December 7, 2024 • 44 mins
The Focus Group podcast’s Sarah Longwell examines her assumptions about the 2024 election and how they can be improved for the future. Senator Chris Murphy discusses how Democrats can appeal to the American people with a more populist message.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And House Republicans have voted not to
release the met Gates ethics report, surprising no one. We
have a great hill for you today the Focus Group podcast.
Sarah Longwell stops by to talk focus groups. Then we'll
(00:25):
talk to Senator Chris Murphy about how Democrats can win
on economic populism.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
But first the news, Somalie, the TikTok ban just got
struck down by a lower court and now it's heading
to the Supreme Court. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So they can't ban it? Or they can ban.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
No, they can ban it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And want me to do some explaining, Yes, Jesse, you
since you are the TikToker in the relationship here and
you send me tiktoks and I can't figure out how
to watch them. And I am the boomer and you
here are the zoomer. I'm the boomer, is eight months
older that you're. Yes, Yes, it's explained to us, I'm
the boomer. Yes, explain to us how the Chinese government
(01:08):
controls what we see on TikTok go.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, So Now this lower court has said that TikTok
has to sell if they want to remain in the
United States or else they will be abanned in mid January.
So what now happens is the Supreme Court decides whether
they will take up this case or not. If they do,
that buys TikTok a whole bunch of time potentially, if
their will lawyers do the right maneuvers. If they don't
(01:33):
take it up, which is entirely possible, TikTok will be
forced to sell. There's many, many, many rich people and
corporations salivating at the idea of buying this, including people
like mister Wonderful from Shark Tank and Microsoft.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's more than I have ever wanted to know about TikTok.
So we'll see what happens. Hard to imagine that anything
good happens with a Trump presidency about to start, but
we will see, right, Jesse Cannon, we will see, and
TikTok will still exist for many moons to come.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes, Somali, two friends of ours, Noah Schuckman and a Swin.
They have a very Actually, this was the funnest article
I read all week about how Eric Adams is doing
anything we could all see, which is kissing trump sass
for a pardon.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
As someone who interviewed Eric Adams this week on Morning Joe,
he's very fit. And also, yes, it seems very clear
that Eric Adams has realized that he can get pardoned.
I mean, this is the thing you have to remember
about Eric Adams and also about everyone else. Donald Trump
is completely transactional. If you say on television, oh this
(02:43):
Donald Trump. He's kind of a good guy and so handsome.
He sees it and then you he'll let you do
what you want. So like we saw this at the
deal Book conference. We saw Jeff Bezos being like, Donald
Trump is going to be great. This is all going
to be great. You know, this is just trying to
manipulate him into getting what you want. Will it work?
(03:04):
Maybe in the short term, it'll work for Jeff Bezos.
As we all know on this podcast. We all know,
like ask Rudy Giuliani, how it works out for you?
It never works out. Well. Everything Trump touches dies. You know,
it may take a little longer now that he's going
back into the White House, but this is absolutely one
(03:26):
hundred percent the case. And you know, but anyway, Adams
has decided, and look, Adams is a guy with not
a lot of options, right, He's got these federal indictments.
He supposedly has more indictments coming though, who knows. He's
clearly up to no good and he really wants to
stay Mayor. So you know, he's thinking that if he
(03:46):
can get Trump to pardon him, he can stay in
the arena a little longer. And you know, it's not
an insane I mean, it's morally an ethically very corrupt,
but it's not an insane theory. And I think in
my work for him.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's a funny thing because it serves both sides effectively,
as Adams wants to keep on cry big and he
wants to not go to jail and Trump be loves
when somebody gravels and kisses his ass.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
You know, it's funny because it's like I was listening
to him on the show when I'm watching him and
I'm thinking to myself, he's like explaining about how these
federal indictments are twisting the law to come after him,
and you know, we've had all these conversations about like
should the law be the same for everyone. I actually
(04:32):
listened to this very smart New Yorker podcast that had
this lawyer. I'm not sure she's right where she was
talking about maybe it would have been better just not
to even try to prosecute Trump because it just, you know,
it had it because as the appearance of being political
in itself. Again, I don't know what the answer is.
I'm not a lawyer, but it just struck me that
(04:55):
what Adams is doing is he's really trying to manipulate
what is him doing illegal stuff and make it sound
political in order to appeal to Trump and make this
case that it's all the same. And you know this
is we're down this posts post truth rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So, Malia, you know who I want in charge of
making elector overform. It's definitely not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I know who you don't want to try so Donald
Trump again, Like, this guy just wants to get his
hands on elections so badly, and should we be surprised
this is what he says to Trump. Okay, so he's
in New York and he is he is accepting an award.
By the way, the idea of giving this guy awards
like that is what it is. If you want something
(05:43):
from Donald Trump, give him an award. He was accepting
an award from Fox Nation. The award is called Patriot
of the Year. That's Patriot of the Year award. Okay,
he is the this year. There is no patriot. Who
is a bigger patriot? Then Thrice indicted, Right, fine, you
(06:07):
know that guy. He's the Patriot of the Year. It
was a long island event, it was not even in Manhattan,
organized by Fox Nation. On Thursday, he accepted the award.
Oh no, this is even I'm sorry, this gets worse.
Accepted the award designed to resemble the American flag because
he is, after all, the Patriot of the year. After
(06:28):
a live performance of what other song could it be?
This guy's his favorite. I even didn't have any idea
who the fuck this was, but now I know, and
I wish I didn't live performance of Lee Greenwood's God
Bless the USA, and that is Donald Trump's favorite song.
If you have a phone, you should google Lee Greenwood
(06:49):
because he is either twenty or one hundred and fifty
years old. It's impossible to tell. He has had some
kind of incredible facial whatever, and he looks like he
could be twenty five or eighty.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well, I like that, mister Trump. Did his usual speaking
ambiguously at saying nothing of We're going to do things
that have really needed for a long time.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
The man murders English. But he did mention. He complained
about the California law. In California, they just passed a
law that you're not even allowed to ask a voter
for voter ida. Think of that. If you ask a
voter for their voter Ida, you're committing a crime. We're
going to get the whole country straightened out. Yeah, no
better way to get the whole country straightened out than
(07:38):
the stop corruption. Police are going to make sure that
all the corruption doesn't happen, and you just have to
pay them.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Somali. When I think of people who earn things in
a meritocracy, you know what I think of Donald Trump's cabinet.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, is nepo nepo And again, nothing wrong with nepotism.
Donald Trump wants his cabinet nominees to earn their confirmations
on their own. That's how he works, right. But on Friday,
he was wanted to give an adaboy to Pete Hagsas
you'll remember Pete heggsas a weekend morning television host and
(08:13):
also multiple divorcee likes a couple beers. He's got the
Kavanaugh just like beer situation.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I really liked the detail of him drinking ten warm
flat beers at ten am. That was a really good story.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You know how many panels I've been on or places
I've been where people have been like repeating that thing
about him drinking all the flat beers. I have been
sober twenties at seven years. I don't think it's not bad.
Like I get it, man, like I get it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Maybe you've forgotten how bad flat war beer taste. But
as somebody who tasted at this summer, let me tell you,
I don't want it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It does a job. Nobody is drinking for a taste here. Okay,
that is not true.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I love the taste of a Budweiser a Corona this summer.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Well that's because you're not an alcohol But the rest
of us will drink our beer. I mean we won't
because I'm sober. But flat beer not flat beer? Who cares?
But anyway, Trump is very excited that Haig Seth is
fighting back. He told an advisor beats biting like cow.
I wonder if he said fighting or fighting. He's a
(09:25):
fighter again. I want to point out that, from what
we understand, and again this could be reported wrong, was
not in the room, but that Donald Trump picked him
because he looked like he should be director of the
d D. Now they're saying he's not going to jump out,
that hag Set is going to make it through. We'll see.
I mean, you know, it is still December and Trump
(09:47):
is not even president yet, so let's see what happens.
Sarah long While is publisher of The Bulwark and the
host of the Focus Group podcast. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Sarah Longwhile.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Well being here.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
The first thing I want to talk to you about
is I have so much I want to talk to
you about. Was that after this selection happened, I went
through this process of like trying to figure out what
I got wrong and how my own wish casting sort
of clouded my judgment, and how, you know, just sort
of the litany of ways in which I could perhaps
like get information more clearly. I thought everyone was doing that.
(10:31):
It turned out that everyone was just trying to tell
each other what they had gotten wrong. I feel like
you are thoughtful, introspective in a way that not many
people are. Is there something wrong with us for being
that way.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Look, I do think that there are some real hopium
merchants out there. Yeah, And I think that because the
hopium merchants were a little more right in twenty twenty two,
most people over listened to them in twenty twenty four.
