In This Episode
Tuesday’s elections ushered in big wins for Democrats in the NYC mayoral race, Virginia and New Jersey’s Governors’ races, California’s redistricting measure, and more. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are still standing their ground as the government shutdown now becomes the longest in US history. Alex speaks to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about what Democrats should take away from these two test cases, and how they should inform the party’s politics for the rest of Trump’s Presidency. She also hears from individuals living through the first-hand impacts of rising healthcare premiums and the government’s pause in food stamps.
TRANSCRIPT
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Hi, everyone. On Tuesday, voting booths across the country went blue. Democrats won major races in New York and California, but they also won big in Pennsylvania and Virginia. They swept back Republican gains in places like New Jersey and Maine. They flipped seats in Georgia, and they even gained ground in Mississippi. So yeah, election night 2025 was a huge moment for the Democratic Party.
[clip of Zohran Mamdani]: Tonight teaches us anything. It is that convention has held us back. We have bowed at the altar of caution and we have paid a mighty price. We will leave mediocrity in our past. [applause]
Alex Wagner: That was New York City’s newly elected 34-year-old Mayor Zohran Mamdani, its first ever Democratic Socialist. And if you can hear the excitement, it is for good reason. Democrats see this week’s victories as definitive proof that Donald Trump and his party are on the ropes. That the public is rejecting Trump’s mismanagement of the country and his weaponization of its government. That next year’s midterms and the presidential election after that could be Democrats’ moment to take back the reins. But how and with whom? On election night, Abigail Spanberger, a three-term centrist congresswoman, was elected Virginia’s first female governor.
[clip of Abigail Spanberger]: Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship.
Alex Wagner: But a Democratic socialist with almost zero experience in government was also elected mayor of New York City. Tuesday showed that Democrats could be both combative and viral, like Governor Gavin Newsom of California and his Prop 50 ballot measure, who also won big on Tuesday.
[clip of Gavin Newsom]: No crowns, no thrones, no kings. That’s what this victory represents.
Alex Wagner: But also that a moderate mom and a former congresswoman, Mikie Sherrill, could get elected governor of New Jersey.
[clip of Mikie Sherrill]: We here in New Jersey are bound to fight for a different future for our children.
Alex Wagner: All that winning on Tuesday night, while undeniably invigorating, means that Democrats also have some real questions to answer about who should be leading the fight and which fights are worth fighting for. And they sure don’t have a lot of time to figure it all out, because the Democratic Party and the country’s biggest battle is already here, and the stakes are extraordinary. Right now, the American government is closed for business. We are in the middle of the longest shutdown in American history. On the line is the health of 24 million Americans, but also whether or not 42 million Americans go hungry. Democrats are holding the line on government funding until Republicans come to the table and negotiate a spending bill that reverses Trump’s Medicaid cuts and extends tax credits that make health insurance through the Affordable Care Act actually affordable. That has not come without consequences. Because of the shutdown, programs like food stamps or SNAP benefits have been delayed or only partially paid out. Trump has the money to cover the costs, but he is refusing to because apparently it gives Republicans leverage in negotiations despite being morally reprehensible. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. That is 42 million people and they are starting to go hungry. So Democrats are being pulled in two directions. Hold firm, weather the consequences and maybe win in the end? Or stand down, stop the pain, and pray for resolution. Buried under all the thrill and the excitement of this election are some real questions about what the Democratic battle plan should be and who should be leading the charge. [music plays] I’m Alex Wagner, and this is Runaway Country. In today’s episode, we are talking to my friend and former colleague, Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, about the Democrats’ present and their future, and whether the playbook should change or will change. But first, I want you to hear from two people who are living the consequences of this fight and who remind us that political showdowns aren’t really about what’s happening in Washington. The first person is Lindsay Corley, a listener from Georgia who reached out to share her story. In 2012, Lindsay was in a car accident that left her with a chronic nerve condition called CRPS, complex regional pain syndrome. Lindsay described CRPS as if someone is pressing a hot curling iron against the back of your head. Fortunately, she’s been able to find doctors and medicine that help her. Here’s Lindsay.
Lindsay Corley: If I have the right treatments, I can have a normal life. And so, like a lot of people, a couple of years back, I got on the ACA in my state of Georgia. And, so far, it’s been a pretty good plan. But, like so many people this year, finding out that the stipends are going away has just been devastating for me. It’s not the question of like, oh, if I can’t get my medications, it’ll just hurt a little more. It’s like, no, if don’t get my medications if I cannot afford treatments, if I cant see my specialist, like my quality of life goes away. Like I’m not gonna be able to work.
Alex Wagner: Lindsay currently pays $110 a month for her health insurance thanks to federal subsidies that help reduce its costs. But as of right now, without that help, her same plan next year will cost $866 a month. That’s not including the $800 she spends monthly on medication.
