The debate over why Kamala Harris lost and who gets the blame continues to rage. And we're even going to have a debate amongst ourselves, ourselves here in a bit. But first, somebody who worked on the campaigns of al Gore, Hillary Clinton [00:00:15] and Kamala Harris has something to say. - Take a look. - Here's the problem. I'm not concerned right now what the right thinks about the Democratic Party. I'm concerned about what I think about the Democratic Party. I don't like to echo the congressman, all three of them. [00:00:32] I don't like the fact that a small portion of our party is pretty much dictating where we are, that they are pretty much we are being branded as the most extreme of us. It is not only politically problematic, as we just saw, because none of this stuff [00:00:49] helped the other day. Without a doubt, it's a problem, but we need to take stock of why we are being held hostage to the far left. No one should be and wants to be kowtowing to the extremes of their own parties. That was Philippe Reines, longtime Democratic consultant to who has lost [00:01:10] three different presidential campaigns. So how has the Democrat Democratic Party been held hostage by the left? Take a look. The majority of Democrats don't agree with the things that we are being tagged with. - Now, how that works. - A couple of those things. [00:01:26] I think Democrats believe in common sense stuff more than you realize. I mean, it's it's not like any of us sit at home and don't talk to anyone. Most Democrats I know think there's a huge problem at the border. Most Democrats I know think, frankly, that males at birth shouldn't play [00:01:43] in women's sports and vice versa. Now you can have a healthy conversation within a party, and you have to have a room within a party for all this. But at the end of the day, if you have some of these issues that are 80 over 20 across the country. You really got to figure out why they're they're being so tagged with one. [00:02:03] And on one hand, it's easy because it's politically sexy. There's a reason why $40 million in ads on this topic were thrown at the vice president. But that's not all. He went on to add Medicare for all as an issue that's holding [00:02:18] the Democrats the Democrats, hostage, and took a swipe at Bernie Sanders. - Take a. - Look. It's like Medicare for all is not something that the bulk of the part of the Democratic Party believes in, but yet we spend tons of time on it now. [00:02:34] On immigration, there are people who do believe, and I think I buy into it, that part of the problem we've had as Democrats is that we have gotten pulled to the left so far that we can't make common sense decisions and look at 20. Look, [00:02:49] I worked for Hillary and she had to contend with Bernie. Bernie, you know, went after Biden? I shouldn't say went after he entered the primary. There's no evidence that the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party has met with any success or represents this party yet. [00:03:07] We're going to go ahead and we're going to continue. Every time someone on the hard left says, you can't do that, we're all going to we're all going to paralyze. So what do Democratic voters actually think? We pulled the data on immigration. 59% of Democrats and 64% of independents [00:03:27] support the bipartisan immigration bill that passed in the Senate before Trump schemed with House Republicans to kill it. You can see that data there. Okay. What about the next topic? How about trans rights? 80% of Democrats [00:03:42] and 46% of independents would support a candidate who supports trans rights. The support does decline when you ask voters about trans women in women's sports. Just 26% of U.S. [00:03:57] Adults think trans athletes should play on teams that match their identity. What about Medicare for all? 72% of Democrats and 46% of independents support a universal government run system. [00:04:15] You can see that data there. So the question is, do any of these issues affect how voters behave in the ballot box? According to a Gallup poll in late September, the top issue for voters was, [00:04:31] unsurprisingly, the economy. Only 10% of voters said it was either somewhat or not important, with everyone else saying it was either extremely important or very important. Immigration on this list of priorities ranked fifth, with 72% of voters saying it [00:04:48] was either extremely or very important. Health care ranked seventh at 37% extremely important and 42% very important, and all the way at the very bottom. Ranked 22nd of the 22 issue surveyed [00:05:05] transgender rights, with just 25% saying it was somewhat important and 36% said it was not important. So it gets Jank and Jules, we're going to have a little bit of a debate here. There are a lot of people, a lot of pundits, a lot of Democratic officials [00:05:23] saying this is why she lost. That's why she lost. They should have done this differently. They should have done that differently. Okay. Everyone's going to have a different opinion, of