Adam Jentleson and Pablo Torre: This Country Is Being Scammed

Hey, it's Mario Lopez from the All Mario Lopez Daily Podcast. All right. Quick question. You ever notice how some cars just steal the spotlight? Well, that's the 2026 Toyota RAV4. It's got bold standout style, intuitive tech inside, and now hybrid power standard, which means efficiency without the need to plug in. So whether you care about looks, smarts, or just everyday practicality, RAV4 brings all of it. If you've been holding out for the right SUV, this is your sign. Check out the 2026 Toyota RAV4 at your local Toyota dealer or visit toyota.com. See packages and options at toyota.com for future availability. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. We've been talking about Kewpie Mayo for a minute now. And wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it. You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't ya? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. The original mayonnaise. Kewpie. with what we've been talking about here today, which is that people are just exhausted by this guy. And Trump is the Republican brand, right? There is no brand beyond him. And so if people are exhausted by Trump, you know, they're going to start to leave the GOP. And Democrats, I think, are starting to do a good job of, you know, opening the door back open to people who were chased out of the party or felt like the party left them. You know, and I think we're doing a better job inviting those people back into our coalition in a way that is promising for the future. Give me the pitch on the book. I know what it is, but for people who, you know, don't know what your POV is, talk about what you're trying to get out of Supermajority. Yeah, this book is about how we got here, right? It starts in election night 2016. And it's basically my journey of trying to think through how we lost the Obama era Supermajority, the dominance that Democrats had in that era, how we got Trump and how we can get out of this era of narrow polarization. Because the thesis is, you know, to enact the big change that we need, not just to improve the lives of working people, but to improve the lives of the people that we need to improve the lives of people that we need to improve the lives of working people. But also to beat fascists, these narrow majorities that we have been winning, that we've gotten used to are never going to be enough, right? If you win by eking out a narrow victory, you've got a narrow majority in the House and the Senate, you can pass some stuff, but then you hand back power to Republicans right away, they undo everything, and you're sort of back at square one. You factor in the fact that conservatives have deep structural advantages in the Senate, in the Supreme Court, in gerrymandered districts, we're never going to have enough power to undo those advantages and level the playing field until we win bigger majority. So this is saying, how do we win on a grand scale? How do we dominate not just the next election, but the next generation? And that's what this 10 years of trying to think through how we got here from 2016 to today comes through in the book. And I think, you know, the first half is a recent history of, you know, losing the Obama era supermajority to today. And the second half goes back through history and says, what lessons can we draw from the other eras in history where Democrats did have supermajorities and were enabled to enact that big structural change? Let's talk about the Obama win first. Bill and I on yesterday's show did respect of like kind of did deep dives on 94 and 06, kind of look at what lessons can be learned about a potential wave this year. But I think that that learning from 2010 is important. And I think that there is, I think a sense among some Democrats, not you, that's like this 2010 backlash was kind of inevitable. Like the country was, the country's racist. And like there was the first black president and there was a backlash to that. And there's like something to that, of course. But like, also, it's like, this is just how things go. And, you know, that there was always going to be a big wave in the first midterm. And, and I don't, I think that that just kind of allowing that conventional wisdom to set in, like prevented anyone from the Obama administration or after from like looking into what kind of changes could be made that would have mitigated that, you know, going from the Democrats having whatever it was, 59 Senate seats and a big House majority to, to the opposite. That's right. I think we shouldn't accept losses on that scale ever. I think Democrats expected to be rewarded for everything that we did in 2009 and 2010, including passing the Affordable Care Act. And we were sort of surprised when voters didn't say, hey, thanks, guys. You know, we love you. We're going to, we're going to sustain you in power. So I think, you know, one of the things we've learned over the last 10 years is that especially in this attention economy, you know, you can't necessarily expect to be rewarded for the things that you do. You should, you should do good things with your power and you should tell people about them, but you're going to have to meet them where they're at. And people have a natural tendency to sort of get disappointed by the party in power to, you know, feel alienated and tired of that party. So, you know, you're going to have to make accommodations. One of the most reliable things in American politics is the pendulum swinging back and forth. And so you can't necessarily hope to have an unbroken string of successful elections. And this is part of what I talk about in the book. A big part of the, about this is sort of maximizing your gains when you can and minimizing your losses when you have a bad cycle. And so in 2010, what we could have done a much better job of was meeting people where they were. They were still recovering from the financial crisis. Democrats were out there bragging about all these things they did, but people weren't feeling those benefits and at the kitchen table or in their bank accounts. And so we should have met them where they were at. Maybe we still didn't have an amazing cycle, but we got blown out, right? We lost 55 seats in the house. We lost three seats in the Senate. We could have done a lot better. And that's what we're going to need to do going forward is, you know, both be conscious of the things that we did and why we should be proud of in terms of what they're feeling in their pocketbooks. And when those things don't match, we should be smart about it. What do you say about, you know, the idea that, hey, like, maybe Obama and, you know, those guys, there's like a little bit of hubris and, you know, they're forcing a lot of red state senators to take tough votes on, you know, whether it was the big stimulus or whether it was the ACA and, you know, maybe there could have been a different policy approach that would have yielded not that kind of backlash. Yeah. There was definitely hubris. I mean, you know, I was there at the time guilty of that, too. You know, that expectation that we're going to be rewarded. Avoiding tough votes for red state senators is inevitable. I think, you know, the reason that they are there is to do something meaningful with their power. I talk about Mary Landrieu in the book, a senator from Louisiana, you know, who voted, was the deciding vote to pass the Affordable Care Act. And you could argue that she lost her seat over it. She wasn't up in 2010. She lost in 2014. But when she was asked, would you do it all over again? She said, yes. You know, and over half a million Louisianans now have health care because of that vote. So I think it's really about, you know, mitigating those losses, saying we're going to we're going to deliver for people with the power that we have. We're going to take care of our red state senators. We're going to do everything we can to defend those seats and help them win. You know, but some losses are inevitable. And then it's just a question of when the pendulum swings back your way, you know, regaining them because, you know, 2010 is worth learning from, but also 2012, you know, when Democrats defied expectations and many people thought Obama was going to lose and we're going to lose seats in