Lindsay Corley: Like a lot of other people, it’s like, I’m just trying to make ends meet. Like I’m trying to be able to pay my mortgage and everything keeps going up. My healthcare costs were already going up because of my insurance company. And so when this came out, it just felt like it was going to break me or it is going to break me. And I just felt so, and do feel like so helpless, right? They’re saying it can go up 200, you know, 300% for, for people in my state.
Alex Wagner: Lindsay, who like a lot of other people is self-employed and works on contract, is hoping she finds a salary job with benefits. But those are fewer and far between in this economy. So Lindsay is desperate and she wants her elected representatives to fight.
Lindsay Corley: I definitely want to see them fight. You know, I want, I’m tired of status quo. I’ll admit sometimes that discussion is very frustrating. Like how will that impact the midterms or how will this do that? And I’m just like, well, I’m trying to make it through the day.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Lindsay Corley: And a lot of people that I am are in that place where we don’t get to even think a year and a half down the line. We’re just like in survival mode right now.
Alex Wagner: In the meantime, she prays.
Lindsay Corley: You know, I am a person of faith. And so I believe that at the end of the day, that there’s always hope, you know, that the end is not the end, death is not the end and the darkness is not the end. And I think also that what I have seen is that there are people that really do care. And there are are people that want to come alongside others and walk with people and help people. You know, part of me is like, okay, will I become one of those people that has to go on GoFundMe to be able to—
Alex Wagner: Live.
Lindsay Corley: Afford my health insurance, or will a Hail Mary pass come that will allow me to get an employer-based plan that will be able give me insurance and whatnot? Having this condition, I have been faced with what it really means to suffer, but I’ve also, at the same time, seen like… This thing of like almost like a miracle, like being part of this program that I’m in where I get to go to the hospital and have infusions, finding doctors that really understand it. I will also say that being from Georgia right now, I have been really impressed by the fact that both of my senators are saying that they’re fighting. You know, and all I can do is like, again, hope that that’s what they really do mean. And then like not going to buckle.
Alex Wagner: So that is one side of this fight, the very, very real consequences of not getting something done on the Affordable Care Act. People will get very, very sick. But on the other side, people are about to go very, very hungry. The Trump administration is holding food stamps hostage. That program is about to run out of money. And that has put extraordinary pressure on the organizations outside of government that feed people. Michael Ledger is the CEO of Feeding the Gulf Coast. A large food bank serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle. He works with local partners like pantries and churches to serve people in need. And Michael is already seeing a huge spike in need because of those delayed snap benefits, which help one in seven American households. This is a crisis of massive proportions, far worse than any natural disaster.
Michael Ledger: Katrina Hurricane Michael, you know, huge impacts. And then of course, government shutdowns, things like this. But with SNAP being turned off, the numbers just spiral. We’re talking about having as many as 18 million meals a month that would need to be replaced by SNAP for every meal we put out SNAP provides nine.
Alex Wagner: For context, Michael’s organization distributed 35 million meals in all of 2024. To do 18 million meals in a single month is impossible.
Michael Ledger: You can see the numbers really escalate quickly. And it’s not just the number of meals that these provide, but it’s also the way in which they can do that. We have rural areas, 22,000 square miles. Well, I think that says it all. Putting some money on an EBT card is a far more efficient way to try to cover 22,00 square miles than driving around food. So it’s a really tough ask. We’re working to take the supplies we can get and then equitably distribute them. So it’s a big number.
Alex Wagner: Tens of millions of Americans are currently in serious trouble, and only one party really seems to care about what happens to them next. When we come back, we’ll put this all into context with Chris Hayes and ask, What should Democrats do now?
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Christopher Hayes, thank you for joining us, my friend.
Chris Hayes: I’m the rare, fun day to talk about politics. The rare, the rarest.
Alex Wagner: Yeah don’t get too comfortable.
Chris Hayes: You know what? Please, can I just have a day here?
Alex Wagner: Yeah, you can have today. You can have a today.
Chris Hayes: I’m gonna take a few days. I’m going to—[overlapping speak] Yeah, yeah. I earned it. I deserve it.
Alex Wagner: [laughter] You, you, it’s your mayoral election.
Chris Hayes: Exactly.
Alex Wagner: Do you have like, okay, so obviously a lot is being made about the, the, what happened and the sort of breadth of wins across the country geographically but also the candidates themselves from Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill to Zohran Mamdani to whatever’s happening in Georgia and Pennsylvania. It’s just a huge swath of different kinds of Democrats. Do you have, is this just about candidate recruitment and anti-Trump sentiments or do you have a sort of better unifying theory of the case?
