Trump’s Get Out Of Jail Free Campaign (w/ Gov. Tim Walz)

Mike Johnson has lost control of the House Senate. And later, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz sits down with Tommy to talk about how much you can get done when Democrats have full control of your legislature. But first, it has been a big week for Donald Trump's get out of jail free campaign. The Supreme Court is now set to make a decision that will determine whether Trump will stand trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 election sometime before the 2024 election. We should get that decision sometime within the next week.

A judge in Georgia heard arguments about whether D.

A. Fonny Willis should be removed from that election subversion case because of a romantic relationship with one of her co-attorneys. We're about to find out how much Trump and his businesses will have to pay for committing fraud in New York. And Trump showed up at another Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, only to have the judge deny his request to delay the case where he's being charged with violating election law by falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to the porn star he had an affair with. Jury selection in that case will now begin on March 25th.

And Trump, of course, used the opportunity to campaign just outside the courtroom. This is no crime, but outside, right outside the.

They've done a horrible job at the border. They had up the countries that make up NATO. It's about the same size as our economy. So we're in.

And they laugh.

So lots to unpack. here. He's. he's really doubling down on his war against Europe, huh? He said something about NATO again at a rally on Wednesday night.

What do you think's going on here?

Now, this may come as a shock to you, but Donald Trump does not know how NATO works. No. There are no NATO bills. There's no NATO dues. You just have, it is just some guidelines that you spend two percent of your GDP on defense.

United States does. We are the biggest country with the biggest military, so we carry more of it, but it is an absurd thing, but I think it is that he is right to, not right. Right is not the word. He's definitely wrong, but he is politically, there is some political savvy in fitting this gaffe of his under his larger narrative of America's been dumb. We're paying for things we shouldn't pay for, and I'm going to fix all of that, and so that probably works for him, so he is trying to, I think, shift away from the please invade Russia, please invade countries to the part of the message is more politically effective for him.

Yeah, I mean, if you were.

Like you said, there is no, like, it, NATO, we talked about this on Tuesday's pod. that, like you said, it's a guideline. Every country should spend 2% of its GDP on its own defense. Many countries do that in the NATO alliance. The United States is one.

Poland is one, right? There's like a lot of countries doing that. Some countries aren't spending 2% of their GDP on their own defense. The question then for Donald Trump is, are you suggesting defense cuts in the United States? Do you want us to spend less on our own national defense?

Because I don't think that's what he's advocating for either, though. I do think that's probably fairly popular across parties to spend less on defense. We do have a bloated defense budget in this country, but, like you said, the better message here to count about what Donald Trump has said is, why does Donald Trump want Putin to take over Europe? Do we think Putin's going to stop there? Do we think that the ocean between us and Vladimir Putin is going to protect us from a third world war?

Do we think we're going to be able to stay out of world war? three if Vladimir Putin sets his sights on Europe? Is that what's going to happen? I mean,

I have some.

Not that he is a principled isolationist at a time of global.

All right, let's get to the legal stuff. So Jack Smith's election subversion case was supposed to go first on March 4th, but now that we're waiting for the Supreme Court to decide the immunity question, and now that there was the ruling in Manhattan today, it looks like the first Trump trial will be the hush money case. Jury selection on March 25th. It's happening. Not ideal that it's the first case, but I don't know, what's your take?

We have to take whichever convictions on the menu, and this may be the only one. But yeah, this is not the one I would have chosen to be the first trial, because I think it's the least politically damaging to Trump.

It's going to be harder for him to say, to start attacking juries. If suddenly he goes on the side of the people, the people have exonerated me in the Manhattan case, but the DC people did not. So I guess he's just going to have to, it's going to have to attack. I'm sure, I'm sure. I have no doubt that he will attack the jurors in DC, but...

Well, you raise a good point, John, because.

I'm one in one. Yeah, that gets you in the baseball hall of fame pretty fast.

Uh, she went on the Today Show this week to call Trump unhinged and predicted that voters won't elect him if one or more of these trials ends in a conviction. Let's hear it. The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016.. He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he, than he was.

He's just trying to control as much as he can control, but we don't want a king in America. That's the problem. There is no way that the American people are going to vote for a convicted criminal. They're not. But you said you would.

They're not. But you said you would. No, that is not the question. I mean, how ridiculous is it that you're literally saying that I'm hurting him by staying in. They're hurting resources.

No. When. Okay. Resources from a man who spent $50 million of his own campaign contributions on his personal court cases where the RNC is broke. I'm the one hurting.

and resources. I don't think so. I'm the one that saves the Republican party. She had some good points. She had some not so good points.

I don't know if she's going to be the one who saves the Republican party. A lot of her comments about Donald Trump were correct. I don't know what she was trying to say there when he was like, uh, yeah, you, you said you'd vote for him because she did raise her hand on stage at that debate. Maybe, maybe that was, will you support? Cause?

