Democratic Lawmakers and Presidential Hopefuls at 2028 Strategy Conference

[0:00] who believes in our party's foundational promise equal opportunity for all special privileges for [0:07] none i welcome you to join majority democrats today and to any staffer who loves a challenge [0:15] we're building the best damn team in democratic politics to recruit great candidates [0:21] and give them what they need recruitment services campaign services executed at the highest level [0:30] now look we have an extraordinary team and extended family that has made this event possible [0:37] and i want to spotlight two people in particular mostly because they prefer to stay behind the [0:43] scenes and they might be a little bit embarrassed by this but it really is it's rare to see a [0:51] combination of genuine kindness and total operational excellence and so i want you all to give this [1:01] person a hand she has been the glue that has kept our organizations in these efforts together [1:07] michelle kleppe weldy and and to the guy i met in iowa organizing for barack obama he has poured his [1:22] heart and soul into this event and has been a driving force behind majority democrats in the bench [1:30] please give it up for seth london finally i just want to thank every one of you from the bottom of my [1:39] heart for being a part of our first public event and if i rewind a couple months ago i was just nervous [1:46] that this hall this this this event would be filled with people and you didn't just fill it you've made [1:54] it a total success and so thank you thank you thank you now for our closing session of what's next [2:06] i hope you all enjoy the concert tonight and let's get back to work thank you [2:44] reverend rafael warnock everybody i'm a baptist preacher talked back to me hello everybody [3:11] last week the american people feeling worn out and left soul weary by the economic and existential [3:20] violence being visited upon them by the trump vance administration decided to stand up raise their [3:31] voices and their votes and fight back and the good news is that they were kind and gracious enough [3:42] to give us a real chance to fight back with them and on their behalf for me that is a sacred trust [3:50] we must not let them down over the last two years everywhere i go sometimes people are literally [3:59] physically pulling on me and they say fight for us and all of us must indeed fight but as i say to folks [4:09] all the time you cannot outsource democracy this is an all hands on deck moment we have to be in [4:16] this fight together we have to fight for economic justice we have to fight for the dignity of workers [4:23] and the dignity of work for affordable housing for health care for the health of the planet but we also [4:29] have to fight for the character of our country for the heart and the soul and the health of our nation [4:37] and we have to be in this fight together are you in this fight with me so here is where i stand i refuse [4:49] to give in to those who right now are trying to weaponize despair they are trying to convince us [4:57] that conscienceless power has already won the day and therefore there's no need for us to fight back [5:07] but i still believe in america that is big enough prosperous enough and that has a vision that is broad [5:14] enough to embrace all of our children and i reject this politics of despair with all my might here is [5:25] the thing that even mortal enemies have in common we all love our children and the spiritual leap the [5:36] moral leap we must make in this moment is the recognition that my children's success is tied to your [5:44] children's success and yours to mine dr king said we're tied in a single garment of destiny and so [5:51] in these moral moments in our country i think of dr king but i also think about my parishioner john [5:58] lewis the late great john lewis who crossed that edmund pettus bridge with nothing but a backpack he was [6:10] beaten he was gassed but john lewis crossed a bridge and built the bridge at the same time and several years [6:20] ago a poor kid growing up in the housing projects of south savannah georgia who now stands before you [6:28] crossed that bridge alongside a jewish kid the son of an immigrant in one fell swoop in america all [6:35] things are possible we flipped the senate we helped save the whole country and in spite of the last two [6:49] years that bridge is still intact i know because the other night i had to call and wake up my 10-year-old [6:56] daughter and tell her that as she asked me earlier that night the girl won a girl named keisha lance [7:03] bottoms crossed that bridge dr annie andrews took a south carolina exit onto that same bridge [7:16] an openly gay brother named chris papas of new hampshire crossed that bridge a muslim brother named abdul [7:26] crossed that same bridge that bridge was made accessible for a josh turek of iowa [7:39] and even as they work to gerrymander our votes and diminish our voice lo and behold the other night [7:48] a shout was heard from the mississippi delta that rang across the heartland mississippi miracle 140 years [8:01] in the making shine the bright light across this present darkness in america all things are possible [8:11] so think about it in a very real sense the other night a miracle happened we witnessed the parting [8:18] of the red sea and so it is our moral assignment in this moment to push back against those who are [8:30] trying to weaponize despair cause us to sleepwalk to sad lullabies of scarcity convince us that our [8:37] neighbors are the problem and while we are busy looking at our neighbors powerful interests are robbing us [8:44] blind transferring wealth from the bottom to the top the american people need to see us democrats [8:51] fighting for them but you can't fight for the people unless you're free unbought and unbossed and if [8:58] you spend time hearing the people they'll tell you that they are sick and tired of the rampant corruption [9:05] they are saying with isaiah the prophet of old your prophet your princes which means politicians [9:11] are rebels they are companions with thieves isaiah said that everybody is looking out for a gift [9:19] chasing after bribery and so they do not stand up for orphans and widows in other words the most [9:25] the most marginalized members of the human family and so hear me only a nation where too many people were [9:34] already being left behind already dangling between the broken promises and despair only a nation that is [9:44] spiritually broken only a people that were already deeply disappointed could have elected the likes [9:50] of donald trump twice and so this fight is a moral fight we must raise worker wages and the index of our [10:00] moral imagination we must heal the land and we can do not become too impressed with evil as i say in my [10:12] clothes and nobody believes a preacher when he says as i close let me tell you this evil always goes to [10:24] far and therefore it contains within itself the seed of his own destruction we just have to stand up [10:34] in this moment i remember as a kid watching my grandmother as she was moving around in her garden [10:40] a snake appeared and she wasn't impressed with the snake she took an axe and decapitated it in no time flat [10:49] i was a six or seven year old kid i was even more frightened because the snake really began to move [10:55] and as i witnessed its dramatic and menacing movements and convulsions after she decapitated it [11:04] i thought we were really in trouble what i didn't understand as a six-year-old kid is that that snake was [11:09] moving not because it was living but because it was dying witness now the last gasp of an old order that knows [11:23] it is on its way out and our job right now is to keep standing together working together praying [11:29] together showing up together until we win a future that's big enough for our children [12:16] rafael warnock and i were supposed to talk about the moral moment and you all put a preacher up before [12:45] you you put the guy up who just sits in the pew but but warnock and i were both raised in one of the many [12:52] mighty traditions in america we were both raised in the black church and at the center of the black [13:00] church the church that carried us through slavery the church that made us believe when everyone told [13:07] us we were inferior the center of the black church is a gospel of liberation and a gospel of love now [13:17] brother warnock and myself we we are as are every one of you our ancestors wildest dreams when i [13:26] walked into the senate as the only black person in the democratic caucus only the fourth black person [13:30] elected in the history of our nation after a guy with a funny name i cannot tell you i did not not [13:40] think it would just be a few short years when we would have a senate full of six black folks in the [13:48] democratic caucus i know my ancestors wept but at the center of that gospel there has always been another [14:01] gospel and that is the civic gospel of america you see the call to the conscience of our country that [14:09] has been at the center of our tradition in our family roots has always been one of calling to the [14:16] conscience of a country and demanding that it live up to its promise demanding that it lives up to its [14:22] dream we know that this nation has always been people from diverse backgrounds calling this nation to [14:31] our nation to our nation to our nation to our nation to our nation to our nation to our nation [14:37] we are here because of generations of our ancestors who loved this nation even when the nation did not [14:49] love them back they never surrendered to cynicism they never gave up on love in favor of contempt i love [15:01] my favorite author james baldwin who who wrote at the end of the fire next time an unflinching [15:06] descriptions of the reality of our nation in the early 60s where there was violence and lynchings where [15:12] there was beatings and church bombings at the end of all of that he did not surrender to cynicism he did [15:19] not give in to hate at the end of that book that last page should be required reading i paraphrase him now he [15:28] actually called this country to greater things he said this is the exact moment that we should ask of [15:36] each other more he said i know what i'm asking you is impossible but in our day and age the impossible [15:43] is the least we can demand for one is after all emboldened by the spectacle of american history [15:50] and negro history in particular for it testifies to nothing less than the pet than the perpetual [15:56] achievement of impossible things so to now everyone here who has just seen a blue wave i want to tell [16:06] you that this is the time for us not to stop we don't want a blue wave in america we want a sea change [16:14] for americans this is the time for us now to stand up with moral outrage not hate but the moral outrage [16:26] that carried people to march to the polls at a time that partisan gerrymandering and racial gender [16:32] gerrymandering was returning to the south it's a time for us to recognize all of those people who [16:39] said like our ancestors i too sing america even though i work two jobs and can't afford my prescription [16:46] drugs and my rent i too sing america because i fear when i send my children to school who will protect [16:54] them in a world where they do more active shooter drills than fire drills when the internet continues to [17:01] menace our children and no one does anything to stop them i too sing america in a country where the [17:09] minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living in a country where our neighbors who we love who've [17:16] been in this nation for decades work in the shadows and fear a knock on the door could tear them away from [17:24] their american children and their american spouse this is a moral moment in america this is not a partisan [17:32] one it is not left or right it is right or wrong and the voters told us so people who have jumped from [17:39] one party to the next are just looking for someone that will help carry us forward they are looking for [17:45] someone that again will say i too sing america a song that is inclusive a song for everyone a song that is [17:55] our creed we the people this is not a moment for small thinkers this is a moment for bold doers let me [18:05] tell you something that should piss you