The Democratic party's in a tense moment

right now and the implosion of Graham

Platner Senate campaign in Maine has

become a focal point for those tensions.

>> Democrat Grant Platner said he is

dropping out of his state senate race.

It follows allegations of rape and

physical abuse, which he denies.

>> I just want to make it clear this is all

false.

>> After months of debating what the

lessons of Platner's sudden rise were,

now it's all about the lessons of his

even more sudden [music] fall. And every

faction has a lesson and wants the other

faction to learn. To the Democratic

establishment, it shows the failures of

the populace to vet their candidates.

You can't trust them. Look at how

Platner fell apart under scrutiny. What

if that had happened after the date when

Maine's Democratic party could still

choose a new candidate? The populace

want to protect what Platner seemed to

be proving [music] before his implosion.

That the Democratic establishment is

intensely vulnerable, that it's out of

touch with [music] the electorate.

Platner did after all beat Janet Mills,

the sitting governor of Maine, Chuck

Schumer's handpicked candidate before

his campaign [music] collapsed. And a

lot of the anger has focused on Morris

Katz, a strategist at the political

consulting firm Fight Agency. You may

not have heard of Morris Katz, but he is

a consultant in his late 20s, so he's

young. And he sort of burst onto the

scene as Zoran Mdani's key political

adviser and then as Platner's

strategist. But before that, Katz was

the admaker for John Federman's [music]

2022 campaign. He was one of the key

strategists on Dan Osborne's independent

run for Senate in Nebraska in 2024.

[music] So, there's been a certain kind

of working class coded populist campaign

[music] that cats has really become

central and defining. So, here was this

guy who people really hadn't heard of

before and it [music] was the right-hand

man of the two Democratic politicians

probably getting the most press this

year. And now among both the left and

the center, the knives are out for him.

You [music] have all these stories about

the slipshot way he was running the

campaign. He had a DSA letter being

circulated trying to argue that the DSA

shouldn't work with him any longer. And

I think you can really see this one both

ways. Catz made genuinely huge mistakes.

It is very possible that the failure to

effectively vet Platner could have cost

Democrats the Senate this year. Katz has

also clearly figured something out about

this political moment that strategists

many years a senior have not. So I

wanted to have him on the show. Ask him

both about what he clearly has gotten

right and what he just as [music]

clearly got wrong. As always my email

esroclow@ny

times.com. [music]

>> Morris Katz, welcome to the show.

>> Thanks for having me. It's good to be

here. So, we're talking in the aftermath

of Graham Platner's campaign imploding

after a credible accusation of rape.

There's a lot of people angry at you,

some of the people you worked with for

poorly vetting Platner, but also, I

think, for attacking people who are

trying to raise the alarm on him. So,

now that you've had some time to digest

what's happened, what do you think went

wrong?

I think a lot of the critiques and and

anger

are are fully valid, you know, like I

think I've been very critical of the

democratic establishment frequently. And

where those critiques come from is not

that they make mistakes. It's that they

make the same mistakes over and over

again because learning from those

lessons would pose a threat to their

kind of power. Um, and I don't want to

do that. And I think there are like

things here, many of the critiques that

have been made that are incredibly valid

and things to learn from. You know, I

think the conversation around the

vetting, uh, there is no standard

vetting process that would have found

the credible allegation that ended the

campaign. You know, Eric Swallwell

served on the House Intelligence

Committee for a decade and then saw

similar allegations end his campaign.

That being said, I think in in

hindsight, knowing what we know now,

the Reddit posts alone probably should

have been enough or should have been

enough. Um, the tattoo should have been

enough. The initial New York Times story

on troubling behavior should have been

enough. And I think both things can be

true that we need different kinds of

candidates running outside of the

political arena and that it's the United

States Senate and candies should be held

to an incredibly high standard. And

there are a lot of incredible people who

are not part of the political arena, a

lot of incredible working-class

Americans across the country who don't

have those problematic Reddit posts or

who don't have a problematic tattoo or

don't have quite the level of um

controversy in their past.

>> You described the Reddit post for him at

one point as an asset.

I think that there was a belief that I I

am still kind of wrestling with of I

think over the course of the campaign,

one of the things that was really

frankly inspiring to see I think we have

so little grace in our politics and so

little room for nuance and it felt like

this opened up a lot of those

conversations. You know, you saw people

just extend such grace and open up their

hearts and be willing to hope and

believe in not just that we could change

our politics, but that people could

change. And I think like that was

something we needed and I don't want to

to lose that. I don't want people's

lesson from this to be that there should

never be room for grace. And I think

that there are a lot of there are a lot

of people who've made mistakes or said

controversial things who we want to win

the support of, who we need to earn the

trust of. But I also think I was wrong.

And

not it's not to say that everyone who

has said controversial things on Reddit

would then have things like this come

out. Like that's I don't think that's

the case. But it's to say that there's a

higher risk there of it happening when

there are things like that and there's

too much at stake and there are so many

people who don't have that potential

liability and you know it's the United

States Senate. I

>> I want to go back to the the beginning

of it. The story has been somewhat told

by by Dan Morov but I haven't really

heard you tell it in public. So how did

you meet Graham Platner? How did you

find him? What was the process that led

you to him?

>> The initial kind of factor that led to

the broader efforts of recruitment in

Maine was uh a lot of angst around Janet

Mills being the presumptive nominee. You

know, this was someone who was polling

as one of the least popular governors in

the country, who would have been the

oldest freshman member of the United

States Senate in Senate history. Um, and

who had made a lot of enemies out of key

components of Maine labor unions. uh

tribes

and you know a network of us kind of

connected with different local folks,

labor leaders, organization leaders with

a vision of recruitment. Um and I think

one of the important factors in that is

you know there's been a lot of criticism

obviously around it but many of the

people and I still believe this who are

best equipped to serve are not people

who are going to raise their hand and

sign up for it. And so there was a you

know a lot of conversation thought

around you know the kind of candidate

who could win Maine would be a veteran

would be someone from outside of the

Portland area IDE you know a community

in which Trump won and someone tied to

an industry that has a specific

resonance in Maine. You know the kind of

waterfront industry was a leading factor

there and that was then a a broader

process and a series of meetings that

led folks to Graham. So you're you're

looking in a way for someone in who's

doing lobstering, who's an oyster farm,

who's a fisherman, right? You're you're

you're looking for you're almost casting

a candidate. I think it's listening to

the kind of specificities of an area and

the specificities specificities of the

problems facing that area and seeing

like who's the voice that should be

representing these people in Washington.

Who should be fighting for them in

Washington? Who's most in touch? I think

there we have a problem of like the

lived realities of so many of the people

who run for office are so disconnected

from the lived realities of the people

they're running to represent. there is a

friction there that is impossible to

reconcile. And so how do you overcome

that?

You need people who don't have that same

gap. So why not somebody like Troy

Jackson, right? Who's now going to be it

looks to be the the nominee. And I I

find this interesting because Jackson is

somebody who, you know, I think fifth

generation logger if I'm not wrong. Uh

very very populist politics.

