Stacey Abrams on American Idealism and American Betrayal

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The first time I interviewed Stacey Abrams in 2017. She was running for governor of Georgia a contentious race that she ended up losing to Brian Kemp by fewer than two percentage points, but instead of giving up Abrams played the long game she dug into the weakness of our own party expanded her Coalition and became a national voice against voter suppression and our work paid off despite all the Skeptics. She helped her in Georgia Blue both in the 2020 presidential election and in the recent high stakes Senate races.

Of John Asif and Raphael Warnock Abrams is a hero to many on the left and is being called an existential threat to the right. She's also a polymath a novelist entrepreneur and lawyer who recently wrote that with Georgia accomplished quote can be exported to the rest of the Sun Belt in the midwest. But only if we understand how we got here. So which red state does Abrams have our eye on now and what's her plan to defend against A Renewed Onslaught from the GOP to pass even tougher restrictions on

Voter access ahead of 2022 and as the Supreme Court is also set to rule on the issue.

Stacy welcome to the show. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. You've done a lot of things and you put the state you were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. You were shortlisted for the Oscars. You've done a lot in the last couple years. And do you sleep

I do not not as much as I need to I'm actually working on that right

now. Are you all right? I am actually but you've written a book called while Justice sleeps, right? Yes, and you're writing under your own name. Is that right? I am this time instead of Selena Montgomery. Hello. I'm gonna be sorry to miss her

well know Selena still here.

It was just necessary because when I started writing romance, I was also writing tax treatises on the unrelated business income tax exemption and other fascinating topics and it was just a topic that's well. You know, I just wanted people to have both sides of me and be very clear about the

difference. Okay? All right, but this one you're writing while Justice sleeps which is a thriller right? It's more of this ruler. You didn't clerk at the Supreme Court. Did you I did not you did not but you are writing about a supreme court clerk.

Yeah my you

Your sister was a District Court Clerk and I've got friends who collected the Supreme Court. So I leaned on friends for color

commentary you decided to move to Thrillers. You had romance novels before why the

shift? Well, most of my romance. All of my romance novels are romantic suspense. So they were always Thriller novels but with romance at the core of the story, so writing this legal thriller. It essentially was like writing my other novels. I just didn't develop the romance, but my first book was about a chemical physicist who

Being chased through the Middle East and I wrote one about an ethnobotanist who was being chased through Peru kind of chasing. Yeah, although I did have a serial killer romance novel to

so all right, and it's coming out. When is it coming out May the 11th? Oh wow soon. So absolutely. Okay. So let's move into actual reality. Although that sounds more interesting to me. But let's talk about the 2020 presidential elections. I want you to take me back to November 19th when the whole country was waiting for the recount in Georgia. Where were

Were you when the state was officially called for Joe Biden?

Probably on the zoom call. I mean, yeah, we knew in November basically that week the night of the election Lauren grow our go who you know very well. She's the CEO fair fight. She was my campaign manager and we've been working together for the last decade our numbers told us that he was going to win Georgia, but we knew it was going to take time for that to become revealed to the rest of America. And so it was that

Friday that it became absolutely clear and then we went through the hand recount the audit the additional recount. I think they had carrier pigeons with abacuses trying to also make sure the votes were right, but it was never in the bag but we felt very confident that the numbers we were tracking across the state signaled the very strong likelihood that we could win. We knew that our aggressive attention to expanding access to the right to vote making certain that there was uniform.

Amity across the state making certain that people cured their ballots and that we had a very robust program to ensure that people knew what the rules were and that the counties had the resources they needed to allow people to take advantage of those roles. That's what we had done. And so I think anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen if they live in a swing state is maybe they have magic but I felt more confident about that outcome and more certain that we had made dramatic progress than I have.

In previous elections other than of course my

own did you anticipate the amount of pushback from the president and

others? Oh, yes. So fair fight the organization we created in 2018. We spent a year and a half doing research on the just remarkable infrastructure that the GOP was building. This was the first time they had been permitted to engage in the type of coordination that they leveraged which was to take the RNC the Republican.

National Committee the Trump campaign and third-party groups like true the vote and actually coordinate their efforts and they had a very detailed and expansive plan to try to stop voters from being heard to try to discredit the election and then we layer that on top of and their minds the ignominy of losing in Georgia and a state where their loss would come at the hands of Voters that they had diligently.

