D.L. Hughley: Kamala Is the Main Character
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Hey guys, it's Wednesday. So just a reminder that we get really kind of nerdy on the political stuff. Me, Sarah, and JVL on the Next Level feed comes out late afternoon, early evening. So go check that out. I've got an HR McMaster rant that's been boiling in my belly since Morning Joe yesterday. We'll talk about that. I might talk about Sarah's little Twitter feud with some of the

anti-Trumpers that aren't supportive enough to Kamala for her taste and good on her, good on Sarah. So check that out on the Next Level feed. Also, just a little bonus, some bonus laughs for you. Me and Sam Stein on YouTube did a breakdown of Donald Trump's infomercial pushing his NFTs and

Just if you're not on our YouTube feed, we're doing some funny stuff over there. Go check that out. Today's guest, it's a doubleheader. We have DL Hughley first. I'm so excited. Been a fan of his for a long time. We talk about the Trump campaign's outreach to the black community. Talk about mixing comedy and politics. It's a great chat. And then my buddy, Teddy Goff, who knows about as much about digital and data campaigning as anybody out there. I want to talk to him about...

what the Kamala team should be doing ahead and also a little behind the scenes from the convention since he was working on that. So it's a good, good convo. Stick around for it. We'll catch you on the other side of the deal. Hulie.

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. I'm just delighted to be here today with comedian, actor, and host of the national radio program The D.L. Hughley Show. It's D.L. Hughley. He's also on the road doing stand-up on the weekends. He's in Ontario this weekend. He's in Arkansas. He's in Little Rock, Arkansas today. When are you coming to New Orleans, man? When are you coming to New Orleans?

You know, I've been in New Orleans in, ooh, it's been about two years now since I've been in New Orleans, but we're working on it. Let's get it on the schedule. All right. Get to the Smoothie King Center. It's weird because my oldest granddaughter is named Nola after New Orleans because my daughter has a love affair with that city. Oh, yeah? Okay. Well, good. We'll have great together. We'll take care of you. I'll get you a purple drink. We'll be in good shape. Yeah, that's what I need, the purple drink. I need that. That's what I need. Yeah.

Well, I've been wanting to have you on forever. I got caught listening to your show one morning in a cab or something. And I was like, you know, my D.L. Hughley, you know, reference is being a teenager watching the original Kings of Comedy and thinking, why isn't that guy more famous than the other guys? I swear to God, I'm not a bullshitter. So I've been going back then. And I kind of didn't realize you were doing politics takes to about, I don't know, six months ago.

Right. I think politics became a different thing. And I think, you know, with the emergence of Barack Obama, who probably has the most Twitter followers, anybody in the world. And then you have Donald Trump and now you have this iteration of it, I think.

Like America's, you know, consumption of politics just became different. But I've always kind of done the same thing. It's just that my frequency was set to a different kind of page and I don't think everybody was kind of on it. But I think now pop culture and politics is kind of morphed into the same kind of animal. Yeah, maybe in a way that's unhealthy. Right, it is unhealthy. Yeah. Have you felt like you had to do it more in the Trump era or...

Did you change your intensity? I think the stakes are higher in the Trump area. And I think the people are more in tune in the Trump area. Like I said, because obviously because the stakes are higher. But it used to be when a president said something, it didn't show up on social media. Now, when they do, it does. And I think I think people are just like I said, more in tune to Trump.

The way they consume it is a different process. Now they don't have to go to a newspaper or they don't have to go to mass media. They can get it kind of a la carte. I was pretty tickled by your appearance on the convention stage. We've got Kinzinger coming on the pod Thursday. So, I mean, you guys are kind of neck and neck for giving me the giggles up on stage. And I particularly enjoyed this line and this segment. Let's just listen. As president, she will give each and every one of us a fair shot in life.

But I have to admit, I didn't always believe that. I mean, if you told me the 15-year-old me would be on stage supporting a prosecutor and a teacher, there is no way that I would have believed you. But because of that, I made assumptions about Kamala's record, and I often repeated them to a lot of people.

Then one day, Kamala invited me to her house, she put her hand on my shoulder, and she asked me to do some research. Something I had never done. Something a lot of people I know had never done before. Imagine attacking someone's character without a single Google search. So I did what I should have done in the first place. I learned that she had done for us exactly what she promised to. I believe that your apology should be as loud as your accusation, and I'm here apologizing in front of the whole damn world.

So I was with you, man. When I was 15, I wouldn't have been, you know, teachers weren't really my bag. Right. And prosecutors were less. And I think, you know, it just really speaks to the maturation of people. I never would have thought that I'd have been in that same circumstance. I never would have thought that I'd have had the mindset I had, the allegiance that I had. I think you become a different person. I think what's unfortunate is that most people who grew up where I grew up don't get to have this kind of incarnation of themselves. But

But it was surreal to be in that place. Yeah, the prosecutor thing was less a problem for me in the Denver suburbs as a white boy. They were targeting me for my minor in possession with the same vigor. The second part of that, though, I want to hear a little bit more about that story. So I guess it seems to me through the context clues that you were maybe dragging Kamala about her prosecutorial record and then you had an opportunity to talk to her. So talk about that. What evolved from that?

And I actually don't, and this is not trying to obfuscate, but I actually don't think, I think when she ran in 2019, I think it isn't that she just became a different candidate. I think the nation in general was different. I think we were going through the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor kind of situations. And I don't think anybody was in tune to seeing a prosecutor as

as a potential president. And I also think that if that weren't true, then she wouldn't be having... I mean, the first thing that happened when she was running in this iteration of herself is that, you know, black women got on, that black men got on. There was this groundswell that I don't think existed before. But I think...

Like, to be fair, I was part of the rationale that she had locked a whole bunch of black men up for truancy and for marijuana and, you know, all those kinds of things. So I think I was caught up in the maelstrom of people that just kind of felt like that. And to my lament, I think it was just horrible that I never even looked to see if it was true or not.