Doesn't have platinum charisma. just a

like I think it is fair to say that has

been a state senate president there has

this kind of mix of like the right

politics but also you know an insider a

person who's been in politics for a

while was that why he was not the sort

of exciting figure for you guys

>> Troy was really committed to running for

governor at the time I think if Troy

Jackson was running for Senate there

would not have been a process

>> what did you see in plat when you first

met him what was that conversation like

>> I saw someone who lived on the same road

he grew up on who clearly loved Maine a

lot um and who I thought really

articulated in a powerful way both a

story that could capture the anger and

angst um that so many people feel over

the status quo but also had like an

affirmative vision of what government

could do about it. How many people did

you and Morph and and Leanne

collectively meet with before settling

on Platner?

>> There were a number of meetings of which

I was not a part of, but the kind of

entire process was not limited. You

know, it was an extended process that

landed on Graham

>> and it was a an effort to convince him,

right? I I've read like there were like

30ome efforts to get off his lawn.

>> Yes. Yeah. Um he he had been I think the

state senate tried to recruit him in

2020. He had been I think a number of

people had reached out over the years of

you should run for office, you should

run for office and he had a kind of you

know he liked what his life was and

articulated a skepticism of of uh it

being possible to defeat Janet Mills and

um so it was a running process.

>> So I know when you did settle on him

there was a vetting document created.

What did that document find?

>> The document found a a Reddit account.

Essentially, there was uh the

inclination that there were problematic

posts on Reddit, not the full degree of

what later came out, but that was the

extent of what that document found. And

I think like an even more robust process

would have found more of the specific

Reddit comments and potentially the

tattoo. Um, but again, like a standard

vetting process probably doesn't uncover

most of the things that came after. So,

one of Platiner's old Reddit posts

regarding victims of sexual assault

stated, "Holy how about people

just take some responsibility for

themselves and not get so up they

wind up having sex they don't mean to?"

So, that's from 2013. What do you think

when you hear it now? I think it should

have been a red line.

I think, you know, we

he talked about it being like one of the

things he regretted saying the most that

it was indicative of a time of Finn's

life when he was lost, when he was

angry. um and that it was in no way

reflective of who he was. And I think

when I, you know, when I talk about the

need for a different kind of standard

for public office, I think we can both

have a standard of which a normal person

can say something deeply hurtful and

harmful online and not be exiled from

society in day-to-day life if they're if

they've changed, if they're putting the

work to change. But also, that doesn't

mean that they're entitled to a role in

elected office.

So I'm a big believer in grace in

politics and I think that we need to

create a lot of space for people to

change everybody from politicians to to

voters.

One of the things that really shifted my

thinking on plat though was something

that that you did know early on which is

about him sexing as many as a dozen

women in the early days of his marriage.

So there was this narrative that I

found, you know, at least I was very

open to it, which is this is a guy with

a dark past, with a tough past who'd put

in a lot of work and and changed and he

asked to be judged on his present.

So when that came out, it made me wonder

about his present. And particularly what

it made me wonder about fundamentally

was his honesty.

But you know, we sort of publicly didn't

know that for quite some time. it was

brought to the campaign early on through

his wife Amy.

What did you think when you learned

about that and and why sort of combined

with some of these other things, the

Toten Coff, the Reddit posts,

why did that not begin to worry you more

about whether or not he could actually

be trusted in what he was saying? I I

think it both did worry me more and some

of those concerns at the time were eased

by the communication from Amy herself

and from Graham of that this was

something that they worked through

extensively in their marriage that

seemed like a kind of good faith

engagement of two married people working

through a difficult thing and working

through it together and handling it in

all the ways that you know that one

would handle something like that once it

came up. Um, and I wanted to, I think,

respect both the privacy of their

marriage and that and also even like I

think there's, you know, there's a

difference between consensual sexing,

uh, and the allegations that ended the

campaign. And I think that there was I

was trying to kind of hold room for all

of those different things at once. And I

think it does kind of I think the

challenge of all of this was like as

someone who does deeply believe in in

grace and in nuance and the fact that

people are complicated and life is

complicated and maybe politics should

reflect a little bit more of that. There

was a constant weighing of like how much

is too much

>> and you know what's what is the red line

and I think obviously I did not see it

soon enough.

>> Other people who were involved did see a

red line sooner. So Jenny V. McDonald

was campaign's political director. She

resigned back in October 2025

around a lot of she she knew about the

sexing. She knew about the Red Posts,

the toten cop tattoo. And so it's been

reported that when you heard she was

speaking to the Wall Street Journal

about Platner's cheating, you demanded

you retract her comments that she send

you a recording of her talking to the

reporters retracting her comments and if

not sort of you would uh like attack her

for sabotaging the campaign.

Do you owe her an apology? Have you

apologized to her?

>> So there are parts of that description

that I would uh

take some issue with. I think the thing

on that specific issue that I was

articulating was I believe that it was a

violation of Amy's privacy and of you

know part of the for all the

conversation about vetting part of what

the vetting process requires is a lot of

honesty and transparency from candidates

and when as a team you go to them and

say hey we need you to tell us

everything part of what didn't work in

this instance is when there was not full

transparency and in that specific

instance you

Amy came to her and was fully honest.

And to see Amy's trust violated like

that. Um, and to see that kind of

practice that allows campaigns to

operate and us to get to a place of

honesty violated like that was I think

frustrating.

>> I think I can understand that. And on

the other hand, I think one of the

questions is what is the responsibility

of a campaign to the public, right? the

people around a candidate who maybe know

more than the public knows

or frankly to the party or to the larger

project of the politics. I mean what

seems to me to have happened I mean

there are a number of people who

resigned from the campaign over time. I

sort of had this impression on the

outside. No one thing until the final

revelation

was to me disqualifying for platiner.

But, you know, I said this on a podcast

a bit ago. It seemed like a lot of

smoke, like a lot of decisions that

didn't look right. And you just wondered

like what is there that you don't know?

And also, is this a person who should be

in the Senate? And so I think I can both

really understand the frustration you

must have had at people sort of

revealing things that were in the

campaign or confirming things and have

been coming out in internal vetting.

And on the other hand, there is this

complicated question of what happens

when the campaign consultants know

things that maybe the public should

know.

>> I think and just to like be clear on one

of the points, you know, we did not know

there there was there's been like

speculation of what we knew. Mhm.

>> around some of the more serious later

allegations and when and we did not know

until the day or two prior to that story

coming out that there was a credible and

serious allegation of rape. And so the

kind of area we were in of the things we

knew were sexing, Reddit, Tattoo Land.

And I think to your point, none of those

things alone in a vacuum was necessarily

disqualifying. And also there was so

much momentum and energy from the voters

in Maine who you know Graham was

traveling across the state. The campaign

was building a movement of thousands and

thousands of volunteers bringing people

off the sidelines.

