Which Democrats Have What It Takes to Win the White House?

Welcome to Pot TV America, I'm Dan Fayford.

“Joining me today is former senior advisor to President Obama, David Oxford.”

You all know, acts. Maybe you've heard him on this pod, listen to either of his shows, hacks on tap, or the ax files, or you're likely seeing him on CNN. Axis and all around expert, they can speak to anything in democratic politics. I asked Axis to come on the show because I wanted to talk to someone smart about

the midterm, but with what the map looks like for the dams after a series of devastating court rulings and what he thinks of some of the candidates running up and down the ballot. I also wanted to talk to him about messaging, namely how some of the party's leading voices, and likely 20-28 candidates are talking about the administration, and if they're theories

of the case are actually any good.

We're sure to grate in wide ranging conversation, which we'll get to in a minute. But before we do, if you're a friend of the pod subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be. You can now buy tickets for this year's CrookedCon. There's a special pre-sale just for subscribers.

But if you're not a subscriber because you hate pro-democracy media and lovelicing to podcast ads, you can buy CrookedCon tickets next week, starting on May 19th. Either way, it'll be a big fun party right after the midterm, to member fifth to seventh in Washington DC. Go to CrookedCon.com for more details, including how to become a friend of the pod subscriber.

All right, let's get to the show. Here's David Axelrod. What about what did you make it what happened in May? Because that seems to be sort of indicative of a shift in the party, a shift in what people are looking for, maybe a sense, at the Senate leadership, or the establishment, is, at least in that race, it was not in touch with the voters wanted.

There are a lot of factors here. One is that I think we're in an anti-establishment moment, and that's true in both parties. I think there is a real jaundice about the status quo. 70% of people in polling say the system is corrupt and rigged against them.

“I think there is a sense that Washington, when you'll remember back in the day, Dan”

when Barack Obama ran, one of the reasons he won was because his campaign was a full-out critique of Washington generally, not just the Republicans, but Democrats as well, and the sort of red blue who's up, who's down, kind of struggle for power that had nothing to do with people's lives or principles. Concerns I think we're back there again, and so establishment candidates are at a disadvantage.

And Jan Mills, who's a perfectly good person and served honorably, was very much the establishment candidate. And she had the stamp of Senator Schumer on her to certify that she was the establishment candidate, and she would have been 79 years old when she got sworn in. So part of the other discontent people feel after two octogenarian presidents is with the

gerontocracy in Washington which also speaks to establishment politics. People don't feel like the folks in Washington are in touch with their lives or focused on their lives.

“I think Trump has exacerbated it because he ran contending that he was, and now we were”

into ballrooms and monuments and graft on a scale we've never seen before.

This is one place where he says nobody's ever seen anything like this before. He's right about this, nobody's ever seen corruption at this scale before. And so people feel betrayed, you know, those who voted for him or who had some hope for him. And all of this I think makes a candidate like Platner in Maine, you know, appealing because

he's a grassroots guy, he seems to be speaking the language and living the life of people who feel unrepresentate. And I mean, but it was stunning the degree to which he was able to take that, you know, by storm. I mean, just literally below the incumbent governor out of the race, you know, I actually

wonder a little bit if he would have been better served by her hanging around for a while. I 100% agree with that. You know, there was no need to start for it. I'm not surprised, Platner won. I was very frustrated at the DSCC and Schumer for endorsing Mills to begin with for these

other reasons you said, just the idea that we were just going to decide from on high in Washington that the best chance against Susan Collins was a 79 year old establishment politician. And I say that someone who likes Janet Mills and interviewer on the show.

No, she's not, she's, but it's just it's the, it's the model everyone rejected last time and

Platner turned out to be, you know, I certainly thought he would definitely win prior to all the online posts and then thought he, you know, he navigated that well enough to survive and then knock her out of the water. But he would have been much better off if this had gone to the end of the year, just to beat her.

You delay the general election by another month, instead now he's already got negatives against them from, you know, process of counseling. Yeah, I don't blame her, though, she ran out of money. And I'm not sure that she was that eager to hang around, just to let him claim the trophy, you know.

“So the thing, one other thing I think this underscores, and you know this from your own career,”

don't let yourself get talked into running for an office you don't want to run for.

Because it's never going to end well.

You're not going to be an effective candidate. You know, I, I mean, platinum by the time she dropped out, he had done, I think more than 50 town hall meetings in the state, she had done, I think, zero. You know, and if, you guys have a huge listenership, so if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will tell me.

It's a number closer to zero than 50. I'll tell you that. So while there's no doubt about it, yes, and, you know, he's hungry for this, and he's eager for it, and he's young, and he's, you know, going after it. And so getting drafted against your will is a bad way to enter a race, don't back into

a race. Another race that Democrats are very excited about and very interested in is Texas, our

old boss made his first campaign appearance of the cycle, getting some tacos with James

Telerico, and Gina Hinoosa, who's running for governor, Trump waited on the race on his way back from China on your first one. Let's take a listen. What do you have to say? I mean, we're a weird candidate, our six-genres, I really hate our Jesus, I mean, this guy,

his man, his mask, Trump relatively recently, and he's a vegan, he's a vegan, he's not a vegan. He's a vegan. Now, I want to say, he's not Texas, doesn't quite make it.

“I do believe either one of them will easily win the race, I think that we can't”

dominate the Democrats, having Texas to say very loud, very weak, I think he's a bit then a candidate, especially for Texas. You know that, that Shakespeare thing about that dot protest, too much, but you know what's interesting about the dynamic in the Republican primary is that the folks who want John Cornen, they'll say privately that they think Talloreco's too left for Texas, they've

got plenty of stuff, they can take them out, but they're not saying anything because right now what they're saying is Talloreco can win, unless we knock Paxon out of the race of Paxon wins, Talloreco can win. Once this primary is over, they're going to open up on him and they're going along the contours of what Trump is saying, I'm sure he was briefed a bunch of his guys are working

on the Cornen campaign, but interestingly he has an endorsed Cornen. I trust that when Talloreco went out for tacos that he had beef or chicken, she's not a vegan, that's Trump a vegan, yes, not a vegan, not a vegan, did he say, did I hear that

“right, that he's bad on Jesus or something, what did he say there?”