For so many years and the state that for many was sure thing. Of course, the reaction would be dramatic and I think what escalated it in the public eye was the fact that the Allies like a bread rastenburg who had been very much a part of this false voter fraud narrative. He had created one of the first voter fraud task forces, which was basically it was an attempt to intimidate voters and stop them from voting by mail. Stop them from participating get Brian Kemp who it's been eight years as Secretary of State engaged in the most egregious voters.

Question the fact that the two of them actually refused to undercut their constructed election system. I think that was the surprise and that's why the virulence of Trump's response was so

epic and Brad ravans Burgers the course the secretary of state of Georgia it was it a surprise to you that they did that. I think you were not expecting them to having Tangled with them for years.

So rag has been very happy to continue the behaviors of his

Sirs both Brian Kemp and before Brian Kemp. It was Karen Handel who briefly served in the US Congress their attention and diligence to voter suppression is nearly unparalleled. But they also had been sued into submission. There are multiple lawsuits some from fair fight from other organizations Mark Elias. The leadership conference had been supportive of a lot of efforts to hold them accountable. We saw the lawyers committee you name it they had been sued and we also had

Advocacy by the time we get to the elections because of just the Colossal breakdown in June of 2020 with the primaries. They both have their reputations at stake. They had authorized a hundred and seven million dollar purchase of new

machines, right? So it was on

them. It was on them. It was their system. So they weren't defending democracy. They were defending their behavior. And so even though it caused them to run afoul of the Trump Universe they were all

Basically just sending the decisions they've made and so anyone who talks that up to some form of Integrity or heroism is sadly misguided because in the midst of all of those things Brad ratzenberger continued to intimidate communities of color, he castigated groups that simply try to expand access to the right to vote using data he provided and so I've always been very hostile to the idea that he they deserve credit for doing their

jobs. So no credit.

Do of his pushback of

trump? Not really? I mean, look, I'm glad he did it because he could have done something wrong. He could have kowtowed and capitulated and so yes, I'm pleased that he didn't but I'm not going to laud him and venerate him and you celebrate Brian Kemp for trying to protect their legacies. This wasn't about a concern that meant that they wanted more voters to have access because these are the two men who are currently engaged in a battle to renew voter suppression in Georgia more than 50 bills have

Come through and they haven't denounced any of them.

So then when you come to credit how much credit do you take for the win? Because you sort of got lauded by everybody as you and Lauren also and fair fight. How do you look at your credit that you get? Hey,

I am part of a coalition of organizations. I would say I had a bit of a lead in the process and that I helped to secure tens of millions of dollars for the state of Georgia. I have been, you know Clarion demanding attention for the state for about a decade.

I helped build infrastructure and invest in organizations mean one thing that Lauren and I are always very intentional about is when we raise money we share our resources. So when we did the new Georgia project back in 2014, we took a quarter of million dollars and made sure we gave it to other organizations that weren't going to have access to the resources. We did in 2020 and 2021. We shall that more than 25 million dollars to other organizations. And so my posture is that yes, I had a leadership role in this and and

A lot of ways became sort of the avatar for what happened. But what I always want people to remember is that it took a coalition of organizations more than a decade to get us here.

What's also it's a trap to be the figure because you become polarizing or you

become it's a bit late for that.

Yeah, that's one of the things that you had managed to do over your political career is not become that you had been known for doing compromises with Republicans. And you know when there was even exit polling that people like you but there's been a

A real effort to make you into that. I would say they kind of did it to Hillary Clinton. They do it to AOC. It's almost always women. Actually. How do you feel in that role right now

if I'm being demonized for expanding access to our democracy and defending the rights of Americans to vote? I'm okay with that characterization what they cannot say is that I've done anything that was self-aggrandizing. It means the contrast between my response to my election and Trump's response. My response was not to

Sue to change the outcome of the election I accepted the legal sufficiency once we did the work to make sure as many votes could be counted as possible because that was the first responsibility. I asked people to vote. I need to make sure their boats got counted. So on November 16th, I acknowledge the legal sufficiency of the election.

I like your legal sufficiency. Well because Brad use that to say that you were like

trauma but the difference is the legal sufficiency argument. You can't then question a system if you say this.

