Host: 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.

News Anchor: Democrat Grant Platner said he is dropping out of his state senate race. It follows allegations of rape and physical abuse, which he denies.

Graham Platner: I just want to make it clear this is all false.

Host: 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 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 before his implosion. That the Democratic establishment is intensely vulnerable, that it's out of touch with the electorate. Platner did after all beat Janet Mills, the sitting governor of Maine, Chuck Schumer's handpicked candidate before his campaign 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 2022 campaign. He was one of the key strategists on Dan Osborne's independent run for Senate in Nebraska in 2024. So, there's been a certain kind of working class coded populist campaign that Katz has really become central and defining. So, here was this guy who people really hadn't heard of before and it 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 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. Katz 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 clearly got wrong. As always my email esroclow@nytimes.com. Morris Katz, welcome to the show.

Morris Katz: Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.

Host: 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?

Morris Katz: 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.

Host: You described the Reddit post for him at one point as an asset.

Morris Katz: 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.

Host: 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?

Morris Katz: 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.

Host: 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.

Morris Katz: 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

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: 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

Speaker A: what did you see in plat when you first met him what was that conversation like

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: How many people did you and Morph and and Leanne collectively meet with before settling on Platner?

Speaker B: 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

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: So I know when you did settle on him there was a vetting document created. What did that document find?

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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

Interviewer: 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.

Interviewee: >> 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.

Interviewer: 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.

Interviewee: >> 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.

Interviewer: 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?

Interviewee: Yes, I think uh knowing what we know now, there should have been more credibility given immediately to that story when it came forward.

Interviewer: 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?

Interviewee: 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.

Interviewer: >> It often seem [clears throat] to be a little insulting to like what gets called real people.

Interviewee: >> 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.

Interviewer: 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

Consultant: 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.

Interviewer: 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?

Consultant: 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.

Interviewer: 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.

Consultant: 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.

Interviewer: 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,

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: >> Mhm.

Speaker B: >> 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.

Speaker A: >> The sort of the Zoran Mani approach.

Speaker B: >> 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

Speaker A: >> I've also found those debates frustrating. [laughter]

Speaker B: >> 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 we 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.

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: >> 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.

Speaker A: >> But is there an outdated idea of what the working class looks like here?

Speaker B: >> 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

Speaker A: 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

Speaker B: >> 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?

Speaker A: >> 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

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: >> 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?

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: >> That's because you need to raise money from them.

Speaker A: >> 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.

Speaker B: >> The campaign here that you worked on that didn't take off was Nathan Sage in Iowa. What went wrong?

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: >> 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.

Speaker A: >> 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

Speaker A: 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 Zohran Mamdani 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.

Speaker B: When you met Donnie the first time what what made you think there was some magic there?

Speaker A: 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

Speaker B: 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?

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: A leap of faith from the voter

Speaker A: from the voter. Mhm. [clears throat]

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: 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

Speaker A: harder if you're in Boston or to say nothing of a smaller town than that. Or is there a genuine lesson there?

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: You I did. So, you're you're welcome to.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Um, [snorts]

Speaker B: we're trying to get attention here, man. [laughter]

Speaker A: Attention economy.

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: What about at the level of affect? One way Mam 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.

Speaker A: 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.

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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?

Speaker B: 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.

Speaker A: 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 whatever view they have on that but their the their worry about it and their worry about the energy around it about the amount of media attention it gets from people like me is they feel that it makes the Democratic party's job in a place like North Carolina or Ohio harder that the the perception of the national party is that it's becoming more socialist. You know, you have people who made all kinds of comments about, you know, defunding the police or abolishing prisons. So, I think as somebody who does care about winning, not just in places like Maine, which is more blue, but in places like Ohio and Alaska, etc., how do you think about that challenge? like how does this mass of Democratic parties become one thing that can can compete not just in New York City but you know in places Democrats used to win like Indiana and North Dakota.

Speaker B: To me there two things are kind of true. One, there is a national brand problem that is undeniable. To me, that national brand problem does not come from more liberal social perspectives from representatives in deep blue places. It comes from a tangible feeling the Democratic party is out of touch with the things that voters care about. And if you, you know, look at polling, Bernie Sanders is more popular than Chuck Schumer. And there's it is a disdain of kind of the elites and the powerful that I think fuels the democratic brand issue and that is what we need to address to overcome that. Um I think the other component is Democrats have an eat their own component that fuels these flames. you know, so like you see some of

Morris Gats: these candidates win and instead of us wrapping our arms around them as a party, instead of it being like, look, we disagree with their positions on A, B, and C, but what we're all aligned on is that they're, you know, we should be spending our taxpayer dollars on babies, not bombs. We we all agree is that we need stronger unions to be able to lift up working people. We need There's like a, yeah, they're a [ __ ] radical. That's not my party. And it's like, well,

Host: are you so friendly to the establishment Democrats in the way that you're asking they be friendly to you?

