Trump's Wars Are Bankrupting America

This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure. If you run a small business, you know how important it is to stay on top of your numbers. That's why I want to tell you about Xero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a platform built for small business owners that brings accounting, payments, payroll, and analytics together in one place. You can access reports, visual dashboards, forecasts, and AI insights to help you better understand your cash flow and make informed decisions about your business. Learn more at Xero.com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we've got some fresh new polling that shows Trump's forever wars dragging down his party and boosting Democrats. We'll also talk about the president's spirited defense of data science. And launching Saudi Arabia's nuclear program. Congratulations. As well as all the drama over which states will go first in the 2028 presidential primary calendar, which the DNC is debating as we speak. Then Dan talks to our pal and former Obama colleague, Jennifer Palmieri, who's out with a new series co-produced by your friends here at Crooked about the politics of the South. All right. With just about 100 days left until the midterms, Trump is reigning. He's ramping up the two forever wars he started that are now bankrupting the country, his war with Iran and his trade war with everyone. He told Axios this morning, quote, I am considering a massive attack on Iran, bigger than ever before, because Iran, quote, hasn't received enough pain yet. This despite a U.S. intelligence report that more bombing won't change Iran's negotiating position. Nothing's getting through the straits right now. Oil is now back over $100 a barrel. Gas is back over $400. Four dollars a gallon. And Trump had to go to Dover Air Force Base on Wednesday to witness the dignified transfer of four more Americans who lost their lives in this war. Here's what the commander in chief had to say about all of this at an event in Georgia later in the day. This is with this skirmish we have with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And I call it that because let me tell you, they're getting hit so hard. When I go to Dover, I read charts on all of them. Young people and some are unbelievable. Some were a little bit, you know, they got a little bit of a little couple of little bad things put in. This is a son who is like a flawless, perfect person. He's looking down right here. He's so proud right now. So together, we're making our country safer and stronger and far more successful than it's ever been before. And that's happening before your very eyes. I fought ourselves before, as you know, and we won. We had a great success against this guy. He reminds me of Pinky Herman. Do you ever see Pinky Herman? You ever see Pinky Herman, Dan? No, no, I haven't seen Pinky Herman. You miss Pinky Herman? A few things about that. Now we're talking about all the bad things about the soldiers who died, whose bodies he greets for a dignified transfer at Dover. Luckily for that, the soldier who died that he talked about in that rally, there were only good things. But sometimes there are bad things, apparently. So that was normal. On the charts. On the charts. Bad things on the charts. I don't know if you also saw at the beginning there. Do you see the guy in the suit behind Trump who was doing an impression of Trump, I think? Yeah. Was that flattery? Mockery? I assume flattery. I don't know. Who can say? Who can say? Pinky Herman. Pinky Herman. He really can't land the Ossoff name. It was, remember, on Truth Social, he had John Ossoff. Just jerk off. And he had jerk in parentheses. That was better than Pinky Herman. It wasn't good. I mean, it reads better. It doesn't sound, you can't really say it. You can read it and you get the jerk off thing. Yeah, it's hard to do air parentheses at a rally. Better than Pinky Herman, though. All right, Dan. Is there a Pinky? There's no, no, there's nothing. I know he meant Pee Wee Herman. There's no Pinky. And he didn't conflate two 1920s characters or something, right? I don't believe so. Because later he did say Pee Wee Herman. I think he read it wrong. Okay. But he's a creature. He's also a creature of the 80s. So you'd think he would know Pee Wee Herman. Not know him personally, but like would have been familiar. I mean, there's a good chance he would know him personally. Maybe. I mean, who knows where they used to hang out? Yeah, right. Kinds of theaters. All right. I was going to have a question about all this. Oh, yeah, right. So in a May political poll, half of MAGA voters said that the Iran, war was worth the economic costs. In this week's poll, only one third of MAGA voters think that these are just these aren't just Republican voters. These are MAGA voters. These are Trump supporters. One person close to the White House told Politico the president is now fully aware that the only way to the victory he wants is completely politically impossible. Do you think he's actually aware of that? That's a great question, John. It's hard to say. Hard to say it. The whole. Like, what victory does he want? He doesn't really care, I think, about anything other than getting gas prices and oil prices down without looking like he surrendered to Iran. Like, he wants the war to go away, but he doesn't want to look like a loser in doing that, which seems like an impossible circle to square in the current situation. Also, he seems in the, you know, this is going to, I'm thinking of the worst attack ever, where he, like, maybe there is a plan somewhere that Pete Hicks has drawn up for the worst attack. They probably have some contingency plans, but it really seems like Trump trying to threaten them again, but he's done this a hundred times now. You know, I'm going to blow up the bridges. I'm going to blow up the power plants. I'm going to do all these things. And then he doesn't do them. And Iran just keeps doing what Iran is doing and nothing really changes. And so his threats, his words, which is not a great place for a president to be, but his words mean nothing domestically or diplomatically. Now, when he's talking about the war, I've always thought that the best way to understand Trump is that he is just a, like a cable news viewer who became president, like a cable news fanatic. And so his understanding of war is that of someone who has watched, you know, the Iraq war and other wars unfold on cable television. He thinks you just press some buttons and drop some bombs. And if you drop enough bombs, then the war stops. And because he now is in control of the most powerful military in the world, I'm sure he's running around the White House being like, well, we just got to bomb them more. We got to bomb them harder. We'll bomb. We'll bomb bridges. We'll bomb power plants. We'll do all the war crimes. I don't care. And the more we do that, suddenly Iran will stop. And he clearly has no idea what the reality of the situation is, which, you know, the Wall Street Journal just had a story that satellite imagery shows that they are rebuilding in Iran faster than the Israelis or the U.S. anticipated after all the strikes. And so, like, there is, and like I mentioned, there's that U.S. Intel report from, again, from our own intelligence. And I think that's a really good point. I think that's probably the only way to actually force Iran to open the Strait, to give up their power, to give up nuclear power, whatever, the dust, whatever it else would be to simply invade the country. Yes, that is politically impossible. And I think some of