I pride myself on kind of calling it like I see it, but it's difficult to do that when you don't even see it clearly. That was one of the reasons we had occasion to talk, and I actually looked at her record, and it was nowhere near what I assessed it to be. What was her pitch to you? Just look at my record. It was look at my record. Which is weird because

We're at the vice president's house, and we're drinking and talking. It got heated. It got heated? Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm invited to the vice president. I'm thinking I'm going to say what it is I'm going to say. I didn't – I think that old biblical scripture, Nathan is speaking – I was speaking truth to power, and I was heated. It was a heated scenario, and she was very –

measured and calm. She said, all I ask you to do is to actually look at my record. And I went out and I did, and I felt this small. And I said, you know, I'm going to do what I can to make this right. I said, I've had, I probably had a lot to do with what happened to you in 2019, and I'm going to do what I can to make sure. And it was ironic because this was, this was in November when she was just the vice president of Canada. They were

This was November 2023. And I said, I'm going to get you to do what I can to make sure you get elected. I didn't say reelected. I said elected. They thought it was a Freudian slip. But these months later, it turned out to become fruition. Was it a slip or did you kind of feel that things were going? I said it and I didn't feel as if it was a mistake. And even in Milwaukee, I said it again when we started this thing. I think, and I said this on stage, I think I've seen a lot of people say a lot of bad things about people.

and I participated in it, obviously. And I think that when you have made these assertions about people, then you have an obligation to make your apology or your recompense as loud as it is your accusations. And I think

Very rarely do you get a chance to do it, and I did. And so I truly feel horrible that I believed a thing without even looking. It doesn't seem like who I am, and I don't understand why I did it, but obviously that. Where are you at on that now? How do you balance the question? Like I said, I'm in New Orleans. I moved from Oakland.

We deal with all these questions in these communities. Like, how are you balancing, like, okay, you need to have some basic level of public safety, but obviously in a lot of cases, the police have gone way overboard in racial targeting. Where do you fall on that balance? Well, I guess the 50-year-old me has a different assertion than the 60-year-old me, but I do think this. I think getting mad at a prosecutor is,

who has to arrest people or jail people is like getting mad at the dentist because he has to pull some teeth. It's just, but the rationale of a 15 year old guy living in an urban community, I had never seen what a progressive prosecutor would look like. I had never seen what, you know, measured justice looked like. I got a lot of tough, but not a lot of love.

And people said the event is, and you're probably old enough to remember, California was Texas. It's not California. It's California now where it's a liberal bastion. It was Texas. Three strikes, you're out. So it became, you know, in the 90s, 2000, it became a more liberal California. Ronald Reagan came from California. Yeah, right. Pete Wilson, man. Pete Wilson was that era. Pete Wilson, you know, Richard Nixon came from California. Yeah.

This California that people now know is not the one I grew up in. It was one, Proposition 13, where they stripped everything down to property taxes and it gutted our communities. People went to jail by large numbers. So there was never if you grew up in a system where, you know, you see a bureaucracy tear up the things you love, then any agent of said bureaucracy would probably be suspicious to you.

So where are you at now? I mean, obviously, there's this huge vibe shift from Biden to Kamala, and we were kind of like tweeting at each other a little bit during that period after the debate. Full disclosure, I was very angry with the way the Democrat is treated by him. And I still have a problem with...

with the way they did it now. But I'm very pleased with this outcome. But I think that there's something to be said. I mean, I guess that Biden probably isn't much different than Winston Churchill was. Once you win the war, then people can't use you anymore. But I think ultimately, he will be regarded as one of the legislatively, I think his

legislative agenda arrived on FDR and I think what he's done, I've never seen a president voluntarily give up power for the good of a nation and that tells you the difference between him and the other candidate running. There are men who'd rather lose their life than lose the presidential power and I think they'd rather start a war, they'd rather tear this country asunder than to say me stepping aside is in the country's best interest and I think

it was hard for him to reconcile it. And I think people, it was hard for me to see him treated that way. But I think I'm, I understand what had to happen. I was, uh,

And I think a few people were. I don't think it was just me, but I think the way it turned out now could have never possibly foreseen. I'm very happy she's in the position. Many of the listeners are with you on that, so they'll be happy to hear that. They're tired of hearing me dogging them. But we're in the moment now. Kamala takes over. This is hard for me. I was talking about this on the podcast during the time. It's funny. As a gay person, I was very sensitive about Pete.

I'm like, ooh, I don't know if we can do a gay guy. I don't know if country's ready. And, you know, like, producer Katie's just Jewish. She's like, I'm not sure we're ready for Shapiro. Like, people are mad at Jews right now. And, like, in focus groups, black focus groups, and my aunt said this to me, and several black women said this to me. They're like, ooh, I'm a little worried about how many people aren't ready. But all of a sudden, it happened.

And I don't know. We're not out of the woods yet. She hasn't won. But what's your sense for how excited folks in the Black community are about her? Are there still lingering worries about that electability? How do you assess all that? I think any time any group that has been on the outside of anything sees the potential for something to happen for the first time, I think there's a lot more trepidation.

I think you come off Barack Obama. I remember Donald Trump said because of Barack Obama, we'll never have another black president. And then four years later, we're on the precipice of it. But I think whether you're gay or whether you're Latin or whether you're Jewish or whether you're, you know, there are all these things that have never been these things before. So there's a but I do sense this. This is what I do sense. I think the prospect is.

of being without the specter of Donald Trump hanging over us is seductive. I think it's alluring. I think it would be nice to have regular conversations without having these... I mean, you like him or not, you like his positive or not, he's really done so much damage to every tenant, every important thing in America, from the press. We just can't agree on anything because he decided to tear it all asunder for his own benefit. And I think...

When I hear people, the funniest thing about it is, and this is what crystallizes for me, I hear people say that Trump hasn't figured out how to deal with her. But the problem is she already knows how to deal with him.

She already knows what to do with him. And I think that is a problem. It is her that's getting the bigger crowds. It's her that's raising the most money. It's her that's polling the highest. It's her that the meters clamoring to talk to. She is in the midst of doing something powerful white men always hate, and that's to be irrelevant. They hate to be invisible.

She's erasing that orange stubborn stain that nobody could get rid of. Powerful white men who've gotten to tell you the narrative have never had to play defense. Always offense. Never. This takes us to your other good line from the convention, which we'll play here. They even have Republicans for Kamala. Republicans for Kamala. I guess Donald Trump will finally know what it's like when you get left for a younger woman.

