The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell on How Democrats Can Defeat MAGA for Good

Oh my goodness, there hasn't been this much lesbian energy on the stage since Rachel

Matt out dined alone.

“Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the box media podcast network.”

This is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. We're less than two months away from the midterm elections and Democrats are feeling a kind of optimism they haven't felt in a while for good reason. Voters have clearly soured on President Trump as evidence by his abysmal approval ratings. Democrats have had some big wins in recent elections and the party in power historically struggles

in the midterms. Still the Democratic Party is an exactly winning any popularity contest with voters right now either as the party wants to bill the kind of coalition that can consistently win elections and defeat megapolitics for good. It will have to win back some of the voters who've abandoned Democrats over the last decade.

My guest today has a blueprint to do just that. Sarah Longwell is the founder and publisher of the Bullwerke and a former Republican strategist. She has a new book out called How to Eat and Elephant One Voter at a time.

It draws on the hundreds of focus groups Sarah has done with voters since Trump first won the White

House and it offers advice to Democrats and how they can permanently defeat his authoritarian style of politics.

“I think it's important to listen to Republican strateg.”

Now Sarah has been a real critic of President Trump, so she's not exactly the Republican anymore, but she's really real situated to help our country out of our slide into authoritarian politics because she listens to voters. All right, let's get to my conversation with Sarah. We recorded in front of a live audience last week at 6th and I in downtown Washington, DC.

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Sarah, thank you for coming on on. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. We're going to cover a lot in the conversation, Trump's unpopularity, the divide on the left, between moderates and progressives, essentially punching left, and fears of the upcoming mid-terms. But we're going to start with your book. You spent a decade listening and talking to voters to better understand what's happening in American politics right now. You've probably heard

thousands of people at this point. What's the biggest thing in general that Washington gets wrong about the kinds of voters you're hearing from, and what is the overall message you're getting now? Because it changes, you know, goes in and out. Yes, one of the stories I tell in the book

“is, do you remember when Donald Trump stood on the stage with Vladimir Putin and Helsinki,”

and he cited against America's intelligence community? So I was really early in my focus grouping endeavors because, you know, we were trying to primary Donald Trump, and I really wanted to know

Republicans are going to be furious that Donald Trump is siding with Vladimir Putin against America's

intelligence community, and I walked into the room ready to hear it, ready to hear how mad they were, they were going to abandon Trump, and I said, so what do you guys think about the fact that the Trump did this? And everybody's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And it was a real moment for me to understand that the things that we obsess about in Washington, because you got to understand back in Washington, Paul Ryan was like throwing the biggest fit you'd ever heard of.

Donald Trump was getting yelled at so much by Republicans. Remember he tried to lie and say he didn't say the thing that he said that everybody just misunderstood him. So he's walking in unusual for him. I know, it's not like I'm at all. But this still happens all the time. It's like the beginning of a shutdown, and a hundred reporters will say, Sarah, what are you hearing in your

focus groups about the shutdown? And I'll say nothing. They have no idea that it's happening.

And so so many of the things that just consume us in Washington don't even break through to voters. Is it because of lack of information or poor information sources or what are you, or they don't have time for following every single moment? Yeah, it's a bit of everything, right? But I think a lot of it, and this goes to the lesson of what I learned was how much people look, they are consumed with their own lives. And you ask people all the time, you know, where do you get

your media? It's a standard question and focus group. And they'll say, whatever, I see the headlines,

“when I'm scrolling. And if you think, okay, that's how the vast majority of Americans media diet is.”

You, it doesn't surprise you that they're not sort of breaking down every thing that happens that we obsess about. And also, you know, we talk about low information voters in political science.

Aren't they just normal, right? Like I always think like these are people who are not sick,

like us, who are not deciding to make ourselves crazy all the time by consuming this and scrolling on Twitter, right? They've got kids to feed, they've got jobs to go to. And so, a lot of people get really mad that voters aren't better informed, but I have a hard time blaming them for trying to live their lives. And also, you throw on top of that, many of them are algorithmically siloed, which is something I think we've all come to understand now. But on the, especially in the

right-wing media ecosystem, it used to be that you would go and you would get your news, right, local news, maybe some national news. And then you'd go like to the daily wires, something else to get a conservative perspective. Now that you live in that ecosystem, right? They may never hear a different perspective, and that's sort of as affecting all of us. Yeah, it's an interesting thing because I might tell the story like my mom,

when in the stock market, it was melting down, called me up and said, there's a real issue with trans-fancers. And I was like, "Fancers? Trans people who've fenced?" Yeah. And she goes, "Yes, it's a big problem in this country." And I said, "Really, it isn't." There probably isn't even one. Right. Right. I was surprised there was one. And it was because she was being fed on Fox News. So, she didn't know about certain things at all.

This is an enormously common response that I get in focus groups of Trump voters, actually, where they're like, "They're mad about the war on Iran because they know gas prices are high. They know prices are high in general, so they're upset. Maybe about tariffs." But some of the things that they'll be like, "You know what? He's got trans people out of sports." And so, it's okay. Like, you know, it's like war, gas prices, but as long as trans people are out

“of sports, we're all right. Right. So, talk with does break through, and is has it changed?”

Are they paying attention to these voters? Because every, I mean, obviously, Democrats pay attention to it. Independent seem to be paying attention to the things he's doing. What is breaking through with each group? So, this is true. I think just in general about politics. The things that break through are the things that have negative personal consequences for people. Why do people know about the war on Iran? Because gas prices are high.

