Trump Promises "A Unified Reich"

Dan Pfeiffer
Are you like me and tracking the polls obsessively this election year? Well, Dan Pfeiffer's right there with you, and he's taking them seriously, but not literally.

Addisu Demissie
Take an average of the polls. Don't forget about any one poll. And the thing that we try to tell everyone in every episode of this podcast is a poll that has Biden up to and a poll that has Biden down to. They all tell you the exact same thing, which is this is a very, very close race. The goal of this podcast is help people understand polling and freak out about it just a little bit less.

Dan Pfeiffer
Explore the latest polls, what they actually mean, and whether or not it's time to hit the panic button. Tune into polar coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, cricket's latest subscriber exclusive show. To get access, subscribe to our friends of the pod community only@crooked.com. friends.

Lovett
Hey, it's Lovett, and I'm on my way to your city. And by on my way, I mean I'm still in the shower, but still about to head out. Love it or leave it. Live on tour is heading all over the country. We'll be in Charlotte, Asheville, Boston, Madison, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. And if we're not coming to your city this time, I'm sorry, the country is too big. Take it up with the pioneers. To learn more and get tickets, head to crooked.com events.

Addisu Demissie
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Addisu Dubai
I am Addisu Dubai.

Addisu Demissie
Missy Tsou, welcome. Look at us. We are in the studio. No Jon, no Lovett, no tommy.

Addisu Dubai
We have taken over the Bay Area, has invaded Los Angeles.

Addisu Demissie
That's right. That's right. Okay. On Today's show, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hit back at Donald Trump for posting a video that uses nazi language. Trump refuses to say whether he'll limit access to contraception if he wins. The Manhattan hush money trial heads to a jury next week, and some yahoos are still arguing that the whole thing might help him.

And our longtime friends Brian Wallach, Sandra Abravaya, and Katie couric stopped by to talk with John about their incredibly powerful new documentary about Brian's ALS diagnosis and how Brian and Sandra decided to turn that crisis into an opportunity to push for a cure. You really won't want to miss this interview. It's incredibly powerful.

Addisu Dubai
Amazing folks.

God bless them.

Addisu Demissie
But first, on Monday, Donald Trump, a periodic dining companion of no Nazis, posted a video to his truth social account that used fake newspaper articles in the background. Included in those articles was the headline. What's next for America? Under that phrase was creation of a unified Reich. Everyone quite rightly freaked out about this, and the Trump campaign finally took it down after, oh, about 18 hours. The Biden campaign obviously saw an opening because both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris immediately went on the attack. Let's take a listen.

Joe Biden
What's next for America?

Is this on his official account?

Addisu Dubai
Wow.

Joe Biden
A unified Reich. That's Hitler's language.

Addisu Demissie
That's not America's.

Joe Biden
He cares about holding on to power. I care about you.

Kamala Harris
Just yesterday, the former president of the United States, who praises dictators, who said there were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville, took to social media and highlighted language from Nazi Germany. This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming.

Unknown
From the former president, and it is appalling.

Addisu Demissie
The Trump campaign blamed a staffer who they claimed hadn't actually seen the Reich language. The video also appears to use stock footage that includes this language. However, this is just the most recent example of Trump playing footsie with nazi language. Here's a quick reminder.

Joe Biden
They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poisoned mental institutions. And.

But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.

Any jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.

Dan Pfeiffer
Isn't that anti semitic?

Addisu Dubai
No, no, no.

Joe Biden
It's only in your head. It's only anti semitic in your head.

Even these spoiled, rich jewish guys, they can't believe how good this is.

Addisu Demissie
You know, now, you'll notice that Trump never accidentally posts a video that has language like universal health care or a stumbles into saying something like, democracy is good.

Addisu Dubai
Exactly. Nazi stuff or diversity. The blame the intern strategy, really? I mean, it's 2024, guys.

Addisu Demissie
It's a classic of the genre. Yeah, seriously, we have read a thousand times about how more disciplined and strategic and better staffed this Trump campaign is than his previous efforts. So how the hell does this keep happening to them?

Addisu Dubai
First of all, you know, masks slip off sometimes. If this seems to be one of those times.

Look, they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt on this one. You played all those clips. Obviously, there have been enough instances of Easter eggs and hat tips to right wing extremists that, you know, you didn't play the clip from the 2020 debate, the stand back and stand by to the Proud Boys. I mean, after 7810, dozens of times this happening, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. I think that they pulled it down is a somewhat rare, honestly acknowledgement that they really fucked this one up. But they have run a smarter campaign this time, especially in the primary. But, you know, it's like your crazy ex who claims that they have changed. Right? Like, then you see some of the old person come out as we get. And I think as we get closer to the election and as it gets more stressful for the campaign and for Trump himself, you're gonna see who he really is and who that mask slip off more and more.

Addisu Demissie
I mean, we're really grading Trump and his campaign on a pretty steep curve. Right? I mean, the campaign's in 16 and 20, even though he won in 16, was an absolute shit show, and 20 was just, like, filled with grifters who were trying to make money off the thing. And this one, like Chris Lacivita and Suzy Wiles, are, like, real political, good.

Addisu Dubai
Political minds, as it were. Yeah.

Addisu Demissie
And the campaign seems to have more of a strategy. There is. They more adhere to a larger sort of strategic vision of how they're gonna win. And I think they're probably spending money with more discipline than they did in the past.

Addisu Dubai
But the product is the product.

Addisu Demissie
Right?

Addisu Dubai
That's the thing, is, it's Trump.

Addisu Demissie
The thing that hasn't changed is Trump.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah.

You can put lipstick on a pig, you know, whatever. Use whatever metaphor tells you you want. Like, ultimately, the truth is gonna come out about him, and he's gonna have to present himself at the debate on June 27, many times in public, unfiltered, between now and November 5. And, you know, as much as Chris and Susie are gonna try to try to cover up who he really is, it's gonna continue to come out and things like this. He likes stirring the pot like this, and he's doing this on purpose to send a message to his right wing supporters, and we'd have to call him out on it. And the president and the vice president did.

Addisu Demissie
What do you make of the president and vice president's response? The campaign has leaned incredibly hard into this.

Mitch Landrieu has been out. There have been videos. They put out a very lengthy statement. They clearly want this fight. What do you think? Why do you think they want it? And what do you make of the way they're executing that fight?