He said he had a hit on Jesus, which references I think, I'm guessing here, which shows I'm way too online, the great question, I think it was the same time he said the sixth gender thing, I don't really know, but there have been some clips from a speech he gave in 2020, I imagine, right after that, that had been going around, I think Trump has obviously seen those and he is doing it, but I'm not sure the idea that James Hillary goes anti-Jesus

is going to sell. No, I'm sure that he would love to have that conversation directly with the president. You can't violate many of the major ten commandments and then start going after someone else over their Christianity, I mean, I mean, Taloreco is clearly very serious about his faith and that's one of the reasons he is where he is because that's translated really

well and he has preached the gospel of the brotherhood of man and people who are so tired of all this conflict are responding to him. So we'll see what happens, I think Texas is hard, you and I have gone through campaigns

out to be fool's gold and the question is that the case here, one of the wildcards

in Texas is that Trump won a solid victory there, but it was with a lot of Hispanic votes, particularly in South Texas, the two biggest losses in terms of support for Trump have

“been among Hispanics and young people, you know, Hispanic voters, I think they're very”

sensitive to economic issues, they're a working class constituency in the main. I think the in South Texas, I think they were eager for border control, they weren't eager to be racially profiled and I think because of all the stuff that ISIS has done, combined with the economics stuff, he has completely dealt away the advantages that he gained among

Hispanic voters, that puts Texas more in play, it also means that they're probably not

going to capture all the seats they thought they were going to capture when they jerry amended the state. Yeah, Texas is interesting, I think Talarico is a uniquely talented candidate. Yeah, he's great, yeah. He's very good, he is, he is, I think if anyone can do it, it's James Talarico in this year, particularly against Paxton, he, you know, the Latino numbers you print out are very notable, P U as a poll out today, which shows that Trump's

approverating among Latino Trump voters is down 30 points in selection day, 2024, which

“you know, that, that's a big chunk of voters, you know, we saw this in the primary, right?”

It's a primary, but Talarico got more primary votes than Kamala Harris got votes, and, you know, sometimes I'm not even two or two or three, and some of these Rio Grande Valley counties, you got two or three times number votes, Kamala Harris got on election day in 2024. So there's obviously some persuade, this is not just turnout, there's some persuasion happening here, because a lot of these people, these Latinos have voted for Trump were

registered Democrats, so it's interesting. No, I was going to say just on the Hispanic issue, I think one of the reasons Trump is harping on him and, you know, and Christ is that I think it's very advantageous for Talarico to be able to go into churches across Texas, including Hispanic churches, and as fluent as he is in scripture, and so I think

“Trump is trying to chip away, chip away at that, what were you going to say?”

I was going to say, I was going to ask you about the decision to have Obama come to Texas for him. Like, is a race where he's got a win, you know, Trump won Texas by 13, I think he's got to get a bunch of people who pull the lever for Trump to vote for him. Do you think that's bringing Obama was a good move? You know, I haven't seen his numbers in Texas, but my guess is that looking at his numbers nationally, they're not bad,

and there is a, you know, Obama's not campaigning that much for candidates at this juncture, I'm sure you will, but there is a stature thing, it kind of elevates Talarico and the race, and he may just want to, you know, because of the whole vaguen thing, as you said, Trump said, maybe he just wanted a guy who really appreciated a good beef taco. Yeah, and I, look, I think also I imagine, I'd have to look at what I imagine that Obama's

numbers with Latino voters, even the Latino voters who voted for Trump, are quite good. And so with, like, Talarico's smart, his campaign's being run by smart people, they're not just doing this because it's good for TikTok views. Like, they obviously have looked at their data to suggest that with their target voters, Obama is a plus, and the others, it's not like there are a bunch of Republicans who are going to stay home because

they're mad at Trump and all this unblock Obama shows up for tacos one day and may, like, okay, we're turning out. One last thing on this, I mean, one of the reasons Trump's going after Talarico is because it seems pretty clear that he's decided to stay out of this race. There was a presumption that he was going to endorse John Corne, and as the most likely candidate to win, he's now been convinced that either of them can win, but the Paxton question is really

an open one because he's a guy who is absolutely frayed with scandal, and while he's very popular with a Republican base, he could be very vulnerable with some traditional Republican voters in the suburbs around the big cities there. I don't think Obama's going to play badly with those voters, I don't think it's going to hurt Talarico to have them there with those voters. So we'll see, but I will say, I mean, because of the full-school PSPTSD I have, you know,

I'm looking, you know, I look at Iowa, for example, and I'm wondering, is Iowa ultimately

system against a very weak incumbent in Sullivan, does that give you a better chance?

“Here's the thing, when you, you know, you have to win a couple of states where Trump won”

in double digits in any case, and you want as many opportunities as possible, so Democrats can turn to Alaska to Iowa to Texas, even, and I think it's the longest of them, but even Nebraska, you know, where you have an independent candidate supported by Democrats who did very well in a Trump landslide last time against Ricketts, the senator, the incumbent senator, former governor. You know, I think that there's a better than 50/50 chance that Democrats can piece it together,

assuming that the wave is what we think the wave could be, and remember, the wave is more important in these Senate races, you know, they made peace districts together to hold down the house margin, but statewide, you know, harder. Potsay of America is brought to you by fast growing trees. Fast growing trees is America's largest online nursery with thousands of trees and plants

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What about-- What did you make it what happened in Maine? Because that seems to be sort of indicative of a shift in the party, a shift in what people are looking for, maybe a sense of the Senate leadership or the establishment is-- at least in that race, it was not in touch with the voters wanted. There are a lot of factors here. One is that I think we're in an anti-establishment moment and that's true in both parties. I think there is a real jaundice about the status quo,

you know, I mentioned, you know, 70% of people in polling say the system is corrupt and rigged

“against them. I think there is a sense that Washington, you know, when you'll remember back”

in the day, Dan, when Barack Obama ran, one of the reasons he won was because his campaign was a full-out critique of Washington generally, not just the Republicans, but Democrats as well in the sort of red, red blue who's up, who's down, kind of struggle for power that had nothing to do with people's lives or principal concerns, I think we're back there again. And so establishment candidates are at a disadvantage. And Jan Mills is a perfectly good person and served honorably

her to certify that she was the establishment candidate and she was, she would have been 79 years old when she got sworn in. So part of the other discontent people feel after two octogenarian presidents is with, you know, the gerontocracy in Washington, which also speaks to establishment politics. People don't feel like the folks in Washington are in touch with their