the Senate. And instead, we picked up two seats. So we clawed back some of those gains from 2010. So a lot of this is about sort of riding those waves and sort of mitigating your losses when you can and running up the score when you have a good cycle. So what's the plan for getting more Mary Landers, though? I hear you kind of taking a noble principled vote. The cost of your seat is good. That's sounds nice for the legacy. But a lot of those Democrats, you know, we're look, I guess we're getting kind of old. We're not that old. And both of us were in politics when the Democrats were in politics. Senators in North Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Montana, like none of these places are even really in play right now. And so what's the plan for getting them back in play? Well, you know, where is in play is Kansas. We've got Adam Hamilton running competitive in Kansas today in a big New York Times story about Roger Marshall, you know, suing people who had medical debt and sending some of them to jail. I love that story. You love that. Debtor's prison is really popular right now. You know, then then the result is that that woman ends up in debtor's prison for a little while. Yeah, exactly. When was the last time we were discussing a Democrat with us with a real chance to win a Senate seat in Kansas, right? Iowa, which Trump won, you know, by double digits in 2024 is in play with Josh Turek. Georgia is looking like it might not even be competitive. North Carolina, Roy Cooper is, you know, on the verge of walking away with this race. So, you know, we are competitive in places where we haven't been competitive in a long time. You know, it is possible to do this. People say, don't sleep on Mississippi. Scott Coloma is an incredible candidate down there, you know, catching a lazy incumbent napping. I'm skipping over Texas. Look at James Tallarico, you know, leading just about every poll in the Lone Star State. So, we are putting states in play where we have not been competitive for a long time. So, this is possible to do again. The key is to have senators running in those states who fit those states, right? Part of the problem with what we've done over the last 10 years as a that requires everybody to sort of swear allegiance to a very rigid set of mostly left-wing ideas. Now, some of those ideas are good, but they don't fit a place like Texas, Kansas, or Iowa. And what we're doing now is we're starting to break out of that rigidity. We're starting to break away from those purity tests. And you've got people running, you know, James Tallarico is running in Texas and embracing the oil and gas industry because that's critical to Texas's economy. You know, you're not going to win working class people in Texas over by villainizing an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of workers. So, we're going to have to do that. We're going to have to do that. We're going to have to working people. Adam Hamilton, Josh Turek are running on sort of a hard line on immigration in those states. We are seeing candidates who fit their states running on sort of a mixed ideology that weaves together some conservative themes with hardcore liberal positions. And that's what's working. And that's what's going to win us back those states. I'm a little skeptical of this. And I think that like if the thesis for the book is that the Democrats need to maximize in good times, like it feels like this year is the year to be maximized, right? Like this is the test case for this year. I mean, when else are you going to have an 80 year old president with approval rating in the mid thirties who is like spending more time redesigning his ballroom and actually like trying to win people's votes? I mean, like it's a, it's a pretty prime cycle. And I look at the cycle and think, man, the Democrats don't win Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, whatever, Mississippi, like when are they ever going to do it? Like this should be the prime time. And I look at some of these races and I just let you use Osborne, for example. Osborne, when he ran last was like really running as a hardliner on immigration, basically, you know, being like, I fully agree with Trump on the wall. And this isn't my politics. I'm just, I'm just trying to be strategic. And like this time, you know, he kind of sounds like any other Democrat. Like in what way is he different from Joe Biden? Like it's hard for me to identify anything based on my interview with him, based on what I see in the polls. And so I think it's, it's hard for me to identify anything based on my interview with him, based on what I see in the these states? Well, I don't know what's going on with Osborne. He's a bit of a mystery to me. I don't know why he's tacked further left. But in the other states, you are seeing candidates break away. I mean, you had John Ossoff, you know, doggedly refused to take, you know, all of these left-wing positions on, you know, Medicare for all, open borders, sort of alarmist approaches to climate change. And again, you know, those may not be your politics, but those are the right positions to win those kind of states. And, you know, to your point, I mean, we are winning in a lot of these races. Kansas is basically tied, and we're just starting to get into the Labor Day stretch. So I agree with you that this cycle will be a test. You know, if we can do it, we should be able to do it in this cycle with Trump's numbers as devastating as they are. But the good news is that we do seem to be on track to doing it. If Democrats won every Senate seat where we're currently polling ahead or within the margin of error, we would pick up seven seats, which would stake us to a 54-seat majority. So these are the kind of numbers we haven't seen. be possible in a long time. Over the weekend, I was reading Charlie Cook, right, a very sort of small C conservative in terms of, you know, the scale of his predictions, saying that he's never seen anything like this for Republicans, that the conditions that they're experiencing, you know, are sort of gale force storms here. And, you know, this is the kind of cycle where this is possible. And when we talked earlier about, you know, sort of not ruling out scenarios that we haven't seen before, I think it's very important for us to realize that sometimes the bottom line just falls out for the party in power. That is when you can run up the score. And that's what Democrats are on the verge of doing right now. When we were kids, summer meant freedom. No homework, no teachers, no school, just days. The Gen Z kids don't get this, but just days laying around outside the backyard, bored, playing imaginary games in your head. It was beautiful. It's beautiful. But as adults, it's hard to find that freedom again. 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One of it is it's kind of the internet and discourse around the internet and kind of social pressure around a bunch of these issues. You know, I do think that like, whatever, in 2006 or whatever, Mark Pryor, a senator in Arkansas, was able to kind of take a bunch of Arkansas positions and do local news and talk about it. And like a lot of Democrats in the rest of the country didn't even really know like what his position was on a lot of issues, right? Or care. Or even if they did know, he wouldn't hear their feedback. And now it's like, there is a lot of social pressure on the internet for Democrats to conform. I think that there's social pressure among the donor class to have Democrats conform. And I think that there is just, I think that there's a culture of kind of aligning around, you know, kind of one view on a lot of issues that makes it hard for candidates to stake out independent brands. What would you say to that? I think there's an opportunity there, which is that, you know, that level of rigidity and alignment means that when you do break, you get a lot more attention than you used to. You know, part of the problem with Mark Pryor was that by the time he was doing it, it was sort of, you know, boring and it wasn't interesting. And, you know, it had been part of his shtick for a Republican who ran a more nationalized race. And that was the trend at the time. But, you know, trends sort of evolve. And the key thing to do is to seek opportunities where you