Bakari Sellers & Lis Smith: Can Dems Do Better in Red America?

Hello. Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Tim Miller in for Charlie Sykes. Still on a very well deserved vacation. Today, got a special double episode for you with two old friends of mine, two very smart Democratic strategists.

We’re gonna start with one and then maybe do a little book talk on the back end. But my first guest here is Bikari Sellars, who I’m sure you’ve heard of. He’s a lawyer, a political commentator, a former state legislator, a political strategist, host of the Vikari Sellars podcast, a father, author of two fabulous books, one for grown ups, my vanishing country, and one for kids, who are your people? Bikari, your CV is gonna take up our whole window here. Where where do you find the time?

My man.

Look, I can tell you that my my number one and two job are being a a husband and a father, and both of those wear me completely out. Whatever entity I have left, I try to do other things.

The kids book I ordered, it is so good. Who are your people? I wanna get to that at the end if we have just if we have just a minute. But we gotta talk a little politics first. And I wasn’t planning on starting with this, but I think given the DOJ response last night, good in fact that you’re an actual lawyer or you’re not just a hack like me.

I I had to at least get your two cents. Like, these images of the top secret documents on the floor in Mar a Lago I mean, maybe it’s not a smoking gun that I the the gun’s whistling. Something’s happening down there. What what what is your take about where this investigation stands at this point?

So there are a few things. One, I thought that Donald Trump’s lawyers made a misstep. And I’m not sure where they got their advice from. I’m not sure if

Serial box.

Yeah. I mean, it’s probably worse than a serial box. It’s probably own or whatever that station is called.

O a n, please, Baccari. I have some respect. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.

But,

you know, the the fact that his lawyers ask for a special master, not truly understanding or encompassing understanding What that encompasses left them open for a very detailed deliberate organized response from the Department of Justice and real lawyers laying out aspects of the investigation, which will prove to embarrass Donald Trump one, but also hurts every other candidate that’s running for office now in the midterm election. Because now they have to respond to the question. And, you know, it’s just tough. And and you you saw facts laid out last night for obstruction of justice. Those are the facts that you saw laid out and I believe, you know, whether or not you are Trump’s custodian of records or one of his lawyers, those charges look to be bold.

And so we’ll see what happens next, but I don’t I’m not sure that someone cannot be indicted based upon the filing that we saw last night. And

you separate all the bullshit on go mama jump out of this and just say, if this was not a former president, right? And and I think that’s, like, really the crux of the matter. Right? If this was you or me or any of our listeners, and and we had documents like this in our desk a desk drawer, you know, we had worked in in the White House, we had worked at, you know, at some level in intelligence, and had some level of clearance, and had had small gold documents out of the White House and and FBI came banging down our door and it was, you know, sitting in our desk door with with

our passports. Like, we’d be going to press Correct. The the there is a bar for a president and a a former president which does not jive with Merrick Garland. By the way, I’m I’m one of the Democrats who really thinks Merrick Garland has been doing a great job. But it doesn’t job with no man is above the law.

The presidents and former presidents are above the law. That’s a weird statement to make, but they are above the law. The question is, are there laws in this country that they cannot break. You know, we’re not talking about, you know, rape, DUI, murder, etcetera. We’re we’re talking about these classified documents in in obstruction.

You know, this isn’t the first time that there has been a bold case of obstruction laid out against this president. We’ll just have to see what happens. I I don’t ever I mean, I think he’s gonna be indicted by Fannie Willis in Atlanta, Georgia, but I do not think he’ll be indicted by

that. Why

why? Because that’s such a clean and clear case. That interference in the election fits squarely in the Georgia statutes and codes of law. I think Lindsey Graham has exposure, which troubles my spirit because I actually I have a hard time with Lindsey Graham’s policies and cheers, but I actually like him as a human being. And I think that there are a lot of people including Rudy Giuliani who who have a great deal of criminal exposure in Atlanta.

Those charges, indictments, cases will be easier to be beat up on and call it a political football than if it was the Department of Justice. But I think there’s more criminal exposure there than anywhere else and and the willingness to indict. Fannie is a badass woman man. She is a bad woman. And whether or not to a young failure, Donald Trump.

She’ll go get you. And

may we need a bolder profile on Fannie? My mind’s been starting to wander thinking about the Mar a Lago purple that’s all I’m gonna say. I haven’t had hope. I haven’t had hope, but my mind’s been starting to dream a little bit, you know, in my in the Peter Pan moments before I’m falling asleep. I just wanna bail you out on Lindsay here for a second with our listeners because I talked about this in yesterday’s show.

You’re you’re from South Carolina. I didn’t mention that in the intro. He’s a fun guy. Like, this is why the Lindsay thing has been so hard for me and it was so hard for me to grapple with in the book. I, you know, I loved having Lindsay on the campaign trail he was the only person that lifted our spirits when everybody was come the media was coming for us.

Donald Trump was shitting on us, you know, we’re the last place in the poll goals and and and Lindsay, you know, came on the campaign trail and was really this jolt of energy because he does love this stuff. And and I just think that it’s his tragic flaw in the end. Like, he loves it too much. And he loved it so much. He got himself into a a really, really bad situation defending a

really bad dude. And and, you know, that’s just a situation right now. There are a couple of things first. I mean, being on the Jet Bush campaign, you you really can’t see a managed true character because that was so fucking short. That’s that’s true.

That’s hers. But second Lindsay for a long period of time was the only one along with Jim Clyburn in South Carolina who delivered any goods to the state who did everything from responding to constituents to making sure that our state was taken care of. People forget that for a very long period of time, we had gym demand in Lindsey Graham. Right? And you had a you had a legislative delegation that was Jim De mente, Lindsey Graham, Joe Wilson,

you lie.

I mean, yeah, you lie. I mean, we we had a very, very conservative to the point where they were decently ineffective in helping just regular people in the state live and thrive. And so Lindsay and Jim Clyburn were really all we had. But the best way to describe Lindsay Graham is this. I

can’t

recall what the fish are called, and I don’t wanna take credit for what I’ve heard this a couple of times, suckerfish. Yeah. It’s those fish that that swim around sharks and whales, etcetera, they’re they’re smaller fish and they always need that big fish. And when John McCain died, Donald Trump became that big fish. And that is just an innate character flaw.

