Lessons From 2026 (Live From Crooked Con)

Hey everyone, it's John. We've got a couple more great discussions from CrookedCon that we're dropping today as a special bonus episode. First up, Lovett's conversation about the nuts and bolts of Democrats' huge win with three key players who helped make it happen. Danielle Butterfield from PrioritiesUSA, as well as campaign consultants Morris Katz and Liz Smith. Then you'll hear Alex's conversation with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen about what it'll look like to hold Donald Trump accountable, the fight for Senate Majority Leader, and lots more. Good to see everyone. I'm John Lovett. Great to see everybody at CrookedCon. Joining me, Democratic strategist Liz Smith, PrioritiesUSA president Danielle Butterfield, fight agency partner Morris Katz. Welcome. Good to see you all. Thanks for having us. First of all, when did it first hit you on Tuesday night that we were about to crush? Morris, why don't you go first? As I was frantically, as any kind of top operative would be doing, election night, reloading the CalSheep page. And I was like, wow, these are really a lot of lines going up. See, so Nate Silver would be disappointed in you because he would say that CalSheep was really chasing the models. And I would be disappointed in Nate Silver for letting the nation down repeatedly. Okay. Wow, okay. All right, we're good for another day, for another day. Liz, what about you? For me, it was looking at the Florida returns. I advised a group called The Bench that was involved in recruiting and backing a lot of first-time candidates this cycle. And when the returns started coming in for Florida's 22nd district, which, you know, as redrawn, it was one of the districts that was redrawn to be part of the gerrymander to help Republicans in Florida. And they thought, oh, this is going to be a slam dunk for us because it was a Trump plus 10 or something district. And when we saw the results coming in and Pia D'Andea, our candidate, was winning, that was like a really, really good sign that we were going to be in for a good night. Danielle, what about you? Okay, so I stayed. I stayed at home in New York because that was the only thing I felt comfortable doing, trauma-wise. My team convinced me that it was going to be a good enough night that we could afford to go to a bar. So I said, cool, we're going to the bar across the street from my apartment. And so I was sitting next to John Spa, who's in this audience, and he is our head of data science and research. And same thing, I think when Florida and Indiana returns started coming in, he, like, literally started vibrating. And I was just like, oh, this is going to be a good night. And he didn't stop vibrating the entire night. Before we get into it, I think it'd be just helpful for people to understand what you were up to during this campaign. So just, Morris, what were the campaigns you were working on, just so people have a base sense of what your experience was in 2026? So we did the Texas governor's race, the governor-elect, Jeannie Nehosa, the Alaska governor's race, that an underappreciated, we will have a Democratic governor in Alaska, Jonathan Christ-Thompson. That has, by the way, that has been underappreciated. Thank you, John. I appreciate that you appreciate it. Then came in late to help out the Georgia governor's race. And then the Michigan Senate race. Then in California, 22, one that I will shout out, Randy Villegas, who is currently up 30 points after money was spent against him in the primary. Because he was unelectable. And then Brian Poindexter, Bob Brooks, and some fun IE work in the Mississippi, South Carolina, and Kansas Senate races. Liz, what about you? So as I mentioned before, I was an advisor to a group called The Bench that was formed after 2024. We formed it because we looked at what happened in 2024 and decided, you know, never again. And our belief was that the way that we were recruiting candidates was fundamentally broken. I think this is a way that actually, you know, Morris and I probably, people would say we've come from slightly different parts of the party. But agree that when the Democratic Party has traditionally gone out to recruit candidates, they look for the wrong qualities. You know, the first question they start with is how much money can you raise? And that's a piss-poor way to pick a nominee. And so we went out looking for different qualities. And people are like, how much do you, you look, sound, and live like the people in your district? And how much can you inspire people? And to that end, we ended up with 16 general election candidates this cycle in the Senate races. It was James Tallarico, Josh Turek, Adam Hamilton, Mary Paltola. In the House, I'm not going to name all 12 of them. I'll just name a few of the stars. Bobby Polito in South Texas, who was the big, yeah. Like, literally a rock star. Jamie Ager in Western North Carolina, who somehow even outperformed Rory Cooper at the top of the ticket. Kate Conley, who finally beat that fucker, Mike Lawler. And Sam Forstag in Montana. That's a good. Yeah, so I talked to Randy about cars specifically. Cars disabling features that are built into the car that they now want a subscription to pay for. So there are cars where you have to pay the company monthly to turn on the heated seats. And I do think that's a bill that I would like to see from our guy. We can work on, I'm going to call it, I want like a Curb Your Enthusiasm caucus. Yes. And it's just like the little annoying things. And a lot of them relate to antitrust. So it can be like an antitrust Curb Your Enthusiasm caucus. I really like that. Let's work on this. That's a great idea. Yes. Danielle, priorities use 2026, my understanding, as kind of a halftime to build on the lessons of 2024, even though it basically went perfectly. And towards 2028, what were you trying to do with ad buys, with what you're putting out there, and what was that reflecting off of 2024, and what were you trying to get at? Yeah. Just because you have a perfect first half doesn't mean you're going to have a perfect second half. So we've got to be careful not to overlearn that lesson. But yes, priorities is a presidential super pack. People always ask questions. OK, so what is your role in a midterm? I'm not here to spew off a list of races where we are attempting to take a victory lap. We, you know-- not, you are allowed to take a victory lap. But-- I was like, all right, let's go. You're on a panel with the wrong two people. Yeah. It's like, now we're going to fight. All right. No. But I think our team's goal, the minute polls closed in 2024, was to figure out how are we going to use the midterm cycle to prepare for 2028. And so the programs that we ran this cycle were really oriented around not how are we going to win the Ohio Senate race, but more so, how can we run programming in the Ohio Senate race to learn whether or not Ohio is worth putting back on the map in the pathway to 270. And spoiler alert, it's back in the path to 270. So, you know, we have-- have a lot of criticisms and concerns with the way Democrats communicate with voters. And so very tactically, we have a very long list of questions and critiques that we're always attempting to flesh out as far as how can we better spend our money. We spent $11 billion this cycle. There's ways to spend that money better. Well, especially matters when we're at a deficit in terms-- we're always going to be fighting from behind in terms of the amount of money we have. So what were some of those lessons? What-- what did you find in terms of ad spends that broke through? What was the balance between television ads versus digital ads? What is one of the lessons-- what are the lessons you take from it? So I should also caveat that it's $11 billion in publicly tracked spend. There's a lot of dark-- not even like traditional dark spending, but a lot of investments that don't legally have to get disclosed that the Republicans are certainly, you know, ahead of us on. I'm talking about things like organic social chat bot-- or not chat bot, but bot infrastructure, et cetera. You know, the allocation-- I mean, the options that Democrats are making between digital and television have improved in the last decade, absolutely, from a raw spending perspective. We're hovering at around 50/50, I would say. But I think we're giving ourselves a pat on the back for spending half of our budget on digital in a world where voters are spending more than 80% of their day online. And it worries me that it took us this long to get to a point we were spending 50% of our budget online, when the internet around the corner is subject to change more probably in the next year, in the next two years, than it ever has in our entire lifetime. And so culturally, I just feel very nervous to look at the trend lines of how much-- how slow it took us to, you know, increase our digital budgets. And I think it should continue to be a wake-up call as we move forward around how we need to be much more nimble and much more creative with how we allocate our budgets. I can get specific about-- like, two very, you know, tactical lessons that we learned coming off of 2024 and then can get us into the weeds on it if useful but number one um 11 billion dollars in advertising spending we got to get better at understanding if those ads are actually working because there's currently not good enough metrics that that allow us to understand if our ads are actually breaking through and spoiler alert a lot of them are not um and then number two so we spent a lot of time focused on how do we measure breakthrough basically and then number two um just really grappling with the notion that 50 percent of voters don't pay attention to news or politics and it puts us in a position as as digital marketers or marketers in general um where i like to say we're a we're a car brand trying to advertise to people who don't even have a driver's license how can we expect our messaging to break through these people don't want to hear from us and so until we can grapple with that our our advertising dollars are going to continue to look the way they do which which obviously often fall flat liz what was your what were some of the places where you thought oh wow we're this ad spends really working for us uh versus places where you thought oh i think we might be throwing good money after bad here let me let me phrase that in a more positive way great okay so i agree with everything that um danielle said and one thing i would say is something that i saw work really well this cycle is the candidate are the candidates who really focused on breaking through and earn media versus just trying to communicate via paid media and i think you talked about this a little bit when i on your podcast with dan at least um and look at someone