Transcript of Democrats Actually Win Something with Chris Hayes and David Plouffe

Ladies and gentlemen, it is Wednesday, November fifth. This is the Weekly Show podcast. My name is Jon Stuart. And are you hearing something in my voice? You may be hearing something in my voice. In my voice may be something called hope. A little bit of hope. Hasn't been in there in a while. Last night's election was the election night that I haven't seen since I was a kid. It hearkened back to those old election nights when the polls would close at 8: 00, and they'd be like, Okay, that's it. I know all the networks had gotten their election teams and their political pundits, and they'd gotten all the desks set up in the election center and the magic TV and all that. They were ready to go for the 8: 00 to 12: 00 hours that they were going to do to try and discern the closeness. It was just a fucking 8: 00, it closed, and at 8: 30, they're like, Yeah, we're calling it. Clear, decisive, really, I thought, positive results all across the board. Mikey Sheryl, Spanberger, Mamdani, Prop 50. Even these races in Georgia and everywhere else. It turns out, and again, I am not a political consultant, and by the way, we're going to have on a really smart political consultant and a political analyst.

But it may be that when the President of the United tweets out a video of him dumping diarrhea on the American public, they find that slightly dismissive. And maybe that's what all this is. I don't know about the argument of populism versus security state Democrats or moderate Democrats, all that. But I think I do know that the arrogance and dismissiveness and chaos and incompetence of this administration's first year has to have a result. It It has to, and it seems like it does. It seems like a direct result of those elements within our society. But other people know better. Let's talk to them. Let's bring out our guests and dive right into this sunny day that has been in a sea of monsoons. So let's go right in. On this very historic day here in the tri-state area, we are delighted to be joined by Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes, author of the number one Times best-selling book, The Sirens Call. That's a New York Times. That's no bullshit Times. That's no Times from around the world. And David Pluff, campaign manager, Whitehouse senior advisor to Barack Obama. Last 10 plus year, spent time as an executive in the corporate nonprofit worlds.

But he's back now talking politics with us. Gentlemen, I don't know if they're listening to this or if they can see it on the YouTube, I just lift it out of my chair.

That night.

Last night was a night that Democrats have not had. Even in 2020, it wasn't... Even when it ultimately Ultimately, days later, it was determined that Biden had won, and then a few people rolled out into the streets in San Francisco and danced. Last night was just one of those crisp, clean, polls closed. They win more than normal. Done. Chris, what was your impression last night?

That was exactly my feeling, too. And it's funny because there's the outcome and then the benchmark you had for the outcome going in. It's funny you mentioned 2020 because in retrospect, when all was said and done, it was a big... They won the national popular vote by four and a half points. They won both houses. It didn't feel that way that night. There was a bunch of polling that had suggested, Sarah Gideon is going to beat Susan Collins by eight points, and that didn't There was a bunch of house races. So there was this expectation and then reality. Last night, the expectation was, Spamberger wins fairly easily, Sheryl in a neck and neck race. We think Mamdani is ahead, and we think Prop 50. And it was just boom, boom, boom, boom. Fifteen-point victory in Virginia. Sheryl absolutely waxes Chitterelle. Mamdani is called at 9: 45. California is called at poll closing. I totally agree that That just emotional experience of the night was something we haven't had in a while, where it was just like clean sweep, Dems win, and they outrun the polls, I would also note.

That was the other thing that did that. I don't know if you guys are gambling Certainly, I don't recommend it. But in football, man, there's always you can take the money line, you can go with the spread. They beat the spread.

They beat the spread.

Exactly right. David, when was the last time you can recall the Democrats beating the spread?

It's '06: 08 because even though '18 was a good year, Republicans won a bunch of the Senate races that were targets, the Florida governor. You really have to go back to '06 and '08, where it was, won everything, won everything with massive margins and comes cases historical, turned around trends like to say a county, New Jersey is the best example of this. A county that's been reliably Democrat that actually Trump won in '24. Sheryl won by, I think, 15 points. A lot of Hispanic vote there and won everywhere. I mean, Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania won over 60% of the vote. Georgia. Georgia. Statewide. And these weren't close. It was as dominating a night as Democrats have had in almost a generation.

Yeah, it was amazing. I guess the question next for both of you is, how will they squander it? How will it all go to... How will they piss this away? Chris.

Well, look, I think I think there's basically three elements to the victory. There's what we call thermostatic public opinion, which is when one party has a White House, the other party tends to do better in the off-year elections. It's why Chris Christie and Bob McDonald won in 2009, a year into Barack Obama. They won Jersey and Virginia.

Are those thermostatic things? Are there metrics for that? Is that more... Because they're also not related, again, to sports, but there are a lot of correlations that are not causation. Is there a sense that thermostatic opinion is also causal?

It's caused. It is causal. There's a pretty good political science literature that suggests people tend to look at the party in the White House as doing stuff, doing too much, doing stuff they don't like. It reminds them of why they oppose them in the first place. So it's a pretty reliable thing. So you've got that at the base layer. Then you've got, Donald Trump is really unpopular.

It's not just- How dare you? How dare you, sir?

How could I say this? They're going to cancel me. No, he's at 39 %. The national mood is dyspeptic and disgruntled, and the wrong track numbers are through the roof. And then the third layer is, what can Democrats control? Those first two things they don't make. The third layer is candidate recruitment, messaging campaigns. And I think on that, that's the place you're talking about how they're going to screw it up or how they're going to build on it. That's the place where they can control stuff. And I think they did a lot that was right last night. I'm curious, David is a professional here. That meant that Spamberger won by 15 and not by eight, and that Sheryl won by 12, I think, and not by six. And then Mamdani got over 50 %. They could have won those races to the point you're making up being the spread by less with worse campaigns. And if you look at the attorney general in Virginia who won by five points and had a pretty brutal scandal, it reminds you that it does matter what you're doing that campaign. It doesn't matter who the candidate is. That's the place to think about how to build on or what to avoid if you're the Democrat.

But how much does it To that point, David, when you got a candidate in Virginia who's got messages like, I'd like to kill all these people. Generally, that is- No, I seriously want their child to die. I seriously want them to die. I don't want to say box office poison. But generally, that is not considered a positive closing message. But as far as the professionals go, look, and by the way, I still believe it. I think the Democrats are still a mess. I truly believe they're a mess just because they're What this shows to me is, again, there is this underlying potential energy within the United States of America that is much larger than I think any of us could have imagined. And channeling that energy directionally will be the challenge for whoever wants to harness it. I still don't believe they're doing that, but tell me why all those things came together in the manner that Chris was just describing.

Well, I think, just to build on Chris, so This year is a long time. But as we look at '26, I think the atmosphere should be just as good, if not better for Democrats. It's not just trumpets that they're in complete control and people are deeply dissatisfied. So I think where the campaign comes in is the quality of the candidate is always the most important thing. I'll come to that in a minute. But the pizza of messaging, are you maximizing the critique against your Republican opponent as much as you can? So for instance, all these House Republicans, I guarantee EU by the summer and fall, are going to suggest somehow they oppose some of the stuff Trump did and their independent. So the job of Democrats, where at large, is to make them own their weakness and their fealty to Trump. And then the big part where I agree with you, John, where the Democrats are still too much of a mess is the Republican brand is terrible. We have a market failure. Eighty % of the country doesn't like either option. So if we become stronger, if we have candidates who seem different, they're good at critiquing Republicans, but also seem that they want to challenge the status quo and say the Democratic Party has gotten some things wrong.

