Welcome home. My name is derek. My wife and i own midtown scholars. Im also the mayor of harrisburg. [applause] a democratic enclave in the middle of pennsylvania. [laughter] it is a pleasure to welcome everybody here tonight for best sellingel authors. Before we begin, we have some guidelines. I want to make this event go as smooth as possible. At this time, will you please take out your phones and join me ass we power off and silence our cell phones. We want to welcome cspan tonight. Both tv. [cheering and applause] they will be filming. Checkbook tv for the listings. They usually get them up and running real quick. We want to try to not have any interruptions. Thank you. At this time, i want to introduce our speakers. Beforeak we do i want to quickly plug onepl upcoming event. Grab one of our flyers. A lot of of great talks coming up. Incredible bestselling authors coming. Friday, march 6, you may be particularly interested in professor gretchen. Driving while black. The true story of the green book. Its a fact. That will be fun. That is at 7 00 oclock. Dan pfeiffer is the number one New York Times bestselling author of yes, we still can. [cheering and applause] all right. [cheering andnd applause] one of Barack Obamas longest advisors, white house director under president obama 20092013. You will clap for the whole thing. Senior advisorr from 20132015 currently lives in the bay area with his a wife and daughter. [cheering and applause] interviewing dan this evening. [cheering and applause] in a civil rights activists focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity and justice. Born and raised in baltimore, graduated institute of college of art. The author of the new book on the other side of freedom, the case for hope. [cheering and applause] a leading voice in the black lives matter unit, connecting individuals with knowledge, tools, citizens, policymakers with commonsense policies. He has been praised by president obama for his work as community organizer. Ancontinues to provide activists organizers influence and make an impact today. The book you have in your hands this evening, the on trumping america. [cheering and applause] it is a sharp political playbook for how democrats can pick on trout and the rest of the party. A powerful call for progressives to get smarter, tougher and more aggressive in order to make america a democracy again. Without further ado please join me in welcoming dan pfeiffer. [cheering and applause] it is good to be here. Excited to be in conversation with my fellow crooked friends. Lets jump right in. How do you feel about this moment in politics . Do you think we can i think there is nothing more important than winning this election in 2020. I have never been more convinced that winning this election is enough. I think too Many Democrats in washington and around the country think that donald trump is an aberration. He has a logical extension of the Republican Party over the last many, many years. Particularly since barack obama was elected. All the forces that allowed him to become president will still be present. We have to take a very aggressive effort to fix the problems in our politics and allow someone like donald trump to be president of the United States. A difference between voters that focus on ideology and policy. Why did you make that distinction . Ive been watching the 700 democratic debates we have had. [laughter] every one of them has been incredibly endearing subsidy of about whether we will have medicare for all, medicare for some or Green New Deal or whether we need to get 50 by this date or that date. That is great. Substance is important. It is progress for our political conversation we are having. Wednesday nights debate was a little different. [laughter] i think that that conversation is a little bit past the graveyard. I think our politics, both the institutions of politics that have been around for a long time, plus a very ruthless strategy put in place by republicans have politics rigged against the progressive views of the majority of america. If we do not tackle political leand democratic reform first, t does not matter whether you are revolutionary it doesnt matter if you want medicare for all, medicare for some, medicare for one Single Person in america, if we do not deal with things like the problems with the senate, the structures around Voter Suppression, gerrymandering, it does not matter what policies we have. Dont focus on how we get things done but what we do when we can. What we should do. When you talk about trump not being ann aberration, but an extension, i was interested in the way you talked about that. Racial politics has allowed trump to exist in this ways. Can you talk about the importance of a racial grievance as you know in the book . The way to understand politicians, i think it is much more simple. You have to understand the incentives. What they want to do is stay in office. The Republican Party is dependent upon a shrinking, almost entirely white base. The only way they can win is to get as much support out of that base as humanly possible. What they have discovered is the best way to do that is with racial grievance. To scare white people about nonwhite people. People taking their job, terrorists, africanamericans, all across the board. That has been going on since the passage of the Voting Rights act. You can see it from the nixons southernan strategy, you can see it with Ronald Reagan going to mississippi giving us states right speech about as subtle as a hammer to the head. You can see it in george w. Bush running his campaign which was an ad so racist that all future racist ads will be referred to as that. [laughter] the reason why i think