like james talarico in texas he was sort of everywhere during the campaign um from the beginning and texas is a really big state a really hard state to run in he had only been a state rep up until that point and but he was someone who understood from his time in the texas state house that he couldn't have speeches go viral so he had a team around him that knew how to clip and and get out into the ecosystem clips that would go viral and people know him know him for he knew how to say interesting things and his way of saying interesting things wasn't going out and punching the republicans in the face it was actually the opposite it was saying you know a lot of things that were guided by his faith you know things that are so radical by his faith and he was saying you know a lot of things that were guided by his faith by being not loud and angry and extreme um and that ability to understand how information travels how to break through did him a huge huge favor in that race because by the time then when the republicans started spending i don't know over a hundred million dollars in ads against him including a gazillion dollars from elon musk it was pretty hard to say like this guy's some extreme lefty radical who's going to turn all your kids trans which literally was their message i have one of my best friends lives in el paso and would send me the text messages she would get and they were wild and same thing with bobby palito in south texas again house race in south texas how much are you going to break through in our media and yes he had a very unique background but i think back to one moment in that campaign uh the day that his uh republican opponent um you know won her primary she said you know bobby yeah sure he's qualified to perform at your niece's quinceanera but that's about it and he said all right then fine i'll go out and do any quinceanera in this district that people want me to do and it became a phenomenon and it broke through in part because it wasn't political it didn't it wasn't crafted by people like morris or me it was just bobby being bobby and making it about family and togetherness and taking politics away from so much of the stuff that people hate and so much of the stuff that people hate and so to me to answer your question what i learned more wasn't how much was too much spending it was how much you can do through our media being different and willing to think outside the box yeah what morris one of the things i i have taken away with some of the work that you've done is trying to find ways to make ads that feel like organic content that have that same kind of energy uh curious what you feel is like sort of the role of of ads versus the the videos that you're trying to kind of get in front of people and what what the difference the difference between a video that's going to go viral and everywhere including to a bunch of people that are not in the district or not in the state uh versus how you actually get information in front of the people you need during the race well i think what liz said about kind of what pops being things that don't feel political carries over to ads themselves you're not just competing against the other political ads that are on tv you're competing against any ad on tv like no one gets to an ad break and it's like i can't wait to see what's coming like clearly like you're competing in an attention economy yeah except for those of us paid to watch um and in doing that i think you actually then expand the ability and this speaks to kind of the spending differentials we'll see we'll we talk so much about we're being outspent whatever to whatever it's like well what's the quality of an ad an ad that no one's paying attention to the 300 million dollars spent saying that james how are you going to make your kid trans isn't breaking through the same way maybe a new ad that's actually telling a story that has real people or that has a point that's touching something you haven't heard before like the quality of ads matter and we kind of and it sounds like obviously but you'd be shocked the degree that in the general discourse around it that never comes up and then i think like there are certainly different ads that can break through and go viral online versus paid media but also those things increasingly i think are good indicators of is it content that someone wants to share? Because content that someone wants to share is oftentimes also content that's gonna make them put their phone down and pay attention. And so a lot of what we try to do is like, anytime I get a first cut back or we're starting a drafting process, if it looks like a political ad, I don't want, we have done a bad job. And how do you make sure it doesn't look like a political ad? And a lot of that goes to also what Liz said of like, we need candidates who are not traditional politicians, because it makes it a lot easier to shoot an ad with someone on their farm or on their ranch or in a music venue or wherever it may be. - I think that, I'll put a, just to underscore, I think what's been said on the stage so far, we can't buy attention. We have to earn it. And so even when we're running paid media programs, which I think all of us on this stage are, you can't just throw money at the problem and expect to be able to earn someone's attention. You have to earn someone's attention, even through a paid media lens. And I think even to, put it on the flip side with where the Republicans were this past cycle, to Liz's point, the amount of money that Republicans threw into the state of Texas alone, you actually can't, if you have a bad product, there's no amount of money that can sell it. So I think it's just an important lesson of the constraints of money and how we have to really like recognize the amount of creativity I think that has to happen behind the scenes in order for our money to actually pay off and make a difference. - Yeah. The dogs have to eat the dog food. At a certain point. What is an ad or a piece of content that wasn't, that you weren't involved in, that you thought was just really great this cycle? What was something that you thought, oh, that was cool, I thought that was awesome? - I hate complimenting other people's work, John. - No, I know. - I think that all of the Tallrico ads on the hard set were very, very well done. - Look at Liz while you say it. - Liz, yeah. Because the other component is they had a consistent message to everything that's the others. We sometimes just kind of throw shit against the wall. And like every one of the Tallrico ads was telling a version of the same story. And I think that consistency and framework was really profound and they were aesthetically appealing and didn't look like the other ads. And so, and then Tallrico folks did a really impressive job. - Yeah. Liz, what do you think? - So the ad I've watched the most, and I've just had it on repeat the last couple of days, is the one from Mississippi. Don't pick a new protein, pick a new Senator. And just like the people they cast in it and like the delivery and the pacing of it is just so fricking good. And I just genuinely, like even as a non-practitioner, I love it. - I think my through line of the ads that I've enjoyed the most this cycle have been, and to, give these guys on stage some credit, when we actually take the candidates and use their talents as content creators themselves and put that on the screen. I think you look at someone like Annie Andrews, who, you know, she went viral several times before she ever ran for office because she was really good at creating content that made fun of the Trump administration. You then look at the content that her team was putting out on paid and they were using those talents in a really helpful way. I think you look at Gina's ads, the Tallarico's ads, the ones where it just, it feels very clear that they are comfortable behind the screen because they've created content on their own before. The walk and talk style of ads was probably one of the most popular ads this cycle. And it worked because we were using candidates that were very comfortable talking. - Patsy of America is brought to you by Z Biotics. You guys know Z Biotics, you know I love Z Biotics. I will not have a drink without taking a Z Biotics. This is reminding me. to pack a bunch of them before Kyrgyz Khan in DC. We're going to need some Z-Biotics. Z-Biotics is a pre-alcohol probiotic drink. It's the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was engineered by PhD microbiologists to break down acetaldehyde, which is bad. It's an unwanted byproduct of alcohol metabolism. Make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and enjoy your next day activities. Z-Biotics has sold more than 15 million bottles and earned the trust of thousands, including us. We're going to DC soon for Kyrgyz Khan. This is coming out after, but I'm recording it before. That's how the audio magic works. 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Try Z-Biotics pre-alcohol for yourself, and if you're not satisfied, they'll refund your entire order. No questions asked. Head to zbiotics.com slash crooked or use the code crooked for 15% off your first order. This message comes from the Sierra Club, fighting to ensure America's public lands are protected and accessible for everyone. The Sierra Club protects places like national parks and forests through legal action advocacy and nationwide grassroots organizing, because the future of public lands is worth fighting for. Join the fight to keep public lands protected, and accessible for everyone. Donate at sierraclub.org slash podsaveamerica. Morris, you were on Offline with John this week, and you talked about Roy Cooper and how he manages to be so popular, and that even in a kind of throw-the-bums-out environment, there's still a place where people want good insiders. And I would say that that runs counter to what the consensus was about. And I think that's a good thing. And KUPER, I think that's a good thing. And outsider logic is right now, that people want outsiders, they want people that are going to break up the system. But there's Roy Cooper, probably one of, if not the best performer of this cycle, other than in that one district, as insider as it gets. How does that work, right? Where is it that somebody saying that they have this experience is still working, and where do you think it's not? One, I just want to say I love the kind of self-referential crooked universe. You went offline earlier this week, John. Now you're here at the other, yeah, love it. Well, no one should ever talk to anything that is not part of the crooked media conglomerate. I don't understand why anyone listens to it or talks to anyone. It's all crooked media. I see crooked media in my dreams. I think then, like, the reason there's such a hunger for outsiders is because most insiders suck. And