off a a friend of mine raised the american flag and his teenage son [18:14] came out and said dad when did we become republicans that should piss you off if you're a democrat or a [18:20] republican because what's happened to our flag has become a partisan tool a team jersey and not a call [18:29] to that civic gospel based in the fundamental ideals of love our founders said it we must mutually pledge [18:37] to each other our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor voters said very clearly that we want america [18:44] to be america again as the poet said the land that never has been yet but yet must be the land where [18:51] everyone is free oh america never was america to me but i swear this oath america will be well time is [19:00] now that we recognize that this is not a moment it has to be the beginning of a movement and we need to [19:09] call people to stand with us i stood on the floor for 25 hours as defiant as a defiant voice to say i [19:20] have not given up on america i read voices and letters from americans that are too often looked over or [19:27] looked down upon this is the time now that we elevate those voices again and that we in our generation [19:35] like civil rights marchers who carried the flag like suffrage marchers who carried the flag [19:41] like generations before us who did big impossible things whether it was planting the flag after [19:46] iwo jima on mount suribachi or my parents generation who dared to plant a flag on the moon it's time that [19:53] we raise the flag and say that we could be a nation where everyone can afford health care we can be a [20:00] nation where a hard day's work earns a living wage we can be a nation where we love our children are [20:07] not a country the only wealthy nation that does not have paid family leave that leads the world in [20:13] infant mortality we need to think bigger now we need to call left and right together to show them [20:19] that the lines that divide us are not nearly as strong as the ties that bind us we are one nation [20:26] under god and we've got to raise the flag in our generation we've got to raise the flag for our children [20:34] and our grandchildren we've got to raise the flag for hope and hard work we've got to raise the flag [20:40] and pledge the oath to each other my country tis of the sweet land of liberty this will be the land [20:47] for all of god's children to have life and have it more abundantly this is the nation where we will [20:52] heal the gap not between left or right but between the americans and the american dream let's redeem [20:59] the dream let's call this the moral moment let's make our ancestors proud and our great-grandchildren [21:07] let's have them celebrate our gifts to them thank you everybody keeps repeating ai is inevitable ai is the [21:41] future we need to have government that understands the challenges ahead it is our responsibility as [21:46] legislators to get in front of this this is a super polarizing issue right now americans have [21:54] always embraced the frontier of science and technology we should continue to and also ensure [21:58] there are guard rails in place to ensure the safety and security of the american republic [22:05] it's scary for families it's scary for women we know the path of least resistance is for congress [22:11] to do nothing the safeties that we're putting forth don't belong to the democratic party or the [22:15] republican party they belong to humanity please welcome the argument's founder and editor jerusalem [22:25] demsis hello i know everyone here is in a good mood and it's about to not be a good mood so i have the [22:43] unenviable job to be the journalist to tell you what comes after winning is governing which is i think a lot [22:49] less fun for political operatives but we are in potentially the most important moment of my lifetime [22:55] when it comes to policy most ai policy discourse is done by individuals who have i think fringe ideologies [23:07] fringe politics and aren't really that relatable to the average person in this room or i'll boldly say [23:13] america so i want to talk to you about something that is tangible something that is real that doesn't [23:19] require you to believe some really fringe thing about a machine god or computers that are alive [23:26] just let's talk about reality terrorism by morons is coming assisted terrorist attacks may already [23:37] have happened and if you think about it it makes a lot of sense there are lots of bad people throughout [23:44] history who were too stupid to figure out how to build a bomb and as someone who has failed chemistry [23:49] tests before even having google available to you is not enough to figure out how to do even basic [23:56] chemistry ai is not just an information repository it is something that can teach you that can help [24:03] you troubleshoot various problems you're having one year ago this week in old delhi there was a car [24:10] bomb that went off 11 people died indian prosecutors allege that the terrorists use chat gpt to help them [24:20] figure out how to build the bomb this second story behind me is about how terrorist groups are using ai [24:27] to gain an edge in battle it's based off of a study done by cambridge university where the researchers [24:34] went and talked to dozens of former terrorists from boko haram in nigeria these people told these [24:42] researchers all the ways that commercial ai models that you are using things like claude things like chat [24:49] gpt things like gemini things like rock were helping them kill people this quote ai told us what chemicals [24:58] to put in that made the explosion heavier these terrorists told these researchers that they would take [25:04] photos of found equipment and ask the ai to help them troubleshoot exactly how to use it how to build [25:13] missiles and how to plan attack strategies this is not theoretical this is not some far-off threat in the future [25:20] that we can ignore this is not some crazy plot in silicon valley these are real people in the world [25:25] today who are using artificial intelligence technology that is barely being regulated right now in order [25:31] to hurt people and it's only just starting ai companies cannot stop you from using their products [25:41] to kill people this is a study where they took a journalist someone like me someone without a ton of [25:48] technical expertise and they said hey do you think you could figure out how to take a google open source [25:53] model and strip all the safety guards off of it it took this person under 15 minutes with free online [26:01] tools to do this open source models can be downloaded onto a normal laptop you yourself can go home and do [26:09] this and there is no way that regulations that control anthropic that control open ai that control any [26:14] company that china does to deep seek none of that can change what's real happening right now the craziest [26:23] part of all this is that if all that happens is that terrorists use existing ai models to ask questions [26:29] about how to kill people that is the best case scenario going forward that's already baked in [26:36] it's already going to happen the question is are we going to prevent even worse things from occurring [26:42] all right let's take a deep breath maybe because you know we just heard from two very stirring senators [26:51] about how not to despair this is not going to be a talk about how you should despair it's going to be a talk [26:55] about how this is actually in our control that we can prevent it but requires people in this room [27:00] to take it very seriously starting today but some more doom so ai companies are very reckless and i [27:08] think something that people often don't understand is that the explicit goal of these companies is to [27:14] build a technology that they cannot control what they are doing right now is they are doing something [27:19] called recursive self-improvement and that basically means that they're trying to or they're trying to [27:24] to get to recursive self-improvement which means that they're trying to build an ai that does not [27:28] require a human to continue building future versions of ai the important thing to remember about this [27:35] is that maybe a year ago most ai research it was like a computer scientist going like hey can you fix [27:42] this specific line of code in this way can you change it like this and then the ai would kind of do [27:46] it if there was a mistake or a bug then you'd have to go back to the person and they would say like [27:50] okay you messed up here let's fix it this is a graph from august of this year 26 of research being done [28:00] at anthropic that they're telling us is being done by ai basically by itself they say it's ai led they [28:10] say that humans are supervising it but what we learned earlier this year is that when there was a hugging [28:16] face cyber security attack it was impossible for regulators for outside parties to look at all the [28:24] code that was created one billion words minimum were produced by ais in a week that would take a human [28:32] 30 years to read this can't just be regulated by the labs themselves so what's the political problem [28:40] here right now the right is treating ai as a normal technology they're treating it like you know [28:46] technology is good it largely produces benefits for people we just kind of let things go the way they [28:51] are the left has been largely skeptical of ai as a technology there's been a lot of you know come on [28:59] these guys aren't really doing this they're just pumping up their valuations they're not really building [29:03] something that's that important all of this is a scam and there's been a bunch of people who are [29:07] concerned about data centers and land use policy this is a huge problem that no faction in american [29:13] politics is focused on the most important issue here so what can we do there are three steps there [29:20] are three things to think about to care about the first is china we have to work with them in order to [29:29] make sure that both of us slow down development and this is possible you know that there's a lot of [29:34] dooming they're like oh china you know they're all these china hawks in dc who basically think that [29:38] like there's no way to get to a treaty with these people we're all we're gonna go to war with china [29:42] i think this is all ridiculous there was a nuclear strategy there was a similar enemy where we hated [29:49] the soviet union and still we built a nuclear verification system that made it possible for [29:53] us to regulate and stop the advancement of nuclear weapons we can do the same thing with ai but [29:59] regardless of whether or not china does this we need to build verification systems right now where [30:03] there are government public regulators in the labs following what's going on not just waiting for these [30:09] labs to tell us if there's a problem it's ridiculous that we're just letting these people build [30:13] systemically important technology without public input without public view and the final thing is [30:19] we have to stop ai development at the frontier that doesn't mean all ai is over that we're gonna crash [30:24] the economy or anything like that all the models that currently exist still can be used to do all [30:30] the fantastical things that silicon valley wants to do whether it's curing cancer or improving any of [30:35] the things that people do in their in their businesses but the most important thing is that [30:41] we don't let them build recursively self-improving ais that no one can actually monitor without our [30:48] consent i want to talk about something else i spent my whole life working on immigration on housing policy [30:56] on climate policy these are the things that have animated me my entire life but i also wasn't that [31:02] interested in pandemic prohibit policy in 2019 boring stuff can be deadly seven million people are dead [31:11] and we still haven't implemented many of the pandemic preparedness policies that would prevent that in [31:15] the future don't wait for a hiroshima or a nagasaki type event to take ai safety seriously it cannot just [31:23] be a conversation in silicon valley it can't just be a conversation had by people without the moral and [31:28] political views of the people in the united states thank you please welcome former u.s secretary of [31:51] commerce