We Have Six Months to Crush Trump. Here's the Playbook. | Bulwark on Sunday

0:00 Hi, Bill Crystal here.

0:01 Welcome to Bull Work on Sunday.

0:02 Sarah Long and I are actually doing

0:04 this on Saturday so we can celebrate Mother's Day appropriately.

0:07 Don't want to be accused of, you know,

0:09 disrupting a traditional American holiday by insisting

0:12 on the bull work uh on Sunday live.

0:15 So, make an exception and we're going we're [snorts] doing it a day early.

0:18 Sarah, thanks for joining me on this Saturday.

0:20 Yeah, thanks for having me.

0:21 Let's get into it.

0:22 Lots going on.

0:23 Happy Mother's Day one day ahead of time.

0:24 And um Mother's Day is a big it's a real big

0:27 holiday in our house cuz there's two of us.

0:29 And so um you know it's like the it's the it's the high holiday of our house.

0:34 That's nice.

0:35 That's very charming.

0:36 A lot of news this past week.

0:37 You and Sam Stein discussed on Friday the redistricting uh the opinion

0:41 of the Virginia Supreme Court on res

0:43 redistricting and certain amount of defeatism

0:46 I'd say coming from or very a lot of handrigging from Democrats understandable

0:50 I suppose and a little bit of defeatism from some on the left.

0:52 But uh you've got strong feelings about this and I have some thoughts too.

0:56 So what should people what do we what do we do?

0:58 What's what do we do this May?

1:00 Here we are on May 10th.

1:01 What what's the situation?

1:02 Look, first of all, this decision is a real it's just a gut punch

1:06 from an actual um you know where where it looked like things were going.

1:11 um this this blue wave in the traditional way we talk about

1:15 it blue tsunami like the fact that Dems are up like there's

1:18 just been a lot of confidence going into the midterms and when

1:23 Trump kicked off his redistricting war the midcycle redistricting to try to ek

1:28 out more seats to see if he could offset uh the enthusiasm

1:32 by Democrats you know Democrats got in the game and fought back

1:36 and I think that was one of the first big signs of life

1:40 we've seen seen from Democrats is being willing to say, "No, no, no.

1:43 We're going to go toe-to-toe with you on this." And it

1:47 was looking like Trump had made a mistake

1:49 that it was going to net out in Democrats

1:52 favor between um them winning the referendum in uh California,

1:57 winning the referendum in Virginia.

1:59 And so, and it was looking like it was going to be like

2:01 a uh like a a rake stepping situation for the Republicans and Trump.

2:07 Then came the Supreme Court.

2:08 and the Supreme Court um you know guts the VRA and also allows

2:14 states to go ahead and redistrict even

2:18 though they're already voting in their primaries.

2:21 Like you know you got places like

2:23 Louisiana where Landry just suspends a a primary

2:26 that's already going and says no no no cuz we're going to redistrict.

2:29 Tennessee is redistricting these other states in the south

2:32 and the Supreme Court gave them the green light to do it.

2:35 So that they were already in a position to pick

2:37 up more seats than it originally uh people had originally anticipated.

2:41 And then the Virginia Supreme Court yesterday throws out uh the results

2:48 of the referendum in which um Abigail Spanberger had they had won.

2:53 They had won via ballot initiative.

2:54 People had gone they had voted uh to to be able to to redistrict.

3:00 And Abigail Spanberger spent a lot of political capital on this.

3:04 um meaning she was, you know,

3:05 it was like basically the first really big thing she did and so it was important

3:09 that they won even though the referendum won

3:11 by a much lower margin than she won.

3:14 Um but it got across the finish line.

3:16 The courts throw it out on a technicality that I have been trying

3:21 to figure out how um what level of rage I should feel at the technicality.

3:27 I'm like, do they have a point?

3:29 I need to talk to some lawyers because I'm

3:30 trying to figure out if there's if there's something

3:32 to this or if it's a pure partisan court

3:35 uh action like what I think the Supreme Courts was.

3:39 Um and so I I understand why people feel

3:43 this gut punch because it feels like wait a minute, we went and voted for this.

3:47 We passed it.

3:48 We did it exactly the right way and now it's getting thrown out.

3:53 Okay.

3:54 All that said, anger.

3:56 Anger.

3:57 What do you do in the face of that?

3:59 Okay.

4:00 And I think that the the justifiable sort of rage people are feeling needs

4:05 to be channeled in a a better way than what I am seeing online.

4:10 Now granted, what happens online is not always exactly real life,

4:13 but there's sort of a sense of, man, let's, you know, I just,

4:18 you see some of these popular people who are online influencers saying like,

4:23 go run these people down, run these Supreme Court uh justices and like

4:27 get in their faces and call them pigs.

4:29 And it's just like there is only one way out of this.

4:32 And and I I I sort of got into it with some of them online,

4:36 which was a mistake, and I have to stop doing it.