can run against that trend. And so today, you know, as a Democrat, you can get more attention for diverging from your party on an issue than ever before. And here's the other thing is that it's completely free to do, right? It doesn't cost a dollar to take a position that, you know, diverges from the orthodoxy of the media. You will get a tremendous amount of media attention and the kind of media attention that breaks through, right? So, you know, this culture of rigidity that we've created has also created opportunities to define yourself. And again, you know, this may not be the politics of some of your listeners here, but the question is, what are the politics that can win in Texas or Iowa or Nebraska or Kansas? And so, you know, if you have candidates there who are, you know, very dedicated to core liberal positions like universal health care, you know, good schools for our kids, a safety net that catches you when you fall, right? But occasionally, they're going to be issues where, you know, they are going to try to be more in line with the conservative electorates they're trying to win. When they take those positions, they're going to get a massive amount of attention. You see this happening in Iowa right now, right? Where Rob Sand has said, you know, he doesn't agree with his party on issues like, you know, trans kids playing sports. Now, you know, that's not the politics of a lot of our listeners here, but that's what's, you know, a position that can help them in Iowa. Maybe some, who knows? Well, the point is, I think that a lot of these positions, a lot of Democrats are actually more in the middle of the road on some of these issues. And the sort of debate would let you know. But anyway, Rob has gotten a tremendous amount of attention for that position, and it's all for free, right? So, it's, I think it's actually a bit of a hack here, you know, in our attention starved economy where, you know, these sort of constructive debates generate a tremendous amount of media attention. And that's the way you define yourself as an independent kind of thinker. I have two thoughts on that. One, I'm going both directions. One is, a lot of times you take positions like this, and it feels like there's back more backlash than there actually is, because what I was talking about, about the internet and social pressure. I mean, like, look, I'm not trying to run for office when he votes, so obviously it's different being a podcast host. But, like, I think back to, you know, when we were talking about Biden's age a lot in 2024. And, like, there were a lot of very vocal plus subscribers who we love and appreciate commenting their displeasure about that, and, like, creating social media threads about how we're focused on this too much. But, like, simultaneously to that, like, my private correspondence, the emails, the texts, was all people being like, you're right. Thank God somebody's saying this. I kind of feel like that's true for, like, Rob Sand in differentiating on some of that stuff. And I think that Democrats get too scared to do things that just because they're worried, there'll be a pile on. Now, you can overstate this. Like, sometimes, you know, you have to, each case is individual. Sometimes you're getting piled on because you fucked up. But, like, I do think that sometimes that there's a little too much fear on that. Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, the sort of internet culture is not real life, right? People say Twitter. And I think that couldn't be more true. I mean, you know, Democrats are not super far to the left on every single issue. They tend to be very middle of the road on a lot of these things. And so, you know, the fear of getting yelled at online is part of what's led us to this place. And you do see candidates more and more start to say, hey, listen, you know, I'm not going to let that fear be the thing that dominates my position taking. Because the argument I'm making here is not an argument to pick fights for no reason, right? It's actually an argument to just be honest about what you think. Because if you're not, you're not going to be able to pick fights for no reason. Most of these candidates do not hold exclusively left-wing positions across the board. In fact, they are taking those positions in an inauthentic way because they feel pressured to do it by the internet culture. And so, you know, the actual authentic move is to just say, hey, listen, I don't agree with my party on everything. And then to explain the points where you don't agree, because I don't think there's a single person out there who agrees with a part in every single issue. So just be yourself, you know, articulate the places where you do disagree. And, you know, you will get yelled at. But getting yelled at is part of why that's going to break through and create some constructive conflict. Although I think you do it in a spirit of, you know, constructiveness, of family debate. You don't want to ever sort of be trying to pick fights for no reason. But, you know, respectfully and with a, you know, with a sort of principled stance, you should say where you disagree and don't back away from the conflict that comes with it. What do you say about people who say that the same principle should hold about people differentiating from the party brand from the left? I think that, you know, there's, sometimes a frustration among those on the left. And this is one element of their critique I agree with, where it's like, the focus on swing voters is always like focused on either, you know, my people, like suburban former Republicans, or people who have very conservative views on social issues. And like those voters exist. But there are also voters who have been pushed out of the Democratic Party or feel at home in the Democratic Party because they want more aggressive oversight of corporate America, or because they want the Democrats to be really the anti-war, party again and like less support for for Israel in particular, but for more Middle East wars in general, people that criticize the Democratic Party for not going far enough on healthcare? Like, what would you say to that? I think we should be a big 10. You know, I mean, I think there's room for those kinds of criticism from the left. And, you know, to be honest, the left doesn't pull its punches about differentiating themselves from the National Party, right? They are very willing to criticize the National Party, the National Party leadership and criticize other Democrats. And, you know, I think that's fair game, but, you know, people should do it from the other direction as well. And that is how you build a big tent. You know, we shouldn't be in the business of trying to police who is and isn't allowed in our party. There are core things that we believe in as Democrats that differentiate us in clear ways from Republicans. We believe in universal healthcare. We believe in making the wealthy pay their fair share. We believe in raising taxes on the rich and big corporations and using that money to help provide social services to people who, you know, are down on their luck or who work hard and play by the rules, but are having trouble. Getting ahead. So every single one of those things is a core Democratic belief. Every single one of those things differentiates us in clear ways from Republicans, right? And so as long as you agree with those basic parameters, like that's what we are in the business of doing, where we want to win elections so we can get power to enact those kinds of policies. And if you basically agree with those things, you're on our team. If you have differences over, you know, corporate money or, you know, exactly how you achieve universal healthcare, you know, how we raise taxes on the wealthy, do we do it through a millionaire's tax or do we raise rates? These are all disagreements that we should welcome. But, you know, those are only disagreements you're going to find within the Democratic Party because, you know, Republicans don't want to do any of those things. So I won't, you know, the left should make their criticism, the folks in the center should make their criticism, and we should welcome them all into the Big Ten. Well, if you run into issues where people say to you, and I'm sure you see this, like, this isn't, sorry, like, heterodoxy