“lives or focused on their lives. And I think Trump has exacerbated it because he ran,”

contending that he was and then, you know, and he now we weren't, you know, ballrooms and monuments

and, you know, graft on a scale we've never seen before. This is one place where he says,

nobody's ever seen anything like this before. He's right about this, nobody's ever seen corruption at this scale before. And so people feel betrayed, you know, you know, those who voted for him or who had some hope for him. And all of this, I think, makes a candidate like, platinum in Maine, you know, appealing because he's a grassroots guy, he seems to be speaking the language of the living, the life of people who feel unrepresentate. And I mean, but it was

stunning the degree to which he was able to take that, you know, by storm. I mean, just literally below the incumbent governor out of the race, you know, I actually wonder a little bit if he would have been better served by her hanging around for 100% agree with that. You know, there was no need to start for it. He's for, I'm not surprised platinum. One, I was very frustrated at the DSCC and Schumer for endorsing Mills to begin with for these other reasons you said, just the idea that we were just

going to decide from on high in Washington that the best chance against Susan Collins was a 79 year old establishment politician. And I say that something like Janet Mills and interviewer on the show. Yes, no, no, she's not she's, but it's just it's the, it's the model everyone rejected last time and platinum turned out to be, you know, I certainly thought he would definitely win prior to all the online posts and then thought he, you know, he navigated that what well enough to survive

and then knock around the water, but he would have been much better off if this had gone to the Andrew Bush has to beat her, you delay the general election by another month. Instead, now he's already got negatives against him from, you know, process of counselor. Yeah, I don't blame her, though, she ran out of money and I'm not sure that she was that eager to hang around just to let him claim the trophy,

“you know. So the thing, one other thing, I think this underscores and you know this from your own career.”

Don't let yourself get talked into running for an office, you don't want to run for.

Because it's never going to end well. You're not going to be an effective candidate.

You know, I mean, platinum by the time she dropped out, he had done, I think more than 50 town hall meetings in the state. She had done, I think, zero. You know, and if you guys have a huge listenership, so if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will tell me. It's a number closer to zero than 50. I'll tell you that. Yes, well, there's no doubt about it. Yes. And, you know, you know, he's hungry for this and he's eager for it and he's young and he's, you know,

going after it. And so getting drafted against your will is a bad way to enter a race. Don't back into a race. Another race, the Democrats are very excited about and very interested in

it. It's Texas. Our old boss made his first campaign appearance of the cycle, getting some tacos

with James Elrico and Gina Hinnahosa, who's running for governor. Trump waited on the race

“on his way back from China on Air Force One. Let's take a listen. What do you have to say?”

The Democrats have a weird, a weird candidate on six genus. A related on Jesus. I mean, this guy, this man, this man's, this mask, relatively recently, and he's a vegan. He's a vegan. He's not a vegan. He's a vegan. Now he's not Texas. He doesn't want to be vegan. I do believe either one of them will easily win the race. I think that the candidate to Democrats have a Texas is a very, very weak group. I think he's a bit, then a candidate,

especially for Texas. You know that, that Shakespeare thing about that dot protest too much. But, you know what's interesting about the dynamic in the Republican primary is that the folks who want John Corneon, they'll say privately that they think Tallarico's too

because right now what they're saying is Tallarico can win unless we knock Paxon out of the

Paxon out of the race of Paxon wins. Tallarico can win. Once this primary is over, they're going to open up on him. And they're going along the contours of what Trump is saying. I'm sure he was briefed a bunch of his guys are working on the Corneon campaign. But interestingly, he has an endorsed Corneon. I trust that when Tallarico went out for tacos that he had beef or chicken. She's not a vegan. She's not a vegan. She's not a vegan.

“Did he say, did I hear that right that he's bad on Jesus or something? What did he say that?”

He said he had a hit on Jesus, which references I think. I'm guessing here, which shows

I'm way too online. The great question. I think it was the same time he said the sixth

gender thing. I don't really know. But there have been some clips from a speech he gave in 2020. I imagine, right after that, that had been going around. I think Trump has obviously seen those and he is doing it. But I'm not sure the idea that James Hillary goes anti-Jesus is going to sell. No, I'm sure that he would love to have that conversation directly with the president. You know, you can't like violate like many of the major 10 commandments and then start going

after someone else over their Christianity. I mean, I mean, Tallarico is clearly very, you know, serious about his faith. And that's one of the reasons he is where he is. Because that's translated really well. And he, you know, he has, he has preached the gospel of the Brotherhood of Man and people who are so tired of all this conflict are responding to him.

“So we'll see what happens. I look, I think Texas is hard. You and I have gone through campaigns”

together where we held out hope for states like Missouri at one point. And it always turned out

to be fools gold. And the question is that the case here, one of the wildcards in Texas is that, you know, Trump won a solid victory there. But it was with a lot of Hispanic votes, particularly in South Texas. The two, the two biggest losses in terms of support for Trump have been among Hispanics and young people. You know, Hispanic voters, I think they're a very sensitive to economic issues. They're a working class constituency in the main. And I think the

in South Texas, I think they were eager for border control. They weren't eager to be racially profile. And I think because of all the stuff that ISIS has done combined with the economic stuff, he has completely dealt away the advantages that he gained among Hispanic voters. That puts Texas more in play. It also means that they're probably not going to capture all the seats. They thought that we're going to capture when they're Jeremy Mandred the state.

“Yeah, Texas is interesting. I think Telerico is a uniquely talented candidate.”

Yeah, he's great. Yeah. He's very good. He is, he is, I think if anyone can do it, his James Telerico in this year, particularly against Paxton, he, you know, the Latino numbers you put out are very notable. Pew has a poll out today, which shows that Trump's approverating among Latino Trump voters is down 30 points in selection day, 2024, which is, you know, that's a big chunk of voters. You know, we saw this in the primary, right?

It's a primary, but Telerico got more primary votes than Kamala Harris got votes in, you know, sometimes I'm, you know, two or three, and some of these Rio Grande Valley counties. She got two or three times number votes. Kamala Harris got on election day in 2024. So there's obviously some persuade. This is not just turnout. There's some persuasion happening here, because a lot of these people, these Latinos have voted for Trump were registered Democrats.

So it's, it's interesting. No, I was going to say just on the Hispanic issue. I think one of the reasons Trump is harping on him and, you know, and, and Christ, is that I think it's very advantageous for Telerico to be able to go into churches across Texas, including Hispanic churches, and as fluent as he is in scripture. And so I think Trump is trying to chip away, chip away at that. What were you going to say?