It's kind of delicious, isn't it? I mean, again, we don't want to get out of our skis. We've got this debate coming, but it's kind of delicious just thinking about Donald Trump losing to Kamala in particular. Right? You've got to have a little excitement about that. I do. I think that it is ultimate. If you look at the way society viewed black women 20 years ago or 30 years ago, it's

It's decidedly different. I think political historians will look at what black women have done in the realm of politics in America, what they would consider decidedly different 30 years ago than they are now. And they've risen to the seat of being one of the most important demographic in a political party, in a major political party in the United States of America. And they didn't do it with bellicose, allowed. They weren't saber rattling. They just were insistent.

They just were consistent. They're the demographic of the most at the highest levels of any other demographic. And they they have a Supreme Court justice that represents that is reflective of their experiences. Black men don't. They have a vice president who's reflective of their experience. Black men don't. They could very well have a president that's reflective of experience. Black men don't. So rather than being jealous or worried or I would say,

take this as an opportunity to learn what they've done to rise like this. I think if you look at the annals of human history, there's never been a diaspora quite like what black women have done in America. So it'd be almost poetic to see it play out this way. So Susie Wiles, my former boss, sadly, who is Trump's campaign manager now, she said, I made a month ago to The Atlantic,

that there's all this talk about how Trump's trying to reach out to black folks and trying to reach out to black folks. And she basically says, that's not true, actually. We're trying to reach out to one demographic, 18 to 39-year-old black men.

And they're doing it with the machismo stuff. They're doing it by like the, you know, woke stuff. What's your assessment of that? Like, have they had success with that? Like what's working? What's not working? I think that's spot on. He is playing to men who respond to fake ass videos with people with bling and talking shit and doing a video. And then at the end of that, they give all of it back. None of it's real.

All of it is for for the camera. All of it's for the gram. And Trump plays right into that idea. Like nobody actually does the shit that they rap about. Nobody actually does, you know, has the things they say they do. So if that is your mindset, then a guy who does the same thing you do would appeal to you. So I think that she's absolutely right. But I also think that those people tend not to vote in high numbers.

So you're not that worried about it? You don't feel like there's progress being made? I don't know. Your listeners, your call-ins, you're not looking at data, but are you seeing a little bit of Trumpy? I think that I hear...

The same things that everybody else hears. And I think I've heard that for years, but I also think and just like when I hear, you know, we could talk about, you know, young black men, but also on the other side, know the Bradley effect. So I'm interested to see what people do when they when the chips are down. I do think it is interesting that a man who thinks he can roll out gold tennis shoes and sell Bibles and T-shirts, what is that says a certain thing about what he expects from people.

And it's sad that some people actually respond to that. How many, to what degree, I don't know. I wouldn't be interested in having a conversation with people that did appeal to me. You're saying Donald Trump's stereotyping people. That's hard to believe. What did you think about the whole, like, oh, Kamala turned black? That was insulting to me. We live in a country that told us what we were.

This country said that if you have one drop of black blood, you're black. Right. It told us that now is telling us for political and speedy sake that if you have 50 percent of your DNA, you're black. You're not. I've seen her be a D.I. hire. I see her sleep away to the top of it, you know, not be black. And now this iteration of her not being constitutionally able to run. It all means the same thing. We don't know what to do with you.

I don't know how she isn't black, but I do know this. You know, you black when the person they call you is a D.I. You know, you black when they insult your intelligence. You know, you black when they tell you who you are. And I think all those things, I think instantly all the people who've had any level of success know what that's like. They know what it's like to have whatever you've done reduced to whatever they think you are.

And I think that plays whether you're a black woman or a gay person or a Latin person or an Asian person, all of us had different kind of ideas of how that looks. Did you see my buddy Bakari Sellers on CNN saying that, uh, like making fun of Trump and like, you know, the time I became black is when I first heard back that ass up. Yeah. Yeah. Like, is that right though? It's like the right way to deal with that stuff being pissed or making fun of him, you know, or both. I think that what she does is,

If you grew up in Oakland, you looked that way, you sounded that way, you had a difference. And I do find it interesting that the people who have ascended, who have been black, who have ascended to this level, this kind of stratosphere, have had names that are difficult for America to process. And I think it says something. I think their experiences have prepared them for all the slings and arrows. If you grew up and you were a black dude named Barack Hussein Obama, or you grew up and you were in Oakland and you were named Kamala and nobody knew what you were, you had to fight.

identifying yourself your entire life. So going through Oakland, you know, going through HBCU, pleasant of black sorority prepared you. He pales in comparison to the gauntlet you had to run through to get there.

And so I think that's why he's easier to handle. But everybody that has ascended, they can say their name in a way that makes them whether even when George Bush Sr. was saying Saddam, like there's a way that they pronounce your name that makes you less than. So imagine having your whole life to have one people not accept you because of your name and some people less than you because of your name. I think that gives you a callous, an armor that prepares you for whatever else happens after that.

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J.D. Vance, I would like to get your take on really quick. He's also a guy that I guess had to have some calluses and armor, but I feel like he's processed it in about as unhealthy a way as imaginable. You know, this is a dude that needs therapy instead of being on the VP ticket. But I'm just wondering, like,

His whole shtick just doesn't work. I see what you want about Trump. Like Trump does the racist stuff, but he's funny. Right. And like it cuts it. Like J.D. just doesn't work. Right. Like is there do you see anything about him that's appealing? I think Trump has charisma, but he also was a game show host. And he hosted a reality show. You kind of judge on a different. J.D. Vance is a man that takes himself seriously. If he believed what he said, then he would be.

a psychopath, but the fact that he, I don't know that he really believes it and is saying it anyway. I think that you can tell that he never expected to send to this level because he spoke so freely and without regard. Like he didn't,

And it's hard to dig. He is a vacant man. Any man like I heard him talk about how drugs coming off from the border, you know, almost. No, your parents or grandparents were alcoholics. That's legal. They want prescription drugs. That's legal. So you make these, which is a true problem. I'm not saying it isn't. But trying to blame a thing, you're more likely to be an alcoholic because you have an alcoholic in your family or drug addict because you have a drug in your family than people bringing in meth from across the border.

So he seems insincere at best. If you love this woman, she's a beautiful woman. Your wife is beautiful and you love her even though she's not white. You say things that are all putting to it. I don't know anybody who likes you. Like, I can't think of anybody who likes you. And I agree with this. You've co-opted the language of the poor to speak ill of poor people.