They come from interesting backgrounds. They're willing to say, I think the strongest Democratic candidates next year will probably be people who say, Listen, if I win my House or Senate race, I'm not going to vote for any member of the current Democratic leadership. That says to voters, this is somebody different. So I think that Sheryl and Spanberg, they've been in Congress for a while, but they ran as outsiders in '18. They were these national security, never ran for office people. Mondami, obviously very different. So there's a recipe there. The other thing is they were just relentlessly on message. They didn't get distracted by anything. It was all about cost of living. Now, they're now executives. So their biggest challenge will actually be delivering on what they promised as mayor and governor. But I think, John, I agree with you. And for me, I think about the '26 and '28, and I'm most concerned about this. We have five Supreme Court justices that are over 65. So between now and 2040, let's say, three, four, five. The court could go back to being more progressive, five, four, or it could go eight, one. And we live in a time where even if we win the White House and hold it, which is super hard to do, I'm sure we'll talk about that later.

If the Republicans control the Senate, they will not confirm a replacement for a leader or Thomas. So where do we have to go? We have to get to the point where we reliably gain and maintain power and hold the White House and the Senate. And we have a long way to go because Virginia and New Jersey are We're not Iowa and Ohio and the Sun Belt. So that's where we have to get to as a party is, can we maximize Republican weakness, but also maximize Democratic strength? You put those things together. That's how we become more competitive in more places, which for the fate of the nation is what we have to do.

It feels to me, and this is going to be a complete projection or speculation, that this election was about Republican weakness for the most part. It turns out dumping diarrhea on people that are protesting from a plane or throwing a great Gatsby party in the middle of food stamp benefits running out may be viewed as smug and condescending by much of the electorate. So there's that. But what I hear on television is, should they go progressive or should they go security state, moderate? And in New York City, it worked in progressive, but in Virginia and New Jersey, those people are more normal, and you're going to want normal people to do normal things. And it all seems like bullshit to me in the sense of the simplicity of this. A government that very simply says, We haven't been delivering to what are clearly the needs of the people, and whatever those needs may be, we must deliver that in a much simpler, more agile, and fast-moving way. That's where the Democrats, to me, have failed. Whatever they're saying, whether they're saying, I want a government-run grocery store, or I'm going to make sure that I lower your property taxes, It's knowing what the people you purport to represent seem to need.

That's where I think they actually can learn a lot of lessons from Trump. Who doesn't give a shit about the He just looks at it and goes, I'm going to do that. Now, he's done it incompetently and hamhandedly and dismissibly and condescendingly. But what do you think of that formulation? David, I'll start with you.

Well, I think, yeah, there's no question that Listen, we should always listen to the voters, and the voters have been very clear. Their sense is the Democratic Party at large has not been focused enough on the problems that they care most about. And even when we do pass legislation, that's the easy part in a way. It's like, how do you execute on it? How do you make it timely? Mamdani is a great example of this. He's talked repeatedly in his campaign about going after government waste. The video that really propelled his campaign in the beginning was at the Halal truck, where he talked about cutting regulation. It was brilliant. But, John, I will say this. So I think Spamberger and Sheryl, last night in those states, it wasn't just about Republican weakness. They were not just a safe alternative, but a good alternative. So that's what we want. But I actually think Democrats Democrats, there's a big opening here. We have fallen into a trap where there's basically any attack on government we feel like we have to defend. And if you go back to Obama and Clinton, two Democratic presidents, Obama, I was part of this.

We're going to look at every regulation on the books and get rid of ones that don't make sense anymore. And there were thousands of them, Clinton reorganizing government. Was that good politics? Yes. But they both understood, hey, we're Democrats. We believe that government can play a constructive force in people's lives. I think Mondami gets this. So why don't we be the first person to say when it's being inefficient or too slow, we're not going to tolerate that. By the way, Daniel Loury in San Francisco, the new mayor, is a good example of this.

Great example of this.

Just focusing on things like crime and homelessness, but also cutting tons of red tape. There's That's right. He was saying that I think it's Abner Mikva, the legendary Illinois political hero. I think it's associated with him, which is sometimes Democrats come across as if they love humanity and hate people. We need Democrats who are like, People, they're kids in first Grade 1 time. They're renting this house one time in their life. They're trying to open a small business. We should be in an athletic posture saying that we are going to deliver for you. There's a huge opportunity there because I think the Republicans have not shown skill there, and they don't give a shit about people. So if we care about people- Well, no.

They give a shit about certain people. Certain people, okay. I wouldn't say that. They don't give it. They love America. They just hate about 52% of the people living there. I don't think it's that they don't give a shit about anybody. Hey, folks, you probably listen to the podcast here. You might even be watching it. You're wondering how I decide on my fashion for the podcast, or you're not wondering that because you realize I pretty much wear the same thing every time. But it's because I like to be comfortable. I like a nice T-shirt, a nice sweatshirt. That's how I roll. But you know who has got the really comfortable and affordable clothes? Quince. Quince. That's why I'm recommending them. I'm the new Oprah. Recommending clothes. A lot of people tell me, Ditch the T-shirts, try something new. I see in the comments there. I might. I might head over to Quince, pick up one of them there, $50, Mongolia cashmere sweaters. Although it's a lot harder to say than just T-shirt. Maybe a wool coat, maybe some jeans. Quince sells everyday comfort at a fraction of what you'd expect to pay by partnering directly With ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middlemen and delivers premium quality at half the cost of other high-end brands.

So you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag. Look like me, but for half the money. Give and get Timeless Holiday Staples that last this season with Quince. Go to quince. Com/tws for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's quince. Com/tws. Free shipping, 365 day returns, quince. Com/tws.

So here's my point. I think Democrats have enormous runway on a lot of issues if we will seize it. And by the way, to your point, not get caught up into this left versus right, democratic Socialists versus right of center. If we can say all comers can come, probably the one thing that unifies us is those Democrats will all believe, A, we should not be on autocracy, and two, we should have an economy that works for working people. We should be focused on that. Everything else, to me, let them be who they are and talk about the stuff they care about. And if we do that and deliver, I think we can really... I don't want to overstate it because we live in a divided country. But is it possible over the next decade, we could get back to being competitive in five or six more places than we are today and have a better chance than we do today of winning 50% of the vote in these places. It's possible, in part because the Republicans are so weak and they're trapped with Trump. They are not going to change who they are until at least 2030.

So we've got to fully maximize this moment.

Opportunity exists. Chris, to that point, what most encouraged which is me, is the energy that comes from younger people who seem to understand this on a molecular level. The Hakeim Jeffrey's, Chuck Schumer leadership It appears to be representing Democrats right after the Republicans release their contract for America. They seem to be of a very different time, style, and purpose. Are you hopeful that they have the energy, the understanding, maybe not through the National Democratic Committee, but on a grassroots level?