I was going to say, I was going to ask you about the decision to have Obama coming to Texas for him. Like in the, is a race where he's got a win, you know, Trump won Texas by 13, I think. He's got to get a bunch of people who pull the lever for Trump to vote for him. Do you think

is that looking at his numbers nationally, they're not bad. And there is a, you know, Obama's not campaigning that much for candidates at this juncture. I'm sure you will. But there is a stature thing, it kind of elevates Telerico and the race. And he may just want to, you know, because of the whole vaguen thing, as you said, Trump said, maybe he just wanted a guy who really

“appreciated a good beef taco. Yeah, and I look, I think also I imagine, I'd have to look at what”

I imagine that Obama's numbers with Latino voters, even the kind of voters who voted for Trump, are quite good. And so with, like, Telerico Smart, his campaign has been run by smart people. They're not just doing this because it's good for TikTok views. Like, obviously, if they're data that suggest that with their target voters, Obama is a plus. And the other, it's not like, there are a bunch of Republicans who are going to stay home because they're mad at Trump and all

this unblock Obama shows up for tacos one day and may. Like, okay, we're turning out one last thing on this. I mean, one of the reasons Trump's going after Telerico is because it seems pretty clear that he's decided to stay out of this race. There was a presumption that he was going to endorse John Coranan as the most likely candidate to win. He's now been convinced that either of them can win. But the Paxton question is really an open one because he's a guy who is

absolutely frayed with scandal. And while he's very popular with the Republican base, he could be very vulnerable with some traditional Republican voters in the suburbs around the big cities there. I don't think Obama's going to play badly with those voters. I don't think it's going to hurt Telerico to have them there with those voters. So we'll see. But I will say, I mean, because of the fool's gold PSPTSD, I have, you know, I'm looking, you know, I look at

Iowa, for example. And I'm wondering, is Iowa ultimately going to be a better shot than Texas,

is Alaska with Mary Peltola and the ranked choice voting system against a very weak

“incumbent in Sullivan. Does that give you a better chance? Here's the thing. When you, you know,”

you have to win a couple of states where Trump won in dub by double digits in any case. And you want as many opportunities as possible. So Democrats can turn to Alaska to Iowa to Texas. Even, and I think it's the longest of them. But even Nebraska, you know, where you have an independent candidate supported by Democrats who did very well in a Trump landslide last time, against Ricketts, the senator, the incumbent senator, former governor. I think that,

there's a better than 50/50 chance that Democrats can piece it together, assuming that the wave is what we think the wave could be. And remember, the wave is more important in the Senate races. You know, they may piece districts together to hold down the House margin, but statewide, you know, harder. Positive America is brought to you by Tamajon. What do you love about Tamajon? Well,

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save 25% off your first order with the code crooked. Come for perfected, just use code crooked. At checkout and upgrade your essentials today, TommyJohn.com, save 25% on your first order with the code crooked. Yeah, the Senate map is, I mean, it's challenging. It's kind of shocking. And it says everything

or maybe even a little bit better than a coin flip. When I look at it, you just, if you're just doing like most likely scenarios, like I would probably pick Alaska of the Texas Ohio Iowa Alaska, probably I'd pick Alaska just because of the fact that Marripa told us one in that state before there is ranked choice voting. Dan Sullivan is particularly unpopular.

“And then, you know, I think maybe Ohio. Yeah. And then the other side. I think Ohio, I, you know,”

shared Brown came pretty close last time as Trump was carrying the state by double digits.

And he's running against the Senator who was appointed, who's never run on his own statewide.

And who doesn't have a, you know, a huge image in the state. So he's going to be more associated with Trump just by dint of having no real profile. I mean, he'll try and be, he was the wine's guy, he'll try and run that way. But he can't run away from Trump, Trump won't allow him. And it's very hard as you know to run away from an incumbent president anyway. So, you know, and shared, shared Brown was was a economic populist before economic populism was cool. So, I think, you know,

I'm not sure that I would rate Alaska over Ohio, but I think that the most likely combination if Democrats are to take the Senate would be North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska.

Now, I'm sort of stipulating Maine in North Carolina as must-winds.

This is one of the three of the other four is hard. Yeah, but he, he platter is going to, you saw a David French wrote a very tough column in the New York Times this week about him. And I mean, not that people read that, but that was a, the tenor of what he, you know, they're going to go back at him with more ferocity. But Susan Collins, you know, after all this time and given the nature of the times is, uh, is a, uh, is a really vulnerable candidate, you know.

So, we'll see for all the reasons we discussed earlier, it's, the Susan Collins thing is interesting because she has been, like, she has a Republican in a state that Democrats win by nine points.

We should be her. We should be near in 2020. Uh, she's very tough to be. She's been fortunate enough

to be able to avoid some of the worst votes this time around because the Senate market made her lose to do it. Yeah. Yeah. She definitely, both of the beautiful bills. She got to take a pass on some of the worst cabinet appointments, but she still is a Republican Democratic state and one who represents status quo, you know, it's going to be very fascinating race. And the real, the question is, you know, you and I both know the folks working on that race is Ken Platner with stain, what will be

a massive amount of scrutiny. Some of it from his own side because there are people pretty pissed about how this race played out and every possible dollar dumped on his head with some of the

“nasties. Yeah. And I mean, I think, you know, time will tell about that. Yeah, I heard that someone”

told me about a focus group in that state and someone was talking about Susan Collins and they said she's, she's, she's, she's only bipartisan when it doesn't count. Uh, and I think that's something that some of a lot of voters there, um, kind of intuit. Um, and, you know, she didn't vote for all of Trump's Supreme Court nominees, but she voted for some to raise the ones accounted for sure. As I pointed out to someone, it's, you know, you can, you can remove a tattoo, but you can't

remove a Supreme Court justice. So, uh, you know, that, we'll see how they, it'll be a fascinating, fascinating race. Uh, but I'm assuming that that Plattener wins the race in the end. Uh, that's, that's my hope for sure. You know, both at the house in the Senate, everyone keeps saying the campaigns about affordability, affordability, affordability, affordability. Like, obviously, just saying the word affordability is not actually a message. Um, although, you know, some Democrats have the habit of

reading the stage directions instead of the script, uh, and so they're just saying affordability, every again, is a message around affordability enough doesn't need to be bigger than that. What

“do you think Democrats should be saying? Well, I think I think that we have structural issues in”

our economy. We've got the affordability issue is hitting people hard, but people have been, you know, kind of bobbing in the water and not gaining, uh, for, for a long time, and the polarity in our economy gets worse, and AI is going to turbocharge that, at least in the short run, maybe in the long run. Um, and I, I really think, I don't know that it's necessary to win in, uh, November.

