00:00It's great to see you. You spent many years working with Chuck Schumer, and he appears to be
00:03on the verge of a breakthrough here with Republicans in his chamber and the president.
00:09How do you see this ending? It looks like a huge victory for Schumer, for Rosa DeLauro,
00:15for mainstream Democrats. This is what they called for six, seven weeks ago.
00:21With some minor, minor alterations, this looks like what the deal is going to be.
00:26We're going to split off the parts of Homeland Security and customs enforcement,
00:33border enforcement from the rest of the bill. Everything else is going to get funded.
00:37So big win for the Democrats.
00:39Have you seen something like that happen where they split a funding bill, splinter a funding bill
00:44to please one side or the other politically here? I mean, this is kind of an interesting maneuver.
00:50I don't know if I've ever seen this before.
00:52I mean, look, everyone says like we're in unprecedented times.
00:56Yeah, here we are.
00:56Like we're in unprecedented times. That's what's happening.
00:58So the government's funded, presumably then, for the rest of the year, right? ICE has money
01:02for several years.
01:03Right.
01:03What will Mark Wayne Mullen mean at the head of this agency, if anything? The demasking
01:09was not accomplished. I don't know where we are with judicial warrants, for instance.
01:12Right.
01:13All that still needs to be hammered out.
01:14Right. So look, I think Democrats wanted a couple of things. One is to split off the funding here.
01:21The other is they wanted to get rid of Kristi Noem, who was unqualified, media addicted,
01:27tried to please the boss, like should not have had the job. Who knows how well Senator Mullen's
01:34going to be. But it is a departure. It is going to be presumably a more professional running
01:40of Department of Homeland Security. I do believe there is some desire among the administration
01:46and Republicans to tame ICE. They don't want to admit it too loudly. But this issue has
01:52rebounded poorly for them in the last six months.
01:55I wonder if the next couple of weeks or days at airports might change the way people view
01:59ICE with no masks and apparently getting along fairly well with people, with some exceptions.
02:06Everybody wants to get out of here in time for recess, I realize. So there's they're kind
02:11of fast walking this potentially right now. But what about the parliamentarian? How do you take
02:17portions of the SAVE Act and put that in a reconciliation bill and get that through the
02:23parliamentarian? Is that possible?
02:25I don't think it's possible. Now, somebody, just like lawyers can argue on all sides,
02:31somebody is going to draft up legislation on the Republican side and make the argument
02:36to the parliamentarian that this is a principally a revenue matter, not a policy matter. For those
02:45not familiar, reconciliation is a special procedure in the Senate that allows you to avoid a filibuster
02:51in rare occasions when it is a purely budgetary revenue associated legislation. So they've got to go
03:05through budget resolution first, take it through the budget committee, instructions to committees,
03:11and then put this on. And then it has to clear the parliamentarian. I don't I don't see how that
03:15So it'll end up being something under the guise of funding for states to enact voter ID
03:20policy or something like that. If that'll be the swing.
03:23Even that may not work because that sounds like an appropriation, not mandatory spending,
03:30which is really where reconciliation comes in.
03:33All right. Keep this in mind. Just pack that away. We're not there yet. I want to talk about
03:37this important poll that you conducted at Third Way that you were kind to bring to us here. You guys
03:43worked with a global strategy group. It was an online survey, 1400 registered voters back in February.
03:48And this is not the first swing that you've made with this group, right? Who say they are likely to
03:53vote in a Democratic presidential primary. So it brings us to the headline here. The truth about
03:58Democratic primary voters. And you can't find the truth without first identifying who they are. And
04:04you went to great lengths to tell us who Democratic primary voters are. What did you learn?
04:09Yeah. So these are voters that say they're going to vote in a Democratic primary. They're taking from,
04:12you know, voter lists as well. What we learned is Democratic primary voters are not nearly as
04:19progressive as the media, certainly online media portrays them. Yeah. They are looking for
04:26a Democrat to elect a Democrat who is a fighter, but more a fighter for reform, more of a fighter
04:32in the moderate lane than the progressive lane. And their number one issue, frankly, is electability.
04:39They want to be able to, they're so concerned about Trump. They're concerned about Republicans
04:44in Congress. They want someone who can win over someone that, let's say they agree with every
04:49checklist item on the policy list. Okay. Sure.
04:52I was fascinated by this dichotomy of fights for or fights against. People want a fighter. You established
04:59that. But there are, depending on where you fall and on the spectrum here of Democrat,
05:07it depends where you're going to fall on this particular issue. For moderates, you're going to be
05:13a fighter for. And we always hear people come on the program, well, you can't just run against Trump.
05:17Well, a lot of people want you. Progressives and even socialists, as you find, want someone who's
05:23going to fight against a certain issue, person, or thing. How does that shake out when you're managing
05:28a campaign? Right. So when we ask people to sort of identify where they are ideologically,
05:35among Democratic primary voters, about 16% say, I'm either a progressive or socialist. About 40% say,
05:45I'm a moderate, another 30-some percent say that I'm a liberal, and they fall kind of in between.
05:51But the, so there's a two-to-one margin of moderates over progressives and socialists.
05:57And the moderates want someone like, fight for an economy that is going to work for me,
06:03fight for affordability, fight for schools that teach, fight for government that is accountable,
06:08fight for a balanced approach at the border, you know, with strong border and humane interior
06:14policy on immigration. On the progressive side, a lot of it is like, take on Trump,
06:20take on Republicans, fighting for certain things like democracy. And moderates are concerned about
06:26democracy, but it's far lower on the list. So there's a, dare I say more, fight for the optimistic
06:33side of politics among the moderates. So this is interesting that we're having this conversation.
06:37You, you and, and, and your colleagues at Third Way are known for being dangerously centrist,
06:44right? In Washington, uh, that upsets some people. And, and you're seeing this sort of bias in media
06:51coverage and the assumptions that we make that, well, progressives and, and, and left-leaning
06:56Democrats are going to be more likely to vote in primaries, just like, you know, hard right voters are
07:01going to, that's the base. They're going to, MAGA is going to show up at the primary. You clearly feel
07:06like
07:06this is a narrative that needs to be corrected. It does. And look, there's a, when you get to the
07:11general election, the both, both parties have a different dynamic for a Democrat to win in a
07:16typical swing district or state at a minimum, that Democrat needs to win 60 process, more likely 65%
07:25of the self-identified moderate vote. Republicans only need to win 40, you know, even some like 38%
07:33the moderate vote to win their races. So Democrats need to appeal more to the center to win in the
07:38general electorate. But it also means in the primary electorate, our primary electorate is much more
07:46dominated by moderates than progressives and socialists, certainly, but those moderates are
07:51not online. They don't post on social media. 53% of moderate democratic primary voters never post online
08:01about politics. Never. So they're, they don't want to be part of that crazy debate right out there
08:08about whether bad bunny is good for America. I hope they're still listening. And I I'm really taken by
08:15the conclusion, this whole poll to, to what you say, this is what commentators and candidates alike
08:21should be reminded of. Twitter is not real life. Primary voters are pragmatic. They don't want their nominee
08:27to go so far left. You say in a primary that they cannot win against MAGA and the general Twitter
08:31is not real life. We'll put that on your tombstone. Maybe Jim Kessler. Absolutely. Because I have a
08:35Twitter addiction problem myself. Oh, I'm on all the time, but you have to tell campaigns this,
08:41right? Absolutely. Stay off Twitter. And it's very hard because you can raise money on Twitter too,
08:46but that's for sure. Yeah. My God.
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