They don't feel the bombs dropping. They don't feel the idea that we're over there. Now, they understand that Trump is going back on his word, but mostly they're experiencing it through high gas prices. And I think, you know, the tariffs, again, it's not that they understand a lot about tariff policy, but they understand that things are more expensive. And the Donald Trump's central promise was that he was going to lower prices. That hasn't happened, and he owns tariffs,

and he owns the war, because he's done them unilaterally. And so, that is the thing that has broken through that voters are, because they're feeling it themselves, and they understand it is a direct

“product of Trump's actions. What else? What other topics have surprised you? I think a lot of”

people, and I wasn't one of them, were surprised by the reaction to data centers, for example. A year ago, I was telling the tech companies, you're in big trouble here. And again, it was because it was in people's lives. And this reaction has been massive, probably too much, on some level. I mean, I'm not doubting how are the luck in a highway that more on, but there's no water used in data centers. We such a moron, like anyway, sorry, that was just me.

there were these off-year elections, Mikey Cheryl and New Jersey, Abigail Spamberg are here in Virginia, and oh, yeah, Abigail Spamberg is great. She listens to the focus group podcast. Yeah. But I did hear, I was hearing all through those races, voters were saying the thing that they were most frustrated about was the data centers. And I had not been tracking it until it started coming up in all the groups. I'll tell you the one that's coming up now, all the time

is the flock cameras. Yes. Like, this has become a big issue in Texas. It's a big issue in that interview about it yesterday, just yesterday. Yeah, it is. And the data center of one is really

“interesting because I think it hits across a bunch of vectors for voters, not only does it hit”

them with the sort of like, these really rich tech people are going to make all of this money to they're doing it in our neighborhood that is raising my energy prices, which is the thing that most

people talk about is feeling like their energy prices are going up. And then the third thing is,

do you think it's going to come take their jobs? Yeah, right? They're like, someone's going to get rich. I'm going to lose my job, and I'm going to pay more for energy. And that is why there's this enormous backlash. And also, the tech community, this is your area not mine, but it feels like if they were going to go into people's communities and do this, they had to talk to them first, right? It feels like it's something being done to people. Yeah, what a surprise to me that they didn't.

They can't even talk. These aren't the most like socially adapted people. Is that what you're saying? No, at this point, they're just assholes, and they're rich. So, you know, I'm sorry. Yes,

“I will say, I did promise my eight-year-old James there that I will not swear tonight, but it doesn't”

apply to you. Sorry, James. I'm so sorry. And I'll try my best. It's okay, there's not normally eight -year-olds in your audience. Let's see, so what is resonating? Data sent, because Trump is very tied to the tech moguls. He's very tied to AI. Every day, he says you're stupid if you don't, or China's going to beat us, or every day they have a different. Today was JD Vance, as if we don't win China, we'll beat us in AI. Yeah, you know, and again, another person who's

moronic about these topics, but he doesn't, they seem to be doubling down on telling people their stupid. Yeah, I don't think that works with voters generally. But I also don't know that voters pick it up as much Donald Trump. You know, Twitter was really a better medium for him. The fact that he has Ruth social and he's kind of sequestered there has done a him a lot of good,

because people don't always, you know, catch all of that stuff now, like they don't hear that

he's calling them stupid. But they did hear, you know, last year, when he would say things like, forget about Epstein, I love the inflation, like, those things do, and I got to say the thing that I hear about right now all the time is voters genuinely can't believe we're in this

“war and Iran. Like, they say all the time, I think Trump thought it would be like Venezuela,”

and it would be like in and out, and it'd be done. And that's not happening. And they are furious. Like, there is a reason he is living in the low 30s right now. And it's because, and once you're down the low 30s, you are at his core base that is basically like, these are the people who I was doing a focus group in Florida. And one of the guys was like, you know, I am frustrated with Trump because he is not doing deportations hard enough. That's a different kind of voter.

Most of them are just, most of them are upset. And it really is, listen, it's not that the reflecting pool or the east wing, that doesn't have a personal consequences for voters, but it is a contrast for voters about what Trump is paying attention to. Right. Voters will let him do all the weird stuff he wants as long as the economy is working, like his voters. But the second that he is focused on the east wing, instead of affordability,

that contrast breaks through the voters, including his voters. And there's always a spectrum of

Trump voters. Right. There are the ones who just think, I love Donald Trump no matter what, no matter how poor I get. Like, I could like be naked in the street, have no food, no water. I just have a red magica, you know, hat on. And I'm running around going, I still love this guy because he is making the lives mad and he's triggering them. And that's great. That is not the entire Trump coalition. There's also a bunch of people who are either just like Republicans or like on ever vote for

Democrats, but a lot of people were these low information voters who were like, I don't like the wars. I want to see the Epstein files. And I want my cost to go down. Those people are infuriated with to the silly things like like America and everything else breakthrough or not. They do break through, but that's the stuff that actually, I'm in the camp where that Trump does that because he knows that it sort of just distracts people. It gets them talking about something other than the war,

other. He does these things whenever he's losing. There's also, we just want to run massive news cycle about, you know, trans women in the WNBA. Why? They got to change the subject

Right. So they know about it, but it doesn't, other than people will talk about it like,