Addisu Dubai
So, I think they want it because the more this election is about a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the better. And because this is the first time that Donald Trump has run as a challenger to incumbent. Right. In 2016, it was an open seat in 2020. He was the incumbent. So naturally, this election is going to be more about the incumbent, Joe Biden sitting there than about Donald Trump. And so what I think they're doing is any opportunity that they get to remind people who Donald Trump is and that he is the alternative in this race. As the president always says, don't compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative. Donald Trump is the alternative. And this was an opportunity where they messed up and they gave, you know, a small hole for the campaign to run through and they're trying to drive a truck through it. And so I think it's, it makes sense as a strategy. And I think, you know, particularly what the president said in that clip that was played about, you know, he's making this all about himself. He's in it for himself, for power, for himself. Joe Biden is in it for, you know, I care about you. That to me is, you know, distills in a lot of ways what this election is, needs to be all about to present that choice pretty clearly to voters. So it makes sense as a strategic matter to, you know, jump on an opponent's mistake. And I think as a tactical matter, what they're saying is, is the right message to put forward.

Addisu Demissie
You know, when I first saw the video and saw the sort of brouhaha about it on Monday evening, I guess when it was, my first thought was like, this is 2017 all over again. It just felt like all, we were just doing the same dance we have always done that has never really moved the numbers in any way, shape or form. It's, Donald Trump does something on social media. It was Twitter back in the day. We're outraged by it.

A bunch of folks like myself and other resistance people, they tweet about it and then cable news goes bananas about it and nothing, nothing happens. Nothing happens.

And one of the, you know, one of the critiques that has existed about how democrats have handled Trump is we swing at every pitch.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah.

Addisu Demissie
Now, I think in this case, this is actually an example of how, I think the Biden campaign has learned some of the lessons of the past. Because, look, if your opponent puts out a video that says what's next for America is a unified right, like, you have to respond, you can't. That is a giant fat one across the plate. You have to swing. But what they did is they swung strategically. Right. And to your point, that the narrative that Trump cares about himself, Biden cares about you, like, that is the ultimate, that is their narrative about Trump. That is what they want to drive with voters so they saw. They saw an opportunity that would have virality. Right. Because so much of what's happening breaks through to no one.

Addisu Dubai
Exactly.

Addisu Demissie
And this 1 may not either, but this is a sort of thing that at least is controversial enough that there's a chance that it jumps from Nicole Wallace's show to TikTok. A normal voter may see it.

Addisu Dubai
It's clippable in a way and has the potential for virality in a way that some of the pitches that come across the plate don't. And I do think that we're probably gonna talk more about this. The things that remind voters out there about Trump's extremism, about the chaos that he brings about it just puts the choice in stark relief. Part of the challenge for the Biden presidency, and Biden is that he's been a normal guy who's sort of treated the presidency normally, and it's caused people to take a step back from politics. And as swing voters in particular, who it still may, they're not necessarily paying close attention to the race as they step back into the political arena. The Biden campaign and those of us who are supporting the Biden campaign need to make sure that we remind people about who Donald Trump was because that has been memory holed a bit. Right. So even as this is, it does feel a little more 2017 ish. Like 2017 in the minds of a lot of voters was a long, long time ago and it doesn't exist. Yeah, it was, it was seven years ago. Right. And it also just, it's gone. Right. Charlottesville. Things like what the vice president talked about, memory hold for a lot of people. So we are, we are reminding people of something that's probably in the back of their head, and bringing it to the forefront again to present a choice between Joe Biden, the guy who cares about you, and is a normal guy, and Donald Trump, who is the guy who's in it for himself, and a chaos agent.

Addisu Demissie
The other thing that's interesting here, it's one of the reasons why I wanted to play the clip, is blueprint research. A democratic polling and messaging firm looked at, had done a lot of polling on voters under 31. Of the things they discovered was voters under 30, particularly voters under 25, know none of the things that we all just could cite off the top of our head. Like, I was working with our producers and I was like, can you get this clip? Can you get the verifying people one like, I know you know the greatest hits. I know. Yeah, we all know the greatest hits.

Addisu Dubai
Talking about nazis and we had this.

Addisu Demissie
Assumption, and it really drives a lot of, I think the political coverage of this campaign is that everyone knows everything there is to know about Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and therefore nothing new. There is no new information about Donald Trump that could move voters. But if you are 25, like you, you probably weren't paying attention to any of this, right?

Addisu Dubai
You were hoping for your 18 years old or 17.

Addisu Demissie
I hope when you were 18, you were not watching, you know, Don Lemon at night, right? Like you were doing your homework, having fun with friends. And so this is, can be new information. It's a reminder for a lot of people, but it can also be new information for other voters. The other thing about it that's interesting, we can get on this a little more later, is swing voters, persuadable voters are usually engaged with political news less than everyone else. But the one thing that has changed this time is when they were not fully engaged in previous elections, they still had a general sense of what was happening because you kind of, it was kind of hard if you paid any attention to news to not like, just understand what was happening, particularly in the Trump years when Trump was front center. Now, if you were either like a news junkie who, like, knows everything or you know, nothing, like, there is very little people in the middle who are just kind of like, they have like 1ft in point, or you're getting it.

Addisu Dubai
Very passively on social media and TikTok primarily and TikTok and Instagram reels and not Twitter or X from creators that are, who knows what they're talking. You know, some of, some of the stuff we don't even see, the people who are, you know, in politics don't see, but is sometimes factually compromised, let's say, and, or sometimes intentionally so from nefarious actors. So, yeah, it is, it is really interesting that, yeah, you can't, like by osmosis, learn about what's going on in politics. Certainly not the same way you could twelve years ago in the Obama campaign or even eight years ago with Clinton or even four years ago.

Addisu Demissie
Yeah, four years ago, people were locked in their house and they were like, you were consuming the news because he told you whether you could go to work the next week or when to get a vaccine. And so you were, if you were.

Addisu Dubai
Watching, might have been watching more news.

Addisu Demissie
People were 2020 ratings were up because people had to watch it for reasons that not just politics. And then you were getting politics and you were probably seeing like one of the, his probably great strategic areas in election was doing those daily Covid briefings. So if you wanted to find out, you know, whether when schools were going to reopen or when to get a shot or not get a shot, it was going to be, you had to see Trump. And now that is, now no one sees Trump.

Addisu Dubai
That's right. That's right.

Addisu Demissie
Speaking of seeing Trump, here's something voters may care even more about than a Nazi promoting former president.

In an interview with a Pittsburgh tv station, Donald Trump declined to rule out limits on contraception if he wins. Let's take a listen.

Dan Pfeiffer
So related to this is the whole issue of contraceptives.

Do you support any restrictions on a person's right to contraception?

Joe Biden
Well, we're looking at that, and I'm going to have a policy on that very shortly. And I think it's something that you'll find interesting, and it's another issue that's very interesting. But you will, you will find it, I think, very smart. I think it's a smart decision, but we'll be releasing it very soon.