4:38 Um because I was saying like, hey, actually the way out of this is that you

4:43 have to persuade more voters to vote for Democrats.

4:47 Like that is the only way we have to persuade

4:49 more voters to vote for Democrats um in 2026.

4:53 And the response is sort of like we just voted.

4:56 We voted for this referendum and they threw it out.

4:58 What are we supposed to do?

4:59 Vote harder?

5:01 And I want to respond to that cuz

5:03 that there's a part of me that's like, okay, fair.

5:05 like you're like, "We are voting.

5:07 We are winning." And they're just throwing this stuff out.

5:10 It's not that you have to vote harder.

5:12 It's that more people have to vote with you.

5:15 Okay?

5:16 This is about building a much bigger movement.

5:20 And a movement that starts with um you know,

5:24 are we how are we going to burn it all down is

5:27 not going to get you where you want to go in the midterms.

5:28 And I'll just I I was sort of went and read about nonviolent resistance.

5:33 Um, and I think that one of the things to understand is that throughout history,

5:38 especially modern history, like very much modern history,

5:42 nonviolent resistance has been much more

5:45 effective at making change than violent resistance.

5:49 Um, and so there are are all kinds of ways to do non-violent resistance that I

5:54 think before we get to the place

5:55 where everybody's like jumps to these extreme responses,

6:00 right, is to say, "All right,

6:02 well, what can we do in the context of like not an illiberal reaction,

6:07 not one that brings violence into the equation where you say, okay,

6:11 we've got to figure out how to persuade a lot more people.

6:13 We got to put bodies in the streets.

6:15 We've got to create a sense of urgency among the voters.

6:19 We have to win in 2026 by the biggest margin possible.

6:23 So what are the things you do to make that happen?

6:26 Number one, you have to win the Senate.

6:30 Okay?

6:31 And that means Michigan, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa.

6:38 Uh and we are still in the primary selection phase of a lot of these uh races.

6:45 And so people should be looking to steally

6:49 pragmatism around which candidate is most likely to win.

6:53 Which candidate is most likely to win

6:55 uh against the Republican in the general election.

6:58 That's number one.

6:59 Number two, you have to get Trump below 30%.

7:04 So I sort of I I I my first real laying out of the Bush

7:08 line was with you on this podcast uh

7:11 where we talked about getting Trump below 32%.

7:14 I think that Trump is Look, Trump is mirroring that.

7:17 He's he's he's in the mid-30s in most of the polls.

7:20 Let's get him lower because the lower you can get Trump,

7:23 the lower you can get Republicans.

7:26 The more you can get voters to say, "This administration is failing us.

7:29 They got us into a war.

7:31 Gas prices are way up.

7:32 Costs are way up.

7:33 People are enraged.

7:35 They are failing." This is how you get to a D+ 10,

7:38 D plus 12 on the generic ballot.

7:41 That is how you engineer an an election of overwhelming

7:46 force uh to ensure that you have political power.

7:49 Like if you want structural reform,

7:51 so I hear a lot of people being like we need to we need to expand the court.

7:55 Uh now that's one reform I don't agree with cuz I would do term limits.

8:00 I would do age restrictions.

8:01 Like I whatever that's just a decision I do

8:03 I believe the court does need to be reformed.

8:05 Um, but I think there's a a whole number

8:07 of institutional democratic reforms that need to be enacted.

8:11 To do that though, you've got to get political power first.

8:14 You have to get political power.

8:16 We do not live in a country where you can take political power by force.

8:20 You can only do it by persuading the maximum amount

8:23 of people to come with you and vote with you.

8:27 And so that is that is the thing that I'm feeling this morning.

8:31 That was good and eloquent and powerful.

8:33 I mean, I just have a few photos,

8:34 all of which I think complement what you're saying.

8:37 A, I've been through a bunch of these midterms,

8:39 including ones where I was on the very much on the winning side,

8:41 the Republican side in '94, for example.

8:44 And there's zigzags.

8:45 I mean, none of these things goes in a straight line for 12 months.

8:47 And so there was a very good several months with November's elections

8:51 and then as you say the the increasing data from the polls

8:54 and your focus groups about the direction things were going the continuing

8:58 democratic wildly democratic overperformance in special

9:01 elections the state senate race

9:03 in Michigan just which is a swing state incidentally a district Harris

9:06 carried by one point the Democrat won by 20 points up around

9:09 Sageno uh on Tuesday so it's not the the evidence remains there

9:13 there are some zigzags this is a real setback but secondly So,

9:17 A just accepts that they'll be zigzags.

9:20 B, this is a real setback,

9:21 but people are being a little too fatalistic about it.

9:23 In Tennessee, where they really did this dramatic

9:26 redistricting to destroy the the majority minority district,

9:29 the black district in Memphis,

9:31 ironically, been represented for 20 years by white,

9:33 as it happens, who's responsive to their his constituents, though.