Morris Gats: [laughter] Um, I think that they are not I think the people who I'm critical of often times are not engaging in good faith the way that they're critical of our like I don't think I think that when their positions are compromised because of the money they take and the people they're answering to and that that is what is hurting the brand and then they have the audacity to throw other people under the bus for it. It's bad faith and it's the problem. I

Host: I I'm just saying and I don't actually have I'm a big tent party guy. I've done a lot of work on this and and I think I've proven this out, but I am just saying that sometimes I I find that both sides feel the other one that that they're willing to play nice and the other one isn't. It's like you're the way I would describe what you are saying to me here is the Democratic like the Democratic party to the extent such a thing exists but the sort of elites of it should be more embracing of uh Clare Valdez um and should recognize that even if they have disagreements with her you know everybody's kind of on the same side um you know and you're like look the problem with them is that they're corrupt [laughter] and and I think they might you know not see that as such a friendly way to frame the the work they've been doing to say try to win a majority.

Morris Gats: I I mean I

Host: I'm not even saying they're not corrupt, but

Morris Gats: yeah, I I think they're two different lanes

Host: and and and I'll just say that this is like actually one of the critiques I've heard um of you a fight of it's like you'll say they're corrupt and then it's like you know I actually like Tom Star quite a bit but you know then you have it's like as long as you're working with the right billionaires it's fine, right? as long as you are um working with the right more establishment candidates like Michael Asher in New York 12, which I think you were a little bit involved in that race, it's fine that that there's a as long that anybody's fine as long as they're on our side and that, you know, if they're on the other side, then they're, you know, possibly a corrupt traitor of the people.

Morris Gats: I mean, what I'd say about that spectrum of candidates, none of them take money from lobbyists. None of them

Host: Tom is a billionaire. He doesn't need to.

Morris Gats: None of them take money from corporate packs. All of them have a deep belief in government's role and what it should do. And like I I think we should give a ton of leeway for people running in Trump plus 20 places. What doesn't feel like it quite corresponds is a lot of the people who are like the harshest critics are actually not running in those Trump plus 20 places. Like you hear Roy Cooper and shared Brown punching left a whole lot less than you hear like you know the frequenters of certain cable news circuits who are just members of Congress and like D plus 10 seats or something you so it actually doesn't if you look at the people who really have proven records of overperformance it's not the tactic they're taking that's not to say they're like in lock step with the party at large and everything but they're not reaching those overperformances by just piling on to the left. They're just carving out unique things to their places.

Host: So, I want to loop back to Platiner here at the end. One of the things I thought was just most interesting about the Platiner story was that he was recruited that that you all went out and found a candidate you thought would fit Maine. And to a large extent, you were right. Now, it fell apart at the end. [gasps] But that sense that there are different kinds of candidates out there who could work in this moment, I don't think that's something that people should throw overboard. And so, sort of my question for you and honestly for sort of like others who might want to learn from what you all at least were trying to do there is what have you learned both for good and bad about how to find candidates? Right? If if you want to say the Democratic party needs to recruit a different kind of person to run, but also you want to take seriously that that people who have not been in politics and have not been aggressively vetted in politics might come with more downside risk. What would be your what would be your process next time?

Morris Gats: I think that there is a deep deep hunger for a different kind of politics. There is a deep deep frustration with the status quo and what we're seeing right now is not a democracy the way the founders intended it. You know, it was supposed to be something that looked more like a farmer going to serve their two terms than going home and a small business owner going to serve their two terms and coming home. And it was, you know, the idea of it being almost a cathedral representative of the fabric of America. And we are so far from that. And I think that is why we have so many of the problems we have. Only 2% of Congress is from the working class. I think there are many things that are devastating about all of this. But one of the many is the degree in which people have had so much put so much hope and faith into this and that it people who' kind of written politics all felt inspired again. And I think when we do that, we're asking for so much for people to believe that maybe their lives can actually get better. Maybe politics can actually be a tool for good. We can't let them down. And that's going to mean different standards. That's going to mean a far more robust vetting process. That's going to mean, I think, bring in more partners and larger conversations. But I think there there's too much at stake to walk away. And things are so clearly not working the way they are right now. [snorts] Um we we we need to find a way to bring more people in.

Host: And then I'll ask our final question. What are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

Morris Gats: Three books. Um, I'll do uh Life and Fate by Vaseli Gman. A really, I think, stunning kind of human portrayal um of the ramifications of the Holocaust in that entire era. Um, Shame by McKenna Goodman, a really, I think, beautiful book of of uh kind of the friction of isolation and dreams and anxiety. And I think in some way it's not at all a political book but feels political in the way of the conversation we're having of I think the results of modern society on people. Um and then um I have not finished it yet but I'm currently reading uh the fourth branch by Daniel Squadron and very much enjoying that and I think it's a really astute um observation of where political power is and how we can kind of shape a government that's on a day-to-day basis improving people's lives.

Host: Morris Gats, thank you very much.

Morris Gats: Thanks for having me. Heat. Heat.