Like, hillbilly energy. You co-opt the, and that's the thing, we all co-opt the language of the poor but don't want to do anything for them. You use their story, my father came here with this and my mother was this and they were this, but you never feel like they need any help at all. That's, to me, even more disingenuous. I've got one more clip for you, but it's going to play really quick for JD. I think our conservative idea is that parents and families should determine what children learn, what values they are brought up with. Yeah.

You know, so many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they're people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children. And that really disorients me and it really disturbs me. Randy Weingarten, who's the head of the most powerful teachers union in the country, she doesn't have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours to hell alone.

If you really believe that, if you really believe my son is and I want to bet too much of business, he's he has Asperger's syndrome. He doesn't want children. He doesn't want children and he doesn't want children because he's and this is unreasonable. But this is his assessment of it. He doesn't want to potentially give to his children what he has.

There are people who don't want their children born in this world. There are people who don't think they have the wherewithal, the bandwidth to be. What if you don't want children, but you want to impact them in some kind of way? You have another skill set, another gift to give them. I think that this idea, it sounds so much like Handmaid's Tale. It's scary to me. And I think...

As galling and I think as horrible a human being as Trump is, you saw him in the kid movie where he's out of your home alone. You saw him on rap videos. So there's something that cuts against it. J.D. Vance, it was a movie then...

A dude paying $15 million so you could be a senator, and then you're saying horrible shit on a podcast. A dude shouldn't have done so many podcasts. Maybe you shouldn't run for anything, DL. I don't know. But it was fun. You brought up your kid. So I've got one personal one for you. I asked the same question to Bakari, so we're going to get to you. And then I've got one comedy question, and I'll let you go. You've got a granddaughter now. You've got two daughters, too, in addition. I have two granddaughters. Oh, you've got two granddaughters. Two daughters and two granddaughters. How's being a granddad treating you?

- I never thought, this is true, I loved my children. I never envisioned myself as having children when I was growing up. I've been married 40 years, so I never envisioned having myself as children. I always knew I would, but I never, it wasn't something I thought about. I always thought I'd have children. And then when I had them, I could never imagine life without them. But I never thought I could love children that weren't mine.

like i love my grandkids so children so much i don't even need my kids anymore like i call my daughter i'm like hey how you doing she's like hey how you doing just put the kids online you've had your chance i don't need to talk anymore yeah since you've had that successful experience my mother is the same way by the way i'm raising a black daughter she's six you've successfully raised two daughters so i don't know if it's successful i live that's i don't know if

You lived, they're grown, and they got kids. It seems to be doing pretty good to me. So I'm just, I'm looking for advice. Give me some parents. What do you got for me? I don't know what a teen daughter's like. I don't know what having a black teen is like. You know, I'm sure you've got some tips for me.

If you live through it, you'll be all right. But the thing that I always, I remember when my daughters were growing up and my wife would be, never break their spirit because the very thing that annoys you right now, the very thing that you find so hard to deal with will be the thing that carries them through forever.

It'll carry them on to victory. It'll be the thing that sustains them. So the very thing that is annoying you right now, the thing that you think you can't live with and how does she do it and how can I put up with it will be the very thing that resonates and it'll cut through everything and make you so proud of her later on.

I love that. That's kind of what makes him unique. You got to live through it, though. I ain't saying there's no guarantee you're going to live through it. I'm just telling you. I'm going to live through it. She's amazing. I'm going to live through it. It's awesome. All right. We got to do comedy before I leave you because I was listening to an interview you did with Kevin Hart. And I'm of like two minds about this. I'm not a comedian. You know, so I also this is another place I'm not coming from. Right. But like there's all this, you know, you hear Jerry Seinfeld out there and he's like, oh, you can't do the same jokes you used to do anymore. And people get canceled.

And I don't know, man. Dave Chappelle is selling out Smoothie King Center. Rogan's selling out Smoothie King. To me, it seems like things are okay, but maybe I'm being naive. I don't know. How do you assess it? I always wondered what that meant because we're grown. I think that there's probably some commercial opportunities you can't get, right, obviously. Okay.

Like network TV or whatever? Yeah, like network TV or there's some advertisers that may not deal with you. And that's only until, look, Trump got banned for a lifetime on Twitter and then, unless a lifetime, a year and a half, he came back. So,

Ultimately, it's what you can take. I think your only obligation as a comedian or anything else is to be true to who you are. There's nothing I wouldn't say if I didn't want to say it. If I believe that people don't, then there's a new crop of people or potentially not. I don't understand that. But when Jerry Seinfeld feels something like that, you got to remember this was a man who was at the apex of commercial success. So maybe for him...

There might not be people that deal with it. But, I mean, you could air Seinfeld now. You could air the D.L. Hewley show now. I'm just thinking about Shane Gillis got fired from SNL. Now he's back hosting SNL. He's doing better than ever. What won't happen is there are certain things, there are ways you feel. There are people who are so used to being liked and so used to people being... Jerry Seinfeld did a show about nothing. And I'm not knocking. I think, obviously, he was...

But it was about nothing. Imagine the show that's about something, because something requires that you have an intent behind it. When you have an intent, that opens you up to more subjective judgment. Like Kevin Hart does things that are not as confrontational. So if you do those things, that's not gonna, and you have a commercial apparatus and success that's designed for that.

I knew that when I got off that stage at the DNC, there would be people that had an opinion. Like we're a 50-50 country, so 50% of the people might like it, 50% wouldn't.

people that are used to appealing to people higher percentages might have a problem with that. I think other people don't. It's a fair trade for you though. You're like, fuck it. I just got, I just got to be me or what? I love what I do and I believe in what I do. And if I didn't, I wouldn't do it. I mean, I just, I'm on stage every week. I do the radio show every week, five days a week. I'm in a position where I get to do what I love. And if I don't want to do it, I don't. You make enough money, you can do enough things. And I just, I want to do the things I believe in. And when you were talking about

Your daughters, I do not want to live in a world where I didn't make my granddaughters or attempt to make my granddaughters life better. Like my granddaughters are growing up in Georgia right now. When I was born in 1964, I have more rights than my granddaughter Stevie will be a year old in a week is born with.

that's tenable to me I have to be able to do something about it and if I can do it for my professional apparatus I will well man I appreciate you so much thanks for coming on this podcast you want to go see D.L. and you're the only dude I've ever seen wear pearls that it looked dope on the only one I was like wow this dude I don't know if it looks dope it looks alright it might look like a midlife crisis it might look like a midlife crisis

I wouldn't wear them, but you, I was like, this motherfucker looks fly. Look at him. Thank you, DL. I hope to see you in person sometimes. All right, man. See him in Ontario Friday, Little Rock on Sunday. DL Hughley radio show every week. We'll talk to you soon, man. Thanks, Tim. All right. Thanks to DL Hughley. That was awesome. Appreciate him coming on the podcast up next. My man, Teddy Goff.