but as I said, it's largely a referendum. Anybody who runs for president better have a much

bigger vision about how you reform a system that was broken before. I, I've always, you know,

“I think it's a mistake to assume that when you run in 28 that the message could be,”

we're just going to kind of restore everything that Trump knocked down, because people weren't that happy with a system before he knocked it down. Uh, I mean, they didn't feel they were being well served, and, you know, they felt the system was corrupt. They felt it was rigged against them. They felt that, um, they weren't getting ahead. Um, and that's, you know, it requires big structural kinds of answers, um, that, uh, you know, to not only to, uh, to put some equity into the system,

but also to genuinely try and reform a system that is, you know, since our, you remember when, uh, our, uh, boss, uh, warned people about citizens united in 2010 and Justice Alito is deeply offended by that and shook his head on the floor. Everything he said has happened. I mean, we are awash in, uh, money and dark money and, uh, pernicious influence and, um, it's, it all, it all conspires against, uh, working people. So campaign finance reform is really important. We also have to

“think, I think Democrats, you know, what strikes me, Dan, is that we have this battle going on between”

the great ideas of the 19th century and the great ideas of the 20th century, you know, you know, tariffs and no civil service and so on from the 19th century and then, um, you know, sort of Rooseveltian structures, uh, in the 20th century and we're in the 21st century and we ought to be thinking about how do we solve the problems of today using the tools of today and not be wedded to the old ways of doing things, be wedded to creating a country in which people can work

hard and get ahead, uh, and where we can deal with some of our most pressing problems, but don't assume that the way we approach them in the 20th century is necessarily the way we have to approach them now. I think there's a lot of room for a genuinely, uh, reform oriented, uh, candidate who has some vision for the future, uh, to, uh, to, to move this country. I also, now you put the quarter in, you're getting 10 plays, but I, um, I think that's a lot of it. I, uh, but, you know,

I've been thinking a lot about this election and, um, there are no, no two elections are alike, but if you were going to say, well, what is this election most like? It goes back to one that you

will not remember, but I do, which is the election of 1976, cruiser first election I ever voted in,

uh, uh, uh, when, uh, right after Watergate, and the country was stunned by what happened in Watergate by the corruption of Richard Nixon, and, um, and by the way, you know, there was a real politicization of the justice department of the CIA, a lot of these, I mean, it was, it was somewhat analogous to what we're facing today. People wanted to, a cleansing, they wanted to give Washington

“an angioplasty, they wanted a fresh start, and that's how Jimmy Carter emerged in, uh, 1976.”

No one would have known who Jimmy Carter was at this point, uh, and he became, um, the nominee of the party and he won. I, I don't know who that person is, but I think that two things, care, care qualities of character are going to be very important, uh, empathy, decency honesty, integrity, humility, all the qualities that Trump doesn't have are going to be

prized in 28, uh, 28, and the second thing is I think being an outsider who's willing to really

challenge orthodoxy and watching and challenge the institutions, uh, on behalf of people, uh, is going to be, uh, candidate who's well received. This is a perfect segue to what I want to get to, because we're going to have a little fun here. I'm going to play some clips from some 28 potential 28 contenders and I'm going to get your take on them, but this message is what they're saying, but before we get to that, I want to, uh, you sat down with AOC at the Institute of Politics,

uh, before our live audience, uh, one of her answers went quite viral. I'm going to play it for audience. I'm going to ask you about it. It was very clear this was a veiled threat, right? So the elite saying, if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat, and my ambition is way bigger than that.

elected officials come and go, but single pair health care is forever. I'm living way to spread. Work is right for forever, women's right, call it that. So a couple of questions on this did that answer was a warshark test for people about whether she was going to run for president or not one for president. I wanted to see, what do you, how did you take that? Do you think that means she's planning on running for president or planning on for the Senate? Doesn't yet know?

First of all, let me say, I thought it was a really powerful answer. You know, I heard

“Faberos say the other day that if you want to run for president, you better know what you believe.”

And what she was saying there is, I'm not in politics for a job. I'm in politics for a goals that might impact positively on people's lives, the kind of people who I grew up with, the kind of people who live all over this country. And I think she really means it. And I think that authenticity is really powerful. That said, if you, you know, she said other things in this answer and elsewhere in this conversation that made me think she really isn't hungering for that job. And

if I were her, what I would be thinking is I want to have an impact. And I, I'm not ready to sideline myself, the chances of anyone getting elected president no matter how good they are are limited. And you know, she's 36 years old now, she'll be 38. She could walk into that Senate seat in New York. And interestingly, with this crowd of young people, I said, you know, some people would like to see you run for president and a bunch of them cheered. And I said, and others would like to see you run

for Senator Schumer's seat in New York, louder cheers. I couldn't tell they were cheering for her to run for Senator, or cheering for the fact that you said Schumer was up. Yeah, no, it was definitely a combination of those two things. You know, she's got a high class problem here. She, she get a lot of

“votes if she ran for president. But I think the way I interpret what she said is I'm going to go”

where I think I can continue this fight for those things that I believe in and have the most impact I can have right now. And that, that led me to conclude that she is more likely headed to the Senate race than to the presidential race. I mean, nothing, she told me nothing. I, but was I reading between the lines, I would be more surprised if she ran for president than if she ran for the Senate. And you and I both know that she would not be one of 100 if she went to the Senate. She, you know,

she would, you know, Barack, when Barack Obama went to the Senate, he was, you know, number whatever,

99, 98 in the Senate. But he was not the 98th member of the Senate. People were always interested in

what he had to say. Yeah, she, I have seen, I worked for, as you have as well, work for many politicians who were planning to run for president and who got this question for the years, relating up to the actual announcement. And the general approach is to just start muttering words until the, until the, the question is not spending attention and they're terrible at it. And this is the, being, I see this without any hesitation, the best answer I've ever seen of anyone asked

that question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, it really does help to be motivated by doing something, then, by being something. I mean, the world of politics divides into these two cohorts, the people who run, because they want to be something. And that's the larger cohort. And then the smaller, more admirable and the more impactful cohort or the people who run for office, because they want to do something. And if that doesn't mean they don't have a personal ambition,

“but, but you really, you know, honestly, I would say the same way we run for president. It's too”

damn hard to do it. I don't mean just to win, but it's such an arduous thing to do. Don't do it unless you know why you're doing it. And just, you know, and if you think that it's such a prize to live in a gilded prison, you're making a mistake. You know, a no-one ever, well, no-one ever will feel sorry for a president of the United States. But you do change your

life forever. And it's not all positive. I mean, you basically give up your, you know, a lot to do it.