System is okay. There's an internal conflict there that I refuse to indulge it and I will acknowledge the legal sufficiency, which means that Brian Kemp is the governor. I've called him such but I challenge the underlying system and that's what I refused to suborn and my fight for the last two years my work for the last 30 years has been about making sure people have access to the right to vote and not Democrats not liberals not people of color, but that Americans

You're eligible citizens have access to the right to vote that is a stark difference and departure from what we saw happen in 2020 from Donald Trump and his ilk

When Brad made that comparison. How did you take that when he was trying to make a link between you and President Trump in you know, I don't like the selection. I I'm going to keep saying it

it is they're very narrow read that they keep trying to hold on to to diminish the work that we're doing because they know we were effective more people were able

to cast their ballots and have them count it through absentee balloting because of the work that's been done to mitigate voter suppression. Nationally. We have had a dramatic impact so dramatic that at this moment, we know the 253 bills being introduced in 43 legislatures across the country because we were so effective at helping mitigate voter suppression, but let's be really clear. This is about politics for them and they are going to look for any opportunity to diminish both my integrity and my effectiveness

Does it work?

I don't think so because we not only one in November we want again in January and overall. I'm I use the word Avatar before night and I mean it in this way. I do not like the tendency for Messianic leadership where people become the thing they fight for I'm not the only person doing it. But if I have to be the lightning rod that draws the attention, so others can keep the work going. I'm okay with that but

hasn't Messianic been part of

History America since the beginning there's always these compelling figures political figures throughout our history is littered with them.

Oh, absolutely and I think it's important to learn from it. You can't stop with other people cast on you, but you can decide what you absorb and we have seen it happen time. And again where people start to believe their own hype when they start to believe they are the one they are the only one no one else can do this. They are essential. My job is to be irrelevant. My job is to build things that are so strong and so resilient that

My not being there doesn't stop the work and so new Georgia project is a perfect example. I founded the new Georgia project got attacked for it did the work to make certain it was stable and sustainable and then spun it off fair fight is something I created but Lauren grow Argo is an extraordinary leader. So is Selena Jagged a who serves as a managing director, they do the work day to day. I am integral part of it. But if I have to be pulled out of it the work still

happens. Have you absorbed some of it though? Is it the negative or positive?

Give me it.

It's hard to have people say terrible things about you all the

time on the other hand, you're like the savior of the democratic party.

That's also very discomforting is that just comforting the discomfort comes in? Because it one puts not just pressure which I don't mind but I don't do this work to be lauded for it and it's just weird and not and I don't mean that at all to diminish how appreciative I am, but the corollary between

I do the work and how people react to it is just very

different. So what is the corollary why you do it if you want to State

it because I truly believe that we have work to do. I think that poverty is wrong. I think that we have failed to meet our obligations to those who are in need and vulnerable and disadvantaged and marginalized. I think we waste human capital through incarceration and through denial of basic services, and I know that the only way

Things change is if people do the work to create that change and I'm one of those people but internally there is always a bit of a rub where the attention sometimes I think distracts from the work.

Yeah the Stacy show, essentially. Yes. I've no interest

in starring in that show. I'm okay making a brief Cameo appearance. But if that's not the point, all right, so you

obviously haven't announced a gubernatorial run in 2022 yet. You might do that but GOP strategists are already starting to raise money for

Stop Stacey campaign. They move from stop the steel to stop Stacy has all this work made you a bigger Target for Republicans. Yes. So what do you do about

that? Look, I'm the same person. I was when I was in the legislature. I find this sudden vitriol to be a bit interesting when I was in the legislature. I was the Democratic leader. My job was to try to defeat their bills. It was to try to promote the bills that I held to be the most important and it was to work together.

Other when we need it to that's all I'm doing.

So st. You're doing the same thing. They've just done exactly focus on you and you had success you did change the course of the election

and that's the problem. That's the problem. It wasn't that they are surprised at what I'm doing. They're surprised it worked and so I've now become the singular Target of their venom, but they're also trying to pass laws to block everyone

else. So recently the Georgia state election board voted to start an investigation into the new Georgia project the election board alleged that over 1,200 voter applications were submitted.

Late in 2019 and they listed Senator Raphael Warnock as a responded on the case Warnock, of course is one of the two Democrats who won the senate election in the runoffs earlier this year a lot due to your work. The new Georgia project said that listing him was a mistake. What do you make of this investigation

that it's the same kind of Witch Hunt they undertook in 2014 when new Georgia project started in voter registration 2014 actually called then Secretary of State Brian Kemp said I'm doing this massive voter registration work want to make sure we don't run afoul of any laws. He sent.

