Tucker 2028?

Summary

Pod Save America – Episode Summary

Episode: Tucker 2028?
Original Air Date: August 7, 2026
Hosts: Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer
Notable Guests/Segments: Interview with David Crowley, Milwaukee County Executive

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Episode Overview

This Pod Save America episode, titled "Tucker 2028?", dives into the latest upheavals in American politics. The hosts dissect the Republican and Democratic infighting, the fallout from recent primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin, the embarrassing scandals rocking the GOP, and the rumblings of a third-party Tucker Carlson presidential campaign. Along the way, they analyze the "affordability" messaging battle, the dangers of factionalism in both parties, and preview high-stakes races in Wisconsin. The episode features sharp commentary, with plenty of inside-baseball humor, notable quotes, and a candid interview with Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate David Crowley.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Trump’s Vegas Event & Republican Messaging (03:23–21:30)

• Trump’s Affordability Messaging: Trump’s event with Gov. Joe Lombardo in Las Vegas, intended to showcase Republican concern for working Americans, devolved into off-message remarks about gas prices and awkward praise for billionaires.

  • Trump openly threatened to raise oil prices if elected, tying them to possibly renewed conflict with Iran.
  • Quote: “I may decide to make [gas prices] go up again. Just FYI, that's me, Donald J. Trump, the gas price raising guy. That's me.” – Dan Pfeiffer (11:18)

• Racism and Islamophobia: The crowd booed the mention of Officer Abdel Nabi (a Muslim-American officer recently killed in the line of duty), exposing deep-seated biases within the GOP base.

  • Quote: "It's hard to find a better example of the racism, jingoism, Islamophobia that has become part and parcel of Republican politics..." – Dan Pfeiffer (07:02)

• Anti-Muslim Bias in GOP Primaries: In Michigan, Trump-endorsed Amir Hasan, a decorated Marine and cop, lost a Republican primary to a candidate who had dropped out but had a “whiter” name.

  • Commentary highlighted how identity politics and racism outstrip even Trump’s endorsement power.
  • Quote: "Trump has a lot of pull, but his pull is not stronger than my own personal racism." – Dan Pfeiffer (09:23)

• Gas Prices, Iran, and War: The hosts analyze Trump’s threats about oil prices, the (failed) Iran war gambit, and how these add up to messaging disasters for the GOP on "affordability."

  • Trump’s economic jingoism and fixation on Iran are described as out-of-touch and self-defeating.

• The $20 Burrito Debate (16:27): Online right-wing figures spar on social media about the high cost of burritos, with GOP figures suggesting young people stop whining and eat ramen.

  • The hosts mock this as emblematic of the GOP’s losing approach to kitchen-table issues.
  • Quote: “I think 'stop whining' is a great message to give to voters.” – Dan Pfeiffer (18:11)

• Trump’s New Hair (18:58): On a lighter note, the hosts riff on Trump’s apparent hair transformation, poking fun at the former president’s vanity and inability to address real issues.

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2. Democratic Primary Fallout: Michigan & Wisconsin (23:53–44:52)

• Trump Attacks on Abdul El-Sayed (24:10): Trump launches Islamophobic and conspiratorial attacks on Michigan's Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, painting him as a radical communist.

  • Quote (Trump audio): “He doesn't love Israel. He doesn't love Jewish people. He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart...” (24:10)

• Abdul’s Unity and Strategy (26:44): Post-primary, Abdul El-Sayed stresses party unity and pivots to attacking GOP opponent Mike Rogers rather than refighting Democratic infighting.

  • Quote: “We don't need worry, we need work. Worrying and Democrats worrying is not going to solve the problem.” – Abdul El-Sayed (26:52)

• Hosts' Analysis: Pod Save America’s team praises Democratic unity in Michigan and strategizes that Abdul and allies must make the general election debate about Rogers and Trump instead of identity and ideological purity.

• Wisconsin’s Contentious Primary (35:52–44:52):

  • Francesca Hong leads in Democratic primaries for governor but faces attacks about previous statements on policing, prisons, and Thanksgiving, and her embrace of Democratic Socialism.
  • Hosts express doubts about her general election viability given Wisconsin’s swing state history, warning that GOP attacks will be brutal and effective.
    • Quote: “I have more doubts about Hong's ability to win the General than maybe almost any other candidate we've talked about.” – Jon Favreau (37:59)
  • Stakes are high: Control of state government, protection of 2028 presidential voting, and potential for meaningful Democratic reform hinge on winning.

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3. Center-Left vs Left: The Centrist $15 Million War on DSA (47:38–53:42)

• Third Way’s Anti-DSA Campaign: Center-left group announces $15 million campaign to "discredit" Democratic Socialism. Hosts mock this as a huge waste of resources that will likely backfire.

  • Quote: “It is counterproductive. It is...lighting $15 million that could be used to recruit and train candidates for grassroots organizing—lighting that on fire. That's best case scenario…” – Dan Pfeiffer (48:16)
  • Instead of attacking labels, the hosts argue, centrists must offer actual policy solutions to the economic anger fueling left-wing candidates.

• Party Big Tent Reminder:

  • Democratic victories require both moderate and progressive candidates.
  • Attacks on broad labels (DSA, “far left”) are less effective than positive, unifying messaging, and real engagement with the root causes of anger at the Democratic establishment.

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4. GOP Scandals: Max Miller & Chuck Edwards (54:16–63:09)

• Max Miller Allegations (54:16–61:01):

  • Former Trump staffer and GOP House member Max Miller faces sickening abuse allegations, including withholding his daughter’s toy as leverage in divorce and evidence of child injury.
  • Miller’s on-air denials dissected by Tapper; Miller appears deeply unsympathetic and exposed.
    • Quote: “It is...soulless behavior. It's truly...horrifying. It's horrifying for this girl.” – Dan Pfeiffer (58:49)
  • Hosts emphasize Republican leadership’s minimal response.

• Chuck Edwards Ethics Scandal (61:01–63:09):

  • Another House Republican resigns after a 25-page ethics report documents inappropriate conduct, including gifts of handguns, “effusive affection” toward young staffers.
  • The hosts see both seats as plausible Democratic pickups, furthering the GOP’s woes.

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5. The “Tucker 2028” Movement (63:09–69:30)

• The Rumor Mill: MAGA figures, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, float Tucker Carlson as a 2028 presidential contender—potentially on a third-party unity “populist” ticket.

  • Carlson posts a “10-point vision,” sounding out right-populist/antiwar themes and attacks on Trump’s record.

• Hosts’ Take:

  • Both see a third-party Tucker run as a gift to Democrats, arguing that Carlson would primarily siphon votes from Trump’s MAGA base.
    • Quote: “Tucker Carlson, a third party candidate, is a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine.” – Dan Pfeiffer (65:57)
  • Emphasize that the real story is the fracturing of MAGA and Trump’s precarious hold on his coalition.

• J.D. Vance and the Trump Succession:

  • Vance’s attempts to navigate MAGA’s splits, keep the Tucker faction close, and avoid direct conflict with Trump as vice president are highlighted as a microcosm of the GOP’s future schisms.
  • Quote: “Trump is losing control of the coalition that elected him. And that's good news for Democrats too.” – Dan Pfeiffer (66:38)

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Interview: David Crowley, Democratic Candidate for Wisconsin Governor (72:07–86:53)

• Crowley’s Pitch and Path to Victory:
  • Frames himself as a pragmatic coalition-builder and executive who can win broad support and get things done.
  • Emphasizes his own background—childhood poverty, resilience, and non-elite roots—rejects “establishment” label.
  • Key policy distinctions:
    • Data Centers: Opposes moratorium as short-sighted, favors strict regulation and extracting benefits (“Beyoncé Approach”—Bring Your Own New Clean Energy) (76:18).
    • School Vouchers: Argues for regulation and accountability, not outright elimination.
    • Surplus Spending: Supports bipartisan deal, practical relief; would combine tax relief with investments in education, childcare, and healthcare for rural areas.
  • On defeating the Republican nominee: Asserts the main task is to earn trust and unite Dems, says the race is much closer than polls show.
  • Quote: “I didn't get in this race to protect the establishment. I got into this race to protect the people...” – David Crowley (84:25)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Islamophobia at GOP Events:

  • "It's hard to find a better example of the racism, jingoism, Islamophobia that has become part and parcel of Republican politics..." – Dan Pfeiffer (07:02)

• On Trump’s Gas Price Threats:

  • "I may decide to make them go up again. Just FYI, that's me, Donald J. Trump, the gas price raising guy." – Dan Pfeiffer (11:18)

• On the $20 Burrito Debate:

  • "I think 'stop whining' is a great message to give to voters." – Dan Pfeiffer (18:11)

• On Trump’s Hair:

  • "He looks a little bit like a ferret that just got out of the bath with alopecia." – Dan Pfeiffer (19:07)

• On Third Way’s Anti-DSA Campaign:

  • "It is counterproductive...lighting $15 million that could be used to recruit and train candidates for grassroots organizing—lighting that on fire. That's best case scenario." – Dan Pfeiffer (48:16)

• On GOP Family Abuse Scandal:

  • “It's...soulless behavior. It's truly...horrifying. It's horrifying for this girl.” – Dan Pfeiffer (58:49)

• On Tucker’s Possible Third-Party Run:

  • "Tucker Carlson, a third party candidate, is a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine." – Dan Pfeiffer (65:57)

• David Crowley on His Motivation:

  • “I didn't get in this race to protect the establishment. I got into this race to protect the people, to let folks know they deserve to have a seat at the table...” – David Crowley (84:25)

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Major Segments & Timestamps

• Trump’s Vegas Rally & GOP Messaging: 03:23–21:30
• Democratic Infighting and Primary Fallout: 23:53–44:52
• Centrist Third Way Campaign vs. DSA: 47:38–53:42
• GOP Scandals (Max Miller, Chuck Edwards): 54:16–63:09
• Tucker 2028? & GOP/MAGA Movement Fractures: 63:09–69:30
• Interview: David Crowley (WI Governor): 72:07–86:53

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Tone and Language

The hosts maintain their signature mix of biting wit, incredulity at GOP antics, frustration at Democratic infighting, and earnest advocacy for engagement and coalition-building. They balance policy substance with humor and personal anecdotes, cutting through both parties' PR spin for a direct lens on political reality.

