Barack Obama on Democracy, Gaza and 2024

Speaker Mike Johnson uses an app to monitor his son's porn intake. And later, our interview with Barack Obama on the 15th anniversary of his 2008 election. How about that for a description of the show?

What polls are now showing is a very close race between Democratic governor Andy Beshear and Republican anti-abortion extremist Daniel Cameron. And Mississippi decides whether to elect a Democratic governor for the first time in 20 years. If you live in these states or other places with elections on Tuesday, go vote.

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Com, as always, and we'll be breaking down all the results later this week. Alright, let's get to the rest of the news. We are a year out from Election Day 2024, and the New York Times is kicking off the party with a new poll of more than 3,600 registered voters. Big sample.

Across the six most competitive battleground states that show Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by an average of 48-44, so they did 600 voters per state. Trump is up 52-41 in Nevada, 49-43 in Georgia, 49-44 in Arizona.

48-43 in Michigan and 48-44 in Pennsylvania, with Joe Biden leading only in Wisconsin by 47-45. The results don't seem to reflect either Trump's strengths or the Democratic Party's weaknesses. Trump is slightly more unpopular with voters in this poll than he was in 2020. And voters would choose in this poll an unnamed generic Democrat over Trump by 8 points.

And at least in this poll, even Vice President Kamala Harris performs 2 points better than Biden against Trump. What is mostly bothering voters, at least in this poll, is what we've seen in nearly every single poll for the last several years. Biden's age, his handling of the economy and his ability to do the job. I'll stop there so you two can get in on the fun. And maybe we can start with your takes on the reaction from the Biden folks and some Democratic strategists, which I'd summarize as it's one poll. Obama was in a similar spot back in 2011,.

The election is a full year away, the campaign hasn't started yet. The economy is improving, and Trump might be a convicted felon by the time people start voting. What do you guys think?

There will be lots of paid media, billions of dollars of paid media to try to sell Joe Biden's message to America. That's alright. The response that grinds my gears a little bit is the everyone stop bedwetting. We can't tell people that the future of American democracy itself is at stake. But also Chillax. I think everyone's allowed to feel a little anxiety.

I think what you do with that anxiety is up to you. And those of us who want to channel it into action by volunteering and donating and getting involved. I think that's the path forward here. In terms of what we learned from this poll, it's clear that Joe Biden personally has real challenges at the moment. With younger voters, especially voters under 30, he went from being up considerably in the last election to basically tired. He has real challenges with voters of color, both African American and Latino voters, and there's real questions about his age.

The challenge going forward is whether Biden can convince these voters of color and young voters that he's actually working for them, that his policies are improving their lives. Because a lot of people are saying in these polls, they're not feeling that improvement. And then, separately, I think there's this age question of whether he can convince voters who have been convinced by. I don't know. Maybe it's misleadingly edited social media videos on TikTok or whatever that he's not fit for the job that, in fact, he is. But, you know, a lot of different tracks here for problems he needs to solve.

You can look at previous incumbents George W. Bush and say, like, these are all people that saw polls at around this time. That showed them down and they managed to claw their way back. The uncertainty in all this, which I think is a reason for a lot of grave concern, is the effort you can make in the ways that you would in any race. To close some of these gaps around. Making sure people understand your accomplishments, making sure people understand the threat that Trump poses. I mean, one number that I think is really bad in this poll, but is actually in a strange way. A glimmer of hope is. It says. Only 46 of voters say Mr. Biden has the proper temperament to be president, barely higher than the 43 who said the same of Mr.

Trump, like, you can look at that and say, hold on a second, look how badly Biden has lost his edge, but then you say, well, hold on a second. But then you say, reintroduce people to the Donald Trump they know and hate. And all of a sudden you'll see those numbers come down.

But what we don't know is, okay. You've done that, you've made a case for Joe Biden and his accomplishments, his legacy as president, you've made a case against Donald Trump. Does the age factor continue to matter in a way that you can't control for, in a way that you can't change? Is it a liability that is...?

To overcome the age question, that is, I think, the fear.