And that’s what happens. I mean, you know, your parents always tell you, they always tell you, be careful who you hang out with. And, you know you know, if you hang out with Donald Trump, then you’re bound to get fleas. And I

just think his other character follows. He just want he just loves the game, loves in the mix so much. That’s what I kinda wrote about. That’s what it comes down to. It’s just he just loves it so much that, you know, it just blinded him to all this other stuff.

And all of his values which might have been real. You know, the the fact that he actually unlike Jim and Devince, so these guys wanted to help real people and, like, believed in the immigration form and wasn’t a rate, you know, some of the stuff like, all that stuff was subliminated to, like, his just desire to be in the mix. But, anyway, we could do all day on Lindsay. I I wanna talk about with you since since we’ve we we got your time to some some areas where you have particularly valuable expertise, you know, for our listeners. What one of my hobby horses is, you’re coming down for South Carolina, you ran for lieutenant governor.

A lot of our listeners are kind of red state, you know, either never trumpers or democrats you know, I get emails from them. They’re, you know, in these islands of maga. Oh, they’re trying to deal with it. And, like, this is my hobby horse. I think the Democrats are doing a pretty a really bad job of trying to breakthrough in these red states.

And when I see things like the way Joe Manchin was treated, by, like, the Democratic elites when when they should have been, you know, throwing flowers at his feet, and when I see things like, you know, some of these candidates that get put up who are really hot on Twitter, but have no chance to actually win, that frustrates me because for, you know, democrats to overcome their structural disadvantage. I gotta do well in places like South Carolina. So what is, you know, haven’t seen the Harrison thing up close? Have you run for yourself? Like, what is your take on like how the democrats can kind of change, you know, this downward spiral they’re in in Latin

America. So that’s a

big question. That’s a big we could have done two hours on this. But, you know, just a big

question, but let me start here.

I don’t

think Mansion is the best example because I think Mansion was decently an obstructionist and cinema. I think a better example is the fallout you’ve seen from somebody like Mark Kelley, who had the audacity to say that many of the Republicans he works with are good guys. And you saw Twitter, like, oh my

god,

I can’t believe it. And it’s like, That’s not real life. When I was in the South Carolina legislature, I set beside Nikki Haley. I served with Tim Scott. Mark Sanford was my governor.

Andre Baur was is a good friend of mine. He was my governor, and I thought he said some crazy shit sometime in front of our office. Ended up I, you know, helped them get a job on CNN. I mean, you have to have these relationships the way that I described Tim Scott to focus, I would never vote for Tim Scott. But if he needed a kidney, I’d give him one tomorrow.

You know, that’s just the friendship that we have. I think he would probably say the same thing. But one of the things that Democrats don’t do is a lot of times in Republicans when they when they analyze Democratic struggles in America. They talk about the way that we speak to folk. And I’m not even concerned about the way that we speak to folk.

I’m concerned about the fact that we don’t speak to folk. I think that this White House has done a poor job of of arming and mobilizing mayors in this country as messengers, for example, Frank Scott at Little Rock or Choke Way. And Jackson, then they’re having a fucking humanitarian crisis. They don’t have any water. Or Randall Wolfin in Birmingham, Alabama.

Andrey Dickens in in Atlanta, Georgia, or vice versa, and Charlotte. And just using them. Imagine if you if you wanted to talk about the infrastructure reduction act, for example. And you had this these mayors across the country or state legislators across the country, and they’re doing, you know, the big hip hop radio station. They’re doing a couple gospel stations and then they’re doing like the conservative talk stations in the afternoon.

Just telling the message of what’s in the pieces of legislation and how this will help everyday Americans. Even Barack Obama is weird. He was a very good originator, very good originator, but they didn’t communicate well. About pieces of legislation and successes they’ve had. And Democrats are doing the same thing again, and it’s so frustrating.

I mean, our best messengers. I mean, I I told I interviewed Marty Walsh this morning on my podcast. I was like, dude, the fact that you’re not on TV, on Sunday morning shows, selling, just the jobs numbers or selling the infrastructure reduction act or selling student loan forgiveness is completely absurd. And It’s like an unforgivable, unforced error. And that’s what we do.

We have to do a better job of just meeting people where they are and actually having conversations. I’m not talking about people get mad over pronouns because they’re insensitive or they don’t just don’t understand, they get mad over things like Latinx, which is patently absurd because Spanish don’t even use that term. But I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about just actually beginning the conversation, which is something we don’t do. One

thing I saw on this, you know, our friend our each friend, Billy Adams who, you know, worked for Como, worked for was worked for the administration, did a tweet that just caught my eye yesterday, and it was. In the infrastructure bill, there’s forty seven million. I’m going from memory. This number might be off slightly. In rural broadband, the Arkansas is gonna use to deliver broadband to fifty five hundred houses.

Now that was remarkable to be on two fronts. So, like, one, is is exactly what you’re talking where is how are they getting this message? It’s nice she sent that tweet, but how are we getting this message into rural America and talking about how the Republicans are obstructionists? And two, I also we’ll talk about student loans in a second. I also laughed about that in the context of student loan debate.

You don’t you don’t hear, you know, people drinking their two Merk lattes in in New Jersey, complaining about the fact that it’s unfair that Arkansas that the people out there and the boonies are giving this deal using their hard earned tax dollars, but it shows a little bit of an imbalance in our in our grievance politics. But isn’t that, like, potentially something that that felt like it was a missed opportunity. No question. Infrastructure. Yeah.

Democrats

rather win Twitter than win middle America. I guess that it’s it’s fucking weird, but mayor Pete gets it. Yeah. Marty gets it. Let me

push back

in the young mansion though. What’s wrong with Jimmy? Like, that you you won’t man show a cinema, and I get that. But cinema is Arizona. But Joe had one Arizona.

Okay? So, like, I I you know, don’t understand Kristen syndrome at all. And I totally understand every every critique of her. Right? That’s that’s right.

Joe Joe Biden won twenty nine percent in West Virginia. It’s a miracle that Joe Man is there. My question is isn’t that Joe Anchin is doing what you’re talking about? Like, he is talking to, you know, real West Virginian’s concerns and and maybe it’d be sometimes that you don’t agree with everything he’s saying, but he’s at least getting through to them. Like, what’s the other model besides him to win?