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Final Thoughts

Tucker 2028? showcases a turbulent political landscape, with old party guard battles, new grassroots insurgencies, and potential third-party shakeups all colliding. Through sharp analysis, guests, and ample snark, Pod Save America helps listeners cut through the noise to focus on what actually matters as midterms and 2028 loom.

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Alex Wagner. I do not need to tell you that being an American right now is a wild ride. But as a longtime journalist, I am not interested in the noise or the fear mongering. I'm interested in the stories at the heart of the headlines. That is why every week on my show Runaway Country, I'm joined by folks in the middle of the crossfire. From disillusioned Maha moms to newly fired immigration judges to Epstein victims themselves. To understand what it means to live through this political chaos as an actual human being. And now I'm excited to tell you that Runaway country is available ad free to Friends of the Pod subscribers. Friends of the Pod is a subscription that supports the work Crooked does as an independent media company and gives you a ton of great bonus and ad free content. With the midterms approaching, you are going to need more content to keep you sane. And now you can find Runaway country right there. Subscribe [e-mail] cricket friends

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[Jon Favreau]

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

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show, we're going to talk about Trump's new threat to send gas prices back up at what was ostensibly an affordability stop in Vegas, where he also debuted the Republican argument against Abdul El Sayed and other progressives. We'll also talk about Abdul's general election argument, the final days of the Wisconsin primary, and the new $15 million centrist plan to go to war against the Democratic Socialists of America. Fun. On the Republican side, the Max Miller story has somehow become even more revolting. Another House Republican resigns over inappropriate conduct with staffers and the draft Tucker Carlson for president movement has begun. Then Dan talks to David Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive who's trying to catch Francesca Hong in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. Before we start, just a reminder that Crooked Con tickets are available now and they are going fast, so you're going to want to get them. This year's event is going to be even bigger and better, starting with a Pod Save America live show on Thursday, November 5, and strict scrutiny and love it or leave it live shows on Friday, November 6th, and then on Saturday, November 7th in D.C. that's the big event. We'll have a full day of panels and interviews with the smartest and least annoying elected officials and strategists in the party. Can we promise least annoying? I mean, we're going to be there. I don't know. Who knows? I don't know. That's a high ball.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

How about not the most annoying?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I think we can do not the most annoying. Yeah, I think we can make that promise. If you're a friend of the pod, you get a special discounted rate for these tickets. And if you're not already a subscriber, what are you waiting for? Head to crookedcon.com to get your tickets and become a friends of the POD subscriber. All right, let's get to the news. While the factional war within the Democratic Party continued to rage this week, the Republican president, with the record low 38% approval rating, took his traveling circus to Vegas, where he appeared with Governor Joe Lombardo at an event where the intended message was supposed to be about the Republican Party's efforts to make life easier for working Americans. Let's see how they did. We'll start with Lombardo here talking about Trump.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Quite often when the press and the media runs them down, they think about, you know, he's taking care of his billionaire friends, but those billionaire friends provide jobs.

[Donald Trump]

So I know Pastor Tice spoke about

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Officer Abdel Nabi a few moments ago. No, no, we're not booing. We're not booing him.

[Donald Trump]

He's the officer that passed away here recently. So the tariffs have made us rich. Remember, I used to say that tariffs are my favorite word. I love tariffs. They're my favorite word in the dictionary. Tariff. When gasoline, when oil goes down and it's going to go down very rapidly and it's happening very soon. Already happening. If you look today, it's $75 down to 75. It's dropping. And we may have to send it up again. We may have to. You know what happens when we send it up. I saw polls today on television. I say Donald Trump polls on the economy aren't good. The economy is the greatest economy we've ever had by far.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow. Lots to unpack there, Dan, before we zero in on that disciplined affordability messaging. The moment that got the most attention were all the boos you just heard when Lombardo invoked the name of Officer Abdel Nabi, a Vegas police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty on Tuesday. What do you think could have possibly led the crowd to boo the name of a heroic law enforcement officer and former Marine?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's hard to find a better example of the racism, jingoism, Islamophobia that has become part and parcel of Republican politics, even for years now, even before the Trump era, that just at the mere mention of a name that sounds Muslim, the crowd boos.

[Jon Favreau]

Truly, truly upsetting. And Lombardo's like, no, no, no, don't boo. And then Trump later says his name as well and has to, like, calm the crowd down.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So it's shocking, but not surprising that this happened. I think the also the thing that's really disappointing, like you said, it got a lot of attention. We still got a lot of attention on Twitter. It got some news coverage, but you and I were talking about this earlier. But in 2012, there was a Republican primary presidential debate and they were doing video questions submitted. I'm sure there was some, like, very anachronistic social media tie into this debate. Like it was a Facebook debate or something. They had a video from a soldier who had served in Iraq who was gay, and he was asking the Republicans if they were going to roll back the progress that had been made on LGBTQ rights. And the crowd booed and it was like a four day story. And every Republican had to come back and say they wish. They told the crowd not to boo. And here it just happens and it's like, oh, obviously this is what happens to Trump's America and we just move on.

[Jon Favreau]

You said that it was hard to find another example, but I have one Tuesday. I don't know if you saw that. In the Republican primary. In Michigan's 8th district, Trump's preferred candidate, Amir Hassan, who he campaigned with in person the other day at the GM plant, lost to a candidate named Tom Smith, who dropped out of the race a month ago. This is Amir Hassan. In his campaign literature, it said Jesus Christ is his Lord and savior. He talks about how he's a Christian. Guy's a former veteran, former Marine cop. Former cop. The NRCC spent money on this race. Trump endorsed Trump, appeared with him. Trump endorsed him on Truth Social and lost to a guy that spent no money and dropped out of the race a month earlier because his name was Tom Smith.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, John, he's also a salsa magnet. He has his own line of salsas.

[Jon Favreau]

I did not know that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that's. He's a former gp.

[Jon Favreau]

So maybe it's the anti salsa vote then.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Maybe. Maybe it is anti salsa vote. And this is like, this is not an insignificant deal because this is a district that Trump won by two points that has a Democrat sitting at a Kristen McDonald rivet. And so this is a bit. Would have been a potential NRCC target. She's a very strong candidate. She outperformed Kamala Harris by nine points last time. But the reason Trump got involved here was to try to get a candidate they thought could win. Republican voters were like, look, Trump has a lot of pull, but his pull is not stronger than my own personal racism. So I'm going to take the defunct zombie candidate with the salsa instead.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, I'm sorry. The guy that won is the salsa magnet.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, the guy who won is the salsa magnet.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, sorry.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Tom Smith is the salsa.

[Jon Favreau]

So then it Was a pro Salsa vote then.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I just, I gonna go on a limb and say that large majorities of Republican primary voters are not familiar with Jarhead Salsa, which was named after his three sons who are Marines. And they just went with the whitest name possible, which is Tom Smith.

[Jon Favreau]

And just in case you think that we're just guessing about the Islamophobia here and the racism, when Trump endorsed him on Truth Social, it was just flooded with comments from Trump supporters like, have you lost your mind endorsing Muslim candidates and no Muslims in America. No Muslims in office. Or this one is a little more subtle. His name gives me pause. Call me racist, but I am merely being cautious. Obama comes to mind.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Subtle.

[Jon Favreau]

So that's just a few of the remarks, those few of the reactions to Trump's endorsement of Amir Hasan. So things are going great with the Republican Party on affordability. How psyched do you think swing state voters are to hear that Trump is sending up the price of oil again? He's gonna have to send it up. And the people of Nevada hearing the Republican governor saying, hey, they should just be grateful to all the billionaires for providing all those jobs.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Let's take these two things separately for a second. So let's start with gas prices. Now, most of the time when gas prices go up, presidents go out of their way to make it clear that gas price, it's a global oil market. There are lots of things. The President is not personally responsible, not Trump. He swings in the other direction and leans in directly to say, look, I am the guy. Me, I'm deciding whether they go up or down and I may decide to make them go up again. Just FYI, that's me, Donald J. Trump, the gas price raising guy. That's me. Truly.

[Jon Favreau]

And like, what does he even. I guess he's referencing that he may attack Iran.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, he's threatening to bomb Iran again.

[Jon Favreau]

Right. But also he was in the Oval right before he recorded someone asked him about this potential deal between Iran and Oman, about the Strait of Hormuz. And, and he's like, well, we kind of control it already,

[Dan Pfeiffer]

kinda.

