Neera Tanden: How to Win

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress. She was domestic policy advisor to Biden. She also served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations. She's in her pearls, which I appreciate. And I've not yet seen her post on X.com so far, which is a little different from how you seem to be spending your days lately. It's near a tandem. Nice to be with you. So good to be with you. Welcome back. Oh, yeah, it's always going to be fun. You're getting sued by the White House and you are tweeting a lot. So we're going to get to both of those things. So you might be getting sued. They're threatening to sue you. We're going to get to those. But first. We had some news last night in South Carolina. Darlene Graham, Lindsay's sister, who apparently knows nothing and doesn't read the news, was nominated by the Republican Party to be the senator from that state for a six year term. It's pretty crazy. And she beat Ralph Norman as relatively close. Norman had been like one of the key instigators of the insurrection. So not exactly a moderate, but then he did endorse Nikki Haley and that got Trump's ire. Trump spent a bunch of money in that race. In some ways, I find Darlene Graham to be kind of the perfect MAGA senator. But what was your reaction to the result last night? Did you find her to be the perfect MAGA senator because she seemed to be almost proud of not knowing anything about foreign policy or like what the job of senator would be? Well, because she's an empty vessel for Trump. I just think they should make her Senate majority leader. Like John Thune is not representative of the caucus. OK, John Thune likes to pretend like he has views. You know, occasionally he like pretends like he wants to distance himself from Trump. He never actually does it. Like Darlene Graham will just do whatever Mr. Trump says. That's what Trump wants in a senator. That's what MAGA voters want in a senator. And so I just think that she should lead the total no nothing Trump sycophant should be the Senate majority leader, I would think. Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably more reflective of where the caucus is. I mean, honestly, she's the natural extension of every single vote. They've taken every way that they're lockstep with so much of the cuckoo crazy. That's the natural flow here. I don't think it's easy to win in South Carolina for a Democrat. But I think, you know, hopefully this gives a little bit more to Annie Andrews who's challenging her. Yeah, I was intrigued. Lakshya Jain, who is, you know, not like a kind of lib hype data analyst. He does some stuff with our friends of the argument. And, you know, his he pointed out that Lindsey Graham actually underperformed the median Republican often in South Carolina, because he sort of was in the sour spot where some MAGA people didn't think that he was MAGA enough because of immigration. And then some moderates thought he sucked up to Trump too much, right. And so he'd usually kind of underperform a little bit. And he was saying that if Darlene performed like Lindsey did, and the wave for Democrats was about what they predicted to be right now, that Annie Andrews would only lose by three. I don't know that the Democrats should be like really invest a huge amounts of money in a hopeless South Carolina race. But that's I thought that it was interesting. Nancy LaCour is kind of a moderate. Great candidate. Yeah, she's running in that in Nancy Mace's old district. I think this could really help her. Because, you know, because you can just imagine Trump was booed at Ralph Norman's concession speech last night. Yeah, I saw it. And you can imagine people like not being excited to vote for Darlene. It could, it could, you know, tamp down turnout. And really, I think help Nancy LaCour in that. First district. And who knows? I don't know. Maybe Annie Andrews. What do you think? I mean, this goes to a broader issue, which we might get into later, which is that what's actually happening in America today, which is, it's really hard for people to see this. But there are people who voted for Trump three times. They voted for him in 2016, in 2020, in 2024. You know, like working class people, particularly working class women who are like getting off the Trump train. And, you know, I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing. I think you see that in some group of Republicans voting for Tallarico in Texas. And I think Darlene Graham puts a lot of pressure on those Republicans who are not so jazzed up about Donald Trump these days. And they could not vote at all, which would be a big problem for the Republicans. I mean, hopefully they would consider voting for Annie Andrews. But I think there's a real opportunity around the country here. And I think the challenge for Trump is that he obviously had to get. Graham over the finish line, that she also, I think, pressures a lot of non-MAGA Republicans. And that's like a really important distinction, that there are MAGA Republicans who are kind of lockstep, and they're still the majority of the Republican Party. But there's a sliver of people, your old compatriots, per se, who are not MAGA Republicans, who raise questions about Trump, and who actually can vote for a rational Democrat. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that's a really important distinction. You know, I do think there'll be turnout issues for Republicans in some of these places. And then, like you said, I think, depending on the types of candidates, we will get into this in a minute. But Nancy LaCour is like that type of candidate. She is not a lefty ideologue. You can't, like, you know, stereotype her as some kind of, like, woke socialist or whatever. She's like a military leader. Yeah, right. Moderate. Good candidate. That's good for that district. Matches the district. Would be a great upgrade from Nancy Mace. It'd be a nice Nancy. Upgrade from Nancy to Nancy. And, like, that is a seat that I've been flagging for a while that I just think that people are now coming around to the fact that, okay, well, you know, maybe not the South Carolina Senate race, but we'll see how bad things get for Trump. But, like, some of these seats that are Trump 10, 11, 12, you know, that Nancy Mace didn't even have an election, really. I mean, like, Nancy Mace's election wasn't that competitive in 2024, and now that seat could be gone. Yes, exactly. I mean, I think this is what's interesting about the map expanding over the last, really, in August. You've seen more and more races come on, come on sort of the board. Adam Hamilton running in Kansas, great candidate, is running very, very competitive race. I have no idea what to take about, what to learn from polls, but independent polls have shown that it's a close race. And, you know, I think there is a kind of, given all these elections in the past, there are a lot of Democrats who are like, I'm not getting my hopes up about Republican crossover after all of these elections with Trump. But we are seeing some real evidence of it. And I will say, it's not just polls. You are seeing in special elections, Democrats winning districts that have been plus 10, plus 15, plus 16 Republican districts. Trump won by, that much in this race, just in Pennsylvania last week, which was a general, ended up being a special election. So there are a lot of people who are crossing over or just a big problem for them is a lot of Republicans are staying home. And I mean, I think a central issue here is not to put up candidates that Republicans are compelled to come out and vote against. I'm going to have some more map talk at the end, but I want to talk about your lawsuit. So essentially what's happening is Trump's personal lawyer threatened a five, billion dollar defamation lawsuit against the Center for American Progress. Interesting. It was not over something that you said, which is surprising. I would have lost that bet. I would have thought if Cap got sued by the Trump administration, it would have been a near, you know, issue, but it wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't in this case. You guys, Cap put out a report about the National Guard, concluded that these deployments had little effect on violent crime rates. It cost taxpayers 1.7 billion. And that hurt Trump's feeling. And so he's suing you. What is that? Is that the gist? Yeah, that's pretty much the gist. Essentially he saw the author of the report, Chandler Hall, who did a great job with this report. Trump saw him on C-SPAN. I didn't realize he had time for C-SPAN viewing. Really? That's really what happened? It's like you look at a social media post, his tweet social post of this from two weeks ago, and it really does seem like he watched Chandler Hall on C-SPAN because the report came out like a month and a half ago. And Chandler, was on C-SPAN and Trump is ranting to C-SPAN and he didn't like the report. So either the human printer showed him the C-SPAN clip. Yes. Or maybe he got mad at Fox one day and like at the club at Mar-a-Lago, he's sitting there eating his well-done hamburger before the golf course or after, and he told them to put on C-SPAN instead. Those are the only two theories I have. Yes. I mean, it's weird. I don't really think of him as like Washington Journal every morning, but he somehow saw this Chandler talk about the report. And I do want to say, you know, he attacked us early that week, that Friday, August 14th, he was planning, you know, he did a big campaign in NASA County in New York, basically attacking Democrats on crime, talking about the National Guard deployment. So I do think he thinks this report is a problem. A problem for him. And that's why he's attacking us now. You know, I mean, the report goes through models and analyzes violent crime. gun crime homicide rates the rate of violent crime reduction in the cities with deployments versus without cities that didn't have deployments it's really a factual analysis of how despite spending you know as much as 1.7 billion dollars on this on national guard deployments we don't have evidence that they are actually reducing crime and you know there's a reuters story just recently about how in dc and national guard have been involved in less one percent or less than one percent of actual you know arrests so and pierre has a story out that you know talking to national guard in dc saying that they don't think they're doing anything and it's basically a political ploy so you know i mean i don't think he likes the fact that we are calling out that this could be a you know real waste of a lot of money and i think that's a real waste of a lot of money and i think that's a real waste of a lot of money and i think that's a real waste of a lot of money and i think that's a real lot of money so yeah and these people's lives you know like they have lives in their home states you know it's back to school time right it's like you know something they have other jobs you know who is parenting or like they're a lot of like real human considerations for these guys just to walk and i was in dc i was blown away when i was in dc recently it's like they're circling dupont circle it's kind of walking around the park they're like these guys in like a military humvee outside of ladroit park i was like what is what is the point of this exactly i mean it's just theater that is an issue we raise and we basically ask the question which is if it's not actually having an impact on crime rates then why are why is he spending this money and just you