His chief Lieutenant to train our team. We put together a training booklet based on their information and then they accused us of violating the rules where we're following the rules you gave us but their response to anything that advances the cause of expansion of voting rights their responses to attack black and brown organizations. They did it before me they did it to Latino organizations in the aapi organization under Brian Kemp. They arrested black women who simply wanted to increase the school board representation for students of color who

As the majority of the school district their response to any advance is to demonize and if they can criminalize the behavior that actually creates access and opportunity

to the word use Witch Hunt which of course President Trump is used, you know right now just with his tax investigations to loaded a word for you to use or not. I

think it's too weak a word. I mean, yes it hearkens to a terrible time in our history. But this is criminalization. It is demonization and it is an austere ization.

Because their hope is that not only do they diminish the organization. They're trying to Tar the reputations of those Associated Raphael Warnock was the chair of the board. But and say you fought very clearly as the CEO rather than correcting their mistake, they, you know glom onto it and they try to use it to again demonize someone who's done something they don't like which is when an elections to represent communities that are largely kept out of the political

process. So talk about that. The Republic's in the State House and Senate have recently introduced a number of bills related to the election process.

Including one bill that fair fight is called a quote voter suppression bill. Can you talk about the changes that are in the docket? So let's be clear. They're all

vitter's oppression bills. This isn't one off. They've introduced 50 bills that are designed to either discourage or prevent people from casting a ballot. That's what our suppression and so they are trying to eliminate automatic voter registration, which is the first hurdle for participating in the

election. This is when you're somewhere like a like the

DMV right Georgia has automatic voter registration at the behest of Republicans. They put it

in place and they're trying to retract it now because too many people they don't like have started to use it. They want to eliminate no excuses absentee voting something Republicans created is when you can vote absentee without being elderly disabled or in the military number three, they're trying to cut the number of days and hours of in-person early voting which was used by 1.3 million

Georgians, especially during the pandemic people wanted to decide when to go

and and let's put aside the pandemic. It's important for people who have work schedules that are

Are more diverse and erratic than any time in our history when you have a gig economy. You cannot assume that everyone has the same amount of time on Tuesday to show up. They're trying to eliminate weekend days because 36.7 percent of the people who use the Sunday voting opportunity were black people and that's too many black people. And so they're trying to resend that they are trying to break apart. Not just the accident of voting. They're actually also now attacking the mechanisms the people who are responsible for certifying the

Ins and for running the elections they have a piece that says that counties can no longer apply for Grants to cover the cost of actually meeting the need. So in Georgia and 2020, we helped secure 30 million dollars in grant funding to support overworked under resource County officials who are responsible for elections. They are now making it illegal for them to apply for or receive those grants.

So what are the chances of these passing? Where are you?

They are all highly likely to pass.

So one raft of terrible bills already come out of the Senate another bill. So one of the things they're doing is they're taking different bills that are terrible and putting them all together in a package. The Senate package is already moving the house packages emotion as well. And let's be clear Georgia is a singular example, but as I said earlier 253 of these bills are moving through 43 legislative bodies

and and the chances of them passing

highly in states where you have a triumvirate meaning the governor the house and the Senate and that's in

States any state that has those has a very high likelihood of those

bills passing. And then what do you do

you pass HR 1 which is federal legislation that unfortunately because of the decentralisation of Elections, the state has certain perquisites to administer elections, but you can set federal law that says that this is the manner and style in which you have to conduct elections namely automatic voter registration same day registration uniform guidelines for early voting uniform guidelines for absentee voting. It would only apply to

Federal elections but Most states do not run parallel systems. You vote the federal ticket in the you move over vote for the state or local

ticket. Alright, so you've beaten them at their game and then they're putting their changing the rules essentially from your

perspective. Well, they're changing the rules to reflect the Halcyon time for voter suppression, which is Jim Crow,

right? So your work just hasn't gotten resistance from Republicans in an op-ed you wrote with Lauren grow Wargo and how does turn State's blue? You wrote to build a new Battleground State any leaders push this up?

Lucien will face resistance and at times open War for from those who are on their side on the aisle, but also on the other side for the struggle for ascendancy what kind of resistance you talking about? So 2014

ran the new Georgia project submitted applications for voting only 40,000 plus were processed. We accuse the Secretary of State of once again engaging in voter suppression and Democrats actually accused us of being misleading of not having actually done the work Democrats wrote screeds against me saying that I

Done something wrong and that my mission was already failed Democrats were quite unhappy with the aggressive fundraising. I used to build the capacity, even though those dollars were disseminated across a number of organizations, but in the instant moment because there was not an immediate victory that followed the work and because the work was different than the process that they had used for years. I was not seen as an innovator. I was seen as an infiltrator and as someone who was dangerous to the car.