[Jon Favreau]

No, he said, I'm sorry. He said, it's kind of open already. We control it. So. Which is also interesting. Cause it's like, if we control it, why is it only kind of open? The truth is, if they make a deal, Iran and Oman about the Strait of Hormuz, notice we're not involved. Iran still controls the strait and they will be charging a, they want to charge a, a 5 to 7% fee for all the tankers that go through the Strait of Hormuz. And Gregory Brew, who's an Iran expert on Twitter, was just crunching the numbers and he said a 5% fee assessed on outbound tankers would translate into $52 million per day for the Iranian regime. So we are currently spending $1 billion a day, taxpayer dollars, all of us. We're spending this on a war that has left 18Americans dead, hundreds wounded, and is gonna result in status quo from before the war. With the addition of now, Iran controls the Strait and is making $52 million a day. And I guess the regime is slightly different in that they are younger and more radical than the old regime.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, yes. So things are going great. There's also a Washington Post report over the weekend that the reason why Trump canceled his planned attack on Iran was not because of the pending deal, but because he had a blow up with Pete Hegseth over the fact that we are running out of missiles.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. And then he threatened to jail the person who leaked that story, which is a fake story, which is also tricky to do both of those things. The story isn't real. It's totally made up. But I'm going to fire the person that leaked the made up story.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So they're talking about the billionaire thing for a second.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, let's talk about the billionaire. So because several billionaires were in attendance.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. Which is also funny because it is one. He's repeating the Democratic attack, which is never what you want. But then he's like the basic gist of Lombardo's message is, yes, Trump is helping billionaires. He is definitely doing that. But some of those billionaires, they help you.

[Jon Favreau]

I like that. I like that. The old, the old Republican Party, the non maga Republican party, and the least politically popular part of that party is sort of roaring back just in time for the midterm election. Are you familiar with the great burrito debate of 2026?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Talk to me about this because I really struggle to keep up with it.

[Jon Favreau]

This is a very. This is a Twitter thing, but it has involved everyone from.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And when I want information on Twitter things, if Elijah's not available, I go to you.

[Jon Favreau]

Thank you. Thank you. Well, let's just hear me out on the people involved in this. So Andrew Colvett of TP usa, Charlie Kirk's producer, now sort of in charge of tpusa, said that one of their college students in one of the TPUSA chapters, told him recently that a burrito shouldn't cost $20. Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire, he was complaining about the price of groceries. And Andrew Kollovitz said, you know, I've been hearing this from kids. They said the burrito shouldn't cost $20. Mark Thiessen, who's the former Bush speechwriter who is now full time warmonger on Fox News, has advised Trump to fight this war in Iran. Loves war. Loves nothing more than war. He jumped in and just had several tweets in response to Andrew Colvitt that said a burrito only costs $20 when you buy it on doordash because you're too lazy to walk over to Chipotle or Taco Bell or where you can get one for 3.99. When I graduated, I lived on ramen noodles, had two roommates and worked two jobs. I didn't whine about affordability. I worked hard so I could one day afford a better life. And then he wasn't done yet. So he had another tweet, cry me a river. The burritos in the college cafeteria are included in your meal plan. And then it would have ended there, but J.D. vance, back from paternity leave and apparently back from swearing off shitposting on Twitter as Susie Wiles had advised him to do, decided to jump right in here and say, I'm surprised to hear Mark say this. If you've ever met him in person, it's quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, a couple things on that one. J.D. vance, not exactly skipping a lot of burritos. Just I'm not here to comment on his weight, but I don't think he is at such. In such a great shape that he can be casting aspersions on others. Two, calling Marc Thiessen fat on Twitter is possibly the most likable and popular thing JD Vance has ever done.

[Jon Favreau]

I know that is tough. That is tough. I did welcome him back to Twitter when he did that. I was, I was very, I said, welcome back. Welcome back to Shitpost.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did he respond to you?

[Jon Favreau]

He did it. He didn't, but I will, I will continue to try to beat him. So. And then Dan Crenshaw, remember Dan Crenshaw, our congressman? He just lost his primary, so he won't be coming back to Congress. So he must have felt a little liberated. He decided to tweet out of the blue just to dive into this debate. Just hearing about this dumb $20 burrito debate. So just thought I'd make the losers on social media angry before going to bed. Stop whining, get a job, eat ramen like the Rest of us did in college. A lot of ramen references. On a budget with four roommates, the market doesn't care what you think something should cost.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Did you eat a lot of ramen in college?

[Jon Favreau]

No, No, I didn't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I did. I ate a ton of ramen.

[Jon Favreau]

Really? I'm like, not a ramen person. I like. I don't. I've probably eaten ramen like once.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But we're talking, when we talk about ramen, like we're talking about instant ramen, we're not talking.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, no, I know. I've seen the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Some local Itzakaya we went to also.

[Jon Favreau]

Also haven't had that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

At the. At the local Itzakaya. Great message, I think. I think they're firing on all cylinders on affordability. As we head into the midterms, we lose to these people.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think stop whining is a great message to give to voters.

[Jon Favreau]

Stop whining. We talked about this on our bonus episode and we talked about Michigan, but Mike Rogers in Michigan has a whole bunch of these comments about, you know, people should be like, oh, the price of coffee. Oh, boo hoo. It's just a lot of bad stuff out there for Republicans on affordability. One more thing about this event before we leave. The Vegas event, this might have been more important than anything. Trump said it was his new look, which is our 80 year old President appears to have grown a new head of hair overnight. Take a look at these photos, Dan, from last week and this week we've got a side by side again. If you're just listening, you're gonna need to start watching on YouTube especially for this. So that. Jesus Christ. So on the.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can I do the description here?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, Dan, please.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay, so on the left, this is the quote unquote before photo. Trump's hair is kind of a shade of gray. I'd say it is stringy. It is not covering the full scalp. He looks a little bit like a ferret that just got out of the bath with alopecia. Like it's not a good look. Right. And on the right, the after photo, if you will, he has a lush head of hair that covers everything. It is flowing. It's also an entirely different color than the one from a few days ago.

[Jon Favreau]

It looks like something that RFK Jr would peel off the road and eat.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think he looks like. It looks like he is in a 1970s shampoo commercial. Like, that is some real hair there.

[Jon Favreau]

Fucking J.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Like he could be. He could be in the Partridge Family. Like that is good hair. I Don't. I hate to say it is not a good color. Doesn't seem real. It's going in directions that hair should not go. But it is more hair than he had a few days before. And like I said, a very different color.

[Jon Favreau]

Looks like a. Is it a wig? Is it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think he's got extensions put in there. I think they added something. Yeah. And he got it. He got it colored, I guess. I mean, to match the extensions.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, with a highlighter. I mean.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, it is. His face also looks very different, too. They all like different people.

[Jon Favreau]

Did he get it sprayed with the same stuff they're using on all the statues in D.C. is that. Is it that. Do you use some of the paint from the Oval for his hair?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, there is. There is a little bit of, like, gold to it, I guess.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway. I guess good for him. But that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, I read a. I read a People magazine story on this because I wanted to do real research, and in it, it says, we called the White House for two to get comment on the President's new hair. They did not respond, which is.

[Jon Favreau]

It's a real tell.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Right there is Caroline Levitt. She's briefing again. Right. I hope someone's asking this question.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, definitely. Someone will ask it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We need to get these TMZ guys who are making. They're making the rounds in dc. We gotta get them on this story.

[Jon Favreau]

I gotta say, I don't usually. You know, I don't usually buy into these various Trump conspiracies and, you know, but it really looks like something happened with the hair. Something changed.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's no way. It's not the same head of hair.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Okay, I'm buying this one. Hook, line, and sinker. Call me a Resist Lib. Call me Blue Maga, whatever it is, I believe this one. I can see with my own eyes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You have eyes? Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Mitch Landrieu]

Hi, my name is Mitch Landry.

[Erin Haynes]

My name is Erin Haynes. My name is Jennifer Palmieri and we're hosting a new series called Long Play. The south is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the south too. I mean, the south has always shaped American politics. We know that the stakes could not be higher. But to win the south, you have have to understand it.

[Mitch Landrieu]

People in the south feel really misunderstood, left behind, put down on and they want to explain that to somebody.

[Erin Haynes]

We're traveling across six southern states to explore the people, the issues, the assumptions that no longer hold and what the rest of us are missing about a region that will shape the future of our politics and our country. From left, right and crooked media starting July 21, watch long play series on YouTube at YouTube.com longplayseries or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, on to more important stuff. Now that the Michigan primary.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There's nothing more important than that.

[Jon Favreau]

Now that the Michigan primary is behind us, everyone is in spin mode and trying to project confidence about the course ahead. Here's Trump in Vegas about Abdul Abdul El Sayed.

[Donald Trump]

Lovely gentleman. He's a man of hate. And now he's going around saying, no, I love everybody I love. He doesn't love everybody. Put him in office. You're going to find out what he loves. He doesn't love Israel. He doesn't love Jewish people. He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart and is not a frickin thing he can do about it. Filth, crime, death, destruction, embarrassment. You lose your home, you lose your apartment, and that's where the communists will take us. 100%. When I watch Abdul, he's full of shit.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't quite. What is he full of shit about?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, that's, that's not. I know this is, this is the exception to Trump's usually logical and easily understood explanations. But yeah, no, it doesn't make a lot of sense here.

[Jon Favreau]

It is funny how, and I know this is not the first time, but they really have made the full shift from socialism to communism. They were flirting with both for a while and now they've just gone full. They've left socialism behind.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The last, I would say the day before, the day of and the day after the Michigan primary are all sort of a blur. But didn't Trump at some point truth something about how Haley Stevens was a socialist and Abdul was a communist?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. I don't even know if he said Abdul was a communist in that tweet. He said he did Abdul's full name to do some of the racism and then he referred to Haley Stevens as a socialist.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Socialist, yeah.

[Donald Trump]

Okay.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But he had previously referred to Abdul as a communist. Correct. As a true scholar of the works of Karl Marx and Lenin, he has a very well understood distinction between communist and socialist. And I'm sure it's being applied correctly here.

[Jon Favreau]

I will say on election day, our friends at Ms. Now, I was tuning in and multiple times I saw up on the screen this very bland chart that was comparing communism and socialism just to give people a rundown of the

[Dan Pfeiffer]

difference between the two, which is not where you want to be on our party right now. It's like, look, he's not a communist. I had a socialist.

