Trump Admits He's for He/Him, Not You

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On today's show Donald Trump has fled to China. After admitting he doesn't think about Americans' financial situation, not even a little bit. We'll talk about all the follow-up from that fun little gap and the possibility that Trump may personally pocket billions and taxpayer dollars because of a lawsuit he filed that his own justice department is on the verge of settling. We'll also talk about the Democrats' latest plan to fight the Republican Jerry Mandersprey,

more updates on the DNC and its Phantom 2024 autopsy. And of course, why the new 22-foot golden statue of Donald Trump at his golf club, blessed by his spiritual advisor, is definitely not a golden calf. Before we get into any of that, if you're a friend of

“the proud subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be. You can now buy tickets for this year's”

crooked con, special pre-sale, just for subscribers. So go get your ticket now. If you're not a subscriber, which must be because you hate pro-democracy media and love podcast ads, you can buy crooked con tickets starting next week on May 19th, Tuesday, May 19th. Either way, it's going to be a big fun party after the midterms. November 5th through the 7th. I am sticking with big fun party Dan. Okay, I luck to you one. Go to crookedcon.com for more details, including how to

become a friend of the pod subscriber in which you again get ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods. And you get special subscriber only pods like Polar Coaster with Dan Fyfer. I'm hosting with today. And you also get access to all of our excellent subject newsletters and all kinds of other cool stuff. So go check it out and come a subscriber and buy your crookedcon tickets. It's crookedcon.com. All right, the president is in China, glazing Xi Jinping. He called the

communist dictator a quote, "great leader" while dropping some knowledge on his Chinese hosts. Chinese restaurants in America today outnumber the five largest fast food chains in the United States all combined. That's a pretty big statement. Pretty, pretty big statement. Glad he gave them that one. The Beijing leg of Trump's affordability tour puts him out of the

country at a moment when the president has never been less popular after starting a war. He can't

seem to end that's led to inflation. He doesn't seem to care about which, for some reason, he won't stop telling us. President Trump has to bring inflation down. It's now at a

“highest level in three years. Are your policies not working? What's happening?”

We're working incredibly. We have a forum that's under budget. We're right now on budget, under budget, and ahead of schedule. I double the size of it you dumb person. I don't think about Americans, but the best part of that is it wouldn't have been bad enough, if he had just stuck with not at all. That's still bad, but you would have had to make sure

that if you say it will be a major gap, and he's like, I will do the whole line. I will just say it. I do not think about Americans financial situation. I don't think about anybody.

“The only thing that would have been worse if he'd asked in the turn that helicopter engines”

off first, so he could say it to the audience. Okay, folks, I'm going to do one more take.

I'm going to say a little louder and two camera just so it looks better. Let me hold this big box of gold right now. Can you get the unfinished ballroom in the back for a minute? Yes. In fairness, the one group of Americans who's financial situation Trump keeps improving our democratic ad makers in the pantheon of gaps. Where do you rank this one? Donald Trump has said many offensive and morally odious things over the years,

but from a political perspective, this is the worst thing he has said by far. Hands down, not even close. Three things? I mean, I can't remember. It's been 10 years, but yeah, it's up there for sure. It absolutely has to be. And here's why. Because a lot of

Trump's, like the terrible things he says, like Nazis are fine people. I trust the Russian

Intel, your trust Russia over our own intelligence ages, all of those things, which are really, really bad things for President to say on every level, are a field from the thing Americans care most about. So right here he is doing the worst kind of gaps, or when you say the truth

“out loud, and that's what this is, because what he said was the exact thing that the people who”

vote for Trump who have grown dissolution with him and are thinking of voting for Democrats fear most, that he does not give a shit about them. Yeah. It is like he said the whole thing, and you just, that is our message, like somewhere on a whiteboard, in a democratic superpack, is Trump does not care about American people's financial situations. And then he said it, he said our message on camera. That's bad. Remember, comollas for they, them, Trump's for you.

I guess, Trump is not for you. No, Trump is not for you. This is, it is not for you. Yeah. This is like when comollas Harris, the two quotes, which we'll get to in this later, but when comollas Harris said that Biden by dynamics were working, and when she had no way, so when she was separate us off from Joe Biden, similar, right? When you make a gap that fits with people's greatest fear about you, those are the gaps that hurt the most. I was thinking whether this

was even the worst gap within the context of all of the terrible politically stupid gaps he's made within the context of the of just affordability. Just in that category, because it was like affordability is a hoax, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. Everything's fine. People are okay. If it could be worse, gas prices. I mean, there's just so many of them. I do think this nicely encapsulates that aside from anyone policy or him being out of touch with how people are feeling, he actually just

doesn't think about it. Does not care. Could not care less. Back to the ballroom. This way is like the advisors are saying, well, he was talking about it was talking about this in the context of Iran having nuclear weapon. What he was saying is that he doesn't think about American's financial situation in a way that would stop him from doing what he needs to do to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, which is also funny because he hasn't done that either.

First of all, they still have, they still have the uranium dust and our gas prices are really high.

Zero progress. Zero progress since this war, the latest war began in February of 28. Whatever he bombed over last summer is one thing, but like nothing on the nuclear dust since since this war started. So hasn't figured that out. Doesn't think of American's financial situation. It has been funny to watch Republicans respond to this one, which so many of them have been asked to do, including the Vice President and the Speaker of the House and random members of

Congress, let's listen. I don't know the context in which he made that comment, but I can tell you the President thinks about American's financial situations. I talked to him on average twice a day, sometimes three or four times a day. I could just kind of give it a little

“clarity to what I think President Trump was saying is, look, he does care about the American”

people. He does care about the price of the pump. Well, I don't think the President said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the President said. So good. So good. I like, let me just clarify, let me just clarify when the President said he doesn't think about Americans financial situation. What he actually meant was that he cares about America's financial situation. It's like, look, he's an older gentleman. He's got a lot of sleep. He has confused sometimes.

I think that Mike Johnson went to, I mean, I talked to him two, three times a day. It's like, what does that have to do with him caring about American's financial situation? I also enjoyed that there's the question was, do you think that's a good message? I don't know the context. Look, like, no one has a narrow media diet than Mike Johnson. I feel like every Democrat candidate on the ballot in 2026 should make their Republican opponents for this, right? It feels like

seen more of that yet. I mean, I guess you can only really do that in a, I guess the place to do that is in a debate, because if you do some video where you're like, I call on my opponent to, you know, no one's going to, no one's going to actually do that. That's not going to get you very far,

“but I do think it'll be a good debate moment. So I think the way we generally think about this,”

with the way that question is framed is, like, based in this other world of politics that you and I came up in where these Republicans are out there on the campaign trail. They're being trailed by a pack of experienced local reporters who are waving, reporters in no paths at them, demanding answers. Sort of like Jeff Bezos took all their jobs. So that's not how the world works anymore. And so it's not, like, I would like a world, like I want every Republican walking

down the halls of Congress to be swarmed by the staff of Punch Bowl news and demand it. They can't leave the, the said it subway until they answer this question. Like I would like that. That is good, karmic justice. Well, it's, and people should use it in debates. The better thing to do here, and this media environment is you take the Trump clip, you mix it with the, you then follow up with a bunch of the policies that this Republican member supported or is fined with or has

done or they themselves said that illustrate this larger point that Trump and his Republican flunkies do not give a shit about your financial situation, the focus on all these other things.

