State Legislatures as Democratic Firewalls

Pod save America is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Nothing says summer like cookouts vacations and hoping your neighbor remembers to bring in your package while you're away. Or you could skip the worry altogether with SimpliSafe, because their outdoor protection can actually help stop porch pirates before they strike. Don't like those porch pirates . With SimpliSafe, you can customize your system to fit your needs, then ships fast directly to your door. The app guided setup is simple and there's no drilling required, so you can install and arm your system in under an hour. SimpliSafe is more than just a security camera. It's a comprehensive system of sensors, indoor and outdoor cameras and twenty four seven professional monitoring. Over five million people value and trust SimpliSafe with their home security every day. John Lovet installted Simpli Safe all by himself and we're all very proud of him. We've been singing we've been singing his praises on this for many years now, but he likes it and he can operate it from your phone and keeps you nice and safe, great technology. So check it out . Right now, our listeners will get fifty percent off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring and your first month is free. Just visit simply safe dot com slash crooked. That's half off at simplesafe dot com slash crooked. There's no safe like simply safe. The future of real estate isn't one size fits all. That's why WeWork has created a new platform built for a smarter way to work, a composable stack of real estate, services, and technology, you configure for the way your business works today and tomorrow. Our team of experts are ready, building end to end solutions for businesses of all sizes, from Fortune five hundreds to entrepreneurs. Whatever you need, we've got you covered. Unlock the only real estate platform built for a smarter way to work, we work. Made for work, built for your business Welcome to Podsave America. I'm John Fabra. I'm John Love and Tom Tutor. On today's show, we got major Supreme Court decisions on mail in voting and Donald Trump's right to fire agency heads he doesn't like. It's decision time for Trump on the bipartisan housing bill which he has threatened to hold hostage until the Save Act passes, and Democratic Socialists are feeling the momentum after last week's primaries in New York with big primaries in Colorado today. Then Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative campaign committee stopped by to talk about breaking Republican trifectas and building Democratic ones in a bunch of key states and how critical it is that you get involved in the down ballot races happening wherever you are. But let's begin where Trump kicked off his week, posting this at six thirty AM on Monday . Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the great American State Fair at the National Mall packed with happy people and everybody loving it question mark , ask yourself this simple question and now we're in all caps. Do you think that Obama he wants to say Obama but he spells it OBUMA, so it's like Obama. Yeah, it just looks like a type of the bummer. Right, of course, but he's short handing . He's not quite getting there. Do you think that Obama or sleepy Joe Biden could have done it? The answer is no . President is of course, referr,ing to the sixteen day expedition on the National Mall that will run through july tenth to celebrate America's two hundred fiftieth birthday, an event run by Freedom two hundred fifty, which is the entity Trump created to compete with America two hundred fif andty, which is the bipartisan entity created by Congress years ago. Why? sixteen days? That's such a weird number of days. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. I don't know. It's a good question. I don't know the answer to two weeks with an extra weekend. Okay Started last week how weeks really work. Right, but it'll be a set you because it would be like Saturday to a Sunday. Okay , that's Yeah. two weeks, two weeks. This is the one thing you got right. I guess. Anyway, the perception that Trump turned America's two hundred fiftieth into a partisan event caused all the state fair musical acts to drop out with the exception of Florida and vanilla ice . Ten states have also decided not to participate in the opening weekend was plagued by extreme heat, rain, power outages, and sparse crowds. You never know this if you listen to a Maga World where everyone thinks it's going great . Happy Early Birthday America . We're celebrating already at the great American State Fair. Man, we've got thousands of people celebrating this birthday with us. Do you ever in your wildest dreams think you may be doing your Sunday show from a state fair on the National Mall? How great is this? It's really it's really something and the weather not the best today but people are still coming out to help me out. I want to be a part of this . Well, it's a great day for Larry Good afternoonhaps. Per now the closing bell is here. We're going to get more people coming in here now that work is done. You mentioned the latest with the ROM. If you look behind us, you see, okay, there are a couple hundred people back there, but the truth is, when you make your way over here and you're in this lot, you're in a wash of people. There's tons of people here. It's a huge space and it's just gonna get more and more patterned as the week goes on. Take care of us. Let's get started. Yo way yo yo I think we have to give a big round of applause for our military band and singers way better than those lip tards that canceled on us. It was Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy talking about the lib tards . What do you guys think? Happy two hundred fiftieth. Thanks. How you feeling about the festivities Trump has organized the Freedom two hundred and fifty America two hundred and fifty split in the ten states that aren't participating? I thought the performance by Manny was really good. Did you guys catch that one? You didn't see Magannai, M the live streamer er who jked off in front of the acrobat. Forgot about the guy. Forgot about the guy that in the uncle Sam cost fifty four year old right wing Maga streamer did not think fifty four was the number. Arrested younger. Are you by parked police for masturbating in front of an acrobat troop called the Sircanics. Can you blame them? According to the Independent . Apparently he was vaping, recording, and then had a hand through the pocket of the overall so he's holding the starting going down and the floor is here. I was gonna say how many hands there you have and then another witness said he came back for round two later and that's what I think the park police got him. Nad for fifty four? That's a good point. Yeah. I love that it did look, it did look sparse, but now that the closing bell traders the traders leaving the floor of the stock exchange . Where in DC gonna run up to go check out the latest quilting, I suppose . Also, there's just something about all the thing that I was thinking about was watching this over the weekend is just how much like the whole MAGA world is online. It just exists online. It's a bunch of people complaining online , caricatures of the cities that are going to hell online, just people talking to each other about how America's going down the tubes on the internet and on Fox News , but like Larry Cudlow's like, oh, it looks like was last time Larry Cudlow had a fucking corn dog. Was last time he walked around a state fair? Like none of these people look like they're at home in a kind of outdoor event with a fellow situation for the closed. It's so funny that Fox News State TV decided to go all in on this event and the net effect is they have to do like sweltering live shots outdoors in front of no one. It's just greenfield. one No. And then Manny jerking off. I also love that the comment like, did you ever think you'd be doing your live shot from a state fair? Hypothetical. Yeah. Who would have funk it? But that's what I mean. It's like these are just people that seem like kind of unfamiliar with the country on some level. Like state fairs are great. They're all over the country. They're in a lot of different most states . Yeah, and you can go and there's like actually the news often broadcast from them and tell you about the latest deep fried foods you can get. Like that was the vibe you could have had if this weren't taken over by Trump. Like he took he took something that was bipartisan and a decade in the making. You can actually go online and read what the original plan is. I don't think it would have , you know, what is going to change the country or anything, but it would have been nice. There was like a lot of events happening all across the country. There would have been a kind of like a kind of a national event for craft makers. There would have been big concerts by famous people. There was a lot of money set aside. Trump took that money, gave it to Freedom two hundred and fifty, turned it into a partisan boondoggle, and now nobody's showing up . And for even though it's a five hundred one C three, apparently ors who donate a million dollars or more can secure an invitation to a private reception hosted by Trump himself . There's not a lot of transparency on the finances of Freedom two hundred fifty. Even though they've taken most of the money that was supposed to go to America to taxpayers. And we do have some corporate sponsors as well, of course, your Northrop Grummans, your United Health Groups, your SpaceX's. You see the little army or robot dog kind of marching around like filming people and performing. It's very dystopian. The ferris wheel I was I read Devil in the White City recently I'm on an Eric Larsen kick which was about the world's fair in Chicago in eighteen ninety three, I believe. And that was when the first ferris wheel was built. And it was this marvel because they were trying to rival the Eiffel Tower and all the Europeans were like, Oh those Americans will never be able to build a thing. And then we built a ferris wheel that was basically a steel tower that moved . It was amazing, right? Like America is building an Eiffel Tower, basically the size of the Eiffel Tower, and then you would get on it and you would rotate, freak people to fuck out. People