And I will say, I mean, I'm happy to do
my own sort of pundit accountability.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I feel like you have. I just remember the two
of you, and even and Tim especially was like, you know,
he was like, we sort of know she's better off
than he is, but it's not entirely clear to me
that either of them can win.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, going into the election, I was like, look, if
I'm using the focus groups, I could make the case
either way, because part of what happened was it was
so dismal when it was Joe Biden that we saw
this huge uptick for her, but it was never clear
whether that was going to be enough because the hole
that they were digging out of with Joe Biden, and
this is where look at people were mad when I
(11:46):
was like, he's got to drop out, He's got to
drop out. But I cannot tell you how much the
data going back to like twenty twenty one like after
basically Afghanistan and the Delta researchers like Joe Biden never recovered.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He was deeply unpopular.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
People thought he was too old, and whether you like
that or not, it's just true. And him running and
not allowing for a robust Democratic primary that could separate
from him was I think the fatal error. And I'll
tell you, the focus groups were so different going into
twenty four than they were in twenty. Like in twenty twenty,
I felt sure he was going to win, and actually,
(12:18):
you know, Trump overperformed I think our expectations back in
twenty twenty. But here's one of the things that I
also would point to as just a It wasn't a
blind spot because I knew about it, but I wasn't
quite sure what emphasis to put on it. So I
was spent a lot of time talking to Trump to
Biden voters. So people have voted for Trump and sixteen
and then Biden in twenty to see if they were
going to stick with him, And the thing was the
(12:39):
majority were, but we were always losing one or two people.
I'm sure we talked about that last time, because that
was like the dominant piece of evidence, was there was
always a little bit of backsliding, and so the question was,
then could Kamala Harris pick up some new people to
offset that backsliding, And that didn't happen, and in fact,
Trump picked up a bunch of sort of newish people
or low info or people are just are low propensity, right,
(13:02):
they don't vote in a lot of elections, or they
just turn out for presidentials. That is who he has
always dominated with. And on the election day, when I
saw how high turnout was, that used to be a
good sign for Democrats, but it's not. It was I
knew it was like, oh, no, turnout, super high. That's
better for Trump because Democrats are kind of maxing out.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
They got these college educated suburban voters in their trade,
but they're maxing out on those voters and there's only
so many of them. There are way more non college
working class voters who vote just in presidential elections. And
that's where Donald Trump and Donald Trump overperformed this time.
Any other Republican, like other Republicans aren't turning those people out,
but Donald Trump does.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And in fact, you had states like Arizona where there
were real Diego Trump voters. Oh yeah, absolutely, and in Wisconsin,
tammy Ball went, you know, which is wild.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, but those are people who look at her and say,
or look at Diego and say, I don't know, this
person seems like a working you know that they will
be a good sort of for the working class. But
they also like Trump. Look, the guy's been a celebrity,
he's been with us for decades. People have voted for
him now many times, and so they feel slightly different
about him. He pulls in a real cross category a
(14:19):
voter and including you know, one of the things that's
been in that we've been doing a lot of postgame
with the focus groups. And I also want to just
say from the qualitative side, I felt like, look, I
felt like both the polling and the qualitative side sort
of told us on all guys, this could go either way.
And it's like tough sledding, Like tough sledding for the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
When I've been writing about my own accountability, what, I've
been surprised that the polls were really underestimated Trump. They
underestimated Trump in every election he's run at now. Yeah,
but the polls just they can't model for like how
the turnout's going to be, and so when he's able
to sort of supercharge these low propensity voters. That's what
he's done every single time.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And also I do think the polling was picking up
on a lot of the things that we saw, oh,
which was like the massive slide with Hispanics, the somewhat
slide with black voters, and she was able to shore
something up. And let me just say a word about
Kamala Harris. She saved Democrats from an absolute wipeout. She
really did. Joe Biden was going to lead Democrats to
a historic wipeout, and she fought it back to a
(15:17):
place where now Republicans are going to have maybe a
three seat majority in the House, like they can't do
anything with a three seat majority, and they're going to
have a few seat majority in the Senate. But like
in terms of Republicans doing sort of big things together congressionally,
they probably are going to have a really tough time.
She kept it really narrow. But anyone who says, oh, well,
Joe Biden, you know, would have won, let me tell
you something, there's literally not one shread of evidence to
(15:39):
support that, not a shred. I think the only shread
of evidence there is to support is that if Joe
Biden had gotten out a lot earlier and either allowed
for a Democratic primer or given Kamala Harris more time
to sort of get better at it, to let people
know her more, that that might have made a difference.
But that's the only real difference that I think could
have been made.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I wonder a lot if some of Joe Biden's problem,
not a governing problem, but a re election problem, started
with his administration's intentionally boring doing no media, don't write.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
About us thing like I wonder if that mushroomed. Well,
here's the thing Democrats going forward, if they learn one
lesson from this, people are going to sort of try
to categorize thing that I should have gone on Joe Rogan,
it was the podcast election, Okay. Sure. What it really
means is you can no longer do politics without being
very good at having a communication strategy. There is no
(16:37):
way that you and I weren't talking about this on
your show, because I have been beside myself for the
entire Biden administration about the fact that they are not
out there talking. I was like, look, and Joe Biden
was allows the communicator, right, he was too old, and
so he didn't have the ability to like communicate Strong'm like,
but I was like, where are all the surrogates? Where
is everybody? Else? Where's the mountain of people? Like the
way that JD. Vance and Donald Trump just went on
(16:58):
everything were everywhere talking to people directly, Like that allowed
the mainstream media like they can't define Donald Trump and
you can people say, you know, he did this or that.
But like if people will get to hear him directly
and they say, well, he doesn't sound like Hitler, Pamla
Harris needs to be able to be like, well, I
don't sound like somebody who can't form a sentence, right,
You've got to be there to puncture the way the
(17:19):
other side is trying to define you directly with voters
and so sort of the everything everywhere, all at once
strategy has to be how people communicate and they have
to be able to do it authentically. And so if
you can't walk shore footed into all kinds of spaces,
non traditional spaces, unfriendly spaces, like you can't do politics anymore.
Like you've got to be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, I think that's really the issue is Like by
the time he had gotten there, that that White House
didn't really do a lot of communicating. They one offer
up either the president or the vice president very much.
And so in that vacuum, Trump was able to fill
that vacuum throughout the entire Yes.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Trump had constant counterprogramming, and he also locked up the
nomination so early, like man was he able he was
able to run a campaign early he dominated that primary.
And yeah, there was I mean, like Joe Biden took
a pass on like.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
A Super Bowl interview. No I don't we do it here?
Why we do it?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
But that communications problem and this is the other thing,
like you have to be able to communicate sort of
twenty four to seven, Like you can't just run a
campaign right at the end and be like, well this
is when people pay attention. You also have to be
able to say, Okay, why didn't anybody know what the
Biden administration did? Why didn't they know about Because I
get yelled at on Twitter sometimes they're like, well, Joe
Biden was a great present. Hear jblast my buddy. So
as you know, Joe Biden passed all these big legislatives.
(18:42):
And I was like, yeah, but nobody knows about him.
And that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
The idea that these people don't know about any stuff
that happened is in itself, you know, that ultimately is
Joe Biden's why Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Didn't get reelected, right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
It's why he was unpopular.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's why they were able to push him out once
it became clear he was absolutely not up to the job.
But there's also a bunch of other reasons I just
want to throw out there that I hear all over
the focus groups, and some of them are things like
people didn't like the fact that there wasn't a primary,
Like the fact that it just went from Joe Biden
to Kamala Harris without sort of input rubbed a lot
of people the wrong way. The other thing is, even
(19:17):
though RFK was only getting you know, two or three
percent nationally, there was this cross section of voters that
I think ultimately might have been kind of determinative. I've
heard a lot of this where people are like, you know,
I voted for RFK and for Elon and for Tulsi
and like Trump last, but like, there is this red
pilled voter. It's not a Republican voter. It is a
(19:39):
red pilled voter who honestly probably was like kind of
a Democrat for a long time, a casual one who
was brought over by the anti establishment sort of red
pilled people that Donald Trump was surrounding himself with. He
was able to pull just enough people away from Democrats.
With those sort of people, at the end of the year,
(20:00):
you curve of politics. And look, this has long been
a feature of Trump where I talked to a lot
of Bernie voters who voted for Trump after voting for
Bernie in a Democratic primary, and he has just been
able to pull those voters away by being a really
unworthodox candidate.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah. No, I mean, I hate it, but I think
that is absolutely correct. Democrats were the establishment party. It's
not just establishment, I think in terms of them trying
to be defenders of democracy, they got a little bit
wrapped up in kind of the defenders of the status quo.
And then also though one of the things you hear
(20:37):
from voters all the time, which is a shift in
voters where they now say I don't want a regular
politician like they like Trump because he's not a regular politician.
And even when Kamala Harris to them like technically sounded
good and she was, they were like, yeah, you know,
she doesn't sound like the way they stay sound, but
they did. She did sound like a regular politician to them.
She didn't have a clear message that broke through to them.
(20:58):
And so that's where it was a Now now, as
a result, we're in an extremely dangerous place. What now
right now is we're going to look at four more
years of Trump. Now.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I want to say a couple things though, really quickly.
One is that Trump is going to be a lame
duck president. And I'm seeing a lot of fear from people,
a lot of pre surrender, a lot of chilling effect,
and like the and that is a thing we cannot
allow to happen, Like people are going to have to
find It's funny. I've heard that the phrase all my life.
(21:26):
You know, the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself. But I don't think I ever understood it
until now, watching the way people are engaging with the fear,
and the fact is like, we don't need hashtag resist,
We need like real courage and strength in this moment
to push forward. We got to find a way to organize.
