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- [00:01]
Mike
This is Mike. Mike's stuck in traffic. The only thing that could make this worse is if he promised to cook his date dinner at 8, which he did. But it's now 7:30 and he's still on the 5. Good thing Mike has Grubhub plus with Prime. $0 delivery fees, 0 stress, 0 rush. Dinner's covered and so is his reputation. Free Grubhub Plus. It's on Prime. Additional terms and fees apply.
- [00:30]
Happy Mammoth Representative
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- [01:05]
Darina
Hi, I'm Darina, co founder of OpenPhone. My dad is a business owner and growing up, I'll never forget his old ringtone. He made it as loud as it could go because he could not afford to miss a single customer call. That stuck with me. When we started OpenPhone. Our mission was to help businesses not just stay in touch, but make every customer feel valued, no matter when they might call. OpenPhone gives your team business phone numbers to call and text customers all through an app on your phone or computer. Your calls, messages and contacts live in one workspace so your team can stay fully aligned and reply faster. And with our AI agent answering 24 7, you'll really never miss a customer. Over 60,000 businesses use OpenPhone. Try it now and get 20% off your first six months@openphone.com business and we can port your existing numbers over for free. OpenPhone. No missed calls, no missed customers from.
- [02:11]
Mike
Executive producer Isaac Saul.
- [02:13]
Carol
This is Tangle.
- [02:25]
Will Kbach
Hi everyone and welcome to welcome to the Tangle Friday edition. This is Will Kbach. I'm Tangle's senior editor, coming to you on a lovely August Friday here in Brooklyn, New York, where I'm based. And today I'm going to be reading our Friday piece which is a response to feedback and questions we received after we put out our YouTube video where we followed representative Jake Auchingloss. For about three days in June while he was on the Hill. The idea of this video was to get a behind the scenes look at what it's actually like to be a member of Congress, the things you might see them do on a day to day basis, the people they interact with, the things that they're working on, and generally give you a peek behind the curtains at what this incredibly important and serious job is actually like. The video generated a ton of feedback, thoughts, questions, criticisms, and when that happens, we sometimes like to dedicate an entire edition to responding to it. So that's what we're going to do today. We also think this will be a great way to follow up on the story since there was a ton we weren't able to fit in that video. If you haven't watched it yet, we'll put the link to it in today's show. Notes There's a few points where we reference specific moments and if you check this out in the newsletter, you'll see we've linked to specific spots in the video. So it might be a good idea to also check out the newsletter if you are subscribed and read through it there. So you can watch the moments of the video that we're referencing. But for the most part everything should be clear in context. All right, without further ado, let's jump into our mailbag. What happened behind the scenes with Representative Jake Auchincloss? Our first question comes from Jonathan from Omaha, Nebraska. This was awesome. Will you do more? Will you do a companion piece for a Republican, an independent or a Libertarian perspective? Here's our response. As our team and resources continue to grow, we definitely want to do more videos like this. And if we can do A Day in the Life video with a Republican representative, we'd absolutely do it. And we're already looking for a willing participant. I also think it'd be interesting to turn this into a series that explores a wider range of people operating in government. What is A Day in the Life of a judge? Like, what about a campaign manager or a legislative director or a governor or a city council member, or a Secret Service agent? Or even if we could make it happen, a president? There are a lot of different options and we had a blast making this video. We're really proud of the result. And so yes, our plan is to do more. And a small but important note just up front is that we have the video team and the resources to do videos like this because of memberships and donations. So if you're able, please support our work. And if you have. Thank you. We'll put a link to our membership page and our donation page in today's show. Notes the next question comes from an anonymous reader in Stockholm, Sweden. How did you pick the congressperson? Who else did you ask and did anyone else accept? If not, why not? If so, how did you decide to choose Representative Auchincloss? Here's our response. We wrote a bit about this question in our introduction to the video when we posted it a few weeks ago. But to recap, Representative Auchincloss is a Tangle reader and he occasionally writes in or messages Isaac directly from with thoughts about a particular issue. During one of his exchanges with Isaac last year, he floated the idea of us shadowing him through a full day in his life on the Hill, offering our viewers a behind the scenes video of an average day in Congress. Auchincloss loved the idea and that was that. In other words, we weren't picking from a list of options. The opportunity came together organically with a specific representative who was already familiar with Tangle. With that said, we do want to do this again with a Republican representative and potentially more representatives representing different facets of each political ideology. But we're looking for somebody specifically who checks the following boxes. First, they can offer us full access to their day, barring reasonable restrictions on what we could and couldn't film. Next, they will give us insight into committees, initiative groups, et cetera, that they are a member of. Next, they work on issues that would be salient to our audience. And finally, they should not have participated in a similar behind the scenes kind of profile before. Just to make sure that what we're putting out is fresh and unique. The next question comes from Eric from Rosslyn, Washington. I've read that Congressmen spend at least a third of their time fundraising. Did you see any evidence of this with Auchincloss? Here's our response. This was one of the most common questions we got, specifically that note about spending at least a third third of their time fundraising. And I think that's because of a series of stories that NPR did around 2012 exposing how much time members of Congress actually spend fundraising. That's where that one third figure came from. But straightforwardly, we