I guess she signed the pledge to support the Republican nominee, no matter what, even if it was, even if it was Trump. So maybe that's what she means. And she's not really going to vote for him. I don't know what the hell she's saying.

She's in a pickle here because she said she would support him. She said she would vote for him. Even if he was convicted, she said all these trials were shams. And then she decided to start running against him. And, and she, her past positions are a little bit of a prison here.

It's not great. Just because I want to vote for a convicted felon doesn't mean.

But the latest polling average in South Carolina is Trump 66, Haley 30, if anything, his lead has grown slightly larger over the last few weeks. So it seems like this is the wrong message for the Republican electorate to say the least. But do you think that Haley's message could, could move some Trump curious?

And so this is probably, this is where we were always going to end up. And, as much as we want to, there is no phrase she can come up with. There's no slogan. There's no argument against Trump that she could do now. that would change the dynamic.

However, I do imagine that somewhere in the bowels of the DNC or the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, they are taking every one of these clips and they are saving them. And they're going to use them to target Haley voters across the country, because the, everyone who was identified, I hope folks are pulling these states, where the primaries are never going to happen, to ID Haley voters, particularly registered independent Haley voters, and targeting them with these ads. And it's because this is a universe of voters who are very right for Biden to get, and we have to work very hard to keep them from moving back to Trump. And so I think all of these clips, as are any clip from a Republican to criticize you, Trump, can be very, very powerful in this media environment. I'm interested in whether they.

Imagine everything that you buy that has even a small little part that's not made in America, costing 10% more. that I think it's a, I think that is very ripe for, uh, for a tax, uh, again in forget about the primary in the general election. Yeah. I think.

I don't think that's an argument we can win in the primary. I promise. I'm sure a 10% tax increase is very unpopular among Republican primary voters. I also think, if you ask them a followup question is, do you believe that Donald Trump implemented 10% tax increase? They would say no, but in the general.

I'm going to do something that's very in vogue and parts of America these days, which is I'm going to agree with Chris Christie that I don't think this is about influencing the party. This is about setting yourself up for 2028 if Trump loses. If Trump wins, she could not run for Republican dog catcher anywhere in America. But if he loses, I still do not necessarily think that she would be a favorite. It's still a MAGA party, but she would, parties do, they often have reckonings.

when they lose elections, they should win. And could that happen in the Republican party? Who knows? But I think there would be a lot of people who would get behind her campaign, just money, people, elected officials, stakeholders, operatives, because she made an argument. She said he couldn't win and then he did win.

Now, what happens when the voters get involved? Maybe a lot like what's happening right now, but if she's trying to, there is an element of delusion in every presidential campaign. And so I imagine she has eyes on 2028, and that's why she's still doing it and making this case. She's decided if he wins, she's toast. If she loses, if Trump loses, she may be in the game for a political future in the party.

And that's why she's doing it. I think it's less like she's going to get to pick the RNC chair next or edit the policy platform. I think it's about running.

That's what they want. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it all depends on who.

The point is, who cares why she's doing it? Keep doing it, Nikki. That's my point.

Take your delegates that you've won. Just go to the floor. Make a bus. All 12 of them, or whatever it is, take your 12.. Yeah, whatever you get.

After South Carolina. Yeah, take all.

All right, let's talk about Joe Biden. He's out there trying to show that he is a well-meaning, elderly man who can still kick Donald Trump's ass in November. He's hitting the road with the rest of his cabinet to whack Republicans for voting against all the new jobs that his climate and infrastructure bills are creating. He's now on TikTok with the rest of the cool kids.

And he took a shot at Trump over his NATO comments. Let's listen. No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. Well, let me say this as clearly as I can. I never will.

For God's sake, it's dumb and shameful. It's dangerous. It's un-American. I'll tell you, nothing's going to be more viral than a debate about NATO on TikTok.

he did the message we were just saying. It was good. And he sounded energetic and sharp there.

Do I think that is the actual reality? No. But I know what the alleged affairs people always say. I don't know. if you do this, we could lose Tom Tillis's vote.

It's going to be really fun. How do you think Biden and his team are handling this so far? And do you have any more advice from?

They've gone after him. It has helped make it, Herr has helped them by hiring Steve Bannon's lawyer, hiring Jeff Sessions' spokesperson to help advise him on this, pointing out the partisan nature of this, which you want to do with that alone, is impugn the messenger and give your supporters a permission structure to ignore this. And I think they're doing that well. Who knows what happens when Herr testifies and how that goes in Democrats. That's really going to depend on the Democrats and on the Judiciary Committee to help carry that case.

Then there's the broader question of how do you deal with the issues that existed before the Herr report, were exacerbated by the Herr report and exist afterwards, which is voters' concerns about Joe Biden's age and ability to do the job. And that is something that is not a problem that you have to solve right now, but the way it is going to be solved is by Joe Biden being out there a lot, demonstrating, as he did in that clip we just played, that he has the ability and the energy to do the job. And not just the job of president, but the job of running for president, which is different and easier in some ways, but harder physically, in terms of physical stamina, than just being president, I think, because of the travel and the rallies and speaking in public all the time. And that, you know, I think there's going to be a ramp up of that. There's a tour you mentioned.