Cause right and then on the other side you have Kelly LaFleur recently announced her own so-called Voting Rights group Peta. Laughing. Your is a chuckle or is it a chortle? I'm not sure

which ones it's a chuckle toriel. I would have to take it more seriously.

Okay, it's called greater Georgia La fleurs Republican, of course was the former Junior senator of Georgia lost to Rafael Warnock and stayed in Trump's corner until the January 6 attacks when she decided that was bad, but the mission of her new organization sounds not dissimilar to the mission of fair fight register new voters reach more communities strengthen the elections and you've

Is he said that La fleurs efforts were fueled by conspiracy theories, even though she seems to have co-opted a lot of your words. Do you see this project is complimenting you because you are from voter expansion, right? So it would be for

everybody. Well, I think the complement is that she thinks that she has to have a corollary to our work. The challenge is that she's very intentional about the goal of only registering white conservatives. She doesn't say white. She does say conservatives the registration work that I've always encouraged to focus on communities of color, but we don't have

have a say in their ideology. And the reality is we targeted communities of color because they had the single largest Bastion of under registered participation. She intentionally says that she's going to serve the conservative cause our mission is to protect democracy her notion is to protect the kind of democracy that allows her to win and my experiences at that democracy tends to mean the erosion of and Erasure of communities of color poor communities and the marginalized and

Advantage she says she believes in election Integrity which is the code language they use to justify voter suppression. And that means that she has not a similar intent, but she has the exact opposite intent. She wants to retrench she wants to renew the effect of voter suppression and she wants to do so for the benefit of those that she considers the superior voters and my issue is not that everyone we support will win. My point is that we should have a fair

Right and what she's doing you think is just a faint

it's a faint but I think they're legitimately concerned at the rate of loss. But I think she's disingenuous in this notion that there that we are somehow somewhere we situated. My mission is expansion of voting rights hermitian is the contraction of participation by limiting those who have the right to vote from being able to use

them and how do you expect that to go her

group? I expect them to spend a lot of money and I expect them to

Orton sabourin all of these attempts to erase access to the right to vote and I expect

are hasn't called you instead. Let's fight these

she's so interested and that's the I'm just curious that she called. You know, I she is not I as you may know I worked with her we work together as on the Atlanta Dream. I like many was surprised by how quickly she's

changed.

She's I know she changed as much as she adopted a facade that is anathema to the things that I believe.

Leave in and as long as she is clear about her intention, which is to support the conservative Notions that preceded 2020. That means she is supporting voter suppression. She is supporting eliminating access to progress and avoiding or Worse blocking the very changes necessary to improve the lives of Georgians. There is nothing great about that.

So just be clear communities of color do tend to vote Democratic though. Is that right? And that's part of your Calculus to

well. So after

Americans are the most likely to vote Democratic and Georgia unlike in some parts of the country. We have a stronger tendency among Latino and API but part of that is based on the behaviors of the Republican Party in the South. If you go to other parts of the country Latino and API voters may have a different voting habit, but here's my point. We never once registered a single person based on partisanship. We don't have the right. Georgia doesn't do partisan voter registration, but more importantly I have

no truck with saying that you can only register people who agree with you democracy can only work when it works for everyone when you break any part of democracy you break it for everyone no matter who your target is as a partisan. I'm going to try to get my people elected but elections are not partisan elections are completely open the people you choose maybe partisan, but the process should not be and that's what causes me annoyance.

So what do you say to Kelly La Fleur if you were speaking to her right now,

she wants to waste more of her money go for it.

We'll be back in a minute.

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Last time we spoke you did a very good job predicting what would happen in terms of Georgia in the elections and you sort of laid it all out. I was like if you want to know what she was up to you just went away and did it you were very clear about what you were doing. For example, you said if you did your job, right any Democratic candidates for Senate would be able to win in 2021, of course both Warren I can also have one. So what happens in George's next big election Warnock who's become part of this Witch Hunt, which is what you called. It faces re-election in 2022 former Senator. David Perdue is already announced that he will not challenge Warren up after.

All will he keep that seat?