And I think that friction of like of

really wanting to believe and I say to

my candidates a lot like I think a lot

of candidates greatest strengths are

their greatest weaknesses. um you know,

you're an outsider but you're

inexperienced or you're experienced but

you're part of the establishment. Um you

know, you're a policy wonk but then

you're overly in the weeds or and I

think one of my I think it's true for

people in general. I think one of it is

like I take the work that I do I think

very personally and am maybe

naive at times in the sense of wanting a

different kind of politics to be

possible and feeling that friction of

sensing yes this is a lot of smoke and

kind of being almost disoriented by that

but then also the euphoria of seeing a

politics of what could be possible of

town halls of hundreds and hundreds of

people in areas Trump won talking about

the New Deal and a different kind of

populist politics and taking on

corruption and Republicans saying that

they'd have enough and independents

saying they hadn't voted for cycles but

this campaign was bringing them up and

the friction of all of those things um I

think was was a lot and if I was doing

it over again I would do a lot of it

differently. Um but that was kind of

what was happening.

One of the things that McDonald has said

is that she did come to you and she

started trying to vet platinum more

herself. um we we reached out to her we

weren't able to talk to her but that

fight consultancy you all were not

interested in going further down the

vetting pathway and she's expressed a

lot of anger about that and I mean the

finance director resigned like there

were people who felt something was going

wrong and I wonder just in the sense of

what you are trying to learn from this

if you look back on those conversations

if you look back on people sensing that

something was up here

what were these other members of the

campaign beginning to that eventually

proved out true even if they didn't know

exactly what would prove out true

eventually that sort of you and Fight

didn't.

>> Well, so I think like you know Fight's

not a vetting agency like that's not a

service we offer. Um we work with

campaigns and campaigns work with

vetting professionals. I think there's a

fair critique of you know fight putting

more pressure me putting more pressure

on people to ensure that their vetting

process taking place is responsible and

robust and I don't recall that

conversation that Genevieve is

outlining. I think I think there was a

mix of different kind of personal

dynamics in some of those decisions but

I also think you know they were they

were right to feel that something was a

miss earlier.

One of Platner's accusers was Lindseay

Fifield who had been in partnership with

him and accused him, it came out in the

Times story, of being physically abusive

when they were together. She's worked in

conservative politics. And so there was

a a real rush to say that this was just

politically motivated. She was just a

Republican trying to destroy his

campaign. [gasps]

Her story really bothered me for for two

reasons. one obviously the the abuse,

but the other was a contemporaneous um

her telling other people like, "Look,

this guy told me his tattoo was a toteen

cop." I had always been pretty skeptical

of the tattoo story. I didn't think

Platinum was in any way an anti-semite

or a Nazi, but I wasn't really sure he

didn't know what his tattoo was. Do you

see her story differently now and wish

you' reacted to that story differently?

Yes, I think uh knowing what we know

now, there should have been more

credibility given immediately to that

story when it came forward.

So, this I think begins to get to the

broader topic because a lot went wrong

here. Also, some things went really

right. I mean, until the last moment,

Platner was had, you know, wrecked the

sitting governor of Maine in the

primary.

You know, throughout the campaign, you

and many of your allies were arguing the

Democratic Party sort of only wants to

run uh your word was losers.

Um who have wanted to be president since

they were in fifth grade and that what

the party needs is like normal real

people and real people have checkered

pasts and that that just needs to be

accepted to have a more authentic

politics.

Platinum is such an unusual case because

the strategy both worked and failed at

the same time.

So how now do you see that same theory?

I think real people have checkered past

and also there are

many many many real people who do not

have that kind of checkered past.

>> It often seem [clears throat] to be a

little insulting to like what gets

called real people.

>> Exactly. I think it's a it's a Yes. like

and I think the online stuff is fair of

like a lot of people have posted online

so I think the content of those goes

probably a step beyond what most people

have said um and I think there can there

can both be room for some level of

nuanced conversations about people who

live lives not tailor made for politics

and also more strict standards on it but

like like even after the two days after

the political story came out um there

was a poll that had Graham down to Susan

Collins, but had Janet Mills running

five points behind Graham Platner even

after the story, the day he suspended

his campaign.

We have a Republican majority in the

House. We have a Republican majority in

the Senate. We have a Republican in the

White House. And we have no functional

path to a clear governing Democratic

majority. And I think if there were

mistakes made here and they need to not

be made again,

but to go entirely in the other

direction and decide, okay, well, we're

not going to we're going to totally

write off trying a different approach.

We're going to totally write off

bringing outsiders in to run for office

at a moment in which the party

establishment, any kind of

establishment, institutions of power

deeply unpopular. Does not feel like a

good faith effort to me to get to the

place we need to get to. And if we're

all serious about [snorts] a powerful

governing majority, then that is going

to require a different approach. It's

going to have to tap into the level of

anger and angst that people are feeling

and also this deep deep desire for hope

that I think this campaign tapped into.

What is an outsider to you? My

understanding of this sort of list of

campaigns you've been centrally involved

in in the past couple years is John

Federman um where you were uh I think

pretty centrally responsible for the ad

strategy and after his stroke he was

really reliant on that strategy. Is Dan

Osborne the independent who um ran

before and is running again in Nebraska

and wildly overperformed Democrats in

that state. Sort of a union guy. Um is

of course Zoran Mdani who people have

now heard of and needs no introduction.

is Grant Platner is Nathan Sage who was

running in Iowa uh for Senate. Some of

these candidates are what you might call

an outsider, right? Platner did not have

political experience. Nathan Sage, I

think, you know, did not have a lot of

political experience.

Federman was a lieutenant governor of

his state. You know, Osborne was a

little bit better known as a sort of

major union leader. When you talk about

this strategy, right, what is an

outsider? I think inherent in part of

the problem is that the people who are

insiders right now in positions of power

are incredibly narrow definition. You

know, it's an incredibly small group of

people who have power and influence and

resources in our politics in our country

right now and anyone who's outside of

that orbit I think is an outsider. And I

think it's similar to like you get you

know the discourse around class right

now. It's like majority of people are

working and do not feel like they have

enough to live the lives that they

should be able to. And there is such a

profound

exclusion of the American people from

access to resources, from access to

power, from access to the lives they

want to be able to live. And the people

who are in that category, I think need

to be running for office. And that

should look different in a lot of

places. That has a lot of different

faces, a lot of different backgrounds.

But that I think is the is the goal that

we should be coming to.

>> The thing that I really notice about

that list of candidates is that's not

far from a list of candidates who have

gotten the most attention in their

cycles. The thing that even your critics

who I talk to say about you is that you

as an admaker, as a storyteller, as

somebody sort of both helping to recruit

candidates or choosing candidates to

work with

have figured out a way to break through

intentionally

at a time when it's very very very hard

to do so. So there are a lot of people

who are outsiders,

but not everybody who is an outsider is

going to be a good candidate. Um, not

everybody who is an outsider is going to

be somebody who goes viral on social or

algorithmic media. One of the things

when I was asking about where you found

Platiner that I I feel from the stories

I know that you sort of underplayed is

the casting dimension of him, like

actually looking for a charismatic

candidate with a kind of bio. Now, like

you didn't invent looking for bios. Um,

the DC has been doing that forever. The

Republicans have been doing that

forever.

It does feel to me you look for people

who feel like their bios, which is a

little bit different. Um, I've watched a

lot of veterans run in politics and they

just feel like normal candidates. John

Fetterman, you know, sort of an insider,

I would say, a lieutenant governor, like

a known political quantity, but

certainly in that campaign, you know,

with his, you know, shorts and his

tattoos, like there was a a an aesthetic

to him that felt different from other

candidates.