[Jon Favreau]

Someone will have to correct me. I don't know what the context was because he had it muted because I was working. But I'm like, what? Why does it keep popping up on my screen? Anyway, so for his part, Abdul has been doing lots of interviews, including this one with CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday night.

[Interviewer]

We've heard some Democrats who are worried that you cannot defeat Mike Rogers come November. How do you plan to address those concerns from people in your own party?

[Abdul El-Sayed]

We don't need worry, we need work. Worrying and Democrats worrying is not going to solve the problem.

[Interviewer]

She is now supporting you now that you have won the nomination. Are you going to invite her to campaign with out on the trail?

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Look, we need everybody together to beat Mike Rogers. I'm grateful we had a great conversation this morning. We talked about a hard fought primary. You know, I've known the congresswoman since 2018, since we ran together. And again Whatever our disagreements, we know that the disagreements we have with Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are so much bigger.

[Interviewer]

So given how many votes she got, will she be on the campaign trail with you?

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Look, I should hope so. That's a choice that she gets to make. There are people like J.D. vance or Donald Trump or Mike Rogers who want to define America as being too small to include some kinds of people. I believe that America is big. It's open minded, it's big hearted. It can include any of us, regardless of how we pray, regardless of where our families come from, regardless of who we love or how we identify. That's the America we're building. And I think America, and Michigan in particular, has an opportunity to remind us just how big we are.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you think of Abdul's unity message there? The inevitable attention he's now getting from Trump. And one thing that was on my mind as I was watching that and just sort of seeing the last couple days play out, it seems like what Abdul has to do, one of the many tasks he has now is so much of the coverage of this race and the discussion about this race is centered on him and it feels like he needs to sort of turn the ship so that it focuses on Trump and Mike Rogers. And I wonder if you have thoughts on how he can do that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do. So on the unity side, his message is great. I think you and I may have talked about this in the bonus pod we did, but it's even more true now than it was when we recorded right after the election. Abdul, Haley Stevens, Mal McMorrow, Gretchen Whitmer, everyone involved has done an excellent job. They've done exactly what they need to. Even the people who are some of Abdul's biggest opponents on Twitter have come around and are tweeting out donation links for him. Everyone understands the urgency of the task among at least the political elites in the establishment. And I think that is. This could have been divisive. It could have lingered on. It did not. They had the unity breakfast which was previously scheduled, was held this morning. Abdul and Haley hugged on camera during that when she came to the stage, I think like there we were doing exceeding all expectations there.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep, I agree.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that is. That is great. I think Trump get it. Involving himself in this race is also great for Abdul. Trump has a 38% approval rating according to some polls in Michigan. Talk about it all the time. Come campaign with Mike Rogers, come many times, talk about it. It will only help with the voters who are skeptical of Abdul, but very much disapprove of Trump that is be very, very helpful. I think that's great. I think it's going to take a little bit. You got to get through this immediate post primary cycle where everything is going to be about Abdul, where the race goes, can you win? That has to wash out the system. I think him doing all of these interviews just helps wash that out of the system early on. Instead of lingering. He's got to just make it all about Mike Rogers all the time. We got to get an ad up about Mike Rogers. Got to be talking about Mike Rogers. Got to be talking about Mike Rogers. And Trump just don't like you have to answer the questions from the press. But and I think he's done a pretty good job of this in these interviews. Is this immediately pivot to Mike Rogers? Immediately pivoted Mike Rogers. This is the same thing we had in Maine where it was all Graham Platner for a year and nothing about Susan Collins. And then as soon as Troy Jackson got in the race, you can really make him about Susan Collins. I think Abdul has got to do that. There should probably think of some high profile ways to do it. He could give a speech that sort of lays out the case against Mike Rogers. You could use an ad or a video to do it. I think we'll look at one of these videos shortly. But it's just like that is the task. And there's always a fear of overcomplicating these tasks because Abdul has very big visions for politics, very big visions for policy. But right now we need people to focus on who Mike Rogers is, why he's bad and how much he's in Donald Trump's pocket.

[Jon Favreau]

And I also think as he does that the images of Abdul and the settings where he is is going to be important too. And I think he just needs to go to all the places in Michigan where maybe he didn't do as well in the primary. And like there's Abdul with older people, there's Abdul with more older white men and working class folks and black folks in Detroit and all the constituencies that supported him in the primary. He's got those folks. And as he is talking about how Mike Rogers has let down Michigan and Donald Trump has let down Michigan and will continue to do that, he should be around the kind of voters that you wouldn't think Abdul would be able to attract, I think that's probably important too.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I think that's the thing that I believe I did so many podcasts about this race on Wednesday, but you never saw in the primary Abdul campaign do anything that was counterintuitive in terms of who supported him. It's a classic thing. But he says all the time that these three time Trump voters come to his events and say they're supporting him, put him in an ad, get to the rural areas. And he did a lot of.

[Donald Trump]

Part of.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's what breaks through. One of the reasons why he actually, one is because he performed better than people thought he could in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and because he went to the. He did 450 campaign events. So he was doing town halls in some of these places. But that stuff just didn't get as much attention as campaigning with aoc, campaigning with Bernie, the big rallies, and so just kind of getting low to the ground and doing more of that stuff will be helpful.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Yeah. And I would not, I would stop campaigning with the streamers and, and maybe some. And here's the thing, I don't actually think, you know, this is not a. Like, he should campaign with Republicans who elected Republicans who are for him or who used to be Republicans that are now Democrats. Like, because I think people just don't tend to trust politicians in general. Right. With the exception of, like, yes, of course, we talked about this yesterday, that he should like bring out Obama towards the end of the race and people like that. But I think it's the voters that you're seen with that are most important. Right. Like is. We're gonna laugh saying this, but as Ax Rod always told Obama, like, you gotta be close to the ground. Right? You gotta be with the voters, with crowds of people in small settings, in places where, again, it's unexpected, and then say the thing that's gonna break through about Mike Rogers or about Trump, so that when you get covered, you have that backdrop. So the outside groups are also starting up their messaging efforts. We played the NRSC's first AD in the bonus episode that dropped on Wednesday. Senate Majority pac, one of the mainstream Democratic groups, is countering with, among other things, this ad.

[Interviewer]

There comes a time in life when things start to slow down, when you just don't have the same energy you had 20 years ago. But there's a way to bring some excitement back.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What has not helped is the fact

[Jon Favreau]

that the United States hasn't strongly said that military intervention is still on the table.

[Interviewer]

Introducing endless war from Mike Rogers.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Side effects may include death, economic hardship and global instability. Some patients have reported fuel shortages, which may cause inflation. Endless war has not been proven to make Americans any safer.

[Interviewer]

Ask your doctor if endless war is right for you.

[Jon Favreau]

It's funny, it's clever, it's great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The logline of this ad should be the war in Iran gives Mike Rogers a four hour erection.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, that would be turning up the dial one more.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Actually, I think this ad is great because it's never going to air on tv. It's for viral purposes only. You got to turn it up a little bit.

[Jon Favreau]

It's good for Senate majority pack.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's great. It's very clever.

[Jon Favreau]

It looks like those establishment chills can come through once in a while.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, there was a very smart, clever person somewhere in the digital department who had this idea. And I really applaud the leadership for letting this idea see the light of day.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that was great. So Trump didn't just mention Abdul in Vegas. He also told the crowd that, quote, the communists in Wisconsin have a woman who wants Thanksgiving abolished and says police exist to uphold white supremacy. He was speaking, of course, about Francesca Hong, who I interviewed on Tuesday's show. Later you'll hear Dan's interview with her primary opponent, David Crowley, who has mounted a last ditch effort along with Governor Tony Evers, to beat the front runner in Tuesday's big primary. Evers told reporters on Thursday that someone who has to spend all their time explaining old tweets doesn't have a very good shot at winning. Crowley has also circulated a polling memo arguing that the race is closer than people think, drawing some comparisons in that memo to some of the polls in Michigan, the primary polls that sort of overestimated Abdul support in that race and drew parallels in some of the Wisconsin polling. I know you spoke to Crowley, thoughts on his chances and just. And how the race is closing. And that polling memo, it's hard to

[Dan Pfeiffer]

say how the race is closing because as Michigan taught us, we really are flying blind here and have no real idea because it's even hard to decouple exactly why the polls were all wrong. There's John Cohen, who was a polling guy. I talked to this on Polar Coaster yesterday, but he was a polling guy for the Post. He worked at SurveyMonkey. Now he's got his own firm, but he went through and analyzed all the polls and the short version is they're all wrong for different reasons.

[Erin Haynes]

Thanks.

[Jon Favreau]

Cool.

[Alex Wagner]

Cool, cool, cool.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's not like one clear error. There are some where they misjudged how much mail was in the place. There are some that oversampled young birds, all kinds of different reasons. So it's very confusing to know, which means that we don't really know what's happening in Wisconsin. It is possible that one point that was made in this is that all of the polls except one in Michigan were online text to web polls. And so those polls do have a potential for get over sampling more educated, more engaged voters that may have benefited Abdul.