And I was just talking to George Conway for the
pod and I was asking him, like, should Biden issue
(21:47):
blanket pardons for people like Liz Cheney or Fauci And
he said no, No, like that is that's not a
good way to use use the pardon power. But what
we should do is get on war footing, like we
need to raise money for we need to get make
sure people have access to lawyers, and we need to
fight the fight. And I personally believe that offense is
always the best defense, right, Like, they got to govern now,
(22:10):
especially with these guys. Yeah, these are a bunch of
ego maniacal narcissists who are going to fight with each other.
Like governing's hard sometimes when you're in the opposition, it
can be a little easier, and you just let them.
Let them own this. They've got to pass a budget
bill right out of the gate. They got to fund
the government. Let me tell you what, that's good luck
with your three vote majority though, Mike Johnson and so Democrats,
(22:32):
But Democrats should not bail them out. Look, I'm a
big norms values institutions person, but I also believe that
you can play political hardball, and Democrats should and they
should not build Republicans out voters ask them to run
the government, so let them. I think that Democrats should
be thinking about what their red lines are. Where are
the places they should fight, and where are the places
they should let voters get the full experience of what
(22:54):
they've asked for.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's true. I think that's a really good point. Blame
to us sort of what you think Democrats should be
focused on? Like it in my mind it's norms and institutions.
But what do you think the red line should be?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Well, I think it should be rule of law on elections, right,
like you want to make sure on the other side
of Trump's four years we still have free and fair elections, right.
We want a correction in twenty twenty six. I think
we can get it. You want to protect the rule
of law as best you can, because this is going
to be the most corrupt administration of our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
People need to.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Get familiar with the word cacistocracy because I'm not sure
the answer to this, and I don't want to be
pollyannish at all about what we might be facing. I
think cash Betel is a very scary thing. I think
Pete Heggs that's very like these are scary people, but
they're also all like dopes out to enrich themselves, and
so the extent to which retribution might quickly become just
a big sense of corruption and them all trying to
(23:50):
sort of get what's theirs is something I think we
very much could see. But I do think that Democrats
need to pick new leaders right, like the new next
generation has to rise up here, should define themselves in
opposition to what's about to happen. And I'm talking about
picking really smart people to lead the DNC. Like I'm
a big fan of Ben Wickler, know him personally. I
think he's really good strategically and we're not even I'm
(24:12):
not even with them on some of the policy stuff,
but I just think he knows what he's doing and
knows how to bring the factions of the Democratic Party together.
I think there's a lot of deep bench and rising stars,
and I hope they all start to stand up and
show an alternative Like the Republicans did this. They spent
the four years of the Biden administration in an opposition
(24:33):
that allowed people to be like, this is what the
opposition look like, It's who the players are. Democrats need
to do that too, and so leaders need to emerge now,
and I hope that they are smarter yet than just
sort of hashtag resistant that they figure out how to
really do the important stuff on guardrails, but also like
rethinking their communication strategy, Like you've got a few really
good communicators, but the way in which communication is going
(24:56):
to go down as the biggest failure of the Biden years,
and they got a correct that real fast.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah. Communication, it's not a legislative problem, no, I.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Mean, look, Joe Biden did a bunch of good, big
bipartisan things, Like if I had to go back and
relitigate the Democrats coming out and doing HR one as
one of their big attempts at legislative stuff rather than
reigning and executive power after we had just seen that. Like,
I just think there's a lot of failures in twenty
twenty one, the biggest ones being on the Republican side
who refused to hold Trump accountable after the January sixth
insurrection and his attempt his refusal to engage in a
(25:26):
peaceful transfer power. But I also think Democrats chose a
bunch of boneheaded legislative things to do out of the
gate that were not that like sort of missed the
fact that we could end up in this snapback moment.
But look in terms of infrastructure and some of the
other things Joe Biden did, those were good bills that
they should have gotten credit for that they just couldn't
communicate to the voters about you know, is going to
(25:47):
get credit for it. Trump Trump's going to get the
benefits of all the infrastructure money as it rolls in.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
If you're wanting these Republican senators and you're trying to
think of, like who are the ones who, like you
feel like have spine and might stand up for things.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I think Collins has been not always good, but I
think she's been overly maligned, and I think we're going
to see some good things from Rakowski and Collins. But
there's also a bunch of senators you don't know their names.
That's they are the ones that sit in the back
and like try to keep their heads down and do
decent things.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Mike grounds Langford too, I mean he's famous, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Langford, who's very conservative, but he's like, oh, he's an
institution's guy. And you're even already seeing I think there
was an overly defeatist attitude about Trump's nominations, and like
they are now quietly killing them. And so I think
that that is good and that you know, they don't
want to do it publicly. They're not you know, profiles
and courage, but they are right now putting their foot
(26:45):
down in some places, or at least and I even
Joni Ernst, I think when she said we had a
frank exchange of views with Pete Hegseth, I hope he
told her about how women shouldn't be in the military,
since she is herself a military veteran. So like I
just I think there are ways in which the Senate
might be a little better than what people originally thought.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
No, that was my take too, and I was happy
to see it, and I wanted people to stop engaging
in that defeatist attitude and instead say, you know, this
is their job and they're expected to do it because
you know, however, if they want to do it like
total cowards, which it seems like they do, then that's
fine too. As long as they do it, that's right.
(27:22):
Sarah Long, Well, thank you. I was just really glad
to get to talk this through with you, so.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Thanks, love it, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Chris Murphy is the junior senator from Connecticut. Welcome back,
to Fast Politics. Senator Murphy Grey All, Yah, good. I mean,
all things considered, I want you to talk about this
theory that you've been working on about where Democrats should
go next.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Yeah, I listen. I don't think any of us have
the complete case yet, but I mean, my underlying premise
is that we got skunked, and it'd be a real
mistake for us to think that there are minor adjustments
that will fix our brand and try to grow our coalition.
You know, maybe I'm a little overly focused on the Senate,
(28:10):
but right now our ceiling is fifty two seats in
the Senate because we are not competitive any longer in
places that just a nanosecond ago we were competitive in,
like Ohio and Florida and Missouri and Iowa. So it
feels to me like we've got to do a real
hard assessment of why we claim to be the party
(28:31):
of poor people and working people, and working people and
poor people aren't voting for us. That sounds like we're
not listening to the people we actually represent. You know,
My early theory of the case is this that we
have become the party of the status quo. We're the
party that defends the establishment, and the Republican Party has
become the party to attack the status quo. That up
(28:54):
ends fifty plus years of political paradigm. And there's a
lot of different paths to once again become the true
progressive change party, but I would argue it starts by
being a real pugilistic populist party, meaning we attack power,
we name who has power, and we are really transparent
(29:16):
in the ways that we call for the elites to
lose power and for regular people to get it. That
means naming names, that means making people inside our coalition uncomfortable.
And then the second part is make that economic populism,
that breakup of concentrated power the tentpole of the party
and allow anybody in who is going to fight with
(29:37):
us to break up the monopolies, to control the tech companies,
to cap prescription drug prices, tax billionaires. That means, if
you're not lined up with us on one hundred percent
of our social and cultural issues as well as other
hot buttons like guns and climate, we're going to let
you in the tent. We're going to allow for some
disagreement and less litmus tests. That's a hard thing for
(29:59):
our party because we have come to apply a whole
bunch of litmus tests, and that has meant that our
coalition has shrunk, not expanded. It has meant that a
lot of kind of conservative poor people don't feel like
they find a home with us. So that's my early
analysis here. And I don't claim to have all the answers.
I'm not one hundred percent sure I'm right, but I
(30:20):
don't think we have a lot of time to sort
of natlegates. I think we got to fix things pretty
fast because the train's coming.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
You know. It's so funny, because I mean, funny is
perhaps the wrong word here, but it's interesting because Jed
here writes for The Nation as very lefty, basically said
the exact same thing about this election. He said Democrats
became the status quo party when you look at the
numbers and you look at the sort of underperformance among
working people in urban areas. What Harris did was she
(30:51):
had a lot of policy proposals, and she actually tried
really hard to talk about a lot of implementation of
those policy proposals. So my question is, I wonder how
much of that was his inability to communicate from an
early on, Like all Trump does is communicate. He doesn't
do policy, he doesn't do anything else but communicate. Meanwhile,
(31:12):
Democrats just did not communicate very much despite doing a
lot of economic populism. I mean, the legislation was almost
FDR style.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Well, I mean, there's a couple of things to say
about that. First, people want you to relate to the
way that they are feeling. They actually want you to
spend some time listening to them and talking to them
about the problem and the injustice. Now Trump is one
hundred percent diagnosed, complain about the problem, complain about the injustice.
(31:42):
He offers no solutions, and it's like really frustrating for
policy wonk Democrats when Trump gets away with it. But
it's because human psychology wants to be heard, and the
way that you know you've been heard is to listen
to somebody be outraged about the injustice that you're experiencing.
So take prescription drug prices. It's an outrage. People feel
(32:06):
it's an outrage. Democrats spend like twenty percent of our
time talking about the outrage, in eighty percent of our
time explaining the solution, which by the way, is kind
of a small ball adjust the market solution, a different
way to negotiate prices with the existing drug companies. We
(32:26):
should be shooting eighty percent of our time talking about
the problem, talking about the drug companies who are screwing Americans,
naming the exact CEOs, the exact companies hauling them before Congress,
and twenty percent of our time talking about the solution.