the things they might be considering now is they're back to the, if we take Karg Island and maybe some of those islands around there, then perhaps we don't need like a full ground invasion, but we can take those islands and that'll help open the Strait. I don't know. I think they are. This is, I mean, it's very bad and like it, it, it very much seems like we're going to be dealing with this through the election. Oh, at least. At least. And the thing, and maybe many, many, many years longer because it's an, it's entirely asymmetric in order for the Strait to be open. We have to stop Iran from even threatening the idea of firing missiles or drones at ships. So if we open it, let's say we take all these islands that, you know, you know, cost lives, money, et cetera. Let's say we do that in 20 ships go by. But if the 21st ship gets hit with a drone, a missile gets damaged, that is going to then dramatically reduce traffic. Yep. Like we're trying to do something that is not actually possible in the situation we're in. If it, unless Iran must either surrender or cooperate and Trump can't get them to do neither. It's wild. There was however, one exciting diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East this week that I'm sure Americans will love Trump reached a deal that would allow Saudi Arabia to pursue a civilian nuclear program, which could lead to them enriching nuclear fuel, though. Trump denies that, uh, he also says it's on the condition that the kingdom normalizes relations with Israel. Uh, I guess if you can't destroy Iran's nuclear program, the next best thing is to launch Saudi Arabia's it's wild timing on this plan. I mean, what also when Trump's like, he denies it could allow them to enrich uranium. I am. Of course it can. That is the deal. That's the whole point is. What does he think is going to happen? But then he – I mean this is sort of very Trumpian, which is there are substantive arguments why someone would want Saudi Arabia to do this. This was a long process. There's a long memorandum. There's all these agreements on how it goes forward and how it will comply with nonproliferation and safety and all of this. They do all of that. It gets very bad reviews. Trump must probably seize a bad review on television or on social media or someone calls him. So then he tweets out a condition that is not in the deal. Saudi Arabia must normalize relations with Israel, something that Saudi Arabia said it will never do and undoes all of the work. Also, though, why are we launching a nuclear program with an autocratic regime? I know that we are ostensibly allies with Saudi. Saudi Arabia, because we have to be for a number of very complicated geopolitical reasons, maybe not that complicated. It's pretty simple, John. Yeah, it's oil and yeah, and and Israel and everything else. OK, so there's that. But like, I don't know. We've already looked the other way when MBS brought out the bone saw and and they are an extremely repressive regime. And now we think that it's a good idea to launch a nuclear program that could lead to more nuclear weapons. Another nuclear powered country. A country in the world of all the countries to not even a democracy. Yes, you're 100 percent right. Like, why are we going out of our way to make this happen? Fair question. Because because the Trump family is in business with them and has done some good deals. That's that's that's one reason. But then there just is from the perspective of timing, which is just very funny. Like I can imagine I couldn't imagine being Trump's communication. Imagine being the White House communications director and you have spent the last four months arguing how the greatest threat to America is Iran. Having. The war on nuclear weapons. And the fact that the United States is going to be the first country to do that. The reason that Americans are going to pay more in costs for many things is because Donald Trump doesn't understand how wind works. I mean, imagine you were sitting at the NRCC, the NRSC, the House and Senate Republican leadership, and you're just trying – or even any one of these campaigns, right? You work for John Husted or Mike Collins, John Ossoff, or in any of these races, and you're just like, truly, the White House is trying to destroy us in this election at every single turn. He is – I mean, he finally passed the bipartisan housing bill. He refuses to sign it because he wants to take – he wants to prevent people from voting. He starts a war. He starts a – he reignites his tariff war. He spends all of his time talking about building corporate-funded monuments in Washington, D.C. It's like – it's like deep down in his soul, I really think Trump doesn't want to win the midterms. Like he just – he's trying. He doesn't – like intellectually, he wants to win the midterms. He thinks he wants to win the midterms, but his subconscious is trying to lose the midterms. Unpopular wars that are bankrupting the country while he makes $2 billion since he's been in office. That's it. That's the midterm argument right there. And you really don't have to say much more. Speaking of voter anger, the White House held an affordability event on Thursday where Trump was supposed to show how he's protecting Americans from increasing power costs because of data center construction, a hugely salient and unpopular issue. And as usual, he nailed the whole I'm on your side thing. You have communities that really want the data centers. And frankly, those are the smart communities. You have to convince your community how great these things – you can't fight it. You have to go with it. To your last point, he's just – he's really trying to lose. I mean, a Gallup poll in May showed 70% of people do not want – would not want a data center built in their local community, 70%. I think data centers are the sleeper issue of 2026 and beyond. The polling is very clear. It is a bipartisan issue. It is an issue that elicits tremendous passion from Republicans and Democrats. As you say, more than two-thirds of voters do not want data centers in their communities. Majorities of voters think that the pace at which data centers are being built nationally is happening too fast. They – large majorities of voters, in some cases two-thirds of voters, believe that data centers are leading to higher electricity and utility costs. They think it is poisoning their water. It is bad for their community. Some of them – most of them do not buy the arguments about job creation and economic growth. It is – and this is an issue that is bipartisan. It unites Democrats. It fires people up and is an issue of absolutely crystal clear contrast with Trump who not – yeah, he said some dumb shit here. But the policy of his administration is to build a data center on every corner, not because that's what's good for America, not because that's what's good for those communities, but because the billionaire roligarchs in the AI companies have told them that's what they want. Like this is – like Democrats – there are some Democrats who are very strong on this. But this is – but for the most – For the most part, Democrats have been overly cautious on this because they're so afraid of the AI super PACs coming in and raising the ground with their hundreds of millions of dollars. But we are – this is a sleeper issue. Trump's on the wrong side. We have to be on the right side. There's also – I've noticed some Democrats, maybe not Democratic electeds, but sort of center-left writers, pundits who like defend data centers by saying that like, you know, if they could lead – it could help with more. I think that no one is ready to