There's a State of the Union coming. And I think the one thing that the Biden folks have, and I think this is largely about the president, less about his staff, have struggled to do in recent years is find moments, high leverage moments, to grab the nation's attention, right, where people will actually break through. And that's going to mean picking some fights. That's just why the NATO thing was smart. It's going to be how he does the State of the Union.

If he delivers just a normal State of the Union with no conflict, with the people sitting there who are torpedoing his agenda and impeaching his son and doing all these other things and holding hearings on his son, impeaching him, that would be a mistake. And so it is going to have to be performing, but performing in moments that will actually, in finding moments where it will actually break through. And I think that is still an open question. And I, like, there's no doubt that the very, very smart people who are working for President Biden on these very things, like Ben LeBolt and Anita Dunn, and the people on the campaign, are thinking about that. But that just being good at midday Roosevelt room events is not going to solve this problem.

It's going to have to be in the big moments. They're going to have to create some of those moments, because there aren't enough of them already penciled in on the calendar between now and Election Day.

And I'm sure the people around him know what he needs to do, but he actually needs to do it. I think you can put him. I think more informal settings are good. I think he needs to show passion, but passion for people, not passion about defending himself, not sounding defensive, the not getting snippy with the press. I know that's like fun for libs on Twitter to see Joe Biden, like, you know, tussle with the press, but like, that's, I don't think that's helping him.

I think he can be self deprecating about the age thing, which he's already doing. I think he could do that, continue that. I think he can be mocking of Trump and the Republicans use mockery with them. Like there's only so many times you can get up there and say that Donald Trump is like a threat to democracy. He is, and Biden said it, he's done really well saying that, but there's plenty to mock with Donald Trump.

And he started to do that a little bit with the Nikki Haley, Nancy Pelosi mix up. So probably should do more of that. What's your take on the new TikTok account?

I don't know why that's so funny. It just is, John. Obviously, you know, Jon Stewart's back on The Daily Show. It was great. He made fun of the campaigns first, or the first TikTok with Biden in it.

Because he was mumbling about cookies. I don't know.

People are very mad. Some people are very mad at Jon Stewart for saying Joe Biden ingest. Oh, I know, you know, this is for the listeners.

I know exactly how you feel about it. Don't get me wrong. The TikTok was fine. I don't know that I'm the right person to judge TikToks. Great.

Good job. And you're gonna have to do a lot of them. And I think it's good. the campaign's on there. Ultimately, when I talked to Rob Flaherty on this podcast a couple weeks ago, he's the deputy campaign manager oversees all the digital and a bunch of other stuff on the campaign.

He made the point, although he could have broken the news of the TikTok account in the interview with me, he chose not to, which. come on, Rob. Seems like maybe you're not that digital, Rob.

And that number has nearly quadrupled since 2020.

. So it's going to be. it's going to keep going up. And so you have to be there. It is where probably the most important political conversations are going to happen.

that aren't happening in people's group chats. And so having a presence there and a strategy for it's absolutely essential.

But I do think that it is. it is useful to get out sort of the, the negative information and the contrast with Trump. And but then, like like you said, and like Rob said to you, the the most important thing is going to be allies and Biden supporters who are on TikTok, who have bigger platforms to start spreading the message that way. Do you have other thoughts on on reaching voters who aren't political junkies? We spent a lot of time talking about the, the infrequent voter that Biden has been, at least according to the polls, not doing as well with.

How do you, how do you reach those voters? Do I?

I mean, obviously, as you know, and I think people this podcast probably know, this is something I think about to an unhealthy level. And I think more and more in this campaign, the we're just in this world where they, as you're talking with Peter Hamby on offline a couple weeks ago, the media ecosystem is collapsing around us, right? Local, new local newspapers, essentially gone. for all intents and purposes. Local TV still has some value, but mostly watched by older people.

The number of people who have access to cable news cut dramatically in an incredible rate, particularly among young people. Facebook is downplaying political content.

Instagram and threads are not going to, are not going to recommend political content to people. Twitter's a total husk of itself. And so the political conversations that happen in the media, powered by the big social platforms, that day is over in politics. And now they have moved. the most consequential political conversations are now going to happen, with the exception of TikTok, which I think has tremendous import to one segment of voters.

The most important political conversations are now happening on what's called the private internet, on text chains, group chats, WhatsApp groups, among family and friends. And what Democrats are going to have to do is empower the millions and millions of people who fund our campaigns $5 at a time, who are text banking at home or knocking on doors, who are doing phone banks all the time during the campaign, empower them to be our messengers, right? We have to give them the content and the ideas to insert themselves in those conversations that they are already having about politics with the people in their lives, because they're the most trusted messenger. No, people don't trust politicians, and they don't trust the media. So the only thing they trust is people they know.