that's what defines it. And so it's like, no one wants another four years of Andrew Cuomo, or no one wants another four years of, you know, Roger Marshall. But there are a handful of people who have shown that a well-intentioned government that is not beholden to corporations and special interests and that actually has the best interests of the people at heart and is willing to use every tool at their disposal to advance it. People don't, I think, like, everyone talks about, oh, people want, like, government to just snap their fingers and solve every problem. I think people just want to see government trying to solve their problems. And, like, this is, you know, it's why, and this is a non-ideological point too. Like, our two most popular mayors in the country are Mayor Mamdani and your guy in San Francisco. And both of them, like, have just made government work. And there's a deep hunger for that. And I think, like, you know, one of the moments I think about from the 2020 primary, and this is maybe going to be the triggering list, or 2016, yeah, 2020, was I thought, like, when Amy Klobuchar said the thing about, like, I'm proud to be a senator. Like, I actually like being a senator. I like the job and I like the work. I think that's a far better message. Some of these, like, career insiders then decide, like, it's an outsider election. I'm going to run as an outsider. It's like, well, you can't run as you are. And we need to not be apologetic about being Democrats, about believing in government. And we need more people who can govern for a decade, like Roy Cooper, so we can see those results all across the country. Liz, you were part of a recruitment effort to get Bobby Pulido in the race. Also, you had a pretty early conversation with Adam Hamilton. When, what was that effort, what was that like? Like, what, your, what does it look like to kick the tires in someone like Bobby Pulido? So, our process was we would have, we, right after the 2024 election, we had six scouts across the country, people who had worked in politics, were sort of local, could go around, talk to everyone from, you know, a state party chair like Anderson Clayton, who gave us the tip about Jamie Ager, or just see, these are people who are thinking about running, or these are really good people. And from there, they would send along, a bunch of names, et cetera. Our team would talk to them, and, you know, some people sort of made it through the process more. And the final step of the process would be talking to me and my colleague, Eric Hook. And, you know, we would just sort of, like, tell us who you are, why are you getting involved in politics, things like that. And, you know, usually with Bobby, that one was really memorable, because usually these Zooms are about 30 minutes. But it was just such a master class, we just, like, let that baby roll. And ended up talking with him for over an hour. And he was just so refreshing. There was absolutely nothing political about him. I had never heard any political person talk the way he talked, like, about his community, about why he wanted to get involved, et cetera. And I mentioned being on these calls with my colleague, Eric. And, you know, Eric's a dude. And usually after, like, when we've run through all the questions, you know, he'll ask, like, the guy, like, you know, how far can you throw a football? With Bobby, the question was, so, you know, Bobby talked a lot about being gun owner and was, like, Bobby, how many guns do you own? And Bobby pauses, and it's, like, a real long pause. I'm, like, getting concerned. Like, did we hit a sore spot, a weak spot? Is he, like, actually John Kerry in disguise? And then he's just, like, ugh, oof, too many to count. But let me tell you this, I named my son Remington. So, and, but, again, not an answer that anyone, any political consultant would ever give a candidate. And so refreshing. And the same with Adam Hamilton. When I got on that call with him, I remember thinking, we've got so many races, and now you're going to add Kansas Senate to it? And then within five minutes, again, you could just tell this guy had it. And going back to this sort of Tallarico conversation, this is really important. And I don't know, maybe I've gotten soft in my older age. I'm a mom of a three-year-old. But it, it really was very depressing to me after the 2024 election when this attitude emerged that to beat Trump, we had to beat Trump. We had to be as nasty, as vile, as down in the mud as he was to win. And my view of that is just that, like, we all sort of lose in that situation. And that really no one is ever going to beat Donald Trump at that game. And when they try, you know, people like Vivek Ramaswamy, you know, look how it turns out. And with Adam Hamilton, he's someone who really took the complete opposite approach. And we could tell from the get-go in that conversation, when he would say, I don't believe people who voted for Trump are the, are my enemy. I want to treat everyone with respect. I want to bring everyone into this tent. And, you know, he broke with the Democratic Party on a lot of issues. But I think people who do that sort of speak to decency and bringing back goodness in politics. There really is a place for that. And we should, I hope, look to that as a model for 2028, like trying to tap into the goodness of people, give them something to be inspired about, than just giving them something to be mad about. I remember when I first, the first time I thought, oh, maybe something really interesting is happening in Kansas. This is that state fair debate where Roger Marshall was getting booed from the crowd about the OBGYN accounts in arrears. And I thought, oh, wait, there's something interesting happening there. Obviously, Adam Hamilton is an extraordinary candidate. It is easy in hindsight to say, oh, look, we won Kansas. Was it always a long shot to you? Roger Marshall clearly at the end thought he might lose because he puts out an ad saying, I'm a good OBGYN. So, but was there actually a moment where you thought, I don't just think we have a chance. Like, I think we're going to do this. So once we actually looked under the hood at the numbers, like, I think a lot of people, myself included, just superficially thought, okay, Kansas hasn't elected a Democratic senator in 90-something years, so it's probably going to be a tough sell after we lost to Donald Trump again. But then when we looked under the hood, Roger Marshall's numbers were not really good. He was not super well known, and among the people who knew him, they just really, you know, particularly well-liked, so the conditions were there. You know, Kansas, for paid media at least, is a cheap state. Adam Hamilton is a great candidate. And I think there were a couple moments in that race, that was a big one, that debate. That was a big debate because then you could see, wow, Adam Hamilton, the candidate quality, so much stronger than Marshall. Marshall, not particularly well-liked. You would have thought that would have been a more friendly crowd for Marshall. And another big moment there was when the story came out. That Roger Marshall, you know, doctor, was sending debt collectors after women whose babies he delivered for bills as little as $50. And sometimes people would end up in jail. And it's just like, you know, what a scumbag. And it was one of those stories, you know, we talk about oppo so much in this business. But a lot of it. It's just sort of washes off people. That one really, really helped define him. And I think it was a turning point in the race. Can I just, I want to connect a dot between, I think, what Liz just said. Let's get those dots connected. That's why we're here. And what Morris was saying earlier about, like, insiders versus outsiders. I think our party has, like, a problem with labels. In that we just, like, attempt to put people in buckets and categorize them. And I think we've all been on Twitter the last few days where people are attempting to, like, plot people on a graph and draw conclusions. And, you know, Liz just talked for several minutes about the value of candidate quality and how much just texture and color there is around candidate recruitment. And I just, I'm very worried that people are going to attempt to draw conclusions from what we saw go down on Tuesday and kind of extrapolate that onto what we need to see in 2028. And I think that the beauty of our party right now is that, you know, the through line, I think, across all of the Democrats that did well on Tuesday. Is that they were, you know, willing to fight the status quo. Willing to say what's going on in Washington right now is not okay. Here's what I'm going to do based on what I hear you are concerned about in my district. And I'm going to go take that fight to Washington. And I think that this attempt to just label and put people into buckets across the board is really concerning. And I'll end by saying this. Like, I think we've become pretty obsessed with the MAGA label for Republicans. And the thing that's different about. The MAGA label with the labels that we use on our side is that MAGA has a verb in it. It actually like it's pretty clear in the label what it means. Calling someone a moderate, calling someone an insider, calling someone a progressive. Like, I'm left kind of scratching my head about what that actually means. I think we need to add a lot more color and not not attempt to put people into buckets. Yeah, especially when a lot of that conversation feels trapped in an earlier era. Right. Like I. I. Every Democrats are an anxious bunch. And so they were they were treated to a kind of safety and their safety in the debate we had in 2016 and to a lesser extent in 2020. But Abdul calling himself a capitalist, which explains his advocacy for Medicare for all. Yes, the debate around Israel sorts him left, but he's associated, therefore, with the DSA, of which he's not a member. You have, you know, a pretty populist economic campaign run by virtually all those candidates, while some of them are trying to strike a balance on other issues. It seems like what's happening is we're figuring out how to move beyond some of those debates. I do think it's like and I feel like I've had a lot of conversations with different people. We all feel great. You know, like it's like this is a great week. It's a great day. Great time to be a Democrat. Great big tent party. And then there's a handful of of just like, how can we make this toxic? Like, how can we ruin this 56 seats? And I think we spent a lot of time to our kind of collective ecosystem credit post 2024. We were like and like, listen. We're having these conversations two years ago was like, this is not you guys are using terms that are not how the voters think anymore. And we need to meet voters where they are. And voters are not thinking about, like, do