tried to jump off it. They were freaking out. Because we were saying, you know what? Each shit Europe, we're going to make something awesome. We're going to build skyscrapers. We're going to be a cool country and wait till you see what America's going to do. And now here we are one hundred and thirty years later. We got this jag off doing his version of a great American state fair. Quite literally Jagoffers. And with Jago with Jagoffs's fair. And you see the ferris wheel was broken for hours because of generator issues. And also there were power outages that spoiled like all the food and melted all the ice cream on the first day and last minute,an Villa Ice canceled because it did inclement weather, even though he had previously said rain or shine he was gonna be there. Did you read the profile? That doesn't sound like the vanilla ice I know. Did you read his profile in the Atlantic? No. Fastened. He claims to have performed for the Taliban. That's just one little tidbit for you to wet your beak, go read the rest. You remember when he said that, I believe he said that this is a government where he feels at home, though. Yeah. That's kinda his kind of rulers. That he hadn't taken under pressure. Wasn't that he had claimed like the Vanilla ice thing that he hadn't taken under pressure. There's a great clip where he's like, No, that's doom, doom, doom dude, doom, doom. And mine is doom, doom, doom do om. That's the same thing It's also funny. Some of them mailed it in. C Lonikenecticut Maine,, I think , shared a space, put up four chairs, and then Maine just had lobster fax on the wall . And they're like booth and a totem cop. State bird, I believe, yes Yeah, I guess mess with a lot. I mean, the North Carolina booth had a confederate flag up. So you're not yeah, that's right. You're not far from it. Well, because that was because that was taken because North Carolina didn't do it. So like a private sow someone other fish did it. Even though by the way, that was never any flag that was not the North Carolina flag not associated with the state of North Carolina . So they just wanted to throw it up there. It's just kind of a bummer like you said. It's it's not the biggest deal of anything, but the two hundred fiftieth anniversary could have been a moment where you know,, a president decided to try to at least try to bring the country together or didn't try to bring the country together, but at least offered entertainment that anyone could feel welcome. Yeah. All the way that anyone could feel welcome, you know, participating. He could have just done nothing. Yeah. He could have just let the group , America two hundred and fifty, that existed, had bipartisan membership, had a lot of his allies on it. Come out, take a little speech on the fourth, you know? That would have been offensive to us. He would have come out there and said something terrible. Right. But whatever, he could have just let it happen . But instead he got his mitts on it. I will say NBC and then the New Republic went out and interviewed a bunch of people. And even people that didn't like Trump were like, it's fine. This is great. This is cool. And I do like one attendee named Scott said to the new Republic, I like this. I don't really take Trump into consideration. He's going to be gone in three years, dead in ten. He's not going to take away my joy of this event. He's the president, but he's not God , even though he thinks he is. I wasn't gonna come to this, but then I thought, you know, I'm not gonna let him take it away. Good for you, Scott. I like that. That is the attitude I want to hear from all patients from all the libs. July fourth. That is the attitude. Don't let him take it away.. Yeah Well, yeah, you're they're taken away. The fireworks show in DC doesn't start until eleven PM East 'cause he has to give a long speech, right? That's what they're saying. Maybe it's weathered too. That's so late. It's so late for fireworks. We're still sleep. No, that's crazy. No, the sun goes down. You look up when sunset is. Whenever that is, I want five minutes later, explosions in the sky. Kids would be able to when I was a kid yeah, our town was like nine PM. Yeah. Nine PM eleven. eleven is a wild start. Massachusetts is a late sunset. That makes a lot of sense. Oh, there we go. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm getting on my high horse . So one DC event that will undoubtedly be packed Crooked kind of November. And it's fine to crank one out in front of the mainstage there. Yes. In fact, it's because then Tommy will feel like, you know, yeah, he's got someone else blog you back. Yeah, you know what I mean? He's not the only one doing it. Let her rip . You can still get tickets for that , and you can get discounted tickets if you become a Cricket subscriber. You also get ad free episodes of all your favorite Cricket Pods, subscriber only shows, substack newsletters, and much more. Sign up at cricket dot com slash friends . So with his fair getting rained out on Sunday, Trump spent the morning motorcating around the capital. He's busy rebuilding as a monument to himself. He toured the East Potomac Gulf Links, and we'll start renovations on that federally owned public course september first, despite a federal judge threatening, quote, serious consequences if he moves ahead without approval, which he seems to be doing. The president is also planning to redesign Lafayette Park, which is the one right in front of the White House, so that it contains exactly forty seven maple trees in honor of Trump. That's according to the Washington Post . If you're in town visiting and hop on over to the Washington port P agass ency, you might be able to pick up a limited edition U. S. passport featuring a photo of Trump at the Resolute Desk in front of the Declaration of Independence , which Trump described as saying, quote, welcome, but be good, even though those words don't actually appear on the passport or make any sense. Yes, that's not what passports are for. I did when I saw this, he 'cause he said this passport says this. A lot of people were like, but that's not what passports are for . You're a citizen. It's not a welcoming document. You can only get it here . It's to leave. It's not a green card. Right. It's to leave and come back. I think he's a little confused. But I think he was describing his own portrait in a way. I think it was his way of saying because I knew my angry face here saying welcome, but be good. Well 'cause we could take your pet 's a citizenship thing. We could take your citizenship. Dick. That would be my interpretation of it. Limited edition Act Now supplies last . Closer to home , the Atlantic's Michel Sher found out that the new White House colonade walkway made of quote polished African granite carved in Italy, the Trump said he paid for himself was actually paid for by us about six hundred ninety thousand dollars charged to the taxpayers. I didn't even know that had happened. No, I didn't know . I didn't either replaced. There was apparently another couple hundred thousand dollars spent on the wall next to the colon ade because remember he put up the pictures all the pictures and you had to like do something to the wall. I don't know why it costs that much money but to do something to the wall in order to put up all those pictures . And so that costs money as well. Have you guys said thank you yet? Have you even said thank you? Math scores in the schools are continuing to slide . It's gonna flag some problems that are getting worse while he's been president. I think that the Lafayette Park forty seven tree tribute demand is actually quite instructive because for those who've never been to Washington, DC or gone to Lafayette Park, it is nothing. I can't overstate how underwhelming and shitty of a little park it is. I've been through it a thousand times, I'm sure you guys have too because like you get off the bus or you get off the metro, you walk a block and you walk through it to get to the White House and it's like usually there's just a lot of squirrels and like a couple crazy people and then that one protest has been there for like thirty years the anti war protest. But the fact that like he needs that to be a tribute to himself means that like no narcissistic stone will go unturned by this man. It's also no one knows if he wants to add trees or subtract trees because no one knows how many trees there are in Lafayette Park because who would count such a thing? It's just a park with a bunch of trees. And now we're going to go figure out whether we have to add more trees or take more trees. There are maple trees on it. That's his favorite. Oh yeah, it's got to go with his favorite. Everything's about him. His favorite trees, his favorite, his picture everywhere. I gotta say, though, you know, at this point, the arc great. I want him in as many fucking tree meetings and arc meetings pool meetings as possible. He is not busy enough. If he wants to plant a couple trees, we're just three chopped trees away from it being the Obama Lafayette Park tribute. So whatever, have part plant your fucking trees fucking asshole, but it's where it's the absurdity do you imagine? Could you imagine if if in the last year of his administration Joe Biden was wandering around the various grounds talking about the renovations he was gonna be doing and what kind of reaction you would be hearing right now from the right of You'd be hearing it from us. You be hearing from us. twenty fifth . Oh boy. All right, plant away, buddy. Plant away, yeah, enjoy those trees. Let's get to some more consequential news. The Supreme Court handed down a few big decisions on Monday as it closes out its term. The court declined to throw out the twenty twenty three jury verdict finding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Eugene Carroll, meaning he has to pay her that five million dollars. In a sixth three ruling where three conservatives joined the liberals, the court also held the Fourth Amendment covers your cell phone location history , even when you've agreed that a third party like Google or Apple can record it, meaning police now need a specific warrant to get it rather than a so called geofence warrant that sweeps up the movements of every phone in a particular area.. So that seems good Both of those seem good, right? We have some other ones to