“And I think that's sort of the way it happens now, like in a campaign. I just, like you hear this”

all the time, and I think about this, I was like, why is no one forcing these candidates to ask about it? Because there is no one to force them to do it anymore. Right? There's maybe one reporter trailing them in some of these places. You know, I watched the, I don't know if you've watched any of these, this is sort of off topic, but I watched the last California gubernatorial debate, seems like there's a lot more to see. And I wonder the Buffy works one neither. The local NBC affiliate

one that came after the LA mayoral debate. Oh, okay. Yeah. I watched the CNN one and I watched the Buffy one. Yeah. None of the Buffy works. Buffy works sponsored a housing debates. I know that as it is funded. Yeah, yes, for those who want to. I will say the Buffy works as an assembly member, California and a friend of ours. Yeah, no, I will say that neither the LA mayoral debate or the California gubernatorial debate that I watched was very inspiring. Yeah, if you've done it,

if you've done local races, the Innisfoma long time. So I've done that, but like these debates

are never, they're not presidential debates. No, they're really not. They're really not hard follow-up.

Yeah, it's not a lot of rules. Sort of, but anyway, anyway, for other people running for Congress, I do think that could be a good moment, but you're right. No, I think you, you throw it in an ad. I think you could be creative, whatever we could talk about that forever. Ponce de America is brought to you by common power. We don't need the DNC's top secret election of top sea that tells us that we lost the youth voters of an alarming rate. That is accurate.

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The president may not be thinking about Americans financial situation but he's always thinking

about his own and he continues to use the presidency to make himself richer in cartoonishly corrupt ways. Remember the $10 billion lawsuit Donald Trump filed against the IRS over his tax returns leaking? Well, the New York Times reports that Trump's Justice Department might settle the lawsuit any day now and that quote, "a settlement payment even a fraction of the size of Mr. Trump's requested $10 billion could be much larger than his other attempts at

private gain potentially doubling his net worth with our tax dollars." I know a lot of these corruption stories are a bit complicated but this would just be Trump literally just taking the tax dollars we send the government and putting them directly into his pocket. First of all, before we get into the political implications of this,

“do you think they'll actually do something so brazenly stupid as this even by Trump's standards?”

Yeah, I think they might and I think they'll just fight by saying, "Look, it's that we didn't

do it for $10 billion and we did it for $1 billion or $2 billion." Yeah, the other thing that they

kind of floated in the story and I couldn't tell if this was some reporting that couldn't bear out yet, which was there's a possibility they might just say no financial award goes to Trump from Trump's Justice Department but that somehow he gets protected from ever being audited again. Which is also incredibly corrupt, of course. Yes, but I do think any kind of dollar amount is fucking nuts man. It, I mean, would have to let's say it's all, let's say it's $1 million. Right.

Let's say it's just still stealing. This is a lawsuit where Donald Trump sued Donald Trump. And now Donald Trump is going to settle with Donald Trump to give Donald Trump money, our money. Our money. He's basically just backing up a truck to the Treasury Department and taking our money

“and giving it to himself. And he's going to say he's giving it to charity. That's what he said”

when he was pushed on this in an NBC interview earlier this year. Donald Trump's been lying and giving money to charity his whole life. Like this, this would be the greatest example of presidential corruption in American history by a factor of 1,000. It's just stealing money. I was going to say the easiest to explain. Don't fucking get out your message box on this one day. I don't worry. I'll be message boxy. Let me tell you. It's just like he's stealing from us.

You go to work. You get a paycheck. They take taxes out of the paycheck. It goes to the government. Now those taxes go in Donald Trump's pocket. He's a thief. He is he is stealing from us. $10 billion. He is a crook. That's it. I mean, it's wild. It really is also like a lawsuit that I mean, not to get into the details here, but now that we've done our top line message, like an IRS contractor, like and like leaked all these tax returns of a whole bunch of wealthy

people including Donald Trump, two pro-publica, apparently the guy went to jail for five years over this. And others who had their tax returns leaked sued. None of them got any damages. Ken Griffin, the billionaire. He was one of them. He got like a public apology from the IRS. There's all kinds of problems with the lawsuits. It's for way too much money first of all. He doesn't seem to have filed it at the right time. And so there's only one party of the lawsuit.

“Well, I was gonna say, that's the big thing. But I know I think the big thing is it's also clear that”

if it was Donald Trump suing Joe Biden's federal government or some other president,

this lawsuit would he would never get anything from this because it's a fucking phony lawsuit.

And the only reason he would win the lawsuit is because he decides the lawsuit because he is the justice department because the justice department isn't independent. And so he tells them, hey, settle this lawsuit that I filed against us. And I'm gonna pocket the cash. Or I'm gonna pretend that I give it to charity. It is unfucking believable. I can't wait. I hope he does it. I hope he does it. I hope he does it. I hope he does it. I hope he does it. I'll write some kind of a check.

Not for that much. But I would, I mean, this would be the greatest political gift. Now, this is the easiest one, but I know you have thoughts on just in general how Democrats should be

Yeah, you know, way back in 2020, I, one of my arguments was that the way down before we,

before Biden was the nominee, where it was beginning to run over Trump, 2019, 2020. Well, my argument was that Democrats should frame the argument against Trump around chaos and corruption. And you were in some of these meetings, pollsters would come to us and they would say, corruption does not work. We have tested it. Voters do not buy the idea. Or it's not, they don't buy the idea that Trump is corrupt. Is it it does not move them? It's not new

information to them. They are willing to accept a baseline of corruption from Trump. It's kind of price into their baseline. And they kind of think all politicians are corrupt. Flash forward to now, even as recently as early last year, as when Trump was really doing a lot

of all as crypto stuff, we heard the same thing from the same pollsters that corruption was not a

message that worked with so many voters. And I believe these pollsters, I believe their data, I just think they are technically correct and strategically wrong. And there's two things here. The first is corruption. This is a different backdrop. People may be okay with Trump dipping his beak when gas is under $2 a gallon. And prices are low and the economy is going good. They feel very differently about it when gas is 450 a gallon in the economy sucks.

That's a very different. There's a very different backdrop to this. That's one.

“Two, I think how we use corruption is very important here. Because I think too often Democrats”

treated as if we were in a court of law. Like we are going to present this evidence.

There is the Qatari jet. There is the theft of the $10 billion. Look at the crypto schemes.

We have presented this evidence. jury of my voter peers. Please tell me whether you find the president corrupt and if you find him corrupt, then we're going to get rid of him. But that's not how it works. The way to think about corruption is to understand that it's a treat corruption as an explanation for why everything sucks. It is the keystone to explain why rich people are getting richer. Political-connected people are getting

parties and gifts and access. And you're getting kicked off your healthcare. You're getting kicked off your food assistance. Why nothing works. Why corporations are getting richer. Small businesses are hurting. Things costing more is it is all because of corruption. Is a corrupt system? It is bigger than Trump. Trump is a part of that system. He is exploiting that system. And if we don't talk about corruption as a party, then what we are doing is we are

implying to voters that we're okay with that system because they think we're part of it too.