know it's 1.7 billion dollars a lot of money and you could actually actually feed people with that or give them health care or not take away so many people's health care you know that's like real real money feeding people and getting health care is important it also really salts the vibes in the french quarter i think there's a lot of people who are like i don't think they're finally leaving the french quarter but it's like we don't need dudes in military gear like walking around bourbon street you know this is we're trying to enjoy ourselves uh here yeah i can't say it's so great for tourism to have national guard troops deployed in your uh next to your necessary local favorite tavern yeah you know i just want to have my purple drink i don't i don't need a guy in a military fatigues and a gun looking at me while i'm going to sit for one second on like like everything with trump it's like there's part of it that's idiocracy and farce and it's part of it that's really malicious that came in allegedly you know talking about free speech and they had this these you know this big outrage over biden you know ways in which the biden administration was concerned about misinformation on social media and they thought that was a infringement on free speech and now they come in and time and again they're exercising their free speech rights and i it's not precedented you know and i do feel like there's more outrage about it just to say what this really is in in my mind is first of all it's an escalation from like attacking media outlets to a research institution of course i i will say we're ideological you know we're not we're progressive we're center left but the report itself is all based on on data and analysis and it's it's really the cornerstone of what research institutions are i mean we are looking at a federal government policy and analyzing its impact if you if if that's subject to a five billion dollar defamation suit or if that's not basically protected speech it's really hard to know what would be i mean and what is also kind of extraordinary about this is we have a criticism of a trump administration policy and his personal lawyer is arguing that it's defamation against him which is like kind of insane to think that saying his policies don't work is defamation against the president if that's allowed to stand it's hard to know what could be offered in like the public discourse on federal policy it would be hard to imagine anything that was that isn't basically the narrative of the trump administration surviving critique so obviously it's kind of a cuckoo situation but i do think there's a very serious issue here which is i'm really trying to bully organizations and get them to self-censor i think this is a whole part of what they do which is it's obviously we are going to stand up and we believe that this is a bullying tactic and the center for american progress 100 percent stands by the report and we'll kind of you know fight tooth and nail against this bullying tactic but other organizations you know will think twice about what they say about the president and what they say about this and that is part of their goal is this worth the hassle yeah is it worth the hassle she would just not you know maybe we shouldn't mention their name or each talk about a government policy and not have it really be about trump and that is like what their goal is and as i said to my team you know i think one of the tactics of this administration is to use fear to get people to self-censor and we're not going to do that so and i think it's also important for us to role model like not giving into bullies and so you know i think it's also important for us to role model like not giving into bullies and so it's unpleasant i will say it's not a pleasant thing to deal with but um i think it's you're gonna meet with all the lawyers okay you go through you go through this you know when there's various threats and it's like it's hard from the the personal lawyer the president it's expensive other at every think tank is is that well capitalized right and yeah i mean no we're gonna end up paying i mean we're we're paying money for this i mean we have insurance and other things but the insurance will uncover everything so cap is putting out resources because of this attack so but like the choice between standing up and paying something versus you know taking taking our report down is like not a close call for us yeah he picked the wrong person on the playground to try to bully on this one uh you know i feel like i feel like it was a mistake strategically but i appreciate that you guys are fighting it speaking of their propaganda efforts i thought this just before you know we got into kind of democratization of the democratic you know back and forth within the democratic party we might just we might have a little palate cleanser before we start that section of the podcast because there there is some crazy propaganda that is happening out there from somebody that you've had some back and forths with on cnn um and that is scott jennings uh he's currently he's on auditioning to be the press secretary for some reason which is interesting i was skeptical of this at first because it's like he could make a lot more money on the outside and you know it's busy and whatever but he seems to really want to be the press secretary based on oh yeah credible reporting and here he was in his radio when you're a press secretary you're on tv a lot you're probably on tv even more i did like the back and forth between him and caitlin where he's like caitlin you wouldn't be excited to get to work with me every day and caitlin's like scott i see you all the time and he's like you get to see me more caitlin was like i think i see plenty anyway here he was in his