So, when you're finding these people,

when you're looking for them, when

you're framing their stories with them,

what is it beyond that sort of simple

outsider insider thing are you looking

for? What do you feel like breaks

through and what doesn't?

>> You know, there's a misconception

sometimes in politics that to win an

election, you're sitting down in a job

interview. And I think right now where

voters are, they believe that every

single thing you're saying at a job

interview is a lie. Like they're just

not going to believe it. They be, oh,

because you got some bill through the

state legislator. Well, you're never

going to get it done in Washington. Oh,

you say you're gonna lower prescription

drug costs. How come nothing's happened?

you know, maybe you'll get it done in 15

years. And we're actually not engaging

the job interview. We're engaging in

something of a dating process with

people who've been on, you know, a

hundred bad dates in a row and are

holding out a little bit of hope that

maybe tonight's going to be different.

And how can you make people who've been

given every reason to give up on love

fall in love again? And I think that

that's much much like love. There's

something not random, but there's

something magnetic to it. And to shake

that loose,

I think you need a candidate and a

campaign that is telling a story that

can bring people who have every reason

to be out back in. Um, John Federman was

it was a story about Bradock as much as

it was a story about him. A forgotten

steel town that believed its best days

were generations ago that still deserves

to be fought for that doesn't deserve to

be left behind. A bio isn't just bullet

points but a story to tell. And I think

people talk about hope as kind of a

political tool or like an abstract

thing, not a tangible thing in of

itself. And I believe that there's a

power in hope even just as a thing that

people are feeling like everyone's

having such a hard time. I also think

there's there is an X factor in our

politics, right? Like you know, you

could run someone could run for

president any if have the exact same

policy positions as Barack Obama, but

Barack Obama had an X factor that made

him unique. So did Bill Clinton, so does

Donald Trump, so did George Bush. The

people who kind of rise to the highest

ranks of political power in this country

do have an X factor and we can't ignore

that. And I think you uniquely can't

ignore that in the modern media

environment where you can't just run a

campaign on 30 secondond television ads.

So this is what I I want to zone in on

because I think fight as a consultancy,

you as a consultant are good at finding

people the X factor. And one place where

I think Democrats have the strategy of

the broad coalition of the Democratic

party has fallen apart is

I think they were looking for the

ability to raise money not the X factor.

>> I mean I think there's a deep lack of

updating in the strategy, right? Like

the traditional to kind of break down

the way that this traditionally works is

there's a district or a state where

there's a competitive election and the

institutional approach to recruitment

there is who can raise the most money in

the first 48 hours and that is literally

the driving determining factor in who

the Democratic establishment wants to

recruit. inherent in that when when

you're the question you're asking is who

knows the most wealthy people that is

probably someone illquipped to make a

credible case as an outsider running

against a rigged economy and I think

it's the job of the consulting class one

of the reasons I do what I do now one of

my first jobs was in North Carolina um

working for a candidate there Erica

Smith who had an incredible story to

tell you she she also had some like

issues of her own but had a really

power, you know, a pastor was from a

rural part of the state that was rapidly

falling behind and had been kind of left

behind by the political establishment

where Democrats were collapsing. She had

a decent electoral record even as a

state senator. She grew up on the same

family farm that her family was enslaved

on. Like a really profound story about

North Carolina and overcoming hardship

and a vision. And we did a 100 county

tour in 100 days across all of North

Carolina.

In that campaign, in that tour, I saw

kind of two things. One was the

political establishment did not exist in

a way to see there's a candidate here

with a really compelling story and some

really good talent. How do we build how

do we wrap around her and protect her

and lift her up and fill in the blind

spots here and support it? It was she

can't raise the money. It's unserious or

someone from there can never rise into

political power.

>> Is the issue that it did work

differently before? I mean, I always

understand money as having been able to

buy two things. Money could buy a

certain amount of attention by buying

mailers, by buying TV spots, that kind

of thing. And money could buy a certain

amount of organizing by, you know,

paying for yard signs, by sending out

people into the field. And that both of

those things have gotten in a way harder

to buy. People don't watch TV spots

anymore in the same way they used to. um

any easier or more straightforward to

earn. Like if you have enthusiasm, if

you're somebody compelling, all of a

sudden your videos can go viral and

people scrolling through TikTok in your

area will see you that that that it

actually was optimized for something

that made sense at one time and that now

that's no longer true or or is it just

that you just get the money a different

way? The money still matters just as

much, but you get it differently.

>> I think money still matters profoundly

and you get it differently. But I do

think the main thing is you can't hide

behind 30 secondond ads anymore. You

know, like you can't just run a campaign

predicated on paid media. You are

constantly expected to be communicating.

And I think people's standards for

transparency has risen in the social

media age. Like we now know everything

about our celebrities. The standard for

the ways in which LeBron James has to

interact with the public are

fundamentally different than the

standards for the way Michael Jordan had

to interact with the public. Like if

LeBron James was at casinos till 5:00

a.m. every day, we'd be telling a very

different story about LeBron. And I

think there's a similar thing in

politics of everything's under a

microscope. You're being recorded at any

given moment. You can't put on a 30-cond

facade and hope that that's enough. You

need every part of a campaign working

together to tell a complete story that

can't be artificially constructed and

you can't cover up for a lack of talent

candidate. You [snorts] know, there

still I think the most compelling

indicator of candidate overperformance

is candidate quality. And we can have

all these different debates, but that

just I think remains fundamentally true.

The candidates on that list have a an

ideological range to them. Um, Fedman

sort of changed a lot after the

campaign, so he's a little bit of an

unusual case here after the stroke, but

Dan Osborne running as an independent

was very populist candidate, but um very

moderate on other issues. did a ad,

maybe you made the ad about wanting to

help build the wall on the border with

his own hands. You have platin who's

much more progressive, Zoran Mamani

who's a democratic socialist, Nathan

Sage who was sort of in between that.

You said before that for you the

candidates don't need to be progressive,

they need to be populist. What's the

difference? I think frankly a lot of the

difference is in the labels the general

public assigns to it. Um, but what I

think frustrates me about the current

state of the Democratic party is we have

a big tent party

that is constantly kind of shifting and

rearranging to exclude people who

challenge the powers at the heart of it

[snorts] and a lot of

>> be specific. What do you mean by that? I

mean, I think, you know, watching people

who are like the big, you know, like a

Josh Godheimr of the world, for example,

who's someone who's very like, we need a

big tent party,

>> member of Congress,

>> member of Congress, but but no one in

DSA should be allowed in that party.

It's like, well, that's not a big tent

party, then. Or you see, you know,

people who anytime anyone's critical of

Israel, well, that's that's not who the

Democratic party should be. And I'm

interested in a big 10 party that kind

of flips that a little bit where we're

allowed to disagree on, you know, people

have different politics on the border or

slightly different approaches on a

variety of issues across the country and

candidates and campaigns can reflect

those. But we are united in a belief

that we are not even having a good faith

conversation until we've done serious

things about corruption at the heart of

our politics and until we're working to

address an economy that's broken. And to

me, like that's the kind of baseline of

where people are. And the more we're the

longer it takes us to get to that place

of kind of being a party that's

embodying a challenge to the status quo

rather than embodying a protectionist

status quo, the longer we're going to be

in the wilderness.

