Bonus: No B.S—Live From LA – Part 2 (PREVIEW)

Everybody. Welcome to John’s Have

I

thought I was on the intro.

God, Tim.

Babs. Thanks for coming.

Thanks for having me. What’d

you think what’d you think about the

budget deficit conversation?

Yeah. What’d you think Simpson Ball? Can

we talk about sequestration brel

or nay on Simpson Bowls. Does that just actually went very much on popular? Yeah. But

in fact, we talked about it today.

Really? Yeah. So Yeah. We

went way back to twenty eleven.

Yeah. Were you pro that or were you anti? Where were you in Simpson Bulls? Anti. This is this is a nice thing about I’m so excited about this John Favreau interview because He’s had me on Pod Save America a few times, a couple times.

And keeping in sixteen hundred, maybe a couple times. Yeah. He’s had Sarah on, Sarah’s on today. So you guys will be able to hear that on Friday. There happened.

Yeah. Today’s pop.

There’s

tomorrow. There’s

no It’s our

white hat. Fairline. You know? He hasn’t had JBL because nobody invites JBL to anything. Probably because he dresses.

He’s taken the trash out.

He likes the trivia. Where

did What year did you buy those jeans in? Like, honestly.

He’s a father of four?

You got me at it. About nineteen ninety nine. And for crossed

the country to be with people anyway.

But overall that time, like, you know, railroad gets drunk at people like me and Sarah just like me and questions about all of our past mistakes and all this. And now the tables get to be burned, which I’m very which I’m very excited about. But I wanna start first with I wanna hear from both of you and Sarah a little bit. You got one thing in common. You both have been doing focus groups.

Sarah’s focus group podcast is Excellent. Years is pretty good.

Yeah.

And so I was just kinda curious. You have, like, a little a little franklenses here on stage. Like, I guess, you get to go first. Like, what, you know, getting outside of your bubble, your Hollywood bubble? Like, what was your big takeaway?

Like, what do you change your view on after hearing from the people?

Well, first thing, it depresses the hell out of you. Doing a focus group. Yeah. I don’t know if you feel the same way. I love the people too, but it depresses you because people hate politics.

That’s the thing that you learn. And no one is paying attention to anything that we’re paying attention to. And even if you don’t think you’re a news junkie, most people, most voters in this country are still paying attention to much much less than than you are. So all the shit that we talk about that we obsess over, it’s not doesn’t really break through.

Meaningless. Everything we’re doing is meaningless.

Just completely meaningless. The voters I talked to in the in the lead up to the twenty two midterms. They were sort of really upset with the direction of the country, not happy with Joe Biden, very upset about inflation, once the Dobbs decision came down, very upset about the Dobbs decision. And these were all sort of swing voters of varying demographics. But and this should have been telling after they would say things like, Joe Biden’s not doing great, not happy with the democrats, whatever, then I’d say, So you’re gonna maybe vote for Hershel Walker and be like, no.

Fuck no. That’s crazy. I’m not voting for Hershel Walker. You’re gonna vote for doctor Oz? No.

That’s nuts. I’m not gonna do that. So the the extremism of the Republican candidates really was a factor —

DJ, J. V. —

and And a lot of these people, you could tell that they actually wanted to vote for a Republican candidate because they were so unhappy with Biden and the democrats, but they were just sort of way turned off by the options that they Was there

anything in particular, though, from those negative feedback from the swing voters that made you think, boy, we’re really fucking up.

Because it’s not any like, it’s interesting. I talked to Biden Youngkin voters in Virginia. And so I wanted to dig in on critical race theory and Youngkin’s education platform and all that. And every single voter who would cast their ballot for Youngkin and they had been by voters before said that they voted for Youngkin despite his critical race theory, bullshit. Okay.

And they

thought it was crazy. And that the reason that they voted for is because they just didn’t like Terry McCall. And they were unhappy with the direction of the state and they didn’t think Terry was a great governor and they wanted to give Glenn Youngkin a chance because they thought that maybe he was a little bit more moderate, but I talked to them like, three or four months into his administration. And they’re like, now he seems much more extreme than we thought he was gonna be when we voted for him. Shocker.