gina raymondo hello and thank you majority dems it's fantastic to be here so one thing is crystal [32:09] clear from the midterms americans are rejecting how things are working today they're rejecting an [32:18] economic system where costs are high hard work doesn't pay off and way too much is flowing to too few [32:27] at the top and they're also rejecting a corrupt dysfunctional government that just isn't working [32:35] for them president trump deserved to lose he deserved to lose because his tariffs his war his corruption [32:45] have made life much too hard for americans so folks are willing to give us a chance but the question [32:55] for us now how do we earn their trust and how do we maintain their support the foundation is by providing [33:06] economic security the kind of security i had as a kid growing up in rhode island i lived in a house with [33:14] six people under one roof my parents three kids and my grandfather we were all supported on a single [33:22] income at the factory where my dad worked we owned our house okay it was a house with one [33:31] bathroom and six people but still we owned the house we all went to college with loans but we could [33:37] pay them off and every year there were christmas gifts under the tree it was good it felt good it felt [33:43] stable today it's almost unimaginable to think that somebody could have that life and that security [33:53] and a single paycheck from a factory listen i'm for capitalism and i'm for promoting economic growth [34:03] but capitalism as it's playing out today in america is fundamentally broken for too many americans [34:09] i want to ask you this i want to ask you this how is it possible how is it possible in this country [34:20] that we have nearly 10 million americans working full time working jobs full time and yet they are [34:31] so poor they qualify for medicaid and food stamps and at the same time others are buying 100 million [34:41] dollar homes to knock them down so they can build something bigger that is wrong it's obscene it's [34:48] immoral and it is not sustainable so yes yes yes democrats we need to bring down the price of gas and [34:59] housing and health care but it's not enough it's time for top to bottom reform to ensure that americans [35:05] who work hard can achieve economic security and the answer isn't unchecked corporate growth but it also [35:15] isn't a government that controls large parts of our economy actually we know the answer it's an economy [35:22] that is both pro-worker and pro-growth it's an economy that grows the pie and divides it more fairly so how [35:32] do we make it happen three things first we have to make sure that hard work provides a good life over the [35:39] last 20 years a disproportionate share of economic gains have gone to investors not employees that didn't [35:49] happen by accident it's a result of bad policy we need to revamp our tax code we need to level the playing [35:57] field between workers and capital investors we need to increase the bargaining power of workers when i was [36:06] the governor of rhode island i allowed home health workers to collectively negotiate for better wages and [36:14] working conditions why because every worker deserves dignity and fair pay especially the workers doing [36:23] the back-breaking work of taking care of our loved ones second we need to make capitalism actually work in this [36:36] country yes i want american companies to be the best in the world i want them to be dynamic and innovative [36:46] and profitable but they have to pay taxes they have to create jobs here they have to contribute to the [36:54] country that allowed them to be so successful in the first place last year 114 of america's biggest [37:06] most profitable companies paid zero dollars in federal income taxes that my friends is a policy failure [37:19] that we must fix here's the reality here's the reality you don't need me to tell you this you know [37:29] it but it was worth being said we've allowed a system that prioritizes stock market gains over everything [37:38] else over our national security over americans well-being that's how we ended up with a country that [37:45] no longer manufactures enough semiconductors life-saving medicine ships this country made a [37:52] historic mistake hollowing out our manufacturing base it's time to re-industrialize and it's also why [38:01] third we need to make it easier to build and build more that's what we did that's what we did with the [38:09] chips act the chips act by the way made us safer and is supporting over 125 000 and counting good jobs [38:22] by the way in places that have long been overlooked bethlehem pennsylvania saginaw michigan akron ohio [38:32] let me tell you that did not happen because of the free market it happened because of smart well [38:39] executed industrial policy but the truth is if we can't build affordably in america if we strangle we [38:48] can't build affordably in america if we strangle ourselves with red tape when i started i was told [38:56] it would take seven years to permit a single semiconductor factory before we could put one [39:02] shovel in the ground i didn't accept that so we worked with members of congress to cut permitting [39:09] bureaucracy not everyone was happy but it worked and because of it today for the first time ever in [39:15] our country's history american workers are making leaning edge chips in the united states of america [39:21] oh let's do the same thing with housing with energy build more build faster and drive prices down [39:32] it won't happen if government is dysfunctional but we are the ones that believe in government we are the [39:39] ones that have to make it work and that means making hard decisions and sometimes saying no to friends [39:46] in our own party i was governor of verd island during covid and one of the hardest decisions i've ever [39:52] made in my life was to reopen public schools in the fall of 2020. i was one of just a few democratic [40:01] governors to do it and we worked incredibly hard to make sure that every single school was safe when it [40:07] opened at the time i upset a lot of people in our own party however the teachers and the children in our [40:17] state were healthier and better off and the passage of time has shown it was the right thing to do [40:24] today i spend my time on ai americans are scared about ai legitimately for their safety their children's [40:32] mental health and their job security so i founded raise us to prepare america for a transition [40:39] to an ai economy that brings workers along now a few minutes ago i told you about my own family [40:47] and the truth is we were secure until one day we weren't it evaporated overnight that awesome feeling [40:54] of economic security because after 28 years of serving and working hard in the same company [41:03] my dad lost his job the factory closed all the jobs went to china my dad and all of his friends never [41:12] recovered they lost their pride their confidence their self-esteem i was a little kid at the time and i was [41:20] always asking my dad what's going on what's happening and he would always say to me gina we're being left [41:27] behind because our leaders aren't doing anything to help us out they're not sticking up for us we all [41:35] know what happened next hollowed out communities deaths of despair and the anger that's still poisoning [41:41] our politics we're on the same path now with ai only faster and more brutal we aren't ready for this [41:50] transition we don't have the right worker training tax policy or safety net for displaced workers let's act [41:57] now before the crisis so it raised us we're working with governors to modernize unemployment insurance [42:06] change tax incentives so corporations redeploy not just lay people off restructure higher education and [42:14] training so it's less expensive but more effective listen i don't have all the answers but i do know [42:22] what it's like to be left behind and so that's why i've committed myself to this mission you see [42:28] my father believed in the promise of america the simple promise if you work hard and you play by the [42:37] rules you could build a good life for you and for your family he believed that his government would stand [42:47] with us and deliver for us after all we've been through as a country and after my 15 years of public [42:57] service i still believe in that promise more than ever but it won't keep itself it's our job [43:07] it's our job us in this room the leaders of this party to build an economy where hard work delivers a secure [43:16] life where government does big things effectively and delivers in a future where the benefits of [43:25] technology are broadly felt not just felt by the elite that is the work of democrats and that is the [43:37] work that democrats must lead thank you please welcome fifth of americans get their news from [44:08] influencers on social media and that's according to a new study by the pew research center our message [44:14] is getting absolutely drowned out by right-wing noise the right wing is picking what we talk about in [44:19] this country what we see in spanish language messaging is just so much misinformation being [44:23] put out by the right and i think the democratic apparatus has not gotten you know good enough [44:29] at combating it like if we don't treat digital or social media with condescension and we treat [44:33] it with the sort of seriousness that i think that it deserves because that is where people are [44:37] consuming the world everyone's like we need our own joe rogan no we don't no we actually don't we [44:42] need we need to empower people who know how to connect with real people and tell real stories and [44:47] empower them just to do it please welcome co-founder of future forward gaurav sharele hey folks how we [45:10] doing my name is gaurav i'm a media researcher i've spent 15 years i dropped out of college to join the [45:19] obama re-elect and i studied data up from cable boxes to understand what people watched on tv a lot has [45:26] changed in the last 10 years alone americans are spending 90 minutes a day more on their phones the phone [45:33] now gets the same amount of time as the tv for the last two years my team and i have been working [45:39] on a project with some private sector partnerships to collect often passive metering data which lets [45:45] us see telemetry from how about 6 000 people use their phones between june 1st and election day this [45:52] year we saw this group of people scroll on 86 million videos i can't wait to hit you with the quant [45:58] but let's start with the story we find ourselves in michigan 24 year old black man voted for trump [46:06] twice it's saturday afternoon three weeks before election day and he's going to scroll for 47 minutes [46:13] we're going to join him 15 15 minutes in and we're just going to watch his feed for 30 seconds throw out [46:27] she is obsessed with this let me see and the doctor well he's not really a doctor he's uh says he's a [46:35] physician not can't if matter of fact if somebody came into his office and he tried to treat that [46:40] patient he'd go to jail my opponent here is going to make this about him and about me but really in [46:46] the end this is about you i can't tell you that that 15 second debate clip is what won his vote but [46:57] what i can tell you is everything else we saw is the point he lingers on a cat video scrolls past two [47:03] videos in a hot second and then watches roblox gameplay so let's zoom out what does life look like [47:11] for the median panelists who uses tick tock in the fall they spend about an hour they watch about 200 [47:17] videos and entertainment gets the biggest share that's like music film tv etc politics gets 85 [47:23] seconds we're not competing just with republicans we're competing with everything else so it's easy [47:34] to take our personal experiences and have strong hypotheses about how organic or social informed [47:40] electoral outcomes this year my hope is to do some myth busting to help us question some of our [47:46] assumptions by looking at a few different folks feeds one of the things that jumps out is that like [47:51] views are a meaningless metric they don't mean someone watch something this trend line is just for tick [47:56] tock but it holds up for instagram reels it holds up for youtube shorts a third of the time people scroll [48:02] away in less than