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Sponsored by the Coalition for Medicare Choices. Learn more at MedicareChoices.org. All right, we are back. He was the digital director for Barack Obama 2012, Hillary 2016. We'll talk about that. Now he's a co-founder and managing partner at Precision, a strategy and marketing agency. He heads the corporatist wing of the DSA. My buddy, Teddy Goff, what's up? Hi, Tim. Good to be here.

That's pretty good. Did I miss anything else on your bio? Anything else you want to share with people? No, that's my entire life in three sentences. Triumph, failure, pivot to corporate. Okay. Well, I want to talk to you about the convention. Your colleague at Precision, Steph Cutter, was the head woman in charge over there. So I want to get some convention stories. And I also just want to talk about some digital strategy with you. But first, I just like right before you came on,

I was just reminded of that. This is the 10 year anniversary of a big moment. Do you, do you know what it is? August 28th, 2014. Do you know what happened? No. Barack Obama came out to a press conference and wore a khaki suit. Oh, is this 10 suit day? 10.

10-year anniversary. We all celebrate. I have memories. Except that I'm not in theme. No, you're just in a striped polo. Were you horrified that day as a homosexual staffer? Did you feel like his sartorial choices...

challenged you at all no i feel that he's a a style icon you know i'm not i wouldn't have chosen the tan suit but you know i feel like he was probably coming from or going to martha's vineyard and you know he was giving late summer martha's vineyard and and um i wasn't horrified at all i was proud of him the man has a right to like step out a little you know it's not an easy job yeah okay that's right he is he deserves it obama deserves i do think the tan suit

was blown a little bit out of proportion. I know that that's kind of... A little bit. A little bit. Well, you guys, at the time you were still among you guys, had so little on him that you just need... Like, you were grasping at straws with him. There was just... You didn't need anything. You didn't... This is a nice transition to the convention. I was having nights with... Nobody remembers this except me and, like, Stuart Stevens. But at the 2012 convention, we dedicated an entire day to the you-didn't-build-that gaffe. I remember that. I remember that well. I was so infuriated by that because it was so stupid to...

I mean, it's like, it's so stupid. You didn't build that. Yeah. The whole community made that happen. Yeah. Socialist, communist Obama. We were struggling, man. We were looking for whatever we had. There wasn't much. Yeah, there wasn't much. All right. I want to hear some positive memories. I want to hear some behind the scenes. I saw your Instagram. But the big question that I just have to ask you as a tough journalist is,

What was with the choke on Beyonce? All right. People are saying Beyonce's coming. TMZ saying it was what was back in the war room was not anybody just like, Hey, maybe we should tamp the Beyonce thing down a little bit. I have a funny story about this that I need to probably not tell all of it. I'll tell most of. So as you mentioned, my incredible business partner, Stephanie ran the entire convention. I didn't have anything to do with it until probably two weeks prior when I started getting pulled in to this or that. And so I did wind up being in the programming room for the week itself and

And, you know, this Beyonce rumor is kind of bubbling and bubbling over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm looking at the schedule. There had been for Wednesday, like a six or eight or whatever minute block for a special guest. But by, let's say, Tuesday, that was filled in with...

with the word Oprah. So I'm looking at the Thursday schedule and there are no holds for special guests. And I'm like, this Beyonce thing is not, is not real. There's no top. I mean, unless, unless they're scamming us and there's a secret, you know, program known only to Stephanie and Ricky Kirshner, but not to the other five people working on this, then there's no possibility. But I keep hearing it and keep hearing it. And then I started hearing it from like relatively senior folks in the

party and at the conventions on Thursday morning, I walk away. White house staffers are tweeting out bees. Yeah. So I, right, exactly. So I walk into the programming room and I'm so embarrassed to do this, but I have to go to one of my colleagues and be like, I'm so embarrassed to do this. Is this Beyonce thing true? And there's four or five people there and they all look around and they're like,

We don't know. We don't know. And I'm like, is this because everyone's afraid to go ask Stephanie? And they're like, kind of. So I'm like, well, shit, I'll ask Stephanie. So an hour or two later, she picks up the phone. I don't know who's on the other line, but she goes...

okay, one of us would have to know if it were true, right? I'm like, get the fuck out of town. So even Stephanie Cutter, who was in charge of the convention was unsure. She was like, maybe, maybe this is happening above my head. Maybe, maybe, maybe Kamala. So what that referred to, I mean, I died laughing, but what that in fact referred to is, was she coming? Because the fact of the matter is she wasn't in the program. I mean, Stephanie knew, but, but I think it was a little hard to get to the bottom of it. You know, is it possible she's coming?

And various reporters were calling saying, I've got a source from the Chicago PD that her plane has landed, blah, blah, blah. I don't have her cell phone, so we can't disprove it. But it was actually kind of a thorn in the side of the convention team that day, because they didn't want that to be the story to the point where they wound up just having to call up reporters and say, it's not true, just to try to kill this thing dead, which it still didn't. And obviously, we all love Beyonce. But the fact of the matter is, first of all, you don't want the data to be

consume with this rumor and second of all you don't particularly want network cutaways to Beyonce every 15 minutes during Kamala's speech so I was glad she was not there with all respect to Beyonce and I wish the rumor had been killed a bit a bit sooner yeah it did seem to work out I feel like you do a social science experiment on how that happened so you're all asking around it's reminiscent I'm trying to get my husband's old boss Heidi Heitkamp on the pod

And it reminds me of there was a rumor going around at her Christmas party that she was going to go work for Trump. And like, we're, everybody was standing in the corner, like kind of talk. And it's like, this is on Twitter and stuff. And I was just like, has anybody asked her? And they're like, no, we don't want to, we don't want to ask her. And I was just like, well, I don't fucking care. I was like, I just went up to her and I was like, are you going to work for Trump or not? And she was like, no. And I was like, your staff thinks you're going to work for Trump. Like sometimes you just got to clear things up. You know, it's just important just to say no. That's why J.D. Vance should have,

just clarified that he never fucked the couch. Fucked the couch, yeah. Yeah, it would have been very easy. Just put out a clear statement. That's PR 101. That's PR 101 right there. So Stephanie, refresh me, was she was working on it even when it was supposed to be a Biden convention or no? Yeah, because this stuff is going like, I don't know, six, seven months ago, something like that.

