DeSantis DeShakeUp

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm the bar reader of these two Oppenheimers. Jon Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vittorio. It's great to be back guys, I missed you. It's nice to see you.

Was he not?

He was not here last week.

I was not here last week.

I just talked to him as much. Yeah, it was double your own voice.

Sounded great.

On today's show, Ron DESantis gives us the first campaign shakeup of 2024. Joe Biden gets good news on fundraising and the economy. RFK Jr. is caught on tape at his infamous fart dinner, saying Covid may have been targeted to spare the Jews. What a sentence. And later, I'm joined by Move On's Rana Epting and Third Way's Matt Bennett. To talk about trying to stop no labels from a third party bid that could elect Donald Trump. But first, there were two events over the weekend and some new fundraising disclosures. That have made it very difficult to argue that the Republican nomination is anything but Donald Trump's to lose.

You say with a little sort of, I don't know, sadness in your voice or something.

The criminal, Well, the whole thing is sad. The criminal defendant front runner was the only major candidate to skip a big evangelical event in Des Moines. But he did get some help from Tucker Carlson, who emceed the event fresh off his very friendly interview with self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate, recently indicted for rape and human trafficking. That interview was fucking wild, by the way. I don't know if anyone caught it on Tucker's Twitter show.

I absolutely did not. Yeah, I sort of missed it during my vacation.

I watched, I did something, I watched Black Mirror.

Talk about things, talk about, talk about infuriating things.

It's pretty bad. Was Andrew Tate in a jail cell?

I think he's under house arrest in Romania.

Romania Yeah.

Anyway, Great Tucker tore into Mike Pence and grilled Tim Scott and Nikki Haley over their opposition to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Trump and some other candidates spoke in Miami to Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA, a group so far right that the crowd booed. Fox News heckled other Republican candidates who spoke and gave Trump 85.7 of the vote in a straw poll.

Nail biter.

Talking about Putin, those are Putin numbers right there. Let's focus his remarks on Ron DeSantis. Let's listen.

We lead the field by 50 points among young voters. Think of that.

Not only does it seem like there were no consequences for Trump skipping a major evangelical event in Iowa. He seemed to get much better coverage than any of his competitors coming out of the weekend. What were your takeaways from the two events, Tommy?

My big picture takeaway I watched all of the Iowa The Bob Vander Plaats event in Iowa.

Making fun of you for watching Tucker's show for seven minutes? This guy's just mainlining right-wing nonsense during the weekend.

In fairness, he tuned in to see Nikki Haley, and he just had to watch the rest of it.

Then I caught Tim Scott, I got the bug.

I thought I'd get you.

It used to be that candidates would go to Iowa, talk to local activists and press, create some local buzz, right? And that you get a polling bump in Iowa. It creates this groundswell of support that gives you a bump, right? And maybe you do better nationally. That was sort of how Jimmy Carter did well in Iowa. Obama Mike Huckabee won Iowa back in 2008. People forget.

Not me.

Not us.

Mike Huckabee To me, watching this event showed me how that order is flipped and how now the national narrative has completely changed. The early state campaigns. We heard about this from Democratic candidates in 2020 as well. But this was this big cattle call event in Iowa, run by a conservative activist named Bob Vander Plaats. Carlson moderated it. The Blaze was their media sponsor.

Also an abortion, Kim Reynolds signed the six week abortion ban like at the event.

And yeah, exactly. And Mike Pence tried to bring it up, and Tucker basically scoffed at him and changed the subject. It was very intense. So instead, it's Tucker asking about things like, was January 6th an insurrection? Was it going to allow voting machines be trusted or banned?

You missed the um, the uh. Trump attacks the uh governor of the uh, the first, first state to caucus cycle last week, where he just went on a tear.

He really got mad.

So DESantis did have one comment on abortion and what he said was about his six week ban. If I had a chance to do it again, I do it every day of the week and twice on Sunday, which is just okay. Well, there's another perfect quote quote to put in an ad that will be devastating for him in the future.

And it's ironic that, uh, it would hurt him so much in the general. That quote because it was seen as a subtle hit on Trump, because Trump said, I don't think that was a mistake, or like, I don't need I. We follow this for a living. I couldn't even follow why, I didn't know it was subtle.

I didn't even understand that it was a subtle hit on Trump.

It was.

I think he was trying to duck the question because the question was, would you do a national six week ban? And he didn't say yes or no. But then he said that quote, which is just as bad.

Well, this is why, like, this is why Pence is like, you know, he was so indignant after he said, All, you know, the Tucker Carlson kind of had him on the ropes. And it's like, you know, Pence is going there to try to distinguish himself on abortion. Uh, it is true that Pence is unequivocally coming out in favor of a national ban, but they're all. They've all embraced an incredibly unpopular and extreme position. Even as they try to kind of Trump and Haley and Desantis all try to kind of weasel out of any opinion on a national ban.

My overall take from the whole thing is, if I were Donald Trump, I would probably skip most of these events and most of the debates. He can completely control his own message by holding his own rallies, his own events, he can do his own interviews with his own sycophants. He's got plenty of them. One of them was just moderating the Iowa event in, Uh, in Tucker, Carlson, and. And Trump is doing that.

So Trump is in Florida doing this event that's just built around him.