9:36 So, that's kind of good.

9:37 That's democracy, right?

9:38 Uh kind of puts the light to the fact that everything is identity politics.

9:41 Anyway, um this district's been split up

9:44 into three districts where the black areas are

9:46 broken up and put into white rural areas so that they get kind of swamped.

9:51 I was on a call Friday about this um and and someone began

9:55 looked at it closely in 2018 when uh Tennessee had a good Democratic candidate,

9:59 Phil Bredesen, for the Senate.

10:01 So, it's it's a good year for Tennessee Democrats,

10:03 but not a may not be better this year.

10:06 He got 49 or 48% of the vote

10:07 in the three districts as currently as newly constituted.

10:11 These are not impossible races to win.

10:13 And the same is true in other states, including in Virginia.

10:16 I think you you're going to go from a plus4 outcome probably,

10:18 but quite conceivably to plus two or three almost

10:21 I think almost certainly actually to plus one still.

10:23 So it's not people are slightly overdoing it.

10:26 Look, the Republicans aren't idiots.

10:28 They have good computers and they can write them.

10:30 They can draw the maps and they're being extremely aggressive and going

10:32 for it all this year once the Supreme Court uh opened the door.

10:36 No question about that.

10:37 Um, so worth deploring that and being angry about that.

10:42 But people shouldn't, you know,

10:43 they should turn out voters and especially in the obviously

10:46 in in states and districts where u this has happened.

10:49 Uh, including I'd say black voters who are being

10:52 treated a little bit as if they're helpless pawns here.

10:54 They can turn out and vote a lot.

10:55 And that gets to your point about the Senate,

10:56 which I've been saying for a while.

10:58 The Senate is in play.

10:59 And there are plenty of plenty of evidence.

11:01 There's a poll in Kansas that came out this week

11:03 where it's not clear who the Democratic candidate will be,

11:05 but this was done by the by Patrick Schmidt campaign,

11:08 a young veteran who's a state legislator,

11:11 losing to Marshall, the incumbent Republican 4945.

11:15 No one knows Schmidt.

11:15 I mean, he's known in his own state senate district,

11:17 and he's within four points.

11:19 Trump is underwater by seven points in Kansas,

11:22 which gets to your next point and Senate races, whatever.

11:24 You think of the Senate which is generically uh um this district was what I'm

11:30 looking for Jerry Magic as it were because the rural states have so much more

11:33 representation but it can't be changed right

11:36 midterm it's the same the same Mary Pata

11:39 won Alaska it's the same state that she you know she won the the sole

11:43 congressional seat there she's now running against

11:45 Sullivan she can win again and and I

11:47 think this is very much true in in in other states so I think

11:50 the Senate people have been too pessimistic

11:51 about they've gotten a little more optimistic

11:53 but they really need to focus on that because

11:55 I think the House will come through.

11:56 If the House doesn't come through, we're in a lot of trouble.

11:59 And I think the House is going to come through.

12:01 I think it come through with decent numbers.

12:02 But the Senate's so key for 2027 28

12:05 in terms of stopping some really bad things from happening,

12:08 checking Trump, real accountability,

12:10 no confirmation of very few confirmations of judges,

12:14 including maybe Supreme Court,

12:15 but certainly at the district appellet court level,

12:17 just all kinds of laying the predicate

12:20 for being able to govern again really in 2029.

12:22 So, I'm very much where you you are on the on all of this.

12:26 People just need to they need to both be angry but calm down a little

12:29 bit and really focus on what has to be what has to be done.

12:33 We've seen plenty of victories already.

12:35 If if we can get the margins that Democrats got in November

12:39 of 2025 in real elections and not and for with good candidates

12:44 but not you know not not super great candidates necessarily uh

12:48 in states that were democratic but had

12:50 been moving Republicans outperformed in 2024.

12:54 If you can get anything like the increase from 24 to 25,

12:57 if you can get that in 26, u they can overcome these these obstacles, I think.

13:02 And but to get that, you do need persuasion.

13:04 And [snorts] that's now part of final point I'm making.

13:07 I'm curious what you think about this.

13:08 I think sent one says persuasion when you say it because you made clear

13:12 it's it's a kind of how should I put this aggressive form of persuasion.

13:16 Uh most of which involves driving Trump's numbers.

13:18 A lot of which most of which I guess is fair

13:20 to say involves driving Trump's persuading people to vote to check Trump.

13:24 The answer some is oh the Democrats aren't popular

13:27 and persuasion is very difficult and voters are dug in.

13:30 some truth to all that obviously, but a lot of persuasion is dissuasion, right?

13:34 It's you need to check Trump and that part I think we've had a lot of progress.

13:39 People are too we're always taking it for granted

13:41 that Trump's in let's say the high30s even.

13:43 That's a long way from 50.

13:45 We didn't think he was going to be in the high 30s 69 months ago.

