Michael Cohen Incriminates Trump

Jon Favreau
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Dan Pfeiffer
I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Jon Favreau
Tommy is out today because last Tuesday he and Hannah welcomed a baby boy into their family. James Vitor is now home from the hospital. He's healthy. Hannah's doing great. Lizzie's excited to be a big sister. And Tommy's gonna be back hosting Wednesday's pod with special guest Jen Psaki because we got lots of shows to do and we're still down a host since John's on his eat, pray, love it journey this month.

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, congratulations to Tommy and Hannah. It's a beautiful baby. I'm so excited for them.

Jon Favreau
So excited. All right. On today's show, democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred stops by the studio to talk to me about beating Ted Cruz and his thoughts on everything from immigration to Gaza. It was a really great conversation, so tune in for that later. But first, the New York Times just.

Donald Trump
Came out with a poll that shows us leading everywhere by a lot.

This is the COVID story and I think you'll find it very interesting, but I'm sure you've all read it. Leading in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada. I think we're probably leaving. In New Jersey, we had a rally.

Bragg cannot prove his case. Got no evidence and I'm innocent.

Jon Favreau
Trump just summed up the show there. Another awesome, totally normal day in american politics.

So we're going to cover all that. Let's start with the trial where the prosecution star witness has taken the stand. For those of you who don't remember, here's a refresher. Michael Cohen was Donald Trump's personal lawyer and fixer for many years. In 2018, he was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to some of the same crimes that he's now testifying Trump helped commit, namely disguising hush money payments as legal expenses to evade campaign finance laws and hide the stormy Daniel story from voters. Cohen testified that Trump explicitly directed him to make the hush money payment because after the access Hollywood tape came out, he thought the stormy Daniels story might cost him the election, saying, quote, this is a disaster. A total disaster. Women will hate me. Guys will think it's cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.

When Cohen asked Trump how Melania would take it, Trump said, how long do you think I'll be on the market for? Not long.

Great stuff. Great stuff. Dan. Husband of the year, that guy. So the concern for the prosecution heading into this testimony was that Michael Cohen, not exactly an honest broker, had some credibility issues, has perjured himself a few different times. As of this recording, he still hasn't been cross examined yet. But how do you think his testimony landed?

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I want to stipulate that the analysis I'm about to give is based on tweets.

Jon Favreau
That's the best kind of analysis.

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, the reason why it's relevant here is based on all the courtroom dramas I've seen. How a witness presents themselves to the jury is almost as important as what they say. And I would say based on Michael Cohen's appearances, both when he was shilling for Trump on cable and when he was a Trump on cable, the guy does not exude credibility. Right. He's kind of a bit of a goofball. Yeah, goofball. Sleazy goofball.

Jon Favreau
Slimy. Slimy goofball.

Dan Pfeiffer
Slimy goofball is his general demeanor. And I think it's something that the prosecutors are clearly aware of because for much of his testimony, they seem to mostly be using him to corroborate testimony and evidence already introduced in the record with yes or no questions limiting his exposure to the jury. But when he did testify to first person accounts, he did two things I think were very important legally, but also politically in terms of making this case matter. One is he testified that Trump was actually involved, intimately involved in the scheme itself. And that's very important. And second, and this goes to the point you just made in the intro here, is he testified that Trump's motivation was not necessarily about keeping this from his wife. It was about the election. And that's so important, I think, in terms of making this case matter to voters, is that he was trying to hide a key piece of information from the voters before the election. And Cohen was crystal clear on that point.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, I mean, Cohen also testified that, quote, everything required Mister Trump sign off. He also testified that he went to Trump's office during the transition to discuss the reimbursement plan with Trump and the Trump Organization's CFO, Alan Weisselberg, who also went to jail, testified that Weisselberg showed the document calculating Cohen's reimbursement to Trump and that Trump signed off. And there's actually, to your point, there's a document with Weisselberg's handwriting on it saying that the reimbursement to Michael Cohen was grossed up for so that Michael Cohen could pay the extra in taxes. Again, this is not what you do with legal expenses. So, yeah, it seems like there's a document for everything that Michael Cohen testified, or at least some corroborating evidence in some way. And I don't know, I mean, like, I'm sure the defense has been preparing for this cross examination for quite some time, but all the reporters in the courtroom on Monday have said that Cohen came off just like, very matter of factly, didn't come off too crazy, didn't come off like a liar, just was like, sort of just went through everything. And a lot of it was going through things where he was looking at a text or a document. And so it wasn't like Michael Cohen was freelancing a lot.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I'd just be interested. We all have multiple pods this week, so we'll also get to talk about the cross examination. So I'll be interested to see how he withstands that.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. But again, like you said, it's, it's really important that Trump thought he was doing this to help the campaign, because that would be the campaign finance violation. And it's also important for the prosecution to prove that the business records were falsified, not just by Michael Cohen acting on his own, but the Trump knew that their business records were falsified, caused them to be falsified, directed them to be falsified, and did so with the intent to cover up this larger crime, which in this case was a campaign finance violation. So do you see? Apparently, Trump brought a cheering section on Monday. He had senators JD Vance and Tommy Tuberville were there to provide, I guess, emotional support and also attack the witnesses and the jurors as a way to get around Trump's gag order. Tommy Tuberville was like, calling them, like, suggesting that the jurors might not be Americans.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, what embarrassing shit for everyone involved, right? Just what a sad little baby Trump is, right? He pretends to be this strongman dictator and he needs an emotional support center to make it through the day. Like, I mean, that's what the reporting says, is that Trump's team was very worried about how this was impacting his mental health. They want him to have people in the audience who he knows loves him so he can look at, which is obviously not his family. It is like thirsty wannabe MAgA senators like JD Vance and Todd. And for those two men, what an embarrassment. Have some pride. You're United States senators. Like, if you want to shill for Trump, and especially in JD Vance's case, sacrifice everything you claim to have believed in before, that's fine, but do it from respectable distance. You have to have something better to do than to sit in that courtroom for an entire day. It's just, it is, it's pitiful. They're all pitiful. It's all embarrassing is a sad statement on Trump. It's a sad statement on these people. Sad statement. The Republican Party, because I'm sure there is a waiting list of yahoos to come fill these roles for the next couple of weeks.

And somewhere Ted Cruz is begging to be invited and is not getting invited to this.

Jon Favreau
Also, Marco Rubio not getting a look, and he's on that short list. He's about to move out of the state of Florida. You know, so he can be on the, so he might be able to be a vp. Maybe he'll move to, maybe he'll move to Manhattan, and then he can just camp out outside the trial and be Donald Trump's hype man for a couple more weeks. So we're going to dig into the entire New York Times poll in a second. But they asked a few questions about Trump's legal issues. Here's what we learned.

64% of voters, and these are, by the way, voters in the swing states that they polled. So 64% of swing state voters say that they're paying a lot or some attention to the news about Trump's legal issues. By 49% to 45%, a plurality of voters don't think Trump will be able to get a fair and impartial trial in Manhattan. And only 35% of voters think it's likely he'll be convicted in this Manhattan trial. 53% say it's somewhat or very unlikely. What do you think of those numbers? They, they tell you anything new or surprising?

Dan Pfeiffer
My general rule with the question of are you paying attention to x story? Is the people say a lot and people who say none are telling the truth and everyone else is lying.