This talking points, uh, USA turning points, but that's a good, it's a good slip of the tongue.

Yep.

And, uh, this, I just it was not. Josh Marshall's outfit Josh Marshall's heel turn has been.

Surprised? No, but but uh, I just was struck by just how feral the crowd has now gone at these events. It was always bad, the CPAC crowds were always bad. But there used to be a little bit of a. There was just a little bit of more of a positive feedback loop from the more serious people that would either go or not go. And these people are just unleashed by these events.

Oh my god, yeah. TPUSA is the like dubstep strobe light like want to be cool version of conservatism, that sort of white nationalists super boring brand of conservatism. I think Trump also skipped it because Bob Vander Plaats, the guy who organizes it, hates his guts. And I don't think he's endorsed DESantis, but he is very anti-trump.

Although he would have faced a pretty friendly interviewer in Tucker Carlson, right?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think the better move would be to show up to that and show how tough you are and how you can stand up to everybody.

He's just competing on a different field than these people. And the other question is, you just talked about how the attendees at the TPUSA thing were not so nice to some of the other candidates. These candidates, like Tucker Carlson, goes and does this. This series of interviews, Mike Pence shows up, Nikki Haley shows up, Tim Scott shows up, they all show up.

He had a tough time in Iowa, too.

It's like, what are they all doing? are they trying to win? are they trying to make a point? I don't know what all these people are doing.

Well, I do think it's like, whether Trump goes or not, the crowd is the crowd at both of these events, you know? Tucker asks Mike Pence about Ukraine. His position, which is probably a 60-40 position in the country, gets him nearly booed off the stage. So the challenge for all these candidates Trump goes, Trump doesn't go. These crowds are Trump's crowd, wherever in Iowa, in Florida.

His interviewers, his party, his crowds. Every once in a while, you get a Bob Rander platt that doesn't like him, right? That's like the exception, not the rule.

Yeah, and frankly, you know, this same event in 2015, Frank Luntz was doing the questioning. And that's where Trump made the infamous remark about John McCain and liking people that didn't get captured. So even then, the whole event became about everyone denouncing Donald Trump because of these comments about John McCain.

Let's let's listen to the exchange that everyone's talking about with Pence and Tucker.

I'm sorry, Mr. Vice President, have you? I know you're running for president. And yet your concern is that the Ukrainians, a country most people can't find on a map, who've received tens of billions of U.S tax dollars, don't have enough tanks. I think it's a fair question to ask, like, where's the concern for the United States in that?

Well, it's not my concern.

Matt Lissalinski, according to news reports. And I'm wondering if during that meeting, as a prominent Christian leader, which you are, in addition to your political views, you broached the question of his treatment of Christians within Ukraine.

What I can tell you is, I asked the Christian leader in Kiev if that was in fact happening, and he assured me that it was not.

Now, let me take a break here.

I know we disagree on this strongly.

I would think you would have greater concern for religious liberty in Ukraine.

I told you, I raised the issue of religious liberty.

You spoke to one person who's clearly on one side of it. And there are many, many news reports that are not disputed by anybody that many clergy have been arrested. I'm not Russian Orthodox, but you can't arrest clergy for having different views, period, because if you do, you violate the basic tenet of religious liberty.

Look, I won't look. I want to be clear with you, I won't stand by it, I won't stand for it.

So Pence got booed, later tweeted that he'd been taken out of context, and one pastor who was at the event later said his campaign is over. Why do you guys think that evangelicals, and seemingly every other Republican has turned on Mike Pence?

So I just don't know that that's the case, I think. Tucker Carlson. He started asking about whether January 6th was an insurrection. He asked about electronic voting machines. He asked like six questions in a row about NATO and Ukraine and cluster munitions. And it did not go well at all.

I think the question, you said that Mike Pence refused to say that January 6th was an insurrection.

Yeah, everyone was horrible.

He said He said All I could say for sure is that it was no good.

Yeah, all I could say was that they almost hung me.

He said I never used that word, then he called it a riot. I think the question is still whether obviously Pence's performance to that audience didn't go well. I also want to be clear that I don't think Mike Pence's candidacy is going anywhere. He raised $1.2 million in the second quarter. But he did try to start his comments at that event by talking about Iowa's six-week abortion ban and basically got cut off. And the question still remains whether there are conservative Christian evangelicals in Iowa who want to hear about the stuff that he's going to talk about ad nauseum at all these events going forward. And whether he got tanked by Tucker Carlson, or whether the people in that room just think he's a loser with no momentum, and that's all they care about.

I'll take that one.

Yeah, I mean, look, odds are, but I just think Tucker Carlson roasting you because he hates your guts. At one event, it's a little too early to say he's done.

I think the problem, though, is the way Mike Pence thinks that he's going to differentiate himself from this group of people that don't care about policy at all. Is, he's going to say, even though everyone on this stage is praising a six-week abortion ban, I'm for a six-week abortion ban, and I'm for a national ban. All these other people refuse to say whether or not they're for a national ban. And just there's just no evidence that has gained him any traction, he's been saying it for weeks.

I mean, it's not exciting.

His, his name, everyone knows who he is, his name ID, because he was vice president, so his name ID is through the roof. When they break down polls by asking, uh, they do demographics, evangelicals, Donald Trump is way in the lead with evangelicals. when they ask, uh, for, they do a specific subgroup of, uh, Republicans.