13:47 Remember then the narrative was all

13:49 Trump's he just can't dent Trump's popularity.

13:52 He's got a mystical hold on these voters.

13:54 They can't be changed.

13:55 You know, you know what are we going to do?

13:57 Oh my god.

13:58 I always believe you could drive him down.

14:00 You were right and I was in all these phone calls

14:02 just to go on for a minute more about with elite types.

14:04 How are we going to persuade the people?

14:06 The problem turned out not it's not been so far the people.

14:08 The problem is the elites and their institutions which

14:10 are not incidentally leaving Trump the way they should be.

14:13 But that's another conversation.

14:14 Anyway, his numbers are down.

14:15 I don't know probably about 37 38 if you average them all.

14:18 But that's pretty far down.

14:20 I that is where Bush was in 20 in 2006.

14:25 That almost exactly.

14:26 It'd be great to get him to 32, which is your brush Bush line.

14:29 That was Bush in 2008.

14:30 Be great to get Trump to that in 20 2026.

14:33 Maybe 27 or 28 is more realistic.

14:36 But I agree, the Trump number remains just so fundamental.

14:39 Every study shows that in a midterm election

14:41 when the president's party has controlled both houses,

14:44 so it really becomes a referendum on do you want to let him keep doing what

14:46 he wants to do or do you want to elect a party that will check him?

14:50 So, yeah, I agree.

14:50 people are uh people need to uh toughen up a little

14:54 but also calm down a little at the same time and then

14:57 really work hard on the persuasion dissuasion side of things

14:59 and that that obviously will be different

15:01 messages in different states and different localities.

15:04 This voting rights stuff isn't popular.

15:06 I can't believe that people think this is a great

15:08 idea in a lot of parts of the country, including the other states, right?

15:10 I mean, that, you know, there could be more turnout in Michigan and Ohio

15:14 because of what's happening in Tennessee in a way, right?

15:16 Is that the kind of country we want where you just and Mississippi and Alabama

15:21 like just go back to no representation in a sense for blacks in the south?

15:25 Anyway, that's that's my my my footnotes to your to your excellent rant.

15:30 Um, what and on the persuasion dissuasion thing, you do the focus groups.

15:34 I mean where what you know concretely you've told the Democrats expand

15:39 the get more voters on board expand the me you know be

15:43 [clears throat] more effective at the messaging uh [snorts] and explaining why

15:46 it's so important what in particular here's a few things number one

15:50 let's talk about what offense looks like going into the summer gas

15:54 prices are going to be extraordinary the summer is when people travel

16:00 it's when they go on their road trips it's when they're filling

16:02 up their RVs uh especially Trump voters uh and their their boats.

16:07 Um and look, it's when people are looking to to to be out having fun, right?

16:14 They're going to barbecue.

16:15 Guess what?

16:16 Meat's really expensive.

16:17 They're going to they're going to drink.

16:19 Guess what?

16:20 All of alcohol because of the tariffs is is more expensive.

16:23 Uh they're going to drive places.

16:25 Gas is out of control.

16:26 They're going to fly places.

16:27 Uh gas is going to make all of that stuff more expensive.

16:30 And so the ability to hammer for voters

16:35 that Donald Trump is messing with your summer plans,

16:38 making it all more expensive.

16:40 And Bill, you know this.

16:42 What is the month that voters really turn on presidents?

16:48 It's August.

16:50 August is often for whether it was Trump's first term, whether it was Biden.

16:55 And and honestly, this is like usually the August

16:58 of the first term is kind of when like the honeymoon ends,

17:01 but like the August of the second year, uh I'm sorry,

17:06 the the the August of the first year is when the honeymoon ends.

17:09 The second year can be when you put a fork in the sky.

17:12 Just look in 2006 that was really the case.

17:14 I'm here in here in Virginia.

17:16 That's when the the bottom fell out and George Allen,

17:18 who was supposed to be coasting to re-election

17:19 to the Senate so he could run for president in 2008, suddenly started to fade.

17:24 and and Jim Webb, a kind of flukeish,

17:27 you know, Democratic nominee in a sense, nice guy,

17:29 but not your typical Democratic nominee,

17:31 came from behind to and ended up catching him and and 94 very much in August.

17:35 So, I I very much agree the summer is when but by September,

17:38 the voters have made up their minds to some degree.

17:40 That's right.

17:41 And so, we have we are going into summer months when people

17:45 are going to be at their premium angry about prices and costs.

17:50 That puts us into September and October, right?

17:53 when we will have the Democratic candidates locked.

17:56 And this is when you organize.

17:58 This is when you go hard.

17:59 This is when you go hard at Trump.

18:00 I mean, I just I'm watching these guys.

18:02 The Duffies.

18:04 Okay.

18:04 Sean and Rachel Duffy.

18:08 One is a Rachel is a Fox News Morning person.