is impossible on this issue. This is a human right. This is a moral right. And like two of the hot buttons that come to mind on this are, you know, on the trans issue, you looked at what Seth Moulton did. I think he took a pretty modest differentiation from the party base and was basically, you know, really castigated and protested, talked about how he didn't support trans people. And then on the issue of Israel, I mean, like, look, you look at right now with Abdul, you have some Jewish Democrats saying, like, this is not acceptable, the types of people that he's associating with, or that his view, his lack of support for Israel isn't acceptable. On the other side of that, you have some left Democrats who say, like, if you don't say the exact word genocide, then, you know, it's not acceptable. And so, you know, I think that's not acceptable. Some of these stuff is just, like, these are real principled positions for people. And just saying heterodoxy, like, accept it, like, isn't going to be good enough for some parts of the electorate. I think we should welcome disagreements, but reject purity tests. And, you know, there's this phrase, everything bagel liberalism, right, which is, you know, everybody has their topping on the bagel, and everybody puts their topping on and all of a sudden, you've got this everything bagel. And, you know, we don't know what we stand for, because we stand for everything, you know. And I think, if everybody has their topping on the bagel, then, you know, has, you know, says, I'm not for litmus tests, except for this one litmus test, right? And then everybody says that, but they all have something different. That's how you get to everything bagel liberalism, right? And so, people should have very vehement and, you know, impassioned disagreements over things like support for Israel, over, you know, how you achieve universal health care, over civil rights. But, you know, fundamentally, we are the party that is pointed in the right direction on all of those things. And I'm a strongly in favor of articulating, you know, those differences out in public and hashing it out and having that debate. But, you know, once you start saying, okay, well, those people aren't allowed in the party at all, that's when you get into the business of litmus tests. And I think that's an important distinction. What do you say to people who say that, like, sorry, the genocide in Gaza is a litmus test for me, and I hear what you're saying, and I want to be a big tent, but that is, you know, my issue, or frankly, the inverse of that saying, like, you know, that Israel states right to exist as a litmus test. Like, how do you talk to those voters? What's your view on it? If those voters, you know, think that that issue is so important that they want to vote for the Republican, then they should go ahead and do that or not vote. That's fine. I would recommend against it. I would recommend for those people to sit and think about what other issues they care about. I bet a lot of those people also care about making sure that every American has access to affordable health care. I bet they also care about making our tax system more fair and raising taxes on the wealthy so that they are paying their fair share. I bet they also care about providing good schools, about lowering crime rates, about building more housing and making housing more affordable. And, you know, if you truly believe that one issue is so important to you that you can't see your way to supporting the party on these other issues where you share a lot of agreement, these issues that are going to improve lives of millions of Americans, you know, I then, I don't know what to tell you, but I think for most people, they can take a look at the big picture here and take a step back and say, I am really upset about this issue. I feel this disagreement very strongly, but there are a lot of other things that I care about. And the business of politics is to pass policies that help people. And so I am going to put that larger interest of the public of advancing all these other causes that I care about ahead of my disagreement over that one issue. Okay. So let's say that you're right and the Charlie Cook wave happened. 54. The Democrats get 54 senators. And obviously, they're not going to be able to get anything past that matters the next two years when Donald Trump is in. But say that 2028 comes and Democrats pick up a seat in Wisconsin and end up with 55 seats in the Senate or something along that in 2029. There'll be some tension in prioritization about what to do with that majority, with all the things you just laid out over policies about, you know, trying to improve people's lives versus addressing the structural changes that are going to happen in the next two years. And I think that's going to be a lot of changes that, you know, you get out in the book about why they're these problems for the Democrats, whether it be the Supreme Court or gerrymandering or adding D.C.'s estate. There are a million things you could do. How does whoever the next Harry Reid is, I don't think it can be Chuck Schumer, but whoever that is, how do they, what are your lessons from that time about like this question of prioritization and how you manage that? You're going to have to operate on two tracks. You're going to have to have one track where you address all of the policies that we care about, things like expanding access to health care, achieving universal health care, expanding the social safety net. And then you're going to have to have another track where you address the structural reforms. And this is possible to do. You know, Congress can actually function with an aggressive push. But the question isn't just what can we pass in 100 days or in the first two years of a trifecta. It's how can we also pass the structural reforms to make that those changes stick, right? We can pass a lot of policies, you know, under a new law. If we have control of the White House, the House and the Senate. But if we don't pass the structural reforms to make them stick, Republicans are just going to come back into power and undo them. So the White House should work very closely with the Senate leaders and say, we need to deputize leaders in the Senate and the House who are in charge of each of these areas and then work closely together. And we need people who are in charge of each of the policy areas that we care about. And we need people who are in charge of the structural reforms. And I'm talking about things like ending the filibuster, passing court reform, statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico. These are all critical priorities. And, you know, the key to all of them is eliminating the filibuster so that you can pass them with a simple majority. The topic of my first book, I'm strongly in favor of this. The challenges that will face the next Democratic administration are on a scale unlike any that they've ever faced. And so, you know, having people who can take those challenges and work through not just the policy challenges, but the structural reforms we need is going to be key. You lived through this the first time, though, and you saw the stuff firsthand. Like, it's tough to wrangle. I mean, you know, you just look at, like, the Obamacare debate, for example, where they're trying to get to 60 votes. And, like, there's all this horse trading. And you end up with, you know, kind of Nebraska exception. You got Joe Lieberman to deal with. Then you have Scott Brown running. But, like, I mean, Harry Reid had a much firmer grasp on the Senate than the two subsequent majority leaders. And even still, it was challenging. I mean, like, this is easier said than done. It was challenging, but that's true. But, you know, the number of things that we got passed in the first two years of the Obama administration, you know, made that Congress the most productive since the Great Society. Now, we should not be satisfied with that. We should do more and be even more ambitious when we take back power. But that's part of my argument. You know, we are going to need to win margins on a scale that we haven't seen. And so, you know, offering some flexibility for candidates to be able to run in states like Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska, you know, on