[Donald Trump]

That could.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The same thing could be. You could get the same possible situation in Wisconsin in those polls. Now, Hong is leading by a lot more in these polls than Abdul was. So even a polling error of the same size would still have her winning by double digits. But Crowley's memo is interesting because it basically maps the polling to the turnout by age in the 2018 and 2022 Wisconsin primaries. And if you do that with their polls, it gets you to 32. 32. We'll see. So hard to know. There has been a lot of attention for the last week on Hong Kong and her, her comments, her response to comments. You have Bernie Sanders to you on our Wednesday night pod saying that he's not endorsing her real questions about her electability. So if there is an actual opportunity for this race to close and Crowley has the resources to actually pull this off, it's happening in the right political environment for him. But it may be too little, too late.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, I have to, I have to be honest. Like, I have more doubts about Hong's ability to win the General than maybe almost any other candidate we've talked about. I could be wrong. I mean, I'm not telling anyone how to vote, but I want to make sure everyone in Wisconsin is clear about the risks here, not knowing anything else. She's running as a Democratic socialist in a state that Donald Trump won twice, one of the closest, most competitive states in the country. She has advocated for abolishing prisons and the police, who she said, as Trump mentioned, exists to uphold white supremacy. And then, I mean, you heard my interview with her. Like, when I gave her the chance to walk back those statements, she kind of did. But she also gave, like, at best, a muddled answer where she talked about, like, having met with justice impacted individuals, which is not a phrase people use. There's the Bernie thing. It's just today, Zoran Mamdani was at some event in New York and was asked what part of the DSA platforms that he disagrees with. And immediately, immediately, very clearly, he said, oh, I break from them on public safety because we need our police force and we need our prisons. We need public safety clear, like right out of the gate. And if you're gonna have taken those positions in the past, right again, it's not about like you have bad tweets. It's not just about the Thanksgiving thing. We've all heard about that. But if you're gonna have those tweets, then you kind of need a pretty clear answer of why you've evolved since then, how your views have changed. You either say, oh, I met with people, I changed my mind, whatever else. And like it just doesn't. I do not have the confidence when I listen to her answers that she is going to be able to win an incredibly tough state. Now again, maybe she will, maybe she'll improve as a candidate, but it makes me a little nervous.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. What I like to say, questions about electability is electability is an unknowable concept because the candidates who win are always electable and the candidates who lose are unelectable. And so it's all theory, it's self fulfilling theoretical concept. However, you can make some educated guesses on which candidate might be better. Those guesses could be wrong, but you can look at the partisanship of the state, a candidate's skills, where their issue agenda maps to the state. Are they within the mainstream of the state? Outside of the mainstream of the state? There's a pretty fair amount of polling which shows that particularly in swing states, the label of democratic socialism is a anvil on your candidacy.

[Jon Favreau]

Which again, which she embraces. Right. Like it's not, it's not like she's being tagged DSA unfairly or whatever. Like she's like, yeah, I'm running as a democratic socialist.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And so like obviously this is up to the people of Wisconsin. They will decide and then everyone, ourselves included, with everything we can to help the nominee win, whether that's, whether that's Hong or Crowley. But yeah, I don't think anyone is wrong to be concerned that she is likely to. Is a steeper hill for her to climb in what is going to be a very, very tough race than someone else.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And look, I've also heard people say, well, she's, you know, why is she so far ahead in the polls? And clearly she's like run an inspiring campaign that's attracted a lot of support. I think that is true, clearly. But it's also been an unusually calm primary like the last debate. They didn't really go after her or each other that much, like for various reasons. Whatever it may be, this just, it certainly was not like the Haley Stevens Abdul El Sayed primary where they kind of previewed Haley Stevens, previewed some of the attacks that Abdul might get. And Abdul, you know, certainly attacked her as well, but like, this one has been kind of quiet in Wisconsin, so she has not had to face what she surely will face from the Republican Party, who are just sitting there and, like, getting excited about a general election. So the stuff that everyone's bringing up now, it's not like, you know, just nervous Democrats are doing it just, just for fun or just to be mean or whatever. It's because it's definitely coming from Republicans. And she just hasn't faced it yet.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Her campaign has clearly caught fire. She has inspired people. She's been much more inspiring than all the other candidates who were running. I mean, Crowley had to drop out of the race originally.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then came back in the race. And I do like you and I, as political professionals can look at this and make this assessment of why we think someone is more electable and someone isn't. If you're just a regular voter in Wisconsin who is hurting, who is frustrated, you're angry at the establishment, your finances are hurting, you have this inspiring candidate who has a very powerful personal story of politics and offering this progressive agenda. I fully understand why they would back that person and I understand why they might be skeptical of either people like us or Governor Tony Evers, who has said publicly that she does not think she can win. Why you would not take that to the bank. Because these people have told you in election after election to put aside what you want for something else because that gives us a better chance of winning and then those candidates lose. And so I like, this is not what you were doing, but there's no real upside in yelling at the voters for making a decision that I understand why they come to that decision, even if I think it maybe makes it less likely they get the outcome they want in the end because of the politics of the state.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and I know you're saying that, but I'm certainly not yelling at anyone. I'm just saying you're informing them. If you have not gone, if you have not gone to the ballot box yet, just do some research on this. Think about this. Because this is not. And. And I'm the same person who made an argument for Abdul in the Michigan primary, who's the left candidate. And I've done so in many other cases as well. And this is the one that really rings some bells for me, raises some alarms, whatever the bad.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And just so that people understand the stakes, the Tom Tiffany, the Republican, is an election denier who would then be governor of Wisconsin when they are certifying the votes of the 2028 presidential election. And Wisconsin, as I've said before, is a state that's been decided by one point in five for the last seven presidential elections. So it'll be right within the insurrection zone most likely.

[Jon Favreau]

And for the people of Wisconsin too, you have a chance in 2026 to have a Democratic trifecta in the state of Wisconsin for the first time. So aside from just like stopping the steal in 2028, there's just a chance to have a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature to get a lot of shit done for the like going to make people's lives better in Wisconsin, which is amazing.

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[Mitch Landrieu]

my name is Mitch Landrieu.

[Erin Haynes]

My name is Erin Haynes. My name is Jennifer Palmieri and we're hosting a new series called Long Play. The south is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the south, too. I mean, the south has always shaped American politics. We know that the stakes could not be higher. But to win the south, you have to understand it.

[Mitch Landrieu]

People in the south feel really misunderstood, left behind, put down on, and they want to explain that to somebody.

[Erin Haynes]

We're traveling across six Southern states to explore the people, the issues, the assumptions that no longer hold and what the rest of us are missing about a region that will shape the future of our politics and our country. From left, right and crooked media starting July 27, watch live longplay series on YouTube at YouTube.com longplayseries or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, so between Abdul and Hong, there's been a lot of consternation among more moderate Democrats this week. Just heard some. Then there's the centrist group Third Way, which took that up a notch on Thursday with an announcement in the New York Times that they're planning to spend $15 million between now and 2028 to, quote, discredit Democratic socialism. The group's president, John Cowan, said they are preparing for war and that while the effort won't go after individual candidates, it will involve oppo research into the dsa. What do you think, Dan? Good use of time and money,

[Donald Trump]

John.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

There are many reasons why the DSA has gained prominence in recent years. One of those is that Democrats feel let down by the moneyed establishment in our party. And so it's hard for me to believe that the moneyed establishment announcing in the New York Times a $15 million campaign against the DSA is going to do anything other than reinforce the DSA's argument about where the Democratic Party is failing its voters. It is counterproductive. It is going to ED. Best case scenario, it's lighting $15 million that could be used to recruit and train candidates for grassroots organizing. Lighting that on fire. That's best case scenario. Most likely case scenario to me is it just strengthens the DSA's hand. I just do not understand it. When I talk to Amanda Lippman, who runs Run for Something, which is one of the most important organizations in the Democratic Party, a few weeks ago, I think she told me her yearly budget is $7 million. So think about what else that $15 million could go to.

[Jon Favreau]

It's wild. And like, you know, I know that Matt Bennett at Third Way sort of responded to you and said, and he's friended to me and was like, we're also supporting candidates and we have a think tank and we have some exciting ideas. It's like. And that, that may well be true, but that's not what anyone's hearing about when there's a story pitched to the New York times about a $15 million plan to go to war with the TSA. You know, I just, like, that's, that's what's, that's what you're choosing to have. Breakthrough. I just think that the whole, the whole plan here from the, from the centrists is, it feels very anachronistic, old school. Like, if you don't like DSA and you're. Or, and it's not just DSA because there's. They're talking about Democratic Socialists of America. Besides Francesca Hong, who we just talked about, a lot of what they've been going to war against is Democrats who aren't dsa, who they just believe are too far left.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And particularly on Israel.