“Now I think there's a lot of Democrats have to do in terms of the positions we have,”

the policies we advocate for that show that we're willing to take on that system. But if you just refuse to acknowledge the giant elephant in the room that people believe the system is corrupt and it is corrupt because Donald Trump is showing us every single day, then you're just leaving so much money on the table. No pun intended. How much do you think an actual reform agenda should be part of that?

I don't think it is credible for the Democratic Party running in 2026 to have a this is our reform agenda. I don't think anyone's going to believe that. I think individual candidates should be running on it. Obviously, the biggest layup ever that we seem incapable of accomplishing is banning members of Congress from trading stocks. Truly one of the biggest mistakes of the Biden era was not getting that done when we had the majority. Dark money, the AOC,

and I think I hate this as I think Ted Cruz have this bill that says that members of Congress can't become lobbyists when they leave. I think individual people should have their own to show that they're taking on that system. I think it should be a big part. I want our 2028 candidate to be seen as a reformer. As office is doing that in his stuff right now. But I don't think there's a Democratic Party agenda. When we get in, if we take the house, one of the things we

should do is pass a government ethics campaign finance reform bill. We know it's going nowhere, but we should show that we want to deliver on it. I kind of think that and I don't know if this is for if we take the house and then just want to pass a bill that is sitting there ready for a Democratic president or this is the candidates who run in 2028 who do this. But I think you need a few very big ambitious haven't heard before reform ideas that people can grab onto. Both because

“that's what it takes to get attention in this information environment and like the stock trading”

ban is great and obviously pulls through the roof. We get that, but like people have been talking about it for so long. Like when is it going to happen? I think the next thing is going to get attention to someone actually fucking passing the stock trading ban. But how would you stop the corruption we just talked about? Donald Trump stealing from the treasury because he controls the Justice Department. Like we're going to figure out a way. Like this is, again, this is another

well, the Justice Department is independent again and that's going to prevent the next Trump from doing what he's done with the Justice Department seems a bit fanciful to me. I'm talking like like his story like we have gone through in these last, this term especially like historic

levels of corruption we have never seen in the United States of America. And so it seems like

you'll need reform that has also will be reformed for the history books that we've never seen in the United States of America too. And I worry that you'll get this like fucking mealy mouth, like you know, it's just bit by bit reform agenda that is just recycled from Democratic campaigns

“passed. I think there's sort of two things that aren't playing here that sometimes get conflated.”

One, and they're, I would say they are related to. One is reforming campaign finance law, lobbying, just like government ethics, right? Like I can to a version of what Obama ran on in a way. And when Democrats actually passed in 2007, I think you're six or seven when we passed it. And then there is like, what do we do with the fact that we that our system is so filled with Swiss cheese that a bad person can exploit it with no consequences? Like how do you

ran that it? What can you do to rain in presidential power? Like, well, Democratic President come in and be willing to rain in their own power in ways that would put them under moisture. And it's hard because the Supreme Court immunity decision makes it hard. Like you say like what is the, like you could put in place a bunch of different disclosure laws or conflict and interests laws that apply the president. You make the hatch act applied to the president doesn't currently

do other things like that you could do. And it is, but what do you do? What are the teeth, right? If the president just says fuck you, like what actually can you do in a world in which the impeachment system does that work? When I wrote my book, I'm Trump again, America in 2020, I guess it came out 2020, right before the pandemic. And like one week before the pandemic. And one of the, like, this is a big, I just spent a lot of time working on this. And why don't I

thought to have both politically, for the sake of the party in the sake of the country, the next Democratic President should do this, the next Democratic President did not do this. But one of the things was repealing the OLC memo, the obviously local council member that said that the president could not be indicted. Yeah, the Supreme Court has, because that's one of the, then the Supreme Court just made that memo of case law. No, so you can't do that. But we do need to think like,

this should be a big part of project 2020, 2020, 9 or whatever is thinking about how we, how we, what like what lessons can we learn from all the bad shit Trump did and how can we stop

future president? Because the system never anticipated someone as craving and corrupt as Trump.

Yeah, the, the easy way to say it and not the message you way to say it, but it's like, you got a, all the norms got to become laws, codify the law. And how do you codify the law, president? Then there's the, that's the question. Like you can make the people around him. Like, they're all

“these things that you would want to do that are very hard question. Or you have to do is, is I think”

right into law, because the loophole that the Supreme Court decision gives you is anything that is clearly not an official act. He can be prosecuted for. And so you would have to make sure that certain things, you have to put into a lot of certain things that the president does are not, or obviously not official acts in the legislation. I think that's, I'm, I'm not a lawyer. Obviously, it's good enough for me. It feels like by then some smart lawyers and maybe

Claude can help us figure this out. And throughout, actually, we start paying for this. All right, Dan, we're going to, we're going to move on, but there's some breaking news on this IRS thing right from a draft of case. Well, so ABC news is reporting that Trump is poised to

settle the case. And instead of the $10 billion, it's going to be $1.7 billion that he's still

gets. But he's saying it's going to turn into a $1.7 billion weaponization fund so that people, I guess, can sue people who've weaponized the government against Trump allies. And I'm sure there'll be a strict oversight over such a fund that, of course, does go to Donald Trump.

“And, and that's, that's what will happen there. So it's a slush fund for Trump, potentially his family,”

and his friends. Uh, yeah. That is about right. That is about right. That is about right. It's a good use of taxpayer dollars. The compensation fund is believed to be the main condition for Trump to drop a series of legal, blah, blah, blah. The settlement terms are expected to prohibit Trump from directly receiving payments related to those claims. However, entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims sources. Uh, like his family

and his business who also had their tax releases. The proposed funds released, which would face significant legal hurdles would draw money from the Treasury Department's judgment fund. Us $1.7 billion will be coming out of the Treasury in this scenario going into some slush fund.

what we thought it might be. And still bad. Yeah. Yeah. It's still bad. Still a lot of money.

“It's a lot of money. 1.7 billion dollars. Just taking it out of the Treasury.”

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crooked at checkout. That's 20% off at fast-growingtrees.com with code crooked terms and conditions they apply. [speaking in foreign language] So despite all of this, Republicans are still projecting confidence about the midterms, which, of course, could be bullshit. Of course, they'd project confidence. But the one thing

they can legitimately point to is the success they're having during the maps, courtesy of, again, the Supreme Court. Some new developments there. South Carolina now looks like it will redistrict, even though a handful of Republicans join Democrats to vote down the idea. Earlier this week,

the governor's going to call a special session that will apparently require only a simple majority.

So that's not good news. Louisiana advanced. It's planned too, but they're getting rid of one Democratic district not too. So slight good news there. On the Democratic side, Maryland may now move to redistrict the cycle after all. The Senate President there, who would oppose the idea, is now in talks about it with Governor Westmore. So fingers crossed there. Mississippi and Georgia will both redraw their maps, but not till 2028. So that's temporary good news.