Chris Hayes: I think there’s a few layers, right? So I think like national mood is a real thing. I mean, first of all, we start with the foundational structural part of this from the political science literature, which is called thermostatic public opinion, right, which, is that when one party’s in power, the other party tends to see gains and people switching to it in the off your elections in the midterms and you know, that’s the reason that in 2009. It was Chris—it was the Republicans that won in Virginia and New Jersey, right? In 2021, it a Republican that won in Virginia. And that’s because there was a Democrat in the White House. So there’s a certain bit of this is just structural. There’s like a normal amount of what we call thermostatic public opinion. Layered on top of that is what you might call the national mood. The national mood is dyspeptic. It’s not happy. Right track, wrong track numbers. Like people are not happy with the economy. They think the cost of living is too high. They don’t like what Donald Trump is doing. The National Mood. is very, very disgruntled. And then on top of that, the third layer is all the things you do in campaigns. I think the messaging Democrats have developed around affordability, which I think was harder when it was a Democratic incumbent, frankly. It’s just really a lot harder to be like, God damn it, things are too expensive. And it’s like, well, why don’t you talk to Joe Biden? Right? I mean—
Alex Wagner: Well, yeah, also assisted by the fact that Trump is throwing Gatsby parties and like remodeling literal like a bad Restoration Hardware—
Chris Hayes: By the way, did you see the sign outside the Oval Office today? Have you seen it?
Alex Wagner: Which one?
Chris Hayes: Oh, they put up a sign in what someone called the steakhouse wedding font. [laughter] Gold cursive just outside the Oval Office. It’s the funniest thing. I thought it was a bit, I thought it was Photoshopped or AI, it wasn’t. So yeah, first of all, it’s harder to run that cost of living message as the incumbent party, it just is. But a real focus on affordability, candidate recruitment. I do think, frankly, some of the more academically inflected aspects of democratic rhetoric, which were, I think, harmful and alienating.
Alex Wagner: Mm hmm.
Chris Hayes: Even if they articulated really good values were, they also got rid of.
Alex Wagner: Yeah, Van Jones was Van Jones was talking about that. Like, we’re not calling it income inequality or economic justice. We’re just talking about like the groceries are too fucking expensive.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, and a great example of this, I think, is Zohran Mamdani, who, you know, is to the left of the Democratic caucus for sure, who showed up at a rally for trans rights in February 8th when he was polling in single digits, who did an entire ad about, like, trans rights pioneers, but who… Also just doesn’t talk in a at all academically inflected or overly jargony way about any of this, right? So there is a way it’s like to keep your commitments and talk like a regular person about this stuff that I think, you know, he’s an example of, but I think generally, I mean, if you listen to the Spanberger speech, particularly, so much focus on affordability, so much focus on electricity prices, right? So those to me are like the three layers and each layer probably gives you a few points. Like thermostatic public opinion gives you a few point, the country not liking Donald Trump and the direction gives you few points, candidate performance and messaging gives you a few of points, but what they got last night was like all of the points.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Right. Like that was a 10 out of 10 performance. When you win Virginia by 15 points, I mean, Youngkin won it by two, right?
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Harris carried it by six or seven, like a 15 point is a—
Alex Wagner: It’s a wipeout.
Chris Hayes: It’s a total wipeout.
Alex Wagner: And even in New Jersey, the margin is insanely huge.
Chris Hayes: 13, 12, something like that, yeah.
Alex Wagner: Given where we thought Cheryl might be, we thought it was like a single digit race, maybe three points, and then it’s just a route.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Alex Wagner: I guess I wonder, I mean, part of me, building in your three layer burrito to this question, right? Let’s say the thermostatic public opinion is what it is. That’s foundational.
Chris Hayes: Yep.
Alex Wagner: Trump’s mishandling of the entire country is something that seems ongoing, structural.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to stop.
Alex Wagner: Right.
Chris Hayes: Not going to wake up today and be like, what are we doing? [laughter]
Alex Wagner: The candidate thing is real, and I just, I had, amid the sort of breathtaking winds of last night or on Tuesday night, there is a question that nags at me, which is, I wonder, I worry that Democrats, because the tent is so big, and because you have a party that spans just in one night, Abigail Spanberger to Zohran Mamdani, Are we, are Democrats at risk of becoming a party that’s really good at winning state and local races, but has a hard time figuring out a national strategy that fits so many different places, which is in the problem Republicans used to have, right? Like they were really good at the state level and they couldn’t do the national level.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. One of the things I think you saw last night was it does matter to be good at politics. And sometimes the only way to solve for these what seem really difficult problems are people that are just talented at it and a talented team and new people trying new things. So yes, I agree with that. Like what is the center of the Democratic Party that spans from Zohran Mamdani to Abigail Spanberger to maybe hopefully if the Democrats, for the Democrats hopefully like Democrat Rob Sand in Iowa.
Alex Wagner: In Iowa.
