Bloomberg Talks
00:05:01 · Joe Mathieu, Jim Messina, Kailey Leinz, Kailey Leinz
[00:05:01] S1: Yeah. [00:05:03] S3: I think you look and everyone's going to look and see what the lessons they learned from the election. And I think, you know, if you look at the map, if you look at the Democratic primary map, it sits very well for a Southern politician, putting South Carolina early in the map and Virginia. And so I think if you're Ossoff, if you're Andy Beshear, if you're Raphael Warnock, you're going to kick the tires. [00:05:26] S1: I mean, you can say anything now as long as the nation needs you. You just, you know, you can change your mind later down the road, right? [00:05:31] S0: Joe, the nation needs you. [00:05:31] S1: You're just going to be drafted by the party. How many lawyers are calling you about the day after? [00:05:36] S3: Tons. I serve as co-chair of Democracy Defenders with former White House counsel Norm Eisen. And this is our biggest concern. You know, we've been taking some of these cases up to court. There's lots of concern about what's going to happen in Alaska. You know, there's normal ballot problems. You guys have been covering them today. There's lots of concern about this. We know that no matter what happens, the president is unlikely to want to accept it. And so we'll probably be talking about this for the next couple of weeks. [00:06:03] S2: Well, and more lawyers means more money will have to be spent. And we've already seen a lot of money spent. This is the most expensive election cycle in U.S. [00:06:11] S0: History.
00:06:11 · Kailey Leinz, Kailey Leinz, Jim Messina, Joe Mathieu
[00:06:11] S0: History. [00:06:12] S2: Some $ 12 billion spent on behalf of candidates. You have more than half a billion dollars spent in Texas alone. Have we learned something about the efficacy of the incremental dollars in the modern- Do they need to be spending this much money all across the country? [00:06:28] S3: No, and voters are over it and they're sick of it. The Spanish election is happening right now. They can, by law, spend 29 million euro. It's six weeks, you can't campaign outside the window, and they have higher turnout than we do. Wow. This system, look, it makes guys like me rich, and that's wonderful, we're all capitalists. But this spending is ridiculous. We do not need $ 12 billion dollars. to litigate a midterm election. [00:06:54] S1: This is a very truthful conversation. You know we're on the air here, right? How come Barack Obama is still the biggest draw for Democrats on the trail? We were laughing a couple of weeks ago. Still Obama and Trump a decade later. Is that good or bad for the party? [00:07:10] S0: It's good.
00:07:10 · Kailey Leinz, Jim Messina, Kailey Leinz, Joe Mathieu
[00:07:10] S0: It's good. [00:07:10] S3: He's someone who can unite the wings of the Democratic Party. Both parties have split. and have real internal challenges. Barack Obama is the gold standard of every wing of our party. And him holding it together until there's a Democratic nominee, I think is very, very helpful. And it's exactly what we need. Everyone says all the time, we need a new voice, we need a new voice. We'll have one after the Democratic primary for president. And then that's a natural transition time. Right now, we're in the minority. And so you go back, the most popular political figure in America is Barack Obama. And we'd be crazy not to use him. [00:07:45] S2: Well, And yet we are seeing some new voices enter the scene in the Democratic Party, like, for example, the Democratic nominee in Michigan, more progressives, outright people who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America who could end up members of Congress at the end of tonight. What have you learned about the direction your party is heading from what has happened in this midterm. [00:08:03] S1: Cycle, Jim? [00:08:04] S3: Thank you for asking this, because there's this perception, especially in this town of New York, that the party's just going so far left. I was with a bunch of Democratic donors last night, and they were losing their minds over this. [00:08:15] S0: It's not really true.
00:08:15 · Kailey Leinz, Jim Messina, Joe Mathieu
[00:08:15] S0: It's not really true. [00:08:16] S3: Three-fourths of primaries, the moderate or conservative Democratic candidate has won. There's a very famous mayor from this town, and obviously El-Sayed, but there's a bunch of others. Roy Cooper is going to win a Republican seat in the Senate. You don't get much more moderate than Roy Cooper does, but we're not talking about Roy Cooper. We're talking about El-Sayed, and I understand why, but on the ground, it's still economic-focused Democrats who are winning these elections. [00:08:45] S0: We're going to have this fight. [00:08:46] S3: I personally think the DSA is a bad development for my party, and I'm going to continue to say that over and over and over because I don't think their policies are right, and I think that's how you lose elections. [00:08:56] S1: Can't wait to distill the results with you when we have the opportunity. [00:08:59] S0: Great to pick the brain of Jim Messina. How about that? [00:09:02] S1: On Election Day, we've promised the best voices in the business, and we'll continue delivering them. The CEO of Fortius. Jim, thank you so much for being with us. Alongside Kailey Leinz, I'm Joe Mathieu. I'll be right back.