He has not gotten to 40, he has not gotten to 40,000 donors, he has almost full name recognition, he cannot get 40,000 donors.

Meanwhile, as he's getting booed at the Tucker event, Vivek Ramaswamy says that every other clip of him is indistinguishable from Joe Biden on Ukraine. And then got a standing ovation and they're in the room when he left.

In the clip, you played, Uh, about Trump doing his punditry around what was happening in Iowa. The next sentence was that he thought, he says, DeSantis may not be in second place for much longer. Because he refers to Ramaswamy. I think because Trump. We in Trump consume clips in the same way, and he consumed the clips of the Iowa. That showed him getting the standing of probably Vivek Ramaswamy I.

Think has a Tucker Carlson like view on Ukraine that I think Tucker really liked. What was interesting is Nikki Haley and Tim Scott have a more Pence like a Ukraine policy. And Tucker just didn't even come close to going after them. The way he did. Pence, He hates Pence's guts. I think the harder part was just dealing with January 6th, probably for Pence, than anything else.

Which I think, by the way, is at the core of why people don't like him. Oh, for sure, right, for sure. I also think, though, like, I mean. He said in an AP interview last week that he would.

His bet is, look. The last couple of winners of the Iowa caucuses and the Republican side were Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee. It was just sort of the most right wing, the most religious, the most sort of fake Reagan sounding people. So that's his bet, and I don't think he's going to win that bet, but I think that's....

Well, I think he'd have a better chance at that bet if Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis weren't in his way.

Tim Scott talks the talk really well. He quoted, Like seven Bible verses, right? He knows what these people want to hear.

Yeah, and look, and Mike Pence might have more support than those two. But you've got three people in the lane of trying to get the evangelicals and that's tough.

It's also there's a group of people who are celebrating the biggest victory they have had in half a century. They won on abortion, they are fat and happy on abortion.

I don't think they're fat and happy at all. I think they want more. I think they want a six week ban everywhere, these people in that room, that's what they want.

But they have not. They are not making abortion the issue by which they are deciding to vote between these candidates at all. There's no evidence that they are. That they view someone who's going to do a national abortion ban as a reason that they're going to come out to vote for somebody that is not just not anywhere we did the polling, John just said to the same thing.

I think that they're mad at him because he didn't help overturn the election.

They want the election.

So the only Republican candidate who had a worse weekend than Mike Pence was Ron DeSantis, who's now given us 2024 his first big campaign shakeup story. He fired about a dozen mid-level staffers. The more layoffs are expected in the coming weeks, according to NBC News. Everyone's campaign finance reports were released this weekend, and DeSantis has apparently spent almost half of the $20 million he raised. Which is quite a burn rate. The campaign will change up its media strategy of not talking to reporters by having the candidates sit down with Jake Tapper this week. Because voters just need to hear more. Ron DeSantis.

It's so minor, it's 10 staffers who do event planning.

This is nothing, and it sounds like they're also trying to get them over to PAC, which does tell you forget. The shakeup itself is about the weakness in their fundraising, which is they did better at the very beginning and then it trailed off. And they clearly have some giant donors that are able to put millions of dollars into the campaign. But not in the same way, in a sustainable way into the actual sort of small dollars they need for the campaign itself.

Yeah, I think there's look, they spent $8 million in six weeks, it's a lot of money to spend. They have more than a million dollars of payroll, 92 staffers, also a lot of staffers for a campaign early on.

That's a lot of staff for this, really.

It's a big, big list. Never Back Down has raised $150 million. They have 400 full-time canvassers in Iowa and across the country already knocking on doors. So they are basically trying to cede the entire campaign operation to the Super PAC, which has some advantages but also a lot of disadvantages because you can't coordinate with the Super.

PAC disadvantages Ask Jeb Bush about all the disadvantages that come from not being able to control your super PAC spending. And The Washington Post had a hilarious story about DeSantis Super PAC. Paying people like 20 bucks an hour to canvass for him and doing horrendous jobs. And there's ring videos of these dudes on people's porches, like pissing them off.

So Never Back Down is also running an ad now. It's the first ad that the Super PAC is running directly against Donald Trump in Iowa for Trump attacking Kim Reynolds. Let's hear the ad.

Governor Kim Reynolds is a conservative champion. She signed the Heartbeat Bill and stands up for Iowans every day. So why is Donald Trump attacking her? I opened up the governor position for Kim Reynolds, and when she fell behind, I endorsed her, did big rallies and she won.

Tommy I didn't expect the beat to drop so hard there.

You have, you are the master of AI voices in political ads. Oh, is that AI?

Yeah, couldn't you tell that's AI?

I'm kidding.

I also just like, there's an Iowa Republican, an Iowa Republican who's paying attention right now, who's like, I like Donald Trump. But I didn't know he was capricious about loyalty and that that mattered so much to him. I'm shocked, I'm shocked by this.

If you're so offended by his treatment of the governor, you probably heard about it. I mean, this is probably just an attempt to create a little earned media off of this fake ad.