three seconds taking a look back at the year politics was about four out of every hundred [48:11] videos people saw on tick tock or instagram at the beginning of the year and then starting in april it [48:15] was about one in every hundred videos there's a little tick up there as we got closer to election day [48:21] and that's meaning it was a statistically significant move upward but this is honestly pretty surprising [48:26] in 2024 some academics had a similar data set about 10 000 phones and this looked more like nine percent [48:32] maybe it's because the midterms are like a regional environment with different political stories [48:37] and nothing that grabbed the national consciousness so 2028 might look totally different let's take a [48:43] look at what that political content looked like the diehards one in six people watch 40 political videos [48:51] a week i'm guessing this is a room full of diehards the median voter they scroll on hundreds of videos [48:59] so they do see some politics it's just they see two videos not 40. this kind of power law exists [49:07] across social media not just in politics where a small group of people contributes to an outsized share of consumption [49:14] why does it exist well the algorithm before ai was generative these companies poured billions of dollars into [49:21] recommendation engines that showed you content that got you to stick around so what does that mean today [49:26] well nine and ten videos you look at are videos chosen by the algorithm that's not to say followers don't matter [49:32] it's just that every post needs to win on its own every day all right another way of thinking about social media [49:42] it's about like that multi-million view video well not exactly when you look at these feeds it's like [49:49] over half the time the videos on people's phones have less than a million views actually for politics [49:55] this is for all videos it's an even longer like long tail even more fewer view videos [50:03] this means like really really tangibly in battleground senate states we saw that 70 percent of the [50:08] accounts that reached voters wouldn't have ranked in the top 100 if you had ranked on on content [50:15] mentioning that race so we don't really know the accounts that might be reaching our voters this kind [50:20] of holds up as we zoom out to moments too for example talarico talking on the state house floor about [50:26] the thc ban reached more voters in texas than the super viral jimmy cancel culture interview that got three [50:32] times as many views similarly senator ossoff uh torched the trump dni for election denial and his [50:40] rally with obama got the similar number of views across a bunch of posts but the latter reached five [50:44] times as many georgians views don't respect borders they're actually international one of the highest view [50:50] posts about alaska is a german creator talking about zvi dan sullivan all right so what are the accounts [50:57] that are reaching voters listen official accounts matter they are the brand of our candidate they set their [51:03] character their tone they're really important we got to grow them but creators and clipping matters [51:09] a lot too in fact it's the majority of the reach and creators aren't just reposting content six out of [51:15] every seven posts that creators make are editorial skits they are connecting with people and clippers are [51:22] amplifying all of the great comms work that our candidates have started to do so as we go forward we [51:28] need our damn leaders to build relationships with creators and go out there and create moments for [51:32] content so the ecosystem has moments to amplify all right so tldr so far no one's scrolling on politics [51:40] at least not the median voter and views are a risky thing to care about let's talk about what's next [51:47] dem primary voters turns out they're tuned in they're twice as likely to see some content from a [51:54] democratic leader let's take a look at the leaderboard the mayor of america followed by president obama [52:02] he's still got it now the other three folks here this is national reach they are doing well nationally [52:09] let's take a look at how that decomposes team talarico was pretty unique in the way that they got [52:14] national reach their own accounts that a lot of the heavy lifting meanwhile el-sayed used a combination of [52:20] creators and clip accounts and news accounts ossoff was a little bit more news heavy compared to [52:25] um el-sayed and obama and mamdani look like ossoff and el-sayed a lot more than talarico so listen this [52:35] honestly raises more questions than it answers but it's really easy to have really strong hypotheses [52:41] for your twitter takes about the effect of organic on electoral outcomes my hope is that we shared [52:46] some observations that let you all ground yourself and make some hypotheses so that we show up in [52:52] voters feeds and keep the good times rolling thank you please welcome our moderator for our next panel [53:14] erica badon lights are bright right hi i'm erica um we are going to have a discussion about the future [53:33] of attention um i've spent my career building businesses around attention and in my experience [53:39] attention comes down to two things the first is distribution where people see your message and the [53:47] second has to do with scarcity which is how interesting is it or how compelling is it [53:52] um when you look at the last presentation content is ubiquitous and distribution as you know very well [54:00] is controlled by others and driven by algorithms so we have a great group i'm going to have you [54:06] quickly introduce yourselves with the answer to whose attention do you want and how are you building [54:13] trust within it well that's a very complex question for the time we have uh my name is carlos eduardo espina [54:19] i make content in spanish about immigration politics social issues with over 25 million followers across [54:25] different platforms and my audience is the working class spanish speakers in this country over 60 [54:30] million people speak spanish here many of them vote many of them are engaged and i'm reaching them in [54:35] ways that was never done before and you know i do it for them i love doing community work helping [54:40] others and that's what comes through in my content and that's why i have the support that i have that's awesome [54:45] ashley hi i'm ashley allison i'm the owner of the root and the cnn commentator um our audience is [54:54] predominantly black folks um but we actually believe black culture leads american culture and global [55:01] culture and so we want to talk to people about the truth and we are trying to build trust with folks [55:06] who care about um building a stronger democracy and realize that voting is not the only way to get that [55:11] i'm dan pfeiffer i co-host pot save america i worked in politics for a very long time recognized that [55:21] attention is very very hard to get in politics we need to start building a pro-democracy media ecosystem [55:25] we can fight back against the right-wing infrastructure our audience at pot save america are those people [55:31] who watch way too many political videos but the way we think about that is we want to build trust with [55:37] that audience we want to take that audience and lather them up to get involved in politics to not just a [55:41] vote but the volunteer to donate and eventually run for office and we actually recruited some folks [55:45] who ran for office and won this year and the way in that to us to have that relationship with our [55:50] audience it is trust we want to turn our audience not just that we want to turn them into organizers [55:55] who are talking to politics with all of their friends so our audience reaches people who don't [55:59] who have that more normal but very scary media diet that grav mentioned that's great so you represent [56:05] all different audiences and all different platforms podcasting sub stack tick tock what do you think [56:12] this group gets wrong about getting attention well i think it's why people follow you i very rarely [56:19] ever get stopped and say oh i follow you because you're a democrat or you're progressive or you're [56:23] this or that a lot of time people point to like character traits i think you're engaging i think i [56:29] like the way you speak i like how you advocate for people i think you're pretty it just really depends [56:33] what's going on so people have a lot of different reasons right and like we miscalculate we think [56:38] oh if we talk about this or that then people will like us but a lot of times it's the way you talk [56:42] about the issues not so much the actual issues you talk about and that can be a little bit complex [56:46] but then also always having a north star and sticking to that you know a lot of people follow me [56:51] because regardless of my politics what i do is help people inform them really connect with them and [56:56] that's what they value me for beyond you know what my stance is maybe yeah mine is similar like we don't [57:01] tell people what to do we give them the information and they're smart enough to make the decisions on [57:06] themselves and so whenever we do a post and we say um you might have seen this post when the calais [57:12] decision happened and there was a bunch of redistricting and marshawn was in a committee hearing [57:17] in louisiana and he had like a it looked like a maga hat but it wasn't a maga hat and he clocked the the [57:24] council and they were like i see what you're doing that was a local citizen doing his like first amendment [57:31] right to speak truth to power about what was happening we didn't have to tell our readers [57:35] our subscribers our viewers what to think they were able to come to the own conclusion that what [57:40] they were doing around calais and redistricting was wrong and so they just want real people saying real [57:45] things so that they can draw their own conclusions and i think sometimes in politics we're so focused [57:50] on persuasion rather than having and persuasion is often one directional when conversations are two [57:56] directional and so that's what we try and do um with our audience i think the thing that everyone [58:02] grav made this point i just want to hammer it home and this is what everybody so many people in politics [58:06] get wrong is that we are the weirdos we are the our media habits are unlike the vast majority of americans [58:12] they're so far different from the people who decide elections we pay incredibly close attention to [58:16] politics we treat it as a as a hobby as a passion most people never see politics in their lives they [58:22] actively avoid it we call them news avoiders in many cases to the extent they see anything it is [58:27] showing up in their feet as gaurav said and so if we bring our mentality to our communications and [58:32] messaging strategies we are we're just speaking to ourselves not speaking to everyone else and so we [58:37] have to change the way we think about how people communicate and really understand how the average voter [58:42] gets their information it's not it's so far different the way we do i wish candidates would think [58:47] about themselves as media entities right where you have humor you have vulnerability you have facts [58:55] you have information you have vision and if you really thought about yourself in a dimensional way [59:01] and you gave give you know the internet in my experiences you have to give and give and give [59:06] and then you can take yeah and this world is a lot of take and a lot of promises about giving but if you [59:13] gave you the take would be easier but on that like one of the things that's special about that point is [59:18] that you also don't have to be the only person that gives right and so if you build a group of people [59:23] around you they can also carry your message um that's organizing like a lot of what we do is digital [59:30] organizing so every conversation we have on whatever platform i consider a knock on a door and like we're [59:37] in this world where we need to be thinking about when you volunteer it's like the creator is a is a knock on [59:43] the door is a phone banking is a text message and so politicians you don't have to be your only [59:48] messengers you know what do you think about this so one of the things that i've been