“oh, that's a stupid thing, but they don't really care. Right. Although you noticed the numbers of”

map quests have gone up massively. It's really kind of inter-app quests. Yes. They have 1.5 million

downloads. Someone's paying attention, and it's not just a lot of angry Democrats, you know, it's really, it's an interesting thing. Please use map quests, everybody. Anyway, in the dedication of your book, your friend and podcast co-host Jonathan Vee last has a warning to readers. He writes, "Yeah, JVL." Do not read this book with a mind to argue with voters that way lies madness. We all know voters often have, sometimes in coherent, sometimes contradictory views, but you see close

up most of us don't. So talk a little bit about the contradictions and what that reveals to you. I mean, I remember when abortion became a dominant issue, we started talking about it all the time and focus groups. I heard this line over and over again that said, "Well, I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose." And I give me like, "What are you talking about?" I was like, that's like a binary thing. You're either pro-choice or pro-life, and obviously, or you could be like,

“"Well, I think that it's at this point, but it wasn't that. I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's”

right to choose." And like, pollsters aren't going to pick that up. Is that right? That that contradiction sits and people, and frankly, it was a lot of women over 50 who were saying, "Well, I personally, for myself and pro-life, but this right is there, and I'm glad it's there, and I want it to be there." And I hear those kinds of contradictions all the time. The other one that is my favorite is we start every focus group the same way. How do you think things are going

in the country? And everybody's like, "Bad." And a lot of people right now, people when we're mostly talking about the economy, they're talking about the war in Iran, but oftentimes people will lament the deep divisions in the country. They'll be like, "We are a powder keg. We are too mean to each other. We hate each other too much." And that's the same person. I don't think, and this is so good. They don't feel good about the fact that we're so divided, but five minutes later, that same

voter is like, "These lip tards are doing this or that." And you know, people are complicated, and one of the things, it's one of the reasons I'm optimistic, though, is I do think that people contain both multitudes and sort of light and dark. And I do this thing in the book. It's maybe a little cheesy, but I don't care, I'm going to live and die by it. About this Native American parable, where the grandfather's talking to his grandson, and he's like, "Grandson, inside each of us,

there are two wolves." And there's the good wolf, which is, you know, light and truth and everything brave and whatever, and then there's the bad wolf and it's avarice and greed and everything terrible,

and they're always in tension. They're always fighting. And the grandson says, "Well, which one wins?"

And he says, "The one you feed?" And the idea of leadership, right, is about saying, "It's the same thing. It's the federalist papers." If men were angels, we wouldn't need government. It's the better angels of our nature. It's the devil and the angel on your shoulder. Like, this is the human condition. And leadership is there to try and draw out the better angels of our nature. And Donald Trump's literally his political mission is to do the opposite. He has been feeding the

bad wolf for a decade. And so you can feel people struggle, right? You can feel people saying, "I know that this, you know, in my life, I want this better way. I want to not hate my neighbors. I don't want to be angry all the time. But the everything, the algorithm, Trump, the outrage cycle, everything feeds that bad wolf. And the pitch in the book really is about like, how do we get our leaders and how do we build a country where we're back kind of in the our leaders are trying to divide

us for sport?" Except you're going to want to eat the elephant, which means you want to kill it. Correct, presumably? No, it's 81, one bite at a time. Yeah, I mean, it is a look, the how do you elephant obviously it's a great title, I thought of it. But it is, it really is about like how do you

“solve a big, intractable problem. And I think after 2024, which is when I was like, you know what,”

I'm going to write this book, it was because I was coming to bull work events and doing bull work things. And everybody was sure we were cooked. Everybody thought it was over. We're not going to survive this America's done, people are bad. If we were a country, it was one thing to

elect Trump the first time. But people really felt like if America could collect him a second time

after the insurrection and look, I felt this way too. They're like, then we're not a very good country. And I just can't let that sit there. I think that's not the right lesson to take. And I

to change a lot of things we need to build. But I kind of wanted to do, look, we're lesbians. We're

“sitting here like a softball coach being like, let's get everybody pulled together. I'm a little bit”

like that. I'm like, get the fuck up. Yeah, I'm really depressed. I'm like, I don't care. Yeah, just move along. Let's get it done. Yeah. Let's be interested around everything and have all the children but it's another. There's not enough tiny lesbians to save democracy though. Yes. I don't know there's enough of us. It's going to take everybody else. Yeah, true. You know, my joke, the militia etheric. We're going to form one. militia. That's the older people in the audience. Right there.

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So as I know, nearly every election is one along the margins, something you talk about in the book, and you identify a handful of distinct groups whom you call the persuadable electorate. But I want to talk about the double haters. These are people who just trust both parties, but say they're also, you said they're the most getable. Why was Trump the lesser of two evils for many during the 2024 election? And was cynicism is always part of politics. It always is.

And you hear a lot of people talk that way. I'm zoning out. I'm not listening to news and things like that. So talk about this dissatisfaction and how you turn it into, you know, turn that

frown upside down kind of thing. You know, I always say that if we had a drinking game in the

focus groups and we took a shot every time somebody said lesser of two evils, we'd be dead every time. Because the vast majority of American voters are not that site about either political party and they are, you know, deeply cynical. And this is one of the, that cynicism really plays to Trump. He wins that jump ball. Yeah. Oftentimes because when if you think both political parties are corrupt, the scale of his corruption doesn't land because you're like, wow, they're all corrupt.