Yeah, I did hear, I did hear Sarah Longwell talk about how in the Iowa folks groups. She was surprised at just the level of approval that Kim Reynolds had with Republican voters. Like they love her, they think she's the great people, like, bring her up all the time. But I do think there's a difference between I love the governor and, oh, I loved Donald Trump, but now that he attacked the governor, I'm going to go vote for Ron DeSantis.

But it does just go into their like, what happened to Donald Trump? They're still stuck on this idea of like, I love Donald Trump. But something's not right the way he used to be.

Remember early on when he did, like the Ron Desanctimonious or the Ron DeSantis? You could feel like trepidation in the audience. Now they know it's coming, they expect it, they laugh along with it like they get used to it all.

I mean, I am guessing that if the Super PAC went and spent some money on this, maybe they saw something in the data that this isn't. I mean, it may. I'm trying to make their argument more fun here. But, like, it may speak to not just the love that Iowa Republicans have for Kim Reynolds. But one thing that people don't like about Donald Trump in the Republican Party. One of the few things is like, he's always causing chaos, he's always he's undisciplined, right? So maybe it leans into that. I don't think it helps Desantis necessarily, but who knows?

Like, can't you just see this? What happened, right? Like, things are going badly. All the donors are calling Ron DeSantis, they're calling his wife.

Well, I do. It's a it's they. They pretend it was such a long time, like they don't care about elite opinion. This doesn't matter. We're not going to do any interviews with these people.

Tapper on the rope line or tapper in the studio?

He's getting tapper every single day in little bits, and he can't get out of it, so it's like, fuck it, let's just let's just get in there. I do think, though, it's like you got to work your way up to a sit down with Jake Tapper, you've faced no hard questions.

I do wonder if part of the strategy here is to pick a fight with Jake and, you know, and then say, Oh, look at me, I picked a fight with fake news. CNN's Jake Tapper. That that lib over there and now I can. Now he can go tell the Republican base how tough he was and and prove that he's got the right enemies just like them.

Yeah, that's exactly what the I was thinking. The same thing that I think that would actually be a smart strategy. Create a little bit of a spectacle. But like, come on, man, you got to go for for Chuck Todd, you go to meet the press and he's got to do it.

What he's, he's not one, he's not, he's not one. I took on the media and they didn't applaud away. He's not one away. He's going to do this again and again and again.

I can't wait.

I listened, Yeah, no, I'm in.

I'll be watching.

I'm in, I'm in.

Uh, any other takeaways?

It's like, it's like, maybe Jake will leave some coke, It's like Jake's coke at the White House, he's just getting ready for this thing.

Uh, parody Jake, just kidding.

Uh, any other takeaways from the Republican field's fundraising reports to get into those?

Numbers well, the pen's only getting 40,000, not getting, not, not being sure he can get to 40,000 is a pretty desperate.

Doug Burgum lent himself 10 million, Vivek Ramaswamy lent himself 15.25 million. Since entering, it says he will spend a hundred million.

It's the first time I saw that number. My God, can you imagine? First of all, I didn't know he was that rich, I didn't know who he was.

I don't know if you. You just sort of put a picture of all these consultants that are just sort of just siphoning money out of these people. And just like, attention, big pockets.

What was the James Carville quote in 93?

Vivek and Doug are both going to be competing for that. Good luck.

Gents.

The cash on hand numbers are sort of interesting, uh, Tim Scott, 21 million, Desantis 12.2 million, Haley 6.8 million, Tim Tim Scott.

Watch, Watch the space, Watch the Tim Scott Space.

It turns out transferring yourself a shitload of money before you start is a great way to do it.

Trump 17.

Attenzione, big pockets.

That was interesting, uh, Joe. Biden's fundraising numbers look pretty great to. The president's biggest political challenges have been enthusiasm in the economy. He got good news on both this week. Biden campaign raised more than $72 million this quarter, which crushes Trump's $35 million.

So I went and looked. The Biden campaign is saying they have 394,000 donors, about a third of which are new. You go back and look at Obama at around this time in, you know, spring, early summer of 2011, he was at 480,000 donors. I like that comparison, I love that, like I was like, in the grand scheme of things, would you like Biden to be to be higher?

Also, small dollar donations are down across the board for Republicans and Democrats. One reason because the fucking email and text, uh, are so annoying, and it's getting harder for people to open emails, harder for people to respond. They're just not like it's down for everyone.

I will pitch out again to the Ether, my idea for Democrat. Plus, where you can sign up and then you never get a message and you just pay a monthly amount.

You referred to them earlier as small donors, and I really liked that, like Danny DeVito is on our team, small donors we bring in this week.

Uh, yeah.

And Carrie Strug?

Also, it's hard to compare to Obama in 2012, cause the limits have changed, so you can now donate more money thanks to an awful Supreme Court decision.

No limit to what, how much you can donate to parties and packs.

Right, right, right, right, right.

So that makes all the comparisons impossible. It's all Apples.

And it's also hard to compare to Trump and the RNC. In 2020, they raised $105 million because Trump started in January fundraising and Biden didn't start till April. So it's pretty, it's just a good, it's a really good haul.

I just want to say that I've completely lost the thread on how much money you need to compete or win.

Yeah.

The numbers sound big.

It is so much money. Like Clinton outspent Trump two to one and lost. Biden raised over a billion dollars in 2020, Trump raised $774 million, and Biden obviously won, but it was tight like.