course, but for what Philippe Reines is saying here, that the Democrats are held hostage by the left and on [00:05:38] issues of immigration and trans rights. That's why she lost. And there's nothing that they can do about it unless they kind of purge these people from the base. Do you agree with him? Is there? Am I misinterpreting it? I'm curious what you both think. [00:05:53] - Yeah. - So I've got a definitive yes and no. So first, I do think that the leftists that he's talking about are hurting the Democratic Party. That's what we're going to at a minimum, debate because I know Jordan disagrees. But the first thing that we have to do is clarify the parts [00:06:09] where we all agree he's wrong. Okay. So there are, in my opinion, three wings of the Democratic Party at this point. There's what I call the 2016 Bernie Wing, which is economic populist, Medicare for all, paid family leave, $15 minimum wage, etc. [00:06:24] I think all three of us are in that camp. Okay, then there is the 2020 Kamala, where you take Bernie's economic populism, and what she did was because she was floating in the wind and she saw the leftists that were ascendant, she thought at the time, so going defund the police, trans people getting surgery [00:06:45] if they're undocumented immigrants, all of those positions that I view to be extreme. Okay. And I think clearly the voters view to be extreme. So Kamala, 2020 hurts the party in in my opinion. And then there's the third wing of the party, which is the major wing, [00:07:00] unfortunately, that we all disagree with here on this panel, which is Hillary 2016. And in a lot of ways, Kamala 2024, where they come back to the corporate positions and they go, not only do I not agree with you on some of these trans issues, but screw Medicare for all. [00:07:15] Screw helping the average American. I'm going back to my corporate donors and that's a disaster. And can I can we all stipulate that that is the number one reason that they lost because they served their donors and not their voters? Absolutely, absolutely. To an extent, yeah. [00:07:30] - I mean, I agree. - To an extent. I think the issue might be on my end a lot simpler, which is, you know, when I hear Raines talk like this. And, you know, he's this front running member of the DNC, he's reflecting this fact that Democrats have emphatically proven that they cannot be the solution [00:07:48] to the problems that we have, because their primary goal is shutting down socialist or progressive movements. Not taxing billionaires, not providing health care, not helping children. You see, this time and time again how much more time they spend blaming the left for their failures because they're not addressing [00:08:04] the key problems that we're running into. And I think that's the biggest reason Kamala lost. I think, you know, sweeping and getting popular vote, like Electoral college, House, Senate. I think sweeping proves that this is the death of neoliberalism. [00:08:19] Not like, oh, the left is going too far again. Like we're in a we're I call this a crypto fascist era where things are not going back to the way that they were, and this is their fault. So it's listening to this honestly pisses me off that like, oh, cool, we're getting blamed for the problems that they caused. [00:08:36] Yeah, again, I think we totally agree on that. So and the reason that they blame the left instead of actually delivering for the voters is because the left actually challenges their power. They could lose their party within the party and then then they got nothing right. If they lose primaries, they're toast. [00:08:52] So whereas if they lose a general election, who cares? They just come back and do it again, do it again, raise more money, keep more of it, etc.. So I think that is what you're saying is something very similar to what I'm saying. The number one issue is that they're serving their corporate donors and never delivering for the voters, and they want to distract you from that. [00:09:09] So every time they lose, no leftists lost. Every time they lose, they blame the left. So we all agree on that. So let's get to the part where we disagree on. So in my opinion, the GOP does this every single time. I've literally covered it for 20 like for a quarter of a century. [00:09:25] I feel bad saying that. But I have for straight and what they do is they look for they go further and further and further until they find the most extreme positions that the left is willing to defend. And then they go, that's what the whole left is. And every time they do that, You, they'll find some leftists [00:09:43] who'll go doo doo doo doo. I'll fall right into that trap. And I feel like, screaming Admiral Ackbar! It's a trap! It's a trap. So one of the things that Jordan just read you is so indicative. What have I been telling you guys? We fight for trans rights. [00:10:00] They have complete equality. They get whether it's, you know, health care, employment, constitutional rights, you name it. And the American people are on our