So like how much of the, like read the rejiggering, I like just as an amateur watching it, like you look at it and it's like, well, clearly some of the stuff they rejiggered and some of it's like, all right, we got to do the best we can, you know, like Chris Coons is still speaking on Wednesday or whatever. No offense, Chris, we love you. That had to be challenging, right? Like navigating all the principles. I don't know. Any, any interesting nuggets on, on kind of how she overcame that and such a, whatever it was four or five weeks sprint there. Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I don't want to overstate my involvement. Like I said, I just kind of got involved in it a couple weeks ago. But yeah, I mean, I think you want to reshape the thing in the vice president's image. Not all of the speakers need to change, but all of these speeches need to change. All of the videos need to change. Videos take a while, you know? And the other thing that started happening is there was just so much incoming. I mean, I think I'm not oversharing here when I say certain...

and, you know, musical artists and even electeds became more interested in speaking at the Harris Convention than they had been. And so you have to just make room for a lot of stuff. And obviously that means, you know, calling up certain podcasters, certain self-important podcasters went from like boycotting the convention to wanting to have wanting to live stream and have a prominent place. I think those self-important podcasters have been banned from the perimeter. So not necessarily a boycott of their own.

But yeah, and obviously some of our great leaders in the Democratic Party have an interesting relationship with time limits. And so you've got to navigate that. So, you know, again, I don't want to overstate my involvement, but I think the thing changed like 100%. I think there was not a single element that did not change. I mean, just the final thing on convention stuff, like everybody had to just feel overjoyed. I mean, like the big takeaway was,

you know, from the week was like just being able to transition into Kamala, demonstrate momentum. And then I think like this sort of big, broad outreach to like the widest possible number of Americans. Like to me, like that was my takeaway from it. Like she and I get 53% or 54%. Like the convention was like, we're trying to talk to 54% at least the last three days. And that's what I liked about it. Absolutely. Yeah.

Did you have a favorite celebrity sighting? All right. I debated with myself whether I was going to tell this story, but I'm just going to go for it. This is why I'm a penetrating interviewer. Yeah, exactly. It's the stripes. I can't say no. So, you know, I had a very cool experience and privilege of being backstage. And the backstage area is tiny. I mean, it's a corridor maybe 10 feet wide and 200 feet long with tiny little offices on either side. But, I mean, everybody is back there if they're, you know, an hour before their speech or an hour after it.

And so at one point, Spike Lee was back there. Now, he was not on the speaker program, but he was brought back there. And he runs into Stevie Wonder, who had just performed. And I didn't know this, but they go way back. And Spike's kind of holding court. And there's like a little scrum around them because this is an incredible interaction between

And I want to just preface this by saying, this was a joke. I'm not making Spike Lee look bad. This was in good fun and they were kidding around. Spike says something like, you know, Stevie, I always tell people you performed at my wedding. There's been so much love between the two of us. And Stevie Wonder goes, yeah, yeah, there's been love. That's good. That's nice. But you never paid me. And Spike is like, doesn't know what to say. And he's like, I guess I, and Stevie cuts him off and he goes,

baby, love is love, but money is money, baby. And I'm just there being like, I cannot believe I witnessed this. It was just the best. And if you're back there, I mean, that was special, but there's just cool stuff happening, you know, all the time as these people run into each other. That's also true at the Republican convention. We have to be fair. I mean, you know, Trump telling story, you know, Hogan owed Trump money, Kid Rock. Trump didn't pay Kid Rock for an appearance at Bedminster one time. Like there's a little tension there. And Scott Baio seems like a pimp in person. Charles is in charge.

So all the celeb stuff now getting into your actual expertise, unlike your kind of stolen valor from all Stephanie Cutter's work there. Thank you. The digital stuff, it's kind of amazing how much of this is

Just happens organically. And just as a general comment, like political strategists are so overrated, like there's just bad ones and good ones. Like you didn't understand, but like it's the same exact digital team working for Biden as for Harris, essentially. Right. And just overnight, it changes overnight.

And Kamala's there and you have like the attitude is different. The vibe is different. The memes are different. You have all these celebrities coming in. You're in brat summer. And literally the Kamala HQ Twitter is a Charlie XCX brat logo. Like it all happens in 48 hours. And like it really seems to work. Like all of the data that you look at shows that just the sentiment around the ticket changed dramatically.

just completely inverted like in a matter of a week. So I talk about like how like the best ways to channel that is can they continue to nudge it through November? Do you reach a cringe point? How do you think about all that?

Yeah. You know, so first of all, I couldn't agree with you more that strategists are overrated. And then when they lose, get, you know, shit that they didn't deserve. You know, like the thing I used to say during the Obama days, like you could put a camera in front of Barack Obama, have him say some stuff, put that on the internet and people would be like, I love this. Wow. His digital team must be great. And you could do the exact same thing with Jeb Bush, let's say. And people are like, I don't like this. His communications team is not good, you know? And that's just how, you know, that's just how it goes. So I think the Harris team is doing an incredible job and I think they were doing

a really good and best job they possibly could with Biden. But, you know, obviously, you know, other people have said this, but obviously, you know, you can get away with a certain kind of mean speak with Kamala that if it were Biden would have just been counterproductive because everybody knows that's not his politics and he has no idea what any of this is.