I thought was kinda interesting. Who could possibly have guessed? Yeah. Right. What was interesting though is those voters after talking to them, I thought they were more likely to vote for Joe Biden again in twenty twenty four.

These people who had voted for Glenn Youngkin, then The two groups I worry the most about was I talked to working class Latinos in Vegas and I talked to moderate black voters between twenty and thirty in Atlanta, and they were extremely down on not just politics in general, but the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, didn’t have much love for Republicans, but basically the feeling is just no one’s paying attention to me, no one’s paying attention to my problems, nothing ever changes. We keep voting. I don’t notice a difference in my life, struggling with inflation, struggling with crime, and I don’t even know why I bother anymore. And so that and these are all people who had voted for Joe Biden. Yeah.

So that to me is a big warning heading No. It was twenty twenty four. Possible

that really or possible that was an impact in twenty twenty two. Right? I mean, honestly, like, there was a depression of I I nobody really talked about this because Democrats had a good night. But but the turnout of, like, the base Democratic voters, with the exception of young voters, Like, wasn’t that good. Right?

Like, the proportion of black voters are down, proportion of Latino voters are down. Like, the democrats won because of young voters basically in Cox. Our people. Thank you. Hi.

I will say too,

even the even the young voters story, like, a gut flow of very yeah. It’s it’s been a little oversold. Like, we there was definitely it was better than twenty fourteen, which is the worseier for young voters for the Democrats. But it was down from eighteen, it was down from the midterms. That you vote.

Yeah. And so I think and I talked to young voters in Orange County, and that was another group that was just like, outraged about Dobbs, like very progressive in the values they talked about. But then I was like, you’re gonna vote in the midterms and the woman sitting next to me goes, what’s the mid term? And she and she was a Biden voter. He was like, how much a vote for Joe Biden and didn’t know what a mid term was?

This

is a lot of issues. Great work there. With the DNC, D triple C, nice job. Vote Save America.

I did I you know what? I did get her to register. Yeah. She I she went to vote.

Okay. Great. Great work. That’s fine. Yeah.

Sarah? Yeah. You’re focused groups, much more extensive than John’s. And more well done. Any what I I’m just curious like like what I didn’t really ask you, like, at the macro level.

Like, I I I guess I have from the period of when you started them, right, your big takeaway was kind of like learning more about where the Magna folks were. But that since then, you know, like, what if do you think of your biggest macro level learning spend? And and are they different from what John just laid out? They’re not

that different. I like talking to I like talking to other people who do focus groups because it reinforces the fact that we are hearing generally the same thing from voters. And the number one thing that surprised me is, like, how many stories we obsess over in Washington that, like, they have no like, I I remember I was talking about this on on Pod Save yesterday, but And this is a recent one where Kevin McCarthy, the they he is it is in the the j mark book, that Kevin McCarthy said Trump should resign. He was gonna tell him to resign. And then Kevin McCarthy puts out a statement that says, I didn’t say that.

And then Jimart drops the tape of Kevin the audio of Kevin McCarthy saying, you know, I’m gonna ask him to resign. Right? The so I don’t know. Whatever. This blows Washington up.

It’s all we’re talking about is put Kevin McCarthy resign over this. Is he done? What will happen? Had a focus group that night and I was like, what do you guys think about the Kevin McCarthy news? And they were like, I have no idea what you’re talking about and who’s Kevin McCarthy?

Like, It’s just like and, I mean, I remember at the first time it happened, I was like,

I’m jealous. Well, you

know what? Honestly, this is this is why I I mean, good for people. No. Good for people that they are living their lives and not only nothing about politics, I don’t I don’t hold that again. I don’t think that’s a drawback or bad about that.

I was

I was doing a group in Pittsburgh the night before the first January sixth hearing. And I was like, is anyone gonna be watching the hearings this week? And they’re like, what? I’m like, the the hearings, the January sixth hearings, and they’re like, what’s what’s that? Like, not one person knew they were hearings.