Addisu Demissie
I would note that it seems pretty clear that Donald Trump has no idea what the question is, may not know what his policy is, and has been promising a contraception policy in a few weeks for months now.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah, maybe years, I don't know.

Addisu Demissie
But he's obviously left a huge opening for Democrats.

What do you make of this and how should Democrats take advantage of it?

Addisu Dubai
Gift. I mean, absolute gift. I think we should, you know, talk about driving a truck through hole like this is, this is a gaping one that we should absolutely lean into.

It's pretty clear. You maybe saw on truth social, he tried to clean this one up immediately.

This might be one of the benefits of Trump being a bit in the background is that I'm not sure a post on truth social is cleaning up any messes with respect to this, but we won't let him.

Democrats should not let him.

It is one of the core issues of this campaign. The long tale of Dobbs remains. It is as strong as ever. And let's be real and be serious and be clear with ourselves and with the voters. This is part of the Trump second term agenda. Like Ops was the beginning. Contraception is on the table. Project 2025. You probably have seen this, like the banning birth control is, or at least limiting birth control, restricting birth control is part of the Trump second term agenda. And so I think there's the specifics about this, right, how backwards it is to talk about banning birth control. But it's also an opening to talk about what the real consequences of a Trump second term, we are not just talking about Trump the person. We are talking about Trump the agenda. And Trump the person is reprehensible. But Trump the agenda is just as reprehensible. And we cannot let, we can't talk about the former without talking about the latter.

Addisu Demissie
I mean, if you think Trump's position on abortion is unpopular, wait till you meet his new position on contraception. Yeah, exactly.

Addisu Dubai
Exactly.

Addisu Demissie
Which is like. I'll give you some examples. In the navigator, in a recent navigator research pollution, 74% of voters think that access to birth control pills should be much easier. That includes more than 60% of independents and more than 50% of Republicans. And 80%. Nearly 80% of voters think that birth control pills should be available over the counter without a prescription.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah.

Addisu Demissie
And so this is, it's like, it's.

Addisu Dubai
One of the few things that Americans agree on. Regardless of where you live, live, your party, et cetera, it's pretty standard part of american culture and american society. Now, he is squarely in the minority and wants to put policy, federal policies in place to legislate this. So it's a clear win for Democrats. It's a clear win on the campaign side. And the key is we can't let it just be one of, this is one of those pitches that we have to keep hitting over the course of the next six months.

Addisu Demissie
One of the rules in politics is you want to focus the voters minds on issues that unite your base and divide theirs. This is a perfect example of that right you have just this week, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin re vetoing a right to contraception bill passed by the democratic legislature. We know that Senate, Senate Republicans have already blocked efforts to pass a law to enshrine the right of contraception. We know that justices Thomas and Alito have looked at and have revisiting the Griswold case, which guaranteed the right to contraception, the right to privacy. And so, like, this is, this is on the table. And we talked about this in the podcast the other day.

Trump will have a supreme Court. What do you think those next two justices are going to feel about contraception that replace Alito and Thomas? Like it is like this. This is very much in the margin. It is.

And I kind of wanted to bring up the nazi video and the contraception comments in tandem, because it does speak to this broader debate within the democratic universe about what it is we talk about. And the Biden folks, they did talk about the contraception thing, but they made a choice to focus on, focus their energy on the nazi comment, not the contraception comment, it doesn't mean that they won't run ads on the contraception.

Addisu Dubai
It will be heard from again. Let's just read it like that.

Addisu Demissie
But I think it speaks to sort of this Trump is a target rich opportunity on a daily basis. And it's like, what do we do? How do you pick, what do we talk about?

What's your sort of take on that debate? How do you fall?

Addisu Dubai
Yeah, I think there's two things, I think that are sort of prerequisite issues to talk about in this election. And we already talked about the message, which I think can overlay on all this. One is reproductive freedom. The other is the cost of living. One is sort of us on offense. One, honestly is us a little bit more on defense. But reproductive freedom is in and of itself a winning issue. You just talked about all that. But it also is a gateway to talk about what comes next. Right. And voters believe that. I think, until Dobbs, I'm not sure it was as persuasive. But now you can very persuasively make the case to voters. They came for your reproductive freedom. What's next? The freedom to marry, the freedom to vote, the freedom to retire with dignity, the freedom to use birth control. And that is a consequence, a potential consequence of reelecting Donald Trump. So both for the issue itself and what it allows us to talk about, I think abortion rights and reproductive freedom have to be core to our message on the cost of living. Harder issue, right? We can't, we can't convince people that gas is cheap or what have you. But I think it goes back to the frame about who's going to fight for you and who's going to care for you. Joe Biden has done things in his presidency, significant things, to lower the cost of significant things for people, inflation reduction act and everything that's in there. We could go into it ad nauseam. There's a lot of, there's a Christmas tree from which to choose.

But Joe Biden has tried and cares about you. And what did Donald Trump do the first thing he did when he went into the administration, economically speaking? Tax cuts for his rich friends. Right. That, and we're still bearing some of the, or feeling some of the effects of that. And so who is going to go in there and actually put what a middle class, a lower middle class family cares about at the center of their agenda? Joe Biden, who's already shown you he's going to do it, or Donald Trump, who's already shown you what he's going to do, look out for himself and his rich friends. Those two issues, I think, are if we can't make those cases, it's not that. The other stuff, democracy climate, like everything matters, but if we can't sort of make those two cases, I think we are going to be in a really tough spot. Last thing I'll say is, and I kind of referenced this earlier character, cannot be the only thing we all think Donald Trump is a terrible person. He is a terrible person.

But voters this election, I think, are particularly transactional, particularly looking at their bottom line, because, frankly, they have to, especially swing voters. And so it can't just be that Trump is bad. It has to be that what Trump will do is bad. And it is hard for democrats, it's hard for hardcore democrats like myself to ignore the reprehensible nature of the person. But we have to go deeper than that if we're going to be successful in the election.

Addisu Demissie
It's interesting because a lot of it's very clear that Donald Trump's mere presence on the public stage morally offends Joe Biden. Right. As it should. It should do it properly. Probably everyone listening to this podcast, and that comes through in how he thinks about him.

But the character thing is hard. Like, you know, there is the sort of, I think, somewhat unfairly infamous ad from the Clinton campaign in 2016 of a little girl watching Donald Trump on television that sort of became shorthand for.

Addisu Dubai
What not to do.