you have the Neera Tanden stamp of approval or not? They're thinking about, like, what is your vision for the my district and my policies? I'm just thinking about candidates trying to dodge the stamp. Don't get and and that's we overlapped, you know, on, for instance, Bob Brooks race in. In Pennsylvania. And for those of you don't know, Bob Brooks, while you are in for a treat, he is one of my favorite candidates of the cycle. He was a firefighter and union president. And when he gave his victory speech on Tuesday, he talked about how we really need more working people in Washington because people can sort of, you know, mouth at the working class and sort of, you know, gesture at the working class, but they don't really know what it feels like. And he said it would be like being a coach if you've never played the game. And I just thought that was really powerful. And I believe the status that he would be only like the second member, current sitting member of Congress without a college degree. And it just generally speaks to the need for us to look outside of these political pipelines, not just seek out people who can raise the most money, not just seek out the people who have the most power. Not just seek out the people who have the most political connections, but seek out people. And again, don't just seek out an outsider for the purpose of being an outsider. You talked about good insiders versus bad insiders. You know, they're also bad outsiders versus good outsiders. Morris doesn't know anything about that. I was waiting. We have a 35-minute mark. And one thing that we made sure to do when we were talking to people was to go around and also, when I mentioned the scouts, talk to people in their communities. And when they talked about Jamie Ager. They said how his farm in Western North Carolina became a convening point for people after Hurricane Helene. With Bob Brooks, it was how people had to go to him to beg him to run for union president. These are people who had been serving their states, their communities, long before they ever asked for a vote. But because they hadn't spent their entire lives, you know, being in politics, trying to cultivate these relationships. They had like messier views on things, messier in a good way. Like they didn't fit into boxes. They weren't like, oh, because I'm a Democrat, I stand for all of these things. No, with Bob Brooks, he stood for Medicare for all, but he also stood against an assault weapons ban. If you look at Adam Hamilton in Kansas, he talked about Biden's policies on the border being a disaster. He talked about being pro-life with a heavy heart. And I understand that. There are things that sometimes make people uncomfortable that are different from things we've heard from Democrats in recent years. When, you know, everyone was really rallying, understandably, around the horror of Roe being overturned. But like, I worked in a lot of red states. I worked in South Dakota. And when I worked in South Dakota in 2004, not a single one of my volunteers there, when I was working for Tom Daschle, identified as pro-choice. And we got to think, how are we going to win these people over? How are we going to win these people over? And even deep, these people who are Democratic volunteers, if we go out and we use the language and embrace candidates who aren't like them. And the big lesson to me from all of this is not left or right or moderate or populist. It's just like there's no one way to be a Democrat. And a big tent requires, a big tent of voters requires a big tent of candidates. And we should stop trying from stages like this to tell people this is the prescription for the future of the Democratic Party. And let people in different places go out and show us what it is. I do think a little bit of it is a reverse of what we saw or a version of what we saw on the right, right? Which is clearly there was a decades-long growing kind of animus on the right calling for something far more nationalist, right? We thought of the Republican Party as a conservative party with a nationalist fringe. It turned out there was a much bigger national kind of. A MAGA-style base. And they were held at bay from Republicans saying, well, we have to be electable. But when you lose two presidential elections in a row, people don't decide they don't need to listen to you about that anymore. And I think one reason I think Democrats. I think Democrats making an argument about sort of, oh, we need to moderate on this or that was falling on deaf ears. It's like, all right, you're telling us to swallow our pride and to support people we don't really love. And not the people we really believe in. But you're not winning. So we're going to try something else. I think part of that is. And now we're seeing different versions of what it means to be a Democrat. Both people that are moderating on certain issues, but also candidates running much further to the left. Kind of widen the ambit of what's possible. So you're talking about feeling good. And I want to feel good. But I do want to talk about some of the ways in which we felt bad, specifically in Michigan. Obviously, we come out of an incredible victory in Michigan. But also, you know, I just talked to Alyssa Slunkin, and that was one of the most divisive. Races. And a lot of frustrations even throughout. This is going to be an annoying question for Danielle. But what do you think AIPAC thought it was doing with its money in Michigan? Excellent question, John. Thank you. I mean, I think what AIPAC did in Michigan should cause us all to scratch our heads about the limitations of money in politics. And that there is a. a cap to how you can elections, right? Like, I think that there's so many, there's so many looming threats on the horizon around special interests intervening in our elections. And I think what Michigan showed us is that it's extremely possible to overcome that. And I think that should make us all feel really excited. But that doesn't mean that we're not, you know, facing an uphill climb around what it means to use the money that it's on our side to our advantage as well, right? Like, I think Abdul did an incredible job kind of combating what was up against him as well. But, you know, no two super PACs are the same is what I'll say. No, and I think that's important. Do I get to talk about AIPAC, John? Yeah, sure. Oh, wait, and do I get to talk about AIPAC, too? You do. That's what I was hoping would bring us together. Okay, just so people know. So, Morris made ads for Abdul. Liz, you worked with Mallory McMorrow. Just, back Mallory. You worked with Mallory McMorrow. Yes. So, I think, Morris, why don't you talk about AIPAC? If I have to, John. I think AIPAC, just to be like really clear, and I feel like they've kind of, people know them now. They are a foreign lobby that for, because we're in a corrupt political system, does not have to register as a foreign lobby, and then spends tens of millions of dark money dollars on elections, oftentimes in Democratic, primaries that do not mention Israel, that do not say anything about Israel, that oftentimes are attacking women or men of color, lying about them, outspending their opponents four or five to one, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that Congress does not do anything other than write every blank check needed for Netanyahu to then bomb children in Gaza with American taxpayer dollars. So, that's what AIPAC does. And I think that what I've said and believed for multiple cycles is that you cannot trust candidates who are in bed with AIPAC because if they are willing to sell out Gaza, if they are willing to sell out to AIPAC, then they're eventually going to be willing to sell anyone out and to sell out to anyone. And we saw that with Haley Stevens, who received historic funding from AIPAC in the primary, and who received historic backing from the Democratic establishment. And I think it's worth noting because Mallory and Abdul were two different candidates. There was ideological choice that existed, but there was not insider establishment corporate friendly choice that existed, so they needed Haley Stevens there. And then the same person who, believe it or not, was willing to sell her votes, who was willing to say whatever was needed, who was willing to say that she sees Israel in her dreams if it got her tens of millions of dollars in election, turns out, maybe wasn't really a good Democrat. And maybe was willing to, three days before an election, Haley Stevens, who is not Jewish, by the way, who was so deeply offended that she was deeply offended by the hatred and the anti-Semitism of this race, endorsed a guy who ran the most Islamophobic, hateful campaign in recent American history. It is everything people hate about politicians. It's everything people hate about the political establishment. It's why we need to guard against people who are willing to sell out to AIPAC, who are willing to take AIPAC money, and it's why, God willing, Haley Stevens doesn't get the Fox News caster job she's clearly anchoring for. So, co-sign, all of that. And I would just say, I think even Fox News has higher standards than that. Melissa DeRosa works there, though. So, on the topic of that, this does go back to something I said earlier, that too often, and even in our party, we prioritize the wrong things in candidates. Fundraising ability, over ability to build a coalition, insider connections, over ability to inspire voters. But, I mean, it's even worse with Haley Stevens, because she could even raise the money herself. She was by far the weakest fundraiser in that field. All she could get were those big AIPAC and corporate checks. And I think we've got to say, call out someone else here, because it wasn't just AIPAC that was in the wrong there. It was Chuck Schumer. And, again, look, I'm all for rah-rah, Democrats, let's all be happy, but we need to learn some lessons about some of the things that went wrong here. And while AIPAC was going out and giving her all that money, he gave her a big imprimatur of support behind the scenes. He would call donors, anyone who was supporting any of her opponents, and try to Bigfoot them out of supporting them, and she, from the get-go, was sort of the de facto frontrunner, for no reason, really, except that she had the imprimatur of his support. And I just think, going forward, I would remember that and think, is this the person who really should be in charge of all the recruitment for Democratic Senate races? Is this the person that, after such an exciting night, we want to lead the party forward? I mean, the answer is pretty clear to me, what it should be, but the question is, do we have anyone who can stand up and challenge it? I actually, I asked Alyssa Slotkin about that earlier, and she did not rule out running against Schumer in our conversation, so something's happening. Positive America is brought to you by Noble. Have you ever stopped to consider just how vulnerable standard luggage really is? Actually, half. You just unzip it right there and just see. When you're traveling, your luggage isn't always in your sight. Anyone with a regular pen can pierce a zipper in seconds and zip it right back up like nothing happened. Your laptop, your passport, any other valuable items can be gone before you even land at your destination. That's why Noble completely redesigned the suitcase. They removed the zipper and replaced it with a heavy-duty latch-lock system that seals like a safe. You get that reassuring click. You can actually hear it and feel it when it shuts tight. 