Chris Hayes: Who’s got a shot at that race, right? And he’s gonna sound, he’s probably gonna sound to the right of Abigail Spanberger, right, who is gonna, and he’s going to hit different themes in Iowa. What, how does that cohere into a national story? The one thing I would, I think that’s a legitimate concern, but I would say two things. One, innovation, iteration, experimentation, the process of the primary and competition is going to be part of what sorts that out. But I do think it is striking how much this affordability economic message is front and center. It was in all three speeches last night, you know, it was the thing that really propelled Mamdani. I think aside from his charisma and his social media strategy, there’s something really there that I think all the different parts of the party align on. And I think also increasingly understand that in the Venn diagram of this complicated coalition, the place where we all agree the most, which is on these sort of core economic justice, affordability questions, and the place we have the most trust from the electorate, that is kind of the sweet spot. And there’s going to be a lot of fights around a lot of other issues. But to the extent that all of us are centering that, that I think is the place that the national message builds from.
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: The first part of this podcast, we talked to two people, one of whom is, uh, someone who’s healthcare premiums are going to rise exponentially, almost $800 a month. She doesn’t have the cash for that. She’s a contractor, you know, middle-class American who’s just like, I don’t who, who has that money laying around, right? She’s right in the cross hairs of the debate that Democrats are having right now in Congress. And the other was the head of a very large regional food bank that operates in a lot of red States. And he’s saying just the need is going to be impossible to meet. That’s a question about SNAP funding, which is obviously on the line and running out largely because Trump refuses to free up emergency funds, but also cause he sees it as a cudgel to beat the Lib, to own the Libs with.
Chris Hayes: Yep.
Alex Wagner: I guess I wonder, you know, there, this is a big week for Democrats and people are coming off of Tuesday night with a sense of optimism and unity and I wonder how you think that should inform the very very very significant battle that is being fought right now, however quietly and like it might seem like it’s in stasis, but we have reporting this week that there’s real negotiating happening inside Congress, like how should Tuesday inform the strategy that the Democrats pursue on the shutdown?
Chris Hayes: On the shutdown? That’s a really great question. I mean, the first thing I would say is, I was skeptical of the health insurance subsidy, premium subsidy strategy to the shutdown.
Alex Wagner: Mm hmm.
Chris Hayes: I was like, he’s like, they’re like murdering people on boats and using the Department of Justice to prosecute political enemies. Like, you’re going to fund that Department of Justice? Like no, health insurance premiums. But you know what? It was an effective strategy. They were right. Like, honestly, it—
Alex Wagner: And it keeps, it’s just coming to the open enrollment—
Chris Hayes: They were correct. They were correct. The timing, they’re right on substance. They should extend the subsidies. They’re right in the partisan politics. Democrats want to, and Republicans don’t. They’re on public opinion. Right. It is the sweet spot of an issue. They’re correct. They are on the righteous side. They on the popular side. There on the good side of all of it, and they’re on the partisan unifying side. So the question is, what can count as a win to get the government back open? That really is the question, right? Because that’s what’s going to happen. There will be something they can call a win-ish on the subsidies, which is, we promise we’ll bring it to a vote in the first week after you open the government. Something along those lines.
Alex Wagner: You think that’s enough?
Chris Hayes: I think, well, I think it depends on how much pain you’re willing to tolerate. I mean, honestly, because to the point you’re making about the food bank stuff, like, at one level, it’s sick for him to be like, it’s a cudgel, but at another level, it’s like, people are really hurting. And you got to figure out. The big thing is, can, the question to me about how the shutdown ends is whether the necessary conditions of trust are present to get to something that you can call a win or not, because there is some negotiated settlement. We promise an up or down vote next week after. Let’s say that we’re it, right? Like we’re going to bring it for both houses. Now you can’t control how Republicans vote and you never can, you’re in the minority. Like you don’t get to control, they vote. But that would be a win if you say, look, we’re voting on it and make them walk the plank on it. And maybe you can actually get a few Republicans and you can pass it and Donald Trump can veto it or not. But to make a deal like that, there has to be a level of trust that I think is just totally absent from the system. So I don’t even know how you get to whatever the negotiated settlement would look like. Now the other problem is, the other possibility is Trump caves and is like, I don’t like the health insurance premiums going up and just orders them to vote it through.
Alex Wagner: Well, Trump last night on Tuesday night said, I mean, partially blamed the democratic wins and the Republican losses on the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot and the shutdown. So he’s looking at this landscape and he’s saying, this is not working out. This is not, working out for me. And the pressure point he’s exerting is get rid of the filibuster. [laughter] Which would be, you know, I think problematic in this juncture.