Even excellent polls, which I think the New York Times Siena poll is, can only tell you about how voters are feeling at that given moment. And this happens to be a moment where the U.S. and the world are in turmoil. And Barack Obama did have approval ratings that were almost as bad as Biden's one year out from the 2012 election. But here's where I disagree with some of the rosier analysis. The polling averages all show Trump slightly ahead right now, not just this poll. A lot of people were like, the Susquehanna poll last week had Biden up 7..

Yeah, it did, but when you average all the polls, Trump is slightly ahead. Unlike Barack Obama, Joe Biden's approval rating has been stuck in the low 40s for two years now, two years. That was not the case with Barack Obama.

It went up and down, up and down. For Joe Biden, it was in the low 40s when other Democrats not named Joe Biden overperformed in the midterms. Midterms, where the New York Times poll basically nailed the results of the most competitive Senate races. And where most of the polls that weren't done by partisan Republican firms were also pretty accurate. Polls did not predict a red wave in 2022, The political coverage suggested a red wave.

The nonpartisan polls were actually really good. And when Nate Silver wrote His trollish is Obama toast piece in the New York Times that everyone's citing from 2011. This is what the polls in the months of November and December said about an Obama-Romney race. When Nate had that headline. Obama plus six, Obama plus six, Obama plus four, Obama plus one. There were 13 polls in those months.

Only two had Romney ahead, the rest all had Barack Obama ahead. The other challenge, the age challenge. Obviously inflation has come down, prices have not. The problem is you're pissed about a $15 cheeseburger.

The $15 cheeseburger is no longer the price isn't going up anymore, but it's stuck at $15.

It's not going to be $12..

That's the issue.

Oh, yeah, that's what I'm saying. So it's like, yes, you can view this as a snapshot in time, but you can't say, oh. Don't worry about one poll, because this poll is capturing a mood, it is capturing a feeling, it is capturing a result that we've seen across.

That's a pretty large deficit on the economy. And then when it comes to the age question. 71 of voters think Biden is too old to be an effective president. Three years ago, only 30 of voters said he was too old to be president. Now, the Biden folks will push back and say in that same poll, 39 of voters say Trump is too old, and that's right, and that's fair.

But I think that speaks to probably a large subset of people in the country who feel like they're both too old. And are looking for some sort of alternative. Which might mean they lead to the Green Party, they could, RFK Jr.

Etc. And so I think when it comes to the age question, it's not guaranteed that you can change people's mind about whether someone is too old to do a job. That might be a view that gets hardened. The other last thing that worries me is half of the respondents think that Joe Biden profited from Hunter Biden's business dealings. Now, all available evidence suggests that that is not true at all.

There's no evidence to back that up, but it again speaks to how powerful the right-wing disinformation ecosystem has been and how much. Efforts on the hill to just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks have actually been effective.

They are more moderate, they do not necessarily think that Joe Biden isn't progressive enough. They also don't think he's too liberal. Most of them say that ideologically, he's just fine. They are upset about the age, and they're upset about the economy.

And abortion democracy? A lot of the social issues are not their top issue. their top issue is the economy. That is the number one issue. For a lot of these young voters. They are extremely disaffected and, in general, they did not show up in the midterms.

So you must be thinking to yourself, like, Okay, what about all the young voters I know that are very progressive and voters of color who are progressive? They showed up in the midterms and they voted for Democrats, and they have supported Joe Biden in the past. So those voters are with us, the voters who did not show up. If you just correct Joe Biden's problems with the voters who didn't show up in the midterms, he would be ahead right now.

59 of voters under 30 rated the economy as poor. Zero respondents under 30 in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, said the economy was excellent. The other thing about this, too, is the message that's driving the midterms right now. Trying to turn people out against right-wing extremism and turn people out in favor of abortion. Which helped a great deal in the midterms. These voters that we need to bring back aren't the kind of voters who turned out in the midterms. Now. The question is, are they people that are receptive to an argument around abortion and democracy? But it hasn't.

And also, by the way, for a lot of moderate, older voters, that are the kind of people that have come to Joe Biden. But for younger, disaffected voters, we're making an argument for democracy in a democracy they don't feel is working for them. So what is it you need to do to make that case around abortion, around democracy, and around basic economic issues? To bring those people in in a way that we're currently not doing? Because clearly, there is something really missing here.