18:11 He is the Secretary of Transportation.

18:13 I know them both from the Real World and the Real World Road

18:16 Rules challenges because they used to be

18:18 reality TV stars just like Donald Trump.

18:20 What did they do for the last seven months?

18:23 They went on a road trip that was sponsored by the companies

18:27 that Shawn Duffy regulates in his current role as Secretary of Transportation.

18:32 And they made a documentary of the whole thing.

18:35 I'm sorry.

18:36 You went on a big family road trip for 7

18:38 months to make content to make to make a documentary

18:41 content so you can all get a little bit more

18:43 famous while everybody else is paying for higher gas prices.

18:46 That's how you go on offense, right?

18:48 Like that is like tell the story.

18:50 John Oaf's doing a good job of this in Georgia.

18:52 Tell the story of Donald Trump's corruption.

18:54 Tell the story of Donald Trump's ballroom.

18:57 Donald Trump gets a billion of your dollars

19:00 for his ballroom while your prices go up.

19:03 Like, and this is where I I don't want

19:05 to uh push back on your notion of calm down,

19:09 but like I actually don't think people need to be more calm.

19:12 I just think they need to have the appropriate direction for their anger,

19:17 which is not violence ever,

19:19 which is not um sort of throwing up your hands and feeling like it's over.

19:24 It's not doubting that democracy can work.

19:26 It is about being like, "Okay,

19:29 so this is this is this is we're going to play it as it lays." And um

19:33 and and they should feel optimistic about the fact

19:37 that Trump is at a low eb and can go lower.

19:41 um and has the potential to go lower over the next three months.

19:44 And so let's push him as low as the lower that Trump goes,

19:48 so goes the Republican party.

19:50 It diminishes enthusiasm when people show up to vote,

19:54 Dems actually have a real structural advantage in the midterms

19:59 because despite the sort of angry people online,

20:02 people who show up to vote are a lot of these like,

20:05 you know, normie Dems coming out in droves and droves.

20:08 Um, many of them are are old people,

20:10 people who used to vote for John McCain and Mitt Romney

20:12 and now vote for Democrats and they always vote in midterms.

20:16 Republicans don't.

20:17 And so you want Trump to be on the ballot for the people

20:19 who hate him and not on the ballot for the people who love him.

20:23 And that is doable.

20:24 Yeah.

20:24 And I think, you know, people this notion that driving Trump's numbers

20:27 down translates into voting either for Democrats

20:30 or at least staying home and not voting for Trump sounds a little abstract.

20:33 A, there's a lot of just evidence that that's the case.

20:35 And B, it it is makes sense.

20:37 I mean if you if you do we want Trump to control Congress

20:40 for the next two years or not that's the fundamental issue and so

20:43 the Trump question is the central question

20:45 however much not to say that individual

20:47 candidates and individual issues is the state

20:50 and local level don't matter what one

20:53 has to be also aggressive I know you counel this all the time

20:56 uh in an opportunistic way if they give you a chance to really exploit

21:00 something do so and this ballroom uh which is a billion dollars it's

21:04 one thing for Trump to for the corruption

21:06 that's terrible and worth really exploiting.

21:07 And not exploiting is not even the word,

21:09 just just pointing out, you know, uh is terrible.

21:12 This they are are asking Congress,

21:15 the Republican members of Congress to actually vote for this billion dollars.

21:19 So there it's not just a theoretical gee,

21:21 you didn't step up when Trump was doing this bad thing.

21:25 It's you voted affirmatively to give a billion dollars

21:29 for this unnecessary ballroom allegedly for the security stuff.

21:33 If there is security problem, it's because Trump destroyed the East Wing.

21:35 There was the White House was secure and incidentally

21:37 the White House has been secure for the last

21:39 6 months since the white as the East Wing

21:41 was destroyed and a million of events happened there.

21:43 The King Charles was hosted there and no one was like,

21:45 "Oh my god, it's he can't show up.

21:47 It's insecure.

21:48 It's all ridiculous and they need to just hammer them when they

21:51 have a chance like this and not overthink things in a way.

21:53 Obviously the the prices and the cost is the central issue in people's minds,

21:57 but there are others.

21:59 Final point I'll make on this is I one big advantage another

22:02 big advantage Democrats have is sometimes you just have a general malaise is

22:06 a sense of of country's not going well and that hurts an incumbent

22:08 president but what hurts most is if you can tie the the the things

22:13 people don't like to decisions this president and this Congress have made

22:18 and that's where the tariffs I think come back to be very important where

22:21 you can really in Midwestern states say the reason we're having a farm

22:25 economy recession where bankruptcies fertilize etc has

22:29 to do with actual with the tariffs.

22:31 Trump put on the tariffs, the Chinese retaliated and your soybeans are

22:34 rotting in a silo somewhere in Kansas.

22:36 I mean, it's not theoretical.