hear of the possible benefits of data centers when people are looking around their communities, seeing these awful things being built that could jeopardize the environment, that could send their electricity costs soaring. And it is a stand-in for everything that people don't like about AI, which is a lot right now. Because when you look at the polling, too, it's not – It's not just that people oppose them in their own – it's not just like a NIMBY thing where people like oppose them in their own community. People oppose them in other communities as well, which makes you think that it's a – it's about a – it's not just about the physical data center like where you live. It's about what it represents, which is AI taking over everything. This is an issue I've been working a lot with, with candidates and campaigns and activists who subscribe to Messagebox Pro. So I think this is a huge issue. A couple of things I would say on it, though, is if you're going to talk about it, you must be prepared. For the pushback on increasing the tax base locally and economic growth because there is – those arguments do have some purchase with voters. There is also a skepticism on a national ban. That has been changing a little bit recently. But people – voters have very conflicted views of AI. They're deeply concerned about it. There is some optimism that it could be good for the country in the long run if done right with the right amount of regulation. And so there is some hesitancy to saying – Stop everything right now because there's a fear that we could fall behind. And interestingly enough, I know you guys talked a little about the Equis – the most recent Equis poll on Tuesday's pod. But Latino voters are actually more positive towards AI and data centers than the population writ large. Or at least open to the idea that they could be – they could help with economic growth and job opportunities both locally and nationally. And so it's not – like it is an issue we have to be very strong on. But there is like a little nuance to the argument. But if you are overly nuanced and you're not standing up, particularly if it's in your local community, I think you're making a huge mistake. What are the arguments against data center construction that are the most resonant with people? That you're going to pay for it with your utility bills. And that it is bad for the environment and the community are the ones that have the most – But by – it's going to raise your costs is like a number one. And where you've seen the biggest battles on data centers are in states that have very high utility costs. Like in Maine. That's one of the reasons that Janet Mills' popularity has been down is people are very upset about data centers in Maine. She opposed a bill on this. All right. So you would expect all of this to translate into good polling results for Democrats. And it is. Some eye-popping numbers in this week's polls. Emerson has Democrats at plus 11 on the generic ballot. Pew has Dees at plus 6. And Fox News has it at plus 7. And then there we go. Dems are at 53 percent, which is the highest percentage either party has received on the generic ballot in Fox polling since 1996. Fox also showed Democrats more trusted to handle income inequality by 22 points, health care by 21 points, inflation by 10, the economy by 9, foreign policy by 7. In April, Republicans had an 8-point lead on immigration as an issue. Now Democrats are up by 1 point on immigration. Anything else jump out at you from all these polls? It's funny. When I saw that 1996 number, I was like, holy shit. I don't remember 1996 being a wave year. Well, it wasn't. We picked up like three seats. So it's like, I don't know. That's good. But look, I think these numbers are excellent. And we may look back and just say that these were a little bit of outliers because the polls were in a moment of intense focus on the Iran war and tariffs, Trump's two worst issues. But I also think we could look back on this in a few months and say this was the hinge. This was a huge moment in the election where it broke in Democrats' favor. A lot of it dropped out, yeah. Yeah, but it's like the ceiling on Democrats to this point has been people do not like Trump. They do not. They think he's doing a terrible job on these issues, but they trust Republicans more than Democrats on these issues, particularly the economy and inflation. And there was a – remember that Wall Street Journal poll that was I think late last year, earlier this year, which showed on almost every single issue other than health care and climate, Republicans – people voted to trust the Republicans over Democrats. The fact that Democrats have a 10-point advantage on the economy in this Fox News poll is incredibly consequential. Trump had an advantage on the economy in 2018 when he picked up 40 seats. The economy is a more resonant issue this time. That's very good for us. And just to give you a perspective of how much things have shifted on the economy in that Fox News poll, Republicans have only a 7-point advantage among white non-college voters on the economy. Oh, wow. Trump won that group by 34 points in 2024. And the economy always has been Trump's superpower. It has been the thing that has held him afloat to this point. He lost that superpower, but Democrats were unable to take advantage of that. We are starting to make real gains there. And if that stays the case, we will have a very good 2026 in terms of the national popular vote. It won't look like the seat gains from 2018 because of all the gerrymandering and redistricting that's taken place, but it could be a very good year if these numbers hold. Yeah, I was happy to see this because I feel like in the last month – There have been a number of polls where Trump's approval is in the shitter, but the generic ballot was closer than you'd expect from Trump's approval being that bad in the same poll, right? And so you have polls where it's three, four, five. Now, all three of these polls could be outliers, but they're also – all three of them high-quality polls rated very highly, Fox, Emerson, and Pew. So who knows? Maybe, like you said, maybe it's a focus on Iran. Look, I mean, gas prices were going down before the MOU went kaput and we were back to four. full-scale war. So, you know, it could be as simple as that. They could come down again, for sure. 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You can access reports, visual dashboards, forecasts, and AI insights to help you better understand your cashflow and make informed decisions about your business. All right, let's get to the latest on the presidential race, which we're talking about because the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee met this week. The RBC. The RBC. Yes. That's what the people in the know call it, the RBC. They met this week to figure out the early state primary calendar for 2028. Most of the reporting points to four states that are likely to make that window before Super Tuesday in March. So this is in the January, February window. South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Michigan. There may also be a fifth state added, and now reporting is centered around possibly New Mexico or Virginia. But the order of which states go first is very much up for grabs and the source of all the drama that's been leaking out of these meetings. South Carolina and Nevada are jockeying to be the first state, fueled by what Axios called a long-simmering feud between Black and Latino leaders. New Hampshire has a law that requires the state to hold the first primary, so that's tricky. There are 49 people on the