And he's doing. The next two best states for him are Michigan and Pennsylvania, and those are also pretty white states. But except for the areas around Philadelphia and Detroit, where he's not doing.

Part of this is.

And Nate Cohen goes into this in the polling analysis, which is like some of these younger voters. When you ask them the first time, do you pick Biden or Trump? they said neither, and then it was only when you push them. They said, maybe Trump, but they don't really love Trump either, they're not, like, sold on Trump.

And the question is, do these voters just stay home in 2024?

And so we also could be headed for a very bizarre situation where a lower turnout election helps Joe Biden. Which is again, why Democrats. One of the reasons why Democrats did so well in the midterms. Because the type of voters who show up in the midterms, college-educated in cities, suburbs like those, are now more Democratic voters.

I mean, look, young people are not suddenly discovering that they're open to Donald Trump in a strange way. This poll, to me, is a little bit of a bizarre version of what we started to see in 2016. And, you know, didn't really accept as what was happening. Which is this idea of Trump as just like this, like giant middle finger, you can pull like a lever, like, Are you for Joe Biden? are you for Donald Trump?

I'm for neither. Well, if you have to pick fine, then fuck you, I'll vote for Donald Trump.

There could be that, or it could be serious, but we don't know, we don't know.

Look, I think we've done, I think we've done our.

Penance to the pessimism Gods. I think we've paid our respects. The fire is burning. Just real analysis.

I know, I know I'm not, I'm agreeing, I'm glad we're having this conversation. There was one piece of this is, I think, like there was a little note of hope.

A little, you know?

If Trump is convicted of a crime, 6 of voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin said they would switch their votes to Biden, which would change this entire poll. It's not just....

Yeah, no, I was, I know 6 sounded small, but then when I looked. When you actually look at what happens in each state, Biden's winning by double digits in every state.

But the fact that, even just imagining it, there are 6 of people who switch tells you that. The impact of what happens with Donald Trump is convicted could have a massive shift in polling.

But it also speaks to all of, we say it a million times. But all of us who pay such close attention to politics and are news junkies, like most voters, are just normies. They don't pay that close attention to politics. And so, you know what?

Because we're all like, how could they see that Donald Trump did this and said this? and how could they still vote for him? And like, they're not paying that close attention, they forget pretty easily and you know what they really care about the economy. But there are also people who, if they see a candidate for president get convicted of a crime. They're gonna be like, Oh, no, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't want to vote for that person.

I'm pretty unhappy with Joe Biden. I think he's a little too old, but this guy's a criminal. Like, it does make sense that, like, whenever you're confused about the electorate, just think, like, what are normal people who don't pay close attention to politics thinking? Right now? I will say I had.

Nate Cohn says this in the announcement. It would be like an earthquake in American politics, and it is probably unlikely now. Donald Trump can still win without 20. He got 8 last time, he could get 9, 10, 11 and probably win.

That way, it does speak to the idea that once you like, Tommy said, throw a billion dollars into a campaign, start polarizing. A campaign that reminds people what they care about. What Donald Trump is all about, what Democrats are all about, what's at stake for them and their lives. The numbers could start shifting. That's the other thing. Look, an unnamed generic Democrat led Trump by this poll by 3 in 2019. Now the unnamed generic Democrat leads Trump by 8..

And that just goes to show that Trump has become less popular between 2019 and now. The problem is, Biden led Trump by 2 in 2019 in this poll at this time, and now loses by 5. So it is a Biden issue.

This result may mirror a lot of polls in the past. But it's not stable because people's decision is firm, It is stable because people are really unhappy with their choices and they continue.

Convince themselves that there's no way a Democrat can lose Pennsylvania, or there's no way that Hillary Clinton can't win to someone as terrible as a human being as Donald Trump. So we're all going to ask the hard questions and kind of speak truthfully about these polls. But you also don't want to contribute to Joe Biden's political problems by helping generate unhelpful narratives about his candidacies, right? So that's the push and pull, the hard place we're all stuck in. But at the end of the day, unless you're a Dean Phillips supporter or you're excited by Marianne Williamson.

There's no one else in the Democratic primary for you to vote for. So, and I've seen no evidence that Joe Biden's considering dropping out. So, as much as I respect Axelrod's opinion, I don't think that Joe Biden is going to listen to David Axelrod on this question. I don't think he's going to listen to us either. I think there's probably a very small group of friends and family and advisors that Biden may or may not talk to about a question like this.