Would be Speaker Hoking Jeffries has announced a no more Mr. Nice guy approach pushing every blue state to redistrict by 2028 and promising to shame any Democrat who resists. And he also is sharpening the rhetoric on Republicans. He promised this week to quote crush their souls. Okay. Then there's Kamala Harris who popped up on an organizing call about redistricting

“with with this advice. I think that we need an expanded playbook. This is a moment where there”

are no bad ideas of no bad idea brain storm is what I'd like to call it. We talk about what we need to do and think about doing around the electoral college. We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court. We invite a conversation about multi-members districts. Let's talk about state-led for Puerto Rico and DC. We've got to neutralize these red states from cheating,

including blue states expanding their maps. So that was Kamala Harris zooming in from I don't know where. Let's have a no bad idea of brain storm, Dan. Okay. What have even been a part of many of them? It's not possible. There are bad ideas in a brain storm. I've heard many of them. There are many. Sometimes they leave the brain storm and then we're sad about it. In fact, saying that just usually elicits more bad ideas. People should have a little bit of fear

or what they suggest in a meeting. What is anyway? Talk to Kamala Harris's team about the backdrop, anyway. If it was not a media event, she was zooming into... Right. I'm glad there's a bad word, which is an organization that recruits in trans women candidates. Could she's out there chatting? We like it. What do you make of both the Democratic counter-tech plan in the short term and then some of the longer term stuff that Kamala was talking about there? We have to

recognize that we are now, because of the Supreme Court, we are now in a state of perpetual

power. If we have a trifecton Oregon now and we redraw the maps, Republicans get a trifecta

two years, four years, six years later, we'll redraw the maps again. We're just going to live like this and it's going to be that way up until the moment Congress passes a part ban on partisan

“jerrymandering. And so we have to approach this fight with the attitude that I think is King”

Joyce's bringing to it, which is we need a maximal approach. We have to use every single lever of power we have. If there's an opportunity to draw more democratic districts in one of these states, we have to do it. If we have to repeal or find clever legal workarounds for anti-jerrymandering laws and amendments, then we must do that. Because as we can already see, Republicans are wasting no time. They're leaving no stone unturned to find extra seats. And I hate jerrymandering.

You hate jerrymandering. Democrats hate jerrymandering. This sucks. You know, you guys joked

about the or you discussed and joked a little bit about the plan of Virginia to retire all the justices and put new ones in. Yeah. And that just seemed extreme and it was, I think, for a variety of reasons, uh, logistically unworkable this time. Mainly for like, honestly, the two reasons, apparently. Yes, but even I, yes, it's confusing. But either that sort of idea, I hate to say this has to be on the table. That idea is no dumber or worse than just packing the Supreme Court

ads they've done in Florida and Utah in other places. Or like throwing out votes in an election that had already happened in Louisiana. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we just, I don't want to do those things. But we have to be, we have to think like that because we are, we're now in a total war

for democracy. The Republicans are trying to, they're just, they're just eliminating black districts

across the country. You know, when this is all said and done, 30% of the black caucus could have their just, they didn't lose election. Their districts will be written out of existence because the Supreme Court says that racial jury mentoring was okay. And we have to have a very aggressive attitude about it. So that's the short term. Over the long term, you know, this gets into the conversation we just had about how you reign in political power from, you know,

encryption from Trump is we do need to think about how, when we have power, how to use that power

“to protect democracy and fight fascism. And we end the way to do that, you have to make the”

country more democratic. That means getting rid of the filibuster. That means giving DC statehood. It means giving Puerto Rico the opportunity for statehood. Shit, if the people of Venezuela want to join America, given Trump's approval ratings right there, we'll take them to. Right. The, um, cool. It is, you know, a court reform as Kamal Harris mentioned, including an expansion or certainly turn limits would be very helpful and there are creative ways that I think

you can get around some of the constitutional language on term limits. But we all these things should be on the table because Republicans are exploiting the loopholes in our system. They're doing it ruthlessly and relentlessly. And we have to find ways to, and the system cannot work. The whole thing falls apart if the popular will of the people is denied because of a handful of justices who were put on the court by Donald Trump, a guy who only won the popular vote once over the course

of, uh, you know, they're still ruling this way decades later. Like we have to think really hard about how we reform our system and fix our democracy and we should be willing to expand political capital to do that. Now, I don't think we should run on that message right now. That's

“not what I'm arguing. But I think when we're in power, we have to look at that very seriously.”

Well, but I also think there's an expectation setting here too that's a, I think it's a challenge because we just talked about, and you just talked about sort of, um, jerrymandering or or redrawing maps if we have a trifecta in a blue state and like the same breath is, you know, supreme court expansion, right? And I think that we have to divide all of these reforms into, um, reforms that we can do because we have power now in certain places and reforms that we can only do if we

a mass power that is much more power than we have right now. Which we can only do if we do the, we can only do the latter if we do the former. Well, right. Well, that's also true. I mean, they go hand in hand. But like, you know, you really can't blame any blue states right now for except for Maryland. Yeah, this, this, this, this one guy in Maryland, you know, who's the, it doesn't the state Senate president, I think. Yeah, who has, who has refused to do this.

So as of right now in the calendar, like he's the only one who's not doing what he could do with the power that they have in Maryland, right? Then you sort of wonder like if you're looking back, any of it's too late now, but could Illinois have done redistricting this time around? If they jumped on it, maybe like, did Prince Germek have a mistake there? I don't know. I don't

Colorado, too. Like, did they miss the, missed the chance on this? I do think there's a series.

“And then New York, I think there was like more of a legal thing. But look, between now and 2028,”

you think, I get, you get New York, you got Illinois. I think you got Wisconsin, maybe, which is going to be tougher, because there's a Republican legislature there, but I don't know what Evers can do or than it. But Pennsylvania is an option. Pennsylvania is an option. Pennsylvania is an option. Colorado will be an option. It's Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, maybe. I think I may be missing one. There's a list of states. I think you're right.