committee who will decide this, and one of them told Notice, quote, it's going to be a bloodbath. Most states, have at least one or two members on the committee, and I think they're all going to fight to the death for this. Great. So what are the big issues here, and how much does the sequence matter? So let's do the issues first. I think there are a handful of things that need to be in consideration as you do this. The first is, the first four or maybe five states, any states that come before Super Tuesday have dramatically more impact than all the states that come afterwards, right? These are the states that window the field. They're the states that, that help pick the frontrunner. They matter a ton. And so if they're going to matter a ton, they must represent the full breadth of the Democratic Party and the electorate, right? You need to have states with large Black population. You need Latino voters to have a say. You want, theoretically, a swing state in play. You want rural voters to have a say. So it's got to have real representation of all the parts of the Democratic Party. That's one. Two, you also want the states to be a part of the Democratic Party. That's one. That's one. That's one. Three, you also want the states to be states that play in ways, both in terms of the voters you appeal to, the size of the state, that give us the best chance of picking our best nominee, right? It can't be for giant states where the person with the highest name ID automatically wins. It shouldn't be for tiny, for rural states or for states that are demographically similar. You want it to look like, you want it to be a good trial run for a general election. And then what I think is really important is you want, because millions of dollars is going to go to the Democratic Party. You want it to be a good trial run for a general election. And thousands of hours of tens of thousands, a hundred thousand hours of organizing is going to go into these states. You don't want all that investment to go to waste in the general election. Like you remember this, we were together in Iowa in the 2020 caucuses. We're flying out the day after the caucuses ended, but there's still no winner declared. And at the airport with us were all these organizers who worked for Bernie, Pete, Biden, Elizabeth Warren, who had spent the last year in Iowa, who knew that they were going to win. And they were going to win. And they were the names of every Democrat and caucus goer, their names, their phone numbers, their kids' names in these communities in Iowa. And they were leaving to go to another state to never return to Iowa again. If you're going to organize these states, you want to have some benefit in the general election. So I think those are sort of the main considerations. There's one more thing, which is you need, if you're going to move a state's primary, you need control, democratic control of the state. Yeah. This is the most practical concern. Yeah. This is not like something about winning the election or anything, but like you can't, because some of these states have already had their primary set and the legislature sets it. And so if the Democrats decide, oh, we want to move it up, you'd have to go to the legislature. And if it's a Republican legislature, like in Georgia, because Georgia was being considered instead of South Carolina, because it would make more sense for a whole bunch of reasons. It's a competitive state. South Carolina is not, still also has a very large black population, but we don't control the legislature in Georgia. And so there's no reason to believe that. They would ever move the primary date for us. So, yeah. I mean, there's all these like little things in here that are really seem like they should be dumb, but are quite consequential. It is New Hampshire law that New Hampshire goes first, no matter what. New Hampshire insisted on going first anyway in 2024 and got no delicate to face a huge price. And they had to sit like in the back of the convention. They had to theoretically change their law if they don't go first. If they're not picked first here, they probably shouldn't be picked first. Nevada, this is really interesting. Nevada is a vote by mail state, where votes count if they are postmarked by election day. So if Nevada is the first state, you couldn't call the, there's a chance you wouldn't be able to call the winner on election night, therefore depriving that winner of that moment where they accept the not, they accept, they give their victory speech. And it's the moment that's propelled, you know, that propelled Obama in 2008. So that's a consideration. There's a bunch of little ones like that. If we won the governorship in Georgia, which is, I'll talk to Jennifer Palmieri about later in the show, you can maybe do it there, but you won't know that when you have to make the decision on this. So New Hampshire, they have this law. They can't change the law or, I mean, they could change the law, but we have a Republican governor there and a Republican, they control at least one part of the legislature. Can't do it. Kelly Ayotte is not going to do it. Yeah, because the Republicans want New Hampshire to be first. Right. So I don't know how, all the reporting is like, well, it's between South Carolina and New Hampshire. Even if the New Hampshire Democrats on the, at the DNC agree, like they still have the law. So I don't know. I don't know why they're talking about South Carolina or Nevada first. They would just not, if New Hampshire can't change the law and New Hampshire would not count. It'd be just like 2024. Remember, I mean, this has happened in the past. You may remember this from a different period of our lives in 2008, Florida and Michigan moved up to go too early against DNC rules. Their primaries did not. Count because, because they were awarded no delegates when we didn't even compete in those primaries. And so New Hampshire could, if they don't pick New Hampshire, New Hampshire has its primary on that day. It's for nothing. No vote, no delegates are awarded. They guess they could have, um, I, I heard a rumor that this is possible that they could have that primary that day. No, no delegates awarded. And then the state party can organize and put on a primary when they're supposed to have it agreed by the rules and principles. Yeah. You could theoretically do that. Although I'm not sure there must be a way to do it, but I'm not sure how you would, um, fund that if the governor wants you to do it. So that's one issue. Um, the issue you cited with Nevada is worrisome to me that we would not know who the winner is for that seems like a disaster in the making. Um, but like there's this big fight between South Carolina and Nevada and the chair of the South Carolina democratic party said in Times that if Nevada goes first, then it will say something about how the Democratic Party views black voters, which I think is quite a statement to make. And then the chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, who is a black woman as well, she was like, well, 15 percent of our electorate is black also. And what are you talking about? And also, does that mean that if South Carolina goes first, that the Democratic Party is saying to Latino voters that they don't count as much like this? But I just feel like the best way to deal with that is to let the state with the law that says it's supposed to have the first primary go first and then next have South Carolina, Nevada go like within days of each other. Like, yeah, like how much does the order matter among the early states? Right. Like I get why you want to be in one of