And so, you know, I get where Ax is coming from, but I also get why the White House is frustrated that he tweeted it, you know?

Extremely small group of people, probably smaller group of people than most others, right? Like, Biden has a very close circle and Joe Biden is going to make this decision. And the only people he's going to listen to are probably Joe Biden and Valerie, his sister, and probably not even Barack Obama, right? It's a very small group of people and so you focus on the things you can control and not the things you can't control.

We cannot control, we're not going to get a hashtag trending on Twitter to get Joe Biden to step aside. We cannot control this, right? And AX can't control it, and no one can control it. So it's got to be something that he decides.

Now, if he did decide at some point to step aside, then you have Kamala Harris, who's still in this poll, losing to Trump by just almost the same as Biden. She's doing slightly better. And then you've got Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, J..B. Pritzker, maybe Raphael Warnock. None of whom have been tested on the national stage or even in the polls yet. They'd have to get on the ballot in most primary states this month.

Then when are the debates? When and how do they all raise money? How's everyone supposed to choose between them by January, February or March, when these primaries are? Now? I'm not saying that's all impossible, it can happen. But the alternative scenario where Joe Biden steps down tomorrow brings a bunch of challenges on its own that I think we should just beware of. Before. Everyone's like, that would be the saving grace if he just stepped down.

There's a lot of challenges to that at this point, it's very late.

Everyone listening to this show is talking to people about their concerns about this and their concerns that. As much as they are worried about Joe Biden's age and his liabilities, you don't feel certain that you would want to live in a world tomorrow where Joe Biden said he wasn't running. And all of a sudden, not the fantasy of a perfect alternative, but the reality of a messy and very quick and very contentious process to choose an alternative. Is suddenly what we are dealing with. I don't know what that's like, neither do you, neither does anybody.

I don't know.

Because even if people were hungry for some Dean Phillips in their lives, he should have done this a year ago, not a week or two ago.

Who is going to say no more aid to Israel? Then you're going to start dividing up, things are going to get....

Me too. Dean Phillips goes on television and says, I'm not running against Joe Biden, I'm running for the future. Okay, what?

Why? what's different? why are you better?

Dean Phillips.

There's four boxes, one of them is Joe Biden wins, one of them is Joe Biden loses, one of them is somebody else wins, one of them is somebody else loses.

If Joe Biden stays in the race, people will look back at this moment and say, I told you so, if Joe Biden gets out and a Democrat loses. People will look back at this moment and say, I told you so I don't care about, I told you so's, I just think collectively, collectively, we have to be honest about our own uncertainty and anxiety. That it is legitimate, that it is real, but that nobody has an easy or simple answer.

I'm sorry, it's a D.C. story from a D.C. outlet, so it is what it is. But it's like, yes, in terms of the things that actually move people, the voters are actually paying attention to. It's not going to be this debate we're all in.

At one point told Trump This isn't a political rally. And then, of course, Trump couldn't help but talk to the cameras as he left the courtroom. Let's listen.

Seems like he's really impressed, the guy who's going to decide how much money he has to pay, huh?

Absolutely fucking hate him and I love it.

Don Jr. and Eric, I believe, blamed their accountants or suggested they didn't look at financial statements. But then Don Jr. went on social media and basically spent three days whining. That Sam Bankman freed, got a weirdly hot courtroom sketch, and that Don Jr.'s made him look ugly. It's like, Hey man, maybe focus on the fact that SBF is going to go to jail for a very long time, and you don't want to do that either.

I know that sometimes we assign strategy to Trump, and even if it's not a well thought out strategy. He's got a good instinct, or he's got an instinct for being a showman or media or whatever, but this is not instinct. Pissing off the judge that's going to decide how much you owe. This is him being an undisciplined fuck the guy. When he walked into the courtroom and they asked him questions, he pretended he was zipping up his mouth.

That screws himself.

The Bill Barr John Kelly thing, I kind of laughed. It's really alarming. Trump's goons are reportedly drawing up plans to invoke the Insurrection Act as early as Inauguration Day to deploy the military against any anti-trump protesters. It has a name.