[Jon Favreau]

Particularly on Israel, yes. And then some other issues as well. But so, like, and then they call it, in the piece, they call it the DSA dodge, which is candidates who explicitly aren't running as DSA candidates but still seem too far left for them. And so they're like, tagging those candidates with it, too. But it's like, and they're talking about Opera research and the DSA platform and all that shit. Like, the DSA platform. Who's running on the fucking national DSA platform? How many candidates are actually in America running on the DSA platform? Like, none of the, you know, Mamdani was breaking with a lot of the DSA platform. He was like the big DSA person. AOC is not dsa. Like, it's. If you don't like the left, go after or make an argument against the policies that people on the left are proposing that you don't think are popular or the right policy or whatever. Like, if you're upset about Medicare for All, talk about Medicare for All. If you don't like abolishing ice, talk about abolishing ice. If you have a problem with the Israel policy, talk about the policy. But the tendency of a lot of centrists to just, like, attack DSA and this, it's just, it's really, I think it's totally counterproductive Counterproductive. Totally counterproductive.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If you believe as I do, that we need to have a big tent party that includes a bunch of candidates who are to the right of me personally and probably the right to a lot of Democrats and a lot of listeners of the show to be able to win in states like Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Arkansas. Right. If we need to be able to ever get to the place where we have a governing majority, we're going to need a very big tent that has a bunch of people with views we don't agree with on all of them, don't agree with all their views. If you believe that and you believe that we will, if we just keep it nominating candidates too liberal for the states, that we will keep losing the states. What you need to do is you need to, instead of telling voters that their choice is wrong or stupid, you have to give them another better choice. And so therefore, you need a, you need candidates, you need ideas that speak to the exact things that are fueling the rise of these DSA candidates. Livid anger at the establishment. I don't just mean Chuck Schumer, Naquim Jeffries. I mean the political, economic, cultural establishment of this country of a political and economic system that has let them down. You need candidate who can speak to with real ideas that mean something to people, talk to, speak to their economic pain. Right. You need to be like, you have to actually what third way is trying to do here, which is just, I think is they are trying to treat the symptoms and not the cause. If you believe that this is a huge problem, they're going about the exact, what they are going to do is, I think, have the exact opposite effect of what they want. At a time in which if you talk to anyone who's running grassroots organizations right now, big donors of the Democratic Party are not giving to Democratic Party infrastructure the way they have before. They are scared of Trump. They're pissed about 2024. They think their money was lit on fire by super PACs who spent a billion dollars in ads. And so they are not funding the sort of groups to the level they were in Trump 1.0, like groups like Run for Something, Swing Left, Vote Save America, those sorts of groups. And so the fact that this one group has come into $15 million, going to spend it on this instead of the things we actually need to win races and build power in this country and to fight back against Trump is just so infuriating.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, there's a lot of other groups and some of them are new like more center left, moderate groups, whatever you want to call it, who've been working to like recruit and help and train some of the candidates, who are frontline candidates, who are, you know, further to the right than most people in the audience. Right. They're running all over the country right now. And there's some good. And they're. And like no problem with them. And some of them are really great, exciting young candidates, like do that. But third way in particular, like over the last year, like 80% of the time I've heard them come up, it's when they've been yelling about fucking Hasan

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Piker and Zoran Momdani.

[Jon Favreau]

And Zoran Momdani. And it's just like, is that what you want to be known for? Like just yelling about Hasan fucking Piker all the time? Like that's what they like had their big splashy Wall Street Journal op ed about it. And then they yelled about it again and they're still yelling about. It's just like, enough. Just talk about what you're for. Talk about your vision, talk about your policies, talk about some exciting candidates. Try to have that breakthrough. So we talked on Tuesday's show about the abuse allegations against Ohio House Republican Max Miller, the former son in law of Senator Bernie Moreno. Somehow things have gotten even worse. Miller refused to drop out in an utterly bizarre interview with Jake Tapper, who opened the conversation by asking about an allegation that Senator Moreno is had recently made, which is that Miller had recently held his daughter's favorite blue bunny stuffed animal hostage. Miller denied the allegation and told Moreno to please stop the lies. But Mother Jones's Abby Vasoulis, who's covered the story in depth, reported on Thursday that Miller's alleged withholding of the bunny was, quote, part of a pattern of behavior. And not a single incident. And she goes through it's like a fucking year and a half of Max Miller trying to withhold this bunny from his daughter. I can't even believe I'm saying the words. It's like such a fucked up story. Here's a clip from Miller's interview with Jake on Tuesday. So you see what we're talking about.

[Max Miller]

This is nothing more than an individual who's being politically vindictive and talking about a blue bunny. If any of these things were true, Jake, a judge would have taken our baby girl out of my hands. What you have is a very sadly politically motivated scenario to where, you know, people want to see me go away.

[Jake Tapper]

There is a police report from the suspected child abuse incident in February involving your daughter. And that report details that the child protection team says that your child had a right clavicle fracture and quote, a bruise that accompanies the injury that appears to be in a handprint and appears to have been inflicted, unquote. Now, your ex wife stated to police that your child told her in the days leading up to the discovery of the injury, quote, daddy kill you. Can you explain why your child may have said those things?

[Max Miller]

Jake, I. I wish you could talk to my beautiful baby girl. She can't string together sentences like that. She's two and a half years old. She doesn't have the ability to articulate any of what you just said. That is an entire fabrication of the truth. I have actual video, actual documentation.

[David Crowley]

But didn't you just tell me that.

[Jake Tapper]

You told me that she had said that she was scared to go to mommy's house.

[Max Miller]

She is, and I have video of it.

[Jake Tapper]

But now you're saying that she's not capable of saying, daddy kill you. I mean, it seems like she's either able to say one, but not the other. That doesn't make sense.

[Max Miller]

Jake, to be very direct, this is incredibly disturbing.

[Jon Favreau]

My first thought when I first saw this was like, this little girl is going to grow up and this is gonna be on the Internet. This is in the public. It's just, I cannot believe that a father would bring this into the public sphere to talk about in any way, shape or form as opposed to just staying quiet, dropping out, doing whatever. It is evil.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It is basically sociopathic.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I mean, I don't know if your boys had like a thing they had to sleep with.

[Jon Favreau]

Had. I mean, we have put a fucking airtag in Bear. Bear and I once like, drove to Charlie's school at night to try to locate it because he had forgotten it at school. Like, if we flew somewhere as a family and forgot. Bear, Bear. When we landed, Emily or I would be like, have to get on a plane to go back to Los Angeles to get the bear.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Jack, who's five now, but he had. He still sleeps with but a kitty cat, which is a kitty cat. And at once we were in a hotel and I didn't take it out of the bed before housekeeping came and they took all the sheets and kitty cat with them.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh my God. Oh my God.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the efforts that we just. We went to to try to. We. Kitty cat returned safe and sound. But just the idea.

[Jon Favreau]

People who don't have kids who are listening, like, I know you think we sound crazy, but, like, when you have kids. It is, it is, it is like

[Dan Pfeiffer]

it's their whole world. It's just, it is their. It's the thing that gives them comfort. It's the thing they want when they sleep. It's the thing they want when they're upset, when they get hurt, they go get that thing. And the idea that a parent would hold that hostage as a point of leverage over their estranged spouse is psychotic. It is someone like, it is soulless behavior. It's truly. The whole thing is. The whole thing is horrifying. It's horrifying for this girl. Just the idea that this fucking asshole wants to be in Congress so much that he's putting his family through this, putting his daughter, his two and a half year old daughter through this is. It's horrifying. It's fucking horrifying.

[Jon Favreau]

Trump was asked again today, Thursday in the Oval, if he called on Miller to drop out again. He said, I'm not getting involved. Trump won't say anything. Mike Johnson is like, oh, it'll go through the Ethics Committee. A bunch of Republican senators, to their credit, I guess, because they're colleagues with Bernie Moreno have all called on him to drop out and said that. I just saw Tim, she from Montana be like, this is disgusting. Like, what are you doing? So you get a bunch of Republican senators calling to drop out, but like, you're not seeing it in the House, of course, or from Mike Johnson or from Donald Trump. And this guy is just going to, I mean, do you think he drops out? Do you think he, do you think Democrats have a chance of beating him now? I hope so.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Democrats very much have a chance of beating him. So this is a district that Trump won by 11. He has until Monday to get off the ballot. And if it happens after Monday, then they, the county chairs cannot replace him on the ballot. And so there was a poll, this was put up by a Republican firm because the, the people who want to win the Republican want, the Republicans keep the majority, really want him off the race. Right, but that poll had John Poindexter, the Democrat, winning by 14 points. Last week they had Poindexter up by 5 points. So, and then 87% of people in the district were aware of the elections. So yes, I think if Miller stays in this Democrats, I think this would be most likely be a flip. And that's in a Trump 11 district.

[Interviewer]

Good.

[Jon Favreau]

Fuck him. But honestly, losing is not enough. Tommy said this on Tuesday, but he should be in jail. Miller isn't the only House Republican in trouble this week. North Carolina's Chuck Edwards, also in the House, has ended his reelection campaign in a very competitive seat after the House Ethics committee released a 25 page report finding that he engaged in, quote, persistent, unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers that includes, quote, lavish and recurrent gifts, making comments regarding the staffer's appearance and dress, inviting them to intimate dinners and vacations, and sending notes regarding his effusive affection. Some examples, this has been reported by Axios. Some great original reporting there. Giving the staffers each a personalized handgun, one pink and one blue. Telling one of the staffers in a goodbye note that she'd, quote, written a complex chapter in my heart. And sending a staffer a custom jigsaw puzzle that once solved, revealed an invitation to dinner and an Adam Sandler show. Edwards, who has been married since 1980, maintained that nothing inappropriate or sexual took place. What kind of message would you send in a custom puzzle?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Dam, I've actually. John, you'd be surprised. I've thought about this for a long time. I wondered how I could deliver this message to you. And I figured I now realize that puzzle is the best way to do it. And so it'd be a puzzle. You'd put it together. What you would see is your phone. And on your phone would be the Twitter grass, the Twitter app. And on the bottom part it would say, discretion is the better part of valor.

[Jon Favreau]

I didn't even know this was out there until it happened.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's been a very busy week of Republican assholes doing terrible things. And so I'm not surprised the custom puzzle didn't hit your radar.