Jon Favreau
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
It's just like, yeah, you're vaguely aware that a trial is happening and so you're going to say you're paying some. And I think what that shows is what we've see just in general political engagement. What we see in some of the other polls is that the, there are some people paying a ton of attention. I think it's 29% in this poll who are paying a lot of attention and everyone else is paying either no attention or just like they're vaguely aware it's happening and not dialed in the details, like, they could not tell you for they couldn't explain the crime. They couldn't tell you that Michael Cohen has testified it. They might have to tell you who Michael Cohen is. And I do think that that is somewhat positive for the argument against Trump. Right. Where it's just, it means that there's, the fewer people who know about the bad things he's done, at least gives you the opportunity to believe that there's upside. As more people learn about it, opinions can shift. And the other thing I think is just interesting is the fact that people do not expect to be convicted, which shows they're not paying attention. Because if you're reading, if you're on Twitter, you're listening to podcasts, you know, you follow Norm Eisen and Andrew Weissman on Twitter, you would believe with almost a certainty he's getting convicted, because that is the general tenor of all the coverage. And you ask any of these people who've been following the case, these attorneys, former prosecutors, et cetera, and the only reason they tell you that Trump may not be convicted is because of, you know, juror nullification.

Like, one juror hangs the jury or two jurors, it's not because of the strength of the case. And I think if. If Trump's conviction comes as a surprise to people, it will have a bigger political impact than if they've already priced it into the baseline.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, I thought the same exact thing. I think it's like you want to beat expectations on the conviction front. And if no one's really, if very few people, I guess only a third in this case, are expecting a conviction and one comes, then maybe you'll start to see some numbers move, or maybe not. Who knows? We're living in the most fucked up political universe you could imagine.

Dan Pfeiffer
Actually, my take is going to be we're not. So stay tuned for that.

Jon Favreau
Okay, well, which brings us to the fun stuff, Danielle. Yesterday I woke up to a New York Times story that Dan Pfeiffer texted us at 04:53 a.m. That was the timestamp on the text. I was up. I had just gotten up. It was the first thing I did was grabbed my phone off the nightstand, turned it on, looked, see a text from Dan. See, it was a New York Times story. I had, like, an intuitive sense because the text was that early that it was going to be New York Times sienna polls.

Dan Pfeiffer
Wow, that's impressive because I'm often texting around that. 05:00 time.

Jon Favreau
Here's the headline in the piece. Trump leads in five key states as young and non white voters express discontent with Biden. Just like other polls, Biden does slightly worse with registered voters than he does with likely voters, which are just people who say they're very likely to vote. I tell the pollster that I'll give you those slightly rosier numbers, which are still not so rosy. Trump with likely voters is up 13 points in Nevada. 13. Nine in Georgia, six in Arizona, three in Pennsylvania, one in Wisconsin. And Biden is actually up one in Michigan. The good news is that Biden's doing a few points better in the 538 polling averages of these states. The bad news is Trump is still leading in every state by similar margins in the fiveThirtyeight polling average, from seven points in Nevada to half a point in Michigan. And really, you know, it's easy to understand why. Just listen to some highlights we put together of his rally in New Jersey over the weekend. The latest state he announced he'll be competing in, the late, great Hannibal Lecter.

Donald Trump
He's a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner.

Remember the last scene? Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner, as this poor doctor walked by. But Hannibal Lecter. Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter. And we're also thinking about Melania's this incredible mother who just passed away, Amalia. We want to say hello. She's up there looking down right now. She's saying, that's a large crowd of people. Carried out by Ray. That's right. All being done by him. Carried out by radical Democrat district attorney.

You know who he is?

Fat Alvin. When I'm president, we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals. And if you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti americanism or anti semitism to our campuses, we will immediately deport you. You'll be out of that school.

Jon Favreau
That's it, Dan. That's the guy that right now, more voters want four more years of that. They want four more years with Donald Trump, the guy who is talking about Fat Alvin and threatening to deport pro palestinian protesters and going on a weird tangent about Hannibal Lecter. That, look, if you listen to the whole speech, you're not missing any context there.

There's nothing that's going to say, oh, that's why he was randomly talking about and congratulating a fictional movie character who.

Dan Pfeiffer
Was a cannibal, also not dead Hannibal Lecter.

I mean, just as a point of fact, he, he escaped at the end of the movie. Like, that's the point. He calls Clarice from Brazil or something in that Panama hat. Member.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, I mean, yeah, if you want to get picky about it, I just.

Dan Pfeiffer
Look, look, we care about facts on this podcast, and I think that's just yet another one of his lies. It is. Someone should hangouts in Pinocchio somewhere.

Jon Favreau
Look, this is why he's leading in the polls. This is why people want Donald Trump for four more years in this country, United States of America. Before we get into the poll, actually, why do you think Trump held a rally in New Jersey? It was in a very red part of New Jersey and the southern end of the Jersey shore. I believe the crowd estimates were. I had to, like, look three times what was like 100,000 people.

Dan Pfeiffer
80 to 100,000 was the estimate I saw what, it's a big rally.

Jon Favreau
That's a big crowd. Yeah, that's a big crowd. That's a big crowd. Even if it was, like, even if it was exaggerated by 30, 40, 50%, it's still a big, it's still a big rally.

Dan Pfeiffer
So Donald Trump's not competing in New Jersey. Let's just stipulate that there is a really funny.

Jon Favreau
Are you saying he was lying? Are you saying he didn't?

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, much like the Hannibal Lecter thing, he was incorrect. There is a funny line in the New York Times story about it where says, Donald Trump has often said he's going to something like, I'm paraphrasing here. Donald Trump often says he's going to compete in New Jersey, something that even his aides are skeptical of. No, they're not. Just skeptical. They're not competing in New Jersey. So why New Jersey? And there is, like, with Trump, there's always just like, you can kind of boil it down to, like, his homer Simpson brain, which is like, me, love big crowd. And so let's go to New Jersey. And it kind of makes sense. Like, you could, strategically, you can understand the desire to have a very large rally in the middle of this trial when he can't campaign just as a show of strength. Right. If he did 18,000 people in, you know, Sarasota, Florida, we wouldn't talk about it. But 80,000 people in New Jersey, that'll get your attention. And I grew up on the East coast. I've been to Wywood, New Jersey, a lot, and it makes sense, because for a rally, a big, big rally, you need two things. You need to be able to do it outdoors and you need to be able to do it in a place you don't go to very often or ever. Like if Trump just went to Florida or Ohio or the places he's been 50 times in the last five years, you wouldn't get a big crowd. He doesn't do rallies in New Jersey. Wildwood is a, it's in a very red part of New Jersey, but it's also a beach town where the population swells in the summer.

And it brings a lot of people out of, including sort of Republican Maga, people from New York and Pennsylvania there. And so it's just, it's kind of pitch perfect for where Trump could have a huge rally and sort of just send this signal of strength. It doesn't say anything about where he's going to compete. It's just a chance to show strength. And it probably succeeded in having a crowd of that size.

Jon Favreau
All right, let's dig into the poll.

If some of you are still breathing into a paper bag, fear not, we got the polar coaster host Dan Pfeiffer here to tell you all why you should take this poll seriously, but not literally.

This poll and all polls which you wrote today in your fantastic message box.

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, thank you. Thank you, John. It's been a busy day, which everyone.

Jon Favreau
Should, everyone should subscribe to. Dan, what's going on in this poll?

Dan Pfeiffer
Just as always, the important reminders that polls are not predictive, they're just a snapshot in time. We should not.

Jon Favreau
Shitty snapshot.

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I mean, I'm not saying it's a great moment in time.