Chris Hayes: So I think it would be a win for them to get rid of the filibuster. And that maybe sounds—
Alex Wagner: You know me, I’m just a Mitch McConnell, Mitch McConnell institutionalist—[laughter]
Chris Hayes: I mean, here’s the reason that I think that. I really have come to believe, if you take a step back, that part of the way that we got to this moment of the Congress being essentially like Steve Bannon called the Duma, the Russian parliament. It got harder and harder for Congress to actually do stuff.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And the more difficult it is for Congress to do stuff, the more space the executive takes up. And I would rather a system, even on the, tarriffs are a great example. Like we’ve now got this status quo where everyone’s gonna get one reconciliation bill, which itself is this perverse, weird exception to the filibuster. Everyone then has to like. Reverse engineer their policy through tax credits to get it past the parliamentarian, which doesn’t make any actual logical sense when you step back. Why is this the thing you’re allowed to do? I would rather have up or down votes, majority votes in the houses on the tariffs than this madness we have now, which is like, if you have both houses and you have a majority and you want to pass tariffs duly through a constitutional system with the elected representatives and put tariffs on every country, I think that’s terrible policy. But that is better than the fiat and whims of one man.
Alex Wagner: Okay, so you’re the TLDR is like you’d rather see the legislative branch get its ball back. And like do whatever.
Chris Hayes: and even if it’s bad, even if what they do is stuff that’s bad. I would rather it actually be happening through like the functioning legislative branch, taking votes and passing laws, the president signs rather than the absolute madness that we have now.
Alex Wagner: That’s putting a lot of like points in John Thune’s favor, I guess.
Chris Hayes: Yes, but I also think it puts a little, it puts things more—
Alex Wagner: It puts more pressure on them to actually do it.
Chris Hayes: It does a little bit like this is the thing that’s been so wild is how missing any sense of like democratic accountability or like what will the meat like they all hate the tarriffs. They don’t want to vote for the tarriffs They think the tarriffs are bad idea, but they don’t have to vote the tarriffs. It’s the same thing as DOGE. Like they don’t have to do anything. They don’t t have to own it—
Alex Wagner: And so an up or down vote on helping 24 million Americans afford health care is going to be something that they have to own.
Chris Hayes: Vote on it.
Alex Wagner: If they vote it down.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, vote on it and don’t like this idea that Donald Trump does it all and then you get to be like, well, I didn’t see or yeah, we like the president. I think that has been part of what’s so destructive. So, I mean, I have a long standing objection to the filibuster, but my long standing objection you might think, okay, in the dire situation we’re in now, of all the times, to give a simple majority the tools, this looks like the most dangerous. But in the absence of that, it’s not that they just don’t do anything in Congress. It just does it all.
Alex Wagner: Yeah. I guess it’s a counterintuitive proposition that Republicans are going to somehow grow a backbone when they actually, or have some version of a spine, I don’t know.
Chris Hayes: It’s not even a backbone so much as it’s at least, the degree to which none of them seem to give a wit about what the median voter thinks about anything.
Alex Wagner: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Is enabled by the Trump cult, the sort of oversized executive, the lame duck president where it’s like, well, it’s all him. You know, what are we gonna do? Like, no, you, you. Do you want the tariffs? Vote on the tariff. Should we tariff Brazil at 50% because they tried to prosecute the guy who started a coup? And if you think we should, you’re elected to the Senate. You’re allowed to vote for that tariff. Fine, I think it’s a bad idea. But then people know that you voted for that and it wasn’t just this sort of figure who weirdly exists like outside politics and outside democratic accountability.
Alex Wagner: Um to the shutdown itself and to how it ends because it could be all it could all be over by Friday, right? Um.
Chris Hayes: I think it’s almost likely to. What do you think?
Alex Wagner: Well, you know, I think the reality of Sean Duffy closing, you know, federal airspace because they don’t have enough TSA air traffic controllers to, to handle the, the, the planes landing them safely is a thing. I think 42 million Americans, many, if not most of whom live in Trump districts going hungry and just the sort of morally reprehensible act of a country starving its own people is just something nobody should be able to countenance. I think that’s all going to put a lot of pressure on it. And I think there’s some, to your point, I think it’s like, you know, Democrats have fought this fight. I think I do think they’ve been strategically very sound. And I think that they own that Trump owns the premiums going up, if that’s what and indeed what happens, or Republicans will doubly own them if they take a vote, if they vote down federal subsidies. And one of the important things in this moment is to be seen as fighters. And I think that they have very successfully done that. And I don’t know that there’s like a period three weeks from now. If they’re going to get the same deal that would greatly enrich them in that profile, you know what I mean? So.
Chris Hayes: That’s my feeling too. And particularly, I think there’s a little strike while the iron’s hot in the wake of this drubbing.
Alex Wagner: But don’t you think that’s going to be weird if they if they say we have all this momentum and we are done with the shutdown tonally, strategically? I think there’s some people are going to say get more from them.
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Alex Wagner: Is this the best you can do. What the fuck was it? Why? Why’d we do this?