So we just communicate the wrong way. It doesn't match
up with how people actually perceive the world and think
about problems. And I agree with you that Harris had
(32:49):
a lot of really good policy proposals on the economy.
And again i'm with you, like I think this was
a hard campaign for her to whim given that she's
shoved into it with a really short calendar. I'm not
sure that if she did everything right, she was going
to win.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, you have to wonder, like Democrats have run two
very competent women like there is may not just be
their personalities, right, It may just be the innate misogyny
of American life.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Well, I mean that that might be true, but I
don't know. That sounds to me like a little bit
of an invitation to not be engaged in a real
hard to look at our policy. I mean, you can
say it's misogyny and racism, and you know what, throw
up our hands.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Except the one thing I would say is like, it's
obviously not racism because Americans have elected a black president.
So like there's one thing that both of these. And again,
I'm not going to put you on this because it's
not relevant to what you're talking about. But I just
think that the fact that we can't even talk about it,
and I see it everywhere, and I just wonder why.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I don't know that there's an inability to talk about it.
And of course there are voters out there who are
unwilling to vote for a woman to be president of
the United States. There were also many young women who
probably showed up because there was a moment on the
balance It may be that the misogyny outweighs the excitement
factor of electing the first woman president. But I do
(34:09):
think that there's weight on both sides of the balance sheet.
But there's another similarity between the Harris campaign and the
Clinton campaign. Neither of them made the economy and populist
economics the centerpiece of the campaign. The centerpiece of the
Clinton campaign, and I know this because I got the
talking points for the last two months. Was Donald Trump's
(34:30):
recklessness and outrageousness. The tenpole of the Harris campaign was democracy.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
That's why Liz Cheney is campaigning with her in the
end because in this Chaney disagrees with her on the economy,
disagrees with her on raising taxes on billionaires, but agrees
with their on democracy. And so there's also that similarity
that both of those campaigns decide that they are not
going to organize the campaign around attacking economic power, and
(34:59):
I just think we probably need to learn that lesson.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
First talk to us about what that would look like.
So there's like the status issue, this Hofstadt or status issue.
Whereas Trump was able to somehow convince voters again that
he was a working man's candidate, right, that there was
some of that going on.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Sure again in a short campaign. I think it was
very difficult for them to try to unmask his fake populism.
But somebody was just in my office earlier today giving
me a good example of how the campaign would have
been different if you made economic populism and attacking corporate
power the centerpiece of the campaign. This person was saying,
you remember the part in the campaign where Mark Cuban,
(35:43):
who's one of her primary surrogates comes out and agrees
that Lena Khan to be fired. And it kind of
was swept under the rug right by the Harris campaign.
It was an opportunity to create a fight with a friend,
right right, right right, go after somebody that you know,
you consider, you know, part of your club and say no, no,
you're just wrong about this, Like I'm sorry, I like
(36:06):
Mark Cuban and I'm glad that he's out there campaigning
for me, but a hell no, I am not dismantling
the structure that breaks up corporate power. If you want
to support me, then you got to know that I'm
coming after the big corporations. And if you want to
be a part of this campaign, you better sign up
for kicking the shit out of the corporations that are
(36:26):
screwing regular Americans. On board, Mark, or you're not on board,
Like that would have been a moment, right if you
were organizing the campaign around the issue of attacking corporate
power and consolidated economic power. And again, I think they
ran a really good campaign. This is all in retrospect,
This is all like hindsight. I think they ran a
really good campaign. But that's an example of how that
(36:46):
campaign would look differently.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
I also think like separating herself from Biden was okay too.
There were things possible to do, but it was very hard.
For a long time, I thought you shouldn't go on
places like to because of any number of reasons. But
now I actually believe that Democrats are giving up spaces
(37:08):
where they could actually win hearts and minds. Those clips
that Trump produced from Joe Rogan, like almost seventy million
people watch them, Like that is insane.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Yeah, this is again this idea that we have litmus
tests right, that we're we're not looking for voters that
don't line up with us on all of our hot
button issues. We don't talk to media personalities that don't
line up with us on all of our issues. You
and I maybe talked about this. But a year and
a half ago, there was this conservative song that went
(37:42):
viral called rich Men North of Richmond, and it was
this singer who talked about, you know, the soul listness
of work and low wages and concerted corporate power. He
had some conservative tropes in that song about welfare queens.
He had at least one QAnon reference. You could tell
that this was not a guy who was like lined
up with all of the progressive priorities, but he clearly
(38:05):
cared about the shape of the economy in the justice
of the economy. And I kind of went online and
was like, Hey, let's talk to this guy. Let's talk
to his followers, like this sounds like a group of
people who should be in a conversation with us. And
I got like shouted down online by the online left
who was like, no, he doesn't agree with us on everything.
I don't want to talk to him.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
He's a racist.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
People that listen to him a racists. They're not part
of our club. And so I just think we made
a decision to not convert, Like we made a decision
that if you don't agree with me right now and everything,
I don't want to be in a conversation with you.
That's not how you build a movement. You build a
movement not by just going and getting everybody who already
agrees with you, but talking to people who don't agree
with you and trying to get them in the tent
(38:44):
based on some area of alignment, and then once they're
in the tent, trying to convince them to get a
little bit closer to you on the things that you
don't agree on.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I do think one of the things that Trump did
that was really successful was he took into the tent
RFK Junior, and RFK Junior brought a lot of women,
and you know, these are largely again I don't want
to be patronizing here, but these are women who are
a little bit skeptical of a lot of the modern
(39:13):
medicine that I so prize as a person who lives
in the year twenty twenty four. But I mean that
was a huge group who had never had anyone ever
appeal to them, and RFK galvanized them, and then Donald
Trump invited them into his tent. I mean, now, morally
this is dicey, but there are certainly less moral groups.
(39:36):
I mean, this group is I think they're being taken
advantage of a little bit. But I do think that
this illustrates the idea.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Yeah, I do. I'd have to sort of think through
whether I agree with you as to how much of
a vote GET or RFK Junior was. There's a judgmentalism
that people attached to us that doesn't exist in Trump's world,
and you know, I think that that comes with kind sequences.
People are a little afraid to be part of our
coalition because they feel like if they use the wrong word,
(40:06):
they talk about gender in a nineteen ninety eight way,
you know, they'll be pushed at to the side of shame.
So I do think we've got to understand that people
are a little afraid sometimes to be part of our
coalition because they're worried that we're too judgmental about language
and about folks who don't agree with us universally.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So what would be the solve for that?
Speaker 4 (40:30):
To first of all, just go to groups of people
that don't agree with us, to be in conversations with
Joe Rogan's audience. Go to church groups where there's, you know,
some sense of selflessness and commitment to community, where you
might find economic populists who want to be part of
our club. To nominate candidates who don't line up with
(40:55):
us on the twelve most important issues, to do important
things that signal that we want to be a more
inclusive party again.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So can we talk about that Nebraska Senate candidate?
Speaker 4 (41:09):
Sure? I mean I wasn't deeply involved in that race.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Certainly not. It was and Democrats were not involved in it,
and he didn't run as a Democrat, but I did
interview him, and you know, he was an independent, but
it was like a purely work the campaign and he
did ultimately get crushed by the millions of dollars that
the Republicans put in for deb Fisher. But it struck
me that this was a guy who was really running
(41:35):
a totally worker focused campaign.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
A worker focused campaign, a campaign that talked about economic power,
that talked about government playing a role to smooth out
the rough edges of the economy, but a campaign that
was really focused on that message. He ran further ahead
of Kamala Harris than any other Senate candidate in the country.
And yeah, maybe part of that is that he had
(42:00):
that independent brand, but I think a lot of it
was that he was, you know, engaging in this kind
of big ten populism that I think is the key
to winning. I don't get the sense that people who
maybe you know, didn't supporting us all weapons ban, or
were a little squishy on climate or you know, maybe
weren't on board with, you know, our positions on abortion
(42:24):
or gay rights. I don't think that they felt like
they couldn't be part of his coalition. And that's what
I'm gunning for and frankly, I think that had he
been elected, even with the votes of folks who are
anti choice or not on board with you know, gay rights,
it would have been really good to have somebody like
that representing Nebraska who would be then in a position
(42:44):
of power to be in a conversation with folks who
then might be more willing to listen to somebody somebody's
argument on why climate matters, on why assault weapons ban
isn't so scary. That's why you should be open to
bringing people who don't always degree with you into the coalition.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Thank you so much for taking the time, Senator Chris Murphy.
Thanks n No Mo Execond, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
My junk past. One of the things that has a
lot of us going hmm is that all the Republicans
keep saying Elon won Trump the election, and we're starting
to see some details of why they're seeing that. Of
all the scummy things he did in this election, what
are you seeing here.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Elon Musk. He poured twenty million dollars into a mysterious
superpack called the RBG Pack, which launched ads, and they
were ads that were in the name of RBG. Rise
Bader Ginsburg, who she had a chance to resign when
she was under Obama when she was eighty and she'd
(43:50):
had cancer. She did not take it and she stayed
in She died in office and was replaced by Amy
Coney Barrett, who is a conservative now, and they were
able to overturn movieweight. So this is another way the
Conservatives love to own the Libs by delighting in the
(44:11):
way they have overturned, you know, just taken away things
from women, and this will be no different. That's it
for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
(44:35):
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And House Republicans have voted not to
release the met Gates ethics report, surprising no one. We
have a great hill for you today the Focus Group podcast.