thinking a lot [59:52] about is that right now to get attention it's actually a trick question because you want the llm's [59:59] attention you want to rank in in ai you want the consumer's attention and then you also want the chorus's [1:00:07] attention right you want the crowd's attention how do you think about that in the [1:00:12] messages you bring to the world well i think you just have to be very um not only produce content [1:00:19] but also consume a lot of content i spend way too much scrolling and people think you know you're [1:00:23] wasting your time but really what i'm doing is seeing what other people are talking about because [1:00:27] you can become stale as a content creator just like as a politician you have to know what people [1:00:31] are talking about what they care about so you can make your content accordingly i think the most [1:00:35] important thing i do is like yes maybe i spend a few hours a day making content but i spend equally or [1:00:40] not more consuming content so i have a good sense of what people are feeling and that always allows [1:00:45] me to be on top of whatever issues are going viral in the moment who's someone you follow that you [1:00:50] think this crowd needs to follow oh that's a very um well i know my friend is here he also makes content [1:00:55] in spanish his name is benjamin somewhat i don't know the lights are bright so i can't really see who's [1:00:59] here who's not here but um you know there's a lot of people who are doing good bilingual content and [1:01:04] i think a lot of times you know like the importance of spanish content really just gets undervalued you know [1:01:09] we saw it in texas you know i cut an ad for example in spanish for james talarico because his campaign [1:01:14] you like there's a lot of people who are consuming stuff in spanish same for gene and a host etc and [1:01:18] so i think it's very interesting and that was like ai dubs and stuff you can kind of get a sense of like [1:01:22] what spanish speakers are talking about because sometimes their issues are completely different than [1:01:26] like what the mainstream english media is talking about so it's always good to know the point of giving [1:01:30] is very important because people in politics have realized that most people hate politicians and hate [1:01:35] politics and so if you want to get past that inherent instant cynicism that people bring to [1:01:40] political content you have to find ways to relate to them as a human and which is challenging for a [1:01:45] lot of people in politics to do like what i give uh politicians a few pieces of advice one is and [1:01:51] their staffers hate this which is put tick tock and instagram on your phone so that you because you [1:01:54] can't make the content if you don't consume it and know what's it because you can't speak the language of [1:01:58] it second is what is the thing that you are most authentically interested in your life that is not [1:02:03] politics sports reality tv movies scuba diving whatever it is and find your exactly your pets [1:02:10] and find a way to talk about that because when people have to understand about the internet in [1:02:14] 2026 is it's very different like in the old days the internet was news and information was geography [1:02:20] based where you lived is the kind of news you got then it went to your social graph right who who [1:02:25] people followed on the internet now it's an interest graph where the algorithm size so if you can find [1:02:30] something interesting about yourself and talk to people about it you it's a way to connect it's [1:02:34] a way to give so that they it defangs all some of the caricatures and the negative ads you'll see [1:02:38] if they can see you as a human but also like you have to decide if you're going to be a soloist or [1:02:43] you're actually going to be in the choir because the choir has to sing together and like you have to [1:02:49] agree on what agree on what song you're going to sing right and so if you want to talk about sports [1:02:56] and you're saying you're over here talking about tennis and everybody is like nixon five like [1:03:01] yeah wait till the u.s open yeah you know what i mean like why are you trying to get somebody to [1:03:05] sing a song think about how you can enter into the nixon five and maybe you're like i don't like the [1:03:10] nicks and you become the person that is like the most annoying character on in the internet but you're [1:03:14] still in the next conversation the song is still about the nicks yeah you got to get into the flow you're [1:03:18] either alto a soprano a baritone like who are you in the choir or sometimes what we do is we're like [1:03:26] we refuse to talk about sports then you don't want to be in a choir you're a soloist good luck [1:03:32] how do you think about turning ashley's the best um how do you think about let's put the camera back [1:03:39] on you three which is i think one of the greatest things about the internet is it it's such a malleable [1:03:45] platform where everyone screws up every day all day right like it's so experimental and i think [1:03:52] sometimes we get a little rigid in looking for perfection and it is an imperfect medium if you [1:03:59] can even call it that if you think about crooked or you think about yourself carlos or you think about [1:04:05] your life on cnn or the root like what's a mistake that you've made that there's a lesson to be learned [1:04:12] from it or what's like there's so many i know yeah just one singular no i think one of the things is [1:04:21] early on i was very worried about like over producing like getting every single word right [1:04:26] when i realized that it's not really about that it's just about being genuine and like you know [1:04:29] meeting people where they're at i remember when the new york times came to my house to do a profile on [1:04:34] me they're like where's your studio and i'm like i don't have a studio i just sometimes i make videos [1:04:38] in the kitchen or in my bed you know wherever wherever it may be right because like people don't really [1:04:44] care about you know seeing you super polished up and saying the right things all the time it's like [1:04:48] they just want you to be genuine and like for example when some of this breaking news stuff [1:04:52] happens i i can't wait to like go into the studio and then like what am i going to say i just say [1:04:56] whatever's on my mind and i know what my audience likes i know what my audience cares about and so [1:05:00] you're just kind of there meeting the moment and instead of waiting you know a couple hours to see [1:05:04] what happens what people are saying you have to lead the conversation instead of letting yourself be [1:05:08] led by it there's such a tension in content creation on the internet between the short-term incentives of the [1:05:14] thing you're doing getting views and going viral and the long-term relationship you're building with [1:05:19] your audience and if you it is like you're under always so much pressure to get this thing to get [1:05:25] this out there that sometimes you can sacrifice what you have the relationship you build with your [1:05:28] audience in search of that instant sort of viral gratification and you have to be very careful to [1:05:32] avoid that see i would actually take the other side of that because i think like i used to interview a [1:05:37] lot of people in sports like the like behind the desk people and they would be like after the next game [1:05:44] ends i gotta have my producer give me the notes and then it's like the next morning and who cares like [1:05:49] then the internet's already had the reaction so like i agree with you you need to have thoughtfulness [1:05:54] but to ashley's point if you're not hitting the flow you're out well i think the way i mean is that [1:05:59] you there are perverse incentives for virality at times strictly in politics where you can give people [1:06:04] sort of empty calories yeah you got to be careful not to do that in search of views it's not you have [1:06:08] to go right away there is there is not time to be not just cheeseburgers yes yes you have it has to be a [1:06:13] balance i'll do two one on the root side and one on the cnn so when we acquired the root it's a brand [1:06:19] if you aren't familiar with it it was started in 2009 on super tuesday by henry lewis gates and the [1:06:24] washington post 17 years later we brought it back to black ownership and there were some [1:06:29] yeah let's pause thank you it's been a long year um and so we've had this audience for a year and there [1:06:36] were some assumptions that you know people like to say black folks aren't a monolith and yet we do the [1:06:41] exact same thing for black folks all the time in politics and like our audience is not a monolith [1:06:46] they have thoughts about different issues and so the at first we just started putting things out and [1:06:50] the comments were wow i was like oh my god what did i do you know but we needed to learn we should not be [1:06:55] making assumptions about our audiences and the people and their beliefs and so we made some initial [1:07:01] assumptions that were incorrect but we got it back on track and what they were looking for and so now we're [1:07:06] growing and striving i think for cnn like my arc on cnn has grown like i was a talking points girl in [1:07:11] 2021 because i was afraid to say the truth because you get afraid to be like ostracized because you went [1:07:18] against what the briefing book said but the reality is like people want the truth they want to understand [1:07:23] even if they don't agree with you they're like that was a good point you made and i'm still where i am [1:07:28] on this issue but you feel authentic you feel real and so folks who run and like stay on the talking [1:07:34] points i know it's like easy sometimes but it actually is the mistake folks know when you're [1:07:39] reading out of a book and when you're speaking from your heart what about different platforms like [1:07:44] let's talk about getting kicked off our band from tick tock for a hot minute right [1:07:49] one of the scariest things is when your account gets shut down or you're dependent on in a business [1:07:54] when you're only dependent on one source of revenue or as a creator when you're dependent on one [1:08:00] platform you've all diversified in some interesting ways we've just heard like your follower account [1:08:06] really doesn't matter and you've got to think about finding audience and keeping them on multiple places [1:08:11] how do you how do each of you think about that yeah i think for me the best thing that ever happened [1:08:16] was the whole thing with like tick tock getting banned because it forced me to go to people what [1:08:19] happened yeah so my tick tock got banned for like a few hours a couple months ago but i was referring [1:08:24] specifically to like you know when they were going to ban the whole platform because my other platforms grew so [1:08:29] much and i realized like if i'm already making content for tick tock why not just post it on [1:08:32] instagram on facebook on youtube and nowadays you know i have 15 million followers on tick tock i have [1:08:37] 7 million on facebook but i get more distribution and more views on facebook in the last 28 days i got [1:08:42] 1.1 billion views on tick to on facebook alone i wouldn't have thought about that had tick tock not [1:08:48] potentially got in bands like you have to be everywhere and you never know like one video would go viral on [1:08:52] instagram for whatever reason and then on youtube but not on tick tock but not on facebook like it just [1:08:56] really depends so just put everything everywhere and something's going to work back is a good [1:09:00] comeback it forces you to grow other muscle which is yeah exactly yeah i mean we started as a website [1:09:06] and who goes the websites for news now right so we really got the opportunity and when we acquired it [1:09:11] our social media was being run by ai and so we had to really build our full infrastructure we didn't [1:09:17] even we had a youtube following but it had been dormant for several years so we got to test things out we [1:09:22] are not over really reliant on one platform and we actually what we have found again knowing your [1:09:27] audience is that there's a difference audiences following us on tick tock then