22:37 It's not, well, everything's kind of tough.

22:39 You in a way the 2020 I've always

22:41 thought the pandemic JVL was always so frustrated

22:44 that Trump paid less of a price than

22:46 he should have for his unbelievable mismanagement of it.

22:49 But people did have a sense of uh it's

22:51 just like no one's ever been through this and it's

22:53 being screwed up all over the world and maybe

22:54 Trump scooted up a little too, you know.

22:56 That's not the case with with the tariffs

22:58 and it's certainly not the case with the war.

23:00 There there's no mystery about why gas prices have

23:02 gone up by 40% in the last two months.

23:05 They went up the mo they begin began going

23:08 up the moment Trump launched the war and they've

23:10 gone up because of the way he's conducted

23:11 the war and his failure to reopen the trade.

23:13 There's no ma you know exogenous macroeconomic variables going on here.

23:19 So I think it's so same with the fertilizer stuff in the Midwest.

23:22 Incidentally it's which depends on petrochemicals

23:24 that come through the straight.

23:25 So, I think it's an unusual opportunity

23:28 to really tie these these things people are

23:31 correctly unhappy about directly to Trump

23:33 and in some cases directly to the Republican Congress.

23:37 Right now, Iowa Democrats haven't won Iowa since 200 Well,

23:44 they Barack Obama won it twice.

23:46 Right.

23:47 Right.

23:47 Right.

23:47 And then they have basically haven't won it since.

23:49 Uh right.

23:51 You can win Iowa this year.

23:53 you know, Turk is a is a good candidate.

23:56 Um, I think I think better than Walls.

23:58 Uh, because this is Iowa.

23:59 Like people after I I know Walls is the more progressive of the two.

24:03 This is this is Iowa.

24:05 Like uh and Turk's an interesting candidate.

24:08 He can win.

24:09 Like you could win in Iowa.

24:10 This is where instead of instead of going

24:12 and screaming at the Virginia Supreme Court,

24:15 like be mad and figure out how to win Iowa.

24:17 Like that is correctly channel that anger.

24:21 uh go to Iowa and help organize, send money to to Turk.

24:25 Um help help uh let's let's put up billboards all over the state reminding

24:30 people what Donald Trump has done to farmers and to crater the state's economy.

24:34 This is all doable.

24:35 It just I think people have to Yeah.

24:38 Don't get defeist and stay focused on the opportunity in front of us.

24:42 Like Donald Trump and so much of this is

24:45 of his own making and the voters do know.

24:47 Look, I sit through the focus groups and everybody's like,

24:49 uh, how can you sit through the focus groups?

24:50 How can you listen to these voters?

24:51 The focus groups have been downright I've been downright giddy

24:54 in the focus groups the last few months because voters are so mad.

24:58 Trump voters are so mad at Donald Trump.

25:02 They think he's lied to them.

25:03 They think that gas prices are way too high.

25:05 He hasn't done anything about grocery prices.

25:07 They can't afford stuff.

25:08 Their their hearts are like breaking

25:10 over how horrible the economic situation is.

25:13 Okay.

25:14 Um, obviously it s it very much sucks that people have to hurt like that.

25:18 And that's why this it's all about the contrast.

25:20 Like you don't have to do one or the other.

25:22 Go on offense against Trump.

25:24 Yes.

25:25 But also present the contrast.

25:27 Your life is getting worse.

25:28 He's getting a ballroom.

25:30 Democrats have to be like, "We're a better alternative.

25:32 Let's explain why we're a better alternative.

25:34 We're going to focus on affordability.

25:36 We're going to focus on make your life better.

25:37 We're not going to let him spend a billion of your dollars on a ballroom

25:41 while your grocery prices go up." Like that is how you present the contrast

25:45 and that's what you need I think to make people as mad as you

25:48 can at Trump and then be like and I'm going to do something about it.

25:51 And you've I think you you've stressed this recently well

25:55 throughout but I mean especially you found this in the focus

25:57 groups recently a lot of unhappiness that sort of that links

26:00 it together in the sense that Trump's not focused on you.

26:02 He's focused on himself.

26:04 all the self-indulgence, the megalomania, the ballroom,

26:07 the you know the just it all the arch

26:11 I mean all this nonsense which incidentally well

26:14 I'll say word about that in a second

26:15 but yeah which I do think contrast with I mean

26:18 his most effective thing in 2016 I remember being

26:20 in Cleveland uh at the Republican convention and watching

26:23 him say Hillary Clinton says we're with her [snorts]

26:27 uh I think that was her slogan right I'm with her uh I say to you I'm with you.

26:34 Yeah.

26:35 And I thought at that moment, oh, he could win this.

26:37 You know, that is a very effective jiu-jitsu thing on Hillary's thing,

26:41 which one understands what Hillary was trying to get

26:42 at and all that, but it turned out, I think, to be a mistake.