And so we have to leverage that power. And that is ultimately something that I have really hoped was going to end up being sort of how Democrats think about communication for a while. And I think now necessity has come and we have to do it. It is the ultimately why I started Messagebox a few years ago, which was my idea that we have to give the same messaging advice and strategic guidance that we give to candidates to average everyday people, right? Help them understand what the so they can be grounded in those conversations.

And so I think that is what this is going to be, it's going to be less about who has a smarter strategy to get on 60 minutes or who has the most viral tweets, it's going to be whose supporters are carrying the weight in the most persuasive ways with the most people in their lives. And that that is ultimately how we're going to reach people, because they are not going to tune into the news. You can do 7000 fucking MSNBC town halls or CNN town halls, you're not gonna reach any of those people, they're not gonna know those things happened. Right? We can scream about the New York Times for hours.

Let me step back and allow you to answer this. No, I will not go on another rant.

Again, 90% of the New York Times 10 million subscribers are Democrats, Democrats. These are the people that are showing up to the special elections in the midterms and voting for Joe Biden and Democrats, and who are still supporting Joe Biden and Democrats and who we, who are going to go to the polls and probably vote anyway, right? So, like, and the reach of the times, cable news, all the people that were yelling out about their chyrons and their headlines, it's just not the same as it was, even in 2020, let alone 2016.. And so it's just, it's a lot of, it's can be understandable outrage, but it's a lot of wasted energy. is, is, is my point.

But no, I totally agree. And the other thing is, you know, in 2022, in the midterms and a lot of these specials, sort of the difference you saw, especially in the midterms, between how Republicans did in places where there weren't competitive campaigns versus the states where there were heavily competitive and contested campaigns. And you saw Democrats do better. It's because they did exactly what you said. It wasn't just television ads that were run in those districts and states.

It was a real campaign happened and the supporters and the staff of the campaign and the volunteers and the field staff, all those people, they carried the message. They have those conversations you were talking about with neighbors, with friends, with social networks, and those that it's one of the reasons that Democrats over-performed, how the poll suggested or the pundits suggested, and even how they did in.

And, and boy, have they become a useful foil, especially House Republicans. Punchbowl on Thursday called them the most chaotic, inefficient, and ineffective majority we've seen in decades covering Congress. Unless. do you think, why are you quoting, why are you quoting Punchbowl? Chip Roy, Republican Chip Roy on the floor of the house today was, like, you know, Jake Sherman, and Punchbowl was right about us.

Big day for Jake Sherman and democracy. And Chip Roy, right? So Trump and Mike Johnson killed the bipartisan border deal. They won't hold a vote on the bipartisan national security bill. They can't pass the bipartisan tax deal.

Republicans are turning on Mike Johnson. Now we are just a few weeks away from another potential government shutdown and they're leaving town for a two week president's day recess. When they come back from president's day recess, they get 13 days. Apparently, there's only gonna be three days left until the government shuts down. Unbelievable.

Uh, so you and I haven't talked about the special election to fill a George Santos's seat, but the winning candidate, democratic Congressman Tom Swazee, spent a lot of the campaign hammering house Republicans for killing the border deal. Do you think Biden and, uh, and Democrats should try to replicate that strategy nationally? Yeah, I think there are.

And if you're wondering,

He was aggressive to, he was able to make abortion a much more salient issue in 2024 in his district. And it wasn't 2022 by specifically and aggressively, not running just on the Dobbs decision, but on the idea that a Republican Congress would pass a national abortion ban because New York, well, one of the things we learned from underperformance in California, in New York in 2022 is those voters, because they have, they live in democratic states with democratic governors and democratic legislatures. We're not afraid of it. Abortion ban passing in their state, the same way voters in Georgia and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Michigan were. And so it did not maybe have the same political impact that it did in those big states.

So, but he, he aggressively went after his opponent for hers, for her backers who supported national abortion ban, put, put her, his opponent on the defensive on abortion. Cause. she, just like every other Republican since 2022, can't figure out how to appease the far-right extremist GOP base and, uh, not anchor the larger electorate, which hates these extreme Republican abortion bans. And then he was, Swazi was particularly vulnerable on border issues because he's in New York, where the Republicans busing migrants to New York has made it a very big issue. Um, a completely gross and cruel and cynical stunt, but one that has been very politically damaging to Democrats.

And when he was, as love it in a DC, talked about when, uh, Swazi was the Nassau County executive. He kicked, uh, ice out of the, out of Nassau County at the request of his police commissioner, because they were hindering the police. commissioner thought that ice was hindering their crime prevention efforts. But there's this video of him and his gubernatorial primary saying bragging about kicking ice out of, um, out of Nassau County, which was in basically a gazillion ads. So, but, but he had this vulnerability, but he took it on aggressively.

And one thing he did that every Democrat can do is he attacked his opponent for opposing rejoining with Trump to oppose the bipartisan border security deal. And I think that is a very effective strategy. Now, the hard part on the border stuff, every other Democrat can run on this, but which is, he was pretty critical of Biden. He separated himself from Biden on border stuff repeatedly throughout the campaign. And obviously Joe Biden can't do that.