radio show a new goatee new glp one like the shirt is a little baggy and uh he's talking about the situation in iran i want to play that for you and i believe this announcement may confirm something that many in our political class refuse to acknowledge the united states has won the war against iran wars are won when one side achieves its strategic objectives and the other loses the ability to achieve its own with the american flag and everything like this could be a spoof movie like if you saw this in a spoof movie you'd be like okay okay sure but like that is real like he's doing north korea propaganda behind a fake american flag backdrop talking about how we won what yeah i have to say um i have had the great the great um displeasure displeasure to be on a news night abby phillips show with scott and you know i think the thing that drives scott jennings is defending donald trump at all costs he will pervert any fact create any fiction draw any insane picture to rationalize justify excuse the president united states which makes him actually a perfect candidate for press secretary to me scott jennings has been like auditioning to be the next press secretary for the last year and a half and as someone who's definitely sparred with scott jennings like the first time i did abby phillips i happened to criticize him about his wild outrage and anger about the tesla protests while kind of excusing the january 6th thing and i i swear to god he was going to call me a bitch on tv but help himself back it was like it was really angry and so since then we haven't been particularly close in the green room or anything but my take on him is um you know he is out for fame book sales he loves traveling around the country makes him really happy to talk to the white house on the phone and so he'll be excited you know i i'm not surprised at all that he's being seriously considered have a little dignity though i i'm not surprised at all that he's being seriously honestly honestly and everybody you've had to spin nira everyone said to spit we've all been in the game before not me and you more i get to do radical candor i'm a podcaster but you know i used to be a flack you have to spend i to go on and be like we have won the war in iran i mean it's it's baghdad bob style i've been on the show with him for months now i mean i'm not on as much as he is but i've been on since the iran war every week i am on saying look what's happening we are losing the war um and he will say no we are winning the war so it is obviously an added dramatic effect to have the full north korea flag waving back but it's not different than what he's been saying for months and you know i mean what is interesting is to be serious we are coming up august 28th will be the six month anniversary of this war where people like scott jennings and everyone else has been saying we are winning this war and we are obviously not winning this war so they have been lying to the american people for months about a war and i think that's reprehensible but not unexpected from scott jennings i watched an old clip of him from may or march i don't know where he's talking about oh come on that this is going to be over soon give us a little bit more time like here we are coming up on labor day this is this is an unconfirmed report i don't usually like to share these but i think it's interesting because you know there's stuffing bandied around about this uh the cia director ratcliffe went to moscow my guy michael weiss and mark polymeropoulos if you guys have missed this they're doing a series for us now on youtube so people can check that out and they kind of batted around the various reasons why ratcliffe could have gone there but one report we have is that he was essentially asking moscow to press iran into reopening the strait of hormuz because of you know the issues to the oil market and and basically threatening russia and saying hey we're gonna put the sanctions back on that trump took off because he liked you and like you might think he liked you but we're gonna put the sanctions back on if you don't pressure iran on the strait of hormuz and russia said no so i don't like regardless of like if that is true you know like a humiliating if true i guess but like the fact that we are here and that it could be right like that like i think one boat went through the strait of hormuz on monday i haven't seen the tuesday's numbers but like that's where we're at six months in yeah i mean with or without this russia story you know let's just step back and say the iranians are dictating terms on the strait of hormuz today they are dictating terms to donald trump on how to seize hostilities if you had said to me a year ago or eight months ago that somehow donald trump would manage to strengthen iran the iranian regime i would have said that's really hard to imagine but we are in the united states is in a war in iran just as a reminder donald trump decided to get kind of do this war on his own and we are all paying for it we're paying more for gas we're paying more for a whole range of things things are pretty expensive and he is at the point where he is sort of begging other countries to ally with ally with us against iran to put pressure on iran and you know it's also it's happening our european allies were like hey you're on your own other countries are like hey you're on your own you're on your own you're on your own because this guy told them to kind of screw off over the last year and a half so you look around around the world and i mean it sounds insane but somehow iran is a more sympathetic actor around around the world that's insane they're a terrible regime horrible regime but he's he's screwed this up so badly that we don't have an open strait of hormuz gas prices are