And a place like West Virginia or South Carolina. What’s the other model? Don’t you need a Joe Manchin in South Carolina? Unquestionably, I don’t wanna kick

Joe Manchin out the party. I just think that he’s decently in obstructionist. I don’t think that he I think that his model is does not truly represent the values of poor I mean, West Virginia is literally one of the poor states in the union. I mean, I think we can agree upon that. And many things that are done to preserve uplift and help poor Americans, he stood in the way up for some reason or another.

But I don’t wanna get rid of Joe Manchin. I just wanna elect fifty two United States senators, so Joe Manchin is not the president of the United States. I mean and that’s not a difficult thing to do. All you have to do is win every state that

if

we win every state that Joe Biden won in in in twenty twenty, you fifty two United States senators. So, you know,

that is

what I wanna do. I think Joe Manchin’s voice is powerful. I think it’s important. I just don’t agree with him philosophically. Or politically.

Yeah.

But there has to be room with inside the party of party for that. I guess is what I’m saying. And I just don’t see any effort,

you know,

to go out there and recruit people that can win statewide in some of these places. And maybe that’s hopeless. I don’t know. But it wasn’t that long ago that Mark Pryor and had to hike camp oriented. Maybe that’s just a different different era.

But but anyway, it seems like there could be a better job recruiting. That that’s related to my other thing I wanna talk to you about, which is just this Democratic bench at large. And I think that there’s a top level question to the bench and sort of an underneath that. You’ve talked about that underneath that a bit with the mayors. But, you know, Joe Biden is is an old man.

I don’t think we think we need to kind of getting to handicap. Now he’s gonna run again. But,

yeah, just debate if he’s old. He’s up

there. He’s up there. So he might run again. He’s right now. Let’s just table that for a second.

Let’s say that, you know, for whatever reason, he’s unable to run. You used to advise Kamala. I don’t know anything against Kamala. I went her announcement. I I wrote about that for the bulwark.

I I like I like some people that work for her. She seems to, like, be in her head or something. I don’t know what’s happening in her interview. She seems to be in her head, and so then after Commvault, you start to look around and it and the bench does feel a little light. Like, what what’s your assessment of that?

If something happened to Joe Biden, let let’s put I don’t wanna ask you to predict, but let’s just pretend something happens to him.

Unless you went from he went from bad to perverse Yeah. We’re we’re getting dark

here. We’re getting dark here. Okay. What what what happens? Where where are we?

What’s your take on the state of

play? If the question is ask who is next? Maybe that’s the way we frame it. Okay.

That the bench

is stronger than people think it

is. The bench

I’ll say the name was always name and names. Oh, I am. So I think Sherrod Brown is a hell of a candidate. I think Amy Klobuchar is a hell of a candidate. I think Gavin Newsom is the most talented politician in the world.

All you gotta do is ask him.

But the second half of the statement, but but it’s the first. But, okay, let’s move on. I

think Mitch Landry was interesting. I think Marty’s interest thing. I think Kamala, of course, is the front runner. Elizabeth Warren is old, but still a very interesting candidate. So I mean, I think you have individuals, you’re always gonna have some business manners, somebody who’s richer than God, who jumps out there too.

There’s no

baroque on that list. There’s no foreign president Obama’s on that

list. Shit. I mean, you can’t name another baroque bomb in history other than maybe JFK. That’s an unfair metric. Okay.

But, I mean, I do think that when you look at the landscape, you’ll have, you know, three or four more than qualified United States senators who can step up to the plate and run Chris Murphy. He’s kind of a one issue guy. It’s a huge issue. We would have to see him flesh that out a little bit. I know he’s more than one issue, but people from the outside would think he’s a one issue guy.

And then that’s not even getting into the governors that you have. I mean, think about the governor of North Carolina, for example, who has that ability to be somebody who can speak to the same voters we were talking about. I don’t think John Bill Edwards can do it as a pro life governor. That was

a good VP candidate, though, but he’s not gonna be the nominee. I mean, I loved your He’s not

from Colorado, but

that’s a tough thing. He’s getting

lucky. You

the governor North Carolina, somebody who can stand on any stage and hold his own. I mean, I I’m not under any illusion that he will be. I mean, I think it’s columnist

to lose can she get her seat legs back? You know, I don’t wanna get you in trouble. You agree with that. It’s sometimes it’s felt a little bit like

she’s just in her head a little bit. I don’t know. I agree with you and I think that, you know, off sometimes it’s just, you know, it’s it’s kind of the way that she governs, which is to solicit a lot of opinions when sometimes you just want her to kind of make that decision, but she is she’s very comforting. There’s also a great deal of of kind of a double standard that she’s gonna that she’s gonna face the same double standard that Nikki Haley’s gonna face as the same double standard that Hillary Clinton faced, which is, you know, just having a woman run for the highest office in the land. There are people who still are not progressive enough to truly understand what that means and that’s unfortunate.

I guess,

but I mean Dan Quail and Mike Pence were white dudes and they struggled in the VP slot. Right?

No. No. No. No. No.

I agree with you. No. No. I was just talking about when they run for press. Oh, you

mean in the next level? I think I

think the the the major issue she has as a portfolio at first that was decently unwinnable. You get somebody voting rights act and and immigration. I mean, that’s — Yeah. — that’s tough. But now you see her on the road, you see her getting out.

I don’t think there’s I I don’t think that there’s any doubt that the correlation between Kamalaheras being out side of DC and talking to voters more and the president’s rise and uptick and approval ratings There’s a there’s a direct correlation, but You

really think that? Yeah.

It’s interesting. Okay.

I ought to put you in the hot seat here. We’re gonna do four minutes on this for our listeners sake. I’m sure you have these people in your life, Bikari Democrats, Liberals who are just like, what the fuck is happening with these conservatives? And I come to the Bulwark, some former you know, some former Republicans, so I could at least get a hint. You know, they get at least get a hint of what the, you know, their crazy uncle is thinking at the dinner table.

And then, you know, they’re all happy with us. We’re talking about Trump. They’re all happy about us. We’re talking about how much I love May or Pete and etcetera. But then then then issues start to come They’re like, whoa.

These guys are still conservative. They don’t like this student loan buyout, so they get a little cranky. So I want you to make the case for this because almost all of us have been ranging from skeptical to hostile to the to the student loan move by by the president. And our our main complaints are that just the targeting of it is horrible, the cost is outrageous, and the, you know, he doesn’t it’s not really legal. So, you know, other than that, missus Lincoln.