Yeah. I think it's interesting to look at the polling last night to to the extent we have exit polling on young voters, right? Because there was this story that was told about the rising tide of the Obama electorate, and this was going to be this permanent quasi-permanent majority. Actually, people pooh-pooh that now, but actually, it did produce a series of national majorities. The Electoral College messed with that, but it was actually a pretty successful coalition for a pretty long time in some senses. Last election, famously, young men broke for Trump. There's this tendency in political punditry where we have one dot here and one dot here, and we draw a line, then we just keep drawing it all the way. Like, well, at this rate, 99% of young men will vote for your Donald Trump in a year. It's like, well, it doesn't work that way. So last night, what did we see? We saw young men breaking for the Democrat by huge amounts, both Sheryl and Spamberger by double digits, 15, 20 points, Mamdani plus 40. So what does that say? It says that to me, this anti-establishment or distrust of the incumbent, right?

Like, the system's not working for me. It also says to me, young people are some of the most exposed to higher prices. They are almost definitely, literally, some of the most price-sensitive voters. That's right. Do you remember when I was 24? I was a lot more I'm price sensitive at 24 when I'm in prison.

I hadn't been described as price sensitive, but yes, I have been. I was cheap as hell. Sort of like a shellfish allergy. You're gluten and price sensitive.

To David's point, it's like the voters have been very clear on this. The system, the cost of living, things are too unaffordable. I can't get ahead. I'm concerned about the economy. That is also the sweet spot of overlap of the different Democratic factions. It's also the thing that young people are most focused on. The last element of this, which I think Mamdani really got, and this, I think, is a harder thing to spread around, is just in the way Barack Obama, he and the people around were generally native to new forms of communication. Mamdani has been that way. And I think that matters a lot. There's a certain charisma and comfort that he had with particular forms that reach younger people that was part of that really genuinely electric thing that he put together in New York City. That's a little harder to replicate, but you've already seen like James Telerico in Texas. Jeff Jackson, who's a much more centrist figure, he's the attorney general in North Carolina, experimenting with forms that are similar from different ideological profiles, but speaking to young people and to people everywhere in the same way.

I think that's an unbelievable point, and I want to talk about that a little bit because sometimes I think we confuse the medium with the message. When they talk about, Well, he understood TikTok, or he understood Snapchat, or he understood Instagram. But what he understood more than anything was how to connect a human being with people. I feel like if Mamdani had been doing fireside radio chats, they would have been successful. I do think it reminds me of Years ago, the news magazine show, 2020, decided they were going to appeal to young people. And so they did 2020 Downtown. And 2020 Downtown was 2020 with John Quinones wearing a black leather jacket and standing outside. And the young people were like, who is this whipper snapper in a black leather jacket? And that gets to, I think, the next part of the conversation, which is, David, tell me about the consultant class that talks about this, because I think we make the mistake of confusing these new forms with what is at the heart of this, which is politicians that connect with human beings in a real way, whether it's face to face or on the radio or on television, because they love these people, they care about these people, and they are not focus grouped to within an inch of their lives so as to appear false.

Yeah. Well, listen, historically, and I think that's even more true today with the social media world, the most successful candidates are authentic to who they are, who have a very good idea about why they're running for the office they're running for, have core beliefs. And what a good campaign team does is just, okay, let's figure out the best way to communicate that and then acquire the votes we need to win. So candidate quality and their message is always at the top of the pyramid. But Chris's point is important, and obviously, he has spent a lot of time researching and writing about the attention economy. So the reality is a candidate and campaign team who says, We're going to really think about TikTok and YouTube first, but they're a crappy candidate with a poor message, they're going to be unsuccessful. But if you're a good candidate with a good message to fully maximize your votes, you do need to think, What is your campaign? It used to be, if I have something to say, What speech am I going to give? What interview am I going to give? I'm not saying you don't do those things today.

The most important thing to do is, What is my TikTok video and piece of content? What's my YouTube piece of content? What's my content on Instagram reels, Reddit? And those are not the same. This is what Mondami understood. And I think it was he didn't have to go to school, Chris. He knew this. This is how he lived his life.

But certainly, Mikey Sheryl and Spanberger in particular, do not.

No, but they had active TikTok TikTok, they had active YouTube.

So my point is- But the content on TikTok is the content that you generate. It's like the Daily Show. The Daily Show can be on TikTok or Instagram, but that's not the content. The content is what we generate on the show. What you saying?

How could You are communicating.

That's right.

But if you... Right. None of the tactics and multi-platform strategy work without a flawed content strategy or product. But my point is we do need, as a party and Democratic candidates, to think more through What is my windshield as I think about winning elections? It's everything. It's still TV ads, it's still interviews, but it's TikTok and YouTube first. And I think that the better we do that, because there's about 40% of the electorate, that's the only way they get information. They never seek out information about politics. They encounter it. So we just have to make sure. And TikTok is particularly challenging because you cannot pay for political ads. So it's all organic. It's relying on influencers. I think one of them, Mondami's campaign did well. They basically understood that we have to create content every day across these platforms. Now, to your point, John, that doesn't matter if it's not compelling. Some of his most compelling content wasn't the policy, it's how he interacted with people. This is a guy that clearly loves the city of New York that came through and loved the people in New York. And there's no rather- But his message was really simple.

On affordability. It was great. And he found different ways to bring that. So Let's flip this, though, because this, I think, is a really interesting discussion.

We're talking about how candidates need to exploit all manner of communication to try and get their message out, and that they have teams that are there to help them design those messages for each things. Let's look the other way. Can they take really good candidates and ruin them? I want to talk specifically Basically about Kamalaras, because I spoke with her last week on the podcast. My sense of what happened in that campaign is, and that's just one example, is that the strategists and consultants and pollsters basically wrung every last bit of light out of the eyes of what is a compelling and smart art person, and I think continue to do a disservice. David, you were there. Has the consultant strategist political complex destroyed in some measure the talent and potential of many of these really good candidates? And does it continue to do that?

Well, I was there. So what I'll say is... She was on your show, John. She wrote a book. I mean, it's pretty clear she ran the campaign she wanted to run. Everybody, and I get it, if this ad or this tactic or this line had been different, she would have won. Let me just tell you, I've worked in politics a long time. I retired I came back for 100 days. This was steep headwinds. Deeply unpopular Democratic President.

No question.

Unhappiness about the economy. In every battleground state, voters gave Trump's first term approval in the economy 50 plus. Okay? The board are out of control. And this is, remember, Kamala Harris, she ran for President in 2020 and didn't even get to Iowa. So my view is we could have done a bunch of stuff differently. The biggest thing I think, and I don't think Trump would have bit, was after the first debate, which was her best moment. And I think all that did was get a bunch of voters back who had left Biden, but it got us in the race. And you said we'd like to debate again. We probably should have that night said, We will debate on October 20th on Fox. Make it hard for him to say no. We should have done that because we needed big moments. But at the end of the day, should she have separated more with Biden? I think in the book, she says, I certainly thought she should have. But she's talked about this. She's a loyal person. And the reality of that question would be, I would have liked her to go as far as she could.