those five states in that window. But but like if New Hampshire's one week and then South Carolina and then Nevada or then Nevada, then South Carolina, like how much how much? Does that matter? It matters a lot to the people who own TV stations. Cool. In those states. It matters a lot to the people who own hotels in those states. People who have companies that rent bike rack and other things for rallies because I mean, because the first the first first day people will be there for a long time, for longer and spend more time. And then it's diminishing. Right. Because the you put all your most resource in the first state because for most candidates, they don't get out of the first state. They're not going anywhere. The front runners then put their second most resource. And then they go to the second state. And you're sort of like, well, if I make it to South Carolina, which used to be the third state or Nevada, we'll figure it out from on right there a lot of the calculus on this is really dumb because there is this reporting i think this is in peter hamby's uh excellent piece in puck that there are some folks who are very worried about nevada because they think aoc could win this is you and i both yeah this is so stupid because and the argument is because bernie won but just to put some numbers on this and because it was a caucus in 2020 when bernie won and they made it a it was a hybrid caucus there were four days of early vote and then the actual caucus day but even with that there were 105 000 democrats who participated in the primary in 2024 where when they're when biden was running uncontested essentially uh 150 000 people voted and if there are 500 000 registered democrats in the state if it just if it operated at a turnout level like a typically contested presidential primary there would be like 250 to 300 000 people would vote so it's a very different electorate and it's a more moderate electorate because for a couple of reasons like just because primary electorates are always more moderate than caucus electorates because to go to a caucus you're you tend to be highly engaged more of an activist you're getting out of your house in the middle and at night and go and sit in a you know town hall somewhere for hours and hours um and so the people are more committed they tend to be more partisan and so like bernie sanders organizing the culinary workers in nevada and winning the caucus that way versus an aoc um trying to win over a larger primary electorate of and yes uh younger than south carolina uh more heavily latino um but still a lot of like non-college um uh working class voters which like yeah she could do well and but like so could any candidate it's not it's not obvious that that would benefit a progressive candidate like aoc over anyone else and then there's there is concern about michigan because they think uh gaza would make gaza a dominant issue uh in the primary yeah it's like i think everyone's overthinking this we don't know what the world's going to look like when people are campaigning you know when these elections happen to you know a little less than two years from now yeah you know it's it it's fascinating and how they ordered will does affect things a lot the only other thing i'd say is the identity politics fight about which voters we care which that that is not particularly constructive it is true that black political power in this country has been decimated in a lot of ways by the supreme court in terms of congressional representation and all of that but one thing that i think has not gotten a ton of attention is because of the way the districts where all these majority minority districts which are mostly black across the south have been written out of existence that is going to diminish black voters influence in a longer primary process because those districts are ones that perform incredibly well and you get a bonus delegate if you perform above a certain level and so the way obama and clinton really cleaned up across the south is that they were claiming all five delegates in those districts those those there are fewer there'll be almost no districts like that left across the south and so there is a you know the opportunity to have a say in the process earlier does i don't i don't think the south carolina should necessarily be first but that it's the process doesn't look like it used to for black voters and i think voters now post uh the vra decision they did before undoubtedly one of the five early states should have a heavily black population undoubtedly yeah it is particularly rich for south carolina to be the ones complaining about this because that is a state that plays no role and it is the one state we're talking about yeah that plays no role in the general election whatsoever and so when you talk about like time wasted by candidates who are organizing in a state that they're never going to go back to that's i mean you could make the same argument for new hampshire but michigan nevada you know again it would have been much better if we had democratic control of georgia to make just georgia would be the state and that would be it um but you also have a lot of black voters in michigan about one in five uh democratic primary voters is black in michigan yeah and you and look ideally you'd want a southern state um to be in the top five that um uh no matter what and it just because of who controls the legislatures it seems like we're stuck with south carolina yeah north carolina is also an option that could have could have been there north carolina would have been where we control the governorship why didn't north that's an interesting one i wonder why north carolina didn't and then i guess virginia also but virginia the reason people are floating virginia is because it is a way to have a southern state that solves the georgia problem because we control the legislature there so you could you could easily move it up well i'll tell you this if it is nevada um we will be uh moving production of this show to las vegas for many months maybe even a year john i've been to vegas with you we should do it one weekend at a time i just don't think an extended period is not gonna be good for anyone i'd love it i don't know what would even happen to him oh my gosh yeah this could be a real problem staff's gonna love it i can just tell i can already see yeah it's the excitement here all right last thing before we get to dan's conversation with jen palmeri about long play uh on tuesday evening white house deputy chief of staff dan scavino posted a minute-long video on his official twitter account set to some theme music that some of you might recognize who are millennials or older uh in which he panned his phone camera around the walls of the oval office in admiration of donald trump's interior decorating check it out uh for those of you just listening this is a lot of gold some more gold there's a lot of model airplanes here uh it's like fucking saddam's palace i don't know what's with all the planes yeah it the saddam's palace thing is right except this makes saddam's palace like a pottery barn oh god it's so much is that the liberty bell uh okay so what'd you think dan it's not often you get to see you know when you see the oval office on tv you only get to see part of it at a time so you don't fully understand how absolutely gaudy it is now it's just it's gross it's gross there's just too much there's too much gold and it also looks like cheap gold and i'm sure it's not i'm sure he just like spent whatever but it's just it's it's busy it's too it's tacky the model airplanes make no sense um there's some real