pretty high and he can't this is my analysis i said this before but the real reason why he can't make a deal because it will be clear that he's lost as soon as he makes that deal like we are losing this war it's just a question of the finality of that how clear the loss will be and you know contra scott jennings if you are in a situation where the iranians have control of the strait of hormuz then we are losing this war deep breath now we get to the section i have titled bones to pick with nira okay here we go look one reason why we love each other is because we're both posters at heart you know we both just want to express our views and i was your number one defender when those just cowardly republican senators were like nira was mean to me on twitter i can't confirm her i'm we're mad at nira doesn't it seem funny now like given everything that's ever like everywhere that trump has said about everybody this happened this was something that happened republican senators were whining about nira's the mirror was too mean to them on twitter i did say that susan collins was the worst and i stand by that and i think vindicated by time so that was six years ago your twitter energy though lately has been a little bit off of susan collins for my taste i counted this morning 15 tweets about hasan piker since sunday you and ryan grim seem like peter twinklage posted this that i do think it's kind of charming that ryan grim and nira tanda don't block each other and keep lashing at each other's throats every day you rarely see that manner of a-grade wagyu beef anymore really i respond i want to say i think i respond i'm not the one tweeting at ryan most of the time i would say the same thing to ryan if he was on i'm sorry this is no imbalance a lot of attacking the left right now from you on the twitter account when we have a big challenge ahead of us november and so let's talk to me about yes i think this is a really important thing to discuss so i actually appreciate the opportunity to talk about this because i want to make a distinction and um i've said this publicly i said this to the new york times like a month or two ago which is where dsa candidates win in um blue cities like that's a healthy thing for a party it's okay for um a democratic broad tent to have very liberal candidates and very liberal parts of the country and when people complain about this i say to them there are like some really cuckoo members in like mega parts of the country and you know like it's a big tent and we should be growing that my concern and it's a genuine concern is that haas and piker is noxious to the brand of the democratic party in swing states and swing districts and i'm always for a big tent but big tents have tent poles and tent pole for me is we should be against racism sexism homophobia islamophobia anti-semitism you and i have talked in the past about past senate races and how some of them have implicated some of those issues and i just i try to be consistent and say i don't think it's great to do those things at a moral level and then to be honest about it i also think it's a terrible political strategy i know a lot of democrats were like trump is so terrible why can't we be as terrible like we need our own people that's not my position no i know it's not your position i'm talking about strategy yeah i'm talking about strategy like abdul one 15 tweets about piker this week feels like a lot and he's got i've got things that i could nitpick abdul about but like he's not campaigning with the sun anymore like that was in the past and again i so like why keep talking about it it's like not that helpful Oh, I see what you're saying. I feel like I have tried to be clear that it's good. It's a good thing that he's moved off of Biker. And I've said multiple times I would support Abdul El-Sayed. I think this is a good step. A lot of people looked at his statement and said, oh, it's not enough. Abdul El-Sayed's statement, it's not enough. You know, you can't, like, it's good when people do stuff you want them to do. That's great. But I'll tweet less if you'd like. No, I like your tweeting. I just, I'm just trying to like, I'm trying to get like an 80-20. I also want to hear your real thoughts, right? Like, look, I've said this before, too. Like, this is all, there's balance in all things. You know, I think at some level, you don't have to comment on this since you're in the White House. Like, we could have used a few more people talking about how we have concerns about Biden's electability going ahead to 2024. Like, sometimes when you circle the wagons too much, you actually do self-harm, right? And so I agree with that. Like, flagging issues within the coalition, flagging things that people are doing that are hurting the people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to have people come up to me and say, you are scared of like, maybe an online mob or something and say, it's really important that your voice is out there standing up for things like, it's wrong to have any anti-Semitism or any Islamophobia or any of these issues. And so, you know, I think part of the challenge is that now there'll be a counter-narrative saying anyone who criticizes them as they're fighting has to unpack or more than Republicans, which is like, I'm really think genuinely, we should all focus on the fact that we're fighting against Islamophobia. who had near his job in the Obama White House or equivalent moved to Seattle or San Francisco did very well for themselves in the private sector while the country burned. So I have nothing but love for you on that. One other just strategic point that I do want to make. Yeah, but this is a fair debate. I just think that like, look, sometimes I feel like both sides have little blinders on this, both sides within the democratic faction, which is like, this is a Matt Iglesias point about Syed that I totally agree with. It is like really important right now for Abdul to be focused on reaching out to Alyssa Slotkin voters who are moderate, people that voted for Alyssa Slotkin when she won in 2024, when Kamala lost and saying to them, hey, I am closer to your interests, goals, needs, desires than Mike Rogers for this reason, right? Like that's important for him to do. 100%. 