when Republicans come, they're like, not like that. And the Republicans screw everything up. And when Democrats Come in. A whole bunch of the stuff that they campaign on, they can't do because the system is set up to block it. The U.S. supreme Court strikes it down, the Senate filibuster blocks it. And so a lot of people feel, and I think rightly, that the economic system is not working for them. That like basic things like being able to get healthcare or childcare, they vote for people who say that they're going to deliver it and then it doesn't come through. And if you ask yourself why that is, it is generally not that Democrats have a failure of nerve to, you know, to vote for the thing they want. The House passes these things over and over again. It's because we have a system that is rigged against delivering for regular people. And so this is the plan maps out the plan to change that in a way that we've changed how the government functions over and over throughout history. And then about a half century ago, we stopped. We stopped amending the Constitution, we stopped adding states, we stopped changing how senators are elected, we stopped changing the size of the House, we stopped changing the size of the Supreme Court. All those things used to change regularly. And we've been stuck in this kind of failure mode where the change that people vote for, organize for, cry out for, never comes. And I think it is time to change the delivery vehicle for change itself and restore the vision of the best traditions of our country and the best moments in the founding of this country, which is a system of government that actually adapts to be able to respond to the crises and needs of the time, where the right of the people, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, to make their government actually work is made real.
- [96:04]
Jon Lovett
So I don't know if people realize or remember, because now it was all of five years ago how close we were in 21 to getting rid of the filibuster to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. It was just Manchin and Sinema were the only Democrats not willing to remove the filibuster. They're both gone. Sinema was replaced with Gallego, who certainly was in favor of. So we basically need a 51 vote majority. And hopefully if we elect some of these new senators in some of these tough states, they'll be there as well. You bring up that 2030 then becomes a pretty important year. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's part of the plan because we do all these things in 28. One part of your plan is for Democrats to survive the 2030 backlash. We know there's always A backlash after. There's a trifecta. There was in 2010, there could be in 2030 if this all comes to pass. And I wonder what you think about, because you're right and you have this stat in the book that there have been more sort of change elections, like parties switching power in the last however many years than there have been like all throughout history, like the last couple decades.
- [97:13]
Ben Wickler
Since 2000, we've had more changeovers in the White House, the US House and
- [97:17]
Jon Lovett
the US Senate than any other time
- [97:18]
Ben Wickler
in history, than any other time in history.
- [97:20]
Jon Lovett
And I wonder sometimes, I wonder this too. Is there evidence that delivering actual change, tangible change that improves people's lives, makes them satisfied enough to not vote for change again? Considering that Biden passed quite a bit in his first couple years, he passed the stimulus checks. Aside from those, the climate investments, everything that was in the Build Back better bill, that was more long term investments, do you think that in addition to those democracy reforms in 28, democrats need to pass legislation that, like, improves people's lives?
- [97:53]
Ad Read Announcer 3
Absolutely.
- [97:53]
Jon Lovett
Like within those first two years.
- [97:55]
Ben Wickler
That's the whole thing. So I want to respond kind of at three levels.
- [97:59]
Jon Lovett
Sure.
- [97:59]
Tommy Vietor
All right.
- [98:00]
Ben Wickler
Level one at the micro level, something that I think people forget and very little discussion of is that when Biden came in, the emergency measures to deal with the COVID pandemic, the expanded unemployment insurance, the childcare tax credit, there was a set of things that dramatically increased the kind of disposable income for especially the bottom third economically of the country. And it was incredibly popular at that time. And then it all went away. And so even though it is true that wages grew from the bottom up in the Biden economy, for a ton of Americans, especially the people who were having the toughest luck in the economy, they got a bunch of help and then suddenly the carpet was yanked out from under them. And at the same time as prices were rising. So their experience was that their, their wages, their income went down at the same time as prices were going up. And those are the exact voters who went for Trump for the first time in either of our lives. People earning less than $50,000 a year voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election. So I actually think we sort of have a counterexample, like we have an example for ourselves of if people are experiencing material pain, then they will vote for change.
- [99:11]
Jon Lovett
That part we. Yeah, that part we know.
- [99:13]
Ben Wickler
We kind of saw that. Right? And around the world, in every country, the governing party wound up losing ground in developed democracies in 2024, as I, as I write, and prices, inflation, cost of living was the biggest issue everywhere, but we actually were doing the, doing something serious about it, and then we stopped. And that was a. There were some policy design choices in there that I, you know, I think we should rethink how we think about that stuff in the future. So that's kind of micro level. The second level is I was once talking to an administration official who said, when you propose a policy, it's popular. When it's being passed, it's unpopular. When it's being implemented, it's unpopular. But when the other side tries to take it away, it becomes popular again. And the Affordable Care act, perfect example.