>> You sort of dodged my progressivism

versus populism question, so let me

sharpen it. What is populism?

I think it is a belief that the people

should have more power

is kind of how I think about it and

that's a very my specific interpretation

but I think there's this I think a lot

about the nature of power in terms of

how people like how much people feel

like they have it in their lives and I

think a lot of the issues we have stem

from the fact that we're at a moment in

history that I think people feel more

powerless than ever before.

>> Was Obama a populist?

>> I believe so. Yes. I I think his entire

theory of the case is deeply populist.

Um you he told the story of the country

belonging to everyone and that that

being at the heart of things and he told

and particularly his re-election

campaign I don't think gets talked about

enough for just quite how populist the

approach was. Mitt Romney was a Wall

Street villain who had shipped our jobs

away, who wanted more money for himself

and his Wall Street friends, while Obama

was a president who took them on, who

brought the economy back, who stared

down those same villains. Um, I think

that's, you know, example where populism

allows for a big tent. Uh, and the

people who critique it are just upset

because they don't it's against their

own interests. fight and I think this

was not as much specifically you but

worked on Tommy Styer's campaign for

governor of California. Tommy Styer is a

billionaire. Can a billionaire be a

populist

>> if you're a class traitor? I I I think

Pritskar is another example of like

>> I think they are they act in a way their

policies in a way are in conflict with

the interest of the billionaire class. I

I think one of the things I'm trying to

get at is in your theory of where the

Democratic Party has gone wrong, in your

theory of where politics is going, what

separates the candidates able to make

the kind of appeal that you think works

um from the candidates who can't look,

if I had I don't know Janet Mills

myself, but I am certain if we had Janet

Mills in this studio, she would say she

also believes more power should go to

the people. She also believes that

politics is corrupt and has certainly

had to like make compromises as any

governor has as Zoran Mdani has to make

compromises as people in power do. But

she would probably see herself within

that definition as fitting within it. So

would many of the people

most probably in the establishment

Democratic party that comes in for

pretty regular tongue lashings from you

and some of the people around you. So So

what is the line here? the ability to

name villains.

>> Like it it drives me insane about that.

You have these, you know, even uh all

the people who've kind of taken on

affordability. It's like, and you hear

these politicians talk about it and

they're like, you know, we have an

affordability crisis, which is why I'm

here talking about affordability because

what Democrats need to do is we need to

talk about affordability. It's like,

you're not saying anything. Everyone is

dealing with some version of an

affordability crisis across the country.

The villains of it are specific in

specific places. In some places it's

broken right to repair laws. In some

places it's bad landlords. In some

places it's electric monopolies. In

other places it's specific billionaires

or corporations.

I don't think that like I don't think

Janet Mills would name the people who

are taking the power and using it to

hurt working people.

>> So So that's the point of populism. And

it's not just believing the people

should have more power, but it's

believing that there is a small group of

people or corporations or something that

has collected the power and that's what

needs to be broken and and and

articulating that conflict clearly. I

mean, I think there's a case to be made

that's like basically populism is a

politics that points

>> and what we have in the rising in the

Republican party is a populism that

points the finger down or to the side.

uh targeting trans communities,

targeting immigrant communities. And

what we are advocating for is a populism

that points the finger up. And I think

the friction and the fight right now

with a lot of the democratic

establishment is there is a belief that

we are not in this populist moment or

that we can just kind of get through

this moment and things will collapse.

The reason that frustrates me so

intensely is I don't think there is any

electoral indication that that is true.

And I think there is going to be a

populist future in this country. It is a

question of who's going to control it.

And if it is not the Democratic party,

then it is going to be the it is only

going to get worse on the other side.

And so we need to start pointing up

before there's no one left around. Uh

you mentioned Obama's 2012 campaign

before. Obama has these two campaigns

that are different. You have the '08

campaign which is very hope and change

and we can all come together and the 12

campaign which is hardered um you know

more about bureaucrats and billionaires

and Bane capital etc. And I still see

the Democratic party sort of vibrating

between those two approaches, right? You

know, and you can see reasons to think

about both in polls. People are very

upset about political division. They

want politics to feel differently than

it does, right? It is a big 10 party

that needs to have many kinds of people

inside of it. And on the other hand, you

know, you ask people like, "Do you think

the political system basically needs to

be burnt down?" And they tell you yes.

So, how do you think about the balance

of there's simultaneously a desire in

the public for a politics that points

and a politics that

unites and has a kind of fellowship to

it. It's interesting question. I think

and this is a slightly different answer

to the question you posed but like I

think the other component

I think there's a sustainability

question

with it like there's this kind of

friction of you know how quickly

incumbents not just America all over the

world are turning over because you can

ride this populist wave but then then

what I think we need a populism that's

actually I guess to to play to the crowd

like married to a bit of an abundance

[laughter]

and I think you simultaneously need to

restore another word for the kind of

unity I think is a restoration of faith

in government.

>> Mhm.

>> Uh cuz I think that contributes to a

dividing factor and kind of this baked

in cynicism that's divisive. And I think

populism can be hopeful if you marry it

with with an abundance-esque approach of

the deep belief that government needs to

work.

>> The sort of the Zoran Mani approach.

>> Yes. Um, and you can't, you know, I

don't think it's a credible claim that

we're going to take back all this power

and all this fortune from the

billionaire class or from the oligarchy

if we can't even build a 100 homes. And

marrying those things together, I think

begins to tell a story of a populism

that's hopeful because it's like you can

believe in it. It's tangible in your

life and it's a reorientation

of power and it's all of those things

combined. And I think we need more of

that. Like it it it frustrates me when

we get into these

debates over like, you know, you can

believe in antitrust policy or you can

believe in abundance. Like I

>> I've also found those debates

frustrating. [laughter]

>> Like I I think we can massively cut red

tape that makes people's lives more

difficult and we can impose new

regulations that protect people from

predatory actions. Also, I do I think

there are a lot of people who are doing

a compelling job of this in raising the

finger from pointing to your neighbor to

pointing towards the powerful.

there can be a story of unity and of

hope and of love. Like I think about,

you know, I can't I did not come up with

this. I can't remember who came up with

it and so I apologize to whoever it is.

Um the idea that like it's Obama's wei

and it's Bernie's them. Like it's this

Obama-esque coalition that's inclusive

and that we're all a part of and we're

stronger when we're all in it together

and we're taking on the Bernie Sanders

version of the the villains who are

opposing us.

I I want to come back to some of the

synthesis questions, but but I want to

stay in in populism for a minute. One

thing that uh connects the candidates

we've been talking about is they're all

men. Um is there a connection for you

between populism and gender and between

what you think the public reads as

populist and working class and gender?