100%. So I know we agree on that. And it's important for the moderates to also be the same. Exactly, and this is where I come in. Like, and this is my issue about Piker and like the Piker thing is kind of a stand-in for this point. If, you know, people have personal issues with him, I get it. He said some things that I obviously find, you know, wrong. But I think that moderates need to signal to the Bernie Trump voters who are going to be also important swing voters in this cycle. You mentioned in the beginning, like, hey, I hear you about the wars, by the way. You know what? Like maybe we're a little bit, you know, maybe we went along a little bit too much with these kinds of wars that both parties supported. I hear you about corporate. Corporate influence, you know, and like, I think we need to be more aggressive in fighting corporate influence in our elections. And so sometimes I just, I feel like I see more energy from the moderate faction talking about why the lefties are bad than I do see them saying, hey, I disagree with you on some things, but I hear you on these other things. And I'm actually going to fight for that. Yeah, so I'll go even further. And this is what you're saying, okay? Great. I think where the left is, really right, is that things are really bad in the country. So I think where, you know, you have moderates kind of talking about incrementalism and the left talking about more radical change, I think that's going to actually push people towards the left because, you know, they are, the left is right that it's insane that we do have a trillionaire dictating election outcomes by the level of spending he's doing. Like that is oligarchy. And they are right. I mean, the fundamental analysis that things are really broken in the country is actually very right. And I actually think center left people or, you know, kind of normies, you know, it's our job to compete on ideas. That's why I don't think it makes sense to launch a campaign against DSA or things. I think like the thing is, like if you think DSA is wrong, offer better ideas. Right. Like, I spend a lot of my time thinking about how it is a big problem that the bottom, you know, 60, 65, maybe 70% of Americans are really stuck. You know, like we have less upward mobility. Their incomes have not kept up with costs. Like that is a legitimate and accurate fight. And I do think there are big issues around affordability that actually unite moderates in the middle and left. And the left is really right about a lot of issues. So I'm not like fighting off like the left per se. My concern genuinely is how to win. I mean, you know this as well as I do. Post 2030, Democrats have to win in states. The blue wall is not enough. They have to start, you know, they have to win in states like Iowa or Ohio or, you know, places like that, North Carolina for sure. And so to me, I think the real question, in front of us is how do you build a big enough tent? And then how do you ensure that you're doing that in a way where you embrace like your base and the left or who has a broad, the broad tent in the democratic party without doing things that alienate like kind of Republicans who can come on border independence. And I think Bernie Sanders is a great example of that. Yeah. That's my point about both sides. Like I do think that lefties have some crazy candidates who do, who say things that alienate moderate voters. I also just, this is just anecdotal, but in my social life, I just, I don't think that, you know, cause obviously more people that I talk to are more aligned with more moderate or center candidates. And I don't think that they have just internalized how, how much they have an alienated gettable voters, like particularly on, you know, our relationship with Israel and the wars in the middle East, but also on like corporate capture and stuff like that. And like, it just works both ways, right? Like it just does. And I, and I think that like, unfortunately, you know, in Georgia and so in Georgia, the coalition is probably big enough to, you know, the now because of the way things go to win with kind of black voters and never Trump for college educated, never Trumpers in the Atlanta suburbs. Like that's a big enough coalition to win Georgia, but to win in these States like Iowa and Ohio, like you got to go back to the Obama, Trump, Bernie voters. And that's a different kettle of fish. Yeah. But I mean, let's be honest about this. Okay. I mean, there's like a lot of data behind this and I think we should be really, really like genuinely, really honest. And I think that group of people, let's not look backwards. Let's look forwards. Donald Trump is losing people who voted for him. As we talked about people voted for him three times, that group of people that he's losing now. And you're probably because of this war tend to be working class, white voters, predominantly women. Hey guys are still hanging on. But the women, there are a lot of women who have questions about Trump. Those voters are economically populous. They don't think the political system works very well. They do think both political parties kind of are corrupt. And they like, I think there are many ways that they are like kind of Sanders friendly. And that's like really, that's important. Listen, they are very moderate