on instagram and [1:09:31] then on meta or on on facebook like our facebook folks are our ogs they're like they were with us [1:09:37] in 2009 our ig folks are like starting to get to know us and our instagram and our youtube people [1:09:42] they're like what's the root and that is how you grow you want people to you know and it's not our [1:09:47] audience is not just predominantly black you know we have like about 40 of our readers that are [1:09:53] non-black yeah i mean we started i mean positive america will be 10 years old in january which is [1:09:59] a truly unbelievable thing to say for us um i guess that's good um it was supposed to only last as long [1:10:06] as trump was around so still around um but you know when we started it was a truly audio medium like the [1:10:13] way people consumed it was on the podcast app on their phone in their headphones on a walk in the [1:10:20] car and largely because of the way the world changed after covid it's become a video platform you know [1:10:28] now now it's on youtube the clips are on tick tock everywhere and people do now we have fans who watch [1:10:33] it on their tv but you via the youtube app on their smart tv as if like they would watch crossfire back in [1:10:40] the day and more people come up to me and say i watch you then i listen to you now and it's really [1:10:46] it's and the thing that's really interesting is the amount of people who now just consume it entirely [1:10:52] in clips on tick tock which is uh not great for monetization but it is great for getting our message [1:10:57] out to as many people as possible it's interesting too because the viewer listener like i used to have [1:11:02] like someone come up to me like the hair salon and be like i i listen to you on tick tock and you're like [1:11:08] well you actually like watching but like i think that's what's cool about the consumer is very fluid [1:11:14] in a lot of ways but also unique to each platform how do you think about having a conversation after [1:11:19] the people after the piece of content because i actually think that's a huge part of the internet [1:11:25] which is new media is a conversation as much as it is a piece of content how do you how do you have do [1:11:32] you have are you chatting with your commenters all the time like do you like your tools so some yeah no i [1:11:37] love it when people criticize you attack you because it gives you more content i think you [1:11:40] really have to learn how to lean into that some of the best content i've ever had is just reading [1:11:44] my comment section or like someone makes a good point i'm like i didn't think about it like that [1:11:48] let's react to it and what that does is when people know you're reading your comment section well they [1:11:52] want to comment in your next video because they'll say hey maybe one day you know he'll react to me or [1:11:56] he'll respond to me so i think one of the things is like being a content creator is a lot like politics you [1:12:02] have to engage with the other side and a lot of times people like that kind of conversation that debate and so you really [1:12:07] have to spend a lot of time like i said consuming content but then also seeing how people are [1:12:11] reacting to your own content and learning from that and you know adapting i think mean tweets is [1:12:16] like a great show just like when you read what people the nasty things people have to say it's very [1:12:21] empowering yeah what do you think i think about comments and callbacks okay so comments in real [1:12:26] time right you post a post you like people are like oh my god i'm engaging you get the reshares other [1:12:32] news outlets are picking up we really thrive off of that on the root and a callback like an improv is [1:12:38] that you you remember something that happened in the scene before and you bring it back so marshawn i'm [1:12:43] gonna do a call back right now marshawn from louisiana said the midterms are coming and we're gonna wipe [1:12:49] you out that was in the spring we did a call back we brought marshawn back and he got a whole new life [1:12:56] right and so it's remembering the stories that you told remember the conversations that people are having [1:13:01] and like it's like when you're with the front you're like remember when that happened and so we look [1:13:05] at that in two ways yeah like we're in a constant conversation with our audience uh in a million [1:13:09] different ways we have subscribers who live in a discord who are very happy to tell us how they feel [1:13:13] about things happy and not so happy sometimes we whether it's our commenters on youtube really and [1:13:19] you know we have a live events business where we go out and we do shows we had our crooked con [1:13:23] convention in dc last weekend where we engage with our um thank you where we engage with our audience [1:13:30] in person um because that's so important i think to maintain that like very real relationship of trust [1:13:38] with them talk to me about your staff like i think having young weird people around is like the greatest [1:13:46] way to find things on the end like internet creatures um term you know we call them togs terminal [1:13:53] terminally online guys but how talk about like how do you get ideas how do you staff what you do are [1:14:00] you a one-man band or do you have someone helping you no no i just record and produce and post it all [1:14:04] by yourself yeah yeah you edit every no i have a team who helps me with like you know when i come to [1:14:08] places like this hey this is your travel and all that stuff yeah but with the content itself it really [1:14:13] like i said i guess my audience is my staff like they're the ones who feed me ideas they're the ones [1:14:18] who give me like the concepts of what i should be talking about and like that's really what it comes [1:14:22] down to because like i said if you over produce you can't produce as much volume and it's not like the volume [1:14:27] is bad it's like when you know what your audience wants what they care about you're able to mass [1:14:31] produce and i think that's one of the things that we really need to get better out of like the other [1:14:35] side is really good at just like bombarding your feet over and over and over again and we need to [1:14:39] be equally as efficient and the best way to do that is to have like that you know close relationship with [1:14:44] your audience where you almost start to see the entire world as like content you see something [1:14:48] happening i'm like oh that's a great idea for a video like you start getting ideas and concepts [1:14:52] everywhere and you just kind of move through life like that i mean we're a business and we grew [1:14:58] really fast right so for like the first two years it was like me and my friends you know we were just [1:15:04] like rob and peter to pay paul scotch taping it together and then with the acquisition we acquired a [1:15:09] staff so we have reporters and then we have creators that we work with we have freelancers we have [1:15:15] crews throughout the country that we hire to do videos all around like whatever the issue is [1:15:21] um but i'm in like a million group chats right and so it's like some of them are on politics and most [1:15:28] of them are not and whatever the group chat is talking about i i we have and then we have a staff [1:15:32] and i'm like i mean they hate it but like at 3am i'm like dropping a tick tock reel did y'all see this and [1:15:37] we just feed each other and you know some things hit some things don't so again it's a conversation um the [1:15:44] community that really loves the rue and wants us to thrive i get text messages all the time and saying can [1:15:49] you cover this and we're like yes that's the power of ownership you get to tell the stories [1:15:54] that maybe mainstream media won't um but deserve to be told and then often they pick those stories [1:15:59] up talk about measurement like how do you think about measurement like are you maniacal about [1:16:04] that this this post hit this post didn't this app did this didn't yeah we i mean we look at it to see [1:16:11] podcast data is not awesome yeah but we do get that we get downloads and views and you can kind of [1:16:16] see how much we we after so many years we have a sense of what is going to do big big when big things [1:16:20] are happening people it's gonna hit right it's gonna hit and it's it's interesting what we've become [1:16:26] much more attuned to in recent years is looking at the social clips and the moments that really take [1:16:31] off and what are those like it became very clear that videos of us reacting to jd vance doing terrible [1:16:37] things were very popular on the internet and he does a lot of really dumb terrible things so we have [1:16:42] those opportunities like keeps on giving right but we want to we want to like trick kind of stay on [1:16:46] top of it it's one thing the good part of having young staff uh who are so online and you know in [1:16:52] our uniting experience as podcast hosts is having worked for barack obama many of them were five when [1:16:56] obama was elected so they kind of keep us fresh that way yeah wow what is like your piece of advice [1:17:02] like if you were giving a piece of advice to everyone here two things actually piece of advice and what [1:17:09] platform you're focused on next well as far as platform focus on all of them as many as you can [1:17:14] you know like i said be everywhere and as much as you can and then the piece of advice is like i said [1:17:18] just really build that relationship with your audience and don't build it along political lines [1:17:23] mostly like about personality you know what you do for the community for example like in my case i speak [1:17:28] mostly about immigration if i were to complain all day about what's happening like a lot of people [1:17:32] wouldn't resonate with that but you have to find solutions to people's problems you know i've done a lot of [1:17:36] work like paying people's immigration bonds finding them immigration attorneys like doing all these [1:17:40] things that is a real service to people and then when i give my opinion on what's happening they're [1:17:44] like hey well this guy you know is doing good things for the community therefore i'm going to listen to [1:17:48] him so really find what your brand is and provide a tool or resource be something useful for people's [1:17:53] lives try right and if you don't know what to do find people who do i always say like you know i come [1:18:00] from the pro-democracy space and i'm like how many people when i'm in a room with funders fund litigation and [1:18:05] everyone raises their hand and i'm like and how many people are lawyers and nobody raises their hand [1:18:09] you don't have to be a lawyer to fund litigation you don't have to be a media expert to try new [1:18:13] things find the media experts and give it a swing so speaking directly to the politicians here because [1:18:19] these are the people i'm always trying to talk to about stuff first is your communication strategy in [1:18:24] 2026 has to be everything everywhere all at once try everything you have to always be communicating [1:18:29] it's never been harder to get attention second be interesting right if you just go out and you're [1:18:35] are on a podcast or you're talking to a youtube or you're talking to carlos and you're just using [1:18:41] the same talking points you would use on cnn or local news then you are missing the opportunity [1:18:44] you have to be interesting third talk like a human right just have a normal conversation with people [1:18:50] if you're using political jargon if the language was handed to you by a pollster that will not work [1:18:55] that will actually turn voters off and if i was going to pick a platform you had we have to be everywhere [1:18:59] all at once right but if there's one platform i want democrats and politics to pay more attention to [1:19:04] it is youtube youtube is becoming tv for the vast majority of americans it is how people get news [1:19:10] it's how they watch sports it's how they follow things and that is one place where we've made a [1:19:14] lot of progress on podcasts on tick tock on instagram we have to make real progress on youtube as a party [1:19:19] great mine is to get into people's dms you you can like amazing things can happen when you go in the [1:19:25] dm