Addisu Demissie
Yeah, shorthand for why Clinton lost, which that is giving one television ad way too much credit. But there was a sense that a lot of the message was that Donald Trump is a terrible person who, I mean, who also do terrible things. But it was, you know, he was just like a, such a shock to the political system in terms of how often he lied, the things, you know, his corruption and all of that, that people couldn't avoid talking about it. And Trump has actually, I think, too, in a pretty strategic way, made his lack of character an asset in this election, which is when he is making his, what is his most. And this is a sad statement on everything, his most broadly persuasive message. It is, I'm an asshole, but I'm gonna be an asshole for you. Right? You may disagree with how I act, what I say, even what I believe, and that can go right or left, but I am strong enough and tough enough, and I'm not gonna give a shit about all those other people. I'm gonna give a shit for you. And like, that. Like, that works. And so then you have to turn that around and say, how do we turn that part of him against him? Right. How do we make it be about what he would do?

Addisu Dubai
Exactly right. And I think there is a tendency to the point about swinging at pitches. We get so rightly morally outraged that sometimes we don't make that second step. It's like Trump is a racist. Trump is a misogynist. And yes, he is, and yes, he is. But what will that mean for the mother in suburban Phoenix who is struggling to pay her bills? And that means that when he gets there, he's going to do bad things like take away your right to birth control or take away your right to marry or whatever it might be.

Making that second step critical and making sure that we don't fall into the trap of not doing that is obviously the hardest thing to do for political professionals and observers alike. But I can't stress it enough. It is required to win the election, in my opinion, because swing voters, people who are potentially not listening to this podcast, they need the second step to decide to vote for Joe Biden.

Addisu Demissie
In the list of things you mentioned, inflation and reproductive freedom as the big issues, cost of living, et cetera.

One issue that is central to so much of how democrats talk about this election, very central to a lot of what the Biden campaign talks about, is democracy.

I've been pretty skeptical that saving democracy is going to be a good message for us.

You see all the polls that show that basically 4% of people think the political system's working. So if we become the defenders of democracy, we're becoming defenders of the system 96% people think is not working. However, I was struck by a report in Bloomberg Business Week this week where reporter Josh Green wrote that in focus groups, including some run by friends of ours, like David Binder, who worked for Obama and is working for Biden now, and Sarah Longwell, who's been on this podcast before, have seen real fear amongst persuadable voters that Donald Trump would try to stay a third term, and that that is moving people towards Biden. Have you seen that any of the research that you look at?

Addisu Dubai
Not specifically. I mean, I honestly haven't looked. It certainly isn't sort of popping up on its own.

I can be convinced that it would be a useful argument, but I think it is not gonna be as potent as the arguments about cost of living, about abortion rights and others. And it's not that. I think democracy also is another layer. Right on. What is Trump coming for next?

Addisu Demissie
There's a bigger beta.

Are we framing this conversation about freedom reframe about democracy.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah. And I think freedom is, I mean, we saw this in 2022 very explicitly. I think it's still valid in 2024 that freedom is also a word a and a concept, I think, that is more accessible to voters than democracy. And so the more we can talk about freedom and the freedom to vote, the freedom to participate, whatever, however any organization might want to lean into it, the better it'll be.

It's one more tool in the arsenal to talk about what Trump will take away from you if he becomes president again.

Addisu Demissie
I was struck by this in part because on Tuesday's podcast, Tommy and Febro and I talked about Trump's NRA speech and how the press really focused on Trump, kind of almost in jest, throwing it, like, kind of trolling the audience and the reporters about serving a third term and getting the crowd to chant third term, which is concerning at an NRA convention. But, and as opposed to Trump saying he was going to repeal all of Biden's gun safety laws. But I do. And so we kind of said, like, once again, everyone, Democrats, the press are missing the big, the thing that really matters. We're focusing, we're gravitating towards this shiny object. Right. But I can see, and this is sort of how you like how we should think about messaging in any campaign, is if the message is Donald Trump only cares about power for himself, you can fit the third term thing under that into it.

Addisu Dubai
Yes, exactly. It's not. And I do like what the president said in that TikTok yesterday.

He's only in it for himself. He's in it for the power. I'm in it for you. I care about you.

That is a message. You're the master of message, not me. But that is a message under which you can talk about any number of issues. And it's not that I kind of misframed this in my earlier answer to your question, which is it's not the issue of abortion, per se. It's not the issue of the cost of living, per se that is going to convince voters. It's the feeling that Joe Biden is going to do good things for those, you know, with respect to those issues, and Donald Trump is going to do bad things. And so you need an overarching message to fit things under. Same with democracy, same with climate, same with any, pick your issue. You can fit it into that frame. And that means it's a pretty good frame.

Dan Pfeiffer
All right, people, we all know the stakes of the 2024 election are high, whether it's keeping the Senate, taking back the House, or stopping Republicans at the state level. If you're ready to make a real difference, sign up for Vote Save America's 2024 volunteer program.

Lovett
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Dan Pfeiffer
This message has been paid for at Votesave America. You can learn more at votesave america.com. and this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.

Are you like me and tracking the polls obsessively this election year? Well, Dan Pfeiffer's right there with you, and he's taking them seriously, but not literally.

Addisu Demissie
Take an average of the polls. Don't forget about any one poll. And the thing that we try to tell everyone in every episode of this podcast is a poll that has Biden up to and a poll that has Biden down to. They all tell you the exact same thing, which is this is a very, very close race. The goal of this podcast is help people understand polling and freak out about it just a little bit less.

Dan Pfeiffer
Explore the latest polls, what they actually mean, and whether or not it's time to hit the panic button. Tune into polar coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, Crooked's latest subscriber exclusive show. To get access, subscribe to our Friends of the pod community only@crooked.com. friends.

H
Guys, it's been a rough year. It's gonna get rougher. And you deserve a little treat for not going insane yet. You could head to the local tiki bar and tell the bartender, do your worst. But we have a better idea for you, which is pick out something from the crooked store. The store is stocked with tons of new merch. It's perfect for the spring and classics like the friend of the pod tees that you'll be wearing long after the next administration or the next fascist dictatorship, depending on how things go. Pick up a new tee for the warm weather ahead, a mug that will remind you to stay involved this election year, or a hat celebrating your favorite pod. Go to crooked.com store to shop.

Addisu Demissie
Okay, moving on to Trump's Manhattan election interference trial.

Addisu Dubai
Oh, God.

Addisu Demissie
Okay, here we go.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah, here we go.

Addisu Demissie
On Tuesday the defense rested after calling just two witnesses. To the surprise of absolutely no one. Donald Trump was not one of those witnesses.

Addisu Dubai
Come on.

Addisu Demissie
Closing arguments will be next week, and then the jury will get the case.