- [99:54]
Tommy Vietor
Right.
- [99:54]
Ben Wickler
And the battle, like a bunch of different policies that have been good for people, have this quality. And to me, the goal of politics, you win in order to be able to pass policies that make people's lives better. So it might not be that there's an immediate policy reward, and especially policies that take a while to actually implement and get them going. It might be that you are kind of creating something that the other side can't take away that creates an enduring benefit for people. And I think that the ACA has proven to be an enormous help for Democrats. 2018, Republicans tried to take it away, and it was the number one issue. And once again, Republicans cutting Medicaid spending that was expanded through the aca. It is an explosive issue that helps Democrats right now. So I do think that there's, even if it takes a couple cycles, I do think there's a pretty clear path that you can draw towards. If you do stuff to help people, then the party that tries to scrap it takes a price. And if we are the party that keeps doing the good things, then the Republicans trying to scrap it have a price. But the last thing, there's this very macro level, this concept in political science of political orders, which is essentially what's not controversial in a period of time, is the thing that tells you the most about that period. So after the New Deal, Eisenhower came in and he did not try to rip up the New Deal. The political order for decades was that the New Deal programs and the sort of set of economic guarantees, those were beyond politics.
- [101:19]
Jon Lovett
Through Reagan.
- [101:20]
Ben Wickler
Through Reagan, exactly. And then came the neoliberal order. And Reagan. And Reagan did union busting and deregulation and a bunch of stuff that is still raging through American politics. And a lot of that stuff wasn't contested. Both parties were kind of fighting on that terrain. The really big goal is to build a new political Order. And I think what we want is a political order for the future, where which party wins might change hands, but that certain things are actually built in. To me, things that start with ensuring that nobody is going broke because they get sick or nobody is unable to afford a place to live. There's an economic guarantees. And then the second. Well, there's three things I want. One is make the economy actually work for working people. And I think union rights and the way our social insurance programs work are two critical elements of that. There's a bunch of others. The second thing is some rights and freedoms that need to be guaranteed and protected by the federal government that are absolutely under assault right now in a way that has been shocking. They're trying to repeal the civil rights movement and so much else. And it's any group that has achieved freedom and equality in this country is being targeted by this administration. And a lot of this stuff was nonpartisan, low stake stuff that both parties agreed in at different moments that there were bipartisan majorities. Well, the public is still a bipartisan majority for reproductive freedom. There was a period, do you remember, when Republicans attacked trans people in North Carolina? And it was like a giant uproar. This idea that attacking trans people is this great popular wedge issue for Republicans doesn't need to be that way. The public is not always naturally inflamed about whether gender identity should be a political battlefield. I'd like to get to a world where everyone's humanity is something that we can like a starting point. And the third one is democracy itself, which is for most of. There are periods when the fight over this basic question of whether we'll have majority rule in this country isn't really up for grabs every election. And one reason why we keep telling ourselves that the next election is the most important election of our lifetimes is because we keep having this question of whether it will be the last free election that America ever has. I'd like to get a little bit away from the precipice. And that leaves tons of stuff that we can contest. And I think a natural axis that makes sense is the kind of like, what is this kind of size of government, role of government in public life? There's lots of different issues that divide most Republicans from most Democrats that we can argue over. And I think having competitive pressure pushes both parties to try to figure out how to govern more effectively. I think excellence in public service and government is produced more when there are electoral stakes and you might lose power if you don't do a good job. All Those things are good. But building a political order where this kind of like, you don't feel as though the ground might crack open beneath you and swallow.
- [104:11]
Jon Lovett
Not every election's like a Manichean struggle.
- [104:13]
Ben Wickler
Yeah, I would like. I'd like to turn down the stakes a little bit and, you know, then we can. You can. I don't know if it'd be helpful for the political podcasting business if.
- [104:22]
Jon Lovett
Fine, yeah, I'll take that. I'll take the trade.
- [104:24]
Ben Wickler
We'll take the trade.
- [104:24]
Jon Lovett
I'll take the trade. Speaking of high stakes, I know that you're staying neutral in the primary in Wisconsin, in the governor's race, until the bitter end. I know you're not neutral in wanting a Democratic governor in that state who will be responsible for, among other things, certifying the presidential result in 2028. Is that a reason for primary voters in Wisconsin to think about electability differently this year than they normally would?