get through, but it's thought we'd start with Egye Carroll and the Geofencing. Yeah, I mean the geofencing one is just interesting. It's also interesting that it's like it's a non ideological it has kind of an ideologically mixed ruling in part because I do think it's like a novel question. And if we are going to have kind of allowing these companies to track us digitally, including in ways that in a previous er wouldror have been only private information, then it's still being like Google has already changed their policy. So your location data is stored on your phone. They did that to avoid this issue. But if my phone knows where I am at all times, I view that information as both my private information and useful to me. Whether or not it is stored directly on my phone or stored at a server, it remains my private information in the same way that if I had written it all down and put it in my safe deposit box, it would remain private information. And I think the more when they're thinking about how to translate our principles into a digital world, the more they're respecting how we actually use things and how what privacy really means, not sort of the technical definition that's sort of blown up by how interconnected and cloud based so much of our lives are, the better. Yeah, definitely it's a limited, but it's a win and a good day for privacy. I mean, like the government was trying to argue that just demanding just a little tiny taste of your location history for a discrete period of time was not a search, which is just nonsense. And I think the court saw through that because you can learn a ton from everyone's location history. Soota Moyor laid that out. I think she talked about how you can see that someone went to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the eight treatment center, the strip clubs goes on and on. Then Kagan argued and then to a concert at Jack Off . And Kagan were you at the great American fair? Geoffends that place? Yeah . And then Kagan argued that tracking location data isn't really optional. It's like the price we all pay to use a cell phone. So it was nice to see them have a little techno fluency and understand how this stuff actually works. Gorsuch Kavanaugh Roberts sided with theber Lalsi . Interesting, very interesting group . Gorsuch, Gorsich the other and we'll get to the other ones, but Gorsich is always interesting. He's an interesting one. Unlike tribal rights in particular. Trump said that he would fight back on the Eugene Carroll is powerfully and strongly. It's like, no you won't . He already transferred five point five million dollars to a court controlled account back in twenty twenty three. So she's getting paid. That's the end of the road for Trump on that one. I can't believe that I know I'm glad she's getting her cash money, but man, there were so many avenues for Trump to face some kind of accountability and him losing five million while I'm glad goes to Egene Carroll is not high on the list of ways in which he could have faced consequences. But there's still an eighty three million dollars verdict that he's appealing as well. One deal in Kazakhstan. Right Positive America is brought to you by ZBiotics. I got to tell you guys about a game teaching product I use before any night with drinks. It's called pre alcohol . Zebiotics, pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme that breaks this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. I cannot recommend the zebiotics enough. I will not have a drink without it. I think it is just incredibly effective, especially if you're going out for dinner, you have one extra drink, you're doing a work thing, something on a week night, you need to feel your best the next day. Really saved us in Chicago. You're saved in Chicago, lots of work trips. I cannot recommend it enough. Just give it a shot. Try it one time. Go to ZBiotics. com slash crooked to learn more and get fifteen percent off your first order when you use Cricut to check out. Z Biotics is backed with a hundred percent money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Go to zbiotics dot com slash crooked and use the code crooked to check out for fifteen percent off. Pots of America is brought to you by HIMs. ED is more common than guys talk about. The good news, getting real treatment is simple, and through HIMs, it's one hundred percent online. HIMS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from the privacy of your home, no awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines, just complete a simple online intake and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed your treatment ships directly to your door, that includes Silenophil, also known as generic for Viagra, available through hymns at up to ninety five percent less than the brand name version. And if that option isn't right for you, there are additional treatment options available so you can find what works best for your body. To get streamlined, online access to personalized affordable care for ED and more visit him . com slash crooked that's hi ms dot com slash crooked, hims. com slash cricket. Not available in all fifty states, prescription required, see website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Sildenifil is the generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Vietras Specialty LLC. HIMS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatras There were also two big decisions on the president's ability to fire people at independent federal agencies. The results were split. In a six, three decision , the Conservative majority reversed the court's longstanding precedent and said that Trump can fire people like FDC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter who brought the case without any specific reason . But in a five decision , the court decided that Fed Governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump and Bill Pulte have accused of mortgage fraud, can stand the job while litigation continues. In a post on truth social, Trump said the slaughter ruling quote greatly increases presidential power at a time when it is most needed. He is right about the first part. How do you guys square what the court said about the cook firing versus what it's saying about all the others? So what the court says is the FTC is an entity that exercises executive power . The Fed is different because it's supposed to be a non political entity that is insulated from presidential pressure . And they argue that the Fed has to be independent because even the appearance of political pressure could destroy the faith in the U. S. economy. Now, I think the FTC case is very bad. They threw out ninety one years of precedent. And basically the FTC , the implications go well beyond the FTC. The president can now fire leaders at will from the SEC , the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor relations Board. The list goes on basically on everywhere about the Fed, everywhere with the Fed. And he can sort of paralyze those entities by making them not have enough members they don't have a quorum so they can't even meet. So it's quite bad . The Fed is different because monetary policy has to be free from political manipulation and perceived meddling . But even in this case, like ominously for Cook, the court said that Trump could try to fire her again. They just didn't they said he didn't go through the process, right? He didn't tell her why she was being fired and given her a chance to rebut the charges. And yes, they said that , I think Roberts sort of cordoning off the Fed as a special case means that the ruling was narrow and that said, okay, they got the process wrong. And so while it's still litigating, she can be on the job , but she still have to prove that she did something wrong. She could be fired for cause. Exactly. Right. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president can only move a Fed governor if they are fired for cause and he didn't meet that standard up by presenting any evidence She doesn't get if her case goes away, like then there's no cause. Right, but it won't go away. Ironically , it just puts more pressure on the administration to politically prosecute Lisa Cook until they can claim that she can be fired for cause . What that what will happen? They leave the door open to evaluating whether or not they've met some threshold for cause, whatever that would mean. It's interestinging kind of read going back and forth between the ruling and the dissent because they're all so like mad at each other, which I think is very funny. But then you read Gorsuch, you wrote this really interesting concurring opinion about it. And I see a lot of people today saying when Democrats win oh we'll just put our people in charge and now we'll have that power . But as Sotomayer notes in the dissent, Congress creates the FTC. The court says that these people can be insulated from being fired by the president, and then they give all these independent agencies not just executive authority, right, but legislative authority and judicial authority. So Congress creates these independent agencies and they're kind of quasi legislative, right? They can write rules and regulate and do things that Congress could do. They also do things an executive could do. And the majority decided that given that kind of mix between the authorities, they're going to give all the power to the president, right? So the president is now taking all the legislative authorities that were granted, all the judicial authorities that were granted. And oh, when a Democrat wins, we'll have the same authority but then Gorsuch comes back and says no because we're going to look at this again in the future. So in deciding whether or not to allow there to be an independent agency or not, the court said no, we'd rather make the president like kind of a supreme authority over all these legislative funct ions. But if a Democrat becomes president, we'll just come back and say, no one has this authority. We'll strike a bit of down. That's not what the majority of opinions. No, no, but that's what Gorsuch is saying happens next. And there is going to but that is what happened. It is because Roberts's opinion, Roberts's argument is it's all unitary executive theory and they have been. So Roberts says the president may remove his subordinates at will because subordinates