So they're all bad people. They're all sex past. You know, when if you think it's all that they're

“all like that and you're a double-hater, then you're like, the only thing I care about is like,”

is this person going to make the economy better? And the reason that Trump won was because in this, one of the, I'll talk about this is something else that I knocked me off my feet very early

How do you watch the apprentice? I watched every episode. How many of you watch the apprentice, seriously? All right, I'm embarrassed for you, but that's fine. Yeah. That's fine. Well, I watched

“every single episode. I'm embarrassed for you too. I was like, what do you want to say?”

Did you watch that show when you thought, boy, this is a compelling guy. I want to say, down and hang out with him. No, no, no, no, no. But the reason now why I'm extraordinarily wise, the last season was a fucking disaster. And that's where we are. We're in the last season. Deep on the apprentice restaurant, but I like that kind of stuff, so. The thing that I would stunt me was in the focus groups, they don't watch the apprentice, all these Republican focus groups.

And so they had a parasocial relationship with Donald Trump that preceded his relationship with politics and they got to see, this is like, he was like firing Gilbert Godfrey on a sound stage. And everybody's like, that's a good businessman right there. You know, like Andrew Dice Clay, he told him to get the hell out. That's that's business in America. And so he people think of

Trump as a good businessman and even worse, because he's first and I heard this just a million times.

Everybody thought his first term was a success. They forget the part where a million people died from COVID, but they remember the pre-COVID economy as really strong. And so I would just hear person after person say, I'm going to turn off the news. He's a buffoon. I'm not going to listen to it.

“I'm just going to enjoy his economy. And that's why he won that jump all. And then there's the”

deficiencies of his opponents, which is a different story. Because, you know, when you talk about the parasocial relationship, one of Kamala Harris's biggest deficiencies. And I went back and listened to all my Kamala focus groups after she lost. And I also did a bunch of ones with people who had not turned out to vote. And I just heard the same thing over and over again. I had no idea who she was. I didn't know what she stood for. I just didn't even know she lived realish. It's funny

because there's this fight among elites. Did she lose because she was too moderate. And she ran as a moderate. And she ran with Liz Cheney or did she lose because she was a California progressive. And she was too progressive. I'm like, I don't know. These voters were like, I don't even know anything about her. I don't know what she's like. And so her inability, I think, to connect with people. Yeah. And his ability to be so durable with people ultimately things too. I think the

parasocial thing is absolutely right. When he first showed up a lot of Washington reporters as a dinner party and they're like, oh, he's a joke. I'm like, no, no, no, no. It's because you were watching the opponent. I was watching the apprentice. Yeah. I didn't want a vote for him. I said, but like, I literally said, if a San Francisco lesbian finds him vaguely appealing, there's a problem.

We've got it because he's a terrible horrible con man. So who are the critical groups? The

double haters? Who will check that the swing voters on the other side? There's a bunch. And I do six, and the chance it's a chapter called Anatomy of a swing voter. And I do my best to come up with a heuristic for who these people are. But it's Hispanic voters. If I can do all six right now, I'll be shocked. It's young voters. And young voters, it's not that they're swingy. It's that they're unformed. Right? Like, there's a lot of people right now. Young voters who thought he was

a vibe, you know? And now that there's a war in Iran, and their lives aren't getting better, and they can't afford houses a rent, there's much less of a vibe to that. Yes, he is. Right? And so now Trump is underwater with young people similarly, Hispanics and other swingy or group. They've been moving right. They are where they have now moved back. It's one of the reasons Texas isn't play right now is because Hispanics, the bottom is dropped out for Trump with Hispanics. Then there's

the double haters. Then there's the people who switch sides, right? So there's the people like me who are like the college educated suburban voters. But this is actually really important for

“anybody who thinks that it is just easy peasy to be jumped from. Why is Donald Trump winning?”

Democrats now have people like me look you guys that that college educated suburban voters,

and we're great in a midterm man. We will always show up. Donald Trump and Republicans have taken

over. They've built a multi-racial working class coalition, but they win white working class voters. And the median voter in this country is a 55-year-old white guy without a college degree. There are more of those voters than there are the college educated suburban voters. And that is one of the reasons that in the general elections, which are very different than the midterms, Republicans have had because of Trump's structural advantage. So talk a little bit about the

media space because, you know, these voters do tend to vote on vibes, as you said, and I think that was rise to the vibes voter. Yeah, so this gets the ways to write dominates a lot of this ever has. It's not going as well now because they're all fighting with each other, which is a pleasure to watch. But right wing podcasts still, you know, when we look at the numbers for ours, we're like a sandwich between Megan Kelly and Mark Levin, and I'm like, oh, you know,

and damn bunch, you know, is wandering somewhere below us. And so how do you, but they're changing. It's changing. There's you got a son, Piker, you've got crooked, and I would say yours is sort of

So to talk about that, what's the key to winning those voters? I mean, how is that going in them information space? Because you, you've built a thriving media business with a distinct point of view with the bull work. So to talk a little bit about reaching them, that way does

“does that work? I think it does. I think those the podcast and that whole news independent media”

space works rather well. Yeah, to say what we do is to basically ask me to explain the entire

book. And I'm going to actually try and give you a short of version as I can, which is this. Donald Trump is going to not be president in two years at a few months, right? [ Applause ] Now, you might be like, well, JVL, if he was sitting right here, he would tell you, that guy's not going anywhere. But like, let's just assume that whether for actual burial reasons or for

constitutional reasons, 2028 is the end of Trump. What is the Republican party post-Trump? They have built an entire political party around one guy. The Republican party is going to be in its weakest state that it has been in a decade, in 2028. As you go into those, okay, well,

“that's good, that's the good part. The question is, can the Democratic party, there's only two of them”

guys, there's only two. Can the Democratic party build a coalition that is big enough to dominate a post-Trump Republican party that is fractured between the Maga establishment and the America

First Coalition. You got your Tucker, you got your Marjorie Taylor Green. On one side, you got your

Marco Rubio and your God, I don't know, Pete Higgs, Seth, how many of them are going to run. Sean Duffy is probably going to run. Okay, man. They're going to be weak, though. Donald Trump's not going to be there to turn it out. So Democrats have this historic opportunity. I wrote the book because I don't think people realize that there is a chance to go overwhelmed what is happening right now. But it requires building a new media ecosystem. The Republican party, I was there when they did it.