Get you, Jersey. Well over and doesn't new seats. Yeah. And so all that, all those, all those states got to move for sure. And if they don't move, then they deserve all the pressure and all the criticism that they have coming to them for sure. This is hard because what happens sometimes when you redraw the districts is you take these compacted districts that offer that are largely, there are urban districts usually made up of a large segment of the black population. They have,

and then you, you basically do the reverse of what Republicans do, which then you divide that

“district in several ways and put some of those black voters into these, into these, these swing”

districts and make them more democratic. And you do, and this is one of the things that has, even New York has already said, does there been reporting that New York may not take a maximum support to this in 2020, because there's fear that it will reduce New York's black representation in Congress. So we really have to wrestle with that and figure that out. But ultimately, it's not good for anyone if Republicans just control Congress, add in finitum because we don't

draw the districts in the right way. Yeah. Because you know, you guys were doing the math, the math, on Tuesday's podcast, and you know, and I, like, the political environment still suggests Democrats will take the majority, but this is historically good political environment. We're not going to have that every time. And if, and if we can only have the house, when the president is at, the Republican president's at 38% and saying insane shit all the time while involved in it,

protracted war, the Middle East, we're not going to have the house that often, in which means we're not going to govern that often. It reduces the chance that a democratic president has a governing traffic to actually get shit done. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was doing the math on this before we started and I looked at the cook political and you tell me if my calculation's wrong on this, but if we, if Democrats win all the toss-ups and all the lean ours, which is pretty,

we pretty good. But like in a big, you know, that means we get 13 seats. We flip 13 seats. And that, and for that, I was saying that if that's if Republicans then win all the likely ours and all the solid ours. And of course, if there are now some blue seats in solid art, likely are because of the, because of the redistricting. But so like winning all the toss-ups and all the lean ours and only netting 13 seats is like not, it's not great. We didn't win all the,

the lean ours and all the toss-ups in 2018. Right, exactly. So it would have to be a better environment than 2018, which it might be, but like still. Now to your, to your, to the broader national reforms, which again, like we are not going to win this on a long term on a state-by-state

“basis, like you have to have national reforms, national reforms the only way, you know, federal”

legislation is the only way to stop jerrymandering everywhere. It's the only way to change the electoral college, it's the only way to change the Supreme Court. And in order to do that, it really comes down to like, can we field candidates that win Senate seats in, in this cycle, at least Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio. And people might say, oh, those are some hard states. It doesn't get easier than those. It doesn't get easier. Yeah. And so if we're fielding candidates

who can't figure out a way to win in those states and we're not focused on how to win in those states,

then no one should be talking about all the other reforms, because they're never going to get done.

And one thing I do worry about is that for people who don't pay close attention to politics, they're like, well, why won't the Democrats pack the court? Why won't the Democrats do this? Why won't the Democrats do this? Well, they can't, because we didn't win the Senate. And we didn't win the Senate, because we couldn't have a can't, we didn't get a candidate who could win Texas or could win Iowa or win, so I just, I only say that to tell people that like, we really have to focus on winning

very difficult states, which we have a good chance of doing this in this environment with these candidates, Mary Peltola, and Alaska, and James Hillary going Texas and going on and on, but like, those are the kind of, those are the states that aren't just nice to win, like we have to win, if we ever hope to have these national reforms. There's a longer conversation, and it's a quite depressing conversation about the state of the Senate map, because if you sort of look at it,

but it's like that's everything, that's all the stuff we're talking about, all the anger over the Vs, the voting rights act, and the Supreme Court, all the shit, it all comes down to the Senate. No. And I mean, exactly right. And so if you look at the Senate map, I'm doing this off top my head, but there are only two Republicans in states, it's like in clever remaining in truly swing states, and it's Ron Johnson, Wisconsin, and Dave McCormack in Pennsylvania.

Yep, because we have both senators in Michigan, and we have both senators in Arizona,

expanding into Alaska. This is why I think Mary Peltola's race is so important, like if we can now put Alaska in the column, then perhaps then if Markowski retires at some point, maybe we can get the other seat there. So now we have that, but like everyone's looking at Texas like, oh,

Democrats always, they always dream about Texas, but it never happens, and it's a lot, it's really

expensive. So it was like, well, there's not a lot of other options. Yeah, you know, like, we're going to have to win Texas if we hope to survive as a democracy, fortunately. And Florida too, like, I mean, this is just, unless we want a bunch of liberals moving to Wyoming, and fucking Montana, which honestly, it's the highest leverage play that Democrats could do. You just moved to Wyoming. Move, move, move, 50,000 to 100,000 Californians to,

look, Jack was comfortable. There's a Wyoming. Do it after the 2030 census is completed, so that we don't lose even more electoral votes. And then go. Yeah, that's uh, you know what? No, hey, you know what this was? I know bad ideas, brainstorm. There could have been bad ideas,

“but there weren't. At least, well, that's what we're going to call it that. They could be bad ideas on it, right?”

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get a quality candidate within the first day, try it for free at zippercuder.com/curkid. That's Zipper Cruder.com/curkid. Meet your match on Zipper Cruder. All right. So one of the architects of the redistricting strategy, Trump political director James Blair, is about to take a leave from the White House to run the midterm operation full-time, like any good beltway strategist. He marked the occasion by conducting a lengthy interview with

Dasha Burns at Playbook about his plans, which were then transcribed. And he summed them up as a

“attack attack attack. And his key quote, "Swing voters already think the Democratic parties too far”

left, and we're going to make sure voters know just how far left they are. They are woke, weak,

and way too liberal." You get three W's. You always need a literation. He knew that

liberal wanted the end, needed a way because you need the three W's. That's otherwise it's not a good slogan. And the whole country will be reminded of that. He also told Dasha Burns that Democratic primaries in infighting are doing real damage to the party, and that he plans to capitalize on that. Seems like that's a play for social media to get everyone fighting even more. But we can leave that aside. If I'm not mistaken, message box pro subscribers have already seen your

take on this down. But for those who have not visited, messageboxpro.com to lock in the special early sign-up price before it's 28 of that for organic plug. That's organic. And I'm going to make even more organic in a second. How do you think Democrats should be prepared to respond to the weak, woken way too liberal attack? Well, John, great question. And create opportunity to talk

“about messagebox pro. So thank you for that. Wonderful. Some of you may remember a few weeks ago”

I launched messagebox pro, which is a subscription service for people who are working politics and communications at any level. And subscribers get weekly strategy memos for me, data driven insights on what to say, advice on how to get your message heard, polling analysis, and access to a community of candidates, operatives, activists, and organizers, nerds. Some are nerds, some are quite cool. The real nerds are not subscribers for the word. And we are up and running. We've already

for a coherent cohesive narrative for this election. What the latest polling on the economy says

“and what to do with it. And the messagebox pro community is up and running. And it's truly amazing”

of all these people in their everyday connecting, sharing best practices. They're posting their questions for me. I'm answering them every day. It's like it's really awesome. I'm really excited about it. And as you mentioned, there is a special founding members discounted price of 4999 a month forever. It locks in forever. No matter how much Trump's racist prices and everything else, you get to lock this in this price in, they're only a handful of those left. So there is no

better time to sign up than now. So go to messageboxpro.com and of quasi-organic plug. Thank you. I'm going to give a quasi-organic plug on a plug here. I was doing a fundraising event where

I was moderating for a couple house candidates in this cycle. And they could flip their seats

and they said to the crowd that because the, you know, the D-trip offers them financial support and all the support that the D-trip can. But like they're not getting detailed campaign advice. They're not getting detailed strategy advice. It is hard to hire pollsters strategists. Right? You've got your very small team if you're running a house campaign. And so they were like, we listen to Pudsafe America a lot to try to get advice. And I'm like, oh gosh, now I'm sorry.

I'm going to make sure we get some, we we can't have too many no bad ideas brainstorms here. But our friend Dan here doesn't just spout off ideas on the pod. He's going to write them down in memos precisely for candidates like this who can't afford to hire fancy consultants. But Dan can provide his wisdom in written form to all of you who are running for office,

“especially in that's our house candidates. What about people who are running for like local office?”