on crime and immigration and on some cultural issues as well. And so that's why you see a Rob sand in a Tallarico, take some of the positions they have. And my only plea to everyone is to give like grace to candidates running in states like Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Alaska, to take on issues for really more security related issues that are going to be very different and don't call them sellouts and, and jerks for doing it. And now I'm going to outplank you because I think that's right. And I think that right now, what I'm seeing from a lot of democratic candidates is, is it's easy and comfortable within the coalition to say, Hey, we should be more economically populist right now because everybody supports that. Like you said, even moderate support it. So they don't get in much trouble for saying that really, maybe with some donors, but like for the most part, they don't get much trouble for that. And then they like kind of do this kind of vague lip service to like, you know, we also should move to the middle on immigration or crime or like be responsible. You know, we want to keep people safe, but there's nothing like when you, then when you ask them about where their policies are different from a Harris policies or whoever, there's nothing there. And, and, you know, you know what I mean? And it's like, this is going to require a little bit of like meeting people in the middle on some of those issues, particularly around crime and immigration. And then, I mean, I'm like John Lennon open borders on immigration. So this is like in both of these issues, this is an admission against interest. I'm not really that economically populist, even though I am painful taxation on the rich. I'm fine for now. I've come around on that. Bernie's won me over. I've met too many rich people, but I also like, I'm pretty liberal on immigration, extremely liberal on immigration, but like, you know, you just have to be real. Yeah. And I will say like cap has put forward papers and, and ideas on immigration and those ideas on immigration would secure the border reform asylum, which is a key component to securing the border, but also expand legal immigration, give people a path to citizenship. And my whole, our whole argument about this is we can tell the country, you don't have to have this like terrorizing ice organization to secure the border. And that's like a position that most people have, but you do have to tell people, particularly in these States, how you're going to secure the border. We also put forward a crime plan that is focused on what's reduced crime. Coming back to our top topic, what is reduced crime in cities like Baltimore? And that is, you know, prevention, but it's also additional police and detectives and also, you know, ensuring that you're having swift punishments for lawbreakers. And so, you know, I mean, but I also think those are just conversations like working across, like people are pretty moderate on those issues. And I don't think, you know, and I guess I'd say, I would hope that there's a big tent for everybody for candidates and in more conservative leaning States to be able to take those positions and then candidates in very liberal cities to be able to take their positions. Oh, you mentioned Rob Sand. I want to talk about him in particular. He was in a town hall. There's this video going viral. Did you see this talking about how to, how to treat his opponent, Zach Lane? This is Rob Sand is doing some things that are totally outside of the conversation at all. And I want to bring this up because like the way that he is veering is not on this kind of moderate leftist valence at all. You know, he's just like doing things very differently. And so I want to just give two examples of that, that these are not policy issues at all. It's just, he's sounding totally different. I want to play one video of him in a town hall talking about his opponent, who's awful. - Politics is oftentimes pretty simple. stupid i think that we can acknowledge that me and my opponent are human beings and that everyone who runs for office should be willing to do that because it's important all right now i still think that i'm the better choice and i'll tell you why but i'm not going to do it without asking you first to keep in mind that this is a debate between two human beings we don't need to demonize people we don't need to lie about them either that is going against the conventional wisdom and dem circles that are like we need to go lower michelle obama was not wrong and i don't know i watched rob sand give a speech to a democratic audience where he was talking a lot about his you know dad's republican friend and now they wait for coffee and our republicans have good ideas and like look this is state trump won by 11 or 12 and he's modeling like how to like really signal to people like not pay lip service like really signal like no like you can be comfortable with me if you voted for trump yeah i mean this is a really crucial element of all of this which is i think sometimes it was cited with effect that in order to take the have a democratic senate or to win these the house back you actually have to compete for people who voted for trump and how do you do that i mean there's issues that are a part of that but there's also what kind of message you're sending in general and like i think i think people should really study rob sand's race because in everything he does he's trying to communicate that he would be a governor for everybody not just one fact at one side one party he'd be a governor for everybody and look i am a hard fighter okay like on the fighter fold dynamic kind of definitely in the fighting but i also recognize that we're not running you for senate in iowa everyone's got a role to play