I, you know, I think I'm not saying that she won't run and I'm not saying that she won't run some day. But based on what I heard, and if I were betting on it, I would bet that she's going to the

wanted to be president since they were 17 years old. She said that. It's obviously, it's obviously in the answer. She's clearly not one of those people. She said that she said I'm not one of these people who've been planning my, you know, planning my campaign for an office since I was seven, seven years old. She, she said, you know, you know, we all remember her when she, the night she got elected to or nominated to the Congress. And she was in her headquarters in a billiards hall in the

Bronx with some supporters render with her hand over a mouth and her eyes wide open, watching these

“returns come in. She was as surprised as anybody. Well, whatever she decides, when I think when she”

first came to Congress, she was clearly one of the best communicators in terms of how you communicate, like she understood the modern media environment better than almost anyone on Congress, which is not saying a ton. But, you know, she's doing Instagram live. She's on social media. She knows how to do it. But I think in the last couple of years, she's also become the best, one of the best messengers in the

party, like about what she actually says, like it's very, it's very powerful. She came as she's the

youngest woman that we're elected to the house. I think we've watched her mature as about a political leader during those eight years. I think that process is ongoing, you know, and I think she knows that too. But she's an impressive person. The reason that she is so good. Yes, she knows how to use social media and modern media. But the thing that you can't teach and the thing you can buy is the ability to communicate authentically and to give people a sense that you're talking honestly

“with them. That's what great, great political leaders do and she has that quality. So that's a hell of”

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neighborhood concierge. That would be nice. I wonder you can use your built points from your rent to go to a restaurant before you go see rent. Oh, wow. That's a good thing. Do you see in Boston like I did when you were in middle school? Yes, I did. It was like the only play I'd seen in my life. It was like under that one song. It's about that's all I've grasped from that. The candles one. Yeah. It's simple. Anyway, what I'm talking about built.

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in Georgia first. Let's take a look at one of his recent rally. This is how does American politics

really work? It's coin-operated. Money goes in. Favors come out. It's been running on secret money, corporate money, billionaire money, both sides. Both sides. Citizens United was the worst court decision in modern American history. What are you thinking from my handbook there? Yeah, I know. I know. What do you think about him as a communicator? You know, he's a great communicator. I haven't seen him as, most of the time

when I see him, he's behind a podium. And, you know, there are other elements of communication. And I haven't seen a lot of that. Although I just spoke to someone, someone you and I both know who saw him at event, you may have been at the same event because I think it was out west. And said, he was really, really good in kind of off the cuff interaction with people and so on.

kind of candidate who will do well, he checks a lot of those boxes. And he hasn't been, even though

he is a senator, he has not been there long enough to be sort of corrupted in people's minds as a kind of fact, as a practitioner of inside the beltway politics, which he is not.

“So, you know, I mean, it's a quick turnaround. He's young. But I think youth also was an advantage”

in this election because after two presidents who were in their 80s, I think people are going to be really looking for a more youthful candidate. You raise an interesting point, because I think he is the best speech giver that I've seen in a while. He, you know, there's a whole generation of politicians sort of raised on Obama who speak like Obama. And I think he's does the best, like you can see it in the tone. You know, he has some of the same pauses, the same cadence, but it doesn't

look like Obama karaoke, which is something like that. He apparently, yeah, we've seen that too. He apparently does a lot of writing. You know, Obama, you know, he had great speech writers, you work with some of them, but they would tell you that, you know, they would give him a product that was in good shape and then he would buff it up or add things that took it from one level to the next. And he, because of that, he was familiar. He felt organic to the copy. He was reading.

So I think he has, he has that. But the other thing that people don't appreciate about Obama and you would, because you travel around with them, like, you know, those 87 days we spent in Iowa where he was, you know, doing six, eight, you know, stops a day more, even in small venues,

“interacting with people. He was very good at that. You know, you have to run for president”

as a decathlon. It's not just one event. So you can be great at, you know, pole vaulting, but you still have to, you know, throw the javelin. And so the test of campaigns is, how do you do all, do all the events well enough to win? So I don't know that about us off, but he's certainly a promising, promising politician. Yeah, I want to see him, you know, I mean, this is a, it's very self-referred, what to say. But like what, like, can you pass the podcast

test? Can he sit like, you're like, I was just watching a clip of Obama, but that's subtle, fight for. Well, I mean, well, he's been on our podcast. He's done fine, but like, it's like, it's not really, can you come on positive America or hacks on tap? It's can you go on again or all of a sudden? Yeah, can you, can you relate to people on a cultural personal level that's not just politics, that just that vice president Harris wouldn't take? Yes. Yes. All right. Let's do the next one,

is some of familiar, all of us, Pete Buttigieg. There is a powerful American majority for change

and for the things we believe in. Because right now, you, you got this administration that's created the illusion that their positions are supported by most Americans, and it's just not true. Most Americans agree that we should be taxing the wealthy more, not giving giant tax cuts to billion. Most Americans think it is nuts that we're being told we can't have nice things like rural hospitals and good roads and fully funded public schools. At the same time that you got

billionaires paying a lower tax rate, then the nurses in those hospitals and the workers who work on those roads and the teachers who teach in those schools. What do you make a Pete? Well, look, in many, I've, I've said this before he is as bright and thoughtful as anybody. I've, I've seen since Barack Obama in terms of his ability to sort of think in interesting ways and posit arguments in ways that really are clear and thoughtful. And he's a very, very talented guy. And I really,

“I like him a lot. I mean, and I think he's underrated in this. You know, I mean, when you hear”

conversations, he's not people don't talk about him, but you know, every time you look at a poll and some of its name or recognition, yes, but he's, he's well regarded by Democrats and the things he's articulating out there, kind of, they square up with some of the things I'm saying. He's talking about renewal, not restoration. He's talking about reform, you know, like basic fundamental reforms. You know, now, you know, I don't know whether experience of the Biden administration

is advantageous or not. Maybe not. I'm against net neutral at best. This is my guess. Yeah.