They said, hey, the mainstream media shuts us out, you know, and so they wind about it a bunch, and they worked the refs, but they also built their own competing media ecosystem. The Democrats have to do the same thing and not just the far left because that comes with its own challenges, but like the center left to the entire spectrum. I'm a pro all of it. They've got, you can't just keep relying on mainstream media because the mainstream media help us. But I think there's a lot of

stuff going on. There's tons and tons of shows like this now that are starting to really gain numbers and popularity. And you may not like the sunbiker, but my sun sure does. Like it doesn't

“really matter. And he's accepting the messages of Medicare for all. That's what attracts him. I mean,”

that would be a very interesting focus group because the stuff they want is Medicare for all affordable housing, those things resonate and resonate. Let me see. But the point is, is that, and I look, it's not even my, it's, I don't know why do we have to, every time someone says a sunpiker to me, I'm going to say, just talk about Epstein instead. Instead of fighting about a sunpiker, please talk about Epstein. Yes. Yeah. You're right. You're 100% right.

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gov-p clinical study information and restrictions. Visit HIMS.com. Every episode we get a question from an outside expert speaking of Republicans who are trying to make that shift and there was a big story about him in the New York Times today. Let's listen. There are Steve Hilton here running for governor California. Congratulations on the book. He's what I'd love you to answer. This populism thing has been going on for at least a decade now.

You saw it really arrives 2015-2016 on the right and the left. Trump and Bernie Sanders and that whole movement and of course Brexit in the UK and it's a decade later and still the things that gave rise to the populism working class people is stuff about their opportunities in life and all those complaints that really made the populist movement take off. They're still there. Why hasn't anyone figured out whether that's a conservative government, a socialist government,

anywhere in the world to be honest? Why hasn't anyone figured out answers to the problems that

actually promoted the rise of populism in the first place? That was actually a pretty good question.

I know. He'll smile. I'm sorry to tell you. I have Tim a question on your show. Yeah, you did. Was his answer good? Why didn't you listen to the show? It was. He's right.

“And this is what the book is about. Ultimately, where does the populist anger come from?”

It comes from the fact that people have pitchfork at the ready anger over the fact that they think he used to be called income inequality but now that they think there is so much money with these tech oligarchs and with billionaires like that's where that anger comes from and people feel like they're not getting their share of things. They feel like working class voters are getting the raw end of the stick now. The Republicans are not addressing the material economic side of that

but they are addressing the social angst part of that. They know how to make it about immigrants and immigration. And frankly, one of the reasons that right wing parties were winning all over the globe is because of immigration is because mass migration rose and people started crossing borders doesn't matter whether we like it or not. The point is that was the backlash from a lot of those

voters. And I see this too about Trump. And I'd say it about Momsani. Trump never built his wall.

When he ran in 2016, he talked about the wall all the time. It was his main centerpiece of his

“campaign. Just a wall. He's going to build walls like every we were all like what do you mean?”

You're going to build a wall. Photers didn't care if he built a wall. What they wanted was somebody who said they were going to take immigration and border security seriously. That is what he did. Momsani's does this in a different way. I think Momsani's policies just like the wall like I'm going to we're just going to lower prices by having like socialist grocery stores or whatever. These are dumb ideas. These are not going to work and they're bad ideas but he's taking

affordability seriously. What voters here is, you understand that my rent is too high. You understand I can't afford to live in the city and you're going to try to do something about it. And so I do think that if a party could both be normal on the social stuff, which is part of what I'm begging Democrats to do, just be a little more normal and not even on exactly their position, although they could change a few things about their positions. But primarily about emphasis,

Democrats should spend 70% of every word coming out of their mouth talking about the material well-being of voters. What voters want to know is, are you going to make my health care cheaper?

upward mobility? Do I have a job? Am I going to get a raise at that job? That's all voters.

“And you, A, I take my job. And will A, I take my job, right? And what will you do about it?”

Yeah, I agree with you on that. But there is, you know, an element of what he was saying is that actual delivery of services, talking about getting people things like that. I think one of the reasons my money feels effective is he plowed the snow, fixed the basketball. He starts to look like he's... Mom, Donnie is still funny to me because I was sort of like, you know, about when Donnie at first. And now he's like doing licensing reform. And I'm like, I'm listening

Mom, Donnie, are we doing licensing reform? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's doing things for people. I think it's doing feel like, you know what? So, John, I'm sorry to get all good. Okay, so we can see that. Yeah, I know. I really like very excitable. Yeah, we come back and all soft. I'm doing a bunch of focus groups on all soft. And I'm thinking they're going to love his soaring rhetoric. And how handsome he is. I ran to a thing. And they're all like

constituent services. You can always get somebody on the phone at his office. And I'm like,

“what was the last time you heard people really talking about constituent services?”