substance here that we can talk about uh poll the post uh washington post is out with a new poll about trump's um big self memorials uh found that about two-thirds of americans are unhappy about uh the renovations in dc the trump renovations uh led mostly by democrats and independents uh there is a big intensity gap sixty-seven percent of democrats chose the most answer upset uh whereas only thirty-one percent of republicans chose the most positive descriptor enthusiastic uh how much of a political liability do you think uh not just that oval but all of this shit is every one of these things is an affordability issue it's just like this is do people do they are they really passionate about an ugly arch on the mall or the amount of time the president or like what the reflecting pool looks like no what they are upset about is the president is spending so much time on the resin on the bottom of the pool or on individually hand sourcing gold flake for the white house or when he went shopping for marble armrests like that that is to people just like he's supposed to be fighting for me and he's doing all of this shit for himself what a waste of time and energy i will say i'd rather him be doing that than focusing on the economy because when he focuses on the economy he makes everything more expensive not less expensive and he's doing all of this shit for himself and he's doing all of this expensive that is a very glass half full take john uh you know if all he did was just run around and sourcing fucking gold leaf uh from other places and just left everything alone we would probably be we wouldn't be doing a lot better we'd be probably doing better than when he actually focuses and decides he's going to slap more tariffs on shit start more trade wars and forever wars so he basically needs at all times some sort of fidget toy yes maybe taxpayer-funded fidget toy or millionaire-funded fidget toy but that that's what you wanted to be doing yeah that's just a thought all right when we come back dan talks to jen paul mary pod save america is brought to you by chime it's no secret that everything is expensive right now which means you probably want to know if you're getting the most out of your money that's where chime comes in chime is changing the way people bank they're not like traditional banks that love to gatekeep the best rewards and pile on hidden fees unless you have a massive balance chime offers the most rewarding fee-free banking all with no overdraft fees no monthly fees no minimum balance fees you get five percent cash back on chime card in a category of choice like gas or groceries all while building credit through regular everyday spending no credit check required you can also grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average and if you're ever in a pinch spot me lets you overdraft up to 200 fee free join the millions who are already banking fee free with america's number one choice for banking head to chime.com crooked that's chime.com crooked sign up now it only takes a few minutes This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure. That's X-E-R-O. Joining me now is the former White House Communications Director, the Emmy-nominated host of The Circus, and creator of the new show Longplay, which you can find on YouTube. Anywhere you get your podcasts, joining me now is my old coworker, my friend, Jennifer Palmieri. How are you? I'm good. I'm psyched. I'm so psyched that this is like, that we're actually doing the show, and now it's also out in the world and people know about it. It's very exciting. On Monday. On Monday. Yeah, it drops. We have two episodes. Our first two episodes drop on Monday. They're about Georgia and Texas. Okay, that's right. So, this is a six-part series on how Democrats win back power in the South. I'm impressed you can do this in six parts. It seems like quite a task. You have been to Georgia and Texas. Yeah. What did you find and where are you going next? So, okay. So, Georgia, I mean, every state is super interesting. Right now, we're in Texas. We're in North Carolina. So, this is episode three will be North Carolina. We're going to go to Tennessee next. Then we're going to go to Alabama. And then episode six is a jump ball between Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. So, we're figuring that out. Does the Oklahoma count as the South? It does. It is. I mean, I looked it up in like whatever, you know, like I think it's MSAs. Do you remember that? Like Metropolitan Statistical Areas. It is classified as part of the South. I think they consider themselves pretty Western. But I just find it an interesting place. There's interesting Republican leaders there. Mayor David Holt from Oklahoma City. Governor Stitt's kind of interesting guy. So, we'll see. So, let me start with Georgia because like what's fascinating about that place is like why it is different from all other Southern states and why it became a belt. I'm in North Carolina right now. Right. And why did Georgia flip first? Why did Georgia flip before North Carolina? Like, I think we're both old enough to have when like we thought North Carolina would be the one. Right. Hillary lost Georgia by five points and then Biden won. Hillary lost North Carolina by like one, you know, one point something points. And Trump came back and won in 20. He won in 24. And I think, you know, and what you learn with Georgia is intention matters. That that state, like there was decisions made in Atlanta 50 years ago at the end of Jim Crow, beginning of civil rights by a white mayor, Mayor Hartsfield, that Atlanta was going to be the city too busy to hate. You know? That was like partly an economic reason, right? Because racism is bad for business. But with intention, Mayor then Mayor Jackson, you know, the first black mayor of Georgia of Atlanta followed him and built. That's why Hartsfield is so huge. The airport, because they wanted it to sustain a black middle class. Georgia is the state that was the heart of the Confederacy. It was the heart of the civil rights movement. And and just as, you know, 50 years ago, the civil rights movement was the heart of the civil rights movement. And so, you know, when you think about how the civil rights leaders had to come together to make things, to make change in Georgia, so did black voters matter. So did Stacey Abrams, you know, they didn't because like Dan, remember in Georgia 10 years ago or so, it was let's run conservative Democrats and the Zell Miller, you know, sort of mold, right? They're like kind of almost Republican and most of the Republican governors of Georgia, by the way, were former Democrats. And then Stacey Abrams is like, no, we're going to do something different. We're going to like build a different electorate, going to change the electorate. You have Senator John Ossoff, Senator Raphael Warnock. They are running different kinds of campaigns and they you know, and they won in very tough years. Warnock won again in 22. You know, John Ossoff is like in a good it's in good shape right now. But it mattered what happened 50 years ago and that decisions that were made in Atlanta that are different than decisions that were made in Birmingham, different than decisions that were made in Raleigh, North Carolina. So that reverberate today. And so you just get a sense of and then, of course, moving with intention now and trying to do things differently in Georgia like it matters. And that's sort of the inspiring part is if people come together and try to make change and they're smart and consistent about it, you can do it. And so let's talk about Texas. Super