Chris Hayes: Yeah, I mean, I think it does depend on what the outcome is and what you can say about it. If it’s nothing, if you’re just agreeing to the terms ex ante, if there’s literally nothing, then I don’t think you could do it. If you’re given something that says, we’re taking up the subsidies the first thing, Congress coming back at a recess, Adelita Grijalva’s gonna be sworn in, and we’re taken up the subsides next week, that would count to me as a win. If it’s just, we can’t do this anymore, and people are starving or, you know, going hungry, uh, that’s a harder thing to sell. Although again, there is a like first order substantive case to be like, yes, they have decided to inflict so much pain. We can’t abide it anymore. And we’re the responsible party here. I mean, you can, that is also a plausible argument here.
Alex Wagner: Real-world sadism. That’s what I call it. It’s really sick. It’s very sick the lengths to which Trump and the party are willing to go.
Chris Hayes: And also, it’s sick also, like Lawrence pointed this out last night, but it’s so true, like it’s such a standard part. Like in all three speeches last night. Spanberger and Cheryl and Mamdani said to the people that didn’t vote for me, I want to be your representative too. I’m going to listen to you. I’m a representative for all of us. Like the idea, like Donald Trump is the lone rep, a single representative for every American, that he only one person, arguably the vice president too, who is elected to represent everyone. And the degree to which he’s just like constant, so normalized, like that’s a Democrat thing. Oh, Democrat, that’s a blue, Democrat city. And it’s like, those are Americans. Those are Americans, they’re American.
Alex Wagner: He’s going to, he literally said he would punish New York City because of who they voted for for mayor.
[AD BREAK]
Alex Wagner: Um, can I ask you just a little bit about how the party should move, how the party moves forward with all of this on its plate, right? The first thing I want to ask is, you know, one of the things that seems so intoxicating as a party tries to plan like 2026 and 2028, one of the thing that seems to intoxicating about the Mamdani campaign, for example, as a model is the sense of identity both inside and outside the campaign, right. They’re like. The people that there were, I think, 90,000 volunteers.
Chris Hayes: Yep.
Alex Wagner: Like just a staggering number. And you live in New York city, you know, you, there were just everywhere, right? The campaign infrastructure, there was a, dare I say, almost zealotry [laughter] that like attended working for the Bummed On campaign in the best way possible. Um, and I’d wonder if you think that sense of identity is something that you can get in a campaign that is not. So, um, What’s the right word? I don’t want to say strident, but like there was a very strong progressive, like molten center.
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Alex Wagner: To the Mamdani campaign, and I wonder if you think that sense of identity and community is replicable with like a centrist campaign in like a state like, oh, I don’t know, West Virginia, because everybody keeps talking about Joe Manchin and whether we need more him in the Democratic Party.
Chris Hayes: I think it, I mean, I think, it’s pretty hard. I think part of it also is just charisma, which is not, you know, it just is a hard thing to replicate. I mean the closest thing to what I saw on the ground volunteer wise in Mamdani was when I lived in Chicago in 2003 when state Senator Barack Obama was running for Senate.
Alex Wagner: Part of them, part of them.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. And it was the same, it was just like, everyone was volunteer people. And there’s also a degree to which like, it’s very rare that politicians are cool. This happens very rarely, right? Like it happened with Barack Obama in Illinois, and then it happened again with his presidential race.
Alex Wagner: Is Gavin Newsom cool?
Chris Hayes: No, I don’t think Gavin Newsom is cool.
Alex Wagner: Even with all the memes?
Chris Hayes: Maybe. It feels a little less organic. The numbers in New York don’t lie. There was just something going on. They hit two million doors. It was crazy. But it’s funny you say Gavin Newsom, because one thing I will say is, the turnout last night in that Prop 50 race, I think does speak to the fact that there is energy to harness. Even without, there was no person they were voting for. And California doesn’t have off year elections. It’s not even a midterm. They never have elections. There was one item and one item only on the ballot. And they got what? 10 million people to come out, 11, something like that? That is wild to me. So that suggests there is energy there to harness. I mean, No King’s brought seven to eight million people out on the streets with no leader. Like there’s energy to harness that can be harnessed in other places and not just around. You know, a particularly ideologically distinct agenda in the case of Mamdani, although I think that you can’t separate that from his energy. Like that’s not an accident that hit, uh, or a particularly charismatic figure. I think, look, turnout was really high. I mean, look at what happened in Virginia. Like they flipped 13 seats and they’re flipping 13 seats in the house of delegates because people are coming out. And that’s, that’s something that’s being driven by, I mean Spanberger won by 15 or 16 points. Now she had a pretty crappy opponent. Um, but she ran a good race and there, there is enthusiasm that, that can be exported and replicated. And I think if you see a like competitive Senate race in Iowa, you’re going to see crazy numbers of volunteers and small donors.