policy positions that better fit those states is going to be necessary because you are going to need those votes. I promise you that every single one of us is going to be going to need those votes. Every single vote in the Senate is going to be necessary at some point in this process. If it's just a majority of 50, you know, tied with the vice president breaking the tie or 51, it's going to be very difficult to get things done on this scale. We should still try, you know, absolutely. I'd be the first to say that. But, you know, our job between now and January 2029, when hopefully a Democratic president takes the oath of office, is to run up the score as much as we possibly can so that we have the room to maneuver to do those big things. To pass those big policies and the structural reforms to make them stick when we're back in power. Cornhusker kickback is what it was called. It took me a second. That's right. You know, it's like you're starting to. Not to be confused with the Louisiana purchase for Mary Landry, you know. Those are the kind of things that it takes to get stuff done, you know, but that's why you need people, you know, the Democrat in those seats as opposed to a Republican. And that's got to be our priority for the next two cycles. Last thing, after Harry Reid, you went to work for John Fetterman. He's back in the news. More staffers leaking about privacy. at conversations where, you know, he was basically saying he didn't, you know, want to meet injured veterans, just wants to do Fox News, things of this nature. What lessons do you have from the Fetterman experience? And how do you kind of process all these leaks and like how to, what the honorable way is to handle a situation like this? I think the honorable way is if you're going to say something critical, you should put your name on it. This was the approach that I took when I left. It took me a long time to think about whether there were things that I felt that I thought the public should know. I took a year to think about it and decided that there were some things that I thought people needed to know, but I did it on the record. And, you know, then voters can decide whether that's material to their decision-making or not. I think the sad thing about Senator Fetterman, you know, as we've talked about here, I am all for, you know, diverging from your party on certain issues that you care deeply about, but the fighting can't become the goal. And what happened with him is that the fighting became the only thing he cared about. It has occupied all of his decision-making. It has occupied, you know, the way he approaches the media. All he does all day is go on Fox News to bash his party. And so that desire to fight consumed him and it's taken over his identity. And I think it's honestly really sad to watch because this was a guy who had a tremendous amount of promise, who has let a lot of people down, and it's incredibly disappointing to watch. What do you think about my plan, which is you have to deputize another senator like Brian Schatz or Ben Ray Lujan or somebody to just go and be his friend and have lunch with him every day and complain about the libtards and like do whatever it needs to kind of keep him feeling loved, that he's kind of like just a wayward child that needs some hand-holding. It can't hurt, but he has had those relationships in the Senate and he had some of those folks who basically did that early on. But the pattern is, I mean, early on it was Peter Welch, Bob Casey, who unfortunately lost, Senator Padilla. You know, there were folks who he really connected with, but the pattern with him has been anytime people get close, he ends up chasing them away. And it's been really sad to watch. So I would say go for it, man. I think it can't hurt to try, but I think there are deeper things going on here that are going to take some time to resolve. One other thing about the situation, I wonder that, you know, Matt Iglesias has made this point that kind of made me reflect on it because I am, one of my things is I'm encouraging Democrats as part of your supermajority effort. One way I agree with it is like you want some kind of anti-establishment types of people, right? Like that is what's appealing to voters right now. If you don't read Sarah's book or your book, if you learn from history or focus groups, it's like people want, like are not looking for typical politicians that are just going to tow the party line, right? And so whether that's coming from the center or from the left or from some kind of more heterodox kind of populist viewpoint, like Democrats want candidates like that. But if you look at like the types of candidates that have fit that bill recently, you know, Tulsi, Fetterman, Sinema, it's like not a great like kind of list partner. Like it's a lot of the people that have like gone against the party establishment have turned out to flame out in different ways and have turned out to be, you know, that maps on to psychological issues that they have. How do you think about that question of like wanting heterodoxy? But all of the heterodoxy people that we've had lately have gone a little kooky. Well, you can be heterodox, but also capable of doing the job and working with people. You know, these two things aren't mutually exclusive. You can. Not lately. Well, not lately. But I mean, you and I were talking earlier about all these senators we used to have in the caucus who did that. Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, and Nelson, you know, and they were great colleagues. So there's no inherent contradiction between having a heterodox approach. I think we've gotten a little too, you know, preoccupied with this cult of personality. And that's, that's a big problem. So a lot of those folks that you mentioned, there's two things going on with them, right? One is that they are unconventional and anti establishment. And the other is that they don't have a track record of working well with others. Right? They tend to be people who got a lot of attention for themselves. Or in the case of Tulsi, like they do have a track record of just doing what a guru tells them to do. Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, there you go. You know, but even Pennsylvania, you know, before he ran, the Fetterman had a reputation is not sort of, you know, working well with others. And so, you know, I think if you have somebody who's gotten a lot of attention for themselves without really sort of, you know, collaborating or working in a legislative body or being a business leader, you know, that's when you should really be skeptical. And this hype machine kicks in. And there's all this branding and image stuff that goes on, you know, and ads with, you know, the certain the guitar track and all that stuff. Hate the guitar track. Somebody get rid of the guitar track. That's, that's when your red flag should go up and say, like, wait a second, you know, is this is this vibes, you know, is this or is there something real here? Does this person have the potential to be a leader? Do they have the willingness to do the job? So, you know, there's no contradiction between ideological heterodoxy and a commitment to the work and a commitment to being a good colleague. We've seen that in the past. And we can we can have that again. All right. That's Adam Jensen. The book is Supermajority. He has a bunch of history stuff that we didn't have time to get into and like lessons from the FDR era, etc. So go check it out. It'll do you well. Appreciate you very much, Adam. Up next, Pablo Torres. Stick around. All right, we are back with the man of the hour. He's the Pulitzer Prize winning host of Pablo Torres finds out is reporting on the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard led to an NBA investigation. And the man of the hour is the Pulitzer Prize winning host of Pablo Torres finds out is reporting on the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard led to an NBA investigation. The man of the hour is the Pulitzer Prize winning host of Pablo Torres finds out is reporting on the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard led to an NBA investigation. But for people who don't know any of that, just give, like, the most basic kind of Reader's Digest version. Like, what happened here? This