But how would you you could take any of those three complaints and how’d you make the case more? So

there there are a few things. The first is just the politics of it. You heard the clamoring from both the left and the right. And one of the one of the political things I don’t necessarily understand is if you’re going to do this and be criticized for it, why not go big? And so I think that’s one of the concerns from the left.

Do you

share that concern? Do you share that concern? I

I just think politically somebody has to explain that to me. If they’re gonna hang it around your neck like a albatross, she might as well do twenty five or fifty thousand dollars. Seems like Pretty big

to me. I don’t know. It’s a half half trillion bucks. Oh,

it’s a constant. It’s about a half trillion bucks. It’s two hundred. Two hundred. It’s two hundred billion.

But, you know, he is taking one point five trillion off deficit. So instead of one point five trillion is one point three, which goes to your cost. And even if you say that it’s half a trillion instead of taking one point is still a trillion dollar reduction in the deficit from where we were. I think when I spoke to Marty Walsh this morning, he explained it probably the best. I said, how do you explain this to the to your folk in the bar back in Boston.

And he said, this is about helping people. This is targeted help to folk who otherwise don’t have an opportunity to write a thirty, forty, fifty, sixty thousand dollar check. And the unique thing is the overarching majority of people that this is going to benefit are poor, black, and brown. If you think about the the up to twenty thousand for individuals who own Pell grants, I mean, pilgrims, those individuals many times are first generation college students whose family cannot afford for them to go to school. And they take out these loans that have extremely high interest rates and most times are strangled because of it.

I mean, I I paid my student loans off. Thank god. My wife actually helped me. It took me I graduated college when I was twenty, and I just paid them off last year. So when I was thirty six, My student home payments at one point in time were like twenty four hundred dollars a month.

But I did everything this country asked me to do. I went to college. I went to law school. And, you know, try to be a productive tax paying citizen. And, you know, still not being able to afford a car or a house because of that amount of money that you have to pay in your student loans.

I think that if there is a criticism that can be levied against Joe Biden for trying to help lift up individuals from poverty to the middle classes, there should be more done to help cap cost when it comes to higher education. But I think that can be done as well. I pushed back on folk who were like, oh my god, I can’t believe that, you know, we’re we’re doing this. This is money out of my pocket to go do something else. Well, you know, so so we’re stimulus checks.

So we’re the GI bill. So was PPP loans. That mean, the list goes on and on and on. As

all of us in high income blue states paying for, you know, trying to fix the Jackson water situations going right now because Mississippi doesn’t invest in anything. Right? I I I agree with you on that. So the unfairness argument is bullshit. It is bullshit.

And and I it’s just you know, it’s it’s the the red states or the taker states or the blue states or the giver states. You know, and this stuff gets

out in the wash. My problem can’t I’m a just want you to know before you ask me a question I can’t answer. I don’t know about the the constitutionality and legality of it because you’re a I’ve never actually looked at it. I

don’t know. You’re a little I I think we can stipulate that it’s a pretty preposterous legal defense, but no. I’m not gonna ask you about that. My other what I wanna

push back on I’ll

ask you this, and then I I wanna get to the kids’ book, then then we’ll let you go, is I agree with you. I I I have sympathy and and for And this is not my party episode this week’s about this. Like for people particularly black and brown folks or working class white folks that were told they should go to college. Caltrans wasn’t for them. Like, they took out a big loan.

You know, they were there for a year or two or three years. And, like, it just it didn’t work for them. And so then they went and took another job. Right? And they worked at a restaurant.

And they, you know, you know, did what whatever it was that didn’t require that degree. And now they got this debt hanging over them. I’ll hear you. But why then why not put those people forward? And and so when I when I complain and say, well, why not go bigger?

Well, then maybe why not give more money to people who are making less? Like, why are we giving ten thousand dollars to people that are making a hundred and twenty grand you know, at entry level jobs at light shoe law firms or at Google. Like, why are they, you know, getting this, a, on the policy merits? But b, isn’t that politically just stupid? Isn’t that a gift to Republicans letting them parody who’s getting this bailout?

But that’s also

not the overarching majority of individuals who’ll be getting this. I mean, it’s it’s it is decently targeted. Is it is it one twenty five for a household or a person? Two fifty for an

household, one twenty five for a person. Yeah. One twenty five for a

person. One thirty two fifty for an hour. I mean, person if I was president, I wouldn’t even target it because they’re gonna they’re gonna criticize you anyway. I personally believe and I’ve argued this to many economists. I think that a long bubble is going to be the next bubble that bursts because it’s

untenable. But

again, I don’t I think we are at a place where we’re nitpicking the fact that we’re trying to help people and lift more people out of poverty into the middle class. And when it’s done elsewhere, I didn’t hear these same Republicans making this argument when we gave trillions of dollars to businesses with some of the largest tax cuts we’ve seen in the history of this country. Thinking that it was gonna trickle down, but instead they did stock buybacks. Right? Meaning proven fact.

And it’s kind of wild to watch these arguments to be made when we’re talking about the person. And while I hear you at the white shoe law firm, I would push back and say, you’re mad with, you know, ten percent of the individuals that make it. I’m talking about the teachers. I’m talking about the individuals who go into the opposed to work. I’m talking about the people who are just starting out in there in a accountant or a salesman or whatever it may be.

I mean, this ten thousand dollars is helping out a shit ton of people. I mean, I didn’t get it I mean, I wish I did, but I’m not gonna and I just I just find it weird that Like, I

I just

look at America vastly different. If other people reap the benefit of something that I do not, I give them a round of applause. I don’t sit here and say, oh fuck. That should have been me. I say we should try to lift because poverty is a motherfucker and I say we should try to get as many people out of it as possible.

Man, I

love having you on here. I I just I I know we gotta go, but I just wanna mention your kid’s book. Who are your people? It’s so good. And I I just I’d love for you just to talk about it briefly.

I I and this is my privilege, my privilege bubble, but

and

before we adopted my daughter, I just it just the kids’ book situation did not didn’t even occur to me. Right. Right. Like this note. Yeah.

Like, it’s just very hard for her to see people like her in kids’ books. Like, every kid’s book I’m reading is, like, you know, dad and mom, and that’s everything. It’s all these like. It’s and it’s changing. It’s changing.