But in the second term, you're not going to have thoughtful, reasonable people in any of these jobs. It's going to be the lunatics chosen by this heritage foundation group of whoever it is. Stephen Miller.

We're in this vice grip again, which is that when Trump is off the front pages, people forget how terrible he is and how monstrous he is. And then when he's back on the front pages, the tears of his horrors kind of meld together. And it ends up being a kind of fire alarm that's always going off. About the ways he'll abuse the Justice Department, his threat to abortion rights, his chaos, the fact that the military said they wouldn't launch nuclear weapons if he wanted to launch them. Unleashing the cops into Lafayette Park? It's just like the crime and the corruption and the scandal. And I don't have an answer to it. But I do think that it does end up becoming either silence or noise, and I don't know.

We don't know because it's nothing right now, no one's doing it, and I think even on that one, I would. There's the images of the trip across Lafayette Park when he tried to do it there.

There's him saying he wished he did it, he wished he invoked the insurrection Act. We have that, then we have the Washington Post story.

So you're right, just a story and a headline. I don't think you're going to. I know there's challenges, but you can tell a story.

You've got to figure out a way to make the case because it's the truth. It's not just a political attack. It's what he's going to do, it's what he wanted to do before. If for no other reason than that, you have to make that case.

Our minds go right to What do you do? how do you react? What does it mean? You step back from this? And it's like.

I think a lot of people see a poll like that. And to your point, they're like, I don't understand the point you made is right. People don't know, they're not seeing it. These are the disaffected people.

These are the people that aren't paying as close of attention, that's a big part of it. Another part of it, too, is the fact that Joe Biden came in in the wake of a pandemic, facing a recalcitrant Republican opposition. And managed to get as much done as he did get done, and that he's not getting any credit for it. That is obviously something the Joe Biden campaign has to deal with. It's something that we as people that want to make sure a Democrat wins has to deal with.

It is, I think, okay to point out that we start with a handicap of a media environment in which it is very hard for people to get informed and understand what's going on in the world. That sucks, that is really frustrating, that makes politics a slog, it makes it feel impossible.

Yes, the Joe Biden campaign has to deal with that reality, but that's not on Democrats, that's not on us as individuals who care about this. That is the reality of dealing with this broken system that made someone like Trump eligible to be president in the first place.

Covenant Eyes is the software that we've been using a long time in our household. It's a subscription-based. We don't make any money on this. I'm telling you we use it, I'm endorsing it because I'm a user. You obviously opt into it, but it scans all the activity on your phone or your devices your laptop, tablet. What have you? We do all of it.

Then it sends a report to your accountability partner. My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son, he's 17. He and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones or all of our devices once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice.

I'm proud to tell you my son has got a clean slate.

Who's going to be accountable? You two are going to be accountability partners. I got, Dan.

I don't care how many Bibles are in the house.

This is fucking madness. I've seen a bunch of people on Twitter be like, I grew up in the evangelical church, there were apps like this. That's the furthest thing from my upbringing. That's a cultural blind spot for me, I guess.

Having your accountability partner.

By the way, isn't God the covenant eyes? Why do you need an app to stop you if God is seeing it all?

He's just not like that. I want it to be a debate question. This week. Let's ask. I want to hear Tim Scott talk about it, I want to hear Ron DESantis talk about it.

What's going on in your head?

I'm trying to articulate this. I think the next round of this story is going to be conservatives saying that liberals. You think kids looking at porn is good?

The creepiness of this aside, I am sure there's going to be a round. That's all I was getting at. It's going to be a round of story about internet. Porn is bad for a lot of teens and it is harmful for a lot of kids. It is on a list of things that we....

One thing I thought when I saw this in the same way, that food is really unhealthy and there's sugar in everything. So you need to either be more disciplined than you could ever hope to achieve, or internalize body positivity. Despite the whole culture telling you that you should feel ugly, that there's so much porn everywhere and you need to be disciplined and stop looking at it.

What are you running for?

Robes.

What?

Then, on Wednesday, November 8th, we'll be back on Discord for our group thread that will cover the third Republican primary debate. That should be fun. If you haven't joined Friends of the Pod yet, you're missing out on lots of fun. Discord's lots of fun, you get great content.