I would have liked her to say, I didn't think he should run, and I think he mishandled the border, and I think we didn't pay enough attention in prices. None of that stuff happened. She wasn't going to say that. So I just think we need to live in the world. But here's your point. The best campaigns I have either been part of or seen are, by the way, sometimes they lose, sometimes they win, are candidates who know exactly who they are, the issues that they're running on. There may be issues that aren't popular, but they're going to say, I'm going to stick by my values. And basically, the campaign is there to support them. And I thought Kamala Harris ran a great race under the circumstances. Probably you would have said... By the way, the thing that struck me about that race was in the battleground states, it was closer than the erosion. I wasn't paying much attention in that campaign, what was happening in New York or New Jersey or Connecticut. And when I started to see those numbers, I'm like, we're in deep trouble. And I think why she did a little bit better in the battlegrounds is they saw her directly talking about the economy a lot, prices a lot.

I'll be a different leader than Joe Biden, but it wasn't enough. So at the end of the day, I think we should... That was going to be a tough race to win. Could we have won it? Potentially. I think the key thing is, as As we think about the House races, Senate races, the White House in '28, keeping in '32, the most important thing will be, are we putting forth candidates that capture people's imagination, that seem authentic, that are willing to challenge every status quo? Republican, the status quo, and Democrats? Are they offering ideas that people can believe in? And to Chris's point, can they excite people? I mean, the most exciting candidate generally wins. Trump was an exciting candidate. Obama was an exciting candidate. Clinton, Kennedy, particularly in the presidential race, because this is what's interesting about the moment we're in. I spend most of my life in politics where we did better as a party in high turnout elections. That's completely changed. Totally.

Not last night.

Well, but if you look at the turnout in some of these places, it was quite high.

No, that's what I'm saying, that turnout was high and they did better.

But it was still less than a presidential year. So that wave in front of us that we have to somehow crest is in '28, there's going to be a much bigger turnout. It's a presidential year. That's going to be harder for us to navigate unless we have a candidate that is exciting, that people believe in, who's saying things that they wouldn't expect necessarily a Democrat to say. If all those things happen, we can do this. But candidate quality is at the top, John.

Right. But the point, David, I'm trying to make is the machine that we have designed to create candidates in their campaigns antithetical to exactly what David just said. David just said the most exciting candidate. But the truth is that the machine that is around candidate selection and promotion and campaigns is risk averse. It's the thing that says, okay, you're going to... Depending on what it is, the candidates that are throwing a hail Mary can say whatever they want. That's just why I loved when Al Sharpton would run. You knew he wasn't winning. But boy, was he going to make that debate fun? Hey, do you guys follow the news? I I follow the news. You know why I follow the news? Because I hate myself. And I want to be sad. We see headlines engineered all day make us feel a range of emotions, outrage, fear, hope, despair. I just want my coffee. How dare they? Well, good news, folks. This episode is sponsored by Ground News, an app and website designed to help you see past the headlines and past the spin. It allows you to quickly understand why we see so much division in news coverage.

Ground News can pull hundreds of sources from around the world into one place for any story and lets you compare the left, center, and right perspectives. They provide extra context on every story, showing the political bias, factuality, and ownership of the news outlets. This lets you follow the money and understand why narratives are shaped the way they are. If you want to move beyond headlines and start understanding how news really works, Ground news provides the tools for transparency and comparison. It's the essential first step back towards finding a shared reality and staying informed. If you want to stay informed, go to groundnews. Com/stuard for 40% off the Vantage Plan. This brings it down to $5 a month. That's groundnews. Com/stuard. It's $5 a month, less than a coffee, to start understanding how news really works. That's worth it. I want to ask Chris, to David's point, which I don't dispute, I don't dispute the types of candidates that he's talking about are being successful. What I'm asking is, is the mechanism and machine and factory that we've set up around them, isn't that designed to actually wring what David's talking about out of the process?

I think that there's two two distinct points, I think, to make here. So one is, and let me start with a defense of political consultants because I'm not one, so I'm not just talking my book, which is to say there's this great line, and James Q. Wilson wrote this famous book about bureaucracy, right? Everyone hates bureaucracy, right? But he's like, What is bureaucracy? Well, bureaucracy is the thing that allows a bunch of 19-year-olds to run an aircraft carrier, right? And the point of bureaucracy is that you have the normal distribution of talent, okay? You don't get to just be Well, only the best people are going to run an organization. No, you're going to have some that are good, some that are bad. And what a bureaucracy does is it figures out how to take the normal distribution of talent inputs and try to make a functioning institution. So think about- Did you just say fucking institution? Fucking institution. So think about politics at scale. Yes, you want to recruit good candidates, but also there'll be some that are good, there'll be some that are amazing, there'll be some that are not so good. So you're dropping into a whole bunch of places at scale.

Think of all those state races, all those contested. You need some kinds of mechanisms that are going to work across that distribution. And that's an inescapable part of the enterprise. Now, the place where I think this critique is true is on this question of risk aversion. Right now, to David's point, Democrats have to look into the void, which is the Democratic Party brand is unpopular. You are playing from behind at a certain point. If you're playing from ahead, you can be more risk averse. If you're playing from behind, you got to throw the ball downfield. And so I think the Democratic Party and consultant class has to internalize this idea of taking risks because you are behind, because the brand is not very good right now. And that means not just conserving what you have. You are not up a few scores with five minutes left.

You're saying don't play prevent defense.

Don't play prevent defense. I do think, and look, there are races where you should play prevent defense. I would have not told a spam burger, Hey, you should five debates down the stretch in the last two weeks. Absolutely not. You're up 10 points. Don't do that. But generally, I think the risk calculation of the Democratic Party, its leadership, generally is to risk averse. And let me just say one last thing. The shutdown is a great example. They have pursued a fairly high leverage and high risk strategy around the shutdown, and I think it has redounded to their benefit. I think a more risk averse strategy, which is people are going to blame us. We're the party out of power, it's going to be bad, all this stuff. These elections happened against that backdrop. I think the higher risk, higher leverage strategy they pursued has been rewarded. I think that should be a lesson for everyone about what your general risk profile. Yeah.

Can I just say two things, John? I agree with that. I think last night, again, couldn't have gone any better for the Democratic Party. Amazing night. I think one of the risks is There will be a sense that things are better than they are.

Right. Exactly. So now we can get conservative. Right.

So I will say back on your consultant thing.

All right, you finish up, and then I'm going to yell at both of you. Yeah, okay.

But I think that the one place where I think there It is. I mean, data makes us all smarter, right? We use it in the media business, we use it in the private sector, we use it in politics. I think there has been this movement towards trying to evaluate everything you do through the cost per vote. And you do ad testing, so you create 50 different ads you could run, whether they be social media or TV. And one is a 3. 2 out of five, and one is three five. So should we run a three five? And I think we've really fucked ourselves in that regard. And I think that's where some caution comes in, because I think the other thing about best campaigns always, you're trying to tell a story here, and the forest is more important than the trees. And you really have to think about, I think, not necessarily... You got to go a little bit more with your gut. It's like Luke Skywalker in the X-wing basically puts away the technology and just goes with his gut, right? And I think we could use more of that, right? But here's the other thing, John.