Um, credibly, I think, but the, um, there is a downside of. every Democrat adopts that strategy, which is in swing States, Biden will have negative ads on the border from Republicans and negative ads on the border from Democrats. And that would be unhelpful, but the idea that you'd be aggressive on border and try to put Republicans on the defensive and use the bipartisan border security deal,

We shouldn't make it about crime. The way I think about it is, it's not about what issues Republicans want to make the election about necessarily. It's about what voters are concerned about. And thinking that voters are concerned about an issue only because Republicans try to make it an issue or only because Fox news demagogues it, I think, is sort of missing how actual people live their lives, especially people who don't tune into the news. And it is fairly clear from all the data everywhere.

It's not a close call that a vast majority of Americans are concerned some, somewhere up around 70, 80% about what's going on at the border. And, and they think it's chaotic. And I don't think that means you have to then take those concerns and adopt Republican policies, but it means that you have to acknowledge that the concerns are real. And look, the, the, it's happening on the Republican side with abortion, right? Like they, it's not just, Oh, well, now Democrats want to fight the election about abortion.

So we shouldn't talk about abortion. It's that people, including Republican voters, are very, very scared of the fact that we could have a national abortion ban. And they've been saying that in elections over and over again, or Republicans have decided they refuse to listen to those concerns and they refuse to acknowledge them. And I think, on the democratic side, if people are concerned about the border, then we have to acknowledge it. And we have to put forward our own proposals and our own language.

that is true to our values, but still take on the issue. And I think the bipartisan border deal, which is tougher than a lot of Democrats would have designed themselves, is the perfect opportunity to say, we, we compromised. We didn't like all of it. We wanted to work with Republicans and we wanted to do something about the border. and they killed it because Trump wanted it dead, because he thought it would help him win in November.

And that's the kind of people they are. And by the way, it doesn't, it's not just happening on immigration. It's happening on everything. They didn't want us to support Ukraine because Donald Trump's out there saying, uh, Russia can attack whatever ally they want. Uh, if NATO doesn't pay up.

So again, Trump's Trump's making us, uh, you know, Trump's helping Putin, right? Because he loves dictators. Trump's killing the border deal because he thinks it's going to help him politically. Uh, we can't, they can't pass a tax deal that, that both parties agreed to. that would help lift children out of poverty.

And I also think it helps Joe Biden. The challenge that he has now is Trump is the challenger where he is most comfortable and Biden is the incumbent. And the danger here is that Biden will have to defend the status quo at a time where people are not happy with the status quo. and what Congress is doing right now, what house Republicans are doing, is giving Biden an opportunity to say things could be better. If you give me a bigger democratic majority, I've made, I've made certain progress, and here's the progress I've made, but I could make a lot more if you send me a bigger democratic majority.

And if you just stop the madness that's happening right now, because Donald Trump and his handpicked speaker, Mike Johnson, are just, you know, paralyzing the government because they think it's going to help him politically. And we've just got to end this. We've got to end the chaos. And if you, give me more Democrats and get out the, and vote down the MAGA Republicans, like you did the last several elections and vote down Donald Trump again, then we can actually get moving as a country and we can fix a lot of things. Like, I think.

Or get blamed on Joe Biden. Because why, why aren't things better? Well, he's the president. Why didn't he fix it? And he's in a position right now where the Republican, this incompetent, extreme clown car of a Republican house majority, is blocking anything from getting done.

The border security bill, deal, aid to our allies, all of national, natural disaster aid. That's all being blocked by this group of chaotic MAGA knuckleheads.

He's the one that's making it happen or not happen. He's got to make, and every Democrat.

make what is happening in this house under Mike Johnson's leadership, a preview of how government will function. If the Republicans get the reins of power again. And that has not happened yet. And that is why I hope the state of the union is used to tell that story. Cause you're going to have your audience to do it.

And I hope they boo the shit out of them, because that'll prove the point.

Here's how I want to solve those problems. The only way I'm going to solve those problems is if you get rid of these guys and you get rid of Donald Trump, that's it. That's the way I'm going to solve these problems. And so you need, you need that forward looking agenda, which I expect that he'll at least start laying out. and in the, uh, in the state of the union.

All right. Two quick things before we go to break, got some new merch in the old crooked store for your kids. You can pick up your own, uh, I can't vote, but you can onesies and toddler teas for all the kids in your life. Shop all crooked kids, merch, including a read me a band book onesies, by heading to crooked.com slash store to shop. Also, check out our subscribers only pod terminally online, where we answer the question, how unhinged.

can the crooked staff get? Uh, we dive into the most random, very online stories of the week that show just how badly we need to go touch grass. It's a lot of fun. I, uh, it's one of the, one of the best hours of my week is when I do a terminally online. We just, we laugh a lot.