side and the Democratic Party is on our side. And Jordan just showed that to you. 80% of Democrats agree with that. 52% of all Americans agree with that, even despite all of this overwhelming [00:10:18] propaganda against the trans community. But the minute you get the trans people playing in, you know, trans women playing in women's sports, it falls off a cliff and you all of a sudden you're down to 26%, let alone undocumented trans immigrants [00:10:35] getting taxpayer funded surgery. My guess is that polls around 2%. So and it's not an accident that the Trump team, once they start running that ad, saw great polling out of that ad and ran it again and again and again. [00:10:51] And by the end it was their number one ad and they had run it for $40 million worth. So are you guys saying that that ad didn't hurt and that we should keep going in that direction? I don't know. It's going to be hard to quantify what effect it had, but based on not just [00:11:10] that one Gallup poll, but exit polls, other public opinion polls of what people's priorities were. We saw for months in the run up and in the immediate aftermath, voters were largely motivated by the economy, economic policy and their material conditions. So I think it might have changed the perception, but I don't think it was [00:11:29] what motivated people to either stay home or vote against Harris or vote for Trump. You look at where it ranked on that list. I mean, there was a ton 22 different topics on there and it was dead last. - So why did they run. - It the most? Jordan? Why did it work the best? I don't even think it worked the best, because I was just [00:11:45] in Arizona and Nevada multiple times over the past couple of months, and I saw the ad of her on The View saying there was nothing different that she would do than what Biden did. I saw that way more than the trans ad. And then within that, they they just conflated the Biden administration and the [00:12:04] four years of Biden with Kamala Harris. And they said, we can't afford four more years of Kamala Harris. That was not their number one ad. Their number one ad was the trans ad. And they because it was polling through the roof. It's it's also a messaging thing. And here's the thing. [00:12:20] The Harris campaign did not have their hands tied. They had three times the money. They had $1 billion. They had an ad budget of 700 million. They spent 40 million on that ad. Get out and spend 80. Spend 120 on. Defending your most unpopular position. No, I'm saying you need a simple message on that. [00:12:37] And you shouldn't throw trans people under the bus. You don't, do. You don't just abandon something because it's inconvenient. - Trans people under the bus. - Yes it is. An undocumented immigrant comes into the country and says, I demand this. That's not her policy. Brother, I didn't. You just got here. What are you demanding surgery for me for? [00:12:54] That is such an outlier. It's not even her policy. It wasn't in her platform. It was. It was her policy. Four years ago, she mentioned it at an event. It wasn't even part of her platform. - All right. - So let's go to Jules. Well, Jake, I think I think what you're doing, and you know I love you, but I think you're falling for a massive trap that Republicans ever fall for, which is, [00:13:11] like you said, they set up this like, this domino of, like, this tiny issue that, you know, rounds down to zero and say, this is the biggest issue of the election. And like Democrats, not like leftists, but but Democrats will jump in and say like, well, actually, you know, here's the stats about this. So actually, like, you know, we don't agree with with let's say like, you know, [00:13:30] trans women in sports, but that's not what like when Republicans do heinous stuff. The Republicans just said, yeah, who cares? We're not even going to talk about it. Democrats insist on having the conversation about stuff that essentially doesn't happen or happens in such a small way as to be useless or ineffective to the larger story, [00:13:46] and Democrats will will jump onto it in an effort to demonize leftists and secure their own position. And that's really frustrating. Like, it's crazy to me that trans women in sports is a massive issue, when, again, the percentage of people that this effect literally rounds down to zero, [00:14:02] where stuff that actually matters and stuff that Republicans are doing is hand-waved away with with nothing, and it doesn't become part of the conversation. Nobody says, hey, we should talk about that. You guys are not addressing what I'm saying. So when I go on right wing shows, I tell them, look, I'm for 100% equality and justice. [00:14:17] That's the most American thing you could be. Trans people should have all the rights that that anybody else has. And guys, this affects about seven people in the country. You try to pretend that this is the most important issue. This is the least important issue, the smallest issue there is. And you know, you're doing it to drive a wedge between