John and I are going to talk to Andrew Weissman on Friday's pod for all the legal details about the case has come in and how it's going to proceed. But I want to talk to you about the politics. And over the weekend, Ross Doothad in the New York Times had a particularly trollish column that said Trump's trial is actually helping him. He wrote, and I quote, even sinful demagogues can face a politically motivated prosecution and stand and gain from the appearance of legal persecution. And that appearance so far has been this trial's political gift to Donald Trump. This was offered, of course, with absolutely no polling or data to support his point. DC, what is your response to this scorcher of a hot take?

Addisu Dubai
It is a classic of the genre, for sure, again, of hot takeism. But I do not agree that being on criminal trial has helped somebody politically. But I will be honest, I don't necessarily agree that it has hurt him yet. In general, the more we're talking about Trump, the more he's out front on things, as we talked about before, the more we're presenting a contrast between Trump and Biden, I think the better. And so to the extent that this is bringing him back to light, I think that's, on balance, good goes back to the woman in suburban Phoenix. I talked about the substance of the trial, which, to be clear, I'm not really following it that closely. I'm trying to consume the media like a normal person. I see what I see, but I don't.

Addisu Demissie
You say that as you're sitting in on a political podcast.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah, true. But no, I'm not watching cable news for the OJ trial style coverage that it may be given. Anyway, point is, the woman in suburban Phoenix who is struggling to pay her bills like this is about hush money, an adult film star, kickbacks. And does that have anything to do with a voter's day to day life? No. Like, the substance of the trial doesn't. And so I can get why democrats don't want to talk about it. Right. It's like, okay, do I really want to talk about Stormy Daniel? Like, no, I don't want to necessarily talk that's not affecting people's life day to day. I think it's kind of been a wash. It's been a bit of a nothing burger politically, electorally. So far, the verdict, that's a different story. And, you know, we'll see what happens. I think either I will not predict what, at this point, what a conviction or acquittal or a hung jury will do, but I do think that will be a moment where people will have to talk about this and actually have something specific to talk about. This is trial machinations and salacious details and things that, like, are not moving swing voters in May of 2024.

Addisu Demissie
Like, I understand intellectually all the things you just said, but then there's another way of looking at that, which is the former president of the United States, the person who is right now, at least a coin flip away from returning to the White House, is on trial in the media capital of the world for a crime that emanated from an affair with an adult film star that could theoretically have him be sentenced to prison in the next three weeks. Like, why is this not the biggest story in the country?

Addisu Dubai
I mean, it is the biggest story in the country. I think it's just not persuading people.

Addisu Demissie
It'S the biggest story in the country. Like, there's a PBS NewsHour poll which shows that 55% of the country is paying zero to little attention about this.

Addisu Dubai
So, yeah, it is the biggest political story right now for sure. I think there are two reasons for that. One is the things you talk about, about the media environment, people. It's easy to ignore things now. It is easy to not passively find out about things anymore. I think that is just the nature of the beast right now in, in our political news economy. But I think the bigger thing is opinions about Trump. I think I said this the last time I was on this podcast, are pretty baked in with most of the electorate. Like, people think he's a creep. Even the people who vote for him think he's a creep. People can easily believe the allegations that are being made in court about him. And I think, you know, the hard thing that I've had to internalize, especially over now, I started with the Clinton campaign in January of 2016. So now it's been like eight years that I've been fighting this guy. His superpower, in some ways, is that he has such firm opinions that have been established about him, not just from those eight years, but from ten years of the apprentice and 20 years of being in home alone or whatever, that, like, getting people.

You're not gonna change your people's opinions about him. You have to get them to change their opinion about what he might do for them. Going back to our previous conversation, so I think it's partially just that. Like, it's easier to ignore things in 2024. I think it's a lot about these facts are reinforcing what people already believe about him and are not necessarily going to affect their vote choice. I think a verdict very well could. And, you know, you don't want to felon as your president.

And that's not a democratic or a republican statement. I don't think so. We'll see if it's hung, if it's, if he's acquitted, I think it could swing the other way. But that's a, it's uncharted territory, that is for sure. For all of us.

Addisu Demissie
Obviously. There's one pretty specific, detailed reason why people are paying less attention is not on tv.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah, right. Like, I mean, if it were OJ trial, you know, to bring up a truly dated people in our forties know, but like, the people are twenties, like.

Addisu Demissie
What it was, they saw the FX dramatization of it.

That's even an interesting question. I've been sort of wrestling with the theoretical one about the media environment is, let's say it was televised and it is live on CNN, MSNBC, and probably not Fox every day. Right. And maybe on big days, like the first day of the Cohen testimony, Michael Cohen testimony, the networks break in at, I don't know, 10:00 a.m. i don't know what they're breaking in from.

Do even more people see that? The way people more see it is that it's on video, so therefore there will be clips of it on TikTok and Instagram. So people would see that, but just the same people. And this is so much of what I think about with just sort of like political earned media strategy now is we're all just talking to each other all the time, so we would just have more ways to watch it. The same people.

Addisu Dubai
But I think you're right. The video, think about the George Floyd video or Rodney King back in the day or any number of things when you can catch things. Video has a unique power that audio does not and that drawings and graphics do not, et cetera. So I do think it would provide both grift for creators to do funny things on TikTok or more content from which to draw other content, as it were. But I don't think it changes the fundamental second point, which is it's kind of saying things about Trump that the people who like Trump like about him, which is gross. And the people who don't like Trump don't like about him. And the swing voters kind of know about him and have baked into their opinions about him and are looking for another reason to vote against him. For Joe Biden.

Addisu Demissie
I'm 1000% with you on reproductive freedom, cost of living. That is the whole thing. But one of Barack Obama's communications rules is you have to talk about the elephant in the room. Everyone knows the elephant's there. So it's weird when you don't talk about it. And once again, Donald Trump is on trial. And polls have shown, media polls I've looked at show that when you describe the charges in this case, majorities of people, including a not insignificant swath of 2020 and current Trump voters, find it pretty concerning.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah.

Addisu Demissie
Most people do not know what those charges are. They kind of have a, to the extent they have any sense of why he's on trial, they, it's kind of vague. Stormy Daniels are vaguely aware of. They don't really know about the election interference part. They know it's not classified documents and violent insurrection. But, like, and then you see, which.

Addisu Dubai
By the way, I will, just as an aside, say, I think those trials will and would be more concerning to voters.

Addisu Demissie
But we're all talking about theoretical exercise right now.

Addisu Dubai
Exactly. But anyway, good idea.

Addisu Demissie
And this is another challenge we have as Democrats. It's just there's such asymmetry in the messaging around this, which is Trump is out every day in every forum defining.

Addisu Dubai
What Johnson is showing up in New York.