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That's an additional 20% off better plants and better growing trees at Trees.com using the code Crooked at checkout. Trees.com code Crooked. So in, in Michigan though, right? Mallory McMorrow seemed to not be able because of Haley Stevens, right? You have Abdul generating all this excitement. And I, and one lesson I took away from what happened with APAC in this race is if you had wanted to write down a strategy to turn people against military aid to Israel and make a hero of a person who gained the most attention by opposing military aid to Israel, I can think of little better than what happened in this race, both in the primary and in what Haley Stevens did, right? Like, but it also, I think, redounded to not having a space for Mallory McMorrow. I mean, that must have been so frustrating during this race, right? Because look, we can, I'm really glad Abdul won. I really like Mallory McMorrow and she'd be a fantastic Senator. And she is, you know, coherent, something I think is really important. Something Democrats don't hold often as important enough. But what was it like being inside of that kind of, You're in this, there's these three candidates, there's money behind Haley Stevens, no organic support, really. You have a lot of organic support and excitement around Abdul. And then there's Mallory McMurrow, and it doesn't seem to just, it's just not happening. Well, so that was a weird thing, was there was this moment in the campaign. It was a brief, brilliant, shining moment when she was leading in the polls. And then it just like, within, and there was even conversation that I only heard about later, that some people were trying to push Haley Stevens out of the race. But then within about a couple weeks of that, that's when sort of the axe fell, and this massive, massive spending started on Haley Stevens' behalf. They put $80 million behind her in the primary, across TV ads. Across mail, all that, $80 million. That is unheard of. And just to be like, Abdul received $60 million of support in the general. Yeah. There was more money spent to put forward Haley Stevens against scary, scary, radical, dangerous Mallory McMurrow than was spent to elect Abdul. And so, not all ads are created equal. Yeah. Yes. Hashtag not all ads. But it definitely. For sure. But it was then that we just really saw. It was just being squeezed out. And was it ads in favor of Haley Stevens? Was it ads, like, and. At the beginning, yes. It was because of how they were paying for it. It was just like, thank her for standing up to ICE. And then, you know, it left out the fact that she had, you know, voted for a resolution to actually thank ICE, that she had a variety of other things that I don't need to rehash. This is the AIPAC insanity of like, this is what will happen in places. I feel strongly about this, in case you couldn't tell. There will be an ad, a new entity. Will pop up. And it's like, paid for by like, the greatest America there will ever be that will give everyone jobs. And then it's, an ad will be like, did you know Haley Stevens stands up to corporations in Washington? Haley Stevens is working to get dark money out of politics. Haley Stevens is the only candidate in this race who's going to really fight for you. Paid for by the people who are not fighting for you and will never fight for you and want your life to be horrible. And they can hide the money because they'll do it in C4. And they will spend it literally. And so, like, in this instance, they spent a ton of money. And so Haley could pass Mallory because they thought they wanted a one-on-one against Abdul. And then once they had that one-on-one, they switched all the money to negatives and then spend tens of millions of dollars saying like, Abdul is not a Democrat. You know, horrible things. Oh, he like, you know, taking out of context quotes around Michelle Obama. They also, we can't ignore the fact that AIPAC, who the President Obama called out in his own book as being a bad influence, that they put, ran tens of millions of dollars of ads with Haley Stevens and Obama hand in hand, implying that Obama had endorsed Haley Stevens. Like, just the most vile, sinister shit possible. Yeah. And just look, everything looks like, you know, every winning campaign did everything right. Every losing campaign did everything wrong. I think that's what we're saying. It almost worked, right? Very close. It was very, it was actually surprisingly close at the end. One other dynamic I was just curious about. But it was $80 million. I, it totally fair, but $80 million. Oh. That should have swamped. Should have swamped. The corpse of Gary Beasley. Peters would have won with $80 million. Yes. I'm not, I'm not saying, like, the fact that spending all this money against someone who turned out to basically be a cipher. Yes. Was able to get someone so close, I think does tell you that, like, this is, this is not like, this is a live fire. Like, this is still a real issue. But it's not even just AIPAC. You know, you saw that, the New York congressional race, where then you have the good AI versus the bad AI super PAC spending. Proxy wars. And, like, the influence of this outside money is so freaking crazy in this race is. And it, it also, it just, like, completely changes the incentives for different candidates to say, okay, you know, if I go out and I just vote this way on crypto, or I vote this way on AI, or I just do this wink, wink, nod, nod, then I know that I'm going to get $50 million, you know, of the cavalry riding in for me. It is just, it's really, really messed up. I think, just one thing on, like, the role of super PACs in general here, because I think, the, I agree with everything that these guys are saying, but I think the $80 million in the Michigan primary made me nauseous in a very different way, which is, imagine what it would look like if our super PAC donors put $80 million towards building infrastructure to be able to recruit candidates in the long term. Like, I'm just, I'm very tired of Democrats using super PACs to just do the same thing that a campaign can do on its own. Republicans have, they're a decade ahead of us. They're a decade ahead of us on using outside money to actually, you know, build things, and we use our super PACs to support individual candidates, and it's time to stop. And I'll also say, too, the donating towards these, to buying up ad slots, as opposed to what a lot of Republicans have done, which is buy up media organizations and build their own infrastructure. You know, we have an independent media company. I'm glad we are. But it's amazing how you're buying ad times at institutions. You could invest in yourself and build yourself. That's where the $11 million, or billion dollars, doesn't capture where that spending is happening, right? That's where it's a very incomplete story. And because the way we make budget decisions on our side is based on just chasing what the other side is doing, yeah, we're roughly spending the same amount of money on broadcast TV as we are paid digital. But the Republicans are spending a lot more money on digital infrastructure, and we are not matching that in any way, shape, or form. Just because we're spending a lot more money on digital infrastructure, we're not matching see it. And that's the muscle memory that we have yet to fix. Can I introduce a theory that I have no data whatsoever behind? I'm on the edge of my seat. It's right off the dome about to explain some of the ways in which we were surprised in a good way for a change on our side. That given the amount of money that was spent and the amount of ads people were seeing that they don't really trust, right? That they don't have a lot of faith in. Curious about what just happened. What are the odds that it turns out that a lot of people went to Claude and ChatGPT and said, hey, what's the difference between these two candidates? And it turns out that that even keeled straightforward information will have turned out to have actually had a real impact in how people voted. There was actually a lot of work being done by initially Republicans kind of doing work to manipulate what those answers would be. And there are a handful of folks on our side who did really good work kind of counter programming some of that to make sure we were being driven in the right directions there. But I think it's going to be one of the forefronts of the 2028 battle is engaging to make sure that those algorithms are not being manipulated to then get misleading results or false results or be heavily weighted against us. And it's a great example of the kind of stuff that Republicans invest in that infrastructure regularly. And we should be investing in it all the time frequently because it can really, if done right, be a tool to unlock something far more. We're going to be outmatched by them. At a very simple level, Democrats invest less than 2% of their paid media budgets on search advertising. That's just one piece of the playbook. But corporate advertisers are generally spending about a quarter of their budget on search advertising. So there's a lot more that we can be doing to just stop taking the same playbook that we run on TV and running it on digital and actually meet people when they're searching for information. But also, yeah, we should. But that's a little bit the last war, too, because I think as we can all attest from our own lives, searching on the internet has become terrible and less useful than it's ever been. And these companies are pushing their users towards their own AI tools, right? And so understanding what happens when you go into a Claude or a Gemini or a ChatGPT and say, what is the difference between Adam Hamilton and Roger Marshall? What is the truth of this? There are people that are spending all day every day thinking about where the AI is grabbing that information from, and we need to have people doing that, too. Yeah, and so that's actually one thing that we did at the bench this cycle, is we work with a lot of first-time candidates. And yes, so we do help with things like media prep and interview booking