On this week’s WTF 2.0, JVL talks with Crooked Media’s Dan Pfeiffer about how the Democrats get out of the wilderness, the messaging that works and doesn’t and if Mark Cuban will run for president.
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WTF 2.0 is a pop-up show on Substack during the first 100 days of second Trump administration. Watch previous episodes, here.
I hope there is a 2026 federal election…
I am a midlife graduate degree educated Californian. I will NOT vote for Mark Cuban. People need to stop running his name. He is an outsider like Elon was an outsider. And let me tell you, people don’t change. So Mark Cuban being a jerk when he was young, he might be more sophisticated but his essence hasnt and wont change. JB Pritzker, Chris Murphy.
OMG the retro Harris campaign not doing a good enough job of running it? What the hell—- her opponent is a multiple felon and whoever said Oh well Trump said he didnt like Project 2025, it’l be ok to vote for him. Please! This is about stupid Americans! About Americans totally ignorant willingly or otherwise about the Russian threat! Only, ONLY in a presidential race involving an actually reasonable opponent could the Harris/Walz be dissected to see what did they do wrong. JVL- why did you have to tip toe in saying to Dan , I dont think the Harris campaign can be blamed for the loss. What the hell? How come you couldn’t just own your opinion and not be almost apologetic? As a man you may not notice this, but this hesitancy is subtle sexism. Please check yourself. Kamala Harris was unarguably the best and the only qualified candidate running for president between the two of them. There needs to be no apology. They ran a fine campaign. I guarantee that if they had run a white man, he would have won. Not just any old white man, not Pete, not Gavin (thank god) but if Chris Murphy had been more of a known entity, I bet he would have won. And IF he hadnt, what would people blame that on? At what point do we say that half the nation is moronic and mean, and that the electoral college has got to go and we need ranked choice voting.
I hope not. Chris Murphy or JB Pritzker please
Well that was fun! Thanks
Thank you for admitting that one of the big reasons Kamala Harris lost was misogyny. The "culture" you keep talking about is all male-focused. If the Democrats had had a male vice president in 2024, they might have won. Men hate progressive women.
Agreed. And I dont know why men are so in love with Mark Cuban for president. He really hasnt been a strong enough wealthy philanthropist to be a good president. Also who the hell cares if he was a successful businessman. Government as we are seeing, is NOT a business, it isnt supposed to have a bottom line of profit in the same way a business these days. It is about serving the people.
Excellent pod. Thanks guys!
Musk is an oligarch operating unconstitutionally under direction of the executive operating unconstitutionally with the tacit approval of congressional Republicans who are operating unconstitutionally. All should hang for their treason and breaking their oath to defend the constitution.
Yes this was a good discussion. However alot of talk centered around 2026 and 28 candidates, strategy etc. I hope they are also coming up with a strategy if there is no 26/28 elections - or a Putin style election.
That was an excellent analysis & conversation. And the AMAs were a bonus.
i hate the average American voter
and hope that thousands of inbred republicans die from measles, lose their medicate, have their kids go hungry (no snap), and lose any ability to provide for their families
Thanks so much for closed captioning the whole thing!
Thank you JVL! That was a great discussion. Thank you for doing this hard work!
Two of my favorites Dan and JVL, together at last! 💞
Let us know when JVL gets on PSA!
PS These WTF's are great, we want them to continue after the 100 days!
mark cuban also already has his hand in the medical pharmacy world and could bring
prescription drug prices down and universal health care he can help usher into place....
Great discussion, as ever. I wish I understood (I’m English, so forgive me…) what the DNC chairman’s role actually is. Whilst there is not yet a presidential nominee, is the DNC chairman the Democratic leader? That’s what I assume, but is that right? It’s hard to tell, when that person seems not to be in any way visible, at least to the outside world, as a leader. If Ken Martin is NOT the leader, how on earth does a party function without one until the presidential nominee is chosen? And if indeed he IS the leader, why isn’t he visibly leading on any kind of global stage? I realise that this is an entirely naive question, but I just don’t understand why the Democrats seem, at least to me, to be without someone leading a concerted effort to be a concerted opposition.
I'll take a whack at it for you!
The DNC chairman is not a politician that leads the party in a "public facing" sense, their job is more management with duties like coordinating all the state party's activities, e.g. setting goals, organizing (meetings, the conventions, etc), finding candidates to run, and raising money from donors.
There is no official leader of the party when the party doesn't hold the presidency, someone may be acknowledged as the unofficial leader if they are dominant in intra-party politics (like Trump was the last 4 years for the Republicans). When there's no clear leader, often after a presidential defeat, the party will regroup and make general plans until a leader emerges.
So we're in the worst position to combat Trumpism, no clear leader nationally with and no unified plan. The Democratic congressional leaders aren't accomplishing much (IMO) and any blocking of Trumpism is slowly happening in the courts. Meanwhile every day has a new set of disasters, Trump's dropping in the polls is the only good news I can see.
That’s so helpful, E.K. Hornbeck, thanks for taking the time to explain. It’s still a mystery to me how you can have an effective opposition party that has no leader; I guess I’m used to a UK system where even in opposition, a party votes for and elects someone to be in charge. Kemi Badenoch is the leader of the Conservative opposition party in the UK although Keir Starmer is prime minister. I can’t see how an opposition party can cohere and act effectively without someone to lead them, although I guess it must work if that’s always been so in the US. Perhaps Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have roles for which we have no UK equivalent?