Jon Favreau
What a terrible moment in time.

Dan Pfeiffer
And maybe, maybe mid November where we're all excited, we'll look back and just think about what a depressing time mid May was. Right. So it's just important to remember that and that you just can't obsess about the head to head in these. Right. There's a lot of fluctuation. You look at the larger trends and you try to mine these polls for actionable information that can get you the outcome you want. But why? Why is this snapshot in time so shitty? I think it's actually pretty simple.

It does. This poll just makes me think that we have probably overcomplicated politics a lot over the last several years because it's, there's like this larger metaphysical question about how in the world can a plurality of this country want Donald Trump back in the White House after everything he did, and that someone else can answer that. But in terms of the electoral coalitions, it's pretty clear. One, Trump is getting 95% of his voters from 2020, Biden is getting 87% of his voters. 7% of Biden's voters are planning on voting for Trump. That's kind of everything right there. Biden is doing less well with younger voters, hispanic voters and black voters than he did in 2020 by pretty large margins.

Second, this is largely about the economy.

You have three quarters of voters in this poll say the economy is fair or poor.

Those numbers are worse. Among the parts of Biden's coalition that he's struggling with, 90% of voters, 18 to 29, say the economy is doing fair or poor. 81% of hispanic voters. Like, that's. It's very clear. And then you have 30% of voters. About 30% of voters in this poll say that either the economy writ large or inflation, cost of living are the single most important issue that are going to drive their decision. That is more than double any other issue, including abortion or immigration.

And then. And you have Trump leading on the economy by 20 points. Right. It's just not like it's. That, that's what's happening here. It's not. It simply is just not that complicated as to what we are, what we are dealing with. That's. That's where we are right now.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. I mean, they actually broke down. So the, the 14% of voters who said that they supported Biden in 2020 and are now not supporting him, and as you said, 7% said Trump and the rest said some other candidate or they don't know yet. But the 14% who said they're not supporting Biden, they broke them down into. Which issue is the reason they're not supporting Biden. About 30% cite the economy, inflation, cost of living, some combination there. 11% cite immigration, 9% said foreign policy, 7% said abortion. I guess these are like anti choice voters who voted for Biden in 20 and are. Or maybe they're just confused about who caused Roe v. Wade from being overturned. There's some numbers there that suggest not everyone's clear on that. And then 4% said Gaza. So you could imagine that the 9% that said foreign policy, probably a bunch of that is Gaza as well, though there could be also voters who are in the camp of like, we don't like sending money overseas to foreign wars. The world is a mess. That could be mixed in as well. But anyway, that's sort of the breakdown of the universe of voters who are not supporting Biden who did in 2020. I do think the weird thing here is, like, in this poll, Biden wins almost exactly the same share of white voters as he did in 2020. In these states, college educated white voters and non college educated white voters who are usually, who are as a, as an entire group, are much, much more Trumpy, Trump's best group. But Biden's keeping his, his share of those, those voters as well.

And I'm wondering if, like, the larger story is about the economy, why is it breaking down on racial lines and generational lines when, if you just look at the economic statistics, there is not a ton of economic evidence that says that in this economy over the last several years, young people and voters of color are faring particularly worse than white voters. Obviously, over the last several decades, centuries in this country, they have been. But just in the last several years since we've come back from COVID there's not a ton of evidence of that. So I'm just, and it's not just the New York Times, by the way, like all the polling keeps showing this. You get on one hand, this weakness with young voters and voters of color, and there is an assumption that these are like progressive voters abandoning Biden either over Gaza or over not canceling student debt or whatever.

11% of registered voters think Biden was not progressive or liberal enough. This poll, and relatively few of those voters are actually defecting from Biden. So they don't think he's progressive enough, but they're not defecting. And Biden's losses are concentrated among moderate and conservative democratic leaning voters.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, well, I think there's a couple of things there. One, yes, it is, you know, all the points you make about how, about how economic impacts are felt across these various cohorts. But there is just like some common sense here, which is inflation in particular, hammers people lower down the income scale than anyone else. Right. You just have, you make, especially young voters. Right. You generally make less money than older voters. Right. You've built up less savings. You have less wealth. You probably haven't a chance to buy a house yet. So you're being, you're one of the people being specifically hammered by spikes in rent or spikes in interest rates were making it impossible to buy a house. Right. You don't own your car outright.

Jon Favreau
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
You aren't making, trying to make car payments. And so it is so that, I think that helps explain a little bit of why these specific groups are being targeted. It's also kind of where Biden has hit. Maybe hit his floor with non college white voters and hit his ceiling with college white voters and the differences with everyone else.

Jon Favreau
And he's not going to lose many more. He doesn't have many more non college white voters to lose.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right. And there aren't that many. And it just based, since most voters in this country are non college voters, there aren't that many more college voters to go get.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, I will say the only, the reason I bring this up, too, is the only, I don't know if you want to call it a hopeful sign or the more confusing sign here is that those also happen to be the groups, young voters and especially young voters of color who are most difficult to poll and they tend to be least trusting of institutions and potentially, and the media and potentially, like taking a pollster's call. And so, like, again, I wouldn't take that to the bank. I wouldn't get too excited about it. But if we learn by the end of the election that this was all, this was, a lot of this was polling noise, that would be one reason why, I think, yeah, I mean, you.

Dan Pfeiffer
Can, like, there were two very large polls, both done by John Delavol, be one for Harvard, one for Snapchat, that were huge sample polls of eight of voters under 30, which showed Biden doing a little bit better with young voters than these poll dude, but still pretty seriously underperforming his 2020 margin of 24 points that he beat Trump by.

So it's like I, this is sort of my take on all of this. Like, is, you know, and they make this point in the, uh. And then you're. Nick makes the point in the write up, which is right now, if the numbers hold with black voters and hispanic voters, would be the greatest racial realignment, electoral racial realignment since the Civil Rights act, is that going to happen? Maybe not. Maybe it will, maybe not. We don't know, but it ultimately doesn't change anything. The polls all show something similar, which is Biden is underperforming among these groups.

How much.

There's a lot of noise in there, like a ton of noise.

But the trend is very clear that there's work to do there. And I, so it's like the debate over, you know, response rates and sample size and cross tabs kind of missed. The point is we know we have work to do and we're not. Are we going to work less hard because the margin, because Trump's getting 12% of black voters instead of 18% of black voters, are we going to work less hard to try to turn out youth voters because Biden is really up 18 instead of eight. No, it's the same thing. Like we, it's like there's a very specific, clear roadmap here of the voters we need to go get to win this election and all the rest of it's kind of just like a parlor conversation that is really irrelevant to the people actually doing the work of winning the election. It doesn't really matter what the margin is at this point. You're going to invest the same amount of money, invest the same amount of time to do it. And the way the Biden campaign is spending their money and building their organization suggests that whether their margins are like the Times poll or some other poll, that they see a huge priority to go get black voters, hispanic voters and young voters and bring them back into the anti MAGA coalition.

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One other reason why, you know, it's probably not useful to, you know, unscew this one, or polls like this is. In this poll, for the first time, they asked about the Senate candidates in each of these states where there's a competitive Senate election. And the poll showed that every democratic Senate candidate in these states is either winning or tied. So Nevada Jackie Rosen is tied at 41. Arizona Gallego is up three. Casey is up two in Pennsylvania. Tammy Baldwin's up seven in Wisconsin. More importantly, those Democrats are winning their Senate races, or at least leading, sorry, in their Senate races with very normal, ordinary support from young and non white voters, which really does speak like if you're, and they did interviews, the New York Times did interviews with some of these voters, these split ticket voters, and, you know, 60 year old hispanic truck driver in Milwaukee. I like what Tammy Baldwin is doing. I do not like what Biden's doing. He's failing the US. That's going to be a split ticket voter.