And uh, uh, races that are even smaller than that. And, uh, and they definitely can't afford to have these consultant. So I think it's a fantastic service that you're doing this. I think it's very much needed. And if you are someone who's running for office out there or working for someone who's running for office, and this will be a very, very valuable use of your money. No. Thank you for that. Um, double on cause our candidate plug. But now now, I want to see original question.

Yeah, I forgot. I forgot to ask the question. So we're just putting everything. Let's, let's, the question relates to James Blair. Yes, woke week and uh, way too liberal.

That's it. And so basically what James Blair is doing here other than just puffing his chest, uh,

in a political interview is trying to rerun the 2024 strategy in 2026. And I have bad news from Mr. Blair. It's not 2024 anymore. The world has changed. The views of Trump have changed. The in 2024 Trump has seen his strong, seen as much stronger than Kamala Harris. Democrats were seen as the extreme party. That has flipped. Ploralities of voters now describe Trump's leadership as weak.

There's a tip poll from last week, which shows that a large number of independents described his leadership as weak. He has not seen as a strong man anymore in part because he is dottling around out there. He's not can anything done. He's sleeping at events. He just seems distracted. He doesn't seem like a strong figure because he promised to take on the system and he really didn't do any of that. And even why I'm not saying the Democrats have we have

are associated with American flags, baseball, and apple pie right now. But voters now, because of the way Trump is governed, voters now see the Republican party is more extreme. In the political report, poll of the 32 battleground districts, more voters are worried about Republican extremism than Democratic extremism. So like I'm not saying that this, that this strategy can't have some of the fact it can. It's more like it would have an effect in tuning up.

GOP turned out they're persuading swing voters, but it is not, maybe it's the only strategy available to them with a president with these approval ratings saying all the dumb shitty saying, but it's not necessarily a winning strategy. You get one of these attacks. If you're running in a Senate race or a house race, run a bunch of ads that you know, some crazy position you've taken in the past. And you're weak and you're too woke and all that kind of shit. Do you,

how do you respond to the attack? You ignore the attack or you do the, they're just doing this because they have nothing to say about the fact that you can't afford gas and rent in your mortgage.

“You don't do that last one. I think the way to think about this is it's, we're six months”

from the election. There aren't really ads on the air in any of these races. They've told us what the plan is. So you can prepare for it. So you spend that between now and that and not collating yourself against that attack. And there are a couple of ways to do that. One is this is an attack on generic Democrats. Don't be a generic Democrat. Find ways to separate yourself from the party. You can do that. Go into the middle. You can do that. Go into the left. Depending on your

the leadership. Run, again, be willing to run against the Democratic establishment. That it will help enoculate you against an attack on generic Democrats. So that's one. Two is the way you demonstrate

“strength is not trying to talk tougher on immigration or crime than Trump. Although you should,”

those are issues in your race. You should have positions on them that show that you take people's concerns about them seriously. The way you show strength is to show that you are a fighter. How you fight is more important than whether you fight left or you fight right or you fight middle. It is that you are fighting for something. So look for ways to highlight that about yourself and go on offense and attack the other side as extreme and demonstrate their extremism.

Okay. All right. Good advice. You can get some more of that advice at messageboxpro.com. All right. While we're talking about Democratic strategy, there's been some developments around the DNC autopsy report in which we have taken great interest. The chair of the DNC, Lessso. The AP report on Wednesday that quote Democratic operatives have begun informal discussions about recruiting a new chair and that senior strategists have even approached our pal Amanda

“Litman, founder of run for something about the job that she has declined. They also interviewed”

the AP also interviewed current and former party officials who defended Ken Martin, said his job is safe and are apparently mad at us for asking him why he hasn't kept his promise to release the autopsy. Then on Thursday our friends at the bulwark published a piece from former Biden,

Harris, deputy campaign manager Rob Flarity titled, "Here's what I told the DNC autopsy

we've talked to Rob before. He's been an offline. Feel like he's been on the pod at some point." Yeah. I've been into him. It's a long piece, long long piece, but especially if you're working on campaigns, if you're an operative, if you're in the field, if you volunteer, plenty of interesting insights that we can get into, but one notable thing I want to highlight, Rob writes that his understanding of the autopsy mystery is that, quote, "No autopsy was

released because there is no actual autopsy. The members of the autopsy team were in over their heads and struggled to put the thing together. What they produced was a loose summary of a bunch of interviews that were largely done without talking to the campaign or the big spenders." And quote, "Now, Tommy and love it and I sort of talked about this a little after the Ken Martin interview, Tommy had heard similar reports. I had heard similar reports from people from different people.

So this is just more corroboration of that story from Rob who was interviewed by the autopsy team

and then his autopsy. We know what he told them was never win anywhere. And so he published this piece.

Your reactions to Rob's piece and also the continued frustrations with Ken Martin and the missing autopsy." This is the great title for a Hardy voice book. The autopsy DNC Ken Martin Conversation is so frustrating because it's very clear what happened here. There is Ken Martin promised to do an autopsy. The people he picked through the autopsy did a piss poor job. There is no autopsy. He looked at what that was saying we cannot release this. It would be embarrassing.

And now he's out there saying we can't release the autopsy but there's no autopsy so we can't solve the problem because he is not been like the easiest thing to do would be to say to do it right the first time which would have been cool. That's number one. Yeah. No one. Failing that to just be honest and say it needs more time and you would have taken some shit for that but that is better. But then to say it's finished it's in a drawer. It's incredibly useful.

Look at the playbook we use based on it. Well, you release it. Well, we can't release it because it doesn't

exist. And so we're just like it's never anything he's basically lied himself into a corner here.

Yeah. Yeah, he has. And this is what this is what's so engaging about it because like you said, would you have taken some shit if when they said the autopsy was going to be released? He said, you know what? It's it's not ready. We need more time. You know, there's a whole. Yeah. But like if I had interviewed him then and he said that to me, even if he said it to me, when I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. If he was like, you know what? I know I said we were

going to release it. I know people want it. We're going to the midterms are coming and we're going to be working on it. And then, you know, the day after the midterms, we will release phone because it'll be, you know, we're going to head into primary season then and then for campaigns running for president, they can learn lessons then and we're going to do that. I would have been like, oh, okay, cool. Instead of what he's dealing with right now. And it is the thing that everyone's

like, oh, the autopsy, the autopsy who he's obsessed with. The autopsy is not the fucking,

“I mean, it is the point because I think it is, it is very useful. But it is the, like the”

theoretically theoretically useful. But it's like dishonesty that is that is really crazy right now.

answers, we have a single senior Biden Harris official wrote his own autopsy that includes more

info and more lessons than anything Ken Martin's DNC has released. And, you know, contrary to what Ken tried to tell me, like, the world hasn't ended. Democrats aren't tearing themselves apart over it. Rob writes that some of his own colleagues like disagree with some of the things that he concluded