No. I

will say, as a pushback to you, guys, and your your cynical focus group attitudes, Uh-huh. The January star series did great. Like, January star series said better ratings than, like, the NBA than any NBA game this year. Yep. That makes me sad.

And they said they’re missing the beautiful game. They call it Yokic MVP two years, but, like, like, there was January six ring did really quite well, I thought, but yet still Not well enough. To to to to Yeah. But kind of trade. There was Pennsylvania swing.

Well

And in the groups that I did after that, I’m sure you noticed this too. People who I I’d always ask this question, what issues is the media covering too much? And what issues aren’t the media covering enough? And every single group said January sixth as too much.

Even

as they were also saying, like, you know, hold Trump responsible, Republicans crazy. It was horrible. I’m scared it might happen again. Like, they cared about it, but they

thought it was getting too much. They cared instead of, like, more about, like, email prep this is. But Yeah. Exactly. That’s a fascinating story.

Can document.

Okay. But that’s the thing that you have to remember is that even though that’s true. Right? If, like, you basically number one, it tells you how high the frequency has to be for people to know about something. And so when you’re thinking about campaigns or persuasion or whatever.

Like, you just have to think about, like, you gotta hit people so many times before they, like, register that something’s a thing.

Yeah.

And that’s important. That’s important to know, but they’re not they are still persuadable. They are still like, the frequent like, I think that prior to the January hearings, people didn’t know they were gonna happen. And then they, like, did, and it was a big deal. And when I once I started talking to people during the January sixth hearing, they did all know they were going on.

Like, once they’d gotten underway, And so that’s just a matter of, you know, the frequency being high.

Yeah. I wanna move on to California politics. Oh, well, then we have a fun ending segment for you, which you’re really gonna enjoy. Hold on. Can

I ask one more question, though, really quickly? Sorry. I’m just gonna go for it. So because I have a I mean, I’m in the host chair. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. Just but is really quick. Because I really wanted to ask this, but I was on his show, and so I couldn’t wait. Oh, yeah. You know, if I were to ask him things, So we both heard from all these voters.

You just described it. I’ve described it a million times asking swing voters you know, who were they gonna vote for? And they were mad at Joe Biden. They were mad about inflation and supply chain and things suck and everything else. And then you’re like, but are you gonna vote for Blake Masters?

And they’re like, absolutely not. Right? Okay. And that bore out in twenty two. We saw that.

That manifested. What are the Democrats gonna do when Republicans like Glenn Youngkin? Destroyed in that race because he was remotely normal. Now Republicans looked at that playbook, saw the twelve point swing, and said, let’s do the exact opposite in every state in twenty twenty two. But, like, let’s say they were, like, smarter than that going forward at all, maybe.

Hypothetically, WHAT WOULD DEMOCRATS DO IF THEY WEREN’T RUNNING AGAINST THE MOST THAT SHIT CRIZY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET AND THEY HAD TO LIKE — YOU HAVE A POTED FOR — I MEAN, WE

PROBABLY LOSE SOME ELECTION. Yes.

Right? Like, you

start running against

really good candidates. You don’t do as well. I’m not even like really good. Like, I’m not gonna like base line. I just put on a sweater vest and sound remotely normal.

Yeah.

No. Look, I I think that the the Youngkin McCullough race is instructive there. It’s like we nominated Terri McCaliff. Who I

like Terri McCaliff. Okay. Yeah. Well, I’m up in DC. Right?

It’s crazy. Great. It’s fun.

Very fun. But, like,

it’s probably like a Malibu on the TV one time, you know, a CAGRator in the governor’s office. He isn’t a socialist. He likes the free market economy. What’s not to like about Terry McCall? I’m in.

I’m in on Terry. Thanks

for doing this, John Favreau. We haven’t even gotten to the hot seat portion of the program yet. Hey

there, this is JBL. To hear the rest of the show, come and join us and become a member of Bulwark Plus.