Like 22 year old hispanic voter in Nevada favors Jackie Rosen right now, but is voting for Trump, saying the border crisis has a lot to do with it. Migrants crossing the border are lazy. Just looking for free things.

And then it goes on and on like that. You can read these interviews and just absolutely pull your hair out. There's like a construction worker in Wisconsin who's literally, he said he's never seen more construction in the state ever. He's working on the AI plant that Biden just went to Wisconsin to tout. And he said that he's not voting for Biden because there's been so much traffic because of the construction.

Fuck.

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, politics is not transactional, my friend. That's the thing.

Jon Favreau
But what do you make of these like this? Because again, just much like the biggest racial realignment since the civil rights movement, it would probably be the most split ticket voting that we've seen in a long, long time. If all these democratic Senate candidates win and Joe Biden does not, I be.

Dan Pfeiffer
I'm gonna be very curious to see how much split ticket voting there actually is. Right. It's just when people go in there in this day and age, do you really pull the lever for Donald Trump and Ruben Gallego or that's just does it has happened, not happened very often recently. It did happen in Maine to a great deal in 2020.

I, mister Wilderness. I think what we need here is focus groups of Trump Baldwin voters, Trump Gallego voters, you know, in Pennsylvania, Trump fetterman voters or Trump Casey voters are probably on a ton of those yet since those races are so close. But just, I, let's, I, I'm glad the New York Times interview those people. That's interesting. But I would like to hear like a real conversation. What's driving that?

Jon Favreau
Cause it's, it's coming right here on this feed. End of May. Get ready.

Dan Pfeiffer
Boom.

Jon Favreau
We're gonna put our trailer, I don't, I don't know if I was supposed to do the announcement anyway. What's happening?

Dan Pfeiffer
So there's a couple of things here, right? Because these democratic Senate candidates are performing just like a typical Democrat, including the Democrats who won in these exact states in 2022.

Is, is it a particular Biden weakness with these types of voters? Is it a particular Trump strength? Or is it potentially more likely that this really is about the economy?

And voters really don't tend to hold senators accountable for the economy in the way they hold presidents accountable for the economy. So you can be really mad about the economy and still vote for Tammy Baldwin, but feel, you know, I think incorrectly and unfairly penalize Joe Biden for the cost of eggs by putting against him.

And, you know, because we saw that in 2022 one of the explanations why democrats did so well and the quote unquote red wave didn't happen was democrats won a shockingly large number of voters who said inflation was the number one issue. It just didn't apply to their senate or congressional vote. And it may, that may be what's happening here, but that's why we need these wilderness focus group. So stay tuned.

Jon Favreau
You, uh, you find any good news in this shit sandwich? Any other, uh, interesting points that, uh, give you a little hope?

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, I just don't, don't panic about this poll. Don't panic about any poll. Frankly, don't panic about anything. Panic is a very counterproductive response. But the takeaway from this poll for me is there's a pretty large persuadable universe here, and Donald Trump's lead here is pretty fragile. I think he is being propped up by voters who disapprove of him, don't like him, disagree with him on a whole bunch of issues, and have a long history of voting for Democrats. And so it's not easy. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of organizing, it's going to take everyone listening to this to doing their part. But those are voters we can go get back. We are not in a position where we have to go get a bunch of typical republican voters or a bunch of people voted for Trump in 2020 to win. We have to go get people who've long been a part of our coalition, who agree with us on issues like the economic policy, abortion, immigration, a whole bunch of them, and just go persuade them. And so, and what this shows is the more, I mean, this is reflected in the split between registered voters and likely voters. It's reflected in the split between highly engaged voters and less engaged voters is the more people know about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the better Joe Biden does. And that is, that's a roadmap for winning the election. Right. And there's, there's less than six months ago, we got a lot of work to do, and time is ticking away pretty fast here. But this is winnable.

Like, Donald Trump has winded his back, there's no question about that. But they're, the path to victory is, is very clear.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. The flip side of that split ticket voting point is that if you're voting for a Senate Democrat, like you're gettable for president or you should be.

And the other thing I noticed is that 74% of likely voters said that they're either very or somewhat satisfied with the way things are going in their own lives. Now, you can still construct a person, you can imagine a person still who is like, I'm pretty happy with the way things are going in my life. I'm still pretty pissed about inflation and I'm annoyed with Joe Biden. Right. So, like, it's not a perfect, but, you know, if, if it is not, like the electorate is out there thinking my life is terrible and gloom and doom kind of thing. So, like that, that suggests some persuasion is possible as well. I also think, to your point about the likely and registered voter split, um, John de la Vape, who we've talked to, you've talked to on all of our pods, noted that especially among young people, uh, the registered, you know, Biden is basically down three with young people among registered voters, and he's up seven with likely voters. That's a ten point swing as you get to likely voters. Now, again, he won them by 20 something points in 2020, so that's still a ways to go. But it's, you know, the likely voter model does change things. Also, I noticed this, they asked this question, if Trump wins, how much would change?

And the groups that are most likely in the poll to think that he changed little to nothing are 18 to 29 year olds and hispanic voters. Two of the groups that Biden's doing not great with. And the groups that are least likely to think that Trump's changes would be very bad for the country are 18 to 29 year olds and hispanic voters. So you've basically got a cohort of young voters and hispanic voters who think, like, maybe Don, who either think maybe Donald Trump won't actually change that much about what's going on. And if he does, maybe it won't be so bad. And that will be, and obviously, that's an alarming thing to think. But, like, that is the work of a campaign, and that would be the work of the Biden campaign to go out there and not only make the case for Joe Biden, but also make the case that a second Trump term would be extremely damaging to the country and would actually change quite a bit from where we are right now. So there's obviously, like, some things that are beyond Biden's control. He can't do much to make inflation come down faster at this point. I suppose he could do like Trump would probably do and start yelling at Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, but I don't see him doing that, nor do I know if that's a wise.

Dan Pfeiffer
He should do it. He should absolutely. Do it.

Unwritten norm collapses. What are we going to do?

Jon Favreau
Yeah, so there's that, but there's a lot of things he can't control. So let's focus on, like, what he and his White House and his campaign can control. If you're running the campaign and looking at numbers like these, how might they impact your strategy?

Dan Pfeiffer
I always find it best to try to set up your campaign strategy and then analyze the efficacy of it by picking some numbers you want to move. And there are two numbers in here that I think are really important. One is Biden has only a ten point advantage on abortion, and abortion is essentially tied for second as the issue that voters say is most decisive in their vote. And so I think you want to do build on what Biden has been doing, right. They've run, 90% of their ads have been about abortion. They've been hammering. It is you want to increase the number of people who, uh, say abortion is gonna help decide their vote, and you want to expand your lead and trusting a, trusting Trump over abortion. And we've seen in navigator polling that, listen, I talked about on Friday, I guess, um, that more and over time, more and more people are beginning to see Trump as anti abortion. A majority now think he would sign a federal abortion ban. And so the work is being done there. And you want to, so you want to see that expanding. But I think, most importantly, we are now six months from the election. You have three quarters of the country saying the economy is fair or poor. And this is, as I mentioned earlier, particularly true among the voters. You need most, that your most important persuasion targets are the ones most sour on the economy.