It matters to people, right? Do they feel like you are responsive to that? It's actually not rocket sites. So much of what we talk about is so stupid and not relevant to people's lives. What they really want is like, do someone going to pick up the phone and say, like, yeah, I'm going to help you out with that? Yeah, right. Or talk about things that matter to voters. So that gets us the pro-democracy movement needs to do to win elections and defeat mug

up permanently. I think you're right. The lineup behind Trump is pretty weeks off. You know, they're all sort of suckups and sick of fans and charmless or one of the other. And then there's Ted Cruz. You know what I'm like? Oh my god, did you see that Ted Cruz is right now number one on the New York Times bestseller list? Not that I'm looking for any reason. But it is Ted Cruz is the number one book. And it's about clearance Thomas.

Go by ten of my books so I can knock him off. That's it. Yeah, everyone's going to love four years of Ted Cruz. I don't think so. So your first step is to make Trump the most on pop in the present in New York's history. Your goal is to drive down his favorite ability numbers into the 20s. Democrats are currently getting a lot of help from Trump on that front. Why is that important? And what do Democrats need to do? They aren't doing to make that happen. Obviously,

Epstein Epstein Epstein. All right. Let's get this when we talk about the kids. We're about to build

“a shelf behind me. Yeah. This is what we do. We get Trump below the bush line. Right?”

Bush left office. You guys all know you listen to me. Right? What'd you say? Yeah, and that's right. That's a deep cut right there. Yeah. Listen to Tim. Richard Nixon, the decline as Tim calls it.

That's not a swear. It's a person. You know, you get you get Trump in the 20s. Here's what it

does. Number one, if the lower Trump is right now going into the 2026 midterms, the better Democrats will do. Number one, because there's going to be a big enthusiasm gap going into 2026. But next, I want Trump to be an albatross around the next of everybody who runs in his way. Right? They're going to be Trump administration types. You want all of them to have to wear like a bolder around their ankles. This idea that they're dragging the Trump administration record with them. And also,

you know, for one another, Trump coming near this, you know, they're going to talk about Donald Trump Jr and everybody else. But you want people to look back and say, oh, yeah, I didn't vote for that guy. I had nothing to do with Trump. Those were those were bad times. I wasn't part of it. And for everybody to think it was a mistake. That's the bush line. And then what was the next part of the question? What, what, what are the things you do? You know, you want to make him deeply

unpopular. How do you? He's already unpopular. Yeah, he's doing well. He's doing a lot of it himself. But here's something I do. Okay. So I don't know if you saw Speaker Jefferies the other day was doing a call with Jared Kushner. So, so, you know, you can do that. Yeah, I think that's probably doable. What I would like is for Democrats to, you listen to John Ossoff right now. I am a little obsessed with John Ossoff, messaging. And his tight shirts. Wow. He looks okay. Even for me. He stopped me.

You talk about, yeah. He's wearing those pants, man. Okay. He looks like a pre-brainer. Okay. And it's moving on. Move on. But, but his communications. So, what does he out there doing? He's out there talking about Trump's corruption. Why, why is it came Jefferies not talking every day about the level of corruption we're seeing? Why is it? He really do. I have been an operative on both the Republican side and on the Democrats side.

guys do. It's all conference calls and icebreakers. And sometimes people are knitting and people

don't want to go into the office ever or put on pants. And they want to four-day workweek. And I'm like, you won't get to a defeat authoritarian. It's like these guys are over here being straight up mercenaries. And you want Fridays off. Like, that is not if democracies at stake. This is my big thing with, this is my big thing for Democrats. Do you know why they're so unpopular right now? Because they've spent the last 10 years telling us democracy is at stake.

“Donald Trump's going to end democracy. I believe the Donald Trump's an existential threat to democracy.”

So it would be nice if the other political party would act like it, like it, like it's a Democratic democracy. In that vein, there's a lot of energy on the left. There is. They feel more muscular. I mean, you know, there is, of course, this moderate versus progressive frame. And you're right. They should all, everyone should just say absteen all the time. And instead of any not as unbigger, but talk a little bit about this. If that's where the energy is, how do you

bottle it for the rest of the party? Yeah, I'm not sure. Look, I actually, I don't believe that and I, I reject in the whole book. I pre-butt right up front that this is a book about whether the Democratic party needs to be more moderate or more progressive. This is not a book about Sarah Longwell's personal politics. If you left it up to me, we'd all just be like libertarians and you'd get all your drugs and all your gay marriages, but also we'd be physically responsible and paying down the debt.

And yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah, sexy. Go ahead. Yeah. But I'm not, you know, for public and trying to sell people on this, some version of this. And this, you know, I don't, it's enough for a dinner party. I'm not sure it's enough for a political party. But I do think that the way that you build that energy is, it doesn't right now, who are the best communicators. It is all soft. It's Pete Buttigieg. It's AOC. It's Mom Donnie. Well, they don't want to all share. Like,