us. [00:14:33] And in fact, Dan Holloway, bless his heart on drinking, was a right winger was like, you're right. That's why they call it a wedge issue, because it's supposed to drive a wedge between us. That's the right way to handle it, and I think we all agree on that. But then you guys are saying no, dig in when they find the most unpopular position [00:14:51] and defend it until you lose. Why? Why would you defend a position that is deeply, deeply unpopular? No one, no one. No one is saying, dig in, but don't abandon members of your community. It's the right thing to do to stand up. - Who's abandoning. - Them? [00:15:06] Harris did how? The last couple weeks of the campaign, she distanced herself from trans issues, from trans rights. Because what trans rights, Jordan? Which trans rights? They do not have the right to demand free surgery when they come here as undocumented immigrants. [00:15:22] Who is doing that? That was literally Kamala Harris's position in 2020. - It was a hypothetical. - It was a hypothetical. But know that. - But who was. - Is doing it? Is it is it happening at scale? - It's not even hypothetical. - How much money are we actually spending? It was actually policy under Trump, too. It's not a hypothetical. It was policy. [00:15:39] And Trump even continued it. You could have fought back that way. But going like guys, and even if Kamala Harris did it or didn't, did or did not defend it, you guys are defending it. It's the leftists who are saying, this is the hill we're going to die on. Well, that's really ridiculous. No, we're. [00:15:54] Saying it feels like we're being dragged. - Onto that hill. - He is saying that cost the election. Look guys, here's how the progression goes. So they go, okay, we hate gay people. Oh, that didn't work back in 2004. They go, okay, well, we hate gay marriage. Oh, that did work. [00:16:10] Okay. Now, at the time I go. Wait, are we talking about constitutional rights? Are we talking about fundamental human rights? Okay, I know it's not a winning issue for us, but I'm going to fight on that. And I believe in gay marriage. But I could make an effective case for it. I could convince people of it. And we did. We fought and fought and fought and we convinced people. [00:16:27] Right. So then they go. Nowadays they come back and they go, okay, well, attacking gay people is not working anymore. So let's attack trans people. It's so transparent what they're doing. And by the way, I would love for a Democratic politician to say that. What I'm saying now, do you see how they're trying to drive hate towards trans people? [00:16:43] Okay. So they attacked the core of their rights. It doesn't work. Then they if you remember in the beginning, Trump said they shouldn't be in the military. And that didn't work. And we were defending defending because that is core rights, right? Willing to die for our country. Are you kidding me? Of course we defend their weirdos that attack people in bathrooms. [00:17:02] No, that's mainly straight guys. Let's be honest, okay? So we defend and it doesn't work. Then they get to they should be able to play in the WNBA and Olympics, etc. And I go, well, I think that's up to the WNBA and that's up to the Olympics. And I'm not sure that I agree with that, and let alone the fact that I know [00:17:21] that's a super unpopular position and it is not a core right to play in the WNBA. It just isn't. But every other leftist goes, nope, nope, you're a fascist and you're agreeing with the right wing. We're we love this issue. And of course they should. [00:17:36] We're going to defend this 200%. And then we got smeared. - So you guys made a giant mistake. - No, no. I think most leftists want to talk about the economy. I think most leftists want to talk about workers rights and free health care and affordable housing. But there are these fringe issues that are brought to the forefront by Democrats, [00:17:55] by Democrats who want to say what you're saying in order to distract from those issues, because they can't defend those issues. They can they can take this like little wedge issue and say like, well, we don't agree with trans women in sports. We don't agree with, you know, and if you defend it, then you're being crazy, but not to do an impression of you. [00:18:12] But there is this but there is this, this lack of conversation about the things that Democrats are not doing. And I genuinely think that even having these conversations to this, this degree, instead of hand waving them away as being like, you know what? These are fringe issues. [00:18:27] We can deal with them as fringe issues and not as the main issue of the campaign. But I think that is something that. Go ahead. Jules. Let me agree with you, but then challenge you. The part I'm agreeing with you on is when Philip Raines says, oh, trans undocumented again, not just trans rights, but trans undocumented immigrants [00:18:43] asking for taxpayer funded surgery. And then he goes, same thing as Medicare for all. No, not the same thing. Medicare for all