And so I don't think you're going to make people be able to feel better about the economy, because even if, you know, I hope we have this sudden drop in inflation, Jerome Powell cuts in interest rates, we have this virtuous cycle, everyone starts feeling better, right, as people vote. If that happens, great, but we clearly can't plan for it. And I think there was probably some more optimism three or four months ago that we were going to be sort of leaning into a better economic environments. Election happened.

People, how people feel about the economy is a lag. Lags behind actual economic progress. Even if things get better, it's not clear that people will really be feeling it measurably by the time they vote. So instead of trying to make people feel better about the economy, we have to make people feel worse about how Trump would manage the economy. And I think a huge, just, you have to, you don't have to beat him on the economy, but you can't lose by 20 points. And the polling we've seen shows that Trump is very vulnerable if you make the case, and it's a pretty simple message about Donald Trump wanting to cut taxes for his rich friends, for wealthy corporations, repeal the Affordable Care act and try to pay for all of this by cutting Social Security, Medicare. Right. We've seen this in polling. That's one of the things that working class voters in particular are most afraid Trump will do, which is to give tax breaks to the rich. Just a New York Times story over the weekend, which didn't even make our podcast today, that he may owe the IR's $100 million for double counting tax credits on Trump Tower Chicago.

You went down at one of town. Trump's first parties would be, if he gets elected, to stop the IR's from enforcing tax laws on rich people like Donald Trump. And so making this populist argument that, you know, the Scranton Joe versus Park Avenue Donald or Mar a Lago Donald, pick your rich place of choice, but we have to hammer him on the economy. I think that's the only way in which this, we will actually win this election. You're, you're seeing that in some of the stuff Biden has been doing. You saw that in his Pennsylvania tour. But that's my takeaway from this poll and how you go about changing the numbers.

Jon Favreau
I think you have to hammer Trump on the economy. I totally agree. I also think you have to lay out specific policies. What you're going to do, what Biden's going to do if he gets another term and he gets democratic majorities to further bring down costs for people. Like, you have to be offering something as well. And then, but overall, you're right. Like, the economic message has to be a choice, not a referendum. Like, right now, Biden has turned it into a referendum because, like, I think the balance between, here's what we accomplished, listen to all these good economic statistics, and here's what I do to bring costs down. And here's what Trump would do is just way off. It's way off. And I get that you do have to do both. But, like, just the amount of time, and look, I think it's. Joe Biden is on all issues. Like, of all issues, right. Joe Biden is especially empathetic to working people who are struggling. It's the Scranton Joe. Right? He, like, he gets this viscerally. He's got it when we were in the White House with them, he's got before. And, like, so I know that he, like, has that in him, but I also think that is at war with, like, him being so annoyed that he's not getting more credit for bringing the economy out of recession and getting inflation down as fast as it's come down. And honestly, it's come down faster and better than in most other developed wealthy countries. And I think he's, you know, I would be pissed, too, if I was him. Right. But like, every interview and in every speech that comes out, the, well, the first thing you hear is, well, people have more money and they're this and they're that.

And there's a New York Times interviewed, a Biden 2020 voter in Nevada who is not voting for him this time, who said, concerning to me, when I keep seeing press come out of the White House where they keep saying the economy is good, that's really weird because I'm paying more on taxes and more on groceries and more on housing and more on fuel. So that doesn't feel good. It's like, yeah, we can argue back and forth about, like, whether people should feel this way about the economy or not, which is like what everyone on Twitter does all day long. But, like, if people are actually feeling this way, you can't argue people out of your, their feelings. You just can't do it. You've got to just like, say, here's what I'm going to do. I know things are tough and we've come a long way, but we have so much more to do and we have to bring costs down. And it's ridiculous. These corporations are making so much money. And Donald Trump gets to get $100 million off his tax bill because he cheated and he's going to help his rich friends. Well, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to fight for you and here's what I'm going to do in a second term if you send me a bigger congress, Democratic Congress, like, I just, he's got to do that every day.

Dan Pfeiffer
I think it to be fair to the Biden campaign and to Biden is that there is a difference between what is in the ads, what was in the State of the union, what's in most of the speeches posted the union, and what the president says at fundraisers and in interviews. Right. Like, what we're largely reacting to here is the one line in the, or the one answer in the Aaron Burnett CNN interview last week where he sort of responded to the her asking him the question that triggers every politician. Let me ask you about a poll that tells about the economy, which is, why do you think this poll says this? And he, I thought his answer for that was not awesome.

Jon Favreau
But then I, you know what this was also, though, this was Ron Clayne's point in that, like, that event that they had a whole couple, I think it was like a couple hour press cycle about it where Ron said he's like doing too many bridge ribbon cuttings at bridges and stuff like that. There is just, there's this feeling that they need to give him credit. And I get it. You've said this before, that he does need a baseline to make people believe that he has accomplished something on the economy because that gives him the credibility to say, I'll be able to do more. But the ability to do more thing is just not, as, it just hasn't been out there as much.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I, I did. I think that people like us, the, what most voters are getting, like, the ads last year were, I think, overly triumphant on the economy and they came too early. Right. I think people thought that things were turning. It didn't turn. The ads now are either, either about abortion or they are going after Donald Trump for being a populist. Right. There's like, it's all contrast, right? It's, Biden did this and Donald Trump would do this bad thing. Right? He cut Social Security. He would. And so Biden has to, like, there's no marching for error here. You can't even, you do an interview, you got to answer it, right? You do a speech, any single off, you know, you go off the prompter for a minute, you delve into the dark, the parts of your psyche that are annoyed. Obama would do this a lot, too. Every politician does it. There's not really room for that now six months out. But since the state of the union, I think the economic messaging has been pretty damn good. That I really do think. Right. There's, there have been some moments here with Biden where I think they've been less good, but in general, I think they're doing the right things.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. It's just, it, it also requires more effort because identity inflicted issues just get more coverage from reporters and conflict gets more coverage. And so when you're trying to pick a fight about the economy, you know, it's not fucking 2012 anymore. Like, that's just not how our politics operates. Where people are, reporters are going to cover big fights about the size and role of government and your economic policy, like, that just doesn't happen anymore. And so it just takes that much more effort and that much more repetition and that much more discipline to get the message out, which is just tough, you know? All right, when we come back, I will talk to Congressman Colin Allred about his Senate race in Texas to hopefully defeat Ted Cruz.

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Jon Favreau
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Joining us today, he's a former NFL linebacker and voting rights attorney who currently represents, represents Texas 32nd district and is running to unseat America's sweetheart, Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Pod Save America. Representative Colin Albret.

Colin Allred
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Jon Favreau
Thanks for being here. It's your second time on this podcast. You were, of course, running for Senate against a professional podcaster.

Colin Allred
That's true.

Jon Favreau
Amateur senator, professional podcaster. So there's a New York Times story today about Cruz trying to rebrand himself as someone who is at least capable of bipartisanship, which I found amusing, mostly because the piece quotes three of his republican colleagues in the Senate actually laughing at the idea of Ted Cruz becoming some kind of a constructive force in the Senate. What do you make of the rebrand? And do you take it as a sign that he might be worried about losing to you?

Colin Allred
Well, you know, actually, yeah, I think I take it as kind of a compliment, you know, that this guy who's been a hyper partisan, you know, who's been one of the most divisive senators in the country for twelve years is all of a sudden trying to convince folks, no, actually, none of that is true. I'm a deal maker. You know, I've got a post office named at some point. I mean, it's, you know, it is laughable.