>> I think there's a I think the public

tends to more loosely assign that term

to men. Um and I don't think it's

particularly accurate. I think there's,

you know, a lot of candidates like I

think about, you know, Rebecca Cook

running in Wisconsin who meets all of

those same criteria. Um, I think about

even like Governor Cheryl across in New

Jersey who I think is example not like

necessarily the traditional populist is

probably something of a kind of

technocratic populist hybrid. Um, but

has campaigned in that way and has

governed in that way. Um, I know AOC as

an example of this. And I think I the

way people use the term populist

oftentimes is uh they're kind of code

switching. Uh, if something's

progressive, it's unelectable and

populist becomes the

electable electable version of

progressive. That's not my

interpretation of it. But I think that

that then contributes to like where

people I think people are afraid if they

start saying AOC is a populist then it

undercuts their arguments to keep her

from running for president or to keep

her from being president. Um, and then

there's a kind of component of that.

>> But is there an outdated idea of what

the working class looks like here?

>> Yes. because there not all these

candidates. It doesn't fit Mondani or or

some of the others. But if you look at

Nathan Sage or Federman or Platner, um

Dan Osborne,

it it has this kind of guy who could be

a, you know, work on a on an oyster

farm, on a lobster boat, in a factory

when, you know, the working class today

is, you know, almost like in a more

modal sense,

uh,

immigrant working, an immigrant woman

working as a home healthcare aid, right?

that that there is this our politics

treats the working class as if it goes

to work in a hard hat and it has been a

critique of you but it's broadly

speaking been a critique I think of

Donald Trump of Bernie Sanders of a lot

of um people in modern politics that

they have not tried or managed to come

up with a more modern way of thinking

about and presenting

what it means to be working class

I I certainly can't speak for Donald

Trump and I can't speak for Senator

Sanders either, but I I think there's I

think there is an element of it's the

ways in which these things are written

about and grouped and covered and the

perception. Someone like Jamal Bowman is

a working-class candidate

>> who the stories written about him were

oftentimes tended to leave out the fact

that this is a working-class outsider

because it was more convenient to lean

into other critical narratives than to

embrace that or you know Cy Bush and you

know two members primar last cycle and

because they don't meet the traditional

definition then that tag is not applied

to them which then perpetuates the

cycle. Well, another way of putting this

and and a different direction from it is

even in polls toward before Platner

dropped out, Susan Collins was winning

by quite a lot among um white men in

Maine without a college degree. And one

of there's sort of like two dimensions

of this. There's been a like well

doumented shift where the Democratic

party has become the party of the

college educated. Um the more left you

go in the party in some ways like the

more true that often is. So the DSA is

doing incredibly well among

post people with post-graduate degrees

who have like struggled in the economy

for instance and the the critique has

been as I have heard it that the

Democratic party's theory of how to win

back the working class has been to sort

of cosplay the working class and that

one of the reasons that's not working is

that one it's not what those actual

voters want. Um, again, Platiner did

very well with people who had postgrad

degrees that there's some sort of weird

conflict here between the Democratic

Party's image of itself and whether you

call the Democratic Party or the DSA,

who's actually in it. How do you see

that?

>> I think it is not a problem that we're

going to solve in one election or with

one campaign. I think is indicative of a

massive brand problem um that now comes

when you have a D next to your name or

even frankly don't have an R next to

your name. I mean, it's kind of

foundational to it sounds like a bad

political speech riff, but it's like it

is fundamentally true that a worker in

Michigan who's factory closed has more

in common with a waitress in Texas who's

working at the starvation wage as a

minimum wage in Texas, regardless of

their races and genders and ages, then

at any point probably in kind of

American history in terms of the degree

that there's just this kind of broad

class erosion. And I think to change it,

we need all of the we need so many of

these people stepping up and running.

You know, there are people who would say

that we need more than just an economic

argument to win back these people. I

don't think that that's untrue. I would

argue that like I think there

alternatives to mass moderation. I think

like you know localized moderations for

things is is appropriate. But I think we

need to be telling a story as part of

this populism that does extend beyond

just economics. How much is the kind of

candidate you look for somebody who

actually has to feel themselves failed

by the institutions?

I think the credibility thing is

absolutely a component of what needs to

be factored in. Like what gives you the

credibility to make this argument and to

have voters believe you? But I also

think there are a lot of people who are

not trying that hard to make this

critique. Look, I I think that there's a

whole segment of the Democratic party

that still believes like the end- all

beall problem is Donald Trump. The

entire critique is one of Donald Trump.

every problem we're facing is the result

of Donald Trump. And I think our heads

are in the sand if we can't acknowledge

that for 12 last 17 years, Democrats

have had the White House. Over those

periods of time, we had control of both

chambers multiple times and people's

lives have gotten worse. And so, we

can't just go and tell people Donald

Trump is the reason everything's bad

when they've been alive this whole time

and experienced it. Clearly, there's a

systemic issue here that extends beyond

any one president or any one office.

Yet a lot of our party or at least the

people in positions of power in the

party aren't levying that critique.

>> To what degree does this demand in the

Democratic party these candidates who

can code switch? So one of the

interesting uh arguments is made in the

party going way back right Norman Mer

wrote about this. There's a famous Ron

Brownstein piece on Barack Obama about

the sort of wine track and the beer

track in the Democratic party. But

Platner, an attack people launched at

him, which I thought was sort of wrong.

Um was, you know, he came from a family

that had been well off. You know, his

dad helped buy his home. He went to an

elite um private school. But you see

something like this with Mandani who

comes from a a sort of family where his

mother's a celebrated director, his

father's an academic that you know

Donald Trump himself is a billionaire

that often times what you end up seeing

in candidates who sort of succeed is

this ability to operate across different

worlds. [snorts]

And so is that something you look for?

Is that something you think is

important? Like how do you rate that? I

don't think it's something that should

be important. There needs to be a way

for people to get elected without having

kind of coastal communities getting all

on board with them. And even still, like

there are ways to challenge SSE, there

are ways to overcome it. There's

grassroots money, but you would to some

degree need buyin from coastal

communities to be able to really launch

to the degree you traditionally have to.

>> That's because you need to raise money

from them.

>> Money and media. I think the mix of

money and media attention. Um, and it's

just a lot harder. Um, and I think

there's there's something to be said for

the like political utility in being able

to talk to a variety of your

constituents and that should be

important. Um, but I think once you kind

of extend into, oh, how comfortable do

they make a donor feel? We're not in a

place anymore that's serving an

electability goal.

>> The campaign here that you worked on

that didn't take off was Nathan Sage in

Iowa. What went wrong? So I mean he was

one of the people I had in mind when I

was saying this. So I think like Nathan

is an incredible was an incredible

candidate who I think would have won the

Iowa US Senate seat who had an

incredible story. Um he served three

tours I believe. He was uh grew up in a

trailer park in Mason City, worked his

way through high school, went to serve

um came back then served his small town

chamber of commerce and brought small

businesses back. And his like anger and

disdain for the people who had sold out

families like his was profound and real.