But, you know, the other thing that I think they're really benefiting from right now, like I think like people always talk about enthusiasm in politics and enthusiasm is, you know, obviously super duper important. But there's this other factor that I think is as important, particularly when it comes to public actions, you know, putting up a yard sign, putting up a poster in your dorm room, retweeting something or whatever, which is like social acceptability. You know, you could be super enthusiastic about someone, which tons of people were about Hillary, tons of people were about Biden. But, you know, you put your hand on the stove.

you retweet something from Joe Biden and you get a million replies saying he's old, I hate him. You've just been taught a lesson that you shouldn't do that again. And, you know, I think that what we've got going for us right now and what is like absolutely essential to preserve as best we can, it won't be able to be fully preserved is people are jazzed about Kamala. That's great. But also in many circles in the United States, not all of them, obviously you can retweet

reshare something about Kamala on Instagram. And, you know, you're going to get a lot of replies, you know, indicating that you've just done a cool thing rather than indicating that you've just done something horrible that makes you look like a complete fucking loser, you know? And that's as important, I think, as, as enthusiasm. And I think that's the thing that we've got to try to figure out how to sustain. And one of the things that I think is really helping with that is this whole white dudes for Kamala thing. You know, you can make fun of that. Maybe it's a bit cringe. You liked that. I did make fun of that. I didn't like that.

I just don't like self-selecting based on race. It's not really for me. White's groups are not really for me. White's groups are not for you now that you switched parties. But, you know, you could have gone to Deadheads for Kamala. I'm going to Yimby's for Kamala tonight. That's much more in my alley.

But yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, I had mixed feelings about the white dudes thing. But I mean, I think it like it is so important to show people like, not only is it okay to support this person, it can be cool to support this person, it can be cool to do so even if you're like a white dude or a NFL quarterback or whatever. And I think, you know, I think it's really important to sustain that. At the same time, I think

And I think they're doing this. I don't think I'm telling I'm saying anything that they don't know. Vibes are vibes, but people are a little smarter than that. So I think it's important that we continue to have fun with this election. I think the memes are great. And it's great to make fun of JD Vance and all of that. But, you know, people do need to understand what we stand for. We cannot get carried away with the meme thing, not only because it might become cringe, but also because it is not enough. And, you know, ultimately, you know, people have got to have a

pretty clear understanding of who this woman is, you know, what it is she intends to do as president, and not just who Donald Trump is in terms of a boorish figure, but how he would hurt you if he were to be elected president in material ways. And, you know, they've got to make sure that that comes through even as they continue to have fun with the memes.

Like, what do they actually need to do? Like, who do they need to reach? What are some strategies they called you up today? And we're like, okay, I like, we only have 10 weeks. Like we really got to focus on one group or one platform or one tactic. Like what, like what jumps out at you? You know, they, they wouldn't ask that. Cause I think what we have, what I think we need to be able to do as democratic party is like do multiple things at once. I mean, you know, I don't care. I know the consultants speak. I know. Yeah. They got to do all of them. I'm just saying like, what are some high valence strategies?

I'm all for throwing out certain audiences because I do think we waste money on, you know, like, you know, we love to think that we're going to, you know, win back the Joe Rogan voters. And it's like, you know what? There's 10 times more people of color and white people, by the way, who are with us more or less ideologically, but who, you know,

don't believe it's worth their while to go vote either because they think it's going to take too long or because they think their vote may literally not be counted or because they think nothing ever changes in their lives so they could take the five minutes and maybe their vote is counted and then the next four years are going to look like the last four years and you know there are way more of those than there are swing voters this is actually important distinction because i talk about this group a lot so let's let's sit on this for a second because like joe rogan voter is sometimes a stand-in for the

I'm a guy and I'm 27 and I'm like generally like socially liberal or whatever. Maybe I don't like all the woke stuff. I might be black or brown. I might be white. Doesn't matter. But I mostly consume part of my take. Like I mostly consume sports or just whatever, like, you know, video game, like media. I don't consume any of this like regular media. I don't watch cable. I don't read the newspaper. Like, but yeah,

they demographically you would think might be a Kamala voter. Like, is that like, how, how do you reach those people? Is that worth even trying to reach? Like where does that voter only worth reaching if they're black or Brown, just because like that makes them more likely to vote for Kamala and you're just trying to maximize resources. Like, how do you think about that? You know, I think a couple of things on this. I think, um,

for the most part, there's exceptions to everything, obviously. But for the most part, a person who's kind of a low information voter has made a decision they want to be a low information voter, either because they're fed up with all this stuff, and they just don't want to hear it. Or because like I was just saying, they have made the not necessarily irrational decision that it's not worth their time, and things don't change for them. Or because they've chosen to receive bad information, and they're having fun receiving the bad information. So you know, there's very few people who like don't know where to turn to look up the issues and look up the candidates that they wanted

do that. You know, so they've made that choice. And so I think we need to understand at a, you know, at as narrow a level as we possibly can, you know, why they've made that choice and what it would take to get them to reconsider that choice. You know, I think, you know, for the person who's just, you know, fucking fed up with politics in both parties, you know, I think odds are the Democrats would be a lot better for their lives than the Republicans are. But, you know, that is a person who's going to be very, very, very hard to speak to.

for the person who has lost faith that their vote's going to count and that the government can do something for them, I think that that is someone that we can reach. But we need to do so. We need to understand, like, they've made these decisions that they've made, you know, because they don't like what they're hearing from our party, the other party, and, you know, and they're tired of stuff that sounds same, same, same, same, same, cycle after cycle. So, you know, like, that's one of the reasons I'm super jazzed that Kamala's kind of going all in on housing policy, and I'm not just catering to your, you know, sensibilities here. You know, like, that's something...

that really, really means something to every 27 year old on this, in this country. You know, the rent is too damn high and you don't hear that from presidential candidates. And I think there's a chance that that has the kind of stickiness for people that student debt had for Bernie, not just because it's a young person issue, but because it's an issue that it like real people. And by the way, like 95% of them, you know, you've got to be in the,

absolute upper classes to not care about your rent or have some student debt care about and they haven't heard stuff about. So I think some of it is spokespeople. I think Tim Wall sounds different, not the same, but in a similar way to how Bernie sounded different. I think some of it is platform. I do, despite everything I'm saying, think we should send people on to Joe Rogan. We can't just refute

refuse to talk to tens of millions of people. But, you know, but I think, you know, ultimately, people have got to, you know, feel that something is in this for them feel that it's plausible, you know, we can't be out there saying, you know, we'll abolish rent, that's not believable, you know, feel that there's something plausibly in it for them. And if you wish you could, and if you know, and if they and if they felt like there could, you know, if they feel like there's a realistic path to, you know, 5% reduction in their rent, that's, you know, that's worth the 10 minutes to vote.