and helping with fundraising, all that stuff. But they need a lot of help on this stuff. If you're a first-time candidate, you think you know how to optimize the info on your website for chatbots? Hell no. But we made it a part of the services that we offer was to have digital people, people a lot smarter than me about this stuff, advise campaigns on the language you put on your website, like there's a playbook for this, and how it can favorably influence LLMs. I said this on Dan's podcast, but we did a big research project over the summer to really zero in on voter search behavior holistically, not just Google search. Google search is certainly still the number one place people search things by far, but who knows? How that's going to change over the next decade. Don't want to denigrate the valuable role of Google search. But at a high level, like I said this before, the number one thing that we're paying attention to is just how little people are paying attention to politics. People are not searching what's the difference between Mike Rogers and Abdul. They're searching how do I save money given how much grocery prices are. They're searching things that are very non-political to them, but I think are very political to us. We call them political adjacent topics, things like how do I save money, how do I fill out this FAFSA form, what are the steps I should take to apply to buy a home in the next 10 years, things that I think are very natural conversation starters for us to insert politics into the conversation. But that, you know, it requires us to think about advertising and marketing to people in a very different way. Morris and I have talked about this a lot, but it requires us to, you know, run marketing and advertising campaigns that don't just attempt to interrupt someone's day, but instead blend into the day that they're already having. And just a small example, if we did this in Texas a little bit on the IE side for Tariko, like we ran ads for anyone who Googled my husband cheated on me or I think my husband is cheating on me. We were boosting results of Ken Paxton having cheated on his wife. And like, thank you. That's great. Not all ads are created equal. Yes. And we should be doing it, you know, 365 days a year, everywhere, all the time. So in Kansas it would be like. We did this in Kansas. How do you tell if I'm pregnant? You could do that. Anyone who sort of like pregnancy appointments, doctor appointments, we were doing this. You did? That's good. That's cool. Wow. I love that. Really, fuck them. Final thoughts. What is one, you know, one lesson or one thing you hope people take away from 2026 that right now you don't think is getting enough attention? Can I give a lesson and can I be a crazy encounter for a second? And then while I have it, can I give you three questions? Sure. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'll do my three questions and I can do my answer. Great. All right. One, and I'm curious your opinion on this. Haley Stevens' most likely next job. Oh, boy. I don't know. I think maybe she converts and then works at a temple. I'm like, I'm not. I think that. I don't know. I really don't know. She's at her parties, Amanda Petula. Who is that? Who? Bravo, the one who. She slept with her best friend. Oh, sorry. I haven't kept up with the Valley. I found the whole thing too sad. Second question. All right. Second question. What do you think. Who are the people who are going to go visit Roger Marshall now that he's gone? He's a doctor again. I think people that don't have to worry about. People that can pay their bills. Final question. When we win the White House in 2028, will you guys be willing to let Ben Rhodes free to be national security advisor? Somewhere he just got like a really good feeling. I think no one can tell Ben Rhodes what to do. Sure, of course. All right. Now answer my question. My lesson. I think the biggest takeaway lesson is that people ran on like the actual. The actual Democrats running places ran a whole lot more than just a referendum on Donald Trump. And they actually had very grounded visions of affirmative things in their places. And we need that nationwide. It's not enough to just push off what's been. We need grounded economic affordability forward-looking vision too. A hundred percent. And build an optimistic future that people can see themselves in. But I would also say a big lesson is don't just try to emulate the people who ran this time. The reason why people broke through is because they were themselves. They were different. And you've got to do that for yourself in 2028. Danielle, what do you think? Okay, this is spicy, but I think that the Democratic Party, specifically the consulting class, I think we have our own oligarchy problem. I think you working in politics should not afford you the ability to buy a lake house. I think everyone should be paid what they're worth, but that's just taking it way too far and we have to fix that problem. Well, thank you all so much. Congratulations on these big wins. Let's figure out how to keep building on it. And thank you all for being here. Liz Smith, Morris Katz, Danielle Butterfield, thank you so much. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform, whether you offer consultations, events, or other experiences. Squarespace can help you grow your business. Squarespace offers a complete library of professionally designed and award-winning website templates with options for every use and category. 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Wow, I am so impressed that you guys woke up. Not that this wasn't worth waking up for. I am thrilled to have Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland with me. Thank you for waking up, Senator. Thank you. How's your week been? Not a lot of sleep, but it's all been worth it. Yes, it has. There are a lot of big picture things I want to get your thoughts on. But I got to start first with the news of yesterday that Donald Trump is appointing Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff. And that he looked at the utter devastation and wreckage of his own party after Tuesday and thought, you know what I need? More fascism. What is that? How does that leave you feeling about your ability as a Senate Democrat to get anything done in the degree to which you need to batten down the hatches for the last two years of the Trump administration? Right. The message was, fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be just as bumpy a ride as we all thought. But when we saw the American people speak out, they had a clear message. They want to change in direction. And what Donald Trump just did was kick the American people right in the teeth, saying he's not only going to keep going in the wrong direction we're headed, but he's going to put his staff architect of that country in the wrong direction. That cruelty and corruption and indifference to the American people in the number one spot in the White House. So a complete sign of contempt for American voters after an election where the people repudiated the Trump administration. So buckle up. We need to keep fighting hard to protect our Constitution and our country from this. If you don't have a travel-sized, pocket-sized version of the Constitution, you're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. If you don't have a travel-sized, pocket-sized version of the Constitution, I think you can get one on bookshop.org. I recommend carrying one around, given the new Miller agenda in the White House. Have you heard from Senate Republicans on that decision? I mean, in between tears and bouts of crying and doing whatever else you do, if you're a Senate Republican in a moment like this, like, they're probably ostensibly looking to figure out how to sew their party back together again. And now Trump has doubled down on the very same diabolical losing strategy. Have you, I mean, is there anything you can share? It's been silence from Senate Republicans, crickets. I have not heard from them. And the fact that we haven't seen any Senate Republicans publicly speak out about this choice is a sign to me that Republicans in Senate, even after the walloping they took, are still tied at the hip with this president. And that's a very bad sign. We'll see. I remember during the first two years, people, Alex, saying, well, you know, maybe finally one of these Senate Republicans will break. And it never happened until they decided not to run for re-election in some cases. So no, I've not heard from any of them. Yeah, Tom Tillis, part of the YOLO caucus, is the only one that's speaking out because he's basically been kicked out of office. Okay, well, so given the dynamics and the realities of what the next two years may be like, you guys are going to be in power. It's going to be an essential and potentially vicious fight against the worst impulses of this administration. It seems like Dems need to come in with their dukes up. Let's talk about who's going to be leading the Democrats. At this moment, as we sit at 1 million o'clock a.m. on Saturday, is Chuck Schumer going to be the majority leader? Well, let me just say this. Let me say this. There should be no coronation of the next Democratic leader. I've said very clearly that we need to have a discussion in the Democratic caucus. We need to understand what the Democrats are going to do with this new responsibility and these, these new powers and that nobody should get a blank check without a full understanding from the caucus as to where we're going to go. So, for example, we need to use all our powers starting now to end the illegal and senseless war in Iran. Let's pretend that there's an interview process for the next leader. What are your top three questions? My top three questions are, number one, are we going to use all our power to end the war starting now. So this has to happen even before we swear in our new members. And we need to make it clear that we're not going to vote to spend one more dime on the war in Iran. And we should hold up the defense authorization bill until we end the war in Iran. So that would be number one. I would say we've got to have that. Number two, Alex, we need to respond to the economic pain people are feeling. And that means a commitment, for example, to immediately pass legislation to make sure that none of us pay one dime, not one in higher electric costs to build data centers for the richest AI companies on the planet. It means dealing with health care. And I mean, yes, of course, we need to reverse the damage the Trump administration has done with respect to their cuts to Medicaid. And by the way, we should claw back the approximately $200 billion in ICE funding that they banked last time. But on health care, we need to go beyond that. We need to make sure that we deal with a system where premiums are going up and