“in there. Fine, they can write their own, people can debate it, figure out the best way to move”

forward. So we can win, we're all big boys and girls, like we can all be trusted with the information. And what it seems like for every time Ken Martin talks about this, and now some other DNC officials, former and current that are defending him, is that like, they don't believe that we should be trusted with the information. They don't think that we should have it. They, they, in Ken Martin either thinks that we're stupid or that we don't deserve the full truth,

in either option is completely unacceptable for the person who's running the Democratic National Committee. You know? Yeah, it's so, the whole thing is just so stupid and pointless because we didn't have to be here. Like, what matters? A lot of people say like, what do you get along from this autopsy? But even it was perfectly done. That's to me beside the point. Yes, what bothers me about this is that the way the autopsy has been handled is indicative of the larger problems

at the DNC. And you hear this from a lot of people in the party. Doners, operatives, elected officials, very few people are happy with the way things are going to the DNC. They're unhappy with how the money's been spent and I'm happy with how little's being raised. And we in like Ken Martin, whether you can debate all the factors of it. But there is dissatisfaction there. And there are challenges in the leadership and is normalized autopsy. So like, what do you do

about that? Can you get a new DNC chair? I don't know. It's not a particularly easy thing to do. So apparently the big problem is not the rules in getting rid of the DNC chair. It's finding someone who will take the job. Because the job sucks. And it's very, very hard. And Ken Martin was dealt a very, very, very tough hand with, and you know, it's just the whole thing is done.

“Well, I think the problems at the DNC and the lack of transparency and the dishonesty from Ken”

are also, I think, emblematic of a larger issue with the Democratic establishment. And this goes back to Rob's piece. Rob, who was one of Biden's most senior staffers, writes in the piece,

quote, President Biden never should have run for reelection in the first place and quote.

Now, like credit to Rob for admitting that and also for acknowledging that when he publicly made the case after the Biden Trump debate that Biden was still the only person who could be Trump and the rest of us who thought otherwise were, you know, self-important bedwriters, um, self-important podcasters. Well, he also, we're all, we're all civic words in there. I was also combining to it was also, and then everyone else is the bedwedding brigade. Yes. So beyond podcasters, anyone who thought

that anyone who thought that maybe that debate was bad and maybe Joe Biden should step aside was part of the bedwedding brigade, which I guess included most Americans. Um, and based, and Rob is credited and the thing says, uh, he basically just trying to be a team player because he was on the campaign. That's like, that's fine. But the reason I bring that up is is a promise not to really let a gate old beafs. Um, but I don't think let's do a satire section on Ken Martin and the guy

who wrote the email that called this self-important podcasters, but the goal is not to really let a gate old beafs. No, and this is everyone should read Rob's thing and I want to talk about some of Rob's insights because they think they're great. Um, and and Rob and I have talked about it

privately. So it's not like this is the first time. Uh, this is happening. But I do not think that

the Democratic establishment has fully reckoned with the magnitude of the credibility problem that it has with voters and a big reason why is that a whole bunch of them tried to tell us with a straight face that Joe Biden was fine and the debate wasn't that bad and he was still the only person who could beat Donald Trump and now Ken Martin is trying to tell us with the state straight face that actually he has been releasing the lessons from 2024 and we're all assholes for wanting the

full autopsy and the DNC's finances are totally fine. And if people in the Democratic establishment who work on campaigns, candidates officials, if they want to keep doing that shit fine, but don't be surprised when people don't believe what you say about politics. It's just like and like I don't I it's like there is a there is a credibility problem here and I get we've been on the inside and I get it and you're on a team and you just you've got to like

“anyone who criticizes you their bedwaters and all that bullshit, but like you have to forget about”

the people criticizing you have to think about beyond that what the voters think and don't treat voters like they're stupid like people know when you're lying to them. It's spent like we like everyone like everyone knew that Ken Martin wasn't telling the truth on that interview was pretty obvious. Yeah that I mean there's there are two different things over yet that was the big problem

and is not defensive about it and and doesn't keep trying he basically kept trying to tell you that

“he actually for all intents and purposes release the autopsy so you should stop asking about it”

and that's that's how he ended up down this rabbit hole yeah which he could not get himself out of. I guess the only thing I would add is and if you want to talk if you want to talk about the recommendations and robes. Yes I do. I think it is quite good but I just think the one just to put a button on and I say this in with good nature is that rob who called the self-important podcasters in that email discuss the autopsy today on his podcast.

Which rib is self-aware enough to make jokes about which is great. Yes. Which is which is totally fine. Again it's a who call us whatever the fuck you want. But it's just a weird about that. The whole thing. That's great for us in the long run. Right Joe Biden not stepping aside cost us all a lot right all of us and not forget about us but lots of people that I didn't cost ready out. I'm fine. But like the whole country

collectively collecting us collectively. Yes collectively and I think you know part of the autopsy is not like oh well Biden's gone whatever but it is the the Ken Martin thing and I think the reason I was so excited about it is it like it was like PTSD from 2024 where the Democratic party is like all is fine. Don't believe your eyes everything is good here. Leave it to us. We got it and you're all you're all bedwaters. So what do you think some of some of the recommendations

and insights from Rob's memo like what's what's stood out at you? So what I worried a little bit about just sort of 2024 lessons in general on the autopsy is 2024 is somewhat of a black swan event right you have Biden you have this older candidate who does not leave then face plans on a debate stage and then they just throw the vice president with 107 days to go against someone like Donald Trump who then gets shot in the ear like you're like every like

two series of events tough series events that are not going to happen again and so like there is this role in which you could take the wrong lessons from somebody like that or you could just throw up your arms and say it was 117 days we were fucked inflation was high. What I thought was useful about Rob's was I think some of the lessons in there are useful for campaigns going forward in terms of how you think about communicating in this media age like even even he makes a point

that the campaign spent half as much on digital S on TV which was a dramatic shift from 2020 when it was 70 30 digital 70 30 TV digital I believe but TV was sort of the sort of the still the dominant medium right it was really how it drove them is where the campaigns the messaging they truly believed in when it's sort of as how they thought about the campaign strategy and I thought just thinking about like you know almost not that can be rid of all TV ends but shifting

the focus more digital the one thing I thought he said at the end it was very smart was in this is something that I think it's right because I agree with it and I've been arguing for it for

“years is that you have to digital should no longer be an apartment in a campaign it's all digital”

and I think that we really have to just think that way and there's a lot of very specific things about how you do with creators and how to think about branding and all of that and so that there are unanswerable questions about how and we're getting really nerdy here how you think about digital persuasion in an algorithmically powered world that only shows people a content they

already agree with yes we had the debate a million times throughout the 2020 for campaign about

what is polling well and testing well and the people who test these ads and they test it with like not just 300 voters in some shitty public poll but like thousands and thousands of voters and like with you know and they're like these are these are really great testing messages and yet you know Kamala Harris talking about fascism or this or that or Brat summer all the bullshit and Rob talks about this in terms of brand and I hate the word brand it's itky but I think it is useful

in this context yeah yeah I get it but he says at one point you know we could have focused more on prescription drugs or whatever the top polling issue was but that would have been driving a message when we should have been building a brand a brand is a story about who you are and what you believe that everything else the ads the organic context the surrogates the creator appearances the events