Sarah Longwell stops by to talk focus groups. Then we'll
(00:25):
talk to Senator Chris Murphy about how Democrats can win
on economic populism.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
But first the news, Somalie, the TikTok ban just got
struck down by a lower court and now it's heading
to the Supreme Court. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So they can't ban it? Or they can ban.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
No, they can ban it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And want me to do some explaining, Yes, Jesse, you
since you are the TikToker in the relationship here and
you send me tiktoks and I can't figure out how
to watch them. And I am the boomer and you
here are the zoomer. I'm the boomer, is eight months
older that you're. Yes, Yes, it's explained to us, I'm
the boomer. Yes, explain to us how the Chinese government
(01:08):
controls what we see on TikTok go.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, So Now this lower court has said that TikTok
has to sell if they want to remain in the
United States or else they will be abanned in mid January.
So what now happens is the Supreme Court decides whether
they will take up this case or not. If they do,
that buys TikTok a whole bunch of time potentially, if
their will lawyers do the right maneuvers. If they don't
(01:33):
take it up, which is entirely possible, TikTok will be
forced to sell. There's many, many, many rich people and
corporations salivating at the idea of buying this, including people
like mister Wonderful from Shark Tank and Microsoft.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's more than I have ever wanted to know about TikTok.
So we'll see what happens. Hard to imagine that anything
good happens with a Trump presidency about to start, but
we will see, right, Jesse Cannon, we will see, and
TikTok will still exist for many moons to come.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes, Somali, two friends of ours, Noah Schuckman and a Swin.
They have a very Actually, this was the funnest article
I read all week about how Eric Adams is doing
anything we could all see, which is kissing trump sass
for a pardon.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
As someone who interviewed Eric Adams this week on Morning Joe,
he's very fit. And also, yes, it seems very clear
that Eric Adams has realized that he can get pardoned.
I mean, this is the thing you have to remember
about Eric Adams and also about everyone else. Donald Trump
is completely transactional. If you say on television, oh this
(02:43):
Donald Trump. He's kind of a good guy and so handsome.
He sees it and then you he'll let you do
what you want. So like we saw this at the
deal Book conference. We saw Jeff Bezos being like, Donald
Trump is going to be great. This is all going
to be great. You know, this is just trying to
manipulate him into getting what you want. Will it work?
(03:04):
Maybe in the short term, it'll work for Jeff Bezos.
As we all know on this podcast. We all know,
like ask Rudy Giuliani, how it works out for you?
It never works out. Well. Everything Trump touches dies. You know,
it may take a little longer now that he's going
back into the White House, but this is absolutely one
(03:26):
hundred percent the case. And you know, but anyway, Adams
has decided, and look, Adams is a guy with not
a lot of options, right, He's got these federal indictments.
He supposedly has more indictments coming though, who knows. He's
clearly up to no good and he really wants to
stay Mayor. So you know, he's thinking that if he
(03:46):
can get Trump to pardon him, he can stay in
the arena a little longer. And you know, it's not
an insane I mean, it's morally an ethically very corrupt,
but it's not an insane theory. And I think in
my work for him.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's a funny thing because it serves both sides effectively,
as Adams wants to keep on cry big and he
wants to not go to jail and Trump be loves
when somebody gravels and kisses his ass.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
You know, it's funny because it's like I was listening
to him on the show when I'm watching him and
I'm thinking to myself, he's like explaining about how these
federal indictments are twisting the law to come after him,
and you know, we've had all these conversations about like
should the law be the same for everyone. I actually
(04:32):
listened to this very smart New Yorker podcast that had
this lawyer. I'm not sure she's right where she was
talking about maybe it would have been better just not
to even try to prosecute Trump because it just, you know,
it had it because as the appearance of being political
in itself. Again, I don't know what the answer is.
I'm not a lawyer, but it just struck me that
(04:55):
what Adams is doing is he's really trying to manipulate
what is him doing illegal stuff and make it sound
political in order to appeal to Trump and make this
case that it's all the same. And you know this
is we're down this posts post truth rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So, Malia, you know who I want in charge of
making elector overform. It's definitely not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I know who you don't want to try so Donald
Trump again, Like, this guy just wants to get his
hands on elections so badly, and should we be surprised
this is what he says to Trump. Okay, so he's
in New York and he is he is accepting an award.
By the way, the idea of giving this guy awards
like that is what it is. If you want something
(05:43):
from Donald Trump, give him an award. He was accepting
an award from Fox Nation. The award is called Patriot
of the Year. That's Patriot of the Year award. Okay,
he is the this year. There is no patriot. Who
is a bigger patriot? Then Thrice indicted, Right, fine, you
(06:07):
know that guy. He's the Patriot of the Year. It
was a long island event, it was not even in Manhattan,
organized by Fox Nation. On Thursday, he accepted the award.
Oh no, this is even I'm sorry, this gets worse.
Accepted the award designed to resemble the American flag because
he is, after all, the Patriot of the year. After
(06:28):
a live performance of what other song could it be?
This guy's his favorite. I even didn't have any idea
who the fuck this was, but now I know, and
I wish I didn't live performance of Lee Greenwood's God
Bless the USA, and that is Donald Trump's favorite song.
If you have a phone, you should google Lee Greenwood
(06:49):
because he is either twenty or one hundred and fifty
years old. It's impossible to tell. He has had some
kind of incredible facial whatever, and he looks like he
could be twenty five or eighty.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well, I like that, mister Trump. Did his usual speaking
ambiguously at saying nothing of We're going to do things
that have really needed for a long time.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
The man murders English. But he did mention. He complained
about the California law. In California, they just passed a
law that you're not even allowed to ask a voter
for voter ida. Think of that. If you ask a
voter for their voter Ida, you're committing a crime. We're
going to get the whole country straightened out. Yeah, no
better way to get the whole country straightened out than
(07:38):
the stop corruption. Police are going to make sure that
all the corruption doesn't happen, and you just have to
pay them.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Somali. When I think of people who earn things in
a meritocracy, you know what I think of Donald Trump's cabinet.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, is nepo nepo And again, nothing wrong with nepotism.
Donald Trump wants his cabinet nominees to earn their confirmations
on their own. That's how he works, right. But on Friday,
he was wanted to give an adaboy to Pete Hagsas
you'll remember Pete heggsas a weekend morning television host and
(08:13):
also multiple divorcee likes a couple beers. He's got the
Kavanaugh just like beer situation.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I really liked the detail of him drinking ten warm
flat beers at ten am. That was a really good story.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You know how many panels I've been on or places
I've been where people have been like repeating that thing
about him drinking all the flat beers. I have been
sober twenties at seven years. I don't think it's not bad.
Like I get it, man, like I get it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Maybe you've forgotten how bad flat war beer taste. But
as somebody who tasted at this summer, let me tell you,
I don't want it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It does a job. Nobody is drinking for a taste here. Okay,
that is not true.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I love the taste of a Budweiser a Corona this summer.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Well that's because you're not an alcohol But the rest
of us will drink our beer. I mean we won't
because I'm sober. But flat beer not flat beer? Who cares?
But anyway, Trump is very excited that Haig Seth is
fighting back. He told an advisor beats biting like cow.
I wonder if he said fighting or fighting. He's a
(09:25):
fighter again. I want to point out that, from what
we understand, and again this could be reported wrong, was
not in the room, but that Donald Trump picked him
because he looked like he should be director of the
d D. Now they're saying he's not going to jump out,
that hag Set is going to make it through. We'll see.
I mean, you know, it is still December and Trump
(09:47):
is not even president yet, so let's see what happens.
Sarah long While is publisher of The Bulwark and the
host of the Focus Group podcast. Welcome back to Fast Politics,
Sarah Longwhile.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Well being here.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
The first thing I want to talk to you about
is I have so much I want to talk to
you about. Was that after this selection happened, I went
through this process of like trying to figure out what
I got wrong and how my own wish casting sort
of clouded my judgment, and how, you know, just sort
of the litany of ways in which I could perhaps
like get information more clearly. I thought everyone was doing that.
(10:31):
It turned out that everyone was just trying to tell
each other what they had gotten wrong. I feel like
you are thoughtful, introspective in a way that not many
people are. Is there something wrong with us for being
that way.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Look, I do think that there are some real hopium
merchants out there. Yeah, And I think that because the
hopium merchants were a little more right in twenty twenty two,
most people over listened to them in twenty twenty four.