[Jon Favreau]

Is this gonna be a Democratic pickup now?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, actually. This is a swing seat and there's a very strong Democratic candidate here. I think his name is Jamie Agar that Jennifer Palmieri actually mentioned to me when I talked to her about long play.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, nice.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Exciting Democratic candidates.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, great. Well, Chuck Edwards, good riddance. All right, one more item to discuss. Tucker 2028. It has begun. On Saturday, newlywed Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a photo with her husband and Thomas Massie. Joe Kent, the guy who had quit the Trump administration over Iran, the national security guy. They were all gathered around a table at Tucker Carlson's compound in Maine. MTG's caption said Trump betrayed his no more foreign wars promise and that, quote, the movement has begun. Kent later told the young Turks, as one does, that a third party was in the works and that they were trying to convince Tucker to run in 2028. But so far, he has said he won't. On Tuesday, Tucker reposted MTG's photo with the caption, maga was betrayed. We all were. It's time for a new path forward. He then told people to tune into his Wednesday episode where he laid out his 10 point vision for America. Sounds pretty. Sounds pretty. I'm going to run in 2028. What do you think though? Trial balloon? Total bluff. Something real.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

This is a weird time to announce this, but early next year I'll be taking a leave of absence to work on ballot access for this group because I think this is exactly what we want.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I mean they talked about a unity ticket. They want someone on the left. They want a left populace and a right populous.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Who do you think the left populist would be?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, here's the thing. When you look at, I don't know if you looked at Tucker's 10 point vision.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I did not. No.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So there's some of the stuff that we have played him saying and maybe even agreed with on anti war, anti war in Iran, especially Epstein file stuff. But then there's the like, you know, the low. Then there's the sort of, there's the Maha stuff in there. There's like low birth rate and then there's like no more immigrants while we, while we wait and figure out what's going on. So I just think that there's, I think that, you know, a lot of more moderate types, establishment types, believe in horseshoe theory and I think in some areas horseshoe theory is, is correct. But I think that some of the far right's views, particularly on immigration, are just going to be anathema to even the most left wing folks.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

In all. I made a joke about ballot access. Let me explain why I would be doing that, just to be clear. Like, there's been, there's been a lot of talk of Tucker Carlson being a formidable presidential candidate because of his media skills. Because he. Maybe because mainly because of his media skills. That was always under the assumption he would be the Republican nominee.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Tucker Carlson, a third party candidate, is a gift to Democrats like you cannot imagine. Because it's. He's going. There aren't a lot of potential. Jon Ossoff, AOC Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, voters who are voting for Tucker Carlson. But there are a lot of disillusioned Trump 20, 24 voters who might vote for Tucker Carlson.

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Yes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That's how you win. So that would be very good news. We should encourage this. This would be great. Even if it's unlikely to come to fruition. Boutax this is very, very hard to get. None of these people seem like actual nuts and bolts doer types, just kind of a bunch of idea guys.

[Donald Trump]

But

[Dan Pfeiffer]

it does speak to how much the MACA coalition has truly fractured under Trump's second term. Right. Because of Epstein, apparently because of the war, that there are these incredibly prominent people with large audiences who have soured on Trump. And it doesn't show up in the polling because the polling asks people if they're MAGA voters. And MAGA voters to voters means Trump voters. And so once you stop being a Trump Republican, you stop telling pollsters you're a MAGA voter. But it is like there's a real split here and Trump is losing control of the coalition that elected him. And that's good news for Democrats too.

[Jon Favreau]

I found it interesting in relation to Vance because when I took a look at Tucker's 10 point vision for America, a lot of the policies and a lot of the things he was saying are views that JD Vance has espoused in some way over the last several years in post MAGA transformation. And I also found interesting the Washington Post story Thursday that reported Trump a few weeks ago told a bunch of donors in the Oval Office, which wild place for donors just sitting in the Oval Office. He told them that, quote, at the end of the day, we need to elect JD and the story also said that one advisor has told the Post that he settled on JD now. And then a bunch of other advisors say no, no, no, he's still working it out between JD And Rubio. And then he was just asked Thursday in the Oval about this story. He said, did you say that? Is that true about JD and he said no. So he denied it. But I do think that J.D. vance is eyeing the Tucker movement here and is probably trying to mend fences or at some point we'll try to mend fences with Tucker to try to head this off. And you know, J.D. vance is gonna try to pull the like what Trump administration seemed like a real failure to me and I was just being a good soldier and I was the vice President. So of course I wasn't going to speak up at the time, but everyone knew how I felt about the war in Iran. Everyone knew how I felt about the Epstein files. That was very clear in all the stories. But what was I supposed to do? But here I am standing shoulder to shoulder with Tucker and MTG and all the rest of the gang.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, here's the problem for that idea, which is he still has to go to work in the same building as Donald Trump every day during the campaign.

[Jon Favreau]

During the campaign.

[Donald Trump]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

And maybe unless he's locked out of the White House at that point and

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Trump has still will still have access to his truth social account and we'll still talk to reporters every day. So think about how hard it was in her own mind for Kamala Harris to break with Joe Biden and all she was going to have to do with was an awkward conversation in the Oval Office. Trump will just trash him on true social. And so in his mind, he thinks he could run away from Trump. But I think that is much harder practically with the practical reality of a campaign as the sitting vice president.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. More likely is that Tucker moves to him and embraces him again and then he heads it off that way. But we'll see. All right. When we come back, Dan's conversation with David Crowley. Hot Save America is brought to you by Helix. We just got a bunch of Helix mattresses for Emily's parents house in Maine this summer because they wanted to get some, some new beds, new guest beds. And so we all slept in them when we were there and boy, were they comfortable.

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[Jon Favreau]

It was like New England. New England cottage. Right. And so it's basically just sleeping on a hard board.

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That's right. And it's. And it's basically like the size of this iPhone. Exactly. And now the Helix, the Helix mattresses couldn't be more comfortable.

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[Jon Favreau]

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Not as much as I should. I like, I like it more than I get it, you know.

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[Erin Haynes]

My name is Erin Haynes. My name is Jennifer Palmieri and we're hosting a new series called Long Play. The south is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the south, too. I mean, the south has always shaped American politics. We know that the stakes could not be higher. But to, to win the south, you have to understand it.

[Mitch Landrieu]

People in the south feel really misunderstood, left behind, put down on, and they want to explain that to somebody.

[Erin Haynes]

We're traveling across six Southern states to explore the people, the issues, the assumptions that no longer hold and what the rest of us are missing about a region that will shape the future of our politics and our country. From left, right and crooked media starting July 27th. Watch long play series on YouTube at YouTube.com longplayseries or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Joining me now is Milwaukee county executive and Democratic candidate for Wisconsin governor, David Crowley. David, welcome to the pod.

[David Crowley]

Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

My co host Jon Favreau talked to your opponent, Francesca Hong, earlier this week. And with early voting underway and the primary election only a few days away, it's great to get an opportunity to talk to you both about where the election stands and the issues that matter to Wisconsin voters. This race for a lot of folks out there in the country, and I think even for myself, is kind of flying under the radar until a couple weeks ago when we had candidates dropping out, candidates getting back in. And now there's some intense focus here. But maybe for those who have not paid that much attention, could you explain you were in the race for a long time. You got out of the race, you got back in the race. Can you explain the circumstances behind that and where the race stands right now, the few days ago till the election?

[David Crowley]

Absolutely. And I want people to bear with me. I've been traveling across the states and my voice is a little cracky a little bit. But I made a decision. I make decisions based off of facts, based off of data. And so when I decided to suspend my campaign, it was based off of what we had in front of us. But as you can imagine, we've learned so much information. Information was changing consistently in every day. We end up learning that the facts and the data that we were relying on was pretty much false. And so when the lieutenant governor decided to end her campaign due to her campaign finance struggles, we knew that we had to get back in this race. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't make this decision lightly. It's a very difficult decision to not only suspend your campaign, but to come back and if it wasn't for a good push from my wife, my better three quarters, Erica, as well as the Lieutenant governor getting out. But we understood what was at stake, and so we needed to make sure for me that we have a great candidate that can ultimately defeat Tom Tiffany this upcoming November, which requires someone who has executive experience, who's been able to govern and actually build coalitions across this state.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

When Governor Tony Evers, who was supporting your candidacy, was asked if Francisco Hong could win, he said probably not. Is that your assessment as well? Do you think that if she is the nominee, Democrats cannot defeat Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate, in November?

[David Crowley]

Well, the governor has his right to his own opinion, but I will say this is the first time that I've seen the governor agree with the Republican Governors association, agree with Turning Point usa, because they're spending millions of dollars on her behalf to prop her up as the candidate. And as I travel across this state, people are afraid of socialism in Wisconsin, and so they want somebody who's gonna be pragmatic, who's gonna get things done. And that's why I believe and truly understand why Governor Evers thought that I was the best candidate. You know, I've had the opportunity to work with him for a very long time, and he trusts my judgment, he trusts my leadership and my abilities.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Is the main problem with her candidacy, in your view, Hong's association with the dsa, or is it something else about her candidacy that makes her a particularly vulnerable Democrat against Tiffany?

[David Crowley]

You know, when I think about this race, I don't look at myself as them, as opponents. I'm not running against anybody. Right. I'm running for the votes of Wisconsinites across this state. And so I'm focused on what I've been able to deliver. I'm the only candidate that not only served in the state legislature as a state representative, as a legislative staffer, so I know exactly how our state Capitol works. But I've been leading the largest community, largest county in the state of Wisconsin, representing 19 different cities and villages, close to a million people. And I know that folks want somebody who's not just going to talk about a vision as far as what we need to do in the future, but they want to know who's going to deliver. And I think at the end of the day, the foundation of this campaign is who's going to be able to get things done. And I'm the only candidate in this race to do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So let's talk about some of the issues where there are differences between you and Hong. I'm going to start with data centers. You do not support a moratorium on data centers, although you have proposed some guardrails that you think should be put in place. A recent Marquette University poll showed that 88% of Democrats had concerns about data centers. Three quarters of all Wisconsin voters. Talk to me about why you oppose what seems to be a very popular idea in a data center moratorium.

[David Crowley]

Well, I think that people hear moratorium, they think we're going to stop what's already being built and we can't do that.

[Alex Wagner]

Right.