“and this is what I would like to see Democrats do. I think that this idea that you have to fight each”

other or punch left or that it has to be this factual fight. Like, I reject it. Even if I don't like, Hassan Piker, I don't think we should talk about Hassan Piker. Like, right, I mean, I can't, I talked about him one time. Because I was like, Tim, I think you're a assessment of Hassan as wrong. And suddenly, I don't know. I guess, maybe I started it. I'm not sure, but now everybody's talking about this guy. And I'm like, hold on. He may have some, like,

bad ideas, some good ideas, but also, have you looked at the president of the United States lately? Like, this is like one guy on a twitch stream. Like, yeah, half the time talking about, I don't know, his dog and his collar or whatever. And the other, the authoritarian's are inside the gate. And I would like people to be able to focus a little bit on the actual problem that we're dealing with. So one of the things you say, you say one Democrat in that vein, you should not

run for president's former Vice President Kamala Harris, and she cannot speak with clearing directness. That's, you were talking about that energy. How do you make this case to her supporters? She has a lot of them. She's pretty high up in the polls, probably their major issues. It's a name idea, I think. Well, she ran for president too. So we'll talk about what what it has to look like. And obviously, you like, awesome. But if you could build the perfect

Democratic candidate right now, I mean, ourselves not far off, like somebody who, I know, sorry, sorry, but I'm like, I love me. I love Pete, and I love all of all. So these are my personal

things. But I also, let me tell you about AOC. So let's just talk about AOC for one second. So

she and I probably don't share a lot of politics, but I think that AOC is a decent human being. Like, she seems like a very nice, kind person whose heart is in the right place. And so do I think that she would make like the best president ever? I don't know. Do I think that she's better than JD Vance and the cynical bullshit that's being done by Republicans? I do. And I also think, I've watched her grow in the office, which has been sort of nice to watch. I think she's been

growing into herself as a result. Some people on the far left don't like her as much as they once did, but actually my favorite thing. And I talk about this later in the book and I talk about it in terms of the bull work. A lot of you guys are bull work community. Yeah, right? One of the deepest lessons that I've taken from building the bull work and finding this community

“is that to build a community, you have to be a community, right? And I think that the reason that”

people were attracted to the bull work is that 10 JVL and I and some of the other people at the

bull work, like we argue with each other, we don't always agree, but we have honest conversations

about where we stand and we treat each other kind and we treat each other with a lot of love. What if Democrats were campaigning together? What if they were, they were working, they were holding big events where they set, for Republicans are doing this all the time at these, you know, weird America fest or whatever, they have all of the Republicans there, they've got different opinions, but they show up as one entity. Democrats don't do that. And I would like

Democrats to try to show people that they can be a community and hold, Democrats love the phrase hold space. I haven't even heard this. What is holding space? How do we hold some space

yeah, we're all part of the same team, even though we disagree and we can have those disagreements

as opposed to this need to just like punch left or punch right. So you know, you're in the book, a candidate that can show the case for order and compassion of getting along. Well that's

“specifically around immigration, look, I think that one of the things that Democrats are going to”

have, there's only a few places where I think on Pollock, and this again, not exactly my preferred policies, but listening to voters, voters cannot access compassion around things like criminal justice reform or immigration, if they feel unsafe. And what Donald Trump did, his big trick was to say they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, cats and dogs, and some of them are good people, right, they're eating the cats and the dogs.

That creates for people a sense that they are not safe, that they are under threat. And when people feel under threat, they can't like access that compassion. And so I do think Democrats are going to have to say to people, we are going to keep you safe. We are going to make sure that the border is not just open and anybody can come across because voters actually, I don't hear most voters, lots of Trump voters, they're like, I'm glad that immigrants are coming. They're like,

my grandparents were immigrants, I'm married to an immigrant, whatever. And what they say is, I want people to come the right way. Now to be fair, just about every American has no idea what

that means, because they never had to come into this country. They got golden ticket, they were born here,

“but their sense of fairness is, well, there's a line somewhere, and I think people should not”

not this way. I bet a lot of people I know that are Trump voters, it's, I don't like this way. This way is not the right way. There is a real, I often go crazy when people say centrist, I don't even know what that means. It's like a mushy word that doesn't mean what is saying, and nobody else. Well, it's it came Jeffries, actually, or Chuck Schumark. You just end up with blah. Yeah, exactly. It's certain. Okay, Democrats have momentum going into the midterms. It's pretty

clear so far, but there's some scary headwinds. There's Jerry Mandarin, which will help it's going to help Republicans, more concerns with Trump's threats to mail-in voting. He's trying to bring it to Supreme Court. Which, the Democrats, we're doing right now, they've been very aggressive in courts. They have been very aggressive pushing back on the postal stuff, and the Kennedy Center, everything he does, they push back, but it's, it's a defense, it's a defense kind of thing,

“and the Republicans are endlessly aggressive. What do you most worried about going into the midterms?”

You know, especially with his mail-in voting, I just think that Trump, look, Trump isn't trying to do apps. He's doing, not trying to do anything to help Republicans actually politically, right?

He's basically sending them in in the worst possible environment. He's on popular, his agenda's

on popular, so what does he have left to figure out how to keep Democrats from practicing any oversight over him, which he obviously doesn't want? The mail-in ballots isn't really about ending mail-in ballots. It's too late. I can't go through the entire case and why it's relevant, but go listen to my episode of the illegal news, either with George Conway or Andrew Weissman. We all talked about, we talked about this on both the pods. They're trying to create chaos, right? They're

trying to create a postal system chaos so that he can cast out on the election results once they happen. Like, we've seen this playbook. We all know what's happening. The thing that I worry about the most, honestly, is that they get sort of desperate and desperate people back into a corner, do weird things, and it's like, we already have, you guys live here. You see the National Guard everywhere, and if they send ice to places, they send the National Guard. Now, the National Guard