And as you mentioned, I come from a football background. And the funny thing about the NFL is everything's on tape, you know, and we always say you are what you put on tape. But so is a lot of this. You know what I mean? We've seen you on the Senate floor trying to repeal the Affordable Care act, reading green eggs and ham. We've heard folks like John Boehner call you Lucifer and Lindsey Graham joking about if you were murdered on the Senate floor, some good ones. We've been there for this.

It's funny, but I think maybe it is a badge of honor.

Jon Favreau
And those are all stories that a national audience knows about Ted Cruz, and we all know what we feel about him. Where do you think he's most vulnerable from a texan's point of view?

Colin Allred
Yeah.

Well, I think fundamentally, he's not done the job.

And you and I both know this.

You know, there's a lot to do as an elected official, but the way that you can go on vacation when 30 million Texans are freezing the dark, I think that's a good time to go to Cancun, is if, number one, it doesn't really matter to you that much, but number two, there's also not anything that you would be doing otherwise.

Right, which is what I was doing. Cause I was in office at the time, was on the phone with FEMA, working with our county, trying to find buildings that had power on that we'd call warming centers at a food bank, trying to hand out food, because when the power goes out, working families lose all the food that's in the fridge. There was a lot to do. In fact, it was one of the busiest times I've had. But for Cruz, he was able to go on vacation. Cause he's like, well, what am I gonna do? There's nothing to do, right? I can't podcast. I might as well get out of here. And so I think that's the biggest thing, is that, number one, how extreme he's been, but also that he's not been doing the job. And so we joke about him podcasting three to five times a week. That's time he could be representing 30 million Texans who need him. His vision for us is an extremely dark one. Nationwide banned abortion. I tell folks all the time. Ted Cruz is our problem in Texas, but he's also your problem because he tried to overturn the election in 2020. He wants to ban abortion nationwide. And he's somebody who, when you're looking around for who's responsible for how we ended up in this place in our politics, you know, he's like exhibit one, b. Yeah.

Jon Favreau
I don't know how he podcasts that many times a week. I podcast that many times a week. And I have two young children. I have no time to do anything else.

Colin Allred
Right, right. So clearly he's not doing anything and not also senate.

Jon Favreau
I'm not also a senator.

Colin Allred
Yeah.

Jon Favreau
So Cruz did do a Fox News interview this week that sounded much more like the guy we've all come to know and loathe. He tried to blame you and Joe Biden and other Democrats for getting some donations from groups that he says indirectly funded some of these campus protests. I don't really understand why students would need funding to, like, leave their dorms and go protest on their own campus. But he clearly sees this attack as a political winner. What's your response to that? And how do you feel about the protests in general?

Colin Allred
Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, that's not even a bank shot. I was just trying to make stuff up. Right. And as you know, we've gotten to this point where they're just throwing whatever they can and seeing what sticks. But what I have found interesting is that these folks who talked so much a year ago about the First Amendment and how we have to have the First Amendment enforced on college campuses. Our governor, for example, in Texas, saying the First Amendment will be enforced in Texas.

Then when you have somebody saying something that you disagree with, that's when they, now they want to come in and crack down.

And I find that to be instructive, of course, because the First Amendment is a stubborn thing.

It applies to speech that you agree with and speech that you disagree with. And obviously, there's limit to it.

I'm a lawyer. I'm a voting rights lawyer by training.

You can't run into a crowded room and say fire and all kinds of things, and your First Amendment rights can be limited in terms of how they impact someone else. So hate speech, for example. And I think sometimes that line has been crossed. But I think it's an american value to understand that we have the right to protest. There are limits to it. I don't think you should take it too far. But that certainly this is something that has been going on in our college campuses, but also just in our country since the very beginning. And, you know, I'm a civil rights lawyer. I'm an African American serving in Congress. I'm here because of protest, because of the civil rights movement, because of some folks making some folks feel a little bit uncomfortable at times and talking about, hey, listen, we want voting rights. We want to be able to be a part of this democracy, and it can be uncomfortable. It could also make real change.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. 26 of your democratic colleagues in the House just sent a letter to President Biden criticizing his decision to pause the transfer of certain weapons to Israel.

A lot of your other democratic colleagues in the House and Senate have praised that decision. Where do you stand on Biden's announcement?

Colin Allred
Well, you know, I'm on the foreign affairs committee, and, you know, this is something I've worked on quite a bit. And, you know, listen, I think that October 7 was a horrific tragedy. And also, you know, we know who's behind it, the perpetrators. And I certainly think that that, you know, any country is not only within their rights, but has to, you know, do what they can to protect their people. And when we're talking about Hamas, that's where the focus always should be. Obviously, what we've seen is that this has also impacted so many innocent civilians. And when I was last in Israel, I visited a kibbutz called Kafarossa. And this kibbutz, these are the most peace loving people that you'll ever come across. I mean, our progressives wouldn't even touch these folks. You know what I mean? Like, they share everything.

Jon Favreau
These are the people marching in the streets protesting Bibi Netanyahu.

Colin Allred
And we were doing a zoom with this father of four in Gaza city named Muhammad who was actually supposed to come meet with us in person but couldn't get out that day. And I think about that meeting a lot because Mohammed was not a supporter of Hamas and he was worried about his children.

And that kibbutz was the site of the attack on October 7. That was one of the places where they broke through, and an israeli general called it the site of a massacre.

And I think about both of those things and think that there has to be another way for us here.

We need to obviously find a way forward on creating two states, one in which we have a peaceful and independent palestinian state next to an independent jewish democratic state in Israel. And we all know that. But in some ways, I think this conflict has reignited that discussion. And anything that takes us further away from that, I think we have to question. And so some of the conduct that we've seen particularly this potential invasion of Rafa, I think calls that into question. Are we moving towards that or away from it? And as the United States, I think our role has to be to try and encourage that and try and create the conditions for what we know will be hard to do, but that we have to use this tragedy in some ways as an opportunity to try and revitalize this discussion around two states.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, it certainly seemed to me like, you know, deciding not to send 2000 pound bombs for an invasion of Rafa while still providing the israeli government with defensive weapons that they need.

I don't know what's so objectionable about that.

Colin Allred
Well, it's been done before. You know, american presidents have done that before. Right. But also, I mean, this is, you know, we're having an ongoing discussion, I think, with our allies in Israel about the conduct of the war and also what we want to see and what we don't want to see.

And so, you know, I think that's what we're seeing now spilling out into public what I think has been a lot of the conversations that I know have been held behind closed doors to try and encourage what we want to see, which is to keep the focus, of course, on Hamas. But let's also, let's be cognizant of how we do that. And, you know, after 911, we made a lot of mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think obviously there are lessons that have to be learned from that as you are prosecuting a conflict that the way you do it is as important as why you're doing it. Right. And that moral high ground, especially for democracies, is incredibly important. And Israel is a democracy and we share values with Israel, and I think we're encouraging them to follow the same values that we share.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. Separately, some of your democratic colleagues sent another letter to President Biden. House Dem's busy writing lots of letters this week. This one urged Biden to take action on his own to make the southern border more secure. I know you supported the bipartisan border deal that Donald Trump and the Republicans killed for what they admitted were political reasons. Do you want to see President Biden act without Congress to make the border more secure?

Colin Allred
Yeah. So here's, here's the thing.