[David Crowley]

And so for me, a moratorium is short term thinking, but doesn't address the long term concerns that Wisconsinites have about these data centers. Right. I do believe that data centers should have to pay their way, pay for their utility usage, pay for energy and grid upgrades. And I actually call it the Beyonce approach. Now, you may be wondering, what does Beyonce have?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I do. You got me there.

[David Crowley]

But it's an acronym, bring your own new clean energy. Right. And so they need to be building, you know, solar, they need to be building wind, they need to be building data stores. So it's not being, you know, passed on to the cost of the consumers here in this state. You know, our clean air and water doesn't stop at Wisconsin. So we need to make sure that we have the guardrails, particularly for what's already in place, especially with the fact that, you know, not only she served in the state assembly and she's currently there, and they left session without actually protecting our community. And I think that's what we should be focusing on versus allowing it to be a political football that still is being kicked down the road when the next governor is sworn in in January of 2027.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

While there is obviously tremendous popular support for a moratorium or stopping data centers or however you want to think about it, there are elements of the Democratic coalition who think there are some benefits there, particularly building trade unions. Do you think there are potential economic benefits for communities for data centers to be built if the guardrails that you put in place, your Beyonce approach, if you will, is put in place.

[David Crowley]

I do think that we should be looking at how we can extract as much from these data centers versus data centers extracting from our natural resources and our people. When I think about the construction of data centers, we need to make sure one, they're utilizing union labor. We need prevailing wages, we need community benefit agreements. And not just in the communities that data Centers are in, but for the entire state of Wisconsin, because we're all going to be affected in some type of capacity if we could leverage these data centers for our local municipalities, government, our farmers, our legacy industries, our small businesses, our public schools, we should be looking at those opportunities moving forward because they're already here.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Another issue is school vouchers. Hong has called for the elimination of Wisconsin's school voucher program that's been in place for decades now. My understanding is that you are not for eliminating it, but you're also not for expanding it. Talk a little about your position on school vouchers.

[David Crowley]

Well, when it comes down to our public schools, I'm a public school graduate. I want to be very clear about that. I have three daughters and all of them go to Milwaukee public schools. One just graduated from public schools and will be attending one of our university system, public university system schools this year. And so when it comes down to vouchers, when people say we're just going to get rid of them, I don't think they're being honest about the situation or really realistic. I mean, one, this is going to upend not just these children's learning, but also families. But what will this do actually to the public school system? In the city of Milwaukee, we have about 60 to 70,000 students total. Half of those kids are actually in the voucher program. And so if you were to eliminate the voucher program, and we just did a $250 million referendum to make sure that we have enough students, I mean, enough resources for those students, how are we going to send 30,000 of those students to the public schools? They don't have the buildings, they don't have the teachers, they don't have the support systems. And so we have to focus on how do we rebuild our schools to where they become the school of choice. But we have to hold vouchers accountable. They have to be transparent, and they need to be held to the same standards of our public schools. And so just to say that we're going to end this is not really being realistic or honest with the public, to be honest with you.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Okay. Another issue, and this seems like a high class problem for the people of Wisconsin, is there's a big debate about what to do with the $2.5 billion surplus.

[David Crowley]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the. There was a deal that was struck between the Republicans and Governor Evers that ultimately died in the Senate, but involved using that money and tax rebate checks to Wisconsinites and some money for special education. I think you were the one candidate in the gubernatorial race, who said they would have signed that deal? Can you talk to me about why you think that that would have been a good deal?

[David Crowley]

Well, I would have signed that deal because that means, Dan, it would have been bipartisan. That means that Republicans and Democrats would have actually voted for it to actually get to my desk for me to sign. The reason why the governor didn't sign it is because it didn't pass. And I hope it didn't pass because this is what different districts wanted versus us playing politics. You know, there are a lot of people who are desperate. They're looking for someone to help them, provide them relief when it comes down to property taxes, childcare, how do they afford their premiums when it comes to the healthcare, afford the groceries on their table. And so we know that our community is desperate and we need to provide some type of relief. And so, yes, I would have signed that if it would have passed because that means that we would have gotten a bipartisan deal. And when you think about divided government, like, I know what it's like to have to lead and make sure that we're taking care of everybody in this state. I didn't agree with everything in that bill. There are things in that bill that I absolutely like, but it's about how do we make the biggest positive impact in people's lives at this moment, especially when they're being under attack by this

[Dan Pfeiffer]

federal government, recognizing that that was the deal that was on the table, that was the bipartisan deal, that compromise is necessary. And divided government, in an ideal world, what would you do with that surplus? If you could just wave a wand, make a decision as. As potentially future Governor David Crowley.

[David Crowley]

Oh, man, if I could wave a wand, I'll be the governor.

[Jake Tapper]

Right.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But, you know, yeah, we would have any ones on the show, unfortunately.

[David Crowley]

I mean, for me, when you want. You want to provide relief and we want to make sure that we're taking care of our young people. So I think about, you know, our property taxes by making sure that we're investing in public education, that will help naturally ease the property tax pressures that property taxpayers are facing each and every single day. Because we've had to go to referendum to make up the support from the state that we have lost over the few decades. It's about making sure that we can invest in childcare. Right. There are a lot of people who are making decisions whether or not they're going to go to work or if they're going to stay at home because it's not affordable, nor is it accessible. And we know that the next governor has to be ready on day one because there's going to be a lot of holes to fill due to the federal government making a decision to have cuts across the board for each community across this country. And so when it comes down to healthcare, we have to make sure that we're taking care of our most vulnerable populations, and especially in our rural communities as well, because we've seen clinics as well as hospitals closing. But this is about, you know, when I think about this surplus, you know, I always want to bring more people to the table. I was told that if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu. And you think about our young people, they feel like they've been on the menu. Our older adults, our farmers, you know, our teachers, they've all been on the menu because nobody is actually listening to them and allowing them to lend their voices to the solutions. And that's how we're going to move forward in order to create the sustainability that we need.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Across Wisconsin, all across the country, particularly in Democratic primaries, there's been this anti establishment fervor, right? Candidates close associated with the establishment have lost. I know you have strongly rejected the label of establishment candidate in this race, but I think it is fair to say that you have the support of the sitting governor. You have the support of Congresswoman Gwen Moore. I think to some people it felt like your return to the race was the product of the establishment coming together to defeat Francisco Hong. You got back in. Ever since you. Moments later, maybe you could talk to me a little bit about how you feel about potentially having that label, why that label doesn't fit you, and how you plan to be a voice of change in an election where people are very much looking for something different than what they have.

[David Crowley]

Well, you know, I like how people throw the establishment thing out there. I was not endorsed by a congressional member until I got back into this race, or a U.S. senator.

[Max Miller]

Right.

[David Crowley]

I wasn't endorsed by any of these things. And for me, the frustration is because, you know, I've worked my entire life, you know, not to be labeled, not to be placed in a box. You know, my parents were great, loving parents. My father was a master electrician. My. My mother was a Jane of all trades that I lost a couple of years ago. And they taught me the value of hard work, to be resilient and to get back up, you know, when someone knocks you down. But they also suffer from drug addiction and mental health. I was evicted three times before I graduated. High school for at least 15 years of my life. I moved every single year. And I've worked extremely hard to be where I am. And so it does get a little frustrating because I didn't get in this race to protect the establishment. I got into this race to protect the people, to let folks know that they deserve to have a seat at the table and that I'm willing to come and have the tough conversations to make sure that we're following our state's model and moving Wisconsin forward.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So we're a few days before the election, the polls have shown Hong with a sizable lead. Now, the polls were not particularly accurate in Michigan the other day. Your campaign put out a memo suggesting the racist. Closer than that. Where do things stand right now? What's your path to victory between now and Tuesday?

[David Crowley]

Our path to victory is making sure that we're talking to as many voters as possible. And when you look at all of the past polls that we have seen, who's been leading in this race has been undecided voters. And we know that we can consolidate many of these undecided voters. When folks understand that I have the endorsement of not just only Governor Tony Evers, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, but the different amount of labor unions that we have, they're starting to understand that there is a path forward. What we've learned, particularly from Michigan, is that no one thought that we'll be staying up until Wednesday morning to figure out who lost this race. The polls were wildly off. This race is much closer than many people may think. But just because I have the support of the sitting governor and so many other great groups and progressive leaders across this state doesn't mean it's going to be a walk in the park. I'm going to work extremely hard traveling across this state to earn every single vote over this weekend. We were in Rhinelander, Hudson, Superior, Bayfield, and we're seeing hundreds of people come out as we're doing our rallies. And so I'm energized, I'm fired up. I'm ready to go, and I'm going to continue to do everything I need to do for the next five days to win this race.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

That seems like a great place to end it. David, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck on the final stretch here.

[David Crowley]

Thank you for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to David Crowley for coming on. Alex will be back on the feed on Sunday with a conversation with Ms. Now's Chris Hayes. Have a good weekend, everyone. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farah Safari, with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Kantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelavie, David Towles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the writers, the of Guild of America East.

[Mitch Landrieu]

Hi, my name is Mitch Landrieu.

[Erin Haynes]

My name is Erin Haines. My name is Jennifer Palmieri and we're hosting a new series called Long Play. The south is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the south, too. I mean, the south has always shaped American politics. We know that the stakes could be not be higher. But to win the south, you have to understand it.

[Mitch Landrieu]

People in the south feel really misunderstood, left behind, put down on, and they want to explain that to somebody.

[Erin Haynes]

We're traveling across six Southern states to explore the people, the issues, the assumptions that no longer hold and what the rest of us are missing about a region that will shape the future of our politics and our country. From left, right and crooked media. Starting July 27, watch Long Play Series on [e-mail] longplay series or listen wherever you get your podcasts.