who exercise the president's power must be accountable to him and he to the people. And that's where it ends. But this is the problem because it's not just the president's power, it's congressional power. The reason there was a balance and the reason it makes sense and I think this is why Sotomayor and Kagan are so pissed about it is you're not just giving the president his executive authority. You are stealing power from Congress because Congress delegated some of its power. I agree with that for sure. I'm just saying I think Roberts and Kavanaugh, the unitary executive people would be very comfortable being consistent in with the Democratic president on this kind of stuff, which they have shown before . Except this wouldn't be about where the authority should rest. This would be about saying that now I think it's bad no matter what. I don't think Democratic presidents or Republican president should have But you come back in and then you say, actually , you can't do this because this whole agency shouldn't have been allowed to do this in the first place. So now we're not we're no longer going to say you still are in charge of this whole agency, but we are now going to restrict what this ag allenecyged is all owed to chevron. I think Leah Litman in her conversation with Dan said she was concerned about kind of hypothetical you're talking about there . I mean just like one thing that worries me. So you read this comment from Bill Poulty who tweeted, as I've repeatedly said, I believe Lisa Cook will be indicted for mortgage fraud. No shit. This is a case he cooked up as the U. S. Director of Federal Housing. He is now tweeting this attack on her from his new job as the temporary director of national intelligence. That is chilling. I mean, yeah, the whole thing, I mean, it's it's nice for Lisa Cook. And I actually, you know, what we're talking about is knows what will happen, right? If this comes up again . I think that the shot of this whole thing is there are no more independent agencies except for the Fed the one potentially. And so that means that Justice Department , intelligence, all the rest of them, everything that Trump has done over the last four years now gets to happen again . Like this is this is just this is what the Supreme as long as the Supreme Court majority is in place , they believe that no one has to be independent except for the fed eral. Well, and the distinction they're breaking down, right? Look, it was always the case there were a bunch of executive agencies that the President was totally in charge of. What they're saying is that these independent agencies are no longer independent even though those agencies were made incredibly powerful by Congress in ways that assume that the president would be sole wouldn't be solely in charge of them. And so like the that to me is where the kind of like yes, now FTC looks a lot like the Department of Justice, except the FTC can do more than the D whatepartment of Just ice could do. Meanwhile, in a very close five decision, where John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett sided with the Liberals, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Mississippi law allowing the state to count mail in ballots that are postmarked by election day but ar,rive after . The decision could preempt similar legal challenges by Republicans in at least fourteen other states that continue counting ballots that arrive after election day. Trump whined about the decision and said it proves the need for Senate Republicans to pass his SAVE Act , name dropping the five holdouts on truth social . How meaningful or not do you guys think this is in the context of the larger Trump assault on voting rights? I mean, I think it allows thir likety states to keep their policies in place in terms of how they count mail and ballots. So that's pretty important. I'm sure the ongoing assault on voting rights will continue. I mean, it was a five four decision. It was Trump's DOJ in the RNC trying to strike down the Mississippi law allowing pounds to be counted . I'm glad to see they made this decision. It feels just like part of a broader process of just constantly chipping away. And maybe this chip didn't come undone, but there will be many more attempts. Yeah. So Dan and I talked last episode about how Trump's trying to get the SAVAC passed by refusing to sign the bipartisan housing bill until it is. On Monday, Mike Johnson sent Trump the housing bill anyway, which means that it will become law in ten days unless Trump signs it sooner or vetoes it . The bill passed so overwhelmingly the Congress could override a Trump veto. Though House Republicans are now unclear if they'll have the votes, just listen to what Florida Representative Randy Feyn said on Monday morning. My issue was, if Elizabeth Warren thinks a bill is great, then it probably isn't. And that's sort of how I look. The enthusiasm with which Democrats had for this bill got me spooked. And I didn't come to Washington to work with Democrats. I came to Washington to beat them. Here's a message for you . Did you read the bill before you voted for it? Probably not. And here's what Trump said on Monday when asked whether he'll sign the bill. What are your plans for the housing bill, Mr. President? Are you ? I don't know . I think it's so unimportant by compared to by compared to the save America. When I look at that bill , it's a bill . But when I look at the Save America Act, it's about saving America. To me compared to the Save America Act , just about everything is a big yawn He's bored. Really cares about it. Board of the Iran war. Board of housing just wants to regret. How badly do you guys think Trump and Republicans have fucked up the politics of this bill? And what do you guys think of the final product . I mean, the goal is to boost housing supply and affordability. They're going to streamline environmental reviews and encourage development. I'm not an expert on this stuff. It passed with eighty five votes in the Senate and three hundred fifty eight votes in the House. It was like overwhelming bipartisan support. I will leave it to smarter people to see if it will really solve the job. But like politically speaking , this is a very important issue to the American people. Like voters overwhelmingly think housing costs are really important. Huge majorities want Congress to do something about it. The underlying components of the bill, when you peel them out and pull them are very popular . For young people in particular, they feel like they're never going to be able to afford a home. sixty, seventy percent of majorities . And so to say that that's a big yawn when it could have been your crowning legislative accomplishment on housing as opposed to the SAVE Act, which is a thing that people are like fifty two percent think it's maybe a good idea because there's by the way, there's just not a huge issue in this country of undocumented non citizens registering to vote or whatever the hell he's talking about. It's also not going to pass. It's not going to pass. Republican that's the whole thing. So stupid. Yeah, there's no leverage here. It's funny because part of it, right, is like, this is a housing bill that's about addressing the long term causes of a lack of housing stock and the rising price of housing. There's no like jumping clean fix. He does know that no one's going to feel the effects of the housing bill. For years for years and then if it's a good bill. You can sell it. Yeah, you could try to Biden administration . So yeah , the recovery act is divided into three parts. Right. Yeah. You can try to say it's a good thing. But yeah There was a there was a little like a mini fight as part of this bill for a for the details are complicated , but basically to try to prevent institutional investors from sitting on houses that a lot of experts thought would have kind of a countervailing effect to what the bill was going to do it might actually cause housing prices to go up. Senator Brian Schotz, friend of the show, was accused of being a corporate stooge for pointing this out, including by a lot of progressives. And they did manage to kind of change that rule in such a way that it's no longer going to have that effect and that won the day two, which was, I think, a good victory for the kind of YMB abundance people that were arguing that he wasn't being a corporate steed. He was just talking about basic economics and what the impact would be. But like this was a bipartisan bill. Elizabeth Warren fought hard for this bill. A ton of Republicans voted for this bill. It's a rare kind of policy making victory like from another era. And of course right on the one yard line, they were literally putting up the podium and people were speaking they were speaking at the podium. The event was basically already happened. We were just reading out how excited they were. , Caroline Levit posted about in most important one of the most important bills ever, something to that effect and he just rips the rug out right from under all of them and now they are afraid to support it even though it has a veto proof majority because the dear leader says he would rather rig election. I haven't seen these stories yet but I'm looking forward to the anonymous frontline Republicans in races who were like getting ads ready to tee up the housing bill as part of how they were going to tackle the issue of affordability and work with the other party to show that they're bipartisan because they're in a district that, you know, Kamal Harris won or that Trump only won by a couple. Just hear what they think about this. Another response add is like big yawn. Yes , the president. Exactly. Okay . So that'll be fun. So if he doesn't if he refuses to sign it and Congress doesn't adjourn , it'll become law. But if they don't want to deal with it, they could adjourn Congress and let the thing die. Is that basically the gist of it? What's going to happen? In ten days it becomes lawless he vetoes it. If okay, he's the how would he okay? Yeah. I don't know the contract veto. That's just the that's I don't I don't know. All I've seen is that ten days it becomes a lawn ten days or he vetoes it. You know, listening to the whole thing there, he's going to let it become law. Yeah. I don't think a baby about it. Unless now someone could, who knows, right? He changes