And he also connected deeply with voters

when he was in the room with them at

town halls, at campaign events, but it

was a little it like I think to the kind

of donor class, it felt abstract or they

didn't quite see it because they weren't

living the lives of other families

struggling in Iowa. And so it didn't

quite break through in the same way. Um,

and it's a different skill to pitch

donors and to pitch press than it is to

pitch voters. The collapse of local

media, I think, has made a this problem

a lot worse. You know, 20 years ago,

there's profound local media circuits

that exist that can that are actually in

the weeds. If you have really strong

feelings about a factory that's giving

workers cancer in Iowa, you can go and

do five interviews about that and show

your knowledge of local issues and show

your passion in a way that's going to

make people's lives better. It's not a

particularly sexy pitch to national

reporters of, hey, are we going to, you

know, do you want to write four

different articles about a factory

giving workers cancer in Iowa and a

candidate who's incredibly angry about

it?

>> It it also, I think, speaks to

one to one of the pathologies of a lot

of Democratic candidates in the

Democratic party to me right now is that

it is a party of people who love

institutions at a time when institutions

are failing. And one of the places where

I'm sympathetic to that is that

institutions were actually one of the

ways you got attention. I mean, there's

a huge amount of Democratic party just

optimized for a period when you went to

the newspaper editorial boards and you

had to win them over. And so, it wasn't

just could you get attention, it's could

you impress the editors, could you get

the endorsement of the local civic

groups? And now all these layers are

weaker across much more of the country.

There's less union density. There are

fewer civic groups that have real

memberships. There's fewer local

newspapers and their uh editorial boards

carry less weight. And so it means

skills that were once really important

are less important. And skills that once

like couldn't get you anywhere, right?

The newspaper would not cover someone

who both did not have any support and

was just making people mad by saying

sort of outlandish things. But now, you

know, you could be Spencer Pratt in Los

Angeles and like rock it forward in

attention at the very least from being a

a candidate like that.

>> I think the the gap between, you know,

editorial rooms and

corporate boardrooms and what is driving

voters has never been more profound. And

I think that's been exacerbated, I

think, in the Democratic party by what I

think was kind of a problematic shift

after you had in 2012 the kind of

moderate to Republican elites

essentially handpick Mitt Romney and get

him and he receives the nomination and

Obama wins a daunting re-election on the

populist campaign against him. And then

you see Donald Trump rise up against

that Republican establishment.

And then I think you see this kind of

misleading exodus from the Republican

party of donors of institutional figures

to the Democratic party saying I can't

be a part of this. And of course they're

welcomed into the tent because they come

with resources and they come with

platforms that have historically been of

electoral significance. We suddenly at a

moment in which there is a massive

uprising against institutions because of

think that we're building a new

coalition that is pro-institution

and it's we took all the people who made

the Republican party unelectable folded

them into our tent and let them

influence our approach and I think it's

fundamentally wrong and broken. And I

think there is a interesting friction

that's going to have to play out here

[snorts] of what is the traditional

media's role in politics which I think

is fundamentally different than what it

has been before. You know like it would

have been unimaginable 20 years ago if I

told you the New York Times editorial

board is going to write a piece

essentially telling voters do not vote

for Zoran Mani and then that person was

going to win the Democratic primary by

12 points.

But that's what we saw happen. And I

think there's just this this disconnect.

And I think there's a problem like

there's a curiosity problem. I think

often times we're not asking the right

questions about what is driving this.

You know, there's a to now compliment um

the New York Times. Uh Emma Goldberg did

a good piece on this after the election

talking about the affordability angle of

the New York City slate that won. And

but that was the only piece really

written in a traditional media with that

as the center point and those were the

main things those campaigns focused on

the main things those campaigns focused

about but all of the kind of dialogue

was around unrelated components of it

and there's just this disconnect that I

think is a there's a real real friction

there.

>> When you met Donnie the first time what

what made you think there was some magic

there? I think his profound and earnest

belief that it was government's job to

be making things better and like the

marriage of that with a vision is just

frankly incredibly rare and it shouldn't

be but it is like the number of people

who sit down and say you're thinking

about running for an office and whose

initial answer is we have this crisis I

think this office can address this

crisis if we just decided we wanted to.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in I think

campaigns aren't won in the content of

the battle. They're one in the context

in which they're taking place. And if

we're taking campaigns in a context in

which we are ashamed of government, in

which we don't believe government can do

anything, in which we're apologetic

about government, then it's going to be

really hard to convince people to vote

for the party that is the bigger

government party. And if we can't prove

that government is one of the greatest

tools for good known to human history,

then how are we going to do anything?

The first time Mam Donni started coming

on my radar I think was a halalflation

video

>> where he was going around with the halal

carts and just I think you're involved

in this but just noting how much more

expensive it had gotten and it wasn't

like this grand socialist vision for

what government could be. It was very

specific. It was the the whole thing in

miniature like repeatedly

and like every Democrat now wants to

copy the Mum Donnie visual language and

the Mumani dominance of a vertical

video. Very few are able to do it. You

guys sort of built that together.

When people come to you asking for

lessons from it, what do you tell them

to take from it and what you tell them

to not take from it?

I think there were a lot of incredibly

talented people on that team from Mil

Todd and Andrew and I don't think I

think as good as I might be as good as

they might be everyone looks really good

riding a Cadillac and Zarani is a

generational leader and it's [snorts]

hard to take any credit for that. I

think one of the roles um that there is

to play is frankly like getting out of

the way and we have an entire consultant

industry and a party establishment that

has kind of built its role of being like

oh you have a big idea well don't do

that you have something that's going to

expose you to some risk don't do that

you have a broad vision scale it down

you have a new tactic you want to try

well not on our watch and I think the

reason it is a lot of that was very

specific to the mayor and he, you know,

had a vision. He had a specific way he

was good at communicating and we all

worked to build a system in which he was

able to do that that could meet people

where they were and it also could

reimagine what an electorate would look

like. And I think that's one of the

issues we get into is we have these like

imaginary visions of a bakedin

electorate with no imagination of

reshaping. I think this speaks to like

the white working class issue too. how

much of the issues we face there are the

result of the fact that we have pulled

resources from the places that are

predominantly

rural white working-class areas and so

there they are not hearing then you

combine that with the rise of

conservative media in those areas they

are hearing a 365 day a year narrative

that is going uncombed it is not enough

in 8 weeks or 8 months to just fight

back against that it takes a year round

effort to reach those people what you

saw at the mayor is a belief that no

maybe actually if we talked to young

people and gave them a vision for a city

they can afford they will come out and

show up for it. Maybe if you do not run

away from Muslim identity but embraced

it Muslim voters are going to come out

in mass to support that vision. I think

meeting people where they are and

believing that people actually will want

to take part in our politics if we

extend a hand is something that can be

taken to any campaign. One thing that

was striking to me about you and mom

Donnie and I always want when I'm

talking about attention to not make it

feel like I'm separating out political

positions or right like the product

you're selling is the most important

part of selling it. But I think there's

also something about having a touch for

how stories and storytelling in this

moment work. And mom Donniey's mother is

a famed film director. Your godfather I

learned was Philip Seymour Hoffman,

right? that your father I think was a

producer.

it. Is there something right now for you

actually just about the centrality

of being able to storytell in this

moment, right? Is there something in

that campaign between the two of you

around that? It seems to me not

accidental.