- [104:50]
Ben Wickler
I think that Wisconsin voters think about electability a lot. We have over and over experienced, you know, what happens when we lose. It has not been good. We've had Wisconsin, I argue in the book, Wisconsin is like a mini version of what the country is going through right now, because we had our authoritarian breakthrough came when Scott walker won in 2010 and then tried to rig our political system and defund schools and public services and smash unions. All this stuff the same way Donald Trump has done on a national level now. So we have experienced our own state level authoritarian moment the same way lots of states in the south have continued to experience it. And I think there's a big debate about what is electable right now, who's going to vote, how do you energize people? And then this trade off of what do you get when you win? What is the issue that animates you? All that is legitimate grounds for having a debate and for people making those different arguments. Wisconsin has this great tradition I write about in the book, is the birthplace of the progressive movement, Capital P, Progressive movement. And one of the reforms of the progressive movement that started in Wisconsin swept the nation is direct primaries to choose your nominee, where the people decide who the nominee will be and the party. When the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which I used to chair, I'm an advisor to the new chair, Devin Remaker, who's I think, doing a killer job, very hard job. One of the party's core commitments in our Constitution is that the party itself doesn't put its thumb on the scale. Even if elected officials and citizens and groups and unions and Everybody does their different endorsements. The party is neutral in the primary, so that voters can decide who they want their nominee to be. And then the party can play a role of saying to everybody, hey, even though that was tough and messy and complicated, we're going to put that behind us. We're going to unite and we're going to do everything we can to chew through concrete and win the general election. And that, that is my own role in this fight, and that's what I invite everyone to do.
- [106:44]
Jon Lovett
I feel confident that no matter who wins the primary, that, I mean, you know all these candidates personally, do you think that all of them, like, could. Could definitely beat Tom Tiffany?
- [106:54]
Ben Wickler
I think that there is a path with each of these candidates, and I think that what that path looks like is actually a little different with the different candidates. And they are building the coalitions around them based on their approach to campaigning and their arguments they're making and the positions that they have and their own stories. And the thing that would cause us to lose is if we lose, the nerve to say that we can win. If Democrats decide after the day after the primary that, oh, well, I guess we're not gonna win, then they will not win. But if they say, you know what, this is a state where over and over 13 times since 2000, we've had elections that come down to 1 percentage point or less. And like, donating that extra buck, like knocking on that extra door, calling that extra friend, could be the thing that tips the entire state. If we bring that kind of will to the race, I think that any of the candidates can beat Tom Tiffany and Wisconsin could be a thriving democracy for the future.
- [107:42]
Jon Lovett
Last question. What is your thought process like as you consider potentially running in the state that you love in Wisconsin?
- [107:53]
Ben Wickler
Well, I love the living shit out of my state. I just think Wisconsin is the greatest state. And I will think about what I do in the future. In the future. I think my just obsession right now is to make sure that Wisconsin not only wins the governorship, but as I've mentioned, the state legislative chambers in November. And those will come probably down to a couple hundred votes in a few different communities around the state. It has been the work of years to unrig our state legislative maps to get to this point where we have a shot at winning majorities in both legislative chambers. And next year could be a blooming of democracy and workers rights and ability of folks to get healthcare, all this stuff, if we can win the trifecta in Wisconsin in the next 99 days. So I have this book. I want to spread the gospel of rolling up your sleeves, getting involved. I want to make sure that people see the kind of hope that we've experienced in my state by building this kind of permanent campaign on a year round basis. I want more places to do that. And then I'm going to just throw myself into, with everything I've got into the fight in my state and then I'll figure out what's next.
- [108:59]
Jon Lovett
Well, I've said this on the pod when you're not here, that as a Democrat and a citizen, I wanted you to be DNC chair because I think it would have been good for the party and good for the country. As your friend, sort of glad you're not because it's such a terrible job no matter who has it. But when it comes to running for office in Wisconsin, as a citizen, a Democrat and your friend, I would love you to. I would love to see you to run one of these days. So think about it.
- [109:28]
Ben Wickler
Honored by the sentiment.
- [109:29]
Jon Lovett
We need more Ben Wickler in America.
- [109:30]
Ben Wickler
So let's, let's zero in on what all of us can do right now. That is. That is my message.
- [109:35]
Jon Lovett
That is the plan.
- [109:36]
Ben Wickler
This is the plan.
- [109:37]
Jon Lovett
He's on message. That's why we love him.
- [109:38]
Ben Wickler
To the fight.
- [109:39]
Jon Lovett
Ben Wickler, thanks so much.
- [109:40]
Ben Wickler
Thanks so much, John.
- [109:47]
Jon Lovett
That's our show for today. Thanks to Ben Wicker for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new episode on Friday. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farah Safari with Reeve Churlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Kantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelavie, David Toles, Mia Kellman, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America.
- [110:19]
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Jon Lovett
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Ben Wickler
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Jon Lovett
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Ben Wickler
We out.
- [110:41]
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Jon Lovett
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