interesting. Yeah. So I spent a lot of time in Texas in 2018, as many people did. Oh, for Beto. A bunch of events with Beto. You know, watching that race. Democrats got their hopes up there. This was a state that where it's the one state, I believe, that Hillary Clinton outperformed Barack Obama from 2012 was Texas. And she is so somewhat substantially in 2018 look good and then snap back in 20 snap back further in 2024. See new moving much redder. Democrats are pretty optimistic about James Tallarico this time. What did you find in the state? I was pretty, you know, I was a little skeptical of Tallarico coming into the state and I left with a different view. You know, what is I think faith is a faith is a very big deal that Democrats discount too much in the South. You know, I think there are there are big structural reasons of why Democrats and black voters are disenfranchised in the South. And you know, that was sort of the impetus for this series to understand all of that. But also there's a there's a big cultural disconnect. What was amazing about and I did feel this in Georgia and also in North Carolina. It's like, I'm not saying Tallarico is necessarily going to win, but it feels more fluid, I think, as we're sort of the tail end of Trump's popularity. And since he was not an ideological conservative, voters are it's more of a jump ball for them. Right. So, for example, and we went to Tarrant County, I interviewed Taylor Remit, who's the guy who's the state senator that flipped a Trump seat earlier this year, because I had an open election open seat. You know, and he was basically like, look, I'm a machinist that just knocks on people's doors and, you know, meet some where they are and they understand, like, who I am, where to come from. I don't associate with the Democratic Party, national or local level. And they know that they can rely on me. The other thing that that happened was we interviewed PTA moms in Tarrant County. Right. So Tarrant's Fort Worth, it's the big swing. It's the swing of the swings in Texas, particularly this year. These are three Republican women. One was like a never Trump Republican. The other was like a never Trump Republican. And they're not just voting for Governor Abbott for reelection. They're not just voting for Ken Paxton. They are voting for James Tallarico and Gina Hinojosa because they're so upset about, wait, for the MAGA takeover of their school districts. So, like, there was a big it's so interesting, Dan, because it's like the college district is so upset about the fact that they're not voting for the governor. And they're not just voting for the governor. They're not just voting for the governor. going to come out of that. school district fluent and they got rid of all of that. And then there was a confusing takeover where the state started closing schools as well. And that happened too. And of course, it's also very, this sort of state takeover is also very antithetical to what we think of as traditional Republican ideology and that rubbed them the wrong way as well. Trump is not popular there. We also, fascinating, Mitch Landrieu spoke with two Hispanic small business owners who had both their construction, they have a construction company. They had both voted for Trump. They were very patriotic, voted for him for the economy. And they're going to vote for Democrats now too, because the way he's corrupted immigration enforcement has handicapped their business. And also it's really, and Gina Hinojosa brought this up too, it seems it's really struck a chord with Hispanics in Texas, their patriotic pride. You know, they're really proud to be American. They think they've worked really hard for that. They're culturally conservative and it's an insult to them when they're, you know, when they're, when everyone is rounded up, when no one, when, you know, whether you're here with documentation or not is treated as the same. Super interesting place. Yeah. I mean, I'm very fascinated by Texas. It's, you know, I don't want to get my hopes up for it, but this is, there's a convergence here between the kind of Republican Paxton is, the kind of Democrat Tallarico is, the dramatic, this is the dramatic shift in the Latino vote, which is happening to Trump across the country, but it happened, this is, yeah, I mean, if it's going to, he's going to pay a price for it. It is in Texas more than almost anywhere else in the country. 53% of Hispanic men, in Texas voted for him in 24, I think, a big jump. It was like a 13, 15 point jump from 20, but that feels, you know, that feels tough now. I mean, you know, Texas is still super conservative. It's, you know, just to remind everyone, it's not all Austin and Houston. It's places like Tyler. It's, you know, places like Laredo. We went to Laredo, which was super cool. You know, right on the, my hotel balcony looked out over, the Rio Grande and the bar. It was like, our hotel was sort of part of the border patrol. I did not understand what I was looking at for like two minutes. I mean, I, Dan, I thought it was like the catering part of the hotel. I was like, oh, that chain link fence with the awning, that must be where they bring the catering down. I was like, oh, that's, that's not what happens there. Oh no, that's where the border patrol is. Yes. Right. Democrats are going to have to do better in the South, particularly when the, as the electoral map is going to change up the 2032 census, the blue wall is, will it be insufficient to win the presidency in and of itself as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin potentially lose electoral votes and Texas and Florida gain them. So we, there's Georgia and North Carolina where that, you know, Georgia is battleground state. North Carolina is a battleground state, but as you point out, it's one that we've struggled with at the presidential level, although have won, you know, we've had run three statewide governance races there. We've run a few statewide races last time. Is there another Southern state that you look at that could be the next one to go? Like, is there a Georgia in the making out there somewhere? It's a law. I think it's a long way off, but people point to Alabama as that state because of the size of the black population, because of the sign. I mean, here's the thing with Mississippi and Alabama, right? That it is. I think Georgia probably has the third highest per capita percentage, black voters, Mississippi and Alabama have the highest or about 39%. And, but what's happening. Um, and they just have not been, you know, and I was born in Mississippi. I lived in Mississippi, um, and South Carolina until I was 11. So I kind of, you know, I love this part of the region. It like would kill me, Dan, how we just like a similar, it's like I left and I never had a reason to go back because even for work, right. Because we just like, it's like, well, this is, this is what happens when you ignore a region. Um, and the thing with Alabama is, uh, there's a high percentage of black voters. There's just a lot happening there. Um, Huntsville is a big, you know, NASA is there. There's a lot of research there. There's people moving to Huntsville. I think it's like the second fastest growing city in the South. It's diverse. So kind of the way that the research triangle in North Carolina attracted new kinds of voters. Um, Huntsville is doing that. And then Birmingham is really growing. And, you know, it's, it's really growing economically, but also you're starting to see new kinds of democratic infrastructure come into Birmingham. So, um, Doug Jones is running for governor there, former democratic United