Also, as I recall (no guarantees, like the secret pod!) today's systems evolved from the old 'smoke filled rooms' where all decisions were made by "political machines" run by the rich and/or powerful and they picked which candidates to back. Different parts of the country even down to city level had their own political machines so until it was time to field presidential candidates they were only a loose confederacy. Having a national, individual party leader just didn't happen in that world. Since the parties opened up and became more democratic around the 1960's the situation nationally hasn't changed much
As far a Schumer and Jeffries I don't know of any official party roles for the Senator and House Democratic leaders outside of their own bodies.
Beyond all that, you may have seen this quotation from Will Rogers:
"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat"
I love you man... the darker the better. But you gotta lose that insurance salesman / 5 easy steps to wealth / send $10 today to save your soul photo for this podcast.
It's the only face I've got.
Yes!!!🙌
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows TB does. Smart, informative, and surprisingly fun.
Congress needs to ban Elon from anything to do with the federal government!
JVL. Loving WTF 2.0!!
I’d vote for Sarah!!!!!!!!
That was great. I really loved the Friends schools stories and "my best friend Sarah" story. Precious.
Dems need a vision to listen to the American people—acknowledging how grossly they failed.
Gotta go big, Dan! The House in '26 ain't enough.
LLM: Large Language Model (associated with AI).
To answer JVLs question, If dems should run a demagogue light in the 2028 election to win some anti-vaxers back, I predict they will lose because many centrist voters will simply stay home. Reason is that a large swat of centrist dem voters believe in science and progress and not in this shit.
Good show.
Definitely right that 4 years is too long to predict. Under these conditions, 4 months is too long.
But kinda cool that we've come back around to non-career politicians for high office. Wasn't that more the founders' idea?
Not great that they have to be billionaires though.
Love your thinking, thank you.
Longwell for president. Now what?
great conversation! I would definitely tune in to pod save with special guest JVL over seeing any of those guys try to talk to Bill Maher ever again.
If there ever was a Musk Trump split, Trump could have Musk immediately arrested by the FBI for everything Trump is letting him do.
I was at the Principles First Summit In Washington DC on Saturday.
Mark Cuban stated without even being asked that he would NOT be running for president.
So you can stop with all the speculation.
I hope Cuban keeps to that. No to Mark Cuban.
Even if Cuban wanted to run for president, it's way too early to announce it. Perhaps we could slow the speculation but not eliminate it. Plus, a lot of his decision might be based on how many people would be on his side and who he might run against.
The mainstream media is thoroughly embracing canthappenhereism. No talk whatsoever about the implications of destabilizing global security.
Stop the celebrity clown show. After Trump Daddy gets through with stream of conscious Government by whim America will be ready for an egghead like Obama that reads 3 books a week and who's main concept is don't do stupid stuff...then try and make some progress
Great conversation with Dan! Hop you get to do another one of these soon.
I have no ability to predict what will happen in the elections of 2028 and 2032. But that won't prevent me from making some predictions about global affairs involving billions of people, lol.
We are understandably focused on Ukraine and Europe right now. But I fear that, just like 1950 (the Korean War), we are taking our eyes off Asia. Sometime in the next 4-8 years, I fear:
- China will move to take over Taiwan. Trump has shown that the United States will not defend Taiwan.
- South Korea will start a nuclear weapons program. Since it can no longer rely on the United States.
- Japan will start a nuclear weapons program. For the same reason.
- China and Russia will push North Korea to invade South Korea before it becomes nuclear.
- The United States will support the South Koreans for a little bit, then throw them under the bus, just like the Ukrainians.
- A LOT of people are going to die.
- The world economy will crash.
Things will become a shit-show. And all because White people lost their minds when a half-Black person became president, and because egg prices were too high.
Apparently some black and many brown people in 2024 lost their minds too.
Project 2025, in the chapter on Dept of Defense, says that we are going to withdraw our troops from Europe, leaving only a skeleton crew behind, and telling them that we will only honor our NATO obligations to defend them from a nuclear attack by Russia, otherwise they’re on their own. It says that we will not defend Taiwan after we make sure their chip industry has been transferred to the mainland US. It says we are going to withdraw all our troops from South Korea and they will have to defend themselves from North Korea, they’re on their own. I don’t remember what it said about Japan, but I imagine the same.
So don’t pat yourself on the back for figuring this all out. It’s been available on the Project 2025 website since late 2023.
Here's my question: will the rule of law collapse to the point that fair elections are a thing of the past?
Once they have bent everything to give the "President" these whimsical powers they'll all realize it's over, somehow or another and they can never let another Democrat in there. Its the Authoritarian progression
Exactly. They say they want a strong executive, but they only want a strong Christian Nationalist executive - not a strong progressive executive.
Sarah should definitely run!
I have such a nerd crush on Dan Pfeiffer
Keep up the show please! It’s always great when JVL talks to people outside The Bulwark.
The world will change as much as America changes now. Does everyone realize this?
We should check with Marc Cuban who says he’s not interested in running
I think we might be living Fermi's Paradox in real time. In particular, when thinking of the era of nuclear acceleration we are about to see.
We are now part of the Axis of Evil. Hard to comprehend.
We used to say we'd trade Boston for Bonn if the Russians invaded Europe. Now we say we'll trade Ukraine for a Moscow Hotel deal and some Nat Gas deals
For a child of the cold war, it's incomprehensible.
Ditto. I’m a duck and cover kid. You?
Great conversation