I think money is one of those things, especially now where it's not going to guarantee a win by any means. Now if you have the more money as you, as if you have more money, as you pointed out with Hillary and Trump. But if you don't have it, it could be a real problem. So I think this is, this is another. This is just like some breathing room for the Biden campaign. They're not going to, like, assure that they win, but it's it's good.

And also in 2016. One of the things that the Hillary campaign would say, I think correctly, over and over again, is in the end, a lot of the outside money did get behind Trump to make up some of the difference, yeah.

But the Democratic outside money was still bigger than the Republican outside money. She's like, just overspent him, outspent him big time. The crazy thing to me was. Biden has only hired four staffers. Everyone else was just chilling at the DNC.

Yeah, so they're being frugal, which is great. I mean, this is very Joe Biden.

Be frugal, yes, but the point of a campaign is to spend it, to win, so ultimately you're going to spend every dollar of it. So I don't know.

Spotted like field organizers and ads than people at the DNC.

Field organizing benefits from an early start, but DNC is probably doing that.

On the economy, should Biden and Democrats start telling a more hopeful story about the progress we've made? Or will that piss people off who still might be struggling to pay the bills?

You know, so James Rickey? There's been a couple of pieces that basically say some version of the data is good, the vibes are bad, right? And that is, you've just sort of seen that as a trend. And one point that he made is that there's a disconnect between what's happening in the economy and what people are hearing in the news. In May, Michigan's consumer survey, roughly twice as many respondents said they'd heard stories about unemployment as I'd heard stories about hiring.

Yeah, I mean, like, if economic data and feelings about the economy has now become polarized by political party. Like everything else, then you might as well deliver a message that bucks up your side. I do think that message should be. Here's how things are getting better, Here's the rest of what I'm fighting for, here's what the other guys are going to do to make it worse. Tax cuts for rich people.

Yeah, I think when we were talking about this before the midterms, it was really tough to tell people. Inflation was in their heads when inflation was really high, even though unemployment was low. So you'd have a lot of liberals online being like, What are you yelling at me? Why are you talking about people who can't afford milk when we have the lowest unemployment in years?

Follow behind me fact-checkers.

And we're doing better than other countries.

Yeah, and I think the other challenge is a lot of these indicators have just changed in the last, just shown real improvement in the last month or so. And a lot of these polls tend to be backward-looking by their nature, so I do think it's still going to be polarized, bipartisanship and stuff like that and sentiment.

One I think sign that there is sort of room to move is Biden's approval. If you just say economy is lower than if you say jobs and economy, which tells you that that's just talking about inflation, that's the inflation inflation is....

It always has been, yeah.

I do think, obviously it's going to take more than one speech or a whole series of Biden events.

Surrogate plan is.

I also do think a piece of this which is hard to measure in data is. This is also a country that's coming out of two and a half years, three years of a pandemic that either. A lot of people lost jobs, a lot of people were working from home, a lot of people had to go to work. Despite it being dangerous, a lot of people saw uncertainty and confusion and changes that are still playing out. There was no clean moment where anyone was able to say, all right, we're in the recovery, we're in the recovery from the pandemic. And a moment to just sort of talk about the progress that has been made since the pandemic on the economy. That signals a shift, I think, could just have a bigger impact.

Because the GOP gloom message, it goes well beyond the economy, they're wrapping all of it into one thing.

And you can tell, too. I mean, all this aside, the reason they're not just fully celebrating is because there's also potential problems on the horizon. They have to watch out for gas prices. The Saudis could fuck with us before the election. Student loan payments are going to start happening again in September. The pause on student loans is going to end.

And also now you start to see some signs that wages may be going up faster than inflation. But that doesn't make up for the months and months and months in which inflation was higher than wages. And people still feel that maybe they'll start feeling it shifting back in the other direction. No one would go and say, Oh, this problem is solved.

We have made good progress, there is more to do.

COVId-19 There's an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVId-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. The races that are most immune to COVId-19 are. Because of the structure, the genetic structure, genetic differentials among different races of the receptors of the ACE2 receptor. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi, Jews and Chinese.

That's what all those labs in the Ukraine are about.

They're collecting Russian DNA, they're collecting Chinese DNA so that we can target.

People by race.

First of all, where on earth did that conspiracy come from?

It's Russian disinformation, literally, no, that's literally Russian disinformation about these labs in Ukraine that they started putting out in the beginning of the war. Part of what the Russians were saying when they invaded was they need to save all of us from these bio labs.

Look, I think there's been a lot of debate as to whether or not Covid emerged from a wet market or some kind of government facility. These are both red herrings. It was from Wuhan's only delicatessen. That is where the Jewish doctors, which is a lot like saying ATM machine, as well as the Asian people that conservatives claim had their spots at Harvard stolen by Black people. Got together and cooked this whole thing up. I, for one, think that COVID-19 is finally something that's being exposed.

Did you come up with Covid-19?

No, several people texted it to me during our meeting when I was trying to come up with what to call it.

That's funny, too. I do like the Wuhan delicatessen cats.

R.G. Jr. is the final boss of doing his own research. That's what it is. I'm not saying it, go look up the studies.

It's a study and everyone's like, Well, this looks like a legitimate study.

I know all his fans.