Plenty of consultants. I've made plenty of mistakes. There's some good consultants, as Chris said, some bad consultants. But the best candidates also don't get bullied around by their consultant teams. They say, I'm not going to say that or I want to say that. So your job is to figure out. Why? Like Barack Obama would say this to Melvin. I'm going to say the thing you don't think I should say. So let's figure out the best way to say it.

Here's my visceral reaction to Two parts of the conversation. One is this idea that because the Democrats are in the wilderness, they must take risks. But once they take those risks and gain a little bit more of a foothold, they must once again retreat to- No, I don't think they should.

The strategy is- I'm worried they're going to be tempted to, but they shouldn't.

Okay. But the second part of it is this. Democrats, I think, do really well running on the audacity of hope. Democrats fuck things up by governing on the timidity of what they believe is possible through the rule change that are the norm. The American government is complex to the extent that if you want to stop something from happening, there are enough poison pills in whatever, Amendment A of 13, you could make it so that we can't do anything. But it's also complex enough that the truth is you can find a way to do anything. You can subvert those very same things as we see Trump doing with... Well, it turns out in 1803, there was an emergency that they declared based on getting a steamboat. And so that's why I'm allowed to send the Navy wherever I want. It's about imagination and about resilience, but it's about clarity. And my fear is this process that we're talking about, this analytics process, process that is overly reliant on these teams that you discuss, that the very nature of that, you're right, candidates can ignore it, but when there's something there, generally, it will be used. And generally, I think it has gotten too big, too expensive.

Have you seen there is a great video of Mike Donlin testifying in Congress about what he would have gotten if Joe Biden had been elected. They were like, So what did he pay? Mike is very thoughtful. You think like, Is he thinking or is he like, Should I even fucking say this? This is terrible. He's like, Well, what'd they give you? Well, I got 4 million for that. You're like, For what? Then he goes, And if they got elected, what would you got? He's like, I don't remember. Maybe another 4 million. You're like, That can't be real. My point is this thing has its own It is a complex that will not cede its own power, and I think it is to the detriment of governance and good candidates.

Well, I'll take this opportunity to make clear I volunteered for Kamala Harris's campaign and had no windmills. Okay. No, here's what I'd say. I actually think- Tell it to Congress, pluff. Yeah, John, I will say this. This is actually more about people who've won office than campaigns. And this is not just about consultants. I do think where the caution has hurt us is, we are not as comfortable as we need to be about executing all the levers to gain power, maintain it, and use it. So even after last night, you're seeing some state legislators in states, Democrats, saying, Oh, we don't need to change our lines to respond to what the Republicans are doing, because look, we're going to have a great year next year. We have to gain every House seat we can. By the way, that's not popular with the general electorate necessarily, but it's what's required structurally to make sure we win the House back. Every state, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, everyone where there's a potential to win one, two, three more House seats, we have to do it because the Republicans aren't going to go let up. Some There are the things around Supreme Court reform and other challenges that I think don't necessarily pull well.

But at the end of the day, I think we're required to make the progress we need as a country. So I think that's where some of the caution comes in when we acquire higher power. And I think that's much to our detriment. I think we have to change the way we think about it, which is we need a lot more Bobby Kennedy in the party than Teddy Kennedy in the party, which is we just need a ruthless MF-er who understands none of it matters, no matter how good your ideas are, and no matter how strong your values are, if you don't win. Because it's worthless if you don't have the power, and for the time you have it, you're trying to deliver for the American people. So I just think that's a place where we have definitely, if not failed, been far from ideal. I don't know what you think, Chris.

Well, to John's point, I think the Trump example is so illuminating, right? Because at one level, I have these moments where they're like, he does something, and I feel like a little bit of an illicit thrill, where it's like, oh, it's like, I guess you can- 10% of intel.

I like it.

I guess you can just do that. Here's That's what I would say. I think you're identifying something absolutely true in the culture of Democratic Party politics, which I know better than the culture of Republican Party politics, which is a lawyer brain. I say this married and deeply in love with and admiring of my wife, who's an incredible lawyer.

Incredible lawyer. And by the way, strict scrutiny. A fine podcast.

Thank you very much. It's a lovely- I agree wholeheartedly.

We love her very much. Let the record show that Chris Hayes held up.

Hold up my Strict Scrutiny logo. No, but here's the point. Two things I think I take away from Trump, right? One is, oh, my God, you need lawyers and you need people that respect the law. And it's crazy to have this bulldozer approach. But the second thing is there's some place between what Trump's doing and no, we can't do that because it's never been done that way or because there's some memo somewhere that says we can't that allows for more for innovation and creativity and aggression. I use that word advisedly in pushing the envelope a little more than Democrats have been comfortable doing. And that, to me, is one lesson. You do not want the lawlessness of Trump. But what you do, I think, want to copy is a little bit of this spirit of like, it's a malevolent creativity in the case of Stephen Miller, but a little bit of innovation, creativity. To what you were saying, David, where Obama said, I'm going to say it, so figure out how to do it. I want to do this. What can we do that is within the law to get there? Now, maybe it's never been done before, or maybe it might face a legal challenge.

But I want you to tell me how to legally do what I want to do.

You need a John, you. Somebody that could go in there and go, Just call it enhanced interrogation, and you'll be fine.

Well, that illustrates the perils of it, right? But I do think, again, it's not one or the other, but I do think one of the lessons here is be a little more envelope pushing on some of this stuff when you do have power.

The other thing is, because right now we're still talking about, in some respects, the permission structure to do things. The second part of that argument, and it's one I want to get your guys' opinion on, is what it is you want to do through that permission structure. I think that's another area for Democrats, and I'll use the ACA as an example, and it's the one I always go back to, which is Democrats at their heart, I truly believe this, forget about the platitude of health care is a right. It's not a right, it's a commodity, and it's a commodity that doesn't serve itself well in the marketplace because there's too many externalities for it to function properly. There's got to be a way to deliver health care to the people. Now, the Democrats go through this incredible process to get the ACA and absolutely got more people insurance. But I think if you asked most Democrats at their heart, is that what was wrong with our health care system? They would say no. What they would say is it's too complicated. No matter what, even if I have insurance, if I still get sick, I still go bankrupt.

40% of us are spending too much money on insurance premiums to the point where we have to make different decisions about where we're going to eat or what we're going to drive or any of those other things. So not just the permission structure being streamlined, are Democrats also not not audacious enough in how they fix the problems? Is that something that you would also put into the equation? Chris, start with you.

I think the subsidy fight right now is a perfect illustration of it. Because at one level, the Democrats are on the right side of this, both politically and substantially. Okay? So people's premiums are going to skyrocket. We've all seen, we've heard the interviews, we've seen the screenshots of them, and they want to pass these subsidies to stop off that price spike from happening. But then when you take a step back, you're like, Wait a second. Wait, why is this happening? Well, the emergency subsidy support was initially a temporary COVID piece of legislation. When Republicans critique that, they've got a little point. You're like, Wait a second. There's something wrong with the structure such that it was necessary is more subsidies to keep the cost down.