You know, my family's from Brownsville, which is the tip of Texas. I was raised by a single mom who was a public school teacher in Dallas, but my grandfather was a customs officer in Brownsville after fighting in the Pacific, in the navy in World War Two. And so I spent a lot of my childhood in the valley in south Texas. And I know that our border communities are not just these places where you go to point out problems.

They also bear the brunt when we see these migrant surges.

I think folks around the country have started to see it in other cities, but that's what the border experience has been for some time.

I've been critical of multiple administrations for not helping the communities themselves and also of this administration of not getting caught trying to help alleviate some of that burden. And so I do think that it's important that the president acts. I think that obviously Congress needs to act as well. We've not passed a comprehensive reform to our immigration system since the Reagan era. And the deal that you were talking about, I was talking to some folks earlier. I'm not sure everyone understands exactly. This was really, I think, targeted at what we're seeing at the southern border, which is largely an asylum crisis. We're having folks come and declare, ask for asylum. About 90% of them are going to be rejected, but it's going to take five, six, seven years for that rejection to come.

And so what we were trying to address there was trying to speed that process up, raise that threshold a bit so that because most of these folks are coming because of economic inconvenience, economic disaster where they're from. Right. And that's not one of, that's not gonna fall into one of these silent factors. And so what we're trying to do there is say, listen, let's make this more orderly. Let's make this happen much faster. Let's surge resources. It was CBP personnel, immigration judges, administrative personnel that all would have been hired from this. And folks like Ted Cruz, you know, who have been talking about this being the biggest crisis faced in the country, as you said, agreed with the policy, but wanted to take it down. Cause they wanna have this issue to run on in November.

Jon Favreau
Yeah.

Colin Allred
Right. And so I do think it's important that the president acts, but certainly let's call out the folks who are responsible for putting in this position. I say all the time, I don't know why Ted Cruz won't help us secure the border, but I know that when I'm in the Senate, I will. And we can do it consistent with our values. Right. We don't have to demagogue about it. We're the United States of America. We're Texans. We can do this in a way that's consistent with who we are.

Jon Favreau
One thing I've been wondering, as I know the Biden administration is weighing this decision is obviously legislation would be more effective than executive action from the president. But I'm wondering if what's holding it up is them trying to figure out with the counsel's office you worked in, whether this can pass legal muster. Do you think that, like, there are executive actions that can, that can sort of pass legal muster on the border that the president hasn't taken yet?

Colin Allred
I think it's likely that whatever they do will get hung up in the courts, and that's likely. We've seen that across multiple administrations. DACA was in the same position.

So I think that's likely.

But I do think there's an element of let's recognize that the facts on the ground have changed, and let's try and address what the specific issue is now, which, as I said, is largely around the asylum process and how long it's taking for that to end the backlog that we have there. And the fact that that's also acting in some ways as a draw for folks who are saying, listen, if I can get there and claim asylum, then who knows, five, six, seven years, I might be able to stay. And that, I think, is also a contributing factor. And certainly the coyotes, the human traffickers, they're taking advantage of that as well, and they're spreading that message. So the word is out on that. And so we need to counter that, you know, exactly what they can do that will pass judicial muster. I don't know, but I do think it's important to show how much we care about this, that Democrats are serious about this and also to present an alternative view of what a secure border looks like, because to me, it's not barbed wire.

To me, it has to be that folks are treated humanely, they're processed in a timely manner. Not everyone's gonna be able to stay. But let's do this consistent with our best traditions instead of losing some of ourselves in how we treat others. Right.

Jon Favreau
This debate has been so politicized nationally. What do most people not understand about the border and immigration that, that people like your family who've lived near border communities understand really well?

Colin Allred
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's, you know, it's a couple of things. Number one, I think there's some frustration that, you know, when migrants come that, you know, people may have a feeling that they're getting some kind of benefits that folks who are living there already and who need help are not getting. And some of our border communities are really, you know, struggling and need investment, need help. But I think that there's also, on the flip side, a feeling that this is seen as a place to just point out problems and to talk about, use words like invasion and talk about rampant crime when that's not the lived experience of folks along the border who in many ways are having, you know, kind of living a, you know, a mixed cultural, you know, just kind of beautiful experience where, you know, my mom growing up, she would be in Brownsville, she'd cross over to Mexico, she'd have dinner, come back and having this kind of back and forth that enriches both cultures.

And that's really, I think, can be a beautiful thing. And this idea that it's just rampant with crime and it's so dangerous and all these things, that's just not realistic and it's not true. But when I see folks like Ted Cruz put on their kind of outdoor clothing and he goes down and he'll get in the weeds and he's pointing out migrants, I'm like, listen, we have folks to do that.

Get your tail in DC and help us pass some legislation to address what they need us to do, which is to have the resources to handle it.

Jon Favreau
Speaking of demagoguing immigrants, your fellow colleague from Texas, Chip Roy, went viral this week in all the wrong ways for a speech he gave on the House floor. I just want to play a quick clip and get your reaction. We have 51 and a half million people who are foreign born in the United States. They have about 20 to 25 million kids.

That puts that well over 20 something percent of our population. It's the highest such number in the history of our country.

People say, well, isn't that great?

Is it? What do you think of that?

Colin Allred
You know, they're saying the quiet part out loud now. You know, the whole great replacement theory is now almost mainstream.

And we're a nation of immigrants.

John Lewis, who was a mentor of mine and a hero of mine, used to say that we might have come here on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.

We're all Americans, and that's our strength.

Folks are not flooding into China.

They're coming here. And we are attracting the best and brightest from around the world. And it's enriched our society, it's enriched our economy, and it's something that has been a strength for us, an ongoing strength, one that Russia can't equal, that China can't equal, that sets us apart and that even some of our allies, like Japan and others, I mean, look at what they're facing in terms of their future unless they address their population. And so for us, I mean, this is a strength. Immigration is a strength. Having new voices come in is a strength. We're a beautiful tapestry of so many folks coming here. Texas isn't a perfect example of this.

Texas is not.

It is in every way as diverse as any place that you can ever go. And that's in terms of, yes, white folks, black folks, Latinos, yes, of course. But also huge east asian and south asian populations, rapidly growing, folks wanting to come there, folks wanting to start a business.

And it has, in order for that to continue, it has to be a place where folks will feel welcome. And that's what I think folks like Chip Roy and Ted Cruz put at risk. And this near total ban on abortion puts at risk is this story that this is a place where you will be welcome and that you can raise your family and grow your business and be allowed to chase your version of the american dream without somebody imposing something on you. And that's all being put at risk by these folks. And I think they don't even understand what our strengths are. Yeah.

Jon Favreau
So I'm sure you saw the news that Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar was indicted for allegedly accepting bribes, money laundering, and attempting to violate foreign influence laws. You joined Democrats and Republicans, rightly, I think, in voting to expel George Santos after his indictments. Many Democrats have called for Bob Menendez to resign after his indictments. Do you think Cuellar should resign?

Colin Allred
Yeah. So the distinction there I had was that when the first vote was brought up for Santos, in terms of him being expelled, we didn't have an ethics report and we didn't have anything. You know, the case obviously hadn't gone to trial. And so I felt that due process had not been served. And so Jamie Raskin and I and some others, we voted against expelling him at that point.

When I did vote to expel, I based it on the ethics report that then had come out, and I based it on what was in that report, that that was enough that he brought the house into disrepute, basically, and that that that process had some element of due process to it. And so, you know, Henry's gonna have his day in court. And I've said this, and I believe this. You know, I worked in us attorney's office.

These folks take their jobs very seriously. But I think it's a sign of a functioning democracy when people in power are held to account.