He is a good example to point to because he is the most cranked on the spectrum. Of flat-earthers to, I don't know, mainstream conservatives, he is closer now to the flat-earther side. But all of those people in this misinformation.

Even referencing the study, I think there was some reference, maybe to Ashkenazi Jews or Sephardic Jews.

There's a cohort.

A million people in China died from Covid. Clearly, this wasn't genetically engineered to protect them, right? It's these nesting dolls of bullshit on top of bullshit that weave together these conspiracy.

If you followed any really good doctors and researchers during the pandemic on Twitter. These poor people spent most of their time trying to correct idiots who would read these studies and just misread them, either intentionally or not. It's tough because these scientific studies are a little dense, they're not very easy to understand all the time.

They're not written for Twitter.

These idiots on Twitter pick out some small part of it out of context and they spread it around to everyone. They get everyone scared. It happens all over the place. He is the final boss of it.

It's funny, though, John, you and I especially.

I know.

Because you and I. We had the experience of feeling as though the way research was being interpreted, even by mainstream outlets, was also confusing and misleading. And cherry picking. You and I would go back and forth with studies, but not in the way that we would just read them. And be like, this is what someone else is saying, this is what this expert is saying.

They'd be like, Tommy, don't get vaccinated.

Then we'd be like, we've got to ask Andy Slavitt about this.

We'd go right to Slavitt.

Let's get Dr. Wachter on the plot.

We've got to go to the source, we've got to get the raw data.

Most scientific research papers are profoundly unsatisfying because you don't come to definite conclusions. You take 10,000 of them, and then you have a body of research that leads you in one general direction. That's mostly right.

It's not just a week of headlines, but it is the noisy information environment that also helps these people take off. There was a week of stories about diet Coke causing cancer that everyone was thrilled to tell me about because they know I love Diet Coke. Because everyone has a Freudian death drive. They're ruining something cool for me from my cold, refreshed, dead hands. You have to go in. It's like, No. That is an overstatement of what the study said.

Only if you're vaccinated.

It's only if you're vaccinated.

No, this is all us talking about, you know, trying to debate things with rational people. Media Matters put together a compilation of what actual anti-semites and Nazis, how they responded to RFK Jr.'s group, one neo-Nazi said based RFK Jr. says Covid was genetically engineered to spare Jews. A hilarious thing to say, and I totally support it.

It's been a while since Camelot.

Well, then, you know, the Kennedys were out in full force on Twitter, denouncing him today Kerry Kennedy, his sister Joe Kennedy. Ugh, what a mess.

What a Thanksgiving this will be. Yeah, it's also a little late.

What a mess.

Yeah, the Neo-Nazis quote you read, I'm not going to name him. Also said I don't even really understand what exactly this means, but clearly the implication. So this guy's like, I don't know what this guy's talking about, but I love it because it's anti-semitic, that's how nazis hear what he's saying.

Yeah, the perfect combination of just ignorance and hate. Okay, two quick housekeeping notes We got some new Merch in the crooked store. If your patented Joe Biden 5-inch inseam shorts don't have enough deep pockets for all your stuff, check out our new on the go belt bag. It's a sleek black pouch with four different phrases on the strap.

I leave for a week and it's QVC, he's got a product out.

Phone keys, hush money.

I like the one that says phone keys, hush money, that's the one I have, and I want you guys to know something. This was placed on my desk with a card, and I will tell you what the card says. It, says John QVC, This bitch during housekeeping. So that's what I'm doing.

That's what Ari brought into the office.

Cool, so I've done it, it's been QVC'd.

Head to cricket.

Gotta sign up for it.

We'll be right back to talk to Rana Epting and Matt Bennett about the left-center-left alliance that's out to stop no labels from electing Donald Trump.

Thanks, thank you.

So people listening know how I feel about no labels. But let's start here. We know that, you know, we've got a closely divided electorate. There is a critical and potentially decisive group of voters who identify as moderate. Complain about partisanship, prioritize unity, don't want a Biden-Trump rematch. And, you know, may like the idea of a younger moderate Democrat and a younger moderate Republican running together. And maybe they think that ticket can win, or maybe they just think it's worth a shot, Matt. As someone who spent a long time at a moderate, center-left Democratic organization, what do you tell those voters about a no labels ticket?

I tell them that it is an incredibly bad idea and they should stay away from it like it is the plague. First of all, I don't have to tell you or your listeners that this is probably we say it every cycle. But this is the most important election of all time, particularly if Trump is the nominee, which looks like he's going to be. What we have to understand about what No Labels is pitching here is that they're not offering up a protest candidate. I mean, Jill Stein wasn't telling the world she was going to be the next president of the United States. Ralph Nader wasn't saying that back in 2000..

So Nancy Jacobson, who's one of the No Labels co-founders? She wrote an op-ed for the New Hampshire Union leader, where she argued. Democrats and anti-trump Republicans are working to deny voters the chance to vote for a third party candidate. Which is particularly ironic for Democrats who talk about defending democracy and voters rights. Ronna, what's your response to that argument?

Yeah, no labels consistently is.

Well, let's dig into the polling a little bit, you know? Nancy also argues, you know, the polling that shows them spoiling the race for Trump, spoiling the race in favor of Trump.