Remember, Chris, so connect that to why that's in in the first place. Because the reason it's in there in the first place is the program was designed so that insurance companies wouldn't fight it. It wasn't designed because they thought that was the right thing to do. That was the thing they thought they could get away with.

I think, and David was there, so I'll let him speak on this. But the last thing I'll just say is, one thing that I think you are identifying that I think is a broader question, and you see it in this question about affordability, which shows up everywhere, living, is a democratic policy approach that has been to let the market work and then do aftermarket transfers, often subsidies. Subsities for solar, subsidies for electric cars, subsidies for insurance premiums. Snap is a subsidy. These are all different ways of, and I believe in that, I'm a liberal. But what would it look like to make policy such that the prices were lower? Or people had so that you didn't have to do all the aftermarket transfer. Now, easier to say on a podcast than to get past, honestly, because you're right. The thing that killed previous health care reform was the insurance industry was dead set against it. This stuff is complicated. But I think the thing you're identifying, and I agree with, is the current model in democratic policy making tends to be we have market distributions, and then we have aftermarket transfers and subsidies. That takes the heat off.

With no control. As it skyrockets, a great example, and David will get to your response as well. But here is the democratic plan on student loan. Student loan plan was, what if we forgive some of it? Everyone's like, Sure, I guess, but are we going The problem isn't that. That's the bandaid. That doesn't in any way- The costs need to come down.

This is the key thing. The three pillars of middle class life, which are education, housing, and health care. Can you go to the doctor?

Child care and Can you live in a place and can you get your kids educated?

Okay. And childcare and that. The cost of all those things are too high. Now, you can subsidize against them, and that's important. But some question of how do we get the costs down? How do we keep the cost down, I think, is key at a policy level.

David, jump in.

Well, first of all, I agree with that. I think as a party, we have rightly spent, I think, most of our economic time talking about not just the creation of jobs, but growth of wages. We should doing that. But from a math standpoint, if you're a family, you want wage growth, but obviously you want costs to rise either less or ideally come down. So I think for the Democrats to view that as a Manhattan project, writ large, and that works across ideology, which is I'm going to basically be on that wall trying to bring down every cost I can for you. At the same time, we try and grow wages. It's great. I would say, first on the ACA, there is just... No one wants to talk about political reality, but the political reality is that's all that could pass, even though we had Democrats.

I've got to I disagree with that and say, You make political reality. The reason I say that is we did the Pact Act and we did Zadroga, and I was told over and over again what the political realities were. We bent the political realities. We did.

Well, you did heroic work, right?

No, it wasn't heroic work.

It was. It was effective and it was against the odds. No.

In the trenches with groups that day in and day out were relentless. When I'm told, and I can tell you when we were writing that bill, how many times we were in a room with VSOs, veteran service organizations, and representatives of veterans within Congress who would negotiate against themselves in the bill based on what they thought they could get done. The hardest part of us working with them was convincing them to fight for what they thought would fix the problem. That was the hardest part.

Right. Well, so here's what I would say. I mean, one, that was a time where while we had Democratic majorities, we had four Democratic senators in the Dakotas, Georgia, Louisiana, Blue Dog districts. Yeah, maybe there would have been a better way to sell a public option, but I refuse to trash the fucking ACA. That's my job. Which has delivered 20 or 25 million people health care. It didn't fix the system, okay? But let me tell you, this is important. You want to get back to polling consultants? Yeah. Obama takes office in the financial crisis, has to bail out the auto industry, do more with the banks. Support for health care reform is in the toilet. And that wasn't because of bad storytelling. Because the American people are saying, you know what? We want this notionally, but this has nothing to do with me losing my job. And he and a lot of Democrats, who almost all those Democrats then lost their seats, took a tough vote. So I disagree with you that the public option could have been passed if we had been smarter or more effective. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it got all week.

And I think it's paid big dividends. I do think, given not just general election voters, young voters, everyone's dissatisfied with the status quo. So I think you raise a really important question. I think it's whether it's our health care system, our education system, how we're going to do with AI, an aging population, the climate crisis, deficits out of control. I think there's more opening for Democrats to be more bold.

No question.

I really do agree with that. And so I hope we see some people running for President who are willing to tackle these things. And by the way, the other thing is, I think our politics is too small. We should win every election we can, and sometimes just because we want to cut taxes for the middle class and they want to cut them for the wealthy, or we want to give people health care, we don't. That's very, very important. It's the lives people are living right now. We have to win those debates. I also think people are hungry for like, there's some scary shit happening out there and what's your view as a potential President about how to deal with it. I think there's an opening for that. So I think that this is back to your point about caution. I'd like to see more Democrats let it rip and say, This is the world we ought to live in. Even though there's complexities along the way. I think we would be well-served as a country in a party if we did that.

I don't know what you guys are doing out there on the internet, to be honest with you. I don't want to know. I have an idea, actually, and I I still don't want to know. But I know, but I know. Not that I actually know, but you know. Keep it to yourself. Surfshark helps you do that. Surfshark is a modern VPN designed with the user in mind, powered by robust security mechanisms, but also designed to be simple and intuitive to use. It's not complicated to keep your internet activities quiet and safe. Surfshark is a VPN that encrypts all data sent via the internet, protecting your passwords, private messages, photos, videos, and other sensitive data. Whatever that may be, it ensures you stay safe on public WiFi by encrypting your data, making it useless For people who steal it, not like useful data for those other idiots who are just out there surfing away, go to surfshark. Com/stuart and use code Stuart at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark VPN. That's surfshark. Com/stuart to get four months of the VPN.

That thing that David just said about the country we want to live in. I think about this a lot about the notion of the American dream and how animating it is and how distant it seems from our politics. But I think a lot like, okay, let's just start from total blank slate. What do you want out of your life? Okay? Right. And a certain percentage of people want to be famous and wealthy and end up in the top % of the distribution. But I think most people, it's like, I heard Lula give a speech in Brazil once about this where he basically talked about You want a weekend barbecue with your friend and family where you crack a beer? No, literally. That's Brazil. Right. But he talked about a little bit of space where you can crack a beer and your family's friends are over. And I think about, well, let's get back to the most basics. What is the thing we want to be achievable, which is a little bit of space for my family, a good education, health care, a job that I don't hate, and a sense that I have a little space to take a vacation and have people over for a barbecue.

The thing we think of the American dream, this certain level of comfort, not like, luxury. That It really feels out of touch. It really feels like we have a sorting hat in America. It sorts you into like, drudgery and brutal trying to make ends meet, or a few people end up at the very top. There's a class in between them who are always fearful, falling down. But I do think that it's useful for both policy and politics to start with that project of what do we want to provide to people as the thing at the end of all this.

I love that.

As the thing at the end of all this. It doesn't have to be a yacht. I want to have a barbecue and crack a beer and have a little bit of space and these basic things.