his mind on a dime so something could piss him off between now and when he decides to sign it. But there he sounded like fuck I'm annoyed that I have to do this, but I threw a tantrum and now I'm just gonna let this bill become love and I'm not going to be happy about it. That's sort of what I got. He's just cutting off his nose despite his face. Someone gave him really dumb last minute advice about how to use this bill for leverage. Get the save back. It was probably Bill Pulse. Bills is exactly what I was gonna say. The mortgage Yeah, because it's two fashion signs mortgage, mortgage housing and dick. Yeah, and he's also by, the way, he did promise not to sign any new legislation until the Save Act was passed. He just instantly broke that promise. So in a way, he's actually returning to what he had always said he was going to do. He promised to promise This is a promise cat. No legislation from me. Positive America is brought to you by common power . With redistricting happening all across the South, the GOP has made it clear that earning Americans votes is the least of their priorities. And after gutting the VRA, they've doubled down on their attempts to rig the midterm elections. Common power believes that Democrats can still take back the House and the Senate by focusing on three things. One, policies that benefit the working class, two, paying for those policies by taxing billionaires and trillionaires. Three, expanding the Democratic Coalition. Their support has already driven major victories for emerging leaders in New York, Texas and Maine, now common power is focused on the general election, working to ensure wins for Democrats nationwide. Common power is the organizing force behind training and deploying volunteers to door knock for Democrats over fif atty key races across battleground states, Vote Save America partnered with common power in the twenty twenty four election, sending hundreds of volunteers to win important races across the country. As Republicans rely on rigged maps to win, we're relying on people power. For those who refuse to sit this moment out, donate and volunteer with common power at commonpower dot org slash crooked. That's common power dot org slash crooked. Pod save America brought you by Magic Spoon. We love Magic Spoon. We've been talking about it for years. Love the cereal, love the treats. They got like protein bars, protein snack bars . And it just tastes really good. Magic Spoon figured out how to turn treats into something you can actually feel good about eating. The treats are crispy, airy protein packed snack bars with twelve grams of protein, seven grams of fiber, zero grams of added sugar, two to three net carbs, and certified gluten free. And they genuinely feel like a treat, not a sad health bar. They're perfect for tossing your in bag, keep iting in the car, grabbing one between meetings , or just whenever you want a good snack. Flavors include marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter, double chocolate and more, very nostalgic, very dessert coated , but without loading you up on sugar. These hit that sweet tooth itch while actually doing something for you. And if you already know Magic Spoon for their cereal, yes, that's still iconic. And you were worried that it wasn't iconic anymore, but it's still iconic, the cereal tonight. Sure, yeah, yeah. And I that knew's something you were being concern ed about. Iconic and edible also. That's a thing. Tastes really good. I love magic spoon. I do too. I kind of want some of that chocolate peanut butter right now. Not at all. Magic Spoon is easy to find. Just look for magic spoon at your local grocery store and they just rolled out treats nationwide at seven ven ele. And if you haven't tried them yet, check out Magic Spoon's new protein pastries, a high protein low sugar take on the classic toaster pastries you grew up with. You can get five dollars off your next order, including the protein pastries at a Magic Spoon. com slash crooked that's magic spoon. com slash crooked for five dollars off . All right, let's talk about the debate inside the Democratic Party, which is likely to keep raging this week as Colorado becomes the next state to hold primaries on Tuesday . fifteen term Congresswoman Diana DeGet is in danger of losing to twenty nine year old DSA member Milat Kiros. Senator Michael Bennett, who's running for governor, is also getting a serious challen ge from the left. Republicans are having fun with all of this. Trump spent much of the weekend posting about communism, while Democrats offered their takes on the DSA wins in last week's New York primaries. Here's Zoran Mandani himself, Josh Shapiro , and Chris Murphy. Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic member of Congress, says many of us believe as do I, if you're a socialist, you are not a Democrat. And in fact, they put out a manifesto today. today ? It sounds pretty socialist to me. I think Democratic Socialism at the heart is pragmatic because if we cannot deliver for working people, then what is this for? I'm not interested in writing a manifesto or frankly in reading one. I'm interested in delivering and that',s exactly what we've been showing. Democratic voters in New York chose three candidates backed by Zoram Mandani , far left and Democratic Socialist candidates. What message do you take from that about where your party is? Well, you know, those were races in individual districts in a whole other state. I think what is important are the people who are making a lot of noise , who are engaging in these perform ative politics have to now figure out how to deliver results. I'm not a Democratic Socialist, but I do believe that the Democratic Party has been historically way too timid in taking on corporate power . Democrats are not going to win by defending this version of capitalism , but I think we'll be able to offer ideas on how to dramatically reform it rather than throwing out the entire system. All right, well Chris Murphy doing a little Goldilocks at the end there . I've already said plenty . So maybe you guys can kick us off with your reaction to this debate and what it all means. You wait in on this? I did. Yeah, I had a piece I didn't notice that. That's a clip from Thursday's pile. Look, for what it's worth, slot me into the Murphy Camp. I mean, like I think my big takeaway from the New York Elections is how much voters hate the establishment and the status quo. And I think that is not new information po. Ellvery we've seen is like people really hate Trump. They also hate the Democratic Party . Things are not great. These people are pissed. The results, I think, hammer home just how angry voters are and that they are happy to trade, a powerful incumbent for something new to demonstrate that anger. Does that mean that every district is going to want the furthest left candidate? No, look who's on the ballot and from the Democratic Party in Iowa, for example. They're very different than the New York races. That's not surprising at all. I think what's exhausting about this and that you experience is just how much everyone's talking past each other because like a lot of people want the same thing and they're labeling it differently. Like I'm sure there are some DSA members who are like classical socialists like the Marxist Leninist state, but I think most people do not want that . It's certainly not what Bernie Sanders wants. He is talking about redistributing economic power through the democratic process, not viol aent Bolshevik revolution. He believes in civil liberties and elections and change through democratic means. And it's a worldview that is a lot closer to the Labor Party in the UK, or like Nordic countries have then something radical, like Medicare for All the NHS, right? Like these are not crazy ideas, but Trump and Republicans say, Oh, this is communism, right? This is all about drumming up like Cold War era fears and, that is more politically potent than saying you want a Scandinavian welfare state. But I think no one goes after Scandinavian state. Well, they got all that. Social democracy is the term. Yes. They in a country with a two party system , this is inevitable. You're going to have a huge range of opinions within the party from DSA to DLC. And I think if we want to effectively fight back against Trump, we're going to have to find a way to work together and kind of bridge some of these gaps and find common cause on things . And you know, which is where the kind of Josh Gottheimer kind of, you're with us or against us, you're a Democrat or you're a socialist thing. I think it's just reductive and stupid and not helpful. Yeah, it's counterproductive. Why are we doing this? Yeah, I mean, look, I know that you had sort of said your piece about this, and I found very few responses to what you said about trying to persuade you or kind of think about what you're saying and try to respond to it in a way that was sort of treating you as you were acting in good faith. Didn't see a lot of that. Yeah, look it is the internet, so some of the most liberal districts in the country are feeling like they can have someone who is further to left and they know they're going to win in November and they want that kind of person fighting for them or they want to support the person that Bernie and Mandani got behind because they really like them. They don't have a lot of love for establishment figures. They don't feel like establishing politics has done well for them. Even when those establishment figures are to the left , that doesn't mean that Josh Shapiro is not one of the most popular governors in the country or that if there was just a poll out that said who are the most popular political figures? Well, they're Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, right? Like it's a complicated heterodox country and we have to make one big pro democracy coalition. I think that puts responsibility on both sides of this divide. On the Josh Gottheimer, Jamie Harrison , James Carville side , you can disagree with people. I think you should be really critical of them. You should say why you disagree. I think Josh Paper actually did this well. I have strong disagreements. This district in another state that's one district, and I'll defend my views that people should defend their own without saying that these people have no place