Yes, if we can defeat the voter suppression because the whole point of these activities, these are games of inches in Georgia out of five million votes nearly 5 million Raphael Warnock one by ninety three thousand votes. So I guess I think it's worth a half million. The reality is that if you can diminish the access if you can remove from the rolls and if you can discount the votes of enough people, especially people

Full of color he loses and therefore if we have a fair fight if we have the same schedule and operational capacity that we had in 2020 he wins again. If we instead have this Bastion of attack on our voting rights and they are successful in there is no counter force that comes from the federal government through requiring an equal Level Playing Field, then he can

lose. So you said yes and yet you also said you think these bills are going to pass so you need this Federal bill in other.

Exactly. So my point is I'm going to be fighting hard for the federal Bill to pass because that's the only way we can guarantee that voters can

have their say and if not, he could lose.

If not, yes, he could lose. So what did

you learn from Georgia 2020 that you think would help turn State's blue. How do you scale

they're scaling in there's replication. Sometimes you scale an organization so that the organization just expands it service map and sometimes you replicate in the franchise system and instead you say here are the benchmarks here the

Rex and here the resources you need but then you allow each franchisee to adapt to where they are changing estate as a franchise model. It's not a scaling model and our responsibility. My responsibility is to make certain that any franchisee of democracy plus any franchisees of democratic transformation Big D that they have the building blocks. They need as a franchise would but my intention is not the scaling notion. That is I should not be making the decisions

not you in particular, but how

Skill the concept of what you've done I guess franchise is what we're talking about. Like how do you put it in a box and let them open their own fast food democracy restaurant. The

first is you got to understand what your customer base is, Florida and Arizona are not the same as Wisconsin or Utah. And so you've got to do the analysis of where you are understand what your opportunities are and understand what the pathway is. Georgia is uniquely situated because of our demography if you're a Missouri, you're not going to have the same demographic opportunities that we have but

Are other opportunities because this is a state that once enjoyed a very robust labor population that was decimated by Republican leadership. So let's think about who still there who is unhappy with what they thought would occur when they're elected leadership did this so you got to figure out what your opportunities are where you are, then the building blocks are the same the building blocks are you've got to build political power within your actual party your party has to be effective. You have to understand what the party is and what the party isn't you have to have.

Political leaders that are willing to take risks and work with other political leaders not worrying about who gets the credit you've got a raise absurd amounts of money, but that money can be raised and part of the conversation we're having is with donors that they need to invest in places and understand that investment cannot be a one-off and it can not only show up during elections. You've got to work with the Grassroots organizations and recognize that they don't have to have the exact same methodology that you have but they have to have a combined ethos in an intentional

In ality of working together and then you have to wash rinse repeat and evaluate what you did that worked and what you did that didn't work and whose fault it was.

So can I get a prediction for about the national map for the 2024 presidential elections? Will there be a new set of Swing states? There were quite a few in this election with Biden and others. Do you feel that that will continue or will these voter suppression bills make that

problematic? Well, I will say this even with voter suppression. That doesn't mean we can't fight. I think there's still a way to win with voter suppression. I just think it becomes

Much harder and much more expensive it is doable but it is going to be vastly easier. If the right to vote isn't being fought for at the exact same time. You're trying to win an election. If we finally have a floor for voter engagement. Then you will see a much more competitive set of races and a lot of states where we have given up hope and in states where hope is waning because if people could automatically be registered to vote and if they do not have to fight like Native Americans

have to fight to be able to cast a ballot even though they're vastly under resource tanned the laws for example in Arizona make it incredibly difficult to maintain participation or North Dakota. I think we can create

change pick a state. Is there a state particular State

and I think Texas is one of the state's we talk about a lot. I think Missouri can actually be a more competitive State. I think Ohio can't be written off yet. I think there are a lot of states that in 2008 came over to Obama. Those are states. We can look at it

again. All right, so

Republicans also the instruction seem to be aligned for some Republicans not very many of them like Mitch McConnell kids put flipping back and forth, but he just said he was all in for Trump again. Despite the Insurrection. Do you think it was a real wake-up call for that party? There's this just attempts to salvage individual reputations after the attack.

I think that there's always a battle between party and power and I think there are those For Whom the party is preeminent and that's what they're going to fight for. I think that's the strain of Republican.

isn't that we see in a Mitt Romney and then there's the naked attempt to always hold power in that is why we see the remarkable and you know almost regularize vacillation in Mitch McConnell that happens in both parties, but in the Republican party, what is so terrifying is that rather than this being a theory of the case, we've actually seen evidence of the consequences and too many of them are still grappling with whether they want an effective party or if they simply want naked Power and