Addisu Demissie
Yeah. And he's bringing these fucking yahoos and the red ties in to be there. And then you have the right wing media apparatus just, you know, everything from Fox News to the local conservative person that is on midday Iowa radio when people are driving around defining this in a way.

Addisu Dubai
Yeah.

Addisu Demissie
Which on which. And there's no one saying the opposite.

Addisu Dubai
Well, you know what? I think that is the uncertainty about the outcome. Right. Because you go out there and talk about this for two months or however long, how long has the trial been? Feels like two months.

Talk about how terrible it is, et cetera, et cetera. And then a jury of his peers acquits him. And you look like a doofus.

And I feel like the Republicans who are there can just say witch hunt. And if he gets convicted, they'll just keep saying, which hunt.

Addisu Demissie
And if he's acquitted or hung jury, then it's like proven it.

Addisu Dubai
Innocence proven.

Right. So I think a lot of it just basically has to do with the fact that if you can't be sure of the outcome, it's really hard to go out there and crow about the facts, et cetera, and then have the legal system let them go. So again, verdict comes down, I think everything changes. I think that's a real, real big elephant that you absolutely can't ignore. But I get why. And I generally support the idea that while the legal process is playing out, it's a high risk situation to talk about this in public if you're a campaign or what have you. And there are plenty of other things like nazi videos and contraception bans that are probably a more effective use of the limited airspace you get to talk about politics with.

Addisu Demissie
Do you think if he is convicted that democrats should talk about it?

Addisu Dubai
I think, yeah, I do. I mean, I think that becomes an elephant that is so crazy not to, that's so crazy to ignore that it just seems ridiculous at some level. Do I think it's going to be the only thing we talk about? No. Everything I said before still holds. But I think having a convicted felon in the White House is actually probably in the range of arguments that we can make.

It probably ranges towards the top.

Maybe not the top, but it probably ranges towards the top.

Addisu Demissie
One of my theories of this election is that we're like, yes, the campaign needs a overarching narrative about why Biden and why not Trump. Right. And probably a little more why not Trump than why Biden is going to be more effective. But the way the media ecosystem has changed and even the way advertising has changed. Right. The way you have to be much more other than the stuff you're doing. And basically football games where you see reach audiences, it's very targeted. You're reaching small number of people is that you can, you can have a much more like targeted micro messaging. Like there, we know they're a group of Nikki Haley voters who disagree with Joe Biden on a whole bunch of stuff, don't really like Donald Trump and are concerned about the idea of a felon as president. Right. And so, like, you can target those people just, and they're, and, but that may not be what is in the ad that runs during the Georgia Michigan game in October.

Addisu Dubai
Right. Exactly right.

Addisu Demissie
I don't think there's Georgia Michigan game, but you get two big battlegrounds. That's my point.

Addisu Dubai
I think you're generally, yeah, the reason why I'm hesitating is because I actually think the medicine is kind of the same for a lot of people right now. Right. And so the macro message and the micro message oddly align. But there are probably some, there are definitely some things that work better with some communities than others. The interesting thing, though, is that abortion and the cost of living is broadly popular. Yep, Crosstab. Any poll you see, however you want to 25 to 34 year old women with red hair, like I guarantee you, cost of living is the top issue, right?

When that is the case, you can't. Those are the prerequisites, but maybe not the only thing that you can use to persuade folks.

Addisu Demissie
All right, one quick thing before we go to break. I am thrilled to announce that Jon is back with season four of the wilderness. Yes, Democrats have been in the wilderness for a long ass time now.

Addisu Dubai
I think I'm on episode one.

Addisu Demissie
That's right. The wilderness is Jon's deep dive into who the undecided voters are, where they are, and how we can win them over. John talks with all of our favorite political experts and strategists and organizers about what's working and what isn't.

Truly great podcast. It is mandatory listening for people who are working in politics who are. Even if you're just someone who's trying to convince your biden skeptical cousin not to vote for RFK Junior, this podcast will help you figure that out. Listen to the trailer in the pod, Save America feed and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the first two episodes, which drop on May 26. When we come back, Brian Wallach, Sandra Abravia, and Katie Kirk.

Dan Pfeiffer
Are you like me and tracking the polls obsessively this election year? Well, Dan Pfeiffer's right there with you, and he's taking them seriously, but not literally.

Addisu Demissie
Take an average of the polls. Don't forget about any one poll. And the thing that we try to tell everyone in every episode of this podcast is a poll that has biden up to and a poll that has Biden down to. They all tell you the exact same thing, which is this is a very, very close race. The goal of this podcast is help people understand polling and freak out about it just a little bit less.

Dan Pfeiffer
Explore the latest polls, what they actually mean, and whether or not it's time to hit the panic button. Tune into polar coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, cricket's latest subscriber exclusive show. To get access, subscribe to our Friends of the pod community only@cricket.com. friends.

H
Guys, it's been a rough year. It's gonna get rougher, and you deserve a little treat for not going insane yet. You could head to the local tiki bar and tell the bartender, do your worst. But we have a better idea for you, which is pick out something from the crooked store. The store is stocked with tons of new merch. It's perfect for the spring and classics like the friend of the pod tees that you'll be wearing long after the next administration or the next fascist dictatorship, depending on how things go. Pick up a new tee for the warm weather ahead, a mug that'll remind you to stay involved this election year, or a hat celebrating your favorite pod. Go to crooked.com store to shop.

Lovett
Hey, it's Lovett and I'm on my way to your city. And by on my way, I mean I'm still in the shower but still about to head out. Love it or leave it. Live on tour is heading all over the country. We'll be in Charlotte, Asheville, Boston, Madison, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. And if we're not coming to your city this time, I'm sorry, the country is too big. Take it up with the pioneers. To learn more and get tickets, head to crooked.com events.

Dan Pfeiffer
We have some very special guests here with us today. Brian Wallach and Sandra Abervaia are two of our friends and former colleagues from the Obama years. They met on the campaign trail, got engaged while working in the White House, and in 2017, right after the birth of their second daughter, Brian was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 36. They have since become two of the most inspiring and effective advocates for people living with ALS and are the subjects of the new Amazon documentary for Love and no Ordinary campaign, which comes out on May 28 and was produced by friend of the pod, Katie Couric, who's also here with us today. Katie, Brian, Sandra, welcome to Pod Save America. And thanks for being here.

Kamala Harris
Yay, friend. Thank you for having us.

Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, it's so good to see you guys. It's so good to see you guys. So, Brian, it's been seven years since you were diagnosed with ALS. You were initially given six months to live.

Can you talk about the mental and emotional journey that brought you from that day to the moment that the two of you decided to turn your personal battle with ALS into a grassroots movement called I am Als?