I think you know like uh there's

something to our politics that relating

to some of the other things we've talked

about like the requirement of a leap of

faith and that that takes more than just

an argument but it takes a story.

>> A leap of faith from the voter

>> from the voter. Mhm. [clears throat]

>> I think a lot about um when when my

godfather when Phil was doing Death of a

Salesman uh early on when he was like

first talking about doing it, he was

describing like the best play ever

written.

And he talks about how it starts, you

know, it's this incredible play, but

barely anything happens. It starts with

a sigh. It's the first stage direction

or first audible stage direction is a

sigh from Willie Lman. And in that sigh,

you've met a man who's been defeated by

feeling like no matter what he does, it

is not enough. He has no path to hope,

to prosperity. And over the course of

the play, what we just see is someone

who's already given up on life finally

give up on life.

And I think we need to fundamentally,

materially change people's lives in

massive, massive ways. But we also need

to find there's so many people right now

who I think that is a version of the

story they're living. Not not

necessarily literally, but just this

deep hopelessness.

And if we can tell a story that things

can be different, if we can tell a story

that they have a role to play, if we can

tell a story that they matter,

then that is an act of radical change,

too. I was genuinely skeptical that the

the way the campaign

was constantly present, the way mom

Donnie was constantly present during the

campaign could translate into governing.

Trump has done that, but he does it by

constantly pissing people off, right?

Unlocking constant energy through

outrage and conflict and anger. Mom

Donnie has managed to maintain a

constant presence if you're in New York.

Probably if you're not in New York too,

but certainly if you are in New York and

just the, you know, almost separate from

what he is doing, though there are real

things he's doing, you just kind of see

him doing things for New York all the

time, right? You turn on your phone and

there he is. It's genuinely felt new to

me. Is is that something sort of only he

can do? And New York is an unusual media

market. It's giant. All the media, not

all, but a lot of the media is centered

here. So, he can sort of project outward

from being here in a way that it is

harder if you're in Boston or to say

nothing of a smaller town than that. Or

is there a genuine lesson there?

>> I think there's a genuine lesson. I

think the the first lesson is to elect

leaders who are serious about governing

and who believe in a very proactive

approach for governing. But I think in

some ways to me it's like the

second side. If you if you wrote a

sequel to Abundance, I feel like it

would be there's like the communication

side of it. And if

if we believe that there's a crisis of

faith in government's ability to do

things, I think there's an obligation to

not just do things, to not just make it

easier to do things, but to tell the

story of doing things. In 2023, 2024, I

was driving through Michigan and there

was a sign somewhere that was like,

"This road is being paved because of the

bipartisan highway bill." And it's like

barely any Republicans voted for that

piece of legislation. And that is how we

are marketing it. Why wouldn't we be

leaning in like Democrats did

this? Sorry, I don't know if I cursed

that.

>> You I did. So, you're you're welcome to.

>> Okay.

>> Um, [snorts]

>> we're trying to get attention here, man.

[laughter]

>> Attention economy. um leaning in. We

need to campaign at the speed of the

modern attention span and I think you

need to govern at the speed of the

modern attention span and there is such

a laidback approach to you know in 8

years this is going to be phased in in a

decade this is going to be built like

that does not meet the urgency people

are feeling and to restore the bond

between the public and government there

needs to be that urgency.

What about at the level of affect? One

way mom Donnie feels different to me

than some of the other people who have

been on your roster and and populism in

general. Popism in general I think has

reputation rightly or wrongly as being

pretty pissed off and

I'm not saying Mam Donnie isn't like

there is genuine anger in him correctly

so about the ways people are harmed and

ripped off and how unaffordable it is to

live in this city.

But one, he always looks like he's

enjoying governing. Like he looks like

he likes his job, which a lot of people,

they get elected and then they seem kind

of miserable from then on, which fair

enough, it can be a pretty miserable

job, but he looks like he enjoys it.

>> Um, but there's also a like a like a

positive affect from him, like a

sunniness that I don't associate with

Democrats in general. I don't associate

with populist and specific, right?

Bernie Sanders isn't known um for his

sunniness.

I I just don't see it from that many

politicians. Like I I can

most politicians and Trump is not like

this, but most politicians it's like

they they treat the work pretty grimly.

>> I think there's you can't fake it. And I

think that is one of the challenges.

Like there are a lot of different things

in politics you can fake. You can't fake

a true love of the place and the people

you're representing.

And the mayor doesn't. The mayor loves I

think the mayor truly loves every single

New York City resident. Like regardless

of what they may say about him, like he

just loves this city and he lo and it

comes through. And I think there's

something I think there can be a better

job done on the kind of at least on the

left populist side of the spectrum of

articulating that this is a labor of

love. I think Trump supporters are

having a very good time, you know, like

they do. It's abstract to us, but there

was a joy to that to when he was

campaigning. You know, people are it's

like almost a cultural phenomenon of

what it means. And you're wearing your

Trump hat or your Trump sticker, like a

badge of honor. And I think there's

something to that of like something

people can take pride in, something

people can see themselves in where they

belong. And to me it does relate to the

like to the power component of people

feel I think a mix of factors from like

globalization economic factors to then

like the influence of social media um

people feel just so small and if you can

bring them into something that makes

them feel big which is what populism

should be at its best

there's joy in that process and it needs

to be reflected. One of the more radical

things I think Mdani has done has been

to then use the kind of popularity as

his mayor, the influences as mayor to

launch a series of primary challenges of

either incumbents like Dan Goldman um

you know or sort of incumbentbacked

establishmentbacked um politicians to to

send allies like you know Brad Lander or

Valdez to Congress.

Uh there's also been a DSA component of

this. you worked on these campaigns, I

think sort of working through Mandani

and it led to a lot of debate and

discussion about whether or not the

Democratic part is in like the beginning

of a schisming moment.

So is that how you see it? Like how do

you understand the power building

efforts that Mandani that the DSA that

some of the more um frankly that the

Platiner campaign represented? like what

is the relationship of the sort of

populist push and the established

Democratic party?

>> I think

like my perspective on it is, you know,

either politicians can change or the

voters for whom they represent are going

to change who who's representing them.

And it's not like the the idea that

anyone gets to be a gatekeeper to the

party I find kind of absurd. It is not

our intent to define. Voters can define

and we you know everyone can play their

role in making the case to voters of

what they believe it should be. And it's

like why are we not asking the question

what did Daria Lisa do right to energize

all these new people and bring in all

these young voters and you can hold room

for I disagree with whatever respective

comments but I'm also curious about

maybe there's something here to offer.

Putting aside the moral component of it

all that it is bad electoral math to

believe in subtraction. The job is to

bring more people in. We have primaries.

We have elections. That's how this

works. And the sore loser component of

it, I don't think is like particularly

productive. And I think there is. We

should be excited by the fact there's so

many new young people showing up to

vote. We should be excited by the fact

that people who haven't voted in decades

are shown to vote. That people are early

voting faster because they're more

eager. Like there is [snorts] something

good here that's happening. And I think

the people who feel threatened by it

could do themselves a favor by embracing

it. The critique I hear from the sort of

Democrats you're I think talking about

there is that what's going on now is

that in safe democratic areas the party

is going left and that's they might have