It's fun. New episodes of terminally online drop every Saturday for friends of the pod subscribers, head to crooked.com slash friends to join up. Now, when we come back, Tommy talks to Minnesota governor Tim walls.

Uh, it's great to have you now. I wanted to tell you this on air. My first job in politics was for Minnesota. Um, I don't think I've ever talked about this on the pod. So you remember this backstory.

listeners might not. Uh, there was an heroic, amazing us Senator named Paul Wellstone. tragically died in 2002. governor Jesse Ventura, Jesse, the body, Ventura, Jesse, the governor Ventura named his replacement. It was this guy named Dean Barkley, who has his campaign chairman, I think, or something.

Yeah. And I think what happened?

Yeah, that is a good story. That's my guy. That is a good story. And then it was all the Obama staff in Iowa was like all Minnesota people, like Paul twos was our state director. Like everyone from those center, races came down.

Yeah, no, I, I don't know if you,

Yeah. Great book. Inspiring person.

I think the biggest thing about this was, is there was just such a pent up desire for a progressive state like Minnesota that led on so many things, from education to, uh, to access to healthcare. I think, um, the resistance from Republicans of stalling on a lot of those built some of that up, but I think there was a fierce sense of urgency of now. there's a whole generation of folks, me being one of them, kind of that. we believe the politics of bad happens really fast. And then we just got to be patient on these things.

Look at 20 years. We're trying to get driver's licenses for folks after, you know, we took driver's license away from undocumented folks after nine 11 had nothing to do with terrorism. Took us 20 years to get that back. And I think, which we did that too, this last year, but that idea that there's a fierce sense of urgency of improving lives now. And if you do those things, the policies are good.

The good politics will follow. And you saw just this fallout of excitement. It was really kind of funny to me. We had a few young interns on our, uh, working in our office and, and we got all these things passed within about a three month period. And they had worked on the campaign before their first campaigns, you know, that we got reelected in 22,, elected the house and Senate.

And they're like, well, this, isn't that hard to get that done. These are things like paid family. We've worked decades on it. I mean, my entire life, I've been working on some of these things. So I think it was more about appealing to what really improved people's lives.

It was such a contrast to see the, the reduction of rights. You know, don't underestimate what Dobbs did of people, like feeling a sense of urgency. So...

I will say there's one other path available to you. Wisconsin Republicans did it back in 2010,, which is where you gerrymandered the hell out of the state and lock in power for a decade. Did you consider that?

. No, no. No. House of cards. House of cards.

And the one thing I said that was so frustrating to me in Congress was, is that gerrymandered districts and money in politics. You know, that, look, if we fix those things, that would fix it. But I also came to the conclusion on this, and Eric Holder worked on this, a fair redistrict and all that. I did get to the point where saying, look, they do it. It distorts the entire electoral map in the electoral college by what they do.

Isn't there a responsibility of us to do something at least to shore it up? But no, we didn't think about it. And coming to this, I think we have to figure out how to get back to at least where there is fairness in that system. And that's what I think they're trying to get to. That's what Tony's trying to do in Wisconsin.

But it is hugely distorting because we're almost mirrors. Wisconsin and Minnesota have a very long progressive history there. We shared a lot of things back and forth. And electorally, pretty close. We're still a purple state.

But I think doing it that way, just how horrific that undermined things. But it doesn't mean that, you know, I'm not appointing judges who believe in rule of law, personal freedoms,

Yeah. You know, that's pretty cool. But the job itself, I mean, you sort of alluded to it, it seems like it can be pretty brutal at times, right? There's the chaos of like Speaker Johnson's, you know, what looks like it might be brief era, the constant fundraising, the lack of ability to do things in the minority. Am I wrong?

And are there things you think we could do to make the job feel more fulfilling or more rewarding, so that good people stick around and, like the Matt Gaetz's of the world, maybe resign?

It was a challenging district. But here's the thing. I think there is still something about who are we sending to Congress and what can they do? I focused heavily on like veterans' issues. I'm a veteran myself, spent years in that.

So I focused on improvement of veterans' quality of life, those types of things, of really seeing this as positive governance. And it was incredibly rewarding. It was, you know, now I think back on it, you know, if you deal with COVID, we deal with civil unrest after George Floyd's murder, I would obsess about a vote I'd have to take. You know, this was really stressful stuff, one vote type of thing. But there was work that you could get done, that you could build around, things that you could actually deliver on.

And I think, if you got the right people there, I proudly said I served with that. Speaking of Matt Gaetz, that was Jeff Miller's district. at one point in time. Jeff Miller was the chairman of the VA committee when I was ranking member. And I considered him a friend.

We did good work together. We delivered on things together. And it was all about that personality. That district hasn't, you know, geographically changed that much, but philosophically, and I think this goes back to, I mean, in the age of Trump, I don't know if any of these questions are relevant, because it's so distorted on what they.

It's the folks that are in the purple districts. You know, I went through that. I think thousands of people voted for President Trump and me in 2016,, where they were still lit-dicking voting. I lose sleep over that, why they did that, but I won. But they would still be willing to do that.