But I think this stuff is so important. And and so I’m I’m happy to I just why don’t you just share this like, why you decide to do it and and what, you know, what you’ve taken away from the process? Yeah. I mean,

no. The representation You see, you hit the nail on the head when you begin to look around and try to, you know, get something to resemble you, your family, or your children, ain’t a whole lot of options. So I decided to write it myself. And breaking into the kids book industry, it literally I had to be at New York Times bestseller in adult books to get the opportunity to write a kids book. But it’s just it’s fascinating and and I actually have on one of my pages.

It’s a cookout. It’s a family cookout. And I actually have a a gay couple. And there was an Amazon comment that was like, I did not buy this book for this purpose, blah blah blah blah blah. And I was just like, man, fuck you.

Right? It’s it’s like You know, you wanna show you wanna show people diversity, you wanna show people strength, and it was just it was two dudes holding hands at a family picnic and cook that that’s just representative of who we are and hopefully representative of the love that comes off the pages of that book. And I just want my kids to be able to grow up and and be loved and to love unconditionally, and be able to to actually pursue life liberty and happiness. That’s my goal. Yeah, man.

It is so hard. I I started looking into it. And I I I I think your your book is great because it addresses these issues head on who are your people other thing, maybe something we have to do together because it is hard to break through. Even being a New York Times bestseller, just kind of just brag right now, we can just join brag. It’s three New York Times bestsellers on this podcast.

But even still, it’s hard. My eighth pitch is like, I would like to see some books. Like, just feature these kinds of families that don’t actually go into their trauma. I I think it’s great that you address their trauma at all. But I’d love to be able to read a kid’s book to my kid at night.

It’s just like, hey, just two dads and a and a black daughter and we’re just, you know, going to the park. Right? We’re just we’re just living our lives. Or, you know, like, it’s not just like all the other books are. I feel like every time I get one of these books is also about the tranche.

I think that’s important. That’s not a critique of that I think now that’s the next step. Now that you’re already out there through your people, maybe that’s the next book. I got you, man.

Thank you for having me, brother. Hey, dude. Thank you

so much for doing it. That is Bikari Sellers and see him on the Macquarie Sellers podcast. I want everybody to stick around. We have a writers lounge with my friend Liz Smith coming up next. But first, a brief interlude for my thousand acetone.

Alright. Welcome

back to the Bulldog podcast. I’m Tim Miller here with my old friend Liz Smith. Before you, Liz, I just want to shout out two things. One, I forgot to mention it in the Bakari segment of this, but he had a longer podcast discussion about his memoir, our vanishing country with Charlie, maybe about a year and a half ago. And it was so good.

It was one of my favorite up it’s a Charlie’s podcast of all time. So if you did not hear it, I would encourage you to go back and check that out. Just search for it in the board podcast archives. And secondly, today’s Wednesday’s pod, every Wednesday, for board plus members, we have a podcast called The Next Level, which is me and Sarah and JBL. Me and Sarah talk about gay shit.

Me and JBL talk about sports. You know, so if you need a little bonus, bulwark, love, and you’re not a member of Bull or Plus, you’re missing out on that. So it’s something that I hope you sign up for. What’s going up here, me and Liz. Gonna talk about our New York Times bestselling

books.

And just about the writing process, a little bonus. And before that, I want just a little bit of Liz’s smart political analysis. So, Liz, welcome back to the board podcast.

Thank you. It’s great to be joined by a fellow New York Times best selling author.

Three of us. Three of us. Big moment for all of us. I wanna just do fun writing stuff for a few minutes. But but first me and Makari were talking about how the Democrats can do better in penetrating into wet red states.

And, you know, there was this moment, you know, in our political life, You worked for some of these people or Claire McCaskill, a senator in Missouri in HiHi Camp. My husband worked for in North Dakota, and and you know, there’s so few and far between right now. But Khare was making the case basically that Democrats need to do a better job of not how they talk, but just actually talking to rural America using, you know, mayors and going on to Fox, which I know is something you’re a fan of. That to me seems like a necessary but not sufficient answer. Like, what is your take having having worked in.

Ohio, Kentucky, South Dakota, Missouri. You’ve got street cred here. What what’s what let’s just convince about that. Oh,

good. One of my favorite topics. So

and,

frankly, it’s something that’s really, really important. And I think something that Democrats are paying more attention to now than they have in the recent history. Because, you know, there was a sort of flawed view on the left Right? Which is that we should only be trying to run up the score in Democratic areas or in blue states and that, you know, red areas, rural voters for sort of a lost cause. But, you know, obviously, you can’t be a majority party if that’s your worldview.

I think to what you were saying about Bakar’s comments, it’s a mixture of tactics and tone slash message. And in terms of tactics, yes, it’s really important to make sure that you are going everywhere. That means going on media outlets where you’ll reach right leaning or Republican voters, whether it’s Fox News or, you know, right leaning radio, which in a lot of these states, people still listen large to, you know, terrestrial radio still has a massive, massive audience. And that’s oftentimes overlooked by, you know, folks like maybe you and me who live in New York and Oakland. So I people

even this is the thing. We’re so touch. I think people even listen to terrestrial radio in Oakland. So this is it’s an important point. Like, when was the last time you don’t see this.

Right? Like, Democratic candidates, like, going on to conservative talk radio and trying to engage or promote. We’re I mean, we’re talking about the infrastructure thing. Right? Like, that’s a perfect thing going a farm radio to talk about.

Right? No. You don’t see that. Yeah.

Exactly. And I going on Fox News sort of gets a lion’s share of attention just because I think it’s a sexier topic. But any successful democrat in a red state or or state that has a lot of rural areas should understand the importance of hitting terrestrial radio. But also, it’s really important tactically to go everywhere. And go to every county and not just think that you can win a state like Ohio by running up the margin in the three c’s.

You know, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus. It’s sort of like an insider return there. But even Barack Obama understood this and that’s how he was able to win in Ohio in two thousand eight and twenty twelve was he knew that part of the recipe for winning is that you cut into Republican margins in rural areas. You don’t go to a super red area because you expect to win it. But you go there because you know that if you can cut enough counties from, you know, eighty twenty Republican Democrat to sixty five thirty five Republican Democrat.