didn't see Representative Auchincloss spend any time fundraising, literally not one minute while we were with him. We suspect that was for a few reasons. Number one, he knew we were coming, and I doubt he wanted us to see him spending time on the phone with donors versus doing his actual legislative work. Number two, he's in a very safe district Auchinglass ran his 2024 primary and general races unopposed, and he got 97.4% of the vote in the general election. Members like him don't need to do much fundraising for their own reelection. Finally, as you see in the video, he did spend some time thinking about what to do with money he has raised through his political action committee, his pac. And when he was thinking about that, he was deciding which rising stars in the party or colleagues of his in competitive districts he wanted to send money to to help out. So while we didn't see him raising funds specifically, we did see him thinking about how to allocate money he had already raised. Those are some theories about why we didn't see any fundraising while we were there, but we thought it was worth putting the question to Auchincloss himself. So Isaac shot him a note on Wednesday night. Here's what Isaac asked him Doing a Question and answer about our video this week. A lot of people have asked about you conspicuously not doing any fundraising when we were there. Given how much time we know members of Congress spend raising money, I have some thoughts, but was curious to give you a chance to address that. How much time do you spend fundraising? Were you concealing that work when we were there? Thoughts? Anything you'd like to share with our readers? And here was his response. Hey, yes, fundraising is part of the job. I don't spend nearly as much time doing it as some readers may think, especially in Washington. It's not unusual for me to go weeks in Washington without fundraising. I write a bit in my substack about some reforms I would support that would lead to more competition and less concentrated raising and spending. All this is to say I think it's totally believable that for Representative Auchincloss, fundraising is just not that important. Certainly not as important as it is for many other members of Congress.
- [09:22]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break. If you've been listening to this podcast, you know the world is full of uncertainty and craziness right now, and amid all that, it's good to take care of yourself. Most people do this by buckling down and saving some money and making sure they have a nest egg. But one of the best ways that you can do it is to make sure that you're not underinsured, overpaying and underprotected. Especially if your life insurance policy is through your job. That's why I'm using Selectquote to find my own life insurance policy. For over 40 years, SelectQuote has been one of the most trusted brokers in insurance and they help more than 2 million Americans secur over 700 billion with a B dollars in coverage. Their mission is simple to find you the right insurance policy for your unique needs. They shop and you save. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com tangle save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com tangle today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com tangle why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to? Quince has the good stuff. High quality fabrics, classic fits and lightweight layers for warm weather. All at prices that make sense. Everything I've ordered from Quince has been nothing but solid. I've been telling all my friends this summer that I am a linen guy. Now this is the summer of linen for Isaac because I have been absolutely raiding the Quince wardrobe, buying linen shirts, linen pants, linen shorts. And it's not just the linens. Casual T shirts, fun jackets, long pants. Everything on their website that I've snagged has really been an awesome addition to my wardrobe and I've gotten compliments on basically all of it, even from my wife who never really thinks I'm dressing myself well. So if you want to keep it classy and cool, I highly recommend the long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.comtangle for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Quince Q U I N C E.comtangle and get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comtangle.
- [11:39]
Will Kbach
The next question comes from Kim in Lugano, Switzerland. How did you reconcile the seemingly perfect reasonableness of, for example, the exchange between Jake Auchincloss and the Republican Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. And how did you reconcile that with what is portrayed of the behavior of most Republican senators in the mainstream media when they are on camera? Our response? First off, I don't think it's just mainstream Republicans, but also mainstream Democrats who are portrayed much differently than we saw in our visit. And I do think members of both parties act differently when they appear on cable news versus in a video like ours. Even Auchincloss, who I found pretty genuine relaxed a bit when we weren't recording. You can just see someone's shoulders drop a few inches and their personality come out a bit more. This is a human thing. I do it too. We all do it too, even when we're not trying to. A small aside From Isaac, our YouTube executive producer John's biggest advice to Isaac for our videos and podcasts has always been to quote, talk like you talk to me when we're having a bourbon. That's when you're most interesting and approachable. We think that advice would work for a lot of politicians, too. We also spend our time with some pretty reasonable people, Auchinglass and Johnson among them, while our national media spends most of its time highlighting the most unreasonable people. This is a major problem with our media right now. Almost every American liberal knows who Marjorie Taylor Greene is. Almost every conservative knows who Jasmine Crockett is. How many Americans could name a single member of the Problem Solvers Caucus? Flamethrowers are much more popular. Why? Because they are good for ratings, clicks and views. Our honest take of the 535 members of Congress, we think a lot more are like Auku, Klaus and Johnson than Greene or Crockett. It's unavoidable that politics is theater in this case. Dusty Johnson is a smart guy who wants to get things done. He understood who we are and who our audience is, and he acted accordingly. He'd probably act very differently during a primetime cable hit on Fox News where he's trying to appeal to Trump voters the same way Auchincloss took on a very different tone when he was doing his hit on msnbc. This is the nature of the business, and I think