wasn't just paying a player more than he is allowed to be paid. This was four concurrent financial schemes operated by the LA Clippers, owned by Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, in which they figured out ways to get money funneled from A to B to C, where A was Steve Ballmer's Clippers, C was Kawhi Leonard, and B was a series of companies that the Clippers partnered with. Daktronics, a scoreboard manufacturer, Aspiration, a tree-planting good guy, carbon credits startup, Lockton Insurance, a private insurance broker, as well as, of course, Boingo Wireless. Wow. The wireless provider of the LA Clippers Intuit Dome building. I hate to have Boingo Wireless's integrity. I hate to have Boingo Wireless's integrity called into question. Many of us have said, as we tried to pay for Boingo Wireless on a Delta flight, this is a company that I would be shocked to find has anything but the most sterling reputation behind the scenes. But this is, it's farcical on that level that they were doing this. By the way, Tim, and this is the key part, Wachtel's report, which, of course, affirms what we've been saying for a year in significant parts, they also point out that these were, in some cases, nine-figure contracts that the Clippers, only in the last year, were able to get. This was only signed with Daktronics, for instance, if Daktronics agreed to this scheme to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard. And so this is of a scale and ambition that resulted in the largest punishment ever, because this was more than just, hey, we're going to slide a bag of cash SEC-style, Southeastern Conference-style. This is more of a other sort of a scandal in which literally the Securities and Exchange Commission is now probing Daktronics as we speak, in addition to aspiration. This is like a real-world story because it originates with that sports context. And, you know, the other kind of element of this, as you kind of mentioned in the beginning, referenced, is, you know, you'd done this, doing this investigation for a year, like two weeks ago now, maybe, maybe a little less, ESPN comes out with a story that's like, hey, there's been all this scuttlebutt about the Clippers breaking the rules, but we've got sources that indicate that actually this is all in the up-and-up. And, like, it was like this final gasp of an attempt by, you know, kind of the institutional power to try to, you know, protect Ballmer and the Clippers, and it just backfired spectacularly. I can't speak to the internal monologue of the reporters who I know personally, who are bylined on that, who I worked with personally in the past when the ruling came out, but I will safely establish, as we continue to report the story of crisis PR spin in the backdrop of this story the whole time, as well as PR departments that establish relationships with journalists, I will simply say that, one party here, I know to have been a source for ESPN on that story, and I know the Clippers were a source, because the Clippers released an almost concurrent press release that basically framed the story in the same way! Almost immediately, in which it becomes clear to him that this was not a summary of findings, the evidence being assessed, this was the Clippers' legal defense in response to those findings, that got published as if these are the findings. That's what we're trying to do here today. We're trying to make sure that this is the case. That's why we're trying to make sure that this is the case. I don't think we're going to be able to do this neutrally. Look, I can only lead a horse to water, I guess. I can't make you actually, I love to say, you know, like and subscribe. I can't make you do either. But you might have had some clues if you had listened to part one or 15 in the series. Yeah, it's brutal. Well, makes you feel good. Just makes me want to kind of take a deep breath, have a cigarette, just take a deep Ujjayi breath, like whatever serves you. It's like a small victory, but we're all looking for small victories this year. You know, heading to the midterms, also looking for some small victories. Are there others in your beat that are coming? I saw you're also working on a story about Lakers owner Mark Walter. Yeah. And the interesting thing about this whole thing is we've kind of just, as I mentioned at the top, but it's like even during the Trump era, it's like even worse than the richest people are getting away with everything. It's kind of like they're also providing cover for their friends to be able to get away from anything they want. And I always think about the commissioner who is a regulator who's supposed to oversee the crypto industry, who resigned a couple of months ago. And she was like, if I was that type of guy, if I was that type of person, this would be the time to do crypto scams because there's just nobody looking. Everyone's doing the OJ if I did it book cover. There's just no guards at the hen house. And so I was intrigued when I saw, I mean, you know, concurrently with your reporting on Ballmer, Mark Walter, the owner of the Lakers, he sold his team to the Kushner family. So that's a little eyebrow raising. But he had to sell the team because it does seem like the few guards at the hen house that are still working, were circling him for some reason. And you've been doing some additional investigating on this. Explain to people just kind of the basics of what's happening with the Lakers owner. Well, it's not quite former yet because there's an agreement to sell to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, but that has not been consummated officially. And we await to see. This is a story about following the money. We await whether that money is going to show up. Twelve and a half billion dollars. The most that's ever been paid for a team. There's an agreement, but not yet the funds. We're waiting. The thing about that story, though, Tim, in a nutshell, is that Mark Walter is an insurance guy. He owns life insurance companies. These annuity deals in which America's parents and grandparents think they're making the most risk-averse conservative investment possible. And instead, what they're learning through this reporting is that their money is being used to invest and purchase sports teams. They're borrowing through these undisclosed ways. Mark Walter, initially, his companies, Guggenheim Partners is the subject. They initially were supposed to, you know, say, hey, only about a billion dollars, a billion plus in these undisclosed related party transactions are bad. That's a fancy way for alleged self-dealing, to be phrased, affiliate transactions. And instead, it's $20 billion that they have to unwind. And so the Lakers get sold for 12 and a half. The Dodgers are under scrutiny now, Tim, the greatest team in baseball, two-time defending World Series champion. They were acquired, according to our reporting, through, again, this undisclosed borrowing from Mark Walter, lending it to Mark Walter to pay Mark Walter. And that's what happened. Insurance company lends money to his TV channel, which pays his team, the Dodgers. And the way he got the team in the first place was because of this framework. It was there from the very start. And so this is far more, I think, real world. And it takes us to my favorite scene. We could say, hey, man, Donald Trump got a World Series rig because Mark Walter visited the White House during a federal investigation that is happening by the SEC and the DOJ concurrently. And he went to the White House with the Dodgers and handed the president a World Series ring. Coincidentally, I'm sure. Which might end up buying him a pardon. We'll see. This is the type of story that makes, you know, me ready to go red and just kind of get like a Bernie T-shirt and just whatever, throw away my old capitalist past. Because it's like a guy taking money that people are putting in for life insurance. This is just like regular people's money that they have that they're trying to put a little nest egg in for their kids or their family if something happens to them. He's using the money to like go and buy sports teams and gallivant around. It's a totally insane story. And I guess like if there is not full accountability for it, you know, it just continues to lend itself. It just continues to lend to