That could be the margin of victory itself. That could be the game changer. And we are seeing a lot of democrats right now sort of adopting that strategy, whether it’s Mark Kelley in Arizona, Rafael Warner, in Georgia, you know, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is not I mean, I guess you would say it’s sort of a per bullish state. And

Trump went in twenty sixteen. Mhmm. Right.

Pat Tumi is still as a a US senator there. But yes. So you know, those are all candidates who really sorta who really get it. I don’t understand you have to go everywhere, but tone and message is really important. And Again, I would point to all of these candidates as candidates who are making sure that they’re reaching out to Republicans unveiling groups like Republicans from Markel, Republicans for Josh Shapiro, Republicans for Rafael Warmock, and sure there are people in the online left who have never spent a day in a red state who are very critical of that strategy and think that if we’re not calling Republicans nazis and fascists and Bolsheviks or whatever every day that that that’s a communications failure on the part of Democrats, but that’s just wrong.

And I think Mark Kelley Shapiro, Warmock, they’ve been very, very smart in giving Republicans space to come over to their side and to show them that they’re welcome on the Democratic side of the aisle. And it’s a really, really important thing, tonally message wise for Democrats to do. And that’s really the only way that we’re gonna be able to winds, states like those in a midterm election like this, but also maybe expand the playing field in elections to come.

Yeah. One more on this. Because for me, I think on the issue standpoint, there’s two things that the Democrats should be max maxing out on this. And we have talked about infrastructure and rural broadband and actually beating their chest about that and talk about how Republicans have been block you know, mostly blocked. That’s some voted for it, but but mostly we’re, you know, actually impeding efforts to expand rural broadband.

So you can talk about that if you want, but but Carrie and I covered that. But the other thing I wanna hear from you about is abortion. I think it’s underappreciated. Like, the abortion view is not a monolith out in rural America. Right?

And Trump attracted a lot of, frankly, approach way secular you know, working class whites that live in, you know, rural Ohio where you’ve worked or industrial Ohio, maybe more really than rural Ohio that didn’t like the abortion hardline positions, the Republicans in the past. Trump seemed like a softer that helped their transition, this famous Obama Trump voter from the diners that everyone hear so much about. So isn’t that an issue and maybe are we already seeing that in the polls? Like, what what’s your take on how Democrats can use that issue to kind of wedge Republicans in these communities?

Oh, I

mean, I think it’s a huge opportunity. And we’ve seen that in some of the elections whether it was in Kansas and upstate New York recently. These are not places that you associate with being Socially liberal. Right? It’s not San Francisco or the West Village or Oakland or wherever you live.

And I think what it speaks to is that there is a very large, silent majority that is opposed to what has now become the mainstream position of the Republican Party. I mean, when you when you and I were working against each other in twenty twelve, it was shocking when you had candidates like Todd Aiken and Richard Murdoch say things like, you know, pregnancy from rape was a gift from God or that legitimate rape wouldn’t lead to pregnancy. And those are seen as complete outliers of positions. In the Republican Party. We stopped

aborting Tawke, and I was at the RNC at the time. We took in the very end, the NRC went back in for him, but the RNC’s giving him money over that. That’s a position of like most Republicans now is a tad ache in position. Exactly. And if you look

at what yeah. Whether it’s Doug Mastiano, Tudor Dixon, it is the mainstream position. And to date, A lot of the focus has been on how it’s galvanized democrats who might have otherwise sat on their hands during the election, or it’s maybe brought some of those suburban swing voters back into the fold. But I think that you’re exactly right that this is gonna be an alienating issue for some of those you know, non college educated secular white Trump voters that people thought were just you know, forever gone to the Republicans. Because the reality is that most Americans exist somewhere in in a gray area in terms of their views on a boar and the positions at the Republican Party and the mainstream of the Republican Party have have endorsed

Don’t allow

for any gray. Right? It’s it’s abortion ban with no exceptions. So no exceptions for rape. Incess, health or life with the mother.

And, you know, the stories that are coming out of some of these states are absolutely horrifying. But I think that a lot of voters are now put in a position that they never really foresaw. Right? You could it’s easy to say your pro life when you just expect Roe v Wade to be the law of the land forever. But when this is actually on the ballot, and you have people running for office who will be in a position where they can ban abortion in all exceptions.

It’s, you know, less of a theoretical argument and it’s as close to a life and death matter for voters as you can get. So the Republicans really miscalculated how this is gonna play out for them. You know, for fifty years, they’ve been, you know, sort of, agitating and pushing toward this end. But, you know, now I’m gonna repeat what so many other people have said. They are like the dog that caught the car.

And for the first time in my lifetime, the energy on this issue is on my side. It’s on the pro choice side, and that is something that is completely ahistorical, and I think that is gonna come back to bite the Republicans in the ass. Alright. I wanna move on to book stuff.

But last thing, I’ve we have a lot of listeners here that you know, wanna take out the most extreme Republicans who are pushing the sort of stuff. Do you do you have favored candidates? I know sometimes it’s hard for you know, normies who aren’t following this day to day to kind of distinguish between the fake hype candidates and the ones that, like, have a real chance. Should should you have anybody who wanna to pump out before we move on to a little writers lounge?

Yeah. Mark Kelly, he’s gonna be in a tough race, but I he’s just an incredible candidate, incredible bio. And running the type of race that you want in a purple state. Tim Ryan is a good friend of mine, and that’s a little bit more of uphill of a race, but my God. JD Vance is just he’s a horrific candidate.

He’s a complete fraud. He has the work ethic of a three toed sloth. And I I I just can’t imagine, like, between Blake, As much as I love Mark Kelley and Tim Ryan, I just cannot stand Blake Masters and JD Vance, and I would love to see them get spanked at the polls because, I mean, those guys those guys cannot raise a dollar. They are completely reliant on Peter Teal. And there there’s They just have the most, like, punch able faces, and I just I I really wanna see them go down.

Not about Blake Masters. Have you been listening

to

the next level will be just united. I said that exact same thing. I mean, that’s sort of how

I feel about JD Vance, but they’re just such smug assholes. And I you just wanna just wipe the the smarts off their faces. So those two candidates are ones. I really, really, really would love to see Democrats takeout. Yeah.

Just to clear the record here, I would not like to see J. D. Vanskin’s thanks. I would like to see

him loose. So I found this

a refund. We had a little bonus time when we were looking at the podcast, and I thought, you know, you and I both we, like, went through this writing process together. Liz wrote any given Tuesday, which has been about a month now. And you started writing a little before me, but not much before. And, you know, so we were both pitching books the same time.

