today we're going to talk about Democrats accidentally stumbling on the perfect strategy to defeat Elon and Trump and I have two interviews this week I sit down with psfe America's John favro to discuss Elon musk's overreach and I interview Jen saki to talk about Trump's lagging poll numbers I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're watching no lie so we have been in the wilderness for a while now Trump is following the Steve Bannon model of flooding The Zone because he knows that he can send the media and the Democrats scrambling in 10 different directions and he's
largely right but we've just accidentally stumbled upon a strategy to really fight back and unlike most of what Democrats have been trying to do this one can actually work so here's the background this past week the house was out of session which means that a bunch of lawmakers held town halls in their districts to give you a small sampling of what that looks like this is Republican Congressman Glenn Gran's Town Hall in Wisconsin's six congressional district this district has been solidly Republican since 1967 like more than half a century of Republican rule there are no
districtwide BLM protests being held here okay and yet this is what his town hall sounded like President Trump has issued a lot of executive orders I think by and large this is moving very quickly compared to other administrations and I think across the board uh he's done some very good things I think [Music] um he's gotten rid of Birthright [Applause] citizenship illegal as hell and we've seen the same thing in districts across the country Republican districts with Republican voters who are lashing out because of trump and elon's overreach and that's bearing itself out not just
at these town halls but in the polling too Trump has enjoyed net positive support for the first month of his presidency as sad as that is to say but that number has just flipped to net negative based on polling from The Washington Post Reuters Quinn aak and CNN he's underwater on ending Dei programs in the military on Banning transmilitary members from serving on pardoning January 6 insurrectionists on doing Mass firings of federal employees on shutting down usaid which provides humanitarian assistance to low-income countries and on blocking Health agencies from communicating with the American public but
he is the most underwater on having deputized Elon Musk according to the Washington Post musk having a prominent role in the administration is viewed as a Bad Thing 54 to 28 by a nearly 2:1 ratio the post ipsos poll showed Americans disapproved by a similarly wide margin 52 to 26 of musk shutting down federal government programs that he decides are un necessary an Americans said 63 to 34 that they are concerned about musk's team getting access to their data which is the subject of high-profile legal fights even 37% of Republican leaning voters said they are
at least somewhat concerned about must getting their data so clearly what Elon is doing is unpopular Trump allowing him to do it is unpopular and these Republican lawmakers and Senators allowing Trump and Elon to usurp all of their power is also unpopular and look I get the gamble that these Republican officials made they don't want to do anything to earn the scorn of trump because he's threatened them with a primary Challenge and of course Elon will fund it and so they'll just do whatever he and Elon want but what they didn't take into account was
that if the vote voters themselves are lashing out then that is a more immediate problem than the prospect of a primary challenge at some point in the future and mark my words they will be responsive to their own voters certainly more than they're going to be responsive to some Idol Threat by Trump and so the answer here is to put pressure on these Republican officials because if they start to see that they are losing support from the very people responsible for keeping them in their jobs for responsible for voting them into office then that becomes
existential in a way that Trump's threats can't be if you live in these districts show up at these Town Halls call these people go to their field offices go to their DC offices these are the people that we need to lean on and look I know that a lot of the focus has been on Democrats lately because well because Democrats have been something of a disaster but the reality is that even if we have 100% consensus among Democrats even if Democrats are perfect we still don't have the power the numbers to actually do anything but
when we start chipping away at Republicans that's a different story and if one Republican steps up and caves to the pressure that then gives a permission structure for other Republicans to do the same and remember they've got a three seat majority in the house which means it doesn't take much to block Trump's agenda but it starts by doing exactly what these constituents are doing right now which is showing up getting loud and voicing their dissatisfaction with what is going on in Washington DC and let's be clear uh doing that doesn't make you some radical Marxist
like if you're a conservative I beg of you to put Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or some democrat in the shoes of Donald Trump right now using Elon using some multi-billionaire donor as his personal wrecking ball for programs that people need programs that conservatives need is different from eliminating government waste cancer research is not government waste air traffic controllers are not government waste Medicaid is not government waste Social Security is not government waste look I get that Elon Musk doesn't care because he doesn't rely on any of these but a hell of a lot of
people in this country do including Republicans and the only way that we keep these programs is if Republican voters do what we are seeing the beginnings of right now which is to speak out your elected officials are accountable to you not Donald Trump and not Elon Musk the good news is that you get to remind them of that every day and the better news is that they have a vested interest in listening next up are previews of my interviews with John favro and Jens saki but just a quick note as always this is my once
weekly video podcast which is identical to my once weekly audio podcast in this video only once per week I have sponsors so here's a quick word from some sponsors and then previews of my interviews with John favro and Jen saki no lies brought to you by beam so let's talk about sleep which I feel like is my mortal enemy in case you can't tell I'm pretty high strung and it's pretty difficult for me to wind down and turn my brain off at the end of the day which means I don't sleep easily and bad sleep