I don't think.

I know our team here at Vote Save America is particularly focused on New Hampshire and North Carolina. And my mom spends part of their time in Vermont. So I want to know why the hell we can't win.

So we talk about why it's so important. And those states you mentioned, North Carolina being one where Roy Cooper is term-limited, incredible governor, expanded Medicaid, you know, doing the things that we know improve lives, that one's going to be a priority. Washington State, Jay Inslee, we all tried hard. Jay is the godfather of moving climate. You know, he finally calls me and says, it's good to see Minnesotans catching up finally on these things.

Delaware with John Carney, but I agree with you, New Hampshire is a golden opportunity. We've got a good couple candidates up there, a mayor and a council member. They're going to have Kelly Ayotte, you know, extremist on these issues that we care about. And Vermont, I mean, the thing is, is that... And I say this, I think it's Democrats do this.

We see it in Massachusetts. We see it in places like New Hampshire, and we see it in Vermont, that Governor Scott is pretty moderate by Republican standards, trying to get... But he's still Republican on this. Democrats, when they're asked how the Republican governor is doing, are kind of generous about this. Like we used to say, Charlie Baker would be the top rank, Larry Hogan.

why aren't they investing 10 billion, that type of thing. So I think the biggest thing is, governors still matter, the quality of the candidate. I think, in this mood that we're in, having the backing of the DGA, having some oomph behind it, you saw us pick up that seat again and hold the seat in Kentucky, with Andy Beshear leaning in. So I think this idea that, well, we can't play in some of these places, I'm with you. I think we just need to go out and get a good candidate on this.

Find them, make sure we're there to support them. And we have to play everywhere. I got a daughter living out in Montana. We'll reelect Jon Tester, but, my God, we have Steve Bullock. We went from Steve Bullock to what we have right now.

But the things that impact your life immediately, like protections of reproductive care, you know, banning hunger in our schools rather than books, those types of things are on, governors. So we're going to go... I would encourage folks to think heavily about their governor's races.

Like, how can they plug in and help out?

You'll get on every email you want to have. We know how this all works. But it does matter. DGA is out there and it's become one of the most effective and efficient of taking resources and putting them into the races where we need to be. We can work, as, you know, our independent expenditures, helping these candidates.

We also provide resources on training, on media, on some of the things that help a candidate get there. Look, I... Saying about the Wellstone thing, it's not as if everybody comes up, but we got folks that are coming out of classrooms. We've got math. teachers say, I want to run.

And I'm going to make the case that fourth grade teachers can be good governors. They can get this stuff done. They're out there doing it. We've got veterans wanting to run. So the DGA is there to provide the resources to lift these folks up, to help organize, and to bring national attention to these races.

And I like the idea that we're smart about where we invest. But I think folks who are running realize we'll be in every state. We feel like we can play. Governors can win. I mean, Andy Beshear's the walking embodiment of that.

We're going to see it in North Carolina. You've just got weird folks running. And we've got folks who want to improve lives. So yeah, the rivalry is in. this is that we're going to go out and raise the resources.

We're going to make the case. And again, governors are the firewall. and you see the difference. And I talk to good friends with all the Midwestern governors, but Tony Evers, I mean, my God, thank God, Mark Dayton won in 2010, or Minnesota would have been Wisconsin. When Scott Walker won, like you said, from the redistricting to the judges, to everything else, they're still clawing back and we're getting close.

So I'd make the case, go on, get information about this. If you're in a state like Missouri or Indiana, where we got good candidates, but it might be a little tougher road. It's only been, you know, in some cases, less than 10 years that we've had great democratic governors like Montana. I mean, we had 16 years straight between Schweitzer and Bullock. We can do that again.

I saw a survey from late January that has him at 42% and Trump at 39%. So that suggests even in Minnesota, he's struggling. What do you think the president needs to get those voters back? And how do you guys decide, like where and when, to ask Joe Biden to come in to stump for you?

That's what it takes. And I think the president's the same way. The numbers aren't that surprising at this point in time. Those are not all that much worse than President Obama was when we were, you know, everybody was fretting in 2012.. Look, there's challenges, there's headwinds.

We've not been in a climate like this with the threat to democracy that's coming from former President Trump. I think for us is it's telling our candidates and they know this, focus on the things that are improving lives. And Joe Biden's delivered on that. He comes to Minnesota, we're replacing that bridge up in Duluth, Superior, $2 billion bridge. He's delivering on that.

Medicaid expansion in these states where we have governors running. that said, look, if you elect me as governor, we're going to have another 100,000 people get health insurance in Missouri, those types of things. So I think it's watching that. And then, for all of us, do the work that's in front of us. Do the work that's in front of us.

These campaigns are about grinding it out. It's about, you know, don't doom scroll through the polls. Just get out there, get on the doors, know that this... Because the choice is not age in this one. If it is, it's age versus insanity, bat shit, crazy ideas, NATO, you name it, a cruelness.