And I will say, I mean, I'm happy to do
my own sort of pundit accountability.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I feel like you have. I just remember the two
of you, and even and Tim especially was like, you know,
he was like, we sort of know she's better off
than he is, but it's not entirely clear to me
that either of them can win.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, going into the election, I was like, look, if
I'm using the focus groups, I could make the case
either way, because part of what happened was it was
so dismal when it was Joe Biden that we saw
this huge uptick for her, but it was never clear
whether that was going to be enough because the hole
that they were digging out of with Joe Biden, and
this is where look at people were mad when I
(11:46):
was like, he's got to drop out, He's got to
drop out. But I cannot tell you how much the
data going back to like twenty twenty one like after
basically Afghanistan and the Delta researchers like Joe Biden never recovered.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He was deeply unpopular.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
People thought he was too old, and whether you like
that or not, it's just true. And him running and
not allowing for a robust Democratic primary that could separate
from him was I think the fatal error. And I'll
tell you, the focus groups were so different going into
twenty four than they were in twenty. Like in twenty twenty,
I felt sure he was going to win, and actually,
(12:18):
you know, Trump overperformed I think our expectations back in
twenty twenty. But here's one of the things that I
also would point to as just a It wasn't a
blind spot because I knew about it, but I wasn't
quite sure what emphasis to put on it. So I
was spent a lot of time talking to Trump to
Biden voters. So people have voted for Trump and sixteen
and then Biden in twenty to see if they were
going to stick with him, And the thing was the
(12:39):
majority were, but we were always losing one or two people.
I'm sure we talked about that last time, because that
was like the dominant piece of evidence, was there was
always a little bit of backsliding, and so the question was,
then could Kamala Harris pick up some new people to
offset that backsliding, And that didn't happen, and in fact,
Trump picked up a bunch of sort of newish people
or low info or people are just are low propensity, right,
(13:02):
they don't vote in a lot of elections, or they
just turn out for presidentials. That is who he has
always dominated with. And on the election day, when I
saw how high turnout was, that used to be a
good sign for Democrats, but it's not. It was I
knew it was like, oh, no, turnout, super high. That's
better for Trump because Democrats are kind of maxing out.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Now.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
They got these college educated suburban voters in their trade,
but they're maxing out on those voters and there's only
so many of them. There are way more non college
working class voters who vote just in presidential elections. And
that's where Donald Trump and Donald Trump overperformed this time.
Any other Republican, like other Republicans aren't turning those people out,
but Donald Trump does.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And in fact, you had states like Arizona where there
were real Diego Trump voters. Oh yeah, absolutely, and in Wisconsin,
tammy Ball went, you know, which is wild.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, but those are people who look at her and say,
or look at Diego and say, I don't know, this
person seems like a working you know that they will
be a good sort of for the working class. But
they also like Trump. Look, the guy's been a celebrity,
he's been with us for decades. People have voted for
him now many times, and so they feel slightly different
about him. He pulls in a real cross category a
(14:19):
voter and including you know, one of the things that's
been in that we've been doing a lot of postgame
with the focus groups. And I also want to just
say from the qualitative side, I felt like, look, I
felt like both the polling and the qualitative side sort
of told us on all guys, this could go either way.
And it's like tough sledding, Like tough sledding for the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
When I've been writing about my own accountability, what, I've
been surprised that the polls were really underestimated Trump. They
underestimated Trump in every election he's run at now. Yeah,
but the polls just they can't model for like how
the turnout's going to be, and so when he's able
to sort of supercharge these low propensity voters. That's what
he's done every single time.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And also I do think the polling was picking up
on a lot of the things that we saw, oh,
which was like the massive slide with Hispanics, the somewhat
slide with black voters, and she was able to shore
something up. And let me just say a word about
Kamala Harris. She saved Democrats from an absolute wipeout. She
really did. Joe Biden was going to lead Democrats to
a historic wipeout, and she fought it back to a
(15:17):
place where now Republicans are going to have maybe a
three seat majority in the House, like they can't do
anything with a three seat majority, and they're going to
have a few seat majority in the Senate. But like
in terms of Republicans doing sort of big things together congressionally,
they probably are going to have a really tough time.
She kept it really narrow. But anyone who says, oh, well,
Joe Biden, you know, would have won, let me tell
you something, there's literally not one shread of evidence to
(15:39):
support that, not a shred. I think the only shread
of evidence there is to support is that if Joe
Biden had gotten out a lot earlier and either allowed
for a Democratic primer or given Kamala Harris more time
to sort of get better at it, to let people
know her more, that that might have made a difference.
But that's the only real difference that I think could
have been made.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I wonder a lot if some of Joe Biden's problem,
not a governing problem, but a re election problem, started
with his administration's intentionally boring doing no media, don't write.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
About us thing like I wonder if that mushroomed. Well,
here's the thing Democrats going forward, if they learn one
lesson from this, people are going to sort of try
to categorize thing that I should have gone on Joe Rogan,
it was the podcast election, Okay. Sure. What it really
means is you can no longer do politics without being
very good at having a communication strategy. There is no
(16:37):
way that you and I weren't talking about this on
your show, because I have been beside myself for the
entire Biden administration about the fact that they are not
out there talking. I was like, look, and Joe Biden
was allows the communicator, right, he was too old, and
so he didn't have the ability to like communicate Strong'm like,
but I was like, where are all the surrogates? Where
is everybody? Else? Where's the mountain of people? Like the
way that JD. Vance and Donald Trump just went on
(16:58):
everything were everywhere talking to people directly, Like that allowed
the mainstream media like they can't define Donald Trump and
you can people say, you know, he did this or that.
But like if people will get to hear him directly
and they say, well, he doesn't sound like Hitler, Pamla
Harris needs to be able to be like, well, I
don't sound like somebody who can't form a sentence, right,
You've got to be there to puncture the way the
(17:19):
other side is trying to define you directly with voters
and so sort of the everything everywhere, all at once
strategy has to be how people communicate and they have
to be able to do it authentically. And so if
you can't walk shore footed into all kinds of spaces,
non traditional spaces, unfriendly spaces, like you can't do politics anymore.
Like you've got to be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, I think that's really the issue is Like by
the time he had gotten there, that that White House
didn't really do a lot of communicating. They one offer
up either the president or the vice president very much.
And so in that vacuum, Trump was able to fill
that vacuum throughout the entire Yes.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Trump had constant counterprogramming, and he also locked up the
nomination so early, like man was he able he was
able to run a campaign early he dominated that primary.
And yeah, there was I mean, like Joe Biden took
a pass on like.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
A Super Bowl interview. No I don't we do it here?
Why we do it?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
But that communications problem and this is the other thing,
like you have to be able to communicate sort of
twenty four to seven, Like you can't just run a
campaign right at the end and be like, well this
is when people pay attention. You also have to be
able to say, Okay, why didn't anybody know what the
Biden administration did? Why didn't they know about Because I
get yelled at on Twitter sometimes they're like, well, Joe
Biden was a great present. Hear jblast my buddy. So
as you know, Joe Biden passed all these big legislatives.
(18:42):
And I was like, yeah, but nobody knows about him.
And that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
The idea that these people don't know about any stuff
that happened is in itself, you know, that ultimately is
Joe Biden's why Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Didn't get reelected, right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
It's why he was unpopular.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's why they were able to push him out once
it became clear he was absolutely not up to the job.
But there's also a bunch of other reasons I just
want to throw out there that I hear all over
the focus groups, and some of them are things like
people didn't like the fact that there wasn't a primary,
Like the fact that it just went from Joe Biden
to Kamala Harris without sort of input rubbed a lot
of people the wrong way. The other thing is, even
(19:17):
though RFK was only getting you know, two or three
percent nationally, there was this cross section of voters that
I think ultimately might have been kind of determinative. I've
heard a lot of this where people are like, you know,
I voted for RFK and for Elon and for Tulsi
and like Trump last, but like, there is this red
pilled voter. It's not a Republican voter. It is a
(19:39):
red pilled voter who honestly probably was like kind of
a Democrat for a long time, a casual one who
was brought over by the anti establishment sort of red
pilled people that Donald Trump was surrounding himself with. He
was able to pull just enough people away from Democrats.
With those sort of people, at the end of the year,
(20:00):
you curve of politics. And look, this has long been
a feature of Trump where I talked to a lot
of Bernie voters who voted for Trump after voting for
Bernie in a Democratic primary, and he has just been
able to pull those voters away by being a really
unworthodox candidate.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah. No, I mean, I hate it, but I think
that is absolutely correct. Democrats were the establishment party. It's
not just establishment, I think in terms of them trying
to be defenders of democracy, they got a little bit
wrapped up in kind of the defenders of the status quo.
And then also though one of the things you hear
(20:37):
from voters all the time, which is a shift in
voters where they now say I don't want a regular
politician like they like Trump because he's not a regular politician.
And even when Kamala Harris to them like technically sounded
good and she was, they were like, yeah, you know,
she doesn't sound like the way they stay sound, but
they did. She did sound like a regular politician to them.
She didn't have a clear message that broke through to them.
(20:58):
And so that's where it was a Now now, as
a result, we're in an extremely dangerous place. What now
right now is we're going to look at four more
years of Trump. Now.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I want to say a couple things though, really quickly.
One is that Trump is going to be a lame
duck president. And I'm seeing a lot of fear from people,
a lot of pre surrender, a lot of chilling effect,
and like the and that is a thing we cannot
allow to happen, Like people are going to have to
find It's funny. I've heard that the phrase all my life.
(21:26):
You know, the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself. But I don't think I ever understood it
until now, watching the way people are engaging with the fear,
and the fact is like, we don't need hashtag resist,
We need like real courage and strength in this moment
to push forward. We got to find a way to organize.