so thank you so much thank you for listening to us and we're grateful to be here great [1:19:30] please welcome former u.s secretary of transportation pete buddha judge hello denver how's everybody doing [1:21:19] all right i like the energy i'll begin with a public service announcement i will be available in the hotel [1:21:25] bar following the concert for anybody who needs to rebook their flights or get a refund per your rights [1:21:32] let me say first of all how welcome it is to be at a gathering of democrats shortly after an election [1:21:52] here to talk about what comes next instead of what went wrong and i want to make sure that we pause to [1:22:02] recognize the extraordinary success of what just happened because i've been at the events just like [1:22:08] you have everybody's happy about the results but everybody i can tell emotionally is looking over our [1:22:14] shoulder a little bit like are we really allowed to celebrate this are we permitted to rejoice we are [1:22:22] we'll get to all the ifs ands and buts in a minute but for a whole set of very important reasons we just [1:22:29] had not not a win but a wipeout and that is to the credit of so many people here so it is okay to rejoice [1:22:41] in that and it is important to study how that happened because so many people here were part of that [1:22:48] candidates strategists supporters staff making that happen and it didn't happen on its own [1:22:56] big part of how it happened was the quality of our candidates and the extraordinary leaders we put [1:23:01] forward and it was what they had to say how they said it and where they said it and the where people [1:23:09] say it is something that's not got enough attention but from rob sand going to every county in his state [1:23:16] to scott colomb literally working the line at a mega rally we insisted on making good on that idea that [1:23:23] you go everywhere and they demonstrated that there is indeed no such thing as a permanently red state or [1:23:31] seat or district or county our leaders reminded everybody that the flag does not belong on one side [1:23:42] or the other of a political eye and so many great leaders in our party demonstrated that god does not [1:23:49] belong to an american political party having said all that we're democrats we're always looking around the [1:24:01] corner for the next problem to emerge and i think we are adequately politically traumatized by the last few [1:24:08] cycles so that we will not draw the wrong lessons from all of this because here's the thing it is yet to be [1:24:15] written whether what we just experienced is one more oscillation from one side to the other and back or whether it is the [1:24:23] beginning of a tectonic movement changing american politics and the answer to that question is not [1:24:29] something to be divined by looking back at what just happened it is something to be decided by focusing on [1:24:36] what comes next that's why we're here so we need to understand that the same disgust with the status quo [1:24:46] that got democrats elected this year is the disgust with the status quo that got republicans elected the last time around [1:24:54] and that should remind us as we think about what we are getting ready to do to hold each other honest [1:25:00] about what we are not getting ready to do we are not here to restore the previous status quo either it [1:25:12] sounds good it's easy to say everybody thinks they agree with this but i am already hearing phrases like [1:25:18] reverse the damage we are not here to reverse rewind return the damage has been grievous but this is not [1:25:27] about finding the pieces and the shards of everything that they smashed taping them back together to look [1:25:33] something like what we had in 2022 or 2012 or 1992 or whenever democrats think america was great and [1:25:41] offer that up to the american people we understand that the old status quo is what got us here all of that [1:25:47] is what led to all of this and we are not going back what we need to do is learn from the right we will [1:25:58] not emulate the abuses or the illegality and we will not adopt any bad ideas but we will notice two [1:26:05] qualities of the people in charge in the white house right now and the people behind them one a bias [1:26:11] toward action and a readiness to get things done coming out of the gate and at the very same time [1:26:19] a readiness to plan for the long term the right combination of impatience and patience is something [1:26:27] that we need to hold right now in the impatience department i would hope and i say this with all [1:26:32] humility as somebody who was not just elected to congress or the senate or anything else but i am [1:26:37] hopeful that instead of getting gummed up in a thousand page bill that takes six months to put together [1:26:43] we come out of the gate with a rapid fire of things that will put money back in people's pockets [1:26:50] and get politics out of their faces to raise wages expand the child tax credit deliver family leave get [1:26:58] people health care bring a fairer tax code end partisan gerrymandering once and for all tackle what [1:27:06] is broken with our immigration system and so many other things that we know we need to do and we will of [1:27:14] course have an accountability agenda the accountability agenda will be in the service of our affordability [1:27:22] agenda and not at the expense of it we know that corruption is one of the reasons why we can't have nice [1:27:31] things we will shine a light on that and most importantly we will change it which brings me to one more [1:27:37] thing i think is extremely important right now which is to as so many of our great candidates and majority [1:27:43] democrats did this year break the old false choice between economic issues and reform issues [1:27:50] to understand that yes we are tackling the kitchen table and that taking that seriously means confronting a [1:27:57] political system that has repeatedly kicked the legs out from under the kitchen table this is the time [1:28:03] to finally act like we believe it when we say that the political system is broken and do what it takes [1:28:09] to change that once and for all we need to show that we understand why americans gave us this opening [1:28:21] and what just happened let us be clear is an opening not an answer we did not win because america suddenly [1:28:27] fell in love with the democratic party we did win because of what great candidates on our tickets did [1:28:34] and because americans saw that they had been lied to everything depends now on us being prepared to [1:28:41] deliver we won because there was such a distance between what it is like to live in america and what it [1:28:48] ought to be as we pursue the changes that need to happen we also need to have an account of what it means [1:28:55] to be an american and yes it means something to be an american a commitment to political equality to [1:29:02] personal liberty to economic opportunity and we should not be afraid to tell that story and we certainly [1:29:08] shouldn't be leaving it to the jd vances of the world to define american identity we will pay attention [1:29:18] to the importance of nationality which is not the same thing as nationalism and harness a healthy [1:29:25] patriotism that is inclusive and leads this country to a new and better place and i'm excited to see [1:29:31] how everyone here will be part of that tomorrow provided the u.s department of transportation can [1:29:38] get the national airspace back up and running i am looking forward to going home and rejoining chasten [1:29:44] and our son and our daughter our five-year-old twins gus and penelope it is difficult for a parent to [1:29:51] talk about their kids without lapsing into cliches the cliches are cliches because they are true what i'll [1:29:56] say is nothing gets you thinking about the long term like being in regular dialogue with a five-year-old [1:30:02] not long ago our little guy looked me up and down he was clearly musing on the passage of time and he [1:30:07] said papa i'm gonna be as big as you one day i said yeah you are he said when i'm as old as you [1:30:15] you'll be a grandpa or you'll be dead this was his verdict on my future which as a matter of logic is [1:30:24] probably right obviously i i care a lot about it being one and not the other if you saw me at the [1:30:29] gym this morning sweating it out it's because i'm now highly motivated to make sure it is door number [1:30:34] one and not door number two but what i really started thinking about is that he and his sister [1:30:42] will witness the 22nd century they'll be old but they'll be there they'll be in their early 80s [1:30:50] when we enter the 2100s as a country and what i am sure of is then they will be looking at what [1:30:57] happened in the 2020s if we fail which we must not i actually believe that historians will date [1:31:05] the end of the american project to a year that is already in our past as of this gathering but we will [1:31:11] not let that happen instead we will make sure that by then when they are looking back at the 2020s [1:31:23] they will be able to say that was when things truly began to change in america it was when we made [1:31:30] sure that phrases like working poor and working homeless and for that matter presidential meme [1:31:37] coin or medical bankruptcy became barbaric antiquated phrases from a nearly forgotten past and instead [1:31:49] that america is making good by then on what it means to be america the political equality but also [1:31:57] the american dream and the right kind of leadership we will be able to say or at least they will be able [1:32:02] to say by then that that was what happened and that it all started in november of 2026 if we get this [1:32:09] right but none of this is guaranteed and all of it depends on what we do next so thank you for your [1:32:17] focus on the future and thanks for a chance to join you in this effort appreciate it please welcome [1:32:52] congresswoman sarah mcbride denver millennial optimism is back and it is back because on november 3rd voters of [1:33:22] every background and belief in every corner of this country showed up to say enough enough of the [1:33:28] costs that make the american dream out of reach enough of the corruption that plagues our politics [1:33:36] enough of the cruelty that grows like a cancer in our civic body through an outstretched hand within a [1:33:43] voting booth and with open arms toward their fellow americans with margins not seen since watergate [1:33:50] voters elected democrats to offices that we have not won in over a century and in doing so the american [1:33:58] people pulled our country back from the brink and they gave our party another chance from montana to [1:34:06] mississippi from texas to the tidewaters of my home state and the greatest state in the union delaware [1:34:13] our candidates won by rejecting the false choice between boldness and bridge building we melded [1:34:20] populism and pluralism we ensured that we exchanged a politics of purity and perfection [1:34:27] for one of goodwill and good intentions and we showed that we can welcome more people in [1:34:35] without tossing anyone out but democrats we know here today that our work is far from finished over the [1:34:45] last two years we have had a front row seat to donald trump's broken promises in 2024 donald trump [1:34:53] built his victory on two core promises that he would lower costs and that he would end forever wars [1:35:00] but almost immediately upon taking office he did what he has done to every contractor and in every [1:35:07] business venture he has ever been in he betrayed his promises he broke his trust and breached his [1:35:13] contract with the american people the results two weeks ago were a direct result of that great betrayal [1:35:22] and at the heart of our victory were those very same promises made by us and as we go forth from this [1:35:32] conference the charge for our party and the discipline required of us in this moment is to not make the [1:35:39] same mistake as donald trump it's to keep our promises to the american people to remain focused on the [1:35:46] central issues that keep them up at night to restore trust and faith in government and in politics [1:35:54] and to reclaim our party's historic reputation as the party that is for the american worker and against [1:36:00] unnecessary wars this