We’re riding at the same time. We’re going through crises at not usually the same time, which was nice so that we could lean on one another. So I thought it’d be fun kind of reflect on that. People out there who are interested in this sort of thing behind the curtains of this. So, like, just take it’s like, why did you decide that you didn’t have to do this?

Right? Like, you could have, you know, I’m sure that you I know that you created some maybe tensions by revealing some things about past colleagues and and past clients, past people that you worked for. So, like, why did you decide to do it? Why did you decide to do the kind of thing that, like, showed so much like? Because this book this before he answered that question, it it is fun.

It it is there’s some definitely some similarities to mine, but it is there there’s some differences in that Liz. Was just so in the mix with the with so many candidates and and and, you know, there is just this kind of personal element to, you know, all of your your sort of stories and reflections that is just really honest and sincere and juicy And so, anyway, why what to to tell the listeners, like, why you decided to do that? I mean, you could have done it. You could have just done a mayor Pete is great book and probably sold So what you confidence do? Oh, thank you.

And I think

and I’ve loved all the stories that have been saying that our book are sort of great companion pieces. And so for anyone that’s read my book but hasn’t read Tim’s, they should absolutely read Tim’s book, although I I assume everyone who listens to the Bulwark has read your book and I don’t know. Actually, I see the

book scan numbers and I see the podcast numbers, and I do think there are few stragglers out there. And and eventually, I’m gonna get big data to figure out who it is, and I’m gonna start calling you one by one. So I do think there

are few stragglers. Do

you still check, like, book sale numbers and things like that? I maybe maybe

refresh Amazon far less often than I used to, but occasionally from time to time, I’ve been known to do it. I am I am still a certain type of addict. So,

yes, you know, I just don’t I have the bandwidth really to do that. But for why I decide to write this, I it’s safe to say I never ever thought I would write a book. I mean, I live such an itinerant lifestyle as I write about in my book. I have ADD ADHD that no man made medication can can pain, and it just didn’t seem like something that was really in the cards for me. But then the global pandemic hit, and I got approached by a couple different agents right after Pete’s campaign about writing it.

And I thought, you know what? My God. If if there’s ever a time that I’m gonna be able to sit down, focus, and write a book, it’s right now. And it was like, you know, not that I’m a religious person, but if there were sign from above that it was my time to write a book. It was right then.

And but, like, I was very clear when I set out to write

this down. I’m trying to interrupt. I just have to tell you something very disturbing. That’s a pretty similar clip to why Don Junior said that he was gonna decided to write his book triggered in the placeholder documentary that I had to watch for our interview yesterday. So I’m just saying, there might be a lot of differences between you and Don Junior, but maybe your ADHD wavelength is, like, maybe there’s something there.

Sorry to freak out with that parallel. Dude,

Tim, my comment, I think was, hopefully, people can listen to it as firmly tongue in cheek. But so but, like, I and I was very upfront when I started writing this, you know, with my agent and eventually, you know, with my publisher that, like, I didn’t wanna write your typical political book. One, I didn’t wanna write some dry political science book. Also didn’t wanna write a book where, you know, I’m the hero in every scene or the politicians I work for are the heroes in every scene. I wanted to write something that sort of reflects who I am as a person, which is a little dishy, a little gaspy.

Yeah. I’m smart. I have the experience of working in politics. But I want to have some fun with the book and really pull back from the curtain for people. And from the get go, I knew that that would mean, you know, writing a book that was a little titillating in both good and bad ways and that it would involve pissing some people off.

But keep in mind, as I’m writing this book, right, I thought this book was gonna start and end with, you know, the triumph of working for Pete Buttigieg and how everyone had underestimated me and underestimated him and how it had redeemed my faith in politics. And then a year into the pandemic, I started advising Andrew Cuomo on his he called me in to help advise him when he was accused of sexual harassment, and my book took a very sharp turn. But I think, frankly, one that was, like, important for it because it added sort of a realistic bookend to the big thing, which is that politics isn’t all puppies and rainbows, and that to the you know, title and you given Tuesday that you can go from what is the biggest professional triumph. Of your career to something that is one of the biggest professional lows. And so it was full of ups and downs, but Did you ever think about

scrapping it? Because you don’t wanna deal with the Cuomo stuff? No.

Absolutely not. I actually no. Yeah. Come on. No.

It’s it’s like, I can’t say it was my favorite part to write. And or my favorite part to live and experience, but and especially, you know, Cuomo resigned with the, I think, five days before my dad passed away. So I was dealing with so much when I’m writing my book. And, you know, I tackle all the stuff in my book. And, you know, one thing I would say is writing about Cuomo and all that stuff.

Was a lot easier than writing having to write about my dad passing away. So that’s one silver lining, I guess, and all of this was that I did have the perspective of what real tragedy feels like, and it’s not, you know, a governor resigning. So Was

that the hardest part? That’s what another question I was gonna ask you. Like, what do you what was was the hardest part of the process trying to write it through dealing with that with your dad? Or was there another? Did you have was a writer’s blocked part?

Like, what were the hardest parts of the writing process? Yeah. And you and

I talked about this. The writer’s block was awful and where you just sit in front of your computer for hours. And for me, someone just stays, just staring at a blank page being like, I I just can’t write. I can’t write anything. I don’t know how I’m gonna finish this book, and it’s very, very frustrating.

And you know, you’ve gotta learn how to sort of walk away from the computer. You know, for me, I I took up running road running a lot, and that really helped me clear my head. So that was good. But writing about a lot of the personal stuff especially the end of my dad’s life was easily the hardest part of the book because How do you write about something so personal, but so profound And I that was so that was very difficult to me because I wanted to do him justice and do the sit the whole situation justice, but at the same time, you know, I

it’s really

hard to write. Like, you’re just sitting there and trying to put into words the hardest thing that you’ve ever gone through. So I would say that in different ways, Those are my biggest challenges. Yeah. That’s the good stuff, though.

Right?

I mean, honestly, I that that was the for me, probably the hardest part of the story to write is what I hope makes you feel so gratified by it in the end. Right? Because, you know, it made it not this kind of frivolous, you know, political book or two dimensional political book. Right? I mean, that’s the the hard parts of life of the parts that have gravity to them.