Yeah, I wonder I have never had this conversation with the one whether if he had to do it all over again,

there's always this question about an openly gay man running as is America or if that. And look,

he, he, he, the one thing that he did not prove in 2020 was that he could win black votes. And that is a really essential task for anybody to get through this process. You know, black voters in the South in particular are really, really important. And so, you know, there are, there are questions, but the talent is is is undeniable. Yeah. I think Pete's incredibly smart. I saw minute of that recently. And he just, he's so good off the cuff. He's so good answering questions.

Yeah. And he does the, he passes the pad. Yeah. All those things. The thing that was always the, I think, not like the black voters is like the mass, you can't, it's just then Paul, you can't win the math as such with primaries across the South, the way delicates are allocated. There's no way to do it.

“Right. That's why, that's why Obama won. That's why Hillary won. Right. Right. Right. And one. Right.”

But the thing about Pete's communication in 2020 was it always felt to me like a little bit at a

remove like he was so good and so polished that, you know, it just like there was this distance between I think it's an important observation. Yeah. But I will say when he was on CNBC a few weeks ago, and he was arguing with Joe Kernan. Yes. I thought it was some of the best Pete, like people go on and he'll have like every word exactly right on Fox News and he'll stuff, Sean Handy into a verbal locker, whatever else. And it's incredible. But when he was on the show,

currently, like he showed like a re, he was so frustrated and so angered by the stupidity of and the unfairness of what Kernan was saying that it was really was like a, I was one of his most authentic moments. I thought it was quite quite good. And I think maybe indicative like, well, his life has changed a lot since 2020. Right. He's had. He's got married. He's had kids. He's

“like been that he's been through times. And I think, you know, I think, I'll be very interested”

to see how he's aid involved Canada this time around. Because if so, he was real potential, and he detectives from the fact that New Hampshire's probably the first state in its place where he has a great base of strength. Yeah, and continues to pull well. Don't underestimate the value of having run the track before, you know, he knows or just to use another sports analogy. He knows the lay of the greens. And running for president is not like running for any other office. So,

he knows the pressures of it. He knows the cadence of it. He knows he knows this stuff. That is a valuable asset. All right. Let's look at Andy Beshear, the Governor of Kentucky. You've seen how some of this speak has crept into the Democratic Party. And we sound like we're talking down to people. We've got to talk to people and not at them. You know, can Kentucky got hit by that opioid epidemic as hard as anybody, but maybe West Virginia. I mean, we've all lost people

we love and care about. I didn't lose one to substance use disorder. I lost them all to addiction. If we want to push back against this president and what he's doing to snap, trying to hold hungry people hostage for political gain, it can't be that they'll be food insecure. It's got to be that they'll go hungry. We got to communicate to people in the values that they know and how they would talk to each other. Electability is obviously going to be a huge issue for Democrats

“as it was in 2020. No one has a better-electability story that you need to share. What do you”

make of them? Look, I mean, again, going back to the things I told you before, I mean, you have to look at them because he's an outsider. He's also a guy who, by the way, can go into those black churches and in a compelling way. And in terms of empathy, most of the time when we've seen him over the last eight years, it's because his state has been be set by some natural disaster or, in some cases, a horrific gun incident. And he's really, really good at that. He's great at

expressing empathy. I sort of agree with what he said there. The thing I would say is it's not just about the language that we use, it's about, and I've said this a lot of times, my objection to Democrats since the Democratic Party has become a kind of metropolitan college-educated party. As we're still a party, we're working people or CS that way, CR cells that way. But we approach some missionaries and anthropologists and we show up and we say, "We're here to help you become

more like us." And the implied message is that what you do really isn't as important as what we do except then when we have a pandemic and then we're home and we're making our living on our computer and they're out there caring for us, protecting us, making things, shipping things, and doing everything it takes to keep the country going and then we go out our balconies and we bang our

pots and we say, "You're the essential worker until the pandemic's over and then they sort of

have to think about how we value people in our society. All right, last one we'll do is Pennsylvania

Governor Josh Crow. We have an opportunity to have a real debate within our party about what we stand for, about what our affirmative vision is. It has to be about what we are going to do to make

“people's lives better. And I think that that is a debate that our party hasn't had for a good”

long while. And that debate is not only going to help the Democratic Party, I think it's going to be healthy for this country. And what I can tell you for sure is that I want to be a part of that debate, bring the common sense sensibility of what we do in Pennsylvania to that conversation.

Like Bashir, Shapiro has won the heat set of Pennsylvania, he's likely going to win it again

by a very large margin, which will bolster his flexibility case. What do you make Shapiro? Look, he's a very talented and very smart, and what he said, I obviously agree with. He's one of the guys who he can slide into sort of pigeon Obama from time to time, and he's taken a lot of criticism for it. He can be a little irassible.

“And for him, I think the important thing is to be real. He's so smart and politically savvy that”

sometimes you feel like he's giving the politically savvy, well manicured answer, and you don't know you don't see the person behind it. So those would be the concerns that I'd raise. But look, I thought he should have been the Vice Presidential candidate in 2024, probably good for him that he wasn't, but I think highly of him. And he's got some good stories to tell. That story about the sort of record pace at which they repaired the fallen bridge in Pennsylvania

is a metaphor for something that Democrats need to struggle with. If you're the party of government, how do you assure people that government can work? And he's got some examples to underscore. He also has forged a relationship with working class voters and rural communities in his state. You know, I think he does approach those voters respectfully and has built alliances there

“that I think is very useful and important and instructive. So, again, you've got a good”

assortment there. I know that you only have a short period of time so you can't put all 166 assortments up there. But that's a pretty strong assortment of candidate. Yeah, you know, Shapiro, it's probably not to discuss enough how popular he is in Pennsylvania. Being a popular governor of Pennsylvania is not an easy thing to do. This is a state that Donald Trump is one twice and has moved away from Democrats as we, we have moved away from Pennsylvania

demographically as a party. He basically has a coalition that combines the new version of the

Democratic Party with his college educated suburbanites outside of, and the color counties around Philadelphia with some of the numbers that Democrats like Obama and Clinton had in the rule parts of the state in the great, the great expanse between Pennsylvania and President Filly and Pittsburgh. Let me ask you a question and based on, you know, you've got your finger on the pulse of the left and the party. You know, the question that comes up oftentimes from Jews and I'm Jewish

is, well, can a Jew get elected given the antipathy toward Israel now and now he's been a very strong critic of BB Netanyahu, but how big an issue is that? Do you think that's an insuperable barrier for Democrat? I can't, I don't, but you would know better. I don't believe being Jewish is a barrier that can not be overcome for Democratic Canada. I think that any Democratic can is going to have to have a vociferous criticism of Netanyahu government is going to have to

take very strong positions that would have seemed impossible a few years ago about conditions on AIDS Israel, about funding the golden dome. Even our, your very, your close friend, my old boss from a manual came out suggesting he would not be for that. I think what you, you cannot be seen, you know what to be seen in a Democratic primary as the pro netanyahu candidate or the APAT candidate or someone who's associated with the Biden's

administration's position or policy on Gaza. So I think he can do it, but it's going to, those are going to be tricky waters for him to navigate, given some of the ways in which he's