And I was just talking to George Conway for the
pod and I was asking him, like, should Biden issue
(21:47):
blanket pardons for people like Liz Cheney or Fauci And
he said no, No, like that is that's not a
good way to use use the pardon power. But what
we should do is get on war footing, like we
need to raise money for we need to get make
sure people have access to lawyers, and we need to
fight the fight. And I personally believe that offense is
always the best defense, right, Like, they got to govern now,
(22:10):
especially with these guys. Yeah, these are a bunch of
ego maniacal narcissists who are going to fight with each other.
Like governing's hard sometimes when you're in the opposition, it
can be a little easier, and you just let them.
Let them own this. They've got to pass a budget
bill right out of the gate. They got to fund
the government. Let me tell you what, that's good luck
with your three vote majority though, Mike Johnson and so Democrats,
(22:32):
But Democrats should not bail them out. Look, I'm a
big norms values institutions person, but I also believe that
you can play political hardball, and Democrats should and they
should not build Republicans out voters ask them to run
the government, so let them. I think that Democrats should
be thinking about what their red lines are. Where are
the places they should fight, and where are the places
they should let voters get the full experience of what
(22:54):
they've asked for.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's true. I think that's a really good point. Blame
to us sort of what you think Democrats should be
focused on? Like it in my mind it's norms and institutions.
But what do you think the red line should be?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Well, I think it should be rule of law on elections, right,
like you want to make sure on the other side
of Trump's four years we still have free and fair elections, right.
We want a correction in twenty twenty six. I think
we can get it. You want to protect the rule
of law as best you can, because this is going
to be the most corrupt administration of our lifetime.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
People need to.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Get familiar with the word cacistocracy because I'm not sure
the answer to this, and I don't want to be
pollyannish at all about what we might be facing. I
think cash Betel is a very scary thing. I think
Pete Heggs that's very like these are scary people, but
they're also all like dopes out to enrich themselves, and
so the extent to which retribution might quickly become just
a big sense of corruption and them all trying to
(23:50):
sort of get what's theirs is something I think we
very much could see. But I do think that Democrats
need to pick new leaders right, like the new next
generation has to rise up here, should define themselves in
opposition to what's about to happen. And I'm talking about
picking really smart people to lead the DNC. Like I'm
a big fan of Ben Wickler, know him personally. I
think he's really good strategically and we're not even I'm
(24:12):
not even with them on some of the policy stuff,
but I just think he knows what he's doing and
knows how to bring the factions of the Democratic Party together.
I think there's a lot of deep bench and rising stars,
and I hope they all start to stand up and
show an alternative Like the Republicans did this. They spent
the four years of the Biden administration in an opposition
(24:33):
that allowed people to be like, this is what the
opposition look like, It's who the players are. Democrats need
to do that too, and so leaders need to emerge now,
and I hope that they are smarter yet than just
sort of hashtag resistant that they figure out how to
really do the important stuff on guardrails, but also like
rethinking their communication strategy, Like you've got a few really
good communicators, but the way in which communication is going
(24:56):
to go down as the biggest failure of the Biden years,
and they got a correct that real fast.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah. Communication, it's not a legislative problem, no, I.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Mean, look, Joe Biden did a bunch of good, big
bipartisan things, Like if I had to go back and
relitigate the Democrats coming out and doing HR one as
one of their big attempts at legislative stuff rather than
reigning and executive power after we had just seen that. Like,
I just think there's a lot of failures in twenty
twenty one, the biggest ones being on the Republican side
who refused to hold Trump accountable after the January sixth
insurrection and his attempt his refusal to engage in a
(25:26):
peaceful transfer power. But I also think Democrats chose a
bunch of boneheaded legislative things to do out of the
gate that were not that like sort of missed the
fact that we could end up in this snapback moment.
But look in terms of infrastructure and some of the
other things Joe Biden did, those were good bills that
they should have gotten credit for that they just couldn't
communicate to the voters about you know, is going to
(25:47):
get credit for it. Trump Trump's going to get the
benefits of all the infrastructure money as it rolls in.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
If you're wanting these Republican senators and you're trying to
think of, like who are the ones who, like you
feel like have spine and might stand up for things.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I think Collins has been not always good, but I
think she's been overly maligned, and I think we're going
to see some good things from Rakowski and Collins. But
there's also a bunch of senators you don't know their names.
That's they are the ones that sit in the back
and like try to keep their heads down and do
decent things.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Mike grounds Langford too, I mean he's famous, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Langford, who's very conservative, but he's like, oh, he's an
institution's guy. And you're even already seeing I think there
was an overly defeatist attitude about Trump's nominations, and like
they are now quietly killing them. And so I think
that that is good and that you know, they don't
want to do it publicly. They're not you know, profiles
and courage, but they are right now putting their foot
(26:45):
down in some places, or at least and I even
Joni Ernst, I think when she said we had a
frank exchange of views with Pete Hegseth, I hope he
told her about how women shouldn't be in the military,
since she is herself a military veteran. So like I
just I think there are ways in which the Senate
might be a little better than what people originally thought.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
No, that was my take too, and I was happy
to see it, and I wanted people to stop engaging
in that defeatist attitude and instead say, you know, this
is their job and they're expected to do it because
you know, however, if they want to do it like
total cowards, which it seems like they do, then that's
fine too. As long as they do it, that's right.
(27:22):
Sarah Long, Well, thank you. I was just really glad
to get to talk this through with you, so.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Thanks, love it, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Chris Murphy is the junior senator from Connecticut. Welcome back,
to Fast Politics. Senator Murphy Grey All, Yah, good. I mean,
all things considered, I want you to talk about this
theory that you've been working on about where Democrats should
go next.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Yeah, I listen. I don't think any of us have
the complete case yet, but I mean, my underlying premise
is that we got skunked, and it'd be a real
mistake for us to think that there are minor adjustments
that will fix our brand and try to grow our coalition.
You know, maybe I'm a little overly focused on the Senate,
(28:10):
but right now our ceiling is fifty two seats in
the Senate because we are not competitive any longer in
places that just a nanosecond ago we were competitive in,
like Ohio and Florida and Missouri and Iowa. So it
feels to me like we've got to do a real
hard assessment of why we claim to be the party
(28:31):
of poor people and working people, and working people and
poor people aren't voting for us. That sounds like we're
not listening to the people we actually represent. You know,
My early theory of the case is this that we
have become the party of the status quo. We're the
party that defends the establishment, and the Republican Party has
become the party to attack the status quo. That up
(28:54):
ends fifty plus years of political paradigm. And there's a
lot of different paths to once again become the true
progressive change party, but I would argue it starts by
being a real pugilistic populist party, meaning we attack power,
we name who has power, and we are really transparent
(29:16):
in the ways that we call for the elites to
lose power and for regular people to get it. That
means naming names, that means making people inside our coalition uncomfortable.
And then the second part is make that economic populism,
that breakup of concentrated power the tentpole of the party
and allow anybody in who is going to fight with
(29:37):
us to break up the monopolies, to control the tech companies,
to cap prescription drug prices, tax billionaires. That means, if
you're not lined up with us on one hundred percent
of our social and cultural issues as well as other
hot buttons like guns and climate, we're going to let
you in the tent. We're going to allow for some
disagreement and less litmus tests. That's a hard thing for
(29:59):
our party because we have come to apply a whole
bunch of litmus tests, and that has meant that our
coalition has shrunk, not expanded. It has meant that a
lot of kind of conservative poor people don't feel like
they find a home with us. So that's my early
analysis here. And I don't claim to have all the answers.
I'm not one hundred percent sure I'm right, but I
(30:20):
don't think we have a lot of time to sort
of natlegates. I think we got to fix things pretty
fast because the train's coming.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
You know. It's so funny, because I mean, funny is
perhaps the wrong word here, but it's interesting because Jed
here writes for The Nation as very lefty, basically said
the exact same thing about this election. He said Democrats
became the status quo party when you look at the
numbers and you look at the sort of underperformance among
working people in urban areas. What Harris did was she
(30:51):
had a lot of policy proposals, and she actually tried
really hard to talk about a lot of implementation of
those policy proposals. So my question is, I wonder how
much of that was his inability to communicate from an
early on, Like all Trump does is communicate. He doesn't
do policy, he doesn't do anything else but communicate. Meanwhile,
(31:12):
Democrats just did not communicate very much despite doing a
lot of economic populism. I mean, the legislation was almost
FDR style.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Well, I mean, there's a couple of things to say
about that. First, people want you to relate to the
way that they are feeling. They actually want you to
spend some time listening to them and talking to them
about the problem and the injustice. Now Trump is one
hundred percent diagnosed, complain about the problem, complain about the injustice.
(31:42):
He offers no solutions, and it's like really frustrating for
policy wonk Democrats when Trump gets away with it. But
it's because human psychology wants to be heard, and the
way that you know you've been heard is to listen
to somebody be outraged about the injustice that you're experiencing.
So take prescription drug prices. It's an outrage. People feel
(32:06):
it's an outrage. Democrats spend like twenty percent of our
time talking about the outrage, in eighty percent of our
time explaining the solution, which by the way, is kind
of a small ball adjust the market solution, a different
way to negotiate prices with the existing drug companies. We
(32:26):
should be shooting eighty percent of our time talking about
the problem, talking about the drug companies who are screwing Americans,
naming the exact CEOs, the exact companies hauling them before Congress,
and twenty percent of our time talking about the solution.