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the acorns app to get started paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote acorns tier two compensation provided investing involves risk acorns advisor LLC and SEC registered investment adviser view important disclosures at acorns.com BTC in an environment where where Republicans enjoy the benefit of a huge megaphone of unlimited money to really push any messages through any any campaign they want to to put money behind Elon himself can fund the whole thing just out of his own you know on the interest that he made on his Investments that day and and so in an
environment like this where they are doing the most unpopular things where they're passing a tax cut where the vast majority of the benefits are going to be conferred to Millionaires and billionaires where they're cutting education cutting Health Care cutting earn benefits cutting Social Security all so that they can fund basically a gift to Elon and his donors how would you message that I mean you're your you know your whole background is in in in speech writing and so in an environment where we have the the the deck stacked against us um with you know the
the size and scope of of the right-wing media machine how do you get our message to break through I think that we have so many stories right now of people who are have been hurt who' lost their jobs who are scared and I think we need to tell those stories and I think we need to be fighting for those people and fighting for everyone and I don't I don't actually think it's I mean we I know we have been dissecting messaging and strategizing over it for the last several years this to me is just like
be a human yeah like you are we're you know the there's a veteran who served 20 years four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan disabled works at the Bronx VA Hospital goes into his job and logs onto his computer and finds out he's fired he got four kids at home like what what are we doing right this is supposed to be like the big evil diabolical like government waste and like these are regular people who are by the way also Republicans who just work regular jobs jobs that that aren't just important so that people can feed
their families but that are beneficial to the country that keep us safe that make sure that our nukes for example are are watched over that make sure our food supply is safe yeah like I don't know I mean we're the Democrats um we think that our job is to fight for people who are paying taxes into the government so that they can have safe roads and safe uh skies and that they can get government services when they need them that there's going to be schools for their kids that they're going to be able to retire
and get their social security and that they're going to be able to get healthare when they need it just basic stuff that they're going to be able to like when they work really hard that they're going to be able to like not live in poverty put food on the table and we want to have a government that is on the side of those people and not a government that is hollowed out so that people who don't need a tax cut and some of them weren't even asking for it um can get more money from the
government I'm I'm I'm really glad that you said the point that we can just talk to regular people who who is all impacting because I think we fall into this trap of wanting to talk about these issues in like a theoretical sense and it's hard for people to really connect with that stuff because it's just part of like the political banter in the Zeitgeist right but but to your exact point and and this is what was especially effective during during the campaign is like people don't have trust in in politicians they they they trust even
the commentators who are on their side they'll trust those people more than they would the politicians but but you're going to have you know partisan affiliations clouding how people perceive even the political commentators but when you have regular people and this is something that Sarah Longwell has has talked about at Republican voters against Trump those are the people who kind of Garner the most trust among the vast majority of Americans those people who aren't overtly political who just have a story to share and and by the way that was a strategy that Democrats leaned on
ahead of 2018 those midterms when really it was a referendum on trying to undo the ACA and when you can hear about the regular people across the country who that would impact that what really resonated and of course that election was was you know a huge backlash against Trump and Republicans who were trying to strip Obamacare um funding away and and trying to to do that repeal and replace um even though there's nothing to replace it with but but really the benefits by by virtue of making those people front and center really presented themselves in
a way that we hadn't seen before how much of a five alarm fire is the fact that already in what should be his honeymoon period Trump's approval is dropping even below the point that Biden was at in this point in his presidency well first of all every White House denies they look at polls and they all pour over every poll and get updated internal polling every week so don't let anyone tell you otherwise um and I'm sure they're looking at that within the Trump White House now the numbers this morning were startling if you're if
you're working in a white house because it showed a dramatic drop as you just said and it does show that the impact of his policies um it matters people are seeing it and they're like wait did I is this what I voted for is this what I you know pulled the lever for um and I think that's what you're seeing I I don't know if I'd call it a five alarm fire and I don't think Democrats or people who are opposing the Trump Administration should see it as we've won it's over um it's just an
indication that activism matters that people speaking out and calling out and explaining impact on communities of his policies matters and that all of these things I mean there were moments after the election I I don't know about you actually I know because we talked about this it felt like is anything we're saying mattering does it matter and I think the answer is it does um and that's one of the things that these numbers tell you to watch the full interviews with John favro and Jen saki click the thumbnails right here on the screen or check
out the interviews playlist on my YouTube channel you can also click the link on the screen to listen to the audio version of this episode and of course to watch more of my content the Subscribe button on the screen as well oh