polls at 72%. And yes, these corporate Democrats are trying to distract you from that. We all agree to that. But the Democrats didn't bring up that issue. [00:18:59] The Republicans, the right wing, brought up that issue. So but when I say, hey guys, let's get past this issue. This is not a winning issue. And I don't even agree. Then all of the leftists online said, no, we this is we love this issue. - We're going to fight on this issue. - Have the mic. [00:19:16] What Democrats have. Democrats have the mic. Democrats are the ones who respond to these issues like like DNC. Democrats are the ones who leftists don't have a mic leftist? No. You're wrong. They have a giant mic on social media giant. I mean, in that segment alone, they didn't say that for no reason, [00:19:32] and I know I lived it. They said a couple of times. They're like, I'm afraid to say this because of what's going to happen on Twitter. I'm afraid to say this because are you saying that people, leftists don't attack others on Twitter for the slightest disagreement? Oh, absolutely. But but the point is that what we're talking about being online. [00:19:48] Exactly. We're talking about, you know, normie voters, people who aren't chronically online like we are. And so, you know, these topics make their way to the mainstream because Democrats, Democrats will do exactly that. They'll say we're being attacked for for defending this issue. [00:20:04] When you don't have to defend the issue at all, you can. I'm again saying you can hand-wave it away and talk about things that really matter. But that's not what the leftists did. You're saying the exact opposite of what they did. They didn't wave it away. They said, I'm saying. That's what the people with the mic, the people who normie voters [00:20:21] listen to didn't do that. They started talking about, oh, we're being attacked by the left for having a reasonable position. Why are you talking about it at all? Why don't you talk about it within the fringe context that it exists and where it rounds down to zero? There are decisions to be made there. We do have to support trans rights, but doing it through [00:20:36] this narrow venue is crazy. And that's how it looks to voters. It looks like the entire Democratic Party represents this fringe, this fringe issue that mainstream Democrats want to defend against. - Jules, you're now saying most people. - Aren't online like. That. You're now saying that you agree with the position that I had, [00:20:53] which is wave it away. It's not it's this is not the hill to fight on. And when I said that, the entire leftist ecosystem collapsed in on itself. How dare you? We fight on this issue. Well, how did it turn out for us? And look, Jordan, I stipulated in the beginning we all agree she lost the issue [00:21:11] because she loves her corporate donors. She could have. She talked about how, oh, I love I have 90 corporate CEOs who agree with me, Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney and agrees with me. And that's what cost her the election. But it was not a small issue that the number one ad that they ran was on this. [00:21:29] And the polling indicated that this was the one that worked the best. And there's other things. Guys, we said there was real crime. Every leftist screamed, there's no crime. It's in your imagination. Well, and they claim to represent Democratic voters. Then here in California, we had prop 36 anti-crime bill [00:21:46] in California, not Alabama. In California, it passed with 70% of the vote. I told you that Democratic voters do not agree with extreme leftists. They care about crime and they don't want to pay for these surgeries. [00:22:02] ET cetera. ET cetera. The polling shows I'm true. The elections show I'm overwhelmingly correct. But I guarantee you the reaction to this debate by every leftist online will be. How dare he? He's a monster. It's all his fault and oh my God, we should double down [00:22:19] and quadruple down and we should. There is no crime. He's helping. They're framing. Well, okay. 70%. The Democratic voters are definitively on my side, both on economic populism, like Medicare for all and on these social issues. [00:22:35] We're not saying abandon trans people. We're not saying lock up people that didn't do anything wrong or that or that smoked a joint. We're saying nobody said to take domestic assault and turn it into a misdemeanor. What the hell are you defending that for? Are you nuts? [00:22:51] That's an injustice. And Democratic voters don't want it, let alone Republican voters. So you guys can keep emphasizing. I'm not the one emphasizing. I'm the one saying get past it. And every left wing show online is like, don't get past it, don't get past it. Talk about this for months and months and months [00:23:08] until we lose every goddamn election. I don't think it's like a totally fair characterization of how people are responding to that topic, or how they should engage with it. I think what's important is the context with what he was talking about was that she