is how we solidify this renewed coalition and it's how we build a lasting majority [1:36:13] a super majority that can compete everywhere in order to deliver for everyone but denver i don't have [1:36:20] to tell you all that the forces of division are already doubling down the bot farms and the tech bros [1:36:30] the anxiety grifters and the algorithms are already trying to divide us to turn any disagreement [1:36:37] into personal disdain to emphasize our differences in order to sow resentment and anger and cynicism [1:36:45] within our own coalition and against our fellow citizens we know this because we've seen this playbook [1:36:53] before at almost every inflection point in our country's history our politics have boiled down to a [1:37:02] simple but profound choice between destroyers and builders do we destroy our commonality our [1:37:11] constitution and our union or do we build a more perfect one destroyers they thrive in a culture [1:37:19] of cynicism they want to destroy our government and sell it off for parts they want to destroy our [1:37:26] attention span and mine what little remains for advertising dollars they want to destroy housing and [1:37:32] health care and dole out the scraps to consolidate power they want to destroy international laws and [1:37:37] institutions so that the strong can plunder the weak they want to destroy the american worker by [1:37:44] unleashing unregulated technologies that leave the rich richer and everyone else behind but most [1:37:51] corrosively they want to destroy our confidence in our individual and collective capacity to create change [1:38:01] it is very easy to destroy it is a lot harder to build but it is worth it and it is why we are here [1:38:10] to build a health care system where every single patient can get the care that they need to build the [1:38:15] housing of tomorrow that makes home ownership within reach to build a cradle through career support [1:38:21] system with universal paid leave affordable child care and strong public schools so that it's actually [1:38:27] affordable to start a family again to build to build an economy of the future that guarantees that the new [1:38:38] prosperity unleashed by new technologies is shared by the many and not just the wealthy few but to do [1:38:46] any of that to forge a new deal for this century and for our country we also have to be builders of trust [1:38:55] in ourselves and in one another we have to be as scripture calls repairers of the breach so that we can [1:39:04] restore the foundational faith that makes this american experiment and democracy itself even possible [1:39:12] that faith that your neighbor can change so that your country can change that faith that through peaceful [1:39:19] conversation and basic compassion through disagreement and debate we can summon our better angels and build [1:39:27] a brighter future and when that faith is tested when passions may strain our bonds of affection [1:39:38] i ask you to remember that we are the shared heirs of a legacy seemingly impossible and incomprehensible [1:39:44] to generations before us i think about it every time i go to washington because you cannot tell me [1:39:54] as i stand in that chamber as both myself and as a member of the united states house of representatives [1:40:02] that the reasons for hopelessness and cynicism are greater today than at almost any other point [1:40:08] in our country's history because hope hope as an emotion hope as a phenomenon it only makes sense in [1:40:17] the face of hardship and when i am on that floor when i enter the united states house of representatives [1:40:27] i think about that persistent and unending hope it's the chamber that congress moved to in 1857 [1:40:35] just before the civil war which means that is the place where slavery was abolished that is the room [1:40:44] where equal protection was guaranteed where women got the right to vote where social security and [1:40:49] medicaid and medicare were passed the chairs that we sit in are the chairs that our predecessors sat in [1:40:56] to pass the civil rights act of 1964 and with that history heavy in the air i am reminded of the central [1:41:05] ingredients that made all of that progress possible that the answer to hate cannot be more hate that love [1:41:13] invites people in that joy grows our ranks and that hope disciplined conscious inviting and infectious [1:41:21] hope is the only way forward thank you all very much it's an honor to be with you tonight and it's [1:41:27] a privilege to be with you in this fight thank you please welcome denver mayor mike johnston thank you so [1:42:15] much you know about three years ago when i first became mayor i was walking into a restaurant for an event [1:42:22] one night and i got stopped outside the door by a guy who was homeless and he said to me hey do you think [1:42:30] america is beautiful or broken i said well i i think it's beautiful what do you think and he said [1:42:40] well i think that you think it's beautiful because you can eat in this restaurant tonight [1:42:44] and you got a home to stay in tonight and you got a job to go to tomorrow i got none of those things [1:42:50] which is why i think it's broken i tried to offer to help him i tried to get his phone number [1:42:56] he didn't have a phone i tried to find a place to reach him he didn't have a house i asked him to [1:42:59] come visit me at the office and i never saw him again but i never stopped thinking about him and [1:43:05] i didn't know his names so i just call him johnny because that's my brother's name and so even when [1:43:11] we were months later hosting town halls with a thousand angry neighbors who didn't want us to open [1:43:16] homeless shelters in their neighborhoods i thought about johnny beautiful or broken even three years later [1:43:24] when we moved 9 000 people off the streets and we've dropped homelessness by 64 percent the thing [1:43:29] i think about is johnny and the fact that we still haven't done enough we still haven't done enough [1:43:37] because tonight i guarantee you there is an american coming off a shift as a flagger on a construction [1:43:42] site who is standing outside a restaurant that he can't afford to take his wife to anymore i guarantee [1:43:48] you there is a person right now a woman who's been driving a bus for 20 years who is going for the [1:43:53] third time by that house with the for sale sign knowing that she's never going to be able to buy it [1:43:57] there's a mom parked in a hospital parking lot with a sick kid in the back who is afraid to walk in [1:44:03] the door because she doesn't have health insurance and there's someone who's decided for once and for [1:44:09] all he's not going home for thanksgiving this year because he just can't bear to scream in his own [1:44:14] family again about politics for those americans tonight it doesn't feel beautiful it feels broken just [1:44:24] last month we celebrated the 25th memorial of 9-11 i remember where i was on 9-11 but i remember much more [1:44:31] where i was two days after 9-11 i was living in connecticut then and they had closed all trains [1:44:37] going into the city at that point and when they finally opened them two days later they said please [1:44:41] only get on the train if you are friends and family looking for loved ones and i was not a friend or [1:44:47] family looking for loved ones but i felt like i had to do something so i just showed up at the train [1:44:51] station and stood on the platform and when the train pulled up and the doors open i couldn't say a word [1:44:58] but i just started crying it was the most full train i have ever seen in my life packed side to [1:45:06] side with firefighters police officers plumbers electricians craftsmen trade workers everyone with [1:45:12] a crowbar or a drill or a toolbox and standing right in front of me was a giant barrel chested man with [1:45:20] two toolboxes and his body covered with tattoos and he looked me right in the face and saw me with [1:45:25] empty hands and a tear running down my face and he said get in we'll make space and i did and i stood [1:45:34] next to him for the two-hour ride and we didn't say a word and in those two hours i have never felt [1:45:41] closer to a group of strangers than i did on that train i have never felt more deeply american than i [1:45:46] did in that moment because all of the petty grievances we had three days before were gone no one cared who [1:45:51] i was or where i came from or what i did and they damn sure didn't care who i voted for in the last [1:45:55] election all they knew was that there were americans who were suffering there were people who ran into [1:46:01] buildings to help folks they didn't even know and they were now covered in rubble alone feeling [1:46:07] broken and these folks were going to be damned if they were going to leave them to do that alone [1:46:12] and that day i committed to myself i would find a toolbox i would find some job i could take where [1:46:19] i could make a difference some way that when people needed me i could show up and for years that job [1:46:24] was being a teacher and a school principal and then i took this job i took this job because i believed that [1:46:31] i could help people like johnny and what we know is that there are people out there suffering tonight [1:46:40] and those people have handed us the toolbox the resources we need to speak to and serve those [1:46:46] people who feel right now like america's broken so my message to you as you go out tonight is this [1:46:54] pick up the toolbox get on the train stand shoulder to shoulder with other americans who love this country [1:47:02] however they choose to love it and do not ever ever rest until every american who has felt broken [1:47:11] once more believes that america is beautiful thank you all so much for being here and have [1:47:15] a great evening democracy is always an unfinished creation democracy is worth dying for democracy belongs [1:47:44] to us all we are here in the sanctuary of democracy great responsibilities fall once again [1:47:51] to the great democracies american democracy is bigger than any one person freedom and democracy must [1:47:58] be constantly guarded and protected we are still at our core a democracy this is also a massive victory [1:48:06] for democracy and for freedom welcome back to fifth avenue here in new york city take a listen this is [1:48:19] the navy band northeast and if this doesn't get you in a patriotic mood we're not sure one will anchors [1:48:25] away by the navy band northeast take a listen that was the u.s navy band northeast at the annual new [1:49:05] york city veterans day parade this saturday watch the parade in full featuring floats performers service [1:49:12] members and public officials starting at 8 pm eastern on c-span on c-span now our free mobile video app [1:49:19] or online at c-span.org you look back on what you've achieved in your life what makes you the [1:49:30] happiest of what you've achieved so far this interview is the absolute apex leaders seem to [1:49:35] like to wear wigs how come he didn't have a wig president trump said i made a mistake the first time [1:49:41] i should have given it to you the first time that isn't what he said your first book was called a time [1:49:46] to kill how many publishers turned that down well all of them it's very rare to see donald trump laugh [1:49:52] he doesn't like to smile but he has what they call the stare how would the stare when you go to the [1:49:57] oscars that everybody say oh there's the author all the beautiful people go this way and then they [1:50:01] have another little path in the oscars where the people like i go so you wrote a book about somebody [1:50:05] who lived with wolves i interviewed a guy who lived with wolves yep and is that safe to do that absolutely [1:50:11] not so i know you were not complaining you were opinionated about the situation which is why we love [1:50:16] you david c-span spoke recently with freshman democrats and potential 2028 presidential [1:50:30] candidates including democratic iowa governor-elect rob sand he spoke to reporters about his message to [1:50:35] voters during his campaign and contemplates governing in a red state as a democrat we're in denver tell me [1:50:46] why why come to this you're in the middle of a pretty pretty intense uh sure uh administration staff [1:50:51] up what why why why why why why now uh here for a day