I think that's an excellent point. It speaks to maybe something. Right now, I think we are in a cycle that's a little bit of a lazy Susan of populism. It's either going to be coming around, and Banon understood this very, very well, which is if I can take my nativist shit and fuse it with a populism that brings in, I'm going to be able to peel away enough working class people in a variety of minorities that I'm going to get my anti-woke project and be able to work that through. And the Democrats, I think, were slow to recognize They use the language of populism, but without, in some respects, the understanding of... So I'll give you an example. And, David, you speak to this. Let's tax the billionaires. We shouldn't have billionaires. And people are like, Oh, okay. What are you going to use the money for? If they don't believe, well, we're going to forgive student loans, you're like, right. But to my point, if you don't tie money to value for people, and that's the missing piece. It's so frustrating to watch. Going back to the Kamala thing, 107 days was not enough time.

Okay, it's been a year. Where's the non-incremental policies that aren't platitudes? That tie money to value? Why is it so hard to develop nationally for the Democrats?

Well, I think it's not going to come nationally. I think it's going to come from individual candidates, right? Mondami had his flavor of that show. It's not going to come from Washington. It's not going to come from the D&C. It comes from candidates. And ultimately, our party will be defined by our next nominee. But until then, by these candidates in '26. So, John, I'm glad you raise this because there's this, I find it frustrating debate, which is, is it populism or is it abundance? And the truth is, they swim together. So to your point, people would like to see the wealthy pay more. A lot of that might even be punitive, which is not fair. It's not as strong as it should be because people don't believe that the proceeds will be spent in a way that delivers results for them. So this is where, as a party, if we're going to be much more focused about that, and even being transparent when it's not working. So if we ask the wealthy to pay more, we can both begin to pay down our deficit, but also invest in things that are working. Right now, people aren't sure that the stuff we want to invest in is going to pay dividends.

And so if you look at a Mondami or Sheryl or Spamberg, just to use them as an example, they're going to try and do some things. Now, they're executives, which means half their job is just dealing with bad shit that happens on the. Exactly. But then they're going to have stuff they're going to try and pass, and they'll be successful in some and unsuccessful. But when they are, I think one thing we have to do a better job is doing the same intensive storytelling we do during a campaign when we're in government, which Which is we pass this, and now a month from now, this person was able to get their small business open more fast, or this person was actually able to get free training to become a plumber or whatever it is. And then when that stuff is not working, say it's not working. But if we fuse these things together, which is, yes, we would like the wealthy to pay more. I don't think it's really... We're still a country, by the way, people want to be wealthy. They want to be successful. So I'm not sure we should malign it, but say it's just fair for people to to pay more so that, and I think Democrats should say, A, we're going to use some of that to pay down deficit, which has gotten dangerously too high.

But we're also going to invest in things, and it shouldn't be invest in 20 things. It shouldn't be invest in amorphous things. Be very specific about what you're asking people to pay. I also think, John, we as a party should be better. I think there's a sense from voters. I've seen this in research where they're like, Democrats just seem to want the tax money. It's hard for us to pay the taxes. I'd like to see Democrats. Again, I think Obama and Clinton were good this, which is, hey, if we're going to ask you to pay any taxes, we're going to be so watchful of that. We're going to make it pay off. We're going to ask you to pay as little- Respect for the tax payer.

Yes. That's right. Not to be flippant about it.

To Chris's point, if you pay taxes, You want to go on vacation, you don't want to be in debt, you'd like to be able to be a big holiday and birthday gift for your families. Any taxes that you pay makes that a little bit harder. And so I think we need to be seen as much more watchful. But I do think that if you put together the populist side of the wealthy and big businesses paying more, if we strengthen the other side of that, to what end? And people believe it a little bit more strongly and clearly, and we do good storytelling about that, we will be stronger. But I agree with you, it's not as strong as it should be because people question, Okay, I'd like the wealthy to pay more, but I'm not sure what am I going to get out of it other than I'm happy they're paying more.

We don't connect it to their lives in a way that is meaningful. I don't know if you've ever seen this, and unfortunately, I can't remember the site that we went on. Once went on a site that basically breaks down your tax bill, and it's like 10 different- Taxpayer receipt. Taxpayer receipt, 10 different tranches. Well, the first five tranches, unless you're very old or very, very poor, you don't see any of it. It's military, Medicare, Medicaid, service of the debt, and something else that has really no bearing on the overwhelming overwhelming majority of people's lives. It's there in stark relief, that disconnect that you're talking about.

Yeah. I mean, most of it is, I mean, 70% of the budget is social insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense. That is what- It's it. Paul Krugman is like, the federal government is an insurance corporation with an army. Then everything else comes after.

It spends too much of it on middlemen to deliver those services. It doesn't ever use its capacity as the largest customer of those things. It's like, do you guys remember when the Biden administration came out and said, Hey, everybody, great news. The pharmaceuticals are going to let us negotiate the price for 10 drugs.

Ten drugs, right.

Well, not all 10, like six of them. But then a couple of years from now, we're going to add these other two. And you're like, Are you- Which they have. Right. But how many billions do we spend Right. Subsidizing these companies. That's the worst shark tank deal in history. We're going to give you $100 billion, and what do we get? Maybe we'll negotiate $10 billion.

Well, that's also just... I mean, part of that is like a camel is a horse designed by committee. It's like the thing that you get at the end of the process after being in the room and those were brutal negotiations is something that's not as clean and straightforward. I think to David's point, one of the things that's interesting in the New York City mayor's race, these promises that Mamdani's made are very... Like one of them, which is freeze the rent. Now this is really interesting because A, memorable. B, 2 million people are in rent regulated apartments in New York. That's a lot of people. It's not like some little subsection of people. And three, they have the power to do it, hilarious, because of a law signed by Andrew Cuomo as governor, which no one brought this up in the race, but it is really funny. They did actually expand rent regulation, which the governor said. Now, that That thing doesn't... That's a little bit of a unicorn, okay? But the reason I bring it up is to David's point there about it's direct, it's memorable, it applies to a lot of people, right? This is the thing that is useful both in policy and in governing, right?

Now, Eric Adams is trying to stack the rent board so that he sabotages them on the way out, and we'll see if he... The governing part of it is hard. But when you're looking for things that you can say to people of This is tangible. It's going to affect a bunch of people, and it's, I can say it in a sentence. That's three words freeze to rent. Everyone knew whether they liked it or not. If you... Some people opposed.

Sure. Some of it might work, some of it might not.

That's fine. But at least it's fucking trying. But they know. They know what you're doing.

Yeah. It does seem like, look, the argument for government is not that it does everything great. It's that something's got to be there to offset the power of corporations or You fill in the gaps on things that corporations won't take on or can't take on efficiently. Specifically, David, is that... Let's tie it all together because I know you guys got to go and we're going to get to the thing that you have jobs, and I don't. Here's where I think it ties it together. We talk about what's needed, which is this really imaginative new rethink about the government's relationship to its citizens and to creating policy and to being specific and to being efficient and to being honest brokers with the taxpayers about the value that they're getting out of the money. That seems like a really important, large project. But if you think about our political world, where's the money? The money is in the Consultant Strategy Polster class. This wraps us around to the whole thing. If our priority is the one side of it, why do we spend so much money and so much time on the other side of it to the neglect of the part that we think will deliver better results for people and better electoral results?

How has that happened?

