It's great to see you. You've spent many years working with

Chuck Schumer and he appears to be on the verge of a breakthrough here with

Republicans in his chamber and the president.

How do you see this ending? It looks like a huge victory for

Schumer. For Rosa DeLauro.

For mainstream Democrats, this is what they called for six, seven weeks ago

with some minor, minor alterations. This looks like what the deal is going

to be. We're going to split off, you know, the

parts of Homeland Security and Customs Enforcement, border enforcement from the

rest of the bill. Everything else is going to get funded.

So big, big win for the Democrats. Have you seen something like that happen

where they split a funding bill, splinter a funding bill to please one

side or the other politically here, left the other?

I mean, this is kind of an interesting maneuver.

I don't know if I've ever seen this before.

It's something like everyone says, like we're in unprecedented times.

So we had unprecedented times. And so the government's funded

presumably then for the rest of the year.

Right. ICE has money for several years, Right.

What will Markwayne Mullin mean at the head of this agency, if anything?

The masking was not accomplished. I don't know where we are with judicial

warrants, for instance. All that still needs to be hammered out.

Right? So.

So, look, I think Democrats wanted a couple of things.

One is to split off the funding here. The other is they wanted to get rid of

Kristi Noem, who was unqualified, media addicted, try to please the boss, like,

should not have had the job. Mm hmm.

Who knows how well Senator Mullen's going to be.

But it is a departure. It is going to be presumably a more

professional running of Department of Homeland Security.

I do believe there is some desire among the administration and Republicans to

tame ICE. They don't want to admit it too loudly,

but this issue has rebounded poorly for them in the last six months.

I wonder if the next couple of weeks or days at airports might change the way

people view ICE with no masks and apparently getting along fairly well

with people with some exceptions. Everybody wants to get out of here in

time for recess. I realize.

So there's kind of fast walking this potentially right now.

But what about the parliamentarian? How do you take portions of the SAFE Act

and put that in a reconciliation bill and get that through the

parliamentarian? Is that possible?

I don't think it's possible. Now, somebody just like lawyers can

argue on all sides. Somebody is going to draft up

legislation on the Republican side and make the argument to the parliamentarian

that this is a principally a revenue matter, not a, you know, a policy

matter. For those not familiar.

Reconciliation is a special procedure in the Senate that allows you to avoid a

filibuster in rare occasions when it is a purely budgetary, budgetary revenue,

you know, revenue associated, associated,

you know, legislation. So they've got to go through budget

resolution first, take it through the Budget Committee, instructions to

committees, and then put this on. And then it has to clear the

parliamentarian. I don't I don't see how that will end up

being something under the guise of funding for states to enact voter I.D.

policy or something like that, If that's even a swing, even that may not work

because that sounds like an appropriation, not mandatory spending,

which is really where reconciliation ends in.

All right. Keep this in mind.

Just pack that away. We're not there yet.

I want to talk about this important poll that you conducted at Third Way that you

were kind to bring to us here. You guys worked with the Global Strategy

Group. It was an online survey, 1400 registered

voters back in February. And this is not the first swing that

you've made with this group, Right? Who say they are likely to vote in a

Democratic presidential primary. So brings us to the headline here, the

truth about Democratic primary voters. And you can't find the truth without

first identifying who they are. And you went to great lengths to tell us

who Democratic primary voters are. What did you learn?

Yeah. So these are voters that say they're

going to vote in a Democratic primary. They're taking from, you know, voter

lists as well. What we learned is Democratic primary

voters are not nearly as progressive as the media.

Certainly online media portrays them. They are looking for a Democrat to elect

a Democrat who is a fighter, but more a fighter for reform, more of a fighter in

the moderate lane than the progressive lane.

And their number one issue, frankly, is electability.

They want to be able to they are so concerned about Trump.

They're concerned about Republicans in Congress.

They want someone who can win over someone that, let's say they agree with

every checklist item. Okay, short list.

I was fascinated by this dichotomy of fights for or fights against.

People want a fighter you established. That.

But there are, depending on where you fall on the spectrum here of of of

Democrat, it depends where you're going to fall on this particular issue from

moderates you're going to be a fighter for.

And we always hear people come on the program where you can't just run against

Trump. Well, a lot of people want you

progressives and even socialists, as you find, want someone who's going to fight

against a certain issue person or a thing.

How does that shake out and when you're when you're managing a campaign?

Right. So the when we asked people to sort of

identify where they are ideologically among Democratic primary voters, about

16% say I'm either a progressive or socialist, about 40% say I'm a moderate.

Another 37% say that I'm a liberal. And it's all kind of in between.

But the so there's a 2 to 1 margin of moderates over progressives and

socialists. And the moderates want someone like

fight for an economy that is going to work for me, fight for affordability,

fight for schools that teach fight for government that is accountable, fight

for a balanced approach at the border, you know, with a strong border and

humane interior policy on immigration on the progressive side.

A lot of it is like take on Trump, take on Republicans

fighting for certain things like democracy.

And moderates are concerned about democracy, but it's far lower on the on

the list. So there's a,

dare I say, more fight for the optimistic side of politics among the

moderates. So this is interesting that we're having

this conversation. You and your colleagues at Third Way are

known for being dangerously centrist, right in Washington.

That upsets some people. And you're seeing this sort of bias in

media coverage and the assumptions that we make that, well, progressives and

left leaning Democrats are going to be more likely to vote in primaries just

like, you know, hard right voters are going to thought that's the base they're

going to. MAGA is going to show up at the primary.

You clearly feel like this is a narrative that needs to be corrected.

It does. And look, there's a when you get to the

general election, both both parties have a different dynamic.

For a Democrat to win in a typical swing district or state.

At a minimum, that Democrat needs to win 60% more likely 65% of the

self-identified moderate vote. Republicans only need to win 40.

You know, even some like 38% the moderate vote to win their races.

So Democrats need to appeal more to the center to win in the general electorate.

But it also means in the primary electorate, our primary electorate is

much more dominated by moderates than progressives and socialists, certainly.

But those moderates are not online. They don't post on social media.

53% of moderate Democratic primary voters never post online about politics.

Never. So they're they don't want to be part of

that crazy debate right out there about whether Bad Bunny is good for America.

And I hope they're still listening. And I'm really taken by the conclusion,

this whole poll to what you say. This is what commentators and candidates

alike should be reminded of. Twitter is not real life.

Primary voters are pragmatic. They don't want their nominee to go so

far left. You say in a primary that they cannot

win against MAGA and the general Twitter is not real life.

You put that on your tombstone, maybe? Jim Kessler Absolutely, because I have a

Twitter addiction problem. You do self.

I'm online all the time. But you have to tell campaigns this,

right? Absolutely.

Stay off Twitter. And it's very hard because you can raise

money on Twitter, too, but that's for sure.

Yeah. My God.