look like they're all like very nice teenagers that just stand in groups and eat ice cream like they're not trying to mess with anybody. But the ice, sending ice into people's, you know, to try and they'll say it's about we're making sure illegals aren't voting, but really it's just an intimidation tactic. Although, again, I think that Democrats like ask yourself, would you crawl over broken glass to vote in this midterm election? I do think that that is how. I also think I've been into

a lot of mayors and governors, and they're all going to have their own police force. They seem very intent on even in Wyoming. They weren't happy about it. They weren't happy about disenfranchising their vote. And I got a lot of friends who work in voting, some of them are here tonight, and they are. They're on top of this. They were all, no. What Trump is going to try and do? So, the last question for a decade now, voters have been told that Trump's hold on American

politics is slipping only to have him come back. And for Democrats, that's been very psychologically demoralizing. You think this moment is different. I do too, having watched all the apprentices on like you, because you're obsessed with John Ossoff. Why do you think this moment is different? Again, going back to sort of the actuarial realities as well as the constitutional

if Trump was 55, right? If Trump was 55, I would think I would be much more worried than I am,

“and already he is like very weird. Now, like he's always been weird, but like he's, I think,”

not super well. What? Not just really hard thing is totally normal. What? Then Natalie, hard thing is bananas, right? And the idea, he, I think he's psyched that anyone thinks they're sleeping together. That they think that's, anyway, sorry, I'm my kids are here. I'm gonna just pivot. I do think this moment's different, and I think that part of why I really think it's different is that I believe that because I, I watched it happen to Republicans, they don't know

what to do without Trump. They can't go back to the Paul Ryan limited government free markets American leadership in the world, because they feel like voters rejected them on that, but they can't be Trump. And so they're looking around for a leader of what comes next, which is why you're getting a bunch of sort of two-bit players like Tucker Carlson and then J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, like, the party already said what it thought about Marco Rubio. And I also think there is an exhaustion

“finally. But I do think, look, I think that here's, I'll say this though, and this is why I do”

think Democrats still need to, I talked to disaffected Trump voters all the time. They are still very leery of Democrats, right? Democrats are still having trouble convincing the majority of Americans that they are going to be better stewards than this absolute clown show. And I think that it requires some introspection on Democrats part on why that is. Maybe even changing a thing or two. When you think about the election coming up, it going into 2028, if you had to pick right now

based on the focus groups and what you've written, the two ideal candidates for the Republicans in Democrat, the presidential candidates, who would you like? Obviously. Also, creepy. Look, I think an off-off peat ticket would crush, but we'll say it's very, very early from what you're hearing from voters right now. You know what's interesting about Democratic voters? I know that people don't want like a super long answer, but I will say, Democrats are so,

this goes back to Kamala. Democrats told themselves that the reason the Kamala was because of racism and sexism. And the inverse of that is that I'll do focus groups of black women and they will be like, I want you to find me the straightest, widest man right now to run on the Democratic ticket. And I do think that there's something that there's an appetite for that in the Democratic party. They're like, we can't take any more risks with any credit from some women candidate.

Yeah, the women candidates are feeling this. And so, I do think, and I think people are really hesitant about a gay president with Pete. Pete's going to have to get people over this idea that America might wouldn't elect a gay president. And I think a lot of Democrats are going to be worried about that. And they're also going to be worried about him with black voters. I think he's working on that. But I think as a ticket or a team, they could go really far. I give me the ticket that you would

take right now. House off Pete. House off Pete. House off Pete. That would be my ticket. All right, in Republicans. Don't make a face. Their best chance is probably Rubio. Who would they put? I mean, maybe Rubio runs with vans, although people don't like vans. No. People don't like vans, but you know my family did my famous joke. He's the cyber truck of

politicians. Because that's a keep it spread it far in mind. It's amazing how Trump could be like

grabber by the whatever. And everybody is like, oh, that's whatever. That's just Trump being Trump. Judy Vans that child was cat ladies and Republican women in these focus groups are like screw that guy. Yeah. Uh, you don't know if they just say things like, I don't like his face. You know, like, they don't all right, Rubio and okay, who would be like good that they would actually, it's probably, it's, no, no, Mickey Haley is done. Here's the only reason Marco Rubio is the only reason

Marco Rubio even has a chance is because now he's been meamed into a position. Everybody's like Marco Rubio is the only competent person in this administration. You have to give him every job.

“I think that it would probably be like him and a woman. Who's a popular?”

Yeah, it's like an America first her. I don't know if it's M. T. G. But it is an America first wing person.

Megan Kelly. That's a great one. I think I think I think that's real. I think Megan Kelly's a real one for her. I do. She has no F's to give from her heart here. Yeah. And she's just like

me and what I finally shut her down by saying it's never going to happen, Megan. Ah.

“It will have the confidence of Keroswester. I mean definitely not going to happen. No, no.”

Anyway, I really appreciate this book is great. Everybody should buy how to eat an elephant.

Their delicious. Sarah. Thank you so much for your time. And let's be Ted Cruz. Let's be

Ted Cruz. Let's be Ted Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

“Today's show was produced by Nishat Coroa, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsop,”

Natalie and the Plant Dooby, Megan Bernie and Caitlin Lynch. Special thanks to Amen Wellen.

This is so up. Jim Mackel and Manola Moreno. And thanks again to six in I for hosting our conversation. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Requan and our theme music is by Tracodemics. If you're already following the show, you are not. I repeat not arguing with the voters. If not, you're trapped in a Republican triangle of doom. Go wherever you listen to podcasts search for on with Keroswester and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Keroswester from

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