And whether it's Henry or anyone else, they'll have their day in court in front of a jury of their peers, and they'll get a chance to make their arguments, and if it's not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, then they'll obviously get off. But here, the point is, I think that's our tradition, is that we have to have some element of due process, and I don't think that's been reached yet.

Jon Favreau
Got it. Let's talk about the eternal dream of a blue Texas in 2018. Beto comes within three points of beating. Cruz, closest to Democrat, came to winning statewide in Texas since, I think, 1994. 2020, Joe Biden loses the state by six points. 2022, Beto loses the governor's race to Greg Abbott by eleven points. What's your take on what's happened to the politics of the state since 2018, and how do you think we start moving it back in the other direction?

Colin Allred
Yeah, well, first of all, I think 2018 showed how many Texans are ready to move on from Ted Cruz.

Jon Favreau
Yeah, right.

Colin Allred
That's true. And I tell folks all the time, you know, I'm running against Ted Cruz.

I'm not running about our past or other races that have happened. This is about our future and who's gonna represent us for the next six years, who's not been doing the job in him and the Senate and who, I think, would do a very different job in the way I would approach it.

But we're also. We're living in the post ops world, and we're experiencing what a near total ban on abortion looks like. And so this is a completely different era for us. And I think it's only now becoming clearer to Texans and I guess probably to Americans more broadly, just how horrific this law is. And it's almost. My wife and I have had two baby boys in Dallas in the last five years.

You know, that process, as you know, is frightening no matter what. Like, you hold your breath at every single ultrasound, at every single, you know, genetic test.

Those rooms are too small to have Ted Cruz in there, too. Right? Peering over the doctor's shoulders. And when we hear these stories, you know, and doctor Austin Dennard is a friend of mine. She was my guest of the State of the union. She's an ob Gyn in Dallas. Her husband is also an ob gyn. I had two kids at a much one and third pregnancy, and she notices on a routine ultrasound that the baby's skull is not forming. She's a 6th generation Texan. She grew up ten minutes from where I grew up, went to high school. I know where she, you know, her entire life story pretty much.

And she had to flee our state to get the care she needs, an Ob GYN.

And we were only beginning to experience, I think, the downstream impacts of what this law has done to our medical schools, to our universities, to our business economy, where now, if you want to recruit or retain top talent, you got to talk about this. And so it's going to have a huge political impact. And so we have to make sure Texans know that. But also, this is a different race, and I'm a different cat. You know, I'm a different opponent for Ted Cruz. I've been the most bipartisan member of the entire Texas delegation. I'm proud of that. I've worked across the aisle to get things done. I've shown that you can bring people together around our shared values instead of pitting folks against each other. And I'm confident that when we can tell my story about being raised by a single mom in Dallas, you know, a big deal to get a scholarship to play football at Baylor and make it to the NFL, becoming a civil rights lawyer and serving in a way that has brought folks together that we're gonna reject.

Jon Favreau
Ted Cruz, what surprised you the most about running statewide in Texas?

Colin Allred
I mean, you know, I'm a fourth generation Texan. My family, as I said, is from Brownsville. I went to school in Waco. So I am. I was aware of the scale of our state. You know, I mean, I think it is just incredibly massive.

I think what surprised me the most, I don't know. I mean, I think I am constantly impressed by the pockets of resistance, if you want to use that term, that you'll see, like in the panhandle, where they're trying to pass at the local level laws saying you can't drive through the county if you're gonna use the county roads to access an abortion. And there will be a few brave women up there who have organized themselves, who are pushing back against, literally, billionaires, who are trying to, who are behind some of this radical social policy stuff. They're standing up to them.

They got their Facebook groups going like they're active, and they're in what we would all call a deeply red county.

And they're winning.

And they're winning because they care. It's their community. They think this isn't right.

And I think that that's something that I think folks often underestimate. And I say this all the time, and I really mean it. I think our people are so much better than our politics.

Our people recognize extremism.

I think our people generally, what they want is fairly modest.

They want to have a chance to chase their version of the american dream, some slight shifts in priorities to give them a shot, and they know that it's up to them from there. And I think so many of those folks have stood up in recent years and been counted, and they inspire me.

I'm serious. When I meet them, I thank them because I think it's so inspiring what they're doing against incredibly tall odds. And in places where they're not coming on pod, save America to talk about it, nobody's putting their name in the paper, but they're heroes.

Jon Favreau
Yeah. It's funny. Our old boss, Barack Obama, used to say that about, like, our people are better than our politics. And I have wondered in recent years if it's still true. I was hoping it's still true. And it's good to hear someone on the campaign trail, even in the reddest places, you're seeing people who are just trying their best to make it. Last question I saw you post. When Cowboy Carter was released in 2018, Beyonce made a last minute endorsement of Beto. Any plans to reach out to her before Ted Cruz pretends to be a fan?

Colin Allred
That's right.

Jon Favreau
Right?

Colin Allred
Yeah. Oh, man. Listen, Beyonce, if you're listening, there's an open invitation.

Jon Favreau
She is a big fan of Texas. She's a big fan. Yeah. She's always listening, so we'll get you into that.

Colin Allred
Yeah. And, you know, listen, she's a texan, and it's time for Texans to stand up. Right.

We've had kind of a gang of extremists take over parts of our state. It's not who we are. It isn't. And I know folks out there maybe think it is, and I understand that. Cause that's what you're seeing. But trust me, I spent my whole life in Texas. Right?

Jon Favreau
Yeah.

Colin Allred
You don't get any more Texas than me.

I was captain of the football team at Baylor, grew up in Dallas. My family's from all over the state.

I've had a relative who was the governor of Texas back in the Depression era. I think I know who we are, and we're not who these people say we are. And so we need every texan and everyone who's interested in helping out in Texas to get involved. Go to colinallred.com dot. This is not a long shot race, Jon. No, this is a tough but winnable one.

Jon Favreau
Okay?

Colin Allred
I got into Congress by beating a 22 year incumbent who nobody thought I could beat. And I'm gonna beat Ted Cruz, too.

Jon Favreau
I believe. That's good, Colin. Allred thank you so much for coming back to pod Save America and good luck out there in the campaign trail.

Colin Allred
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Jon Favreau
Thanks to Colin Allred for joining today. If you want to help that campaign, go to his website like he said. And also in Vote Save America we have a bunch of down ballot candidates in Texas, Avery bishop in Dallas County, Laurel Swift in the San Antonio suburbs, and Christian Carranza in the San Antonio suburbs. These are candidates who could flip seats. You can go help them. Go to votesave america.com and honestly just go to votesaveamerica.com 2024 to sign up for organizer else. Because we talked a lot about polls and we talked a lot about what we can do and the one thing that we can actually do to make an impact is go out and talk to voters and we will give you all kinds of things to do. We will give you volunteer shifts. We'll tell you where to donate. Votesave America has a fantastic website organizer else is really exciting. You can sign up to join a team gamified. It's great. I think we already got like a couple thousand after the first week, but we need more people. If you're listening to this pod and you're worried about the polls, this is the best thing you can do. So everyone have a great day and we will be back with a new episode on Wednesday.

Dan Pfeiffer
Bye everyone.

Jon Favreau
If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our friends of the Pod subscription community@crooked.com. Friends and if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Joachim is our senior producer. Reed Shurlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle and Charlotte Landis, writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt de Grote is our head of production, Andy Taft as our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Mia Kellman, David Tols, Kirill Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.

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Michael Cohen Incriminates Trump

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