that's why our video adds so much value and perspective. The next question is from Robert from Santa Barbara, California. How did the Republican Congressman Dusty Johnson learn of Tangle's presence? Here's our response when we confirmed that we'd be doing this video, one of the first goals we set for our DC Visit was to explore how Auchincloss works with members of the other party. Not only would this be squarely in the Tangle ethos, but we hoped it would also pull back the curtain on how representatives who seemed diametrically opposed in public relate to each other in private. So we put the question to Auchincloss staff. Was there a Republican member with whom he had a working relationship who we could meet and interview while we were there? Almost immediately, they said we should talk to Representative Dusty Johnson, who recently announced his candidacy for governor of South Dakota. As a fun fact, Auchincloss and Johnson previously served together on the China Select Committee, which focuses on U.S. economic and security competition with China. The two have worked on addressing China's role in the fentanyl crisis, and they published joint opinions on strategies to increase U.S. economic competitiveness. Although Auchincloss is a strong critic of President Trump and Johnson is a very strong supporter. They are still capable of working together on these issues. We worked with their offices to set up the interview, which you can watch here in the video. Again, this is a spot where we've timestamped this specific moment. We're also planning release a full length version of the interview very soon, so be sure to subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications so you can see when we post that Representative Johnson said he wasn't aware of us until recently, but based on what he knew, tangle is quote, good stuff. Personally, one of my favorite quotes of the time that we were in D.C. next question from Trey in Houston, Texas. Did you ever get the sense that Representative Auchincloss sometimes has to compromise his values to toe the party line? I feel like some of his comments about voting on different bills implied that sort of political tension. Here's what we said. Our read on Representative Auchincloss is that he's less an idealist and more a pragmatist to us. Thoughtful politicians understand there are battles worth fighting and places where it's okay to give a little. So yes, it's fair to say we got the sense that he might sometimes compromise his values to toe a party line, but we also got the sense that he was willing to buck the party when he felt strongly about something. To be frank, most effective politicians approach things this way. People who don't understand how DC Works can often have misconceptions about how easy it is to just walk into Congress and vote your conscience every single time. In reality, representatives have to consider compromising on some immediate smaller battles so they can win allies for bigger future battles. A good example of this was Auchincloss deliberation over whether to support two congressional resolutions on anti Semitism, which came following the attack on members of a Jewish community group in Boulder, Colorado in June. In our video, he explains that one of the resolutions is a straightforward condemnation of the attack that he expects virtually all members to support, and they did. The second, however, contained, quote, more inflammatory and divisive language, and he said he would not lock in his vote until after he discussed the resolution with his colleagues. Auchincloss eventually voted yes on the second resolution, which to us suggested that he opted not to take a controversial stance on what is ultimately just a statement of principles. That is not something that could become law in our time with him. Auchincloss spoke a lot about the test he gives himself on these kinds of votes, and that is, can he explain his decision to his constituents back home. That's politically wise, but he's also someone who wants to get things done. And when you want to get things done, it's smart not to make enemies with powerful members of your party. That's doubly true when you're a young member of Congress like he is still climbing the ranks and you don't have as much influence or weight to throw around just yet. Our next question comes from Marnie from DuPont Washington. Could you please explain the term Posse Comitatus first for context? Auchinklassen, a member of his staff, referred to Posse Comitatus in the video when discussing President Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles to counter protests against federal immigration actions. On his way to MSNBC's studio for an interview, Auchincloss and his communications director discussed how he would frame the, quote, legal argument of posse comitatus to explain his opposition to the guards drawing on.
- [18:14]
John Lowell
Auchenloss hey everybody, this is John, Executive Producer for Tangle. We hope you enjoyed this preview of our latest episode. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com and sign up for a newsletter subscription. Or you can sign up for a podcast subscription or a bundled subscription which gets you both the podcast and the newsletter and unlocks the rest of this episode as well as ad free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews and so much more. Most importantly, certainly we just want to say thank you so much for your support. We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings, so stay tuned. I will join you again for the daily podcast. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day y'.
- [19:06]
Will Kbach
All.
- [19:09]
John Lowell
Peace.
- [19:11]
Isaac Saul
Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul and our Executive Producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will Kbach and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey, Saul, Lindsey Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.
- [19:51]
Outback Steakhouse Announcer
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- [20:20]
Carol
Carol, you're in remission. I think what gets me most about this whole journey that I've been through is just how many jigsaw pieces come together to help someone like me. I've met people who have just packaged the drugs, just this white box saying World Courier on it. But I want to better say thank you to every single person that works on these things because they've saved my life. Every single one of them.
- [20:44]
John Lowell
Every minute, World Courier makes another life changing delivery. Learn more Search World Courier hi, this.
- [20:51]
Joe from Vanta
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- [21:18]
Will Kbach
Com.