Every poll that we've seen on this, including the No labels poll, shows the exact same thing. Either. Biden is narrowly ahead in a two-way race with Trump. Or it's basically tied within the margin of error. That's what their poll showed, that's what the Prime Group poll that came out last week showed, That's what all the public polling shows.

It also seems like even if they won every single swing state that's competitive. In order for a third-party ticket to win the presidency, they would need to win either deep blue states or deep red states. Which is pretty impossible, considering that partisans tend to vote for their party. And if you have a state where the majority of the electorate is favors Democrats or favors Republicans, it's very hard to win a state like that, right?

I'll just add one more comment on this and turn to Ron, but if you haven't.

To Matt's point, he's basically something that I've been astonished by is just imagine bringing this strategic proposal into any election room in the country. You'd be laughed out in a second. And so I'm trying to imagine, why is this being taken so seriously? And I think the only reason is because they have tens of millions of dollars behind them. But I think it is an ill-advised effort, it is not strategic.

RANA No Labels put out a policy platform over the weekend, and of course, they've got this town hall with Huntsman and Manchin. Do you all plan on making an argument that no Labels policies? Their platform and their potential candidates would be bad for the country? Or are you mainly focused on the argument that no labels can't win? And I ask that because for voters, just telling people if you vote for these candidates who maybe you're interested in or want to give a shot. We have polling, we're experts, we have polling that says that they're not going to win and that we're just going to throw the election to Trump. Or do you tell them? By the way, this is what no labels stands for? This is the positions they've taken, and by the way, these are the candidates they've chosen. How do you think about that?

I think it's both so, first of all, on their agenda. Number one is that they just made it up. They went in a room in D..C. and they created this policy agenda. It's not tied to actual, real people on the ground.

It also completely skips taking a position on abortion, which was one of the most important issues for voters.

Abortion is one of the most, if not the most mobilizing factors in the 2022 election. It will be one of the most mobilizing factors in the 2024 election. And I think at the end of the day, we live in a two-party system. There will be two major parties contesting for power in the presidential election. And Joe Biden has made his position clear that he believes it should be the right of women and people that can get pregnant to decide what happens to their own bodies. And that's the position that most Americans approve of.

Have either of your organizations done polling on the most effective argument to voters against no labels and what they're trying to do?

We haven't done that. Because, to tell you the truth, this isn't a conversation happening with the broad electorate. It is among people interested enough in politics to listen to this podcast or watch MSNBC. To some extent, but mostly, this is happening among the donor class and the people around no labels who might end up on their ticket. So we haven't done anything around that. But I will say, first of all, I very much agree with everything, Rana just said. But the other thing to your question about that voter out there who says, Eh, don't tell me about the polls? I'm going to decide based on what I feel. I think it's just vitally important that we make one.

So no labels. Keeps claiming that they don't want to be a spoiler. They don't want Trump elected, and that they will drop their plans if it looks like they'll hand the race to Trump. Matt, Do you have any idea what their criteria is for making?

So they have articulated about nine different criteria, many of them conflicting. What they have said is, if Joe Biden is way, way out ahead, we will not run a candidate now. No one's been way, way out ahead in a presidential race since 1988, so that isn't going to happen. Second thing they've said is, well, if Ron DESantis is the nominee of the Republican Party, we won't run well, that's clarifying.

RonNA You were mentioning this earlier. But how much do we know about the people behind No Labels and the people funding that organization? And are those answers part of the argument you're making to donors, political strategists and other political nerds? Yeah.

Well, first of all, I'll say we don't know enough, but what we have found out is not that promising, it's very concerning. We know that the very notorious Harlan Crowe, the right-wing donor to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has given to no labels. We know that donors associated with Jared Kushner and Rhonda Santus have given to no labels. And we know that there are a number of folks that were on the more democratic side that were associated with no labels. That are now dropping off, either publicly or quietly.

And Rhonda? I mean, they also endorsed Trump in 2016. I believe, right, no labels did.

I'm not sure Matt, is that true.

Well, it depends on what you mean by endorsed, but yeah, sort of. They held an event in New Hampshire in 2016 where they gave him. I'm not making this up. The problem solver seal of approval, right?

That's what it was, I remember that.

Okay, so I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, that's generally my orientation in life. But when you look at their polling, you look at their strategy, you look at the facts at hand. There is no way you could deduce that their intention is truly what they're saying. It is, which is to advance democracy and give voters a choice. It doesn't add up.

Matt I want to talk a little bit about what both your organizations are trying to do here. Because I take your point that it's too early in the process to be delivering a message to voters since they're not on the ballot yet everywhere. Are you guys trying to shame no-labels? Are you trying to get prominent political leaders to speak out against no-labels? Are there any big names who haven't yet? Who you'd like to take a stand? What's the goal of this effort?

What we really need to do, ultimately, is ensure that credible candidates don't agree to run on their ballot line. Because we're not going to be able to separate them from their money. They're very, very good at raising money and they already have raised a whole bunch of it, and it's a free country. If you have enough money, you can buy your way onto ballots. Because you can hire people to gather petitions and do it the right way, and they're going to be on the ballot. The only thing we can do is try to convince the people like Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan.

Well, I know Joe Manchin's a huge fan of this podcast, so I hope he's listening to this episode. Rana Is there anything that people listening can do to help?