So the highest ROI thing on digital at this point, you think, is what? Like trying to register? It's different than when you were in. In 2012, I say this all the time, there was a lot more low-hanging fruit, right? Because the non-voter...

if you could just get them registered into the system, they were probably going to vote for Obama. But now the least engaged voters are much more split than they were back in 2012, like when it was Romney and Obama. And so is the ROI better

you know i don't know i guess i just i leave it as an open question like there's 10 weeks like you have seen good registration numbers increase for young women you know black women like is that just it just go go where the fish are and just try to max juice numbers on digital sort of yeah i mean look i think first of all like we haven't even touched on the fundraising but obviously the fundraising is bananas and that allows them to go do all the other stuff i mean you know

including offline. You know, I do think there's huge pockets of people who need to be registered and who would, you know, turn out for us, even if it's only 60, 40, rather than, you know, 80, 20, that could still be good, especially if we have enough data to make sure that we're really doing the most follow-up with the 60%. I don't know where, you know, where there's the most ROI on the internet, but I think, you know,

needless to say everyone you're a digital strategist you're a highly paid digital strategist i just want to know where your roi is at i don't know i'm sorry i thought i didn't realize that was such a trick question i'm used to you know i guess different different kinds of questions i mean you know like i think i think they've got to use paid media to reach both whatever number of people we think can be persuaded and that's not all that many people but it's some i think we would be making an

absolute mistake not to be using paid media to speak to our infrequent voters, our soft voters, and not just at the end with a reminder to vote, but now through the end, reminding them what we stand for. And I think getting at this idea, however you want to get at it, that government can help you. I mean, it's not going to radically change your life in four years, but it is worth believing that things can change for the better if you have a better government rather than a worse government.

This is worth your time. It's worth your time. It took you a minute to get there, but this is a good insight. It's like the people that are gettable for Kamala that are not engaged are not engaged because they don't think it's worth their time. Like the people that are most gettable. And they don't think it's worth their time and their faith. They don't want to feel like they've been duped. I voted for the Democrats yet again, and yet again, nothing's changed. Makes sense.

I have one dumb question that people in our Slack, I guess the ROI question was dumb too, but I have a second dumb, even dumber question for you that people are wondering why is Donald Trump advertising on the Bulwarks YouTube? Are they just doing a really bad job or is YouTube or is advertising targeting a lot harder these days because the way that the platforms changed, you know how you can do political advertising and like, what's the story with that? I,

I wonder if they don't think of you and your audience a little bit. I'm not trying to insult your fabulous audience, but a little bit, a little bit the way that we might think about Joe Rogan, these people who, you know, they're not far left. Could they possibly be gettable? Now, I don't think that's true of your audience, but I wonder if they think that. But yeah, to the other part of your question, there is less you can do now, especially on, well, so some platforms don't allow political advertising at all, especially TikTok, which is, you know, it would be...

great in some ways and horrible in some ways if you could, but you can't. Certainly the Google platforms of which YouTube is one don't allow individual targeting in the way that they used to. So it's interesting because while the hypothetical capabilities around data have gotten way more sophisticated over the years, the things you're allowed to do with that data have in some ways gotten less sophisticated. And so, yeah, you've got to choose by channel, by show, by

audience in a broad way rather than a, you know, one to one match of human beings way. And by the way, the campaigns, you know, to some degree have more money they can spend. So, you know, I think those would be some of the reasons why that might be lining your pocket with that with that Trump coin. We appreciate it. Keep on sending it to us, Donald Trump. It's better than sending it to your lawyers. Okay, while we're making fun of Trump, I got one more. There's a story here, NPR.

at Arlington cemetery. Trump was there earlier this week, two members of Trump's campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation with an official at Arlington. The cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent us casualties are buried. I know in a section 60 Trump's spokesperson said that the person that was preventing them from taking the pictures was clearly suffering from a mental health episode. So these people are rotten to the core. And I'm just wondering, uh,

I'm curious on your take to make fun of them. But like, these things are kind of more challenging. I'm new to deal with this, right? With Obama and Hillary, like, you know, nag negotiating these sorts of situations. Obviously, you just weren't a dick like them. But I'm curious what your reaction to it was. Yeah, yeah, you typically don't. You typically don't accuse people of having a mental health breakdown because you've physically attacked them. That guy, Stephen Cheung, by the way, just seems like the absolute worst person in Trump land. You know, it's interesting.

You know, like I never tried to film a campaign ad at Arlington because it's a disgusting idea. But, you know, you are often dealing with, you know, people who maybe were victims of gun bonds or their children were or, you know, people who are in very, very delicate positions. And in the

circles and parties that I've always traveled in, you know, you actually like think about how to treat them with dignity and sensitivity. And you do want to get the content or convince them to speak at the convention or whatever it is you're trying to do, but you want to do so in a way that they come away from that experience feeling that you've, you know, handled this proper. And that doesn't seem to be the MO for the, for the Trump people, but Trump, you know, the other thing with Trump is just like, you know, it's sort of like JD and the, you know, people without children thing. Like there's something deep in Trump's core that just like disdains the

soldiers who've been wounded or killed in action. And it's just like, where does that, I didn't even know that's an opinion you could have. Like, where does it come from? But it just seems endemic. I understand the JD thing at least, right? That's just a cultural thing. Like he just hates single women and he feels like, you know, whatever they're annoying or Karen's, but like the Trump thing,

I don't know. I think it's the bone spurs. Maybe it's like some sort of jealousy. That's me putting him on the couch. Could be that. We're out of time, but I do have one last question. The reason that we're here right now, that I'm doing a Never Trump podcast because you didn't run enough digital ads in Wisconsin in 2016. Have you thought about that? No. Are you the core problem? Am I the root of our American troubles right now?

No, I think that you woke up one morning and the better angels of your nature started speaking to you. And that would have happened. That would have happened either way. I think a President Hillary, by the way, would have pulled you into our party even faster. So

I love that counterfactual. Thank you, Teddy. Please come back soon. This has been delightful. And I appreciate you. Give our love to Steph. I will. Cut her and congratulate her on a wonderful convention. Three out of four nights. Really great. And to everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow with one of the key convention speakers who, thank God, you guys gave such a prime slot to. Good on you for doing it. Adam Kinzinger on the pod tomorrow. We'll see you all then. Peace. I guess the apple don't fall far from me Cause I've been looking at you so long for me

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.