Right? And anyway, I

I don’t

know. Does that you know, is there what what what has it been like now that it’s been printed to kind of like reflect back on all that? And, like, what kind of feedback? Well, I think it’s

interesting that both you and I do incorporate a lot of our personal stories into our books, which I think is really really important to do because personal

downs. Yeah. Personal mistakes. Right? No.

I just wanna be like, yeah, story true, but like mistakes. It’s easy to write about the good parts of your story, but which, you know, you we won’t do some, but, like, the the mistakes or that’s where the the learning happens. Oh,

totally. And and I I I think it’s just important to incorporate the personal broadly because to show people that were not just like these two dimensional characters, I think that most people’s concept of, like, political operatives, political strategist, whatever you wanna call us, is that we are these two dimensional characters that are either, you know, extremely evil and archiving or, on the other hand, extremely hapless and inept. It’s like Super

earnest. There’s a third category. Just super earnest. Yeah. Right.

So

it’s like you’re either a character in the West Wing or v or House of Cards. Right? Yeah. So there are three archetypes. And I think we both did a good job of showing, no.

It’s like, you know, that everyone who works in politics is actually pretty complex. But it was important for me to talk about my mistakes and the mistakes candidates that I work for made so that people could sort of learn from them. But also because I don’t think anyone people can smell bullshit. They can they can read they can see right through the bullshit on the page if, like, give me a break. When when I’ve seen some of the excerpts from Jared Kushner’s book, and again, he but he’s the hero of every freaking story in his book, and I’m sorry, that’s just not credible.

That’s not gonna be credible to people. And, you know, it it it really sort of sucks. To write and know that, you know, thousands and thousands of people are gonna read about you talking about some of the biggest professional mistakes you made, but how else are you gonna be credible? You know? And so I thought think that was important to do.

In a

lot of ways, I thought it was cool that you did it. In particular, I felt like I had to do it for a little bit of a different for the similar reason about that credibility. But for a slightly different reason is that I then go and and enviscerate people, right, for their motivations in the second half of the book. And I was like, I can’t just go and talk about how Ryan’s previous is a needy bitch. And, like, without, like, talking about the times that I’ve been a needy bitch.

Right? Like that otherwise, then what, you know, what is that there’s no credibility to this, you know. And there’s no growth. Right? There’s nothing that that people can grab onto.

You I think could have, you know, skated over that. Like, what how did you I I guess, both in going through your own mistakes and then some of the gossipy stuff. Like, how did you decide you know, what to keep in, what to leave out. You know, I mean, because, obviously, I don’t think you put every single thing in the book. No.

So I think you and I probably talked to some of the same people when we were starting the process of writing our books and you know, people who have written political books in the past, and I’m gonna protect their identities. But the best piece of advice I got from writing sort of a political memoir. And I hate the the term memoir. It sounds sort of douchey. You know, I hate

that whenever in

any review,

I was like, Don’t call them MR.

Yes. But so the best advice I got was One, be honest. Two, don’t pull any punches because readers will be able to tell when you pull punches.

Three, don’t be

gratuitous though. You know, you you don’t wanna pull any punches, but you don’t wanna be gratuitous because people can tell of you’re being you know, overly mean or overly snarky, and they’re not gonna like that. I’ve got about lesson three on

the Sean Spicer chapter. I get right. But

but some of it was fairly delicious to read. But then four was that if you’re gonna light other people on fire, you have to be willing to light yourself on fire. And I know that you talked about that in a bunch of your interviews. I’ve talked about that in my interviews, but it is a big credibility thing. And so I just always tried to find that line of not pulling punches and not being gratuitous.

And in parts of my book, I think I really walked that fine line. Certainly, think in the part about Bill de Blasio. Right? Because it’s so hard not to be gratuitous about someone like that. And you can just imagine the stories that that could be written about a guy like that.

So that was one that was one chapter where my editor just sort of stayed on me and was like, let’s let’s just watch the tone here a little bit. But you know, it’s just like with anything when you work in communications. There’s no, like, bright line there, but you just sort of know it when you hit it. And when you cross it. And that’s the value of having a really good editor.

And I was lucky to have two very good editors across my process who helped me push me when they thought I wasn’t revealing enough and who helped pull me back when they thought I was maybe being a little bit too gratuitous or snarky about other people. Alright. Well, we’re running to

the end of the podcast here. We’ve been punishing ourselves enough. What’s been the most fun thing? Like, since you put it out? Like, what’s spent.

What what’s made you feel that happiest, most rewarding? Well, obviously, getting

the news that I made The New York Times best seller list was incredible. And, you know, you and I had I live on

a podcast. There’s video of this, which is nice. No. And

I responded with my typical, you know, chill. Like, like, I didn’t scream and cuss a ton and almost vomit and fall down. But yeah. No. So that was super exciting.

But really the feedback I’ve gotten has just been incredible because I wanted to write a book that was fun, that was accessible, that was honest, and I have just heard I’ve heard from people of all ages. I’ve heard from Democrats. I’ve heard from people who work for extremely extremely extremely prominent Republicans. I’ve heard from people who are apolitical, who, you know, send me DMs on Instagram or Facebook, just about how much they love the book and how it’s, you know, renewed their faith in politics or inspired them to get involved in it or It was something that they really identified regardless of their partisan affiliation. And, you know, that’s what makes a book worth writing.

And so that’s been the feedback has been extremely, extremely validating. And for all the depressing stories, or realistic stories I had in there, I wanted it ultimately to be a book that hopefully inspires people to get involved in politics or stay involved in politics. And I’ve been really hard in to see that that’s largely been the response that I’ve gotten. Well, that is so cool. So happy for

me to hear. I’m so proud of you. Know your dad would be so proud of you. I’m so happy that we’re able to kinda do all this together and, you know, be each other’s anxiety phone call. After, you know, and the one cigarette wouldn’t do the trick.

And it’s it’s been it’s been awesome. I hope people that are aspiring writers or interested in our process, got something valuable about this. Let’s do this another time when we do more politics. Thank you everybody for dealing with me and the guest chair for two days. JBL will be back tomorrow.

Big thanks to Liz Smith, the Kari sellers Alex Holder, Katie Cooper, Jonathan series Mose, and we’ll do this all again tomorrow with JBL. Peace.

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