“levels up to I think this is I think that is so important and I worry sometimes that when we”

and and this is like I think a legacy of when we grew up in politics which was like you get the polling back you get the messaging these are the top polling messages we must get these messages out

because they work with voters but voters are never going to fucking hear these messages anymore

if they are boring um if they don't tell a story about the candidate maybe they'll hear the messages but they won't be persuasive as to voting for the actual candidate because they may like the message but they may not like the candidate delivering the message or may not trust

are they saying for why are they running for president so much of what Rob's memo made me think

is that like just the importance of the candidates themselves like we don't know I know but like you think that's fucking obvious Dan but it's clearly not it's clearly not in our party because we do all this stuff around the candidates give them good ads good messaging this that the campaign staff we blame for this that but it's like if you don't I mean at one point he talks about he says digital presence is a direct reflection of a candidate's brand it's how voters

come to understand who a candidate is for this to work the candidate needs to be actively engaged in the planning and execution of their social media presence and Rob tells a story about when AOC endorsed Biden he like talked to AOC for like 45 minutes about and she had like detailed ideas about digital about how she wanted hurt the videos they did with her what she wanted to say all this kind of stuff and then he said when he worked for Beto back when Beto ran Beto was like

the same way when when Beto was like going viral and all that kind of stuff and this is the same thing

that I say a million times with speedwriting right which is like because Barack Obama was so involved

in his speeches and because I spent enough time with him that's the only reason I was able to like help him deliver good speeches and I think on a lot of campaigns the candidate looks to the staff and the consultants and is like all right make me a winner and I just don't think you can do that

“now I think if you were going especially if you're going to run for president you need to know”

exactly what you believe exactly why you want to be president and you need to be able to communicate that it's not first of the American people to at least your staff on a regular basis and I just don't think that has happened in a while. This is an unpopular suggestion that I often offer to candidates when I talk to them and this drives the staff fucking bananas but if you were thinking

of running for president right now and you do not have TikTok, Instagram on your phone and you're

not going to YouTube and just watch again then you should not run and maybe you want to put on a burner because you don't necessarily want the Chinese government socialary else and to have all your shit but point being as you have to be you have to be fluent in the language of today's media ecosystem to understand it and it can't just be that you're you know Rob makes us in the point you can't just be that your staff walks in and gives you a quick five minute briefing

and a memo on what you're supposed to do because you don't understand it when they relaunched the HQ account as headquarters or whatever it is now that was the Kamala HQ and Kamala Harris did this briefing she did a video for it she clearly had no idea what it was or what it was going to do but that is unfortunately that is a lot of Kamala Harris' appearances. You have to swim in the sometimes very rough and dirty seas of today's internet to be able to truly communicate.

I was going to say you said sit down and make sure you have all those on your phone. Yes,

“I think the other thing you need to do is before you've immediately meet with your advisors”

like in this sounds maybe cheesy and a little antiquated but I don't know right down type out why you want to be president what you want to do do you have a few big ideas like actual big ideas not like I want to grow the middle class. I want to I want I want to bring down costs no no like like people in like it was controversial everyone knew it was by the end freeze the rent free public buses like like if you want someone more moderate Gretchen Whitmer when she was

running in Michigan fixed the damn roads right like just pick fucking something that you actually want to do that you will be able to talk about and communicate about in an authentic way on all of those platforms that you are also watching because they're on your phone. If you do not know why you're running you can't answer what the what does it you don't once known as the Ted Kennedy question right because he failed to answer it yeah in the 80 race

then you shouldn't run but then then all the time we'll take tax not going to help you then you're just then you're just consuming content you're just doing scrolling. Anyway go read it it's at the ballwork I'm I'm glad Rob did it good for him and other people should do the same because I guess we're not going to get it out of the DNC. All right one last story before we go the new gold statue of Donald Trump that was gifted to the president by crypto

grifters and blessed by his spiritual advisor and pastor who has repeatedly claimed that quote this is not a golden calf but rather a symbol of resilience and gratitude to God for sparing Trump's life from a sniper's bullet in Butler all of that is real and it's a real thing that happened

“earlier in the week Trump himself couldn't make it to the statue dedication which was I believe”

it has Darrell golf club but he did call into the ceremony with with this observation. It's everybody is taking pictures of it everybody is my people don't be that it's unbelievable they all they're taking pictures they stand up next to it and they're picture taken it is unbelievable he is correct about that I would definitely take a picture next to it the the Palm Beach Post interview

about all I got it's his place you can do whatever he wants I guess that's true but big and gold they can do it every once what did you think of this one just so fucking weird it's so weird like I want every person in America to see this like it is a just the idea that the president

just I want you to think about this for a second we're at war prices are high

shit's not going great generally presidents even in the best of times are pretty busy so there's a scheduling meeting they talk about the things the president could do and remember when

“your scheduling Trump you have to schedule it around six-day hours of Fox News viewing”

and truth social in and truth well truth sales didn't really happen after working hours when he should be asleep and you decide this request comes and you're like you know what that would be good use of the president's time you know what wouldn't be fucking weird at all you know what would not well definitely be good politics and not at all contribute to the idea that he's a narcissist who cares only about himself let's have them call into the ceremony about the gold

statue delivered from God of the president at his golf club it's so many parts of the story are funny they like the people who did the statue created the statue used it to sell a mean coin called Patriot coin this is the crypto time and then the the pastor who's a here guess

“became his spiritual advisor not just did it right doing I bang up job of that”

signed me up um just did an Isaac Chotner interview which oh man he asked him like how how how did you get into this how did you get to become a Trump

supporter and he said so early on I was there and the Lord told me then the first thing the

Lord told me was to show the world that this man's not racist and then and then at the end Isaac asked him about the the AI image of Jesus and what he thought about that and he said well again I was one of the first people to reach out to the president and say that was bad please take that down as fast as possible and I said what did he say and he said he thought it was a doctor but again he's no fielogen and then Isaac says I'm not a

fielogen and I knew it wasn't a doctor the pastor just goes great great so good subset of how we can last still after yeah you know just throw the statue up there with the

ballroom in the arch and the $400 million Atari jet and the $10 billion he's putting in his pocket

from the IRS just as good oh good free idea for democratic digital consultants hmm is a little AI so okay follow your look on what your pearls well also it is illegal in some states

“but we need images maybe it's a new year and it's a fucking Photoshop um you need to see images”

of vulnerable Republicans worshiping get the Trump statue it's a good idea I think it's a new JD Vance and or a market rubio and I bet you know what not even message back from that shit's free I mean it is now you just said it yeah when I put this behind the paywall lucky you guys all right that's our show for today and in case you want more Dan and more great advice he's back in your feet on Sunday with our pal David Axelrod uh can't wait for that episode

excited have a good weekend everyone bye everyone positive America is a crooked media production our show is produced by Austin Fisher Saul Ruben McKenna Roberts and Ferris Safari with re-chirling Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill our team includes Matt DeGroat Benhefko Jordan Cancer Charlotte Landis Carol Kelly V David tolls meacelman Ryan Young and Naomi single our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East

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