okay but also i also like i would like my personal views i would like this nightmare of trump to be over and the only reason i would like this nightmare to be over and the only way i can figure out how to make it over is to have people win in kind of republican leaning states so republicans wonder like what they are doing and maybe that won't happen either but it's better than just sitting here going in 50 50 elections and like let looking at this like general degradation of our country here's something else rob sand did yesterday jay martin our friend jonathan martin interviewed him oh this is the part i thought you were going to start with yeah i'm going here whatever you think about these answers he doesn't sound like a politician here's jonathan martin would you want to have joe biden here campaign for you sand no can he even do that right now jay mart how about kamala harris no thanks let's move on we need some new leadership jay mart you don't think harris should run in 2028 sand no jay mart who do you think is good for 2028 and he goes off to say i'm focused on this race and here are the things i need to do to win in 2028 and here are the things i need to do to win in 2028 whatever you think about those answers those are real answers not politician answers radical candor right yeah i mean to me i think this is like an important lesson for all of us like are we all going to give grace to rob sand to say like be to say what he needs to say or say what he believes or say you know like i just think that's i i'm gonna give him grace to do that you know like i'm i think it's like really important that he wins that race and i think he believes everything he's saying and i think it's i do think the way he just says yes or no is really important you know like i think people are done with politicians speak uh rob sand 48 zach lane 44 in the poll out this morning uh zach is the uh sex toy magnate that lives in kansas and um i saw a video of him the other day talking about how he's concerned about the call to prayer in michigan so it's a kansas candidate that's invested in in cock rings who's campaigning in iowa about people praying in michigan those are your birds do you disagree with any of them are any of them wrong no i don't i don't disagree with any of them that i'm just saying that's pretty crazy i'm just saying a lot of it's not a lot of we spend a lot of time clutching our pearls over here me and you're talking about things we're concerned that some of the we do have some kooky candidates on our side but it's like we don't got anything like that it's so interesting because like i um i criticize republicans all the time and then people are like you don't criticize republicans enough and i was like look not you you don't do that so like people say that to me and i was like the real problem in the republican party is that they go along with you know kind of ruining the country so that's really bad and they should stop doing that sam stein has forced me to ask you one last question are you ready for it oh god i'm not going to answer any sam stein okay and you're right probably you can answer this what do you think about how ken martin is doing you do i i feel like i'm so good at pre-butting that i'm not going to answer this question okay sam's follow-up question to you would you consider taking his role if asked if asked no is that a sherman-esque denial a hundred percent sherman-esque denial and i don't think people who who claim to like me should want me to take that job uh that is something that we agree on okay anything else you need to get off your chest anybody you want to yell about any anything that cap is doing that you want people to know about oh yes yes well i would say and you were grateful for all the support against her lawsuit it is expensive so go to our website uh center for american progress at americanprogress.org and check out all the things we're doing when i will say we have a lot of ideas on how to lower costs for americans and i'm really grateful of all the leaders across the country who are using those ideas and i'm really grateful for all the leaders to govern and also you know in some of their races the corruption tracker that you're doing is also really useful and something that i turn to a lot and um i actually feel now i'm i'm chastising myself now because i should have we should have brought this up before we got to before we got to you know michigan senate discourse um because i mean that is related to affordability yeah democrats got to talk about both this i'm also doing sans doing others are doing like the people that are doing really well are doing a really good job of doing a really good job of like tying those two issues together yeah and i think a really important thing to remember about corruption or the 1.7 billion dollar um national guard deployments is it's really important for us to remind people these are good choices the president's making he's he's like finding 100 billion dollars for the iran war while he's cutting people's health care he's spending 100 1.7 billion dollars on national guard deployments while he's cutting snap payments and basically food payments for people hungry that is the kind of choices that we're dealing with and why change is so necessary we'll leave it there it's near a tandem we'll see you on x.com and we'll have you back on um i don't know probably before the midterms all right okay great thanks for having me i'll see you then everybody else we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the pod see you all then peace the bulwark daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer katie cooper associate producer ansley skipper and with video editing by dante de chico and audio engineering and editing by jason brown