Terminally online. We've got more shows coming up, it's going to be really fun. Head over to Crooked.com, slash friends and join. Also check out What a day in hysteria.

They're going to have their own breakdowns of Tuesday's election results and what it all means, so check all that out. Last Thursday and Friday, we had the privilege of gathering in Chicago with a couple thousand of our closest friends. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of Obama winning the 2008 election. As part of the festivities that were hosted by the Obama Foundation, Tommy, Dan, Alyssa and I got to sit down on stage with the man himself. We talked about how Obama thinks about the election now, the future of democracy, the war in Gaza, and what all of us can do to help save democracy.

Also, if you like the 2008 Obama nostalgia, we have some great subscription exclusive content on this very topic coming your way. So again, sign up at Crooked.com Slash friends to be the first to hear it. When we come back, President Barack Obama.

I was wearing a jacket and then.

There was, you know, this whole faux casual thing.

Good to see everybody.

I felt pretty sober that night, uh.

Because?

I was fairly optimistic at that point that we were going to win. And I had said to everybody on the campaign trail, to staff that the point of winning was not the celebration standing up, the point of winning was then to do the work.

And I have to say that by the time the official announcement was made, I was already spending a lot of time thinking about.

The work. And so there was a satisfaction that the thing probably that I remember the most was sitting in the hotel waiting for the final call. Pete Sousa took a picture of this. Some of you may have seen it. Michelle was off with the girls doing something in another corner of the room, and I'm sitting there with Michelle's mom.

And we're just watching the television and she's just quiet and she's just sitting there and I remember.

Thinking to myself, What is? What does this mean for her?

She was born and raised in Englewood, on the south side, had moved then to South Shore.

Married, raised a family.

During her childhood.

Even her going or being taken to Marshall Fields or one of the department stores downtown.

If she could go in, she wouldn't have been welcomed.

She had family people, smart, skilled tradesmen, some educators who could never aspire to do more than.

Work in a factory or work as a clerk?

So she's sitting there and she's witnessing that her daughter's about to be the first lady of the United States. And I remember her, she was very quiet and then she just, and she's not a demonstrative person, and she just reached out and held my hand.

And I think that's something that stayed with me.

But you and I have talked a lot over the years about the power of a really good story. And I wonder if you were running for president today. In this political environment, in this media environment, what story would you tell about why democracy is a better choice than what the demagogues and authoritarians are selling?

I think the starting point.

Is to talk about the things that are uppermost on people's mind, to give you a permission structure to get to democracy. One of the things we learned about 2016 is.

If you are simply running against and fear.

And you don't have a positive story to tell about the concrete challenges that people face. Folks may not get to that higher level.

Story about the meaning of the country and so forth.

I remember during the midterms, when I was a surrogate helping folks out.

One of the things I really insisted on is, well, we need to talk about inflation, and we need to talk about crime, and we need to talk about immigration. We need to talk about the things that are uppermost in people's minds or being fed to people.

And.

Speak about those squarely, and that's the gateway to then get to where we want to be, so that's point number one.

Look, if you think back to what we did in 08 12.

Ideally, when we were on our game during the course of the presidency, the story really didn't change about America.

And the story was, you have a bunch of people show up on these shores, many of them outcasts, many of them escaping, tyranny, escaping.

Crushing poverty, escaping discrimination.

Escaping caste and trying to make of their lives what they could, and, even more importantly, trying to make sure that their kids had something different. And it was always.

A.

From the very beginning.

A an experiment in overcoming the gap between ideals and reality, and democracy was never exactly as promised. And then we had a bunch of people who worked together to realize that promise. And I think the argument we can tap into right now is remembering, reminding people of the fact that.

We've been through stuff like this before.

We've been through eras in which not that long ago, in which Black people were second class citizens, in which gay people were in the closet. Out of necessity. Because otherwise they might not be able to be employed, or worse, we've been in situations in which women were subordinate.

And the good news is is that because we had this system of being able to persuade each other about the better angels of our nature. In fits and starts, we got better, we got kinder, we got more tolerant, and it's never been perfect, and it's never been.

It's always been messy, but there was a pathway for us to express our best selves and.