this idea that like there are no rules for people like this. Well, and this is how sports became so valuable. Mark Walter pays a record price, $2.15 billion for the Dodgers in 2012. New record for Chelsea, over $3 billion years later. The Lakers, again, this is like the one-man economic stimulus package for leagues. He comes in. He's willing to pay and reset the market for everybody to get rich. And so the only question, of course, is what's going to happen? This is why weren't you disclosing this to the public so they can decide whether their nest eggs, as you accurately put it, were being risked on what could be great if it keeps on going up forever but also might be at risk in case they don't. And why weren't the leagues investigating it? You know, this is one of those stories where it's just kind of like, wait a minute, isn't this kind of weird? You know, if Elon Musk bought the L.A. Dodgers and started spending fuck you money on players like way more than anybody else, you'd be like, this sucks. But like, at least I know where this money is coming from. Like, I understand. It's like this random insurance guy comes in and all of a sudden is outspending all the richest people in the world. I mean, it was suspicious. Oh, yeah. 2012, there were questions asked at Major League Baseball in owners meetings. Like, how is this guy? He went up overnight, seemingly, more than half a billion dollars to buy the Dodgers. And they wondered why. And the answer is no. And the answer came. There's a media deal that I described previously. But the answer really is that no one asked too many questions because all of them were so excited about their own teams going up in value because Mark Walter was going to pay that much for his. And so due diligence and vetting is, I think, the story of our time. Why isn't it being done? Who are we trusting? Why perpetually are we getting scammed as a nation? And sports has been a vector. I felt like that was the secret story of Epstein, too. Like, obviously, the main story is the abuse of the young girls, right? But there is a side story when you read all the emails. It's just, like, how many people just, like, went along to go along with it. it's like, you know, doing due diligence and having integrity is hard, right? Just saying, like, this looks a little weird, but I'm going to get to go to a fancy dinner out of it. Like, that is the path of least resistance. And also, can you really imagine consequences being doled out by the class of people that they have now these connections to who help decide whether those consequences will ever happen? And so, that's why, again, in sports, you have something that may rightfully be only sports punishment, but because it's dealing with a real-world story, you have the ability to wonder aloud, what's stopping us from accountability everywhere else that we're seeking it? The people in power in Washington, in Trump's Washington, kind of want to let the unfettered animal spirits run free in every part of our economy, from AI to crypto, etc. But there is one area, where they have decided that they want some regulation. They decided that they need to come in and control the way that the market is working. And that is the area in which young black athletes get paid a little bit more than if they feel like they are deserved. We had a circling of the wagons this weekend from Kurt Erdstreet to Pat McAfee to Ted Cruz, talking about how things are out of control in college sports, and we need new regulations. That's the one regulation they want. We need new regulations. We need new regulations to make sure that these athletes aren't getting paid this much. They want an antitrust exemption. Chris Murphy did a really interesting thread, I thought, over the weekend, I'll also link to. And the show notes kind of pushing back on the opposite of this, which is like, look, obviously, you know, college sports is a little bit out of control, and there are certain kind of rules that need to be put in place, you know, at this point. But what the NCAA is asking for right now is an antitrust exemption that basically lets them control how much players are paid without having to bargain with the players. Without having to do what, you know, major league sports have to do. They want kind of a new separate carve out for them because of amateurism. Talk about like what you've been seeing on that front. Yeah, it's this question of like, what happens when you lose over and over and over and over and over again in the court system? You go and try to get some deus ex machina legal language that says, hey, actually, you can operate with an antitrust exemption. Effectively, as this is the case, you're going to be able to get a legal defense that's actually saying aloud what you guys have been getting away with this whole time. Look, college sports, two things are true, right? Like one thing that's true is that it is a total mess. Tim, like, I'm not here to say that the version post Supreme Court rulings around Alston at all, in which the NCAA actually was told you guys got to compensate what is obviously a labor force that is, you know, a lot of people don't know about. I'm not saying that this is professional in effect, if not your intent, you got to do that. I'm not saying that everything that's happened since then isn't a total clusterfuck because it is. But at the same time, it's a mess that arrives because you guys don't have good answers to questions like, why doesn't anyone have a contract for their labor? And so when you have to avoid the contracts because you don't want to start negotiating with a union, well, you're in a bit of a pickle. In which you're looking for Ted Cruz and the cast of College Game Day, apparently, to save you as lobbying is happening on college football's premier program. Tim, I loved LSU. I loved the circus. I loved the hosts that you guys were. But the sort of context for all of this, it felt like we were watching lobbyists go to town. It was kind of remarkable. Yeah. And to me, it's just like, look, I understand that people have complaints and things were always better when you were young. And for the boomers, we want to go back to Bear Bryant. And for our peers, it's like, let's go back to the 90s when things were. And I get it. And I agree with you that there are things that are out of control in the way that there's been conference realignment. And like anything, there are things to complain about. But the players are professionals. It's a professional sport. There's billions upon billions of dollars that's going into it. And so. And so we have a model for how to treat them, just like treat them like professionals, like everything else. And they're out there saying we want this other system. We want to create this other system where we have more control over them, where the ADs and the presidents and the boosters can put our thumb on this and tell them what to do. And it's like, that's not a fair approach. It's not capitalism, by the way. It's not capitalism. It's definitionally the opposite. Yeah. And for all the complaints about things in sports, there are some things in college sports that are better than ever. Like Women's College of Basketball is thriving in the new system. Like, you have these young women now that are able to get these NIL deals and make money that was never possible for female athletes before, you know? And like, you've got these fucking old white blowhards on TV going like, "Well, what about the women's volleyball team?" You know, it's like they're getting squeezed. It's like, no, nobody's getting squeezed. Like, this has been good for the athletes. What's happening is that the market is beginning to show itself. And there are individuals who never would have gotten paid. Like those female athletes that you mentioned before, who are for the first time. The issue is that schools have only really wanted to spend so much money. And before, they kept themselves. They're like, "We have these endowments. We're only going to spend this much on sports, even though that's the front porch of our institution," right? The thing that everybody talks about. That's kind of the story that unites all of these things. Sports are the thing that people on Main Street, whatever metaphor you want, normies, right? The actual general