lost because of the extreme left [00:23:25] and those three issues that he laid out, which is not true. This guy has worked on two campaigns that ran against Trump. He lost both of them. He. He certainly knows losing, but he does not know how to win. And when you think about what motivates him to say it, it's much easier [00:23:42] to scapegoat progressives and the left. And as he threw in later in a jab at Bernie Sanders, Senator Sanders and maybe progressives in the squad, it's easier for him to scapegoat those policies, those people that voting bloc, [00:23:58] rather than look inward. Because to do that, he would find fault with himself, find fault with the donor class, and ultimately it would shake up and change the paradigm of how people within the party view the party. They're unwilling to do that because they are beholden to corporate interests. [00:24:13] On that. We agree. But the thing is, ultimately, at the end of the day, you stand up for these things because it's the right thing to do, not because they're popular. And like you gained ground on marriage equality and gay rights. It might be a similar and long fight, but you shouldn't abandon it [00:24:29] or throw them away or throw them under the bus like Harris did, simply because it's politically expedient now. Okay, so you're okay with losing the election because you want to fight for those issues? I mean, you just said it. - You already. - Lost. That's not what I showed you. The data. No one cares. No one cares. [00:24:46] It's the last ranking issue. You're delusional. The $40 million in ads. - The economy was. - The number one issue for people. No one's going in there like I'm mad about trans people, so I'm going to vote for Trump. No one. No one did that. You're 100% wrong. The economy, every. [00:25:02] Poll, every exit poll said it was the economy. Okay. At the very end of that ad, which worked spectacularly, you guys are denying reality. Every poll Polls showed it worked spectacularly. Yet no one, no one walked out and told a pollster that's why they voted. [00:25:18] - Not a single. - Person. Yeah. I'm sure. No, the American people loved it. Guys, you were right. Oh, my God, they loved it. They want you to run on it again. That's such a genius. - Yeah, that's that's. - Why Trump won. Okay, so how many times do I have to tell you that that was not the number one issue. That was by. But it. Did it help. [00:25:34] Did it help? And besides which, I also don't agree with you guys. I don't think paying for undocumented immigrants surgery is somehow some moral, great, amazing thing that we have to fight for. We have a giant number of issues in America. [00:25:49] In America, if they came in and asked for hip replacement surgery, I wouldn't be in favor of it. Why are we dying on a hill we don't have? It was not half of us in terms of Democratic voters. Can you? All right. Last thing. Can you guys be honest and say most Democratic voters agree with me and not you guys? [00:26:04] Yeah, most. Voters, most Democratic voters agree with me. They want Medicare for all. We just talked about it. We just agree with it. - But we all. - Agree to that. That'd be an extension of it. So there'll be an extension. If you're incarcerated. You don't get you don't get medical coverage. What do you think Medicare for all is? Does it cover gender affirming care? [00:26:21] - Because in my world, it does. - Okay. God bless you. You run the next election on that. I want the rest of the country to know that the great majority of Democratic voters do not believe in those issues. They believe in protecting everyone's constitutional rights, but they [00:26:40] don't agree with these fringe issues. And here we are making the same exact mistake where we are. You guys are defending something that is indefensible. And whether it like you're falling back on this simple thing of like, it's not the number one issue. So it didn't hurt. No, that is not a logical connection. [00:26:57] It doesn't have to be the number one issue for it to hurt our chances of winning. Besides which again, I don't agree. I don't agree that more crime is such a great thing, or that crime doesn't exist, or that taking a whole bunch of felonies that were terrible crimes and turning them into misdemeanors or somehow justice. [00:27:13] It's not justice. It's the exact opposite. That's why the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters agree with me. But what we do on the Young Turks guys, and the most important part of this entire conversation is, did we not know this was going to be a debate? We did. That's why we said it in the beginning. But we have these conversations. [00:27:30] No matter who you agree with, we air out these opinions and then you get to make up your mind. I love that Jordan and Jules passionately defend their position, and that's how we do it on The Young Turks. We'll be back. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. [00:27:46] You'll get to interact with us more. 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