in our coalition. If you are a democratic socialist, you are not a Democrat. Like you don't get to decide that. The Democratic voters in those districts went to the polls and decided the party reflects what the voters want. The voters aren't meant to follow what the party tells them defines a Democrat. If you Mam Danny had said that in somewhere in that interview that I thought was right. Right. And if parts of your coalition are further than the left than you like, well, have an argument with them, figure out the places where you agree and figure out an agenda together, Joe Biden wins the primary in twenty twenty and actually I thought did a pretty extraordinary job of talking to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and kind of finding a way to bring those people into his coalition to the point where they were some of the people advocating for him the most after he blew the debate . So there are there is a way to bring these sides of the party together. On the other side , it is not a just because someone is on your team and you want to and you don't like the mainstream Democrats and you think they're too centrist doesn't mean that people on the left don't have to answer for some of the dumbest or most heinous things that they've said in their life. Well, but and by the way that people do, we talked about Grand Platinum. P deseeropleve a chance to explain the difference between who they were before they were in public life and who they are now. Now that they have a bigger platform and more responsibility. They deserve that chance, but also that is a responsibility. You are part of a coalition. Speak your mind, say your peace, but also know that like, yes, sometimes Republicans are going to take words either in context or out of context and try to paint people that you should also want to win with what you have said in the past. It's just we're it's collectively doing what is I think the work of being part of one big fractious team. Yeah . AOC was asked about this in an interview with Jen Saki, and you know, she said this without referring directly to Daria Liza Chevalier . But she was like, look, I think what happens is from my experience, when you actually take these jobs and you go into office, the weight of the office and the weight of the job, it does change you and it gives, you know, it makes you realize the responsibility you have, which, you know, what I said on Friday is, look, she has these views that she just articulated a week before the election , not in her old tweets, a week before the election, but maybe she'll go to Congress and vote in a way that doesn't align with some of the more extreme positions, in which case, great. Everyone deserves the grace to change and prove themselves, which is like what I thought that was pretty pretty normal to say. I'm not concerned and again, I'm not concerned about like DSA candidates or progressive candidates knocking off incumbent Democrats in deep blue districts. That's what primaries are for. Primaries are good. I think primaries are good no matter what. If the progressive wins, if the moderate wins, they're primaries. They're fine. That's what the voters want. I'm also not concerned about what DSA wins for Dems in more competitive districts. My only advice for those frontline Dems, which I had said on Friday is don't be afraid to distance yourself from DSA positions that you disagree with. If someone asks you whether you agree with abolishing prisons and police and borders , and you don't, just say that. Say that you don't like the ideas. Say that they're terrible, say that they're not that great. Say whatever you want to say. But like, don't be afraid to say that because then folks on the left will be mad at you that you said you didn't like that idea. You don't have to attack the people and try to purge them from the party. You don't have to attack their character, their person. I don't want to do that with anyone who won. But you can disagree with the ideas . And by the way, like I also and if you and I think there's nothing wrong with saying like, I'm not a socialist and I actually think , you know, socialism, I want to figure out whatever a person like Josh Geithmer would say is their actual point of view, right? I'm not a socialist. I don't agree with social ideas, whatever it looks like. But to say like and therefore, I cast you out as a means to protecting what you think the brand should be, as opposed to saying, and I look forward to having that disagreement approach I want to is make argum my for why I think that it could be such a goddamn reason would say that like, all right, let's discuss this. Let's discuss your ideas and have a debate and we can learn to work together and maybe we can find some common ground on stuff that we do agree on. Yeah, but yeah, it's just posturing a sport of posturing. Like the Gottheimer version of this is frustrating. I think the reaction to you though was sort of like how dare you criticize an elected official? I find that so patronizing and stupid because once you're in an elected office, like everything is up for grabs, you're going to be criticized for everything . It just is what it is. Also the freak out like I think the establishment should be worried about what it means for them electorally, but the people who are like the party's off the rails is going to change everything. Like we heard exactly the same shit in twenty eighteen when AOC beat Joe Crowley and there was all this fearmongering about the squad. And then we nominated Joe Biden to be our Democratic nominee in twenty twenty. And you know what? Establishment moderate. Like and Joe Biden went out there and said for all that he did to bring in Bernie and the left, he also said, and I think defund the police is a horrible idea. And he said it like he articulated it and said it specifically and the left got really mad at him, but it's probably good that he did that because then people know where Joe Biden stood on that issue and didn't lump him in with the left. It's like the Republicans tried to, but it didn't work. The online reaction to you is just the sort of like the most annoying version of an online reaction, which is like it must have been in bad faith. Like, you know, it means you're dead to them. You're like a shill, you're a corporatist. You should be Luigi, like whatever insane literally it's like everyone come the fuck down. It's a political discussion. Somebody did a whole video , put me my picture next to Mike Johnson and said these two are the same. But this is like we've been saying that for years. I know. It's true. I do like to monitor other people's porn. Yeah That's your kink. Well, Mani back to my gods. Yeah. And but also by like Mam Danny. I mean, we interview, I talked to Mom Danny about this directly, right? Like he's so smart. He gets it. But also by the way, like I'm saying that's the thing. It's like AOC so smart about this. He is defending views that I think maybe would be unpalatable to a lot of Americans, but he's the mayor of New York, so he's free to do that. He's evolving on certain things. He's trying to persuade on other things. He did so much work to try to demonstrate to Jewish New York ers that he could be relied on as an opponent of anti Semitism without giving an inch on some of his views that are anti Israel , including condemning the rally that Chevalier went to. Yeah, and so like he I do think online is it's so toxic, right? But like actual organizers, even DSA organizers that are actually trying to do this work, I think probably are not as toxic as what you were getting. Though at the same time , there is there are people in the real world following people like Scott Weener around yelling at them on the street . Let's talk about that then. Scott Weener, the state senator from San Francisco, who's running to replace Nancy Pelosi , was over the weekend surround ed and baraded by a gang of hecklers at the city's annual trans march who told him that his long record of fighting for trans rights was no longer sufficient because of his record on Israel. Let's take a listen. Scott , I want to support someone who's so positive on drams rights, but you're a piece of shit on Gaz a . How could you do that? How could you betray queers? How could you repress these people ? You stop queer the moment you start ing Israel upset . I just want to read from Wiener's website what his positions are on Israel and Palestine . He's publicly called the Israeli government's action in Gaza genocide , joining Bernie Sanders and Representative Balant is one of the only three prominent Jewish elected officials in the country to do so. He's never taken any money from AP AC. He has voted no on military funding for Israel and he supports Palestinian statehood . So that was because he didn't say the word genocide until January . And Weiner said that he left the march because the hecklers, quote, were so physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park. What do you guys think? San Francisco be in San Francisco or is this a bigger deal? No this assholes being assoles. I mean, like I'm fine with confronting elected officials, heckling them, saying whatever, but like he's in a public space. You can't tell this man to leave. And also they're so threatening there and they sound stupid. I'm saying your sexual orientation is predicated on your past comments on Gaza is just like so I don't know Scott Winner, I've never talked to the guy like, but he is by any objective measure an extremely progressive Democrat who like he's probably a touch more mod erate than the squad, say, because of like housing issues . The people filming this stuff ultimately make their movement look bad. They make Wiener look sympathetic, which I assume is the opposite of what the intention was. And I think they also hand Fox News and Republicans a piece of content that they will now use forever to make Democrats, especially progressive Democrats look crazy and aggressive. And so soup to nuts, it was just a fucking terrible , terrible way to conduct politics and to treat another human being. Yeah, I think if you're following around an elected official who is pro gay, pro trans at a trans supporting event and you are yelling at them and saying you're pressing queers because of your position on Israel even though your position on Israel is that you believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, then what you're doing is being an antisemite. If you're following Scott Weener around yelling at him in this park, it is because you are being antisemitic. Talking about his Zionist handlers yelling about him you an areti Semitic. That part. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That is what is that is why you are yelling at this man. Whatever you tell yourself, whatever story you tell yourself online about what you believe and why it's justified That is as pure anti Semitism as you can see. And it is corrosive and it's worth calling out. There's a lot of people like , you know , when someone says that Bradlander in New York Ten won because of anti Semitism against or that anti Semitism played a role, I find that hard to understand because it is a very Jewish district. Bradlander is Jewish, Dan Goldman was Jewish . But that doesn't mean that so I don't like it when antisemitism is used as a cudgel, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth calling out when you see it. And like, give me a fucking break . We live in a world where like every single person with a phone has a megaphone now and can do this kind of thing. So I don't think, you know, talking about the people who followed Scott Wayne like and they're not going, to listen to us or anyone, right? You're not going to be able to ever stop people from being assholes and holding up their phone. I do think that it would behoove people on the left and especially people who have been marching or andganizing in protests for Palestinian rights and have been right on this issue from the beginning to call that out, right? Because this is the like as Tommy said, this is going to be the clip they use to show that Democrats are crazy and all that kind of stuff. And also it's just it's good movement politics to be like, yes, we can hold two ideas in our head at the same time , that it is horrendous what the Israeli government has done and that the most important issue is the fact that Palestin ians are being slaughtered and now people in Lebanon are being killed. And that is the more important issue, but also it's still awful that this happened. And in our movement, we don't want that kind of thing. And we don't believe that. Like that, I think it's very possible to do that. Yes. And believing you didn't see a lot of it. No, and that under that being morally outraged doesn't justify treating people . And like it's obviously these are just random people. You can't a few random people following someone around the whole movement can't be held accountable. It shouldn't be for it and it shouldn't be. However, however, it is more than just that, right? Because you will see people defend ing follow Scott Wiener. You'll see people defend a coffee shop that refuses to serve Dan Goldman. You will see people clay and you will see people describe any figure that criticizes following around Scott Wiener or criticizes what happened to Dengalman as civil politics or kind of formal made upwards . Right. And look, we've made fun of, you know, the Red Hen alert around civility. But being if you want a movement to succeed, it has to be something that is appealing and generative and brings people in and tries to persuade people and treats them in good faith and that's obviously not what happened here. Yeah . All right, when we come back, I'll talk to the DLC 's Heather Williams Pots of America is brought to you by Rocket Money. I've told this on the show before, but I realized I was paying for a British only version of some streaming service just to watch one show and then we watch one eedpisode and then we got rid of it. Yeah, that was terrible. Honestly, Rocket Money will save you a lot of money. They'll track your subscriptions, it'll cancel them within the app with just a few taps. In fact, Rocket Money has saved users over eight hundred eighty million can incelled subscriptions. You can categorize automatic transactions across your accounts and customize categories with tags to help shed light on your spending patterns. Get regular reports on your spending habits. You can even receive real time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills , refunds and low balances. Consolidate your checking, savings, loans and investment accounts into a single dashboard to give you a clear picture of your finances. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocket money dot com slash crooked. That's rocket money dot com slash crooked rocket money dot com slash crookedet . Hey Williams, welcome to Podsave America. Thank you. It's great to be here. So you hear state legislatures as a firewall against Trump stealing an election . And it can sound abstract to people, so maybe you can help make it concrete . If we get a contested presidential results in twenty twenty eight , which chambers are the ones standing between a close call and a stolen one. Where's the actual fight? Oh, that's such a good question. You know, in twenty twenty six, we have rail opportunities to create new majorities in our presidential demand states. So think Minnesota , Wisconsin, Michigan , Arizona, Pennsylvania, these are the places that are going to have huge impacts, obviously, on the twenty twenty eight presidential. And these are places where we can win majorities in twenty twenty six, which will allow us to move legislation as needed to shore up our democracy laws in those states to ensure that we've got a really strong presidential process. Yeah, and I think people don't, maybe not everyone understands, though, probably more people after what happened in twenty twenty , just the power that state legislatures over the electoral process , over sending delegates of electors to Congress. Maybe you can speak a little bit about that. Yeah, that's exactly right. The presidential certification process originates in our states , and that alongside with our voting laws , with our election administration, all of that are state actions . And so the more Democratic majorities we have, the better our elections are , certainly now in this environment. And the opportunities that we have to build that power this year will be sort of immediately put to use right to again ensure that people's votes are counted, they're counted in real ways, regardless of who wins , that the election is certified and that person becomes president. So potential election theft aside , for someone who's not familiar with their state legislature or what state legislatures even do , what's a concrete example of something that a Democratic run state legislature has done over the last few years that's actually, you know, changed people's lives. Oh, the one that I love to talk about is meals for kids in schools, ensuring that every kid has access to a free meal in school. This was something that passed in Minnesota when they had the trifecta. It passed in a number of states since then. It is such a great way think about how do we nurture our kids in our community? How do we make sure that our resources are going into our future? And it also puts a little more money in people's pockets. So you mentioned some of the battleground states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona. Where are the states where Democrats have the biggest opportunities this year? Talk about sort of the map and the target list for you guys. Yeah, so we think about the map of opportunities in building power in the states. And what that means for us is that we are looking at everything from how do we put Democrats in the negotiating room by breaking the Republican power of a supermajority to how do we make sure that our Democratic governors in states where their legislature is Republican have the veto pen and how do we, of course, create new majorities, trifectas for the future. So those places that we can create these new majorities, these new trifectas really are centered in those presidential battleground s. Again, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, winning just nineteen seats in those states will build six new majorities and four new trifectas. Wow. It's amazing, right? And that seeds . And that's where the core fight is going to be . But I think it's important to also mention, right that thinking about how do we build power for the long term, how do we start building back Democrats, particularly in the South , where that break of a Republican supermajority puts Democrats in that negotiating room. It gives them a little more power, it gives them more access to voters, to constituents, and allows them to build back for the future because we know post twenty thirty that the census comes, reapportionment happens and we've got congressional districts that are growing in the south. Yeah, so this is something I think about all the time now is you have all the opportunities for twenty twenty six . There's so many states now where Republicans have taken power in a state legislature and then gerrymandered the state legislature to such a degree that it's almost imposs ible for Democrats to make any ground . And I think about Wisconsin as an example. I remember when Ben Whickler was the party chair there and he would talk about how it's just really difficult because you can elect a democratic governor, but they have gerrymandered the legislature so badly that they can't and ultimately, what fixed Wisconsin was state supreme court elections. So in states where Republicans have gerrymand the legislature. What is the strategy there and how do we make headway in some of those legislatures that are really gerrymandered? Your Wisconsin example is great, right ? So we are winning statewide or could win statewide in Wisconsin . We could win at the Congressional level , although not as much as, I think, what was possible there, right? But couldn't flip those state legislatures. You know, I think the strategy is sort of multi pronged , right? You can't divest in the state legislative races because we do still have legislators there. And those legislators, while maybe not in the majority do still have some power to band together , to bring some folks together on issues that matter a lot, right? Particularly when there's a Democratic governor . Their assurance that he has the veto pen has been really important . So we can't walk away from the state legislatures just because it's hard. But