26:46 And he Trump rode the I'm with you stuff for so long,

26:49 uh, when he shouldn't have been able to and whatever.

26:52 And I do feel like that's finally being

26:54 undercut uh partly just by the reality of things,

26:57 but partly by the fact that he so conspicuously

26:59 cares so much more about his ballroom and his arch

27:02 and all this nonsense uh than about what's happening

27:05 to real people out in the around the country.

27:07 I mean that that's where the little things I think do add up.

27:10 But he he he just can't speak about any issue without going off

27:13 into his own uh you know edifice complex and wish for to to you

27:19 know to recognize himself because he

27:21 knows that other people probably won't later

27:23 on want to build monuments to him so he's got to build them.

27:25 This is the other thing is like Trump is old.

27:28 He's very old.

27:30 Guys talk about how old he is.

27:33 Never stop talking about how old he is.

27:35 How he's his hands are bruised from what?

27:37 Aggressive handshaking.

27:39 uh he's losing his mind.

27:40 All he talks about is how he keeps taking cognitive tests.

27:43 They only give you those cognitive tests

27:45 if they think something's wrong with you, right?

27:46 And also, every time he describes one of the cognitive tests,

27:49 it's like, can you identify the giraffe in this picture?

27:52 That's not [laughter] this is this is not

27:54 this is the president of the United States,

27:56 but they but the voters do know that the war is

28:00 his fault and they know that the tariffs are his fault.

28:03 This is actually really important because I think

28:05 for a lot of times people can sort of say,

28:07 well, Trump, you know, it's not Trump's fault.

28:10 We're still living in Biden's economy, right?

28:12 That's not it.

28:13 People know that Trump's tariffs are driving up cost and they know that the war

28:17 in Iran is directly linked to oil prices uh and their gas prices.

28:21 You've got him.

28:21 You don't have to you don't have to nec It's not just that you I mean,

28:25 you obviously should blame him all the time.

28:27 We also just need to remind

28:29 people persuasion isn't about changing people's minds.

28:33 Persuasion is about unlocking things that people already know.

28:37 Billboards uh on every highway as people

28:40 drive and as people contemplate how much

28:42 as they as they do the math about how much gas they can get,

28:45 how much gas it's going to take,

28:46 what it's going to cost them to fill up their car,

28:48 let them know everywhere Trump did this and it's painful for you.

28:51 That to me is the kind of offense I'm talking about.

28:54 It's the it's the stop crying, start sweating.

28:56 Yeah, that's good.

28:57 I hadn't thought about the Duffies.

28:58 Yeah, I guess they didn't pay for their own gas

29:00 in this seven months uh jaunt across the whole country, right?

29:04 I mean, I haven't looked.

29:05 There's only two things.

29:06 Either we paid for it as taxpayers or they got what

29:10 I saw was that they got corporate sponsors to do it.

29:13 And those corporate sponsors are people that like have,

29:16 you know, have to do stuff with the federal government.

29:18 It's it is corrupt.

29:20 It is the kind of just sort of blasze

29:23 corruption that this government engages in every single day.

29:27 When I say it's about everything's about the economy,

29:29 everything's about affordability.

29:31 Every issue can be about that.

29:33 Epstein is about affordability because it's

29:37 you these are the elites unaccountable.

29:40 These are unaccountable elites who they hide things from you.

29:44 You know, uh uh the war in Iran is an economic issue.

29:47 um like every literally just about the ballroom can be an economic issue.

29:51 You just have to say this is

29:54 the locust of people's anger attach everything to it.

29:58 And I think they they have to say the only thing

30:00 you can do in you can't vote on presidency in 2026.

30:04 Uh we don't have that parliamentary system where

30:06 he loses a vote of confidence and leaves office.

30:08 The one thing you can do is put in place a Congress that will

30:11 stop uh as much of this as possible from happening as can be stopped.

30:15 uh that will expose what's happening

30:16 and that will resist Trump and I mean that's

30:18 where the Republican Congress going along with everything

30:21 the worst people the people Trump's had to fire from the cabinet Christy Dome

30:24 and Pam Bondi confirmed by the Republican Senate

30:27 right I feel like that's a bigger issue

30:28 than people realize that especially on the Senate

30:30 side they are complicit in all of this you know and if you don't like

30:35 uh the Duffies guess who voted to confirm them so I I mean I feel like

30:38 there's a tying it back to Congress because

30:41 that's who you're voting for actually in 2026

30:43 is pretty important and there times when

30:45 there's been fairly effective efforts by the party

30:48 uh party in Congress to sort of distance itself a little bit from a president

30:51 doesn't usually work that well honestly but you still pay a price but still

30:55 and say no no no we're we're willing to stand up to him but here

30:58 there's been no evidence of a willingness

31:00 to stand up to him and therefore very easy

31:02 to I mean to honestly and authentically say this is your chance to stop

31:07 this to at least well to stop to halt for at least you can't reverse everything

31:12 but to halt the stuff that you is most upset about and they voted over

31:16 and over again for this war to prevent a a real vote on authorizing this war.