Well, I think John, New York is a good example of this, where I think Mondami is charting an important course. Daniel Lurrie is doing the same thing in San Francisco. I think Spanberger and Sheryl will as well. So I think that that reimagination that is still deeply progressing that believes there's some things only government can do or there's some things only government can start, and we're going to invest in that. We're going to be transparent about what's working. That should be core to who we are. And I think you're going to see more candidates emerge. I do think what is interesting, the more we see, whether it's an Osborne or a platinum on one end, people like Sheryl and Spangenberger who come out of the national security, Mondami, these are all different flavors of Democrats. And what I think is exciting about that, I think those people can be successful, but it means more people like them will come out, and we'll see more Democratic candidates emerge who hopefully start with, obviously, I deeply oppose what Trump and the Republicans are doing, but I also think we've not done a good enough job as a Democratic Party meeting the moment, either politically or substantively.

And I think the rubber really hits the road in executive offices. And legislators, for the most part, can just gasbag their way through their career, right? But executives have to make decisions. And that's why I'm excited about a Loury in San Francisco or Mamdani in New York philosophically seem very different, but they seem very focused on just making their cities work better for working people and for small businesses. And be livable. And I think that can really show the way. Yeah, and livable, because that's important. I think that's another place where there's a lot of people who thought that the Democratic Party, and I'm not saying all Democrats, but we weren't as focused on the people that are living their lives today, and they deserve to feel safe and go to a good school and be able to open a business without it taking four years and 50 lawyers. And like Mondami talked, even though he's a Democratic socialist, as well about government working for people and changing as any Democrat I've seen in recent times. And so I have a lot of hope there.

I'll throw one more name into this which I think is really a useful model, is Michelle Wu up in Boston, who is progressive, has governed as a progressive, and has also been, I think, incredibly effective. Her approval ratings are through the roof. They didn't even have a challenger. She's one of the most popular mayors in America. And again, this is like proof is in the pudding stuff, right? If it doesn't go well, people are not happy at that level of governance. And I think a lot of the stuff that she's done in Boston is really interesting and shows that this transition from campaign to government, which is really hard, is also not insurmountable. You can do a good job and then be rewarded by the voters who say, No, I'm serious. We like this. This is good.

Thank you. And one other example, and he's not the only one, but Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. One of the things he's worked on is, let me look at all the jobs that people in Pennsylvania would like to have. And where are we making the licensing requirements too burdensome in terms of time or money? How do we make it easier for somebody to achieve their dream? That's an example of great governance, which is connected to progressive values, which is we want working people to have more economic stability and the ability to grow and build wealth. But it's connected to what's in their way. And what's in their way isn't always just a Republican Party. Sometimes it's just regulation or laws that might have made sense 40 years ago.

It's sometimes a Democratic Party, that to solve one problem, you have to solve every problem within that. We need more housing, but it also has to be carbon neutral, and it also have to be LGBTQ. It's all that stuff. Because if you think about Trump, for an authoritarian, He's really unpopular. When authoritarians generally take over countries and do things by executive fiat, they generally become quite popular quite quickly. It wanes over time. But even guys like Duterte and Cici and all these other dudes.

He's doing a weird backwards version I've never seen it. It's truly bizarre. Yes.

It's to see a guy go in and go, I'm just going to do it the way I want to do it. Normally, that brings a certain order to people that have been feeling chaotic. This is the opposite. But to get back to the original point of that, for all those things that you say, can the Democratic Party pivot and spend the money that we're talking about more wisely in terms governance on the very things that we're talking about rather than the things that... Can we make their analytics departments smaller and make their connecting to voter departments larger? Will that happen, or do you think it doesn't need to?

No, of course it does. I actually think another connected to this is I think there's some Democratic politicians Those seeking office and those who have attained it, who would like to do something, but they're worried that some part of their base or a group will be opposed. Housing is a great example of this, right? I mean, some of the people who have opposed housing in some states, like build more housing at public transportation or environmentalist, I love environmentalists, but housing is a great example where if I'm a governor or a mayor... And some of our... Newsom's really, I think, pulled a lot of the red tape out, but it's a mathematical. We need in North Carolina a million and a half or we need 2 million in New York or 5 million in the Southwest. And just say, You know what? Nothing matters to me except reaching that goal. Why? Because our economy will be stronger, people will be safer, people to build wealth, people have shelter if we have housing. And so a good Democratic candidate, I think, would say, We're going to make it a lot easier to build. We're going to make it a lot cheaper to build.

By the way, things like modular housing, which there's obviously some controversy around that because that doesn't create as many union jobs, but that's part of the solution. I think, John, part of this is there's always reasons not to do things. But if you're faithful to your central goals, so in housing, it would be, I need to build this many units over the next five years. You're not going to get to let anything get in the way of that goal. And you're also going to narrate your progress and your setbacks along the way so people know that the thing you campaign on, the thing that was important is you're working on it every day. This is basic stuff, but it's really important.

And to the last point, just to finish this here on the analytics, you also have to understand you're going to go through a valley of death in public opinion when you're doing it often, right? Which is sometimes people voted for you to do this thing. They want to do this thing. And while you're doing it, they're like, I don't know about this. And you have to... No, I mean, this is... Congestion pricing is a great example. The ACA is a great example. That's where this question of the analytics and the polls versus your gut and your North Star really come to play. Because you have to say, I campaign on this. I know this is going I'm going to be good on the other side. I understand why people are not happy right now. They're having second thoughts, and I'm going to do it anyway because I'm betting on what I promised. If they don't like it at the end of it, then I'm out. Then they get rid of me because I was wrong. But that's that really key place where you cannot let the analytics push you off course.

That's a great point. What it tells us is I always working in the West Wing. The thing that was furthest from the West Wing show was actually working in the West Wing. What Chris just described doesn't have to be... It doesn't have to be just an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. That's reality.

Wait, the President just walk in and go, We believe that all people are equal.

Yeah, if only. But I do think that doesn't have to be fantasy. I think that's a great point, and let the chips fall where they may.

Right. In this moment of a rare good day for the Democratic Party and for progressives and for liberals around the country, important to remember for all For all of us, this can be done. It is not beyond our capabilities. You can do stuff. It can absolutely be done. Guys, I thank you so much for the conversation. Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC Stiller. Where do you guys at? Msnow as a TMS now. Is the change already taking place?

It's in a week, I think.

Is it like setting your clocks back? Are you going to feel weird for a day and then you'll be fine?

No, it's fine.

Who cares? I'm the same.

I'm still doing the show.

I work on Comedy Central.

Exactly.

A name's a name. All in with Chris Hayes, author of the number one Times best seller, The Sirens, Colin David Plouffe, campaign manager, White House Senior Advisor to Barack Obama. Guys, thanks very much for the conversation. Really appreciate it.

Thanks, John.

There you have it. Very appreciative of their insights. We are short a little bit on time because the lateness of when we're producing. We're just going to go to the thank you's for God's sakes, because damn, do I have a good staff. Lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mamedevik, producer, Gillian Speer, video editor and engineer, Rob Vittola, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce, executive executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie gray. Can't do it without you guys. Thanks again so much, and we'll see you next time. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bustboy Productions. Ount Podcasts.