David Plouffe: Democrats Have to Run Against Their Party
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome to the show the campaign manager for Barack Obama in 2008 and then advisor to Kamala Harris's campaign in 2024. It is David Plouffe, who's here for the first time. I don't know why. Huge oversight. How you doing, man?
It's always good to be with you, Mr. Miller. Thanks for having me.
Welcome, man. Yeah, this will be much better than being in the MS Now boxes together.
No doubt. We can actually talk. It's good. Yes.
I want to start. You had a kind of a buzzy op-ed in the New York Times last week about how while things went good last November for the Democrats, there's still big changes the party's got to make. I want to get to that, of course. But, you know, the president is forcing us to talk about some other things, his delusions and manias instead. So we'll start there. The world is gathered in Davos. Have you ever been to Davos? Never, thankfully. Really? Yeah. That is surprising. I had you pegged as a Davos fan.
No, no. I've had to support people going to Davos, but I personally have never been to Davos, which I'm quite thankful for.
Yeah, same. I don't get it. It looks chilly. They're all in their Montclair jackets. I don't know. It's just not really for me.
Yeah, right. Yeah, tough.
So anyway, they're in Davos. And here's a couple of things that's happened just this morning. We're taping this Tuesday morning. He's posted Greenland as USA memes. He posted a meme trolling the other world leaders he's going to meet.
What are the current challenges facing the Democratic Party?
It was when they came to the Oval Office to meet him about Ukraine, but it's Photoshopped to make it seem like he's telling them that we're taking over Greenland. He has attacked the United Kingdom for, quote, planning to give away the island of Diego Garcia, which houses a UK-US military base there. There was an agreement to give that back to Mauritius. Earlier, actually, you'd be surprised to learn the Trump administration said they were on board with that because it secured a long-term stable and effective operation. Now Trump says the UK is stupid for doing that. He leaked some texts from the head of NATO in France. Mark Ruda called him Dear Donald. Macron asked him to have dinner in Paris. Both complimented him on his work in Syria.
I don't know, man. It's a little different than kind of how your old boss handled this stuff. But what is your big picture reactions on what we're seeing?
You know, Tim, you'd always like to laugh at this stuff. But, you know, this is an incredibly serious moment. So first of all, you know, here's a guy whose popularity rating, you know, has really plummeted, you know. Low 40s, high 30s, people unhappy with the economy. So first of all, politically, there's maybe, you know, 10 people in the country who think this is important. They all have dinner at Mar-a-Lago every weekend or would support this. So there's a priority question. He's obviously it's incredibly dangerous because of what it would do to our alliances. I mean, this would shred our alliances. It would shred NATO. And I think we have to understand a lot of this is about his ego. But at the end of the day, I think he'd be comfortable having he and Putin and she just carve up the world.
And all three of us are astride stuff, no matter the price that gets paid. So I think Democrats should make him pay a price for this, which is he's now threatening higher tariffs, which means higher prices for Americans. To steal Greenland, which nobody in America really supports. That's going to do nothing but harm our economy and for our alliances. Like we ought to just pound that away because it's not a stray issue. It's very much connected to a president who's not focused on the things and is even making it worse. The thing people most are concerned about, which is prices and the economy. But it's it's really scary. And there's no guardrails around this guy. Unlike the first term, there's nobody around to check his worst impulses.
You can see the deterioration. And at the end of the day, we know this from the studies of Trump going back to the 70s.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:12–1:41
2
What are the current challenges facing the Democratic Party?
1:41–9:11
3
How is the Democratic Party's brand perceived by voters?
9:11–13:14
4
What strategies should Democrats adopt to win elections?
13:14–17:36
5
How can Democrats hold Republicans accountable for their actions?
17:36–20:36
6
What role does AI play in political strategies?
20:36–25:00
7
How should Democrats address economic concerns among voters?
25:00–29:05
8
What lessons can the Democratic Party learn from past elections?
29:05–1:00:27
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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