co-pays are going up and up and up. I ultimately believe we need to get to Medicare for all. But we certainly need to begin moving toward a public option. And finally, political corruption. Because if you look at the results, it was interesting. If you look at what was on people's mind, number one was the economy and costs. But protecting our democracy was right up there. And these things are connected. Protecting our democracy is important to having an economy that works, because as long as it's rigged in favor of big money, special interests politically, they will try and get their way in the Congress. And so we need to end secret money in politics. We need to close what's called the federal government contractor loophole, where Elon Musk spends close to $450 million to try to elect a Congress that will do his bidding while he's getting billions of dollars of federal government contracts. That's insane. It's a loophole. So we need to go at the heart of political corruption and kitchen table issues. That would be on my list for the interview. That interview also conveniently sounds like a presidential platform. You have said you're kicking the tires on a 2028 run. What are going to be the sort of motivating factors for you on that? Well, I have been traveling around the country. First of all, to help Democratic candidates in this midterm election. And, you know, I was so pleased to see the American people turn a new page for our democracy on election day. But I've also been listening and also sharing with people that it's not enough for Democrats to simply tell people what we're against. We do need to show them what we're for. And this is the moment to begin to do that. Because we should not take comfort as Democrats in the fact that the last this election was primarily a referendum on the Trump administration. Right. We all know that. If you look at polling numbers for the Democratic Party, they're nothing to be proud of. So this is our moment to tell people what we stand for. So as I go around the country, I talk about some of the issues we just talked about. Tackling political corruption. Head on in order to protect our democracy, making sure that we have an economy that works for everybody. And I'll make this point, Alex, and I think it came across loudly and clearly in these elections in places like Texas, Michigan and other places. I do believe that the sort of traditional paradigm of left versus right or progressive, moderate, conservative is outdated. People try to put candidates in those boxes. And Donald Trump has tried to exploit all this right by dividing Americans against one another rather than uniting the ninety nine percent to take on a rigged economy that's rigged by the wealthiest people in America and the billionaire class. And we need to tackle that head on. And that is a way to bring people together. It was much more a populist message than anything else. And people rejected the corruption and cronyism of Donald Trump. And they want a different kind of politics, one that delivers for people, not that's constantly finger in the wind responding to pundits and lobbyists in Washington, D.C. That's the kind of politics we need in the United States today. It seems to me that if you're talking about ending the disastrous war in Iran and tackling the cost of fuel prices, one of the ways to most directly address that is by ousting the chief cheerleader of the war, the men's grooming expert who is our secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. Is that part of the way you do this? I mean, is impeaching a cabinet official like Pete Hegseth at the top of the list? at the top of the list when you think about ending the war in iran and driving down the cost of fuel and including diesel so if i was in the house of representatives and this vote came up and Tom Massey has proposed impeachment of Hexeth, I would vote yes to impeach Hexeth. He, look, he's lied repeatedly to the American people. He's been complicit in war crimes in various parts of the world. And he should be removed. It'd be good if Donald Trump got rid of Pete Hexeth. But if the only way to do that is through a vote in Congress now, they should do it. I should point out, Alex, that this would happen during the sort of while on the Republican clock. Right. I mean, if we're talking about doing this right now in the House, then we could have him impeached. And when the new Democratic majority comes to town, maybe we could have a whole new Department of Defense without Pete Hexa. That would be a beautiful thing. It's hard to imagine Trump firing anyone other than a woman whose name ends in a vowel. Christy, Tulsi, Pam Bondi, Susie. Anyway, I digress. Does that sense of reform and getting at the root of corruption, which in turn will stabilize affordability, extend to, oh, I don't know, the Department of Homeland Security, where the ICE death squads have terrorized black and brown communities and collapsed the home construction market in places like the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. I mean, it seems to me that like we talk about how to drive prices down, how to get labor shortages back up. One of the ways to do that is by not disappearing the labor market, which is something that Mark Wayne Mullen is doing through the policies they're pursuing at the Department of Homeland Security. Should other cabinet officials be on the list in terms of, if not impeachment, oversight? I mean, can we expect performance, Hill performances from the clowns of the Trump administration? Well, everybody in this administration should be held accountable. And that is why it's important that we have investigations and hearings. And by the way, you know, we should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We should be able to hold these officials accountable and move forward on the kind of key agenda items that I talked about. It's not either or. We can do both. But when it comes to a place like ICE, we should start by clawing back the funds that were provided to ICE because we currently have a completely lawless, out-of-control ICE operation. And interesting when you talk to voters, not surprisingly, and asked them about Trump's immigration policies, overwhelmingly people said that they had gone out of control. It was the cruelty in action. And we started to see this way back early in the administration. I remember when in Maryland, the Trump administration abducted a man called Kilmar Agrego Garcia from the streets of Maryland. That was the first big fight. And the Trump administration refused to bring him back, even though they had clearly violated his due process rights. And frankly, a lot of Democratic pundits at the time said, oh, just sort of leave him down there. Don't bring any attention to this. But at the end of the day, when we got engaged and when I say we, the American public got engaged, They agreed with those of us who said we will never run away from a fight to protect the Constitution of the United States. And that's what's happened here. American people don't like the cruelty, they don't like the mass deportations, they don't like the violations of our Constitution. They don't like Americans getting shot and killed in the streets, whether it's in Minneapolis or other places. They don't like the fact that someone who was just detained from Maryland died in confinement in Louisiana, and they won't tell us why. The American people don't like any of this. So to answer your question, yes, we need to shine a spotlight on all the illegalities and wrongdoing, and we need to change this, and we need to change it now. Okay, so that's like a combative Democratic Party that we can look forward to. Yes, this is not going to be the Democratic Party of 2021? Well, that's why we need to have a debate within the Senate Democratic Caucus to make sure that we are all on the same page when it comes to heading in that direction. That's the entire purpose here. I mean, look, we've got a lot of incoming members who, you know, they've said that they want, you know, alternatives, or they at least want to see commitments that we are going to change in the Senate Democratic Caucus, just like the country and voters are demanding change in terms of the fight, putting up a very big fight. The vote for majority leader is not a public vote, though, right? Like, we're having to take your assurance. And I believe you, you're trustworthy, but we have to sort of, we the American voters, we the American media, we the American public have to just take for granted that those conversations are happening, and that the, you know, vim and vigor and indignation and outrage of the incoming class of Democrats will be respected by the party elders who lead these committees and in many ways control the levers of power within the Democratic Conference. Are you confident? Like, can you give. Can you give us that guarantee that this is really happening? Because we won't know. And then in three weeks, Chuck Schumer could just be the de facto majority leader. And we're to, we are to trust that the pressure has been put on. Yeah. So I think everybody in this room and beyond this room does have a role in calling upon the Democratic Senate Caucus to demand an agenda, to demand an agenda that really does reflect the change that the voters have made. And I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing. that the voters were talking about in terms of these issues, and at least in terms of the fight that we're going to put up. And this is why I've said it's really important that people sort of withhold any commitments on the Senate leadership races until we have a chance to hear from our new members who just got off the campaign trail and have been directly in touch with voters. We should show them the respect of waiting to hear from them. to hear from them before anybody makes any commitments regarding the Democratic leadership in the Senate. Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about this incredibly tumultuous lame duck period. There has been, the hobby horse of mine is the completely corrupt goblin court known as the Roberts court. Are you worried that despite Samuel Alito's promises, which is I guess what we're supposed to rely on, he is, there is going, could there be a vacancy in the lame duck period of Congress given that, I have the math here, this is so depressing, but by, if the next president is a two-term Democrat, that would leave Thomas at the age of 88, Roberts would be 81, Alito would be 86, etc. They're getting old. Are you worried at all about a lame duck nomination process? Are other Democrats worried about it? And what are you prepared to do if Alito, trustworthy though he is, decides to go back on his promises? So I always worry about either members of this administration or individuals not coming really clean with the American people, despite what they may say publicly. So we have to be prepared. Just like we should use every tool at our disposal and all the powers we have to end the war in Iran now, we should use every tool at our disposal to try to prevent a new Supreme Court justice vote in a lame duck session. We need to do that. Are you guys prepared if Alito retires next year to keep that seat open for a year and a half or whenever the next president is? So one of the, you know, it was really important that we have a majority in the House, but one of the reasons it was also so important that we have a majority in the United States Senate is we can stop blocking all of these nominees whose only qualification is they're willing to suck up to Donald Trump and his corruption. And so the short answer is, my view is we should use all our powers to prevent someone from getting on the court who is simply going to do the bidding of Donald Trump. So again, my view, Alex, is we have a responsibility to use all the powers we have to protect our democracy and protect the Constitution. Does that include the lower courts? Would you keep those nominations open until Trump is out of office? Look, I have. Would Chuck Schumer? So let me just say this. I mean, I have voted against every one of Trump's judicial nominees because I think they represent an attack on the rule of law and our Constitution. And so my view is that nobody should be approved who will threaten the rule of law and our Constitution. Let me talk to you about issues that have divided the Democratic caucus in the past. Perhaps they're not as relevant in the next Congress, but where are we on Israel? And what kind of action do you expect in the coming Congress? Well, let me just start with the bottom line is we should end the American taxpayer blank check to the government of Israel. The United States, starting with the Biden administration, including now, of course, the Trump administration, has absolutely been complicit in the devastation, the war crimes, all the horrors in Gaza, where our bombs have been dropped, and we're complicit in what has been the expansion of the occupation on the West Bank, where we continue to see, you know, violence, settlement, and the like. and when the united states is providing assistance to a lawless government like the net yahoo government or any other government that continues those practices we need to just say no we're not going to do that and um i will say you you mentioned the national defense authorization bill. I want to mention a couple provisions that are in there, because you probably heard President Trump the other day say right after the election or as people were going to the polls that we would stop providing U.S. taxpayer assistance to Israel starting at the end of this calendar year. Number one, we shouldn't do that. But there's this backdoor effort through the National Defense Authorization Bill, there are two provisions. One provision, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has actually claimed credit for getting this in the National Defense Authorization Bill that passed the House and passed a committee in the Senate. He sent a letter to the House Republican member who authored this to begin with, and the idea is to further enmesh the U.S. and Israel militaries by mandating co-production agreements with respect to defense articles across a whole range of technologies. Now, the United States can always choose on a case-by-case basis to enter into a co-production agreement. We do it with the Iron Dome system. But what this bill would do is mandate this kind of co-production across a whole range of technologies. There's another provision you should be aware of in the intelligence authorization bill which often gets looped into the national defense authorization bill that prohibits any restriction on intelligence sharing between the united states and the government of israel this is insane you shouldn't do this for any country why would we say to any country we're not going to restrict the sharing of intelligence information when we think it's in our interests to restrict. So these are two provisions, and as we think about the NDAA that's right now in Congress, we need to make sure it doesn't move forward, in part to end this war in Iran, but we also should not let it go forward with these two provisions that are embedded in it, which are not in America's national security interests. Do you have the sense that Democrats are copacetic? There's unity on all of this. On these two issues, I cannot say with any certainty that there's unity on this. Everybody in this room has a voice. People throughout the country have a voice on this. I think the voters in the last election were very clear. Number one, they want us out of the illegal war in Iran, and they want to stop entangling us in unnecessary conflicts in the Middle East. And it was pretty clear that Americans don't want to see their taxpayer dollars go to the government of Israel. And frankly, I would say we shouldn't be providing taxpayer dollars right now in the amounts we're doing, certainly to the government of Egypt that's locking up journalists as we speak. So American taxpayers should not be underwriting these kinds of costs and investments that do not reflect our values or our interests. Okay. I mean, did you think you were going to be having to talk about the national defense authorization? Before 9 a.m., I'm so sorry. We're going to end on a fun note. Let me just quickly say on this, though, and I think it's just so everybody understands the scope of the challenge, and it goes to your question on where Democrats are. So the NDAA has been one of those bills, national defense authorization bill, that is just sort of routinely passed within a Congress, like so before the end of this calendar year. That's been happening for like six decades now. And people say, well, we've always done it, so we should do it again. And I think our answer to that point is, are you kidding? We're in a completely different time right now in the United States of America. We have a president of the United States who started an illegal war and a senseless war. So times are different, and different times demand different kinds of actions, and we should take it. Well, and it would seem that if Trump is threatening to veto anything and everything, funding bills are going to be a huge lever. Negotiation with this president, right? Yeah. And let me just say, if President Trump wants to take the position that he is willing and wants to shut down the United States government because he wants to keep an illegal and senseless war going, that's a decision for him to communicate to the American people. He might want to talk to his vice president, Vance, who said that the war in Iran was a major reason that they lost. And it was a big decision for him to take the position that he is willing and wants to shut down the United States government because he wants to keep an illegal and senseless war going. That's a decision for him to take the position that he is willing and wants to shut down the United States government. That's a big reason why they lost, because in addition to putting our troops in harm's way and killing civilians in the region, obviously it's had a huge impact here at home. Prices are going up and up and up. So my view, no, not one dime for your illegal war. And if you, Donald Trump, want to get in front of the camera and tell the country that you're going to shut down the entire United States government because you, Donald Trump, want to keep your illegal war going, that's a decision for him. But the decision for us in Congress should be to do everything in our power, to end it now. J.D. Vance, what's your over-under that he has to resign in order to preserve his 2028 presidential prospects? That's my new parlor game. Like, how is that guy going to have anything to run on? You know what? He obviously thinks a memo is going to somehow separate himself from Donald Trump. I don't think so, J.D. Okay, which big tech executive is going to get hauled to the hill first? Which, who do you want to see first? Look, I think we need a panel. I need names. So, no, the reason, Alex, is do you all remember who was sitting behind Donald Trump when he was sworn in? Right? When he talked about that golden age for America, what he meant was the guys behind him, not the people in front of him. And those people have all been complicit in the last two years. By the way, so have a lot of law firms and universities. They've been complicit. And now they're about to make these huge fortunes with AI. And by the way, we do need to pass an AI safety legislation. And now, so, Alex, I would not confine myself to one. I think the same folks who decided to sit behind him and were complicit in trying to undermine our democracy for the last two years, they should now sit in front of the United States. Congress, House and Senate, and answer for their complicity. So, Mark Zuckerberg, I'm kidding. I know you're not going to tell me, but I look forward. All of them. I look forward to seeing Lauren Sanchez Bezos in a bra, a little satin bra, as Jeff Bezos testifies, or whatever she wore to the inauguration. One last question for you. I want to end on a high note. You know, it's been a rolling, enormously consequential blue wave this week. Is there a moment this week where you got chills and thought, we're back, baby, we're back? Absolutely. Look, this was this was the best of our American democracy. I mean, and we should we should absolutely, Alex, take the moment to celebrate that. And just to also say that during the last two years, what has given me the most hope in these darkest of times have been the American people, the American people who show up for no King's Day events, the people in Minneapolis who took to the streets to protect their neighbors. That's what kept hope alive for me. And that hope did come, you know, in full force at the ballot box on Election Day. Make no mistake, this was a movement from the grassroots up to Washington. This was not a Washington to the country. Election. This was the people of the United States, all those people who've been say they refuse to be silenced. The people who won't go away when Donald Trump wants them to go away and showed up instead. This is a testament to their resilience and their fortitude. And it is a great day for American democracy. Thank you, Senator Chris Van Hollen. Thanks to all of you. This is your work as well. Thank you. That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new episode of Pod Save America on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Michael Goldsmith with Ree Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffitt, Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond Taylor, Dan Farrow, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.