Alex Wagner: I think it’s also, it’s enthusiasm, but it’s people fighting. I mean, the one.
Chris Hayes: Yes, yeah.
Alex Wagner: One of the things that people, that is the thing of Trump is he’s a fighter and he’s the pugilist and always has positioned himself as such. And Democrats have not taken that position. They’ve taken the position of unitors and some people would say critically apologists, and this is the first time where you’ve seen a kind of, I don’t even want to say punitive because it’s I think warranted, but like. A real, you know, brawler’s attitude towards everything, towards everything. And I will note Zohran Mamdani said like, let this be the last time I mentioned Andrew Cuomo by name ever again, or whatever he said, you know, like they’re people—
Chris Hayes: I wish him all the best in his private life.
Alex Wagner: Yes, exactly.
Chris Hayes: And turn the volume up? I mean, that would-
Alex Wagner: That was exactly if Donald Trump, I know you’re listening.
Chris Hayes: I have four words for you—
[clip of Zohran Mamdani]: I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name! So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching! I’ve got words for you. Turn the volume up! [applause]
Alex Wagner: What we’re hearing, I mean, I think that actually your mentioning of Prop 50 is, is, is actually the whole ball game that that wasn’t meant to happen. 10 million people weren’t meant to come out to vote for—
Chris Hayes: That is a mind, I mean, that really is mind blowing. Like that is a procedural mechanism bank shot being done in response to another state’s internal gerrymandering that has to clear this hurdle because of the state’s own constitution and structure that was very popular under Schwarzenegger to stop essentially partisan gerrymander in the state. I think a good idea, and I think we should have a national law, right? That doesn’t, that avoids the race to the bottom to be able to rush that through. Sign it in the last day, I think they could possibly sign it to get it on the ballot. Get it on ballot. Mount the campaign. Not just win by whatever they won by, we’ll see what the final numbers are. The win is less, if you won with three million people because no one cares and the only people that came out were to vote for it, that would be a different story than I think like midterm level, between midterm and presidential level turnout. For this just says, like, my God, that there is something very big happening there.
Alex Wagner: Um, I want to ask you like one or two more questions because you’ve written a book about attention and how it’s our most valuable resource, right? And I guess I wonder how you square the need for, you know, attention, getting political maneuvers, like, I don’t know, memes or filibusters on the, on the floor of the Senate. I see you, Cory Booker. With the reality of what people are experiencing day-to-day and like how much you like right we’re talking about in fact the government shut down which is—
Chris Hayes: The shutdown I think is a good example.
Alex Wagner: Right like there’s i mean we’re talking about 70 million americans who are literally being affected directly by what’s happening between SNAP and and the ACA premium hikes and yet like you know all the attention is going to be on these races that we’re talking about this week and and like the government shutdown has gotten almost no attention and like that’s to say nothing of the federal bureaucracy and the people that are doing the hard work of government and are either unpaid or furloughed or never going to get that money at all. I feel like you’re going to say something here and I don’t want to interrupt you, but.
Chris Hayes: No, no, go ahead.
Alex Wagner: I guess how much does the noise and the attention grabbing actually supersede the real substance of what Democrats are doing?
Chris Hayes: Okay, so I would, I disagree a little bit insofar as I think the national, I think the shutdown has gotten a fair amount of attention and I think it has broken through to a certain amount. I mean, I that shows up in the polling. And I think to the extent that the, like, two things have been notable to me about the shutdown. They had an opportunity to do this back in the spring and they didn’t, right? Quite famously, Chuck Schumer whipped the votes on the Democratic side to give a filibuster-proof majority to pass a government funding bill. And to me, that was born of… They didn’t want negative attention. They didn’t a big story about how Democrats shut down the government. It was a risk averse play. I think what’s changed is they have lost a little of that risk aversion. They are less worried about negative attention.
Alex Wagner: Definitely.
Chris Hayes: And understand that big things have to happen to break through. Now your point, which is that this enormous thing, which is gonna maybe be the longest shutdown ever.
Alex Wagner: It is.
Chris Hayes: It still doesn’t feel like it is, right? It still isn’t the biggest thing is true, but it’s bigger than business as usual. It’s more attention grabbing than when the government wasn’t shut down. And they have put more attention on the healthcare subsidy issue than before they shut down, you know, before the government shutdown happened. So I think it’s been a success and I think in some ways it’s borne out some of the lessons from the book, right? Be less afraid of negative attention. Attention really matters. Sometimes you have to take high-risk strategies to get it. This was a high-risk strategy. I don’t even know how it’s going to play out, but so far I think its been pretty good and I think it might end up with something both substantively and politically good. You’re right that breaking through when you don’t have the bully pulpit combined with the particular psychopathology of Donald Trump is difficult. But the shutdown to me is the most earnest, concerted strategic effort to deal with that attentional asymmetry. The other thing I’ll say is, have you noticed that the normally… Kind of press shy or not inclined to give interviews, leadership and members of the Democratic caucus have been giving a lot more interviews. Like Hakeem Jeffries has been everywhere. Oh, it’s been much easier to book members of show. Now part of that is they don’t have a day job.