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, one thing you said, I quite agree with the attitudes have shifted in ways

“we wouldn't have predicted because BB has done things we never would have, you know,”

predicted perhaps we, we could ever should have, but his, the way he prosecuted the war in Gaza, you know, I, I say this as a Jew, it's, you know, I was horrified and angered by what happened on October 7th, but that doesn't mean that I don't agree for the children of Gaza and that I'm not repulsed by the way that that unfolded. And I, I don't think you're going to find candidates Jewish or not who, who don't agree with that. One interesting thing is that they have an

election in Israel and October. BB netanyahu may be gone by the time this campaign begins in earnest. And you wonder whether, whether that changes anything, you know. Yeah, it's a very open question of what the world will look like when these candidates actually have to go get votes in New Hampshire, whatever other states in the early, part of the calendar in 2021. I did not play a clip from Kamala Harris, if you would ask me two or three months ago, I would have put the strong odds against her running.

I think in the recent months, she's been out there more. She's been doing more things. This is just that maybe she seriously thinking about running. What do you make of that? I don't know what to make of it. I mean, she obviously is making noises as if she's going to run. And you know, once you run for president, especially when you come as close as she did, especially under the circumstances, she did very hard to look around and say, why not me.

But I also don't think America is going to end Democrats are going to ultimately go for the

back to the future candidate. You know, there's a lot of, there are a lot of seared memories of 24 and a lot of that don't have to do with her, but with her boss, you know, in the White House. But, you know, it didn't end well. There are a lot of Democrats who were hoping that it would.

“And part of it did have to do with her inability or reluctance to do the things that you have to do at that”

level. You know, go on those podcasts. Be real, be open. And of course, the answer on the view under the withering interrogation of the people on the view to not be able to answer the question that I think any sort of competent candidate for at any level would know how to answer. When asked, um, did you, you know, is there anything you have done differently? She didn't have to say, yes, these things, she could have said, I'm grateful for the opportunity gave me. I'm not going to

critique him here. I'm here to tell you, I'm not running for the to be the second term of Joe Biden. I'm running to be the first term of Kamala Harris and I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I mean, there are a million ways to answer that question. She just couldn't find any of them.

And those are the moments that defined campaigns. Yeah, you know, it's from her perspective. Right. That was you came very close. You know, she believes as a people in the campaign that given more time, she might have actually won that race or she had not been thrust it if she had a chance to actually find it just not run at all and she didn't want a primary. She could have maybe actually won, you know, it didn't know where to answer that kind of factual. But you look at, you

know, one way she's leading in all the polls right now. And now you and I know and everyone knows that often times the person leading in the polls that he getting is leading by tint of name recognition and nothing else. And that falls pretty quickly like it did for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. Joe Lieberman in 2004. But it still is true that you're not win in the Democratic nomination without running up the score with black voters across the South. And you look at that field right

now and she's the candidate best position to do that. So you can she could make an argument to herself about how she could win that nomination. Now the question will be, you know, and this was I think the experience John Kerry had when he was thinking of running again in 2008 is he was already to go picked up the phone sort of calling all his old supporters and they were right and don't agree. I'm with Biden, I'm with Hillary, I'm with Obama, I'm with Edwards, and she might have a similar,

you know, I don't mean that not just probably, you know, from what I understand not just

“don't not just supporters and donors, but even some key staff. You know, look,”

I respect her and she would get thrust into a really difficult position, but I just don't see this. And I mean, I do think she's the beneficiary of early name recognition on this issue. She may well

2019 when she was a co-front runner with Joe Biden when she entered the race and she never

made it to Iowa, and her numbers in those southern states weren't that good. So, I don't know. It's, you know, there's one, I just don't have enough information to know, but I don't think

“I think she's going to receive some tough, tough news from some of the people who support perhaps”

she was counting on. Anyone I didn't mention that you have your eye on? Actually, it's kind of uncanny because you, you listed a bunch of folks who, you know, look, I got two guys from Illinois, right? Yeah. I was looking for a good rom clip to play at the end for you, but I didn't want to look, rom, rom, you know, I would say that Gavin Newsom, one that presidential primary of 2025, I think rom is doing pretty well in 2020, six, at least with opinion elites. I mean, he's throwing

out a bunch of ideas, he's really aggressive, you know, and we'll see where that takes him. Governor Pritzker is running for the election, but it seems pretty clear to me that he's headed in that direction, and he's shown a lot more serious political chops than I

would have expected when he first ran for office. And he does have a faction among some, among

the Democratic-based, you probably hear it in your own. And he's got, obviously, he's got the advantage of resources. So, you know, I wouldn't draw him out of the, out of the circle. You know, rumors emanate from Washington, that Cory Booker might run again. He didn't do that well in 2020, but he's got talents, he's got gifts, and in an election that may be about sort of character and kind of the, you know, to borrow Biden's phrase, though, no one should use it,

“the soul of America, which, honestly, is going to be important in 2028. You know, he's a guy who can”

speak to that, but I, you know, I don't know if he can, you know, do appreciably better than he did. But I'm also, like, open to someone we haven't, you know, someone coming from somewhere we don't even know. Like I said, this is, this is a thing, an election that's grouped for an outsider, and it may be, you know, you hear about Mark Cuban, you hear other people, mentioned, so who knows? Who knows? I remember calling John Stewart in 2019 after

Zelensky got elected president of Ukraine before Zelensky became, you know, the wartime leader, Churchill of our time, and I said to John, John, you know, short Jewish comedians, they're all the rage right now. So, you know, don't, don't count him out.

“All right, well, that's, I think there's a great place to leave it. John Stewart for president.”

Yeah, that's a rod. Thanks for joining us. Always great to see you in Chicago.

Absolutely. Thanks, Dan. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed-Jurlin, Elijah Cone, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefko, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelavi, David Tolz, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably

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