Kamala Harris
Well, at the beginning, I ignored my diagnosis and we didn't tell anyone other than our family.

And after Christmas, I turned to Sandra and I wanted to do something to help the fight.

And I asked her if I could start an a less non profit.

And her response?

You're turning to me. I don't want to swear on air.

Addisu Dubai
Go ahead.

Unknown
Sorry.

Kamala Harris
Well, fuck no. What's my answer?

Unknown
I mean, really?

Kamala Harris
Yes. We just had this terminal diagnosis and Brian wanted to start a whole new endeavor so what did you make me do? Brian's asking. What I made Brian do was, I said, in true political form, go on a listening and learning tour.

Dan Pfeiffer
There you go.

So where did you listen and learn?

Kamala Harris
All over the country.

Brian flew literally all over the country for six months with this diagnosis, which was wild. Cause we had a newborn and a two year old and this diagnosis, and he ended up coming back. And I did not request this, but he did present me with a 40 page PowerPoint. Again, to be clear, I did not request it, but it was very informative and convincing.

And what is that?

Oh, yes. And it only had text, no images.

Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, my God. The real lawyer. I was just about to say real lawyer.

Kamala Harris
There were also footnotes, I think.

Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, my gosh.

Kamala Harris
And after that, I was all in. Sandra was all in. Yep.

And so then we.

Oh, we reached out to our network to help us start imals.

Dan Pfeiffer
You guys have achieved an enormous amount in the last several years. Sandra, how did you decide what you guys were gonna focus on and come up with a strategy that got you to this point?

Kamala Harris
Yeah, well, some of it was in the PowerPoint, of course, and part of that entailed Brian and I observing what kind of advocacy was being done on the hill. And, of course, you know, before Brian and I met, we worked in the senate together. And as we all had experienced, we knew what good advocacy looked like. We knew that it was about meaningful relationships with members, with chiefs of staff and legislative directors. And what we observed happening was these really cursory meetings with a bunch of advocates one day a year. And it just wasn't a sustained, systemic approach. And so when we saw that reality and we knew what was possible, we decided that one way in which we could have a real impact was to create this coalition of patients and caregivers who would drive forward the movement and not be treated as tokens. And they would tell their stories, and they would develop meaningful relationships with the House and the Senate. And we knew that we could do it. We knew how to do it. We knew the people to do it with, and we knew it wasn't being done.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Katie, what drew you to their story, and what made you decide to become an executive producer on this project?

Unknown
Well, I was reading an article about profiling Brian and Sondra in Politico written by Sam Stein, who I crossed paths with when he was at Huffington Post.

And I was so captivated and moved by their story and so inspired. Honestly, it was a pretty long piece, and I remember, beautiful piece. Just reading it and not being able to put my phone down, and I saw in the body of the piece that they were developing or kind of working on a documentary. And I thought, oh, gosh, I really hope that they have some kind of video of the journey they've been on because I thought it would be really difficult to reverse engineer a documentary after, at that point in Brian's disease. So I reached out to Sam Stein on Twitter. I dmed him, hoping, as one does. Yes, as one does these days, and hoping he checked his DM's, as I don't very often. And he. I said, sam, you know, that was such a beautiful piece. Congratulations. And I would love to meet Brian and Sandra.

And he said, great. So, you know, a few days later, we had connected. We set up a zoom. It was during the pandemic, and I remember being in my kitchen, and we just.

Brian and Sandra were very. They were excited to talk to me. I was so excited to talk to them. And what can I say? It was love at first sight, love at first zoom. And I just said, listen, I want to help in any way I can. You know, I want to be useful to you all. So I ended up, you know, helping with the documentary, giving some notes. You know, I think because I've done so much cancer advocacy work, John, I'm really pretty. I've gotten good at synthesizing and distilling complicated medical concepts, and I think I was maybe helpful in giving some feedback on that. I helped with some finishing funds, and, you know, I basically just got to know the whole group and said, you know, I would like to be your vessel, do what you will with me. And so, you know, I think we've developed a deep friendship and some might say a throuple. Yes. Yes. We talk about being a throuple all the time because we think it's so funny. And I'm just so.

I feel so honored to be a part of this project and to help spread the word, because it's not just about als.

It's, well, it's first and foremost, I think, a love story, but it's also about the power of people when they join forces and are galvanized and care about an issue that you could actually get real change accomplished. And, you know, I think because of Brian and Sandra's political acumen, they were at a distinct advantage. But I do think it shows the power in numbers, and I think it's. It is a real template for other so called rare diseases, which, as the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, which couldn't. This film couldn't have been done without them. They have a whole program called rare is one, and rare diseases are not really rare. What is the quote that Jeff always gives? There are, like, 10,000 of them. Yeah. 10,000 rare diseases that affect 300 million people.

Kamala Harris
Is that worldwide, basically every american family is affected by some rare disease.

Dan Pfeiffer
Wow.

Kamala Harris
Yeah.

Unknown
So, anyway, I just. I love them, and I'm so happy that you're giving this film attention, because I think it really will inspire a ton of people.

Dan Pfeiffer
I'm so excited to see it.

What was it like for you guys to open up your home and your lives to this documentary? Was it hard? Was it cathartic? Was it both?

Kamala Harris
For me, it was easy.

Unknown
Brian's not shy.

Kamala Harris
I was a lawyer, and I had a career where I was always doing public speaking.

So for me, when Chris, our director, raised the idea, I said, hell, yes.

But I had to convince Sandra, again.

Dan Pfeiffer
Very persuasive.

Unknown
Oh, yeah.

Kamala Harris
I mean, it's hard. But I think that as we started to do press around the work and the impact we were having in the early days, and then Brian has this social media presence, and I was really struck by how much people were responding to it. And I thought, wow, these are mediums where we can really drive change. So it's not only in the advocacy work, but in communicating about this disease in a different way. I think we feel authentically hopeful that there is the chance that we could be among the first generation of survivors with this disease. And so we think it's so important to impart that hope, because if you don't have that as the backdrop, then there's only inaction. Right. You need that hope to drive forward and motivate a coalition. And I think through all of these mediums, Brian, social and the press, and then now, really, in an incredible way on Amazon prime, with over 200 million viewers, to be able to drive forward that message, that this is a disease where there is hope and possibility and what it looks like for someone to drive forward in the face of these odds and to really accomplish remarkable things.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And you guys have two daughters? Six and eight. How have they handled all of this? How are they handling it?

Kamala Harris
Well, they haven't seen the movie, but we.

But we have a. Oh, but we have told them.

Yeah. All about als and how we're trying to turn it from fatal to chronic.