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to make a shameless plug, but you can go to Moveon.

Matt Nolabels is currently on the ballot in Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, Utah, and I think the scariest state, because it's the closest to Arizona. Where else are they getting close to getting on the ballot, or, in your opinion, likely to get on the ballot?

We don't know exactly, all we know is, anecdotally, where someone is intercepted by a ballot signature gatherer, but I can tell you that we know. They're actively gathering in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. Obviously in the swing states. We know from looking at their map, where they feel like they have to.

Places last question for you, you know, you work for an organization that, you know, has for a long time tried to chart a middle path between progressives and conservatives. Has it been hard to turn around and make an argument like, don't trust these people? When? The ideological thrust of what they're trying to do is roughly in line with what you guys have tried to do for so long? Yeah, I mean.

Our middle path really isn't between the left and conservatives, it's just kind of a center-left approach. And since the right has lost its bloody mind, then, you know, they haven't been really relevant to us in a long time. But yes, the answer is yes. One of the people that Ron was hinting at who has left no labels is a guy named Bill Galston. He's one of the kind of intellectual forefathers of the center-left movement.

A last question to you, and I know you're familiar with this, probably because of Moveon and the constituency that you all represent. How concerned are you about the Cornel West third-party candidacy as a potential Green Party candidate, you know?

We love Cornel, we've worked with him for years, I think he's a wonderful person. Good intentions. Cornel doesn't have $70 million plus dollars behind him. Cornel knows how presidential politics work.

RANA Matt, thank you so much for joining PolitSafe America and for the work you're doing trying to avoid this catastrophe.

So appreciate it, thank you for having us.

Okay, quick thing before we go. The most anticipated movie of the summer, It's Not About a nuclear Bomb is out this week, Barbie.

Screen, it's eight dots.

The non-dotted line is what they.

Claimed it is you were supposed to.

Put together this segment.

Show the map.

This is your responsibility.

Correct me, I love this.

I want to see the map.

Go ahead, let's see the map.

I counted eight, too, but it was hard to tell if it was just from far away. Yeah, we don't know.

So this map has prompted Republicans, from Ted Cruz to Marshall Blackburn, to accuse the movie of cozying up with the Communist Party of China.

So.

Tommy, can you explain what this is?

The nine-dashed line. It's how China draws a map in the South China Sea, where they claim to own about all of the territory, essentially a thousand miles off of their coast. They draw this dotted line to claim all this territory. And everyone else in the world, especially the Vietnamese, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei, say no, that's not the case. This line takes our territory and gives it to China and violates our sovereignty.

It looks like, remember when Trump drew the Hurricane line further away? It just sort of dips all the way down. So, anyway, the Conservatives claim that they've put the nine-dashed line on this map because there's a dotted line that leaves a cartoon map of Asia on the screen. But I really think it is drawn in such a way as to truly make it unclear if they were trying to do it or not.

Well, there's a couple other dotted lines on the map as well. Is Greenland complaining about the one that's going to Canada?

That's the response.

Or the one that seems to be going from I don't know Colombia to is that Florida? There's also no Europe.

On this one, what are we doing, what is happening?

It's not just Republicans that were mad. The Vietnamese said they were investigating the issue. They're kind of trying to punch back.

Are they banning the movie in Vietnam?

They're going to blur it.

But this has happened before. In 2019, there was an ESPN broadcast that showed a map of China that included the 9-dash line. People were like, Why is this happening? Obviously, Disney has a lot of movies they want to have aired in China. There's all this kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party, even by U.S.

That would be the motivation for actually doing this.

There was a kerfuffle over the new Top Gun movie because they changed the back of Tom Cruise's jacket. I saw Mission Impossible and 10 out of 10 my Thetans loved every moment of it.

My favorite example of this is from 2021. When John Cena recorded an apology to the Chinese people because he referred to Taiwan as a country, the quote was Taiwan is the first country to watch. Fast and Furious 9. That led him to record this hostage video that I think he did in Mandarin.

Yes, he did.

Let me read you guys a quote from it. I must say right now it's very, very, very, very, very, very important, Cena said. I love and respect China and Chinese people. I'm very, very sorry for my mistake. There's some real groveling when you screw up and maybe get locked out of the Chinese market.

I will say this is a very funny map to be upset about, though.

You guys going to see Barbie?

I have my Oppenheimer tickets, I don't yet have my Barbie tickets.

My last shot to really see a movie in the theater when Emily and Charlie were away was this weekend. I really hoped it was the weekend. I just missed it by a weekend.

You should go see Mission Impossible.

I almost did, but I didn't want to support that. Scientologist.

I'm going to see Oppenheimer in.

Is that a term for not digitally?

Yeah, I think they blew up some stuff, but it's actual explosions. I don't yet believe Christopher Nolan has achieved a nuclear bomb. I do not think his nuclear program has gone.

Far enough. I look forward to his apology. If he did, he's very, very, very, very, very sorry.

Okay, well, I'll see Barbie, it seems fun.

I'm probably going to wait until it's at home.

It does seem fun, I'm in whenever I can, alright, thanks to Rana Epting and Matt Bennett for joining us today. We will be on Discord Tuesday night for the Trump Town Hall, and we'll talk to you again on Thursday.