31:21 They have voted against allowing a vote on the terrorists, right?

31:24 I mean, there's so many cases where they and now they're going

31:26 to vote for the ballroom and incidentally for ICE and Border Patrol funding,

31:30 a huge amount of money for them, not paid for, increasing the deficit.

31:34 And they can make Republicanish sounding arguments the Democrats.

31:37 And totally honestly Trump's deficit is going to be higher, you know,

31:40 than than the deficit he took over he inherited,

31:43 you know, that's just a fact, you know.

31:45 I mean, we could we could do this, but I think the point has been made.

31:48 The point has been made.

31:49 We have made the point.

31:50 That was an excellent rant you began with, and it's I think it really No,

31:53 but people need to listen and and they Yes, you're right.

31:55 I a calm down is not quite the right formulation for me.

31:57 They need to be angry,

31:58 but but focused and really work to make this November what it really could be.

32:03 I think it could be a very big wave, but it it that none of these things is

32:06 inevitable and there'll be hiccups and bumps in the road.

32:09 We got a pretty big bump in the last 10 days from the Supreme Court and then

32:14 the Virginia Supreme Court and then the state

32:15 legislator is being so aggressive with, you know,

32:17 the aggressiveness is a good reminder though.

32:19 These people will do whatever they can to keep power.

32:22 And that's another reason we need a Democratic Congress in 2027,

32:25 2028 because that Trump administration doing whatever it can to keep power.

32:29 They want that corruption to keep going.

32:30 They're not their attitude is not well that's been fun now we just give

32:33 it up right and giving them a Republican Congress we see what that means

32:38 across the board efforts to keep the corruption going and to stay in power

32:41 so yet another reason really need

32:43 Democrats there to check the Trump administration

32:46 one of the things I really argue uh in the book is about how this isn't

32:50 like one election is necessary but not

32:52 sufficient and so you are trying to figure

32:54 out right now how to build to win in 26 to slingshot with that momentum

33:00 him into 28 with a real leader of the party that can beat whether it's Vance,

33:05 Rubio, Tucker, whoever.

33:06 And Trump's weakness again,

33:08 Trump Trump being at 30% when he leaves office with if if

33:14 the vast majority of people consider that he was a failure as a president,

33:19 that the second term was a failure.

33:21 That is also how you win.

33:22 And then when you have that political power,

33:25 that is when you can make structural reforms.

33:27 Like I don't know what to do.

33:29 I do I think part of what's happening is

33:30 that people's level of frustration with the institutions like Congress,

33:36 like the courts that are basically giving Trump more and more

33:38 power make them want to sort of demand reforms of those institutions,

33:43 which agreed, but you're not going to you

33:45 can't do any structural reform without political power.

33:49 It is a necessary condition.

33:51 And this I'll just close on this with Democrats, your voters,

33:56 because I do a lot of talking to Democratic voters, too.

33:58 They are so angry.

34:01 They want you to be so much more aggressive than you're being.

34:04 They want wartime generals.

34:06 And uh like you want to know why Graham Platner happens in Maine?

34:10 No one's interested in the old establishment candidate.

34:13 Their voters are not interested.

34:14 Their voters are getting more and more sort

34:16 of and and I think Republicans may end up ruing the day

34:20 a little bit because there's just this total sense among

34:23 Democrats saying they don't play by any of the rules.

34:26 Why should we play by the rules?

34:27 We tried this.

34:27 We tried Michelle Obama's.

34:29 When they go low, we go high.

34:31 And we're done with it.

34:32 And if that's how Democratic voters feel,

34:35 like the Democratic party needs to find a way

34:39 to harness that energy into productive electoral means,

34:44 which means they cannot lead from behind.

34:46 You have to get out in front and help

34:48 voters see what the opportunities are to take back power.

34:53 Be leaders.

34:54 right now I'm sort of well the biggest frustration is that the other side

34:58 is back on its heels in a lot of ways and like they are vulnerable

35:02 in all these ways which is why it's the time to push and go

35:05 hard and go on offense um but all of the things that Democrats are sort

35:08 of just like reaching for like well we need to do the courts or we

35:11 need to have national popular none of that stuff can happen right now the only

35:15 thing that can happen is in seven months we are having an election it's not

35:18 even that how far is it what we got June July August September October Yeah.

35:24 So, um it's it's it's like 6 months.

35:27 That's 6 months of work to take the first

35:30 major step in handcuffing Trump and taking back political power.

35:36 Well said.

35:37 Uh this has been a great conversation and um uh

35:40 thank you for taking the time this Saturday to do it.

35:43 And for those of you watching on Sunday, happy Mother's Day.

35:46 Happy Mother's Day to everybody.