That was true not just for Democrats, it was true for Republicans, too.

And so I think that's the starting point for them to be able to say, and some of you have heard me say this. It's not as if the entire history of this country, Democrats were on the right side of this thing.

Democrats for most of modern history, up until the civil rights legislation, they were anti-democratic and terrorized people and killed them for trying to exercise their democracy. So we don't have clean hands. And I think acknowledging that is again an entryway.

What I'm always trying to look for is a way to get to the point where somebody who otherwise wouldn't listen and is fearful and is angry and suspicious, can stop. Because they feel as if I saw them for a second and I understood their lives, and in that moment, maybe then I can persuade them that.

This precious thing we have, which is our ability to sort things out.

And exercise forbearance towards each other and understanding and just getting along and listening. If I can get to that moment, then I think we'll be okay.

And that's really the instinct that people have. Look, let's face it, we did well in this last midterm, not because all the trend lines were in our favor. It was because the majority of people believe in that story and they recognize it in their own lives. And so speaking to them on those terms is what's vital, which is why I think the last time we were together, I said, that kind of forbearance.

We have to exercise, we have to model and exercise as well.

And a losing strategy for us, I think, is when we are so insistent on our purity. When we're so self-righteous about our positions that we can't see those folks, or we're talking down to them, or.

Our general attitude is that.

We're going to convince you about how wrong you are.

I have not seen that work yet.

Now look, last point I'll make.

And I think about this a lot because I've been writing about it.

There is, there are times, there are moments, there is room for a prophetic voice, just radical truth telling.

And not only is that sometimes satisfying, but our own base sometimes needs to hear that.

But you have to pick and choose your spots, and you always have to, even when you're in that mode. You've got to give people an opening to, you have to give them an invitation to.

There's got to be room for them in that truth that you're speaking.

I'm telling you something, maybe that you don't want to hear, but you know what? I'll bet you can understand it and be a part of us addressing that truth.

All right.

Even to the Senate, and certainly not the presidency, had there not been this weird convergence with.

The internet and early social media. I was an outsider.

I didn't have the backing of institutions and organizations, and.

There was so much power in seeing all these young voices, being able to gather together.

From every walk of life, but.

I'm dating myself now. It was mostly myspace and meetup.

And I always, because I've been working a lot on social media issues and misinformation. And now AI, I always point out. You know, the thing about meetup was you had to meet up.

Because it's a pretty crude flintstone tool, right? You send? It's like, Hey, we're going to be in the church basement in Des Moines on Saturday. Meet up. That was pretty much the extent of the technology.

The power of meeting up is something that all of you will remember whenever we'd walk into a campaign office.

Whatever your idea of what an Obama supporter was when you got into the campaign office, just as was true if you went to a meetup meeting is, you've got a young black woman with a nose ring. And you've got some middle-aged white guy in a flannel shirt and a buzz cut. Who's an army veteran, and you've got a Hispanic gay engineer, and.

The reason that was powerful was because, you imagine, at the first meetup meeting. Okay, I've got an assumption about what an Obama supporter is, but then when I sit there, it turns out that.

That person's not actually completely like me, and if they're talking, that means that they've got some quirky ideas.

And I promise you, you all know we had some quirky volunteers.

And who had some unexpected views that did not correspond to?

The litmus test of progressive-ism, right?

The reason I'm telling that story is because what that allowed was for all of us to see each other in their complexity. And then still decide, All right, let's work together. And then they had to all go out and knock on doors and meet people who were even more quirky, right?

So going back to, obviously a serious question.

There is always there's no way to avoid.

In this particular moment, on this particular issue, after so much blood has been spilt.

Against the backdrop of this history, it doesn't matter whether it's online or in person. There is going to be rage and anger, and not just generational traumas, right? This is century-old stuff that's coming to the fore. And you are, and you've witnessed the kind of worst cruelty and tragedy that can befall people involving children, and.

If there's any chance of us being able to act constructively, to do something.

It will require an admission of complexity and maintaining.

What on the surface may seem contradictory ideas.

That what Hamas did was horrific and there's no justification for it. And what is also true is that.

The occupation.

And what's happening to Palestinians is unbearable, and what is also true is that there is a history.