Alex Wagner: For your show. For your show. [laughter] Just to be clear, we made some calls. Here at Crooked Media, sometimes they don’t want to talk to us.
Chris Hayes: Chris, you’re our fourth choice. [laughter] It’s like when you got a wedding invite three weeks before that wedding. You’re like, huh, I think I must’ve been on the C list—
Alex Wagner: That fucking definitely happened to me. [overlapping speak] Oh, by the way, oh my god, I need to—
Chris Hayes: We’re getting married in three weeks.
Alex Wagner: Fuck you.
Chris Hayes: Oh, wow. In Maui?
Alex Wagner: Um… Yes—
Chris Hayes: I, I generally think it’s actually been a success. And I think it kind of like progress, honestly.
Alex Wagner: Um, I’m not saying it’s not progress.
Chris Hayes: I think Newsom’s another example. Like they, this prop 50 strategy required him getting a lot of attention to this issue and they worked really hard to do it and they succeeded.
Alex Wagner: So, I mean, I agree with you. I think that they are absolutely, that last week’s episode was all about how they’re playing a different version of baseball.
Chris Hayes: Yes. Yeah, right, exactly.
Alex Wagner: They’re throwing curve balls. They did not use, they were just trying to throw strikes before.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Alex Wagner: That’s a baseball metaphor that I learned because I have an eight year old and he can pitch now. Um, and so that’s laudable. I guess I just worry like they should get attention and they should get credit into the midterms. And I would argue 2028 for what they’re doing right now, which is such a principled fight.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Alex Wagner: But that, you’re already taking [both speaking]. Well, I do think it depends on what happens with those health care costs.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, that’s right. You’re right—
Alex Wagner: People remember not being able to put food on the table. People remember not being to go to the doctor’s office.
Chris Hayes: It also depends. I’ll say one more thing, which I always have to remind myself as I like, try to think about the future is, it also depends on events. I mean, if we have some awful messy war with Venezuela that starts in three weeks, then like all of this is, and I’m being serious.
Alex Wagner: I know, that’s the problem.
Chris Hayes: You know what I mean? What was the biggest issue in August, 2001 in American politics, right? It was like, Jim Jeffords was frustrated with the Bush administration and switched parties and, and—
Alex Wagner: Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Chris Hayes: You know, like, so my point just being that, like, that’s the other thing to always remember.
Alex Wagner: Nobody knows.
Chris Hayes: That like, no one knows, you know, around the corner what it is.
Alex Wagner: But you know what? That’s all the more reason to take a swing when miss.
Chris Hayes: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right, precisely because you don’t know. You could control what you could control, which is your strategy. Are you having a principled fight? Are you fighting on terrain again? That’s the correct, like good for people, which probably the most important thing. Politically advantageous also keeps your coalition united and divides theirs. If you have something like that, you got to go for it. And I think there’s a good lesson here. It’s also I think not I think it’s also a good lesson for the more risk-averse members of the coalition that the shutdown extended into the election and produced the election night in the middle of the shutdown. I mean, clearly the worst fears about the strategy, which is that people would blame the Democrats and be mad at the Democrats, and think that Democrats don’t want to govern and they shut down the government and that would hurt the Democratic Party, that clearly didn’t happen. Right.
Alex Wagner: A three term member of Congress, who’s a Democrat, in Virginia, just won the governor’s seat.
Chris Hayes: Right exactly.
Alex Wagner: Surrounded by a bunch of federal workers who’ve been screwed over in the shutdown. So never forget. Okay, Chris Hayes, busy man, lots of thoughts, I cherish everything that you say. [laughter]
Chris Hayes: Oh my God, it’s so embarrassing how many takes I have. I’m like, what are you doing? You need more takes?
Alex Wagner: Oh my god, your takes, they’re so good.
Chris Hayes: You need more takes, I got more takes.
Alex Wagner: You’re the best. Stick around forever. Thank you for your time, buddy. I appreciate you.
Chris Hayes: Ah, you’re the best. Talk soon.
Alex Wagner: Before we go, I wanna hear from you. Have you been impacted directly by the Trump administration and its policies? Maybe you’ve experienced changes to your job or to your healthcare or at your kid’s school. If so, I want to hear it all, whether these policies have impacted you for better or for worse. Whether these policies have impacted you for better or for worse. So send us an email or a one minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. And thank you to everyone who has written in already. Last but not least, don’t forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country, with Alex Wagner. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.
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