alongside that, in Wisconsin is a great example where the Supreme Court mattered deeply . You know, these Supreme Court races are sometimes partisan, sometimes nonpartisan. But we need to make sure that we let voters know the values of these candidates and that we are thinking about a court strategy alongside our electoral strategy. And then I think the third thing, right, and this varies by state, Wisconsin is not a great example of this , but others are where there's ballot initiative opportunities . That is another way in Michigan, right? We've got a people not politicians process that put a nonpartisan commission in Michigan that has incredibly competitive legislative seats and chambers. And those are sort of the three anchor ways that I think that you really start to build back. One thing that surprised me is I assume one reason Democrats have been at a disadvantage is because Republicans outs pent us on the state legislative level. But in twenty twenty four, the Democratic side outspent the RSLC , the Republican counterpart to you guys, roughly one hundred seventy five million dollars to forty nine million a little better than three to one, still lost the Minnesota trifecta in the Michigan House . So if beyond money, what are some of the biggest challenges that the party has faced at the state level? The attention battle , right? These races are , you know, folks know these candidates less. They're often first time candidates, right? They're running for the first time. Their name ID's not great. They don't have a record right to run on . And that attention fight is really important. And I think the thing when you couple the attention with the money and you think about these battleground states , we have competitive races up the whole ballot. So when you think about a low name ID candidate that's running for state legislature, but has a great story to tell competing for people's time and brain space in the election season is really hard. So I think as much as we can run as tickets, as much as we can support in coordinated campaigns and other statewide efforts, what is happening at our local races, it's really important. That's also going to be an issue of sort of the hollowing out of local news and the disappearance of local news because if you're reading about politics now you're reading about national politics and you',re read ifing about national pol itics, you're reading about presidential level, maybe congressional level, but probably not much about your state state . That is exactly right. I imagine that in that situation the ground game field probably has to be even more critical than even sort of the media strategy. Yes. The direct voter contact by the candidates is the most important thing that these racists do. These candidates, you know, these districts are small enough in most cases where the candidate can knock the door of every voter in their district . They still live in their districts. So they're going to the grocery store and drop off and the li tobrary where else alongside voters and constituents. And they are sort of never off duty . And that means that their muscle of communicating and talking about the things they care about, what they believe in, why they're running for office , what's happening nationally and how they put it in their own words . That's happening all the time and they're building that muscle. I think we call it now, they're authentic communicators , but truly like they're just normal people who are having conversations with their neighbors. So the recruitment numbers are really impressive in Minnesota. I think you guys filled every district. Kansas has the biggest slate in thirty years. Question I had, how does the recruiting pitch go for a candidate who lives in a district where Republicans routinely win by twenty to thirty points? Because that is hey, getting people to run for office in the first place, difficult, getting people to run for office in a place where the climb is very steep . I imagine that's even harder. It is. This is the thing that I was most nervous about this cycle was coming out of twenty twenty four , starting this year off , how are we going to get people to run for office? And then, of course, we had the horrific assassination of Speaker Hortman in Minnesota . Another reminder, right, of how difficult it is to run for office. It didn't come true. Like people were really excited to run for office. And I think , you know, we work hard to make sure that candidates across the country have some level of tools and sort of toolkits, right to run for office . But I think what we've seen is our ability at this ballot level to connect with voters in all kinds of communities this year and win elections. We've already flipped thirty seats. Some of these have been in ruby red districts is a reminder that if we don't show up, if someone doesn't show up, we can't even compete let alone win. And this really feels like a year where people are seeing that one way to change the direction of the country is to change the people in power and you've got two options in that. You vote or you run for office . And we are seeing that all over. It's just incredible. I'm sure there's an incredible diversity of candidates that you've recruited , but is there any sort of demographic group or type of candidate or profession that keeps showing up more this cycle compared to other cycles. You know, it's interesting that you asked this question in part because you know our candidates tend to be middle class. They tend to be like I said, first time candidates, they tend to be maybe not your sort of made for TV sort of politician . And that is what is what is so great about the spallot level. It's what's great about our state legislatures is you've got real people trying to solve real problems I feel like there is a stronger spotlight on that and you're noticing it more . It feels just different than you stereotypically have seen in sort of national politics . Student council president exactly to law school as lawyer. Right lawyer, right, yeah. Exactly . And I think that the value of these candidates is their ability to say , you know, I get I get what you're dealing with. Here's my story and how I'm dealing with it and how it's challenging for me. This is my own personal antidote of what is happening here, but I get it. I hear you . And like, we may have slightly different views of how this can come together , but we can talk about it . And I think, you know, that is really what we're seeing in these candidates. It's great. Obviously, the Democratic Party's national favorability rating is in the basement . And yet state legislative Democrats routinely run ahead of the National Party brand . What are your candidates doing that the National Party can't seem to do? These candidates are community organizing, right? They are still talking about the thing that's happening in your backyard . And if you talk to someone who has been in office in the state legislature, you will hear them say like they are problem solvers on behalf of their community. They are connecting constituents with federal agencies that are solving their problem. They're trying to get their trash can that had gone missing and they hadn't been able to get it back . They are able to take these big policies. I like to use the infrastructure bill as an example and break it down into community impact . You know, the infrastructure bill, what does it mean for our community? It means that this road is going to be fixed and twenty minutes is going to be cut off your commute time. You're going to have forty minutes a day back in your life to do whatever it is that you want to do. That ability to really localize the national issues is really the art form of this ballot level. Everything is about your neighbor. And as much as we are a country divided, people still care a lot about their communities and their neighbors and that is what separates things. For the person listening right now who's surrounded by Trumpy neighbors and is sure Democrats have no shot where they live, what do you say to that person? What should they do? Get involved in your state legislative race , seriously, like it is it will broaden what you think. It'll broaden your view of your neighbors, right? But it'll also give you that opportunity to have those conversations . You know, these legislative candidates are surrounded by friends and family who are volunteering and talking to voters on their behalf, persuading them all the way to the end of the election. And it is in conversation that we move the needle together . You know, even those of us that are far apart maybe not maybe not on the supermaga end of things, but on the disillusioned Republican that no longer feels like they have a place in Trump's Republican Party. Like there's a real opportunity to dialogue and have that conversation and find some level of common ground and honestly just listen and hold space for people and that is that is what is being craved everywhere. Last question. Yeah , give us the state legislative chamber people aren't paying enough attention to that you'll be watching on election night and what it'll tell us if it goes our way . Ooh , man. Okay , so I'm going to take this in two ways. One , the one that I care most about is Minnesota. I just it's my home state as I hasn't been through a lot. We've been through a lot there . We just I really want to get that one back. So that's my personal take on it. I think if we are having just an incredible like year , there's real things happening in Arizona. Yeah, I saw Arizona on the list and I was like, Oh wow. How do we go from Arizona being so red to now two Democratic senators, Katie Hobbs as governor, and I guess the legislature is up for grabs to them? It very much is. And I think this starts to tell us, right, that big things are happening . But we're in an environment right now where if the election was held today, I think we've got roughly a plus four environment that we're seeing at our bout level , that means that we could flip as many as six hundred plus seats . There is a lot in play and these races are often run on the margins . So we got this big spreadsheet as everyone does on e anlection night that we watch and it's gonna be exciting. Heather Williams, thanks for joining Podsave of America and good luck out there. Thank you.