Of the Jewish people that may be dismissed unless your grandparents or your great-grandparents, or your uncle or your aunt tell you stories.

About the madness of anti-semitism, and what is true is that.

There are people right now who are dying, who have nothing to do with what Hamas did and what is true. I mean, we can go on for a while.

And the problem with the social media and trying to TikTok activism and trying to debate this on that.

Is, you can't speak the truth? You can pretend to speak the truth? You can speak one side of the truth, and, in some cases, you can try to maintain your moral innocence.

By virtue of just grabbing that slice of the truth. But that won't solve the problem.

And so if you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth, and you then have to admit.

Nobody's hands are clean that.

All of us are complicit. To some degree. I look at this and I think back, what could I have done during my presidency?

To move this forward, as hard as I tried, I've got the scars to prove it. But there's a part of me that's still saying, Well, was there something else I could have done? That's the conversation we should be having, not just looking backwards, but looking forward. And that can't happen if we are confining ourselves to our outrage.

And even what I just said, which sounds very persuasive.

Does not, still doesn't answer. The fact of all right, how do we prevent kids from being killed today? So.

Which is why, in conversations that I've had with some of the young activists, I come with some humility and I say, Look, I get why you might.

Not want to look at history and context, and that's your primary concern.

But the problem is is that.

If you are dug in on that, well, the other side is dug in remembering.

The videos that Hamas took of what they did on 7th and they're dug in, too. And which means we will not stop those kids from dying. So my advice to young people who want to get involved.

I guess you, it's not possible anymore to download MeetUp.

But approximate that I would rather see you.

Out there, talking to people, including people who you disagree with. If you genuinely want to change this, then you've got to figure out how to speak to somebody on the other side and listen to them and understand what they are talking about, and not dismiss it. Because you can't save that child without their help, not in this situation, so all right.

We went over time, didn't we? That zero's been on, you know? Look, come on, you guys know me, don't bait me with a question like that and then think I'm going to.

This is why I could never win these debates.

Put a one on it, that's all right, sir, you.

I'm listening to Jesse and Lauren, you know, I've had a chance. Yesterday, obviously, I stopped by your drunken bacchanal.

I had a chance just now to speak to some of our senior team.

Some of you have already heard this, but I'm going to repeat it because it bears repeating.

I actually generally am not nostalgic.

As I'm writing about the presidency, as I think about the presidency, as I look at current issues, I tend to remember the mistakes I made and.

The doubts and questions I have, and.

The things I didn't get done, and I don't look at things through rose-colored glasses. I remember how hard every step of the way was. But as I just mentioned,

The team, the people, the family, the culture that we constructed. That feels as true as anything in my life. It was reflected on the campaign, and it was reflected in the White House. It was, as Michelle said, reflected in people in high-profile positions in the West wing and East wing. It was reflected in people who were working out of the limelight, in agencies and embassies. It was reflected by a bunch of kids dropped off in the middle of farms and.

Communities that they had never imagined themselves being in.

And yet, somehow, a bunch of 25 and some younger would persuade.

These communities that.

We had a chance to be better and listen to each other and treat each other with respect.

And the fact that somehow that sustained itself.

Across this, many people, and this is just a fraction of the people who were involved.

And that that now is carried forward, whether it's somebody like Lauren in Congress or Deb Haaland who suddenly goes to.

Or it's somebody like Jesse, or some of the folks you saw in the video who are in their own communities transforming.

The culture of those communities and modeling that kindness and hard work and responsibility and consideration and openness to other people.

That gets me choked up, that makes me proud.

That's and that is something that.

I think part of what sometimes all of us who were part of this struggle with is we know that's out there in the country.

Right, we can feel it, and we know that when people.

Have a chance to feel that in themselves and in their communities, and in their neighborhoods, they feel better than they do when they're angry and hateful, and.

Closed off and lonely.

And feeling victimized, we know that, and so there's a part of us, I think, sometimes we just are.

So often, what we're trying to figure out is, how can we remind people of that? Not any particular campaign, but the fact that that honest human response is available to us and will ultimately save us.

That's why I'm so proud of all of you. That's the thing that.

Doesn't get old and stays with me and keeps me going.

Reed Cherlin.

Mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming, Matt Degroat is our head of production.

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