I think we kind of make light of this. But the cruelness, look, we got to deal with immigration. We're all going to talk about it. We need to secure our borders, but, at the same time, show humanity. We're not going to go down the road that, you know, of just the strange ideas that President Trump tells us, even though he had four years to do something about it and didn't do a damn thing.

I'm like, well, he was the president for four years. I feel like you should know better, but...

We have close ties, as Minnesotans, with Finland and Norway. We've done trade missions there and things like that. They need to know that we're not going to turn our back. And this is, you know, one of our great accomplishments in securing peace around the world was our alliances, especially the NATO alliance has done amazing things. And I don't know, you guys hit on it too, this idea of paying your bills and the simplicity of this, of a Russia expansion.

It just makes no sense. So I think, governors, well, governors will focus on kitchen table issues. Governors will focus on, you know, delivering good jobs, security, and that. I think for all of us to think about is they're not going to be able to do any of that if we're not able to secure the presidency, too. Yeah, absolutely.

I just wanna ask you.

They picked 25.

. I didn't know this at the time. When we got there, there were 25 of us. We were gonna be spread throughout China. 12 were from the East Coast, 12 from the West Coast.

My roommates were Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. And I was from Shattern State. And that's when I realized, oh, hi, I'm the geographic affirmative action guy out of middle America. But yeah, when we got placed in the Chinese high schools, so they teach us Mandarin. And then they dropped me in Foshan in Guangdong, where it's Cantonese.

And I would tell, oh, you're gonna teach in Mandarin. It'll be fine. And I'd go in the classroom and everyone's speaking Guangdong. They're speaking Cantonese. So I would go to the headmaster.

He said, no, no, they're speaking.

. Because the government says you teach in China in Mandarin. Well, they weren't doing it. So it was an interesting mess. Oh, so they were like saying, no, no, no,

Quite, a few of our folks decided not to go in. You trained in Hong Kong and then went to Guangzhou and then you spread out across the country. I was in Southern China, in Guangdong. But crossing over in Hong Kong, there was a lot of European in Hong Kong, don't do this, don't go, don't support them in this. And my thinking at the time was, what a golden opportunity to go tell how it was.

And I did have a lot of freedom to do that. Taught American history and could tell the story.

So what I immediately did when I came back was organized and set up a little non-profit and started taking American high school students because they would see older tourists there or teachers. And so my wife and I took about 500 kids back to ride the trains and go. And it was that person-to-person. At that time, I was pretty bullish that we were going to see maybe a... Because the older Chinese knew that America was their greatest ally during World War II, like we were allies until the situation with Taiwan.

But that gives us the opportunity to try and build some of those relationships, see if we could strengthen that.

. Honestly, I think that's missing. I think it's getting worse and worse, and it's like leading to this Cold War sort of feeling.

The Chinese know it's real. They're moving towards electrification. They're going to own the market on electric vehicles. There is a partnership here. And I mean, we can't just get into this Cold War situation over South China Sea again or something.

No, it's because you won that state championship. Really? You guys won that. Well, we were 0-27.. When I took the job, they said, well, we're kind of struggling.

We were 0-27.

. But I had some other coaches I worked with who were great guys. And we said, this is nonsense. Let's just turn this thing around. Three years later, state champion.

Now they're the state powerhouse.

Gorbachev, you can't tear down this walls. Um, came in like a wrecking walls. Yeah. That could be more of a post governor thing. Okay.

What if your last year is, um, the last walls?

So I would make my team say it, because I thought it was clever. So, uh,

So, uh, the Chiefs won. Now you two, we did the prop bets, but because the red Gatorade wasn't thrown.

It was as simple as that. There was no proposal on the field, but did you see that there was, um, microphone pickup of the dialogue between Travis and Taylor? And it was beautiful, because there, you could just see their connection, because Taylor says, oh my God, that was amazing. And Travis said, there's going to be a big party. So I love that for them.

I did lose, yes. And that means you have to post a tweet. That's what they're called. And we have the text here that was drafted by the Intrepid Pod Save America team. It reads as follows.

Taylor, look what you made me do. We have no choice left but to beg you for a Biden endorsement. We remember Trump's presidency all too well and think we should never, ever get back together with that man. Please, please, please, give us 2024 Biden's version. You're just going to put that online.

And I want to be clear about something. It's not one of those situations where you can say, you can't ask the genie for more wishes and you can't say, I have to post this. You just simply must put it out into the world. Well, I had this one wrinkle here. It's an important wrinkle.

Which is?

That's not actually. What? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

So of course, we're all celebrating. And then on Tuesday, you're going to get a special feed drop. It's going to be Oprah. It's Oprah. It's not us talking to Oprah.

It's Oprah talking to more important people.

Oprah needs us. We need Oprah. She asked for Friday and we said, nope, we got Tim Walz.

Ask not what Oprah can do for you. Ask what you can do for Oprah.

Have a great president's day weekend.

com slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.

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