audience, that's what they pay attention to. It is the way that you see all of these people. Steve Ballmer is seen through his sports team. LSU is seen through its sports teams, right? And so you have this scrutiny and this public pressure. And when that pressure is applied, and it's able to create a flow of money through a market that is somewhat regulated, ideally, as well as one that prioritizes the competition, you get a world that is not as convenient for the schools that wanted to pay less than the market would want. It's the story of a market. Yeah. S is such a good point about how it's anti-capitalistic. And you have these, I think, conservative politicians and the rich guys want to present what they're doing as capitalists. And whether you're talking about the pro sports owners or the boosters, the college presidents, they want to present like, "Oh, okay. We want to reap the rewards of these teams." Let's look at pros, for example. We want to reap the rewards of these teams. Let's look at pros, for example. When I sell this team, I want to be able to reap the benefits, make billions of dollars on how much it's grown. But I also don't want any risk. I want the public to pay for my stadium. I don't want to have any obligation to the community. They're paying for things. I don't want to have any obligation. No, I want to get to go to the White House and you celebrate me in the people's house. But there is no competition. If people don't like how I'm doing, if it's not doing a good job, you can't have a new business open up in my community. I was reeling with this about the Avalanche for a while in Denver. The owners weren't putting the games on TV because they were in a fight with Comcast. Dude, this is what the Dodgers dealt with. They were blacked out for years. I'm like, "Wait a minute. You have to put the games on TV. You have an obligation to the community. You're making billions upon billions of dollars. This is what you have to do." But it's like, "Oh, no. I don't want to pay the right market rate." Acting like this is a normal corporate dispute, but it's not. It's not like some other rich guy can say, "I'm going to create a different basketball team in Denver, and we're going to put the games on TV to compete against you." This isn't a market. No. The thing that they are avoiding is, look, salary caps. What is that? I'm not saying that everybody philosophically should love the salary cap as a concept. I'm simply saying that that is the product of collective bargaining. Right. That is a product of two entities entering, an employer and laborers, and deciding what can we agree on. It's never going to be perfect, but the fact that college sports won't begin that process at all, says so much, because I know that they will have leverage inside of it when they get there. They're actually asking for the safe space around the safe space. It's like levels of greed. That is kind of mind-blowing to me. The other kind of hot topic in our sports zeitgeist right now is kind of WNBA discourse. There have been some hard fouls on Kaitlyn Clark, and Laura Ingram's done several segments about it, and it doesn't seem fair. I'm just wondering kind of where you're at on the WNBA discourse. I think it is very persuasive that someone would be like, "I want to protect women's sports so much that I'm throwing a green dildo at them." Which, for people who have missed it, is literally something people are doing in the stands at WNBA games, throwing dildos. Yeah, and it gets even more absurd, right? Like, Enos Kanter and Royce White, the Suicide Squad of crazy NBA also-rans being like, "I'm a woman now, and I'm going to play." I just want everybody- I never say this, Tim. I just want everybody to be as honest as Jesse Waters was when he spoke on The Five about how he just doesn't even care about women's sports enough to care about this controversy. All I want is for people to actually acknowledge that you don't care about any of this. You're trying to score points in this culture war, which you've learned can be very hospitable to you because you're playing with the perceived victimhood of women and girls. Instead, what you're really doing is you are routinely meanly victimizing one of the most, if not the most victimized demographic in America in trans people who want to be bad at sports just like all of us have the right to be. And that to me is what's unconscionable and it would be inexplicable if I wasn't also watching politics broadly and seeing what happens when vulnerable people can be used for other points. I want to wrap this bow up for how we started and give people a rare, it's post-Labor Day. I had a long weekend. I got a little tan. I've got some time in the pool. Thank you. And so I'm going to be positive on today's show, which is, which is a nice change of pace. I have a silver lining to this, just like your investigation into Kawhi, I thought ended up being good news. I think that that like the WNBA is about to go through a heyday and that these bad and malicious actors attempts to kind of insert themselves. All they're doing is creating free PR for them. We see the value of owning narrative. We see the value of creating free PR for them. In our politics. And I think the WNBA, like, you know, there's the old stupid cliche about all presses, good press. That's not exactly true. But at the end, WNBA, I think is benefiting for this. They're best ratings ever on the stupid game that Ennis Cantor tried to insert himself into on the court. The product is better than ever at the tailgate this weekend. I was talking to, you know, just a regular old Southern guy who was like, yeah, I just don't really like the product. It's boring. That's my biggest problem. It's like, have you watched the game this year? No, like watch a game. Actually, it's like the product. The product is a lot better. You know, they have a lot of stars now. And and I think that this is this attempt to go after the WNBA is going to backfire. Hopefully they get a good commissioner and the commissioners resigned. So that's that's my hot take. Yeah, I think we're about to do a golden era. I think that. Women's sports has gone from a cause that people felt like they should care about to a product that has enough audience as we live in this fragmented world, Tim, in which you are a media tycoon. So, too. So, too, can Caitlin Clark. You're not so different. Independent creators who are trying to take advantage of a world in which you actually have options. Well, can enough people come over here and pay attention to what we do and even enjoy it? I think it's never been more plausible. And at a certain point, also, the price has already gone up, whether or not people realize it. Yesterday's price is not the same as today's price, as a great poet once said. I love that you could share in this moment of positivity with me, Pablo, and even try to gas me up a little bit on the side. So I'll end by gassing you up. People go if you haven't listened to Pablo Torre finds out it's not all sports investigations. He does other related investigations. And if you're looking for a way in, I'm just going to throw out for people my two favorite episodes of the past year to your investigation into the mentalist. Oh, it was who was the fucking fake who I fucking knew. You don't have to say that you're a reporter. I'm not. I knew I was just like, what is this? The whole time it was. Mark Walter for me. I was like, this is not real. And you shined a light on part of that. Yeah, I appreciate your desire for the truth. You did a story that had me crying in an airport listening to Roni Cycli, former Miami Heat player. And he became a DJ. And he also had this moment with Magic Johnson after he got his HIV diagnosis that is really inspiring. So people can go listen to those two episodes if they want to weigh in. I really appreciate you saying that. I think so, Tim. Thank you, man. All right, brother. We'll talk to you soon, everybody. That's Pablo Torre. Thanks also to Adam Jentleson. We'll see y'all tomorrow for another edition of the show. Peace. The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editor, by Dante DiCicco, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. All right. Quick question. See packages and options at toyota.com for feature availability.