So we just communicate the wrong way. It doesn't match
up with how people actually perceive the world and think
about problems. And I agree with you that Harris had
(32:49):
a lot of really good policy proposals on the economy.
And again i'm with you, like I think this was
a hard campaign for her to whim given that she's
shoved into it with a really short calendar. I'm not
sure that if she did everything right, she was going
to win.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, you have to wonder, like Democrats have run two
very competent women like there is may not just be
their personalities, right, It may just be the innate misogyny
of American life.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Well, I mean that that might be true, but I
don't know. That sounds to me like a little bit
of an invitation to not be engaged in a real
hard to look at our policy. I mean, you can
say it's misogyny and racism, and you know what, throw
up our hands.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Except the one thing I would say is like, it's
obviously not racism because Americans have elected a black president.
So like there's one thing that both of these. And again,
I'm not going to put you on this because it's
not relevant to what you're talking about. But I just
think that the fact that we can't even talk about it,
and I see it everywhere, and I just wonder why.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I don't know that there's an inability to talk about it.
And of course there are voters out there who are
unwilling to vote for a woman to be president of
the United States. There were also many young women who
probably showed up because there was a moment on the
balance It may be that the misogyny outweighs the excitement
factor of electing the first woman president. But I do
(34:09):
think that there's weight on both sides of the balance sheet.
But there's another similarity between the Harris campaign and the
Clinton campaign. Neither of them made the economy and populist
economics the centerpiece of the campaign. The centerpiece of the
Clinton campaign, and I know this because I got the
talking points for the last two months. Was Donald Trump's
(34:30):
recklessness and outrageousness. The tenpole of the Harris campaign was democracy.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
That's why Liz Cheney is campaigning with her in the
end because in this Chaney disagrees with her on the economy,
disagrees with her on raising taxes on billionaires, but agrees
with their on democracy. And so there's also that similarity
that both of those campaigns decide that they are not
going to organize the campaign around attacking economic power, and
(34:59):
I just think we probably need to learn that lesson.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
First talk to us about what that would look like.
So there's like the status issue, this Hofstadt or status issue.
Whereas Trump was able to somehow convince voters again that
he was a working man's candidate, right, that there was
some of that going on.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Sure again in a short campaign. I think it was
very difficult for them to try to unmask his fake populism.
But somebody was just in my office earlier today giving
me a good example of how the campaign would have
been different if you made economic populism and attacking corporate
power the centerpiece of the campaign. This person was saying,
you remember the part in the campaign where Mark Cuban,
(35:43):
who's one of her primary surrogates comes out and agrees
that Lena Khan to be fired. And it kind of
was swept under the rug right by the Harris campaign.
It was an opportunity to create a fight with a friend,
right right, right right, go after somebody that you know,
you consider, you know, part of your club and say no, no,
you're just wrong about this, Like I'm sorry, I like
(36:06):
Mark Cuban and I'm glad that he's out there campaigning
for me, but a hell no, I am not dismantling
the structure that breaks up corporate power. If you want
to support me, then you got to know that I'm
coming after the big corporations. And if you want to
be a part of this campaign, you better sign up
for kicking the shit out of the corporations that are
(36:26):
screwing regular Americans. On board, Mark, or you're not on board,
Like that would have been a moment, right if you
were organizing the campaign around the issue of attacking corporate
power and consolidated economic power. And again, I think they
ran a really good campaign. This is all in retrospect,
This is all like hindsight. I think they ran a
really good campaign. But that's an example of how that
(36:46):
campaign would look differently.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
I also think like separating herself from Biden was okay too.
There were things possible to do, but it was very hard.
For a long time, I thought you shouldn't go on
places like to because of any number of reasons. But
now I actually believe that Democrats are giving up spaces
(37:08):
where they could actually win hearts and minds. Those clips
that Trump produced from Joe Rogan, like almost seventy million
people watch them, Like that is insane.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Yeah, this is again this idea that we have litmus
tests right, that we're we're not looking for voters that
don't line up with us on all of our hot
button issues. We don't talk to media personalities that don't
line up with us on all of our issues. You
and I maybe talked about this. But a year and
a half ago, there was this conservative song that went
(37:42):
viral called rich Men North of Richmond, and it was
this singer who talked about, you know, the soul listness
of work and low wages and concerted corporate power. He
had some conservative tropes in that song about welfare queens.
He had at least one QAnon reference. You could tell
that this was not a guy who was like lined
up with all of the progressive priorities, but he clearly
(38:05):
cared about the shape of the economy in the justice
of the economy. And I kind of went online and
was like, Hey, let's talk to this guy. Let's talk
to his followers, like this sounds like a group of
people who should be in a conversation with us. And
I got like shouted down online by the online left
who was like, no, he doesn't agree with us on everything.
I don't want to talk to him.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
He's a racist.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
People that listen to him a racists. They're not part
of our club. And so I just think we made
a decision to not convert, Like we made a decision
that if you don't agree with me right now and everything,
I don't want to be in a conversation with you.
That's not how you build a movement. You build a
movement not by just going and getting everybody who already
agrees with you, but talking to people who don't agree
with you and trying to get them in the tent
(38:44):
based on some area of alignment, and then once they're
in the tent, trying to convince them to get a
little bit closer to you on the things that you
don't agree on.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I do think one of the things that Trump did
that was really successful was he took into the tent
RFK Junior, and RFK Junior brought a lot of women,
and you know, these are largely again I don't want
to be patronizing here, but these are women who are
a little bit skeptical of a lot of the modern
(39:13):
medicine that I so prize as a person who lives
in the year twenty twenty four. But I mean that
was a huge group who had never had anyone ever
appeal to them, and RFK galvanized them, and then Donald
Trump invited them into his tent. I mean, now, morally
this is dicey, but there are certainly less moral groups.
(39:36):
I mean, this group is I think they're being taken
advantage of a little bit. But I do think that
this illustrates the idea.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Yeah, I do. I'd have to sort of think through
whether I agree with you as to how much of
a vote GET or RFK Junior was. There's a judgmentalism
that people attached to us that doesn't exist in Trump's world,
and you know, I think that that comes with kind sequences.
People are a little afraid to be part of our
coalition because they feel like if they use the wrong word,
(40:06):
they talk about gender in a nineteen ninety eight way,
you know, they'll be pushed at to the side of shame.
So I do think we've got to understand that people
are a little afraid sometimes to be part of our
coalition because they're worried that we're too judgmental about language
and about folks who don't agree with us universally.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So what would be the solve for that?
Speaker 4 (40:30):
To first of all, just go to groups of people
that don't agree with us, to be in conversations with
Joe Rogan's audience. Go to church groups where there's, you know,
some sense of selflessness and commitment to community, where you
might find economic populists who want to be part of
our club. To nominate candidates who don't line up with
(40:55):
us on the twelve most important issues, to do important
things that signal that we want to be a more
inclusive party again.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So can we talk about that Nebraska Senate candidate?
Speaker 4 (41:09):
Sure? I mean I wasn't deeply involved in that race.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Certainly not. It was and Democrats were not involved in it,
and he didn't run as a Democrat, but I did
interview him, and you know, he was an independent, but
it was like a purely work the campaign and he
did ultimately get crushed by the millions of dollars that
the Republicans put in for deb Fisher. But it struck
me that this was a guy who was really running
(41:35):
a totally worker focused campaign.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
A worker focused campaign, a campaign that talked about economic power,
that talked about government playing a role to smooth out
the rough edges of the economy, but a campaign that
was really focused on that message. He ran further ahead
of Kamala Harris than any other Senate candidate in the country.
And yeah, maybe part of that is that he had
(42:00):
that independent brand, but I think a lot of it
was that he was, you know, engaging in this kind
of big ten populism that I think is the key
to winning. I don't get the sense that people who
maybe you know, didn't supporting us all weapons ban, or
were a little squishy on climate or you know, maybe
weren't on board with, you know, our positions on abortion
(42:24):
or gay rights. I don't think that they felt like
they couldn't be part of his coalition. And that's what
I'm gunning for and frankly, I think that had he
been elected, even with the votes of folks who are
anti choice or not on board with you know, gay rights,
it would have been really good to have somebody like
that representing Nebraska who would be then in a position
(42:44):
of power to be in a conversation with folks who
then might be more willing to listen to somebody somebody's
argument on why climate matters, on why assault weapons ban
isn't so scary. That's why you should be open to
bringing people who don't always degree with you into the coalition.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Thank you so much for taking the time, Senator Chris Murphy.
Thanks n No Mo Execond, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
My junk past. One of the things that has a
lot of us going hmm is that all the Republicans
keep saying Elon won Trump the election, and we're starting
to see some details of why they're seeing that. Of
all the scummy things he did in this election, what
are you seeing here.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Elon Musk. He poured twenty million dollars into a mysterious
superpack called the RBG Pack, which launched ads, and they
were ads that were in the name of RBG. Rise
Bader Ginsburg, who she had a chance to resign when
she was under Obama when she was eighty and she'd
(43:50):
had cancer. She did not take it and she stayed
in She died in office and was replaced by Amy
Coney Barrett, who is a conservative now, and they were
able to overturn movieweight. So this is another way the
Conservatives love to own the Libs by delighting in the
(44:11):
way they have overturned, you know, just taken away things
from women, and this will be no different. That's it
for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
(44:35):
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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