So I think that they know how hard we are fighting, and they have been amazing.

They, along with Sandra, are my reason for being here.

Unknown
You know, I wanted to mention, you know, Chris Burke did an amazing job. He's not here, but he and Brian went to college together.

They went to Yale, my safety school. And basically, when Brian was diagnosed, Chris was one of many people. You know, Brian was a huge leader at Yale. Everyone thought he would run for president one day. You know, he was that guy. And so many people reached out, and Chris said, what can I do?

Chris did the initial film for Imals to kick off the nonprofit, and then he said, there's more here. So he followed Brian and Sandra around for three years, and the film is so intimate, I think, you know, there are so many scenes where, you know, Sandra and Brian are preparing for their Capitol Hill testimony. That's one of my favorite scenes. They're in a hotel room late at night, kind of going over what they're going to say. But there are so many very moments, and Chris did a beautiful job, I think, of being more than a fly on the wall, but because of his relationship with Brian and Sandra, which I'm sure grew during this period of time, he was able to capture these intensely personal moments, which I think really makes make the film as moving and poignant and meaningful as it is.

And I just, you know, Chris works so hard, and I just wanted to give him a shout out, you know, he's amazing.

Dan Pfeiffer
So what's next for Imals? Like, what for people who want to help, want to contribute?

And what are you guys hoping for in the. In the months to come in terms of research, treatments, legislation, funding? Like, what's next?

Kamala Harris
Yeah, what's that? This week, Imals, they're having the first ever summit in DC, and they're bringing together, yeah, groups from all sorts of different but related neurodegenerative diseases. So Brian and I have so much admiration for so many things that Katie has done, including, and importantly, stand up to cancer. And so how Katie led this coalition and really, you know, lifted all boats, that is so much in the spirit of what Brian and I see as possible with Alzheimer's and ALS and Parkinson's and Huntington's. All of these diseases are really a part of this family of neurodegenerative diseases.

And so at this moment, Imals is really spearheading, along with others, this coalition of neuro diseases to bring attention to them, to drive forward with more collaboration.

Unknown
And coordination, because there are a lot of areas where these diseases overlap. And if they could kind of focus on collaboration instead of competition and really kind of figure out where the Venn diagram exists, then hopefully that'll move science forward faster, because I think that's one of the main goals and also just to use what Brian and Sandra have done as a template or a blueprint for other people who have rare diseases or any kind of cause they believe in, that there is actually a roadmap to figuring out how you can be an effective advocate and how you can actually implement and inspire change, as these two have done so beautifully. Not only with changes in legislation like getting Social Security disability benefits to go into to happen immediately. You know, it used to be you had to wait six months, and for someone with ALS, that can be an eternity. They got that change. They got so much more funding. I think it's been raised to a billion dollars for research when previously it had been what, Sandra?

Kamala Harris
Yeah, it was in the low hundreds. And, yeah, so we have really.

Dan Pfeiffer
And that's part of the legislation that President Biden signed, which was also amazing. That you guys got legislation through this Congress in this or in 2021 in this political climate is just incredible.

Unknown
They've worked with the FDA to make certain drugs available for people. And so, I mean, honestly, it's an absolutely sisyphean task. And they were able to not only push the boulder up the hill, but get it to roll on the other side. I mean, it's just phenomenal what they've been able to achieve.

Dan Pfeiffer
What were some of the lessons and advice you gave Sandra and Brian as being someone who became a very public advocate for a family member's terminal illness?

Unknown
I'd like to think that I gave them advice, but they didn't need any advice from me, John, honestly, they were so focused, so myopically focused, and so, you know, appropriately covering every aspect of this disease, getting people, you know, galvanizing a community, you know, patient advocacy is so important to, you know, the greasy wheel. Wait, the squeaky wheel does really get the grease. It's been a long day. Sorry, everyone. And, you know, so they were able to do that. And members of Congress, as you know, they pay attention to, as Sandra says, the RP's the real people, right?

I was like, where's the RP? She was in charge of RP's, and then she became one, you know, and so they focused on the community. They educated themselves about the science. I mean, they're very smart people, as you know, and then they figured out, like, legislatively, they navigated the bureaucracy, and they were relentless in their advocacy. You know, even if a couple of. Only a couple of committee members showed up at a hearing, which really pissed me off, honestly, these are my tax dollars at work. Where the fuck is everyone?

You know, they went there and we recorded it and, well, Chris did. And so you actually see them working through the system. So as much as I'd like to say I gave them advice, I really just tried to give them my support and encouragement.

Dan Pfeiffer
That's great, Brian. I follow you on Twitter where you are incredibly active. I can relate.

Unknown
It's x now.

Dan Pfeiffer
It's x now. Yeah, I can't do that.

You're also incredibly positive and profound, even as you're honest about how hard this is. Why is it important for you to stay so positive and hopeful for so many other people?

Kamala Harris
I believe that we have a chance to change the world for people living with all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases.

And I also, I also have to stay positive because, oh, yeah, so much of my world is changing, and so I, so I root myself in hope.

And we have to, we have to.

What's that word?

B a m. Banners. Oh, two banners behind your desk.

Yeah. One of them says, joy is an act of resistance, and the other one says, just good trouble. Right? Yeah.

Dan Pfeiffer
I love that.

Kamala Harris
You know who got those for us? Brent Colburn.

Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, another one.

Kamala Harris
Another Obama alum.

Unknown
I think one thing, too. Just watching Brian and Sandra and the way they communicate, the way they love each other, the way they support each other, I think this film is very much a love story.

And I think a lot of people wonder, what would I do if someone I loved was dealing with a really tough, debilitating illness like this. And I think the two of them are just a beautiful example of unconditional love and support. And for that reason alone, I think just watching them, you can model the kind of love and relationship that you want to have in your life by watching them.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. I mean, thank you guys for being here. Thank you for doing this.

Congrats on all that you've achieved. And I'm just so amazed and in awe of both of you as I follow you guys from afar. And now I feel so lucky that I get to finally see you in person because I haven't in so many years. The documentary is for love and life. No ordinary campaign. It comes out May 28 on Amazon prime. So everyone check it out. And good luck, guys.

Kamala Harris
Keep up the fight. Thank you so much.

Dan Pfeiffer
Thank you.

Thanks, Katie.

Addisu Demissie
Adisu, thanks for joining us.

Addisu Dubai
Thank you. Glad to be here again.

Addisu Demissie
Thanks to Brian Wallach, Sandra Abavai, and Katie Couric. John and I will be back with a new podcast on Friday morning.

Dan Pfeiffer
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Trump Promises "A Unified Reich"

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2: Guest Insights

3: Media's Role

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