States Senator. Uh, we're going to go, I'm super psyched to go to Alabama because, you know, you just don't hear it really interesting culture to interesting music. Music's a big part of the show too. Um, so that people are moving with a little more intention in Alabama, but like it's a way Tennessee is kind of the, uh, I feel like Tennessee is another place that with focus could change. There's a lot of, um, people that are pretty, you know, really angry at the way they've just, you know, I think at the, after this election that there will probably not be a democratic member of the house representing Tennessee anymore. They gerrymandered, um, Jim Cooper out a few years ago, and now they're gerrymandering the last standing Democrat and it will be nine zero. Um, and then the expectation has come next year. They will gerrymander the state legislature as well. And that the resentment there is building now, but you got to get better candidates. As we are having this conversation, the DNC rules and bylaws committee is meeting about what the presidential calendar is going to look like. There's John and I talked earlier in the conversation about, you know, how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and how we're going to do this and maybe two Southern states, South Carolina being one, and then possibly either North Carolina, Virginia, or possibly Georgia. Although as John and I discussed, you need the governor to change the law to move the primary, which, you know, it's possible you and the governing legislature, which is, could be an impediment there. Do you think that having the democratic primary presidential primary takes place in the South would be a net positive or a net negative for impressions of the South and our ability to win a general election? I think it's better. I think, I mean, first of all, I think Democrats would learn the South more, right? Which I think is really important. And, you know, I think if you look at the stereotype of a Christian conservative mother who's Republican and voted for Trump three times and Greg Abbott three times, you probably didn't imagine that she didn't want the 10 commandments taught in school and that she wanted her children to be taught Spanish. And she didn't want to be taught Spanish. And she did not want this kind of takeover of schools, right? So there's so many stereotypes that I feel like familiarity, um, our candidates in these States, um, you know, and, and the staff, you know, the like infrastructure, democratic infrastructure, happy to focus on this, on the state too, I think is a net plus, but I can imagine some of the concerns that you and Favs might have raised. Yeah. I'm I've, we didn't get too much into like the long-term impact. Like the question we have is about, um, you know, obviously we need the States to be representative of the party in the country and you want the States to be, there's sort of a short-term and a long-term, right? With the short-term is it's great if it's in a swing state because you do all this investment and in building infrastructure there. And then you can use that infrastructure in the general, which worked great in the years in which Iowa and New Hampshire were swings were states, right? Yeah. Right. Iowa, less so at the presidential level, New Hampshire, sort of on the cusp of there. Okay. But there is this argument for long-term, which is if you actually had people investing in the state, you know, you had a two-year cycle or an 18 month cycle where people were organizing the state within an inch of his life that could be, you know, then you have the right demographic movement, you have the right political environment. You might actually, that's kind of the, a get some investment in the state that could lead to some of the things you talked about in Georgia, at least on the, on the progressive organizing side. I think that would really help. In North Carolina in particular, you know, because I think the problem in North Carolina is inattention to rural areas. And, you know, I talked to some rural state lawmakers that represent some of the black rural counties and they're like, there's just, you know, maybe if they heard something other than caricatures of Democrats, they would feel, they would feel differently. So it is like, it's, it's that kind of stuff that's killing Democrats. It's the national, um, you know, particularly if you're running for a federal state, whether it's in the house or the Senate, it's like, that's, you know, that's why North Carolina is sort of the inverse of Georgia, which is it can elect governors, but it can't elect senators in Georgia. They elect senators, Democrats, but not governors. Although hopefully we'll be electing a democratic Senator in North Carolina this year. Cause if we don't, we're in big trouble. If Roy Cooper's not winning, we're not taking the Senate. That looks good. But I would just say the thing that they're like, they're nervous about the people are nervous about a couple of things. One, Michael Watley, who's the Republican opponent has not gone up on air yet. That may, you know, he's not, you know, so they're like, Hey, we're at 48, his approval rating is 48%. I would like Roy Cooper's approval rating to be at 50%. You know, it's not. And, um, they haven't even gone after him yet. And then you know, it's just a tough, it's just a tough state and people aren't giving him as much money as other candidates because they think North Carolina is fine. So, um, but North Carolina has elected that guy a lot. I think four times as 80, six. Yes. And twice with Trump on the ballot, which is a great feat. Um, I talked to Governor Cooper a couple of weeks ago, um, on Ponce America and you can feel the trepidation of people. Too many people are counting the chickens before they're hatched here. Um, and just, this is, this is not going to be a seven point race. He's not winning by seven points. It's going to be a very close race. It's just, there's this, as you point out, he's right, kind of, you know, right around 50 in his, in a lot of this polling, but either, but he's not a high above it. And so while a lot of that vote, Watley is going to pick up and make it close. And so it's going to be, it's going to be a close race. One interesting, Democratic congressional candidate I met in North Carolina just as a Jamie Ager, who he is running. Um, he's in West North Carolina near Asheville. Uh, his grandfather was a Congressman, but he is not, does not, he's just, does not feel political at all. He's a farmer. Um, and he's running against Chuck Edwards, the incumbent who just about a month ago was like, Oh, wait for it. Shocker has like, you know, a problem with like sexually harassing his staffers and there's an ethics investigation of him. So, uh, that's like newly interesting. And he's like a very compelling guy. All right. We will, we will check him out. Fed hogs with him. I am. I'm very excited for long play. Everyone should check it out. Uh, YouTube, where you get your podcasts. This is fun for me. Cause I am a long time Jen Palmieri fan. So I'm excited to watch it myself. Um, it's a very, very cool project. We're very, very excited to be participating in it with you. And, uh, it's great to talk to you. Thanks. That's our show for today. Thanks to Jen Palmieri for coming on everyone. Check out long play on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. It'll be out there. It'll be out on Tuesday. I'll be back on Sunday with slow borings, Matt Iglesias diving deeper into the midterms in 2028. Can't wait. Bye everyone. Pods of America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.