we had to do this, with every passing day, the majority of the country becomes younger, more progressive and more diverse. The republicans need more and more out of that white base. They will get worse and worse. They go and get away with that because of things they have done to reduce the political power of young people, people of color in this country. Until we address that come out the world will keep doing what its been doing. People should fight as hard as a trump people off. An argument that you addressed. An argument that they should be as aggressive as the other side. What is your take on that . I refer to this as should we be like trump . The answer to that is definitively no. Just because we want to be able to look in the mirror in the morning, but also, that strategy does not work. Trthe republicans are trying to get as many people, a group of people thatke are very likely to turn out. They won a few people that often do not. It works for them. We need hope and inspiration. We have to get our standard base. We also need to convince new voters to become voters to become democrats. We need to convince people that may be turned off by the process. We adopt cynical strategies. We will lose. A lot of people feel that the hope train ended and the obama moment, no offense, we love you, we love obama, people worrying about it being a mobilizing strategy for people. I think we have to recognize people. The way i described it in the book is democrats will have to be what they referred to that policy. Idealist without allusions. We have to be hopeful in the idea that the country can be more unified, but very clear eyed about to the republicans in washington are. It doesnt matter that the republicans will have an epiphany when trump loses, it will not happen. I think we should believe and try to aspire to something better. We have to be tough and we have to be strategic about political power. Ca we have not been strategic enough or tough enough with political power. What do we do about the party . During the obama years, we lost a lot of governorships. We lost a lot of people in congress. Something happened to the infrastructure of the party that did not set us up well. What do we do about that . Was it the obama administration, did they just drop the ball . Did people not Pay Attention . What happened . I think it is all all the above. Bottom of the ballot. One, a terrible economy. 2010 election was a disaster. Unemployment was at 10 . Coming two years after a bipartisan bail out of banks. I think people forget, which is very important, Citizens United decision happened in january january 2010. The democratic ability to keep up in Campaign Spending in that election went away that day. Our candidates were washed awayt in a way of corporate brothers and corporate money in the end. What i think and what i argue for in the book is democrats need to be less accessible. That seems like a crazy thing to say is we sit here today. Tothere was not enough from us. Not enough w focus from congres. Not enough from the Democratic Base. We have not paid enough attention to political power comes from down ballot. If you controlled the state legislature and the governorship you can make it easier for people to vote. Republicans took over the state legislature. Alltu of the swing states after 2010. The very first thing that they did was voter id laws. Getting rid of very specifically getting rid of the days onon the calendar that were the most africanamerican voters voted. They randomly somehow pick that one out of the hat. There is also policy. The states where they had democratic governors and legislators and peoples lives were saved. Raise the minimum wage. Protect additional civilth righ. We have to restructure the party making it easier for the party to focus on those things. It isfo a real mentality shift. Something we have really begun to see since 2016 on the successes and virginia on 2017 are product of that. What happened to obama in the sense he has disappeared from the public landscape. Do you think there is a role he can play in this world or not . The role he is planning on playing, he has two roles he is planning on playing in this election. [inaudible] im not talked with him directly about this. I feel confident in what im about to say. [laughter] first is he is a person who is uniquely and maybe the only person in the party with the capacity to unify the party at the end of this primary. Whenever that is. That is t the reason why he is t endorsing, he is not putting us dumb onti the scale. Whether the nominee is anyone from Bernie Sanders to joe biden or anyone in the middle, we have to unify. I think he will be able to contribute to that. Second, i know he is planning to spend a lot of time on the campaign trail in the fall once we have a nominee and do everything he can to make sure that person is elected. His silence is a product, right now,w, for preserving his abiliy to unify the party at the end of this primary process. How does that experience and form the way you think about messaging. Mainstream media is not as important as it used to be. What is your advice to the party about how we land. To many in the party are still adhering to an old way of thinking about communications. A model that has been around rever. It says t something to the pres. The press job to tell the public. The problem with that is twofold in our facebook driven disaggregated smartphone media world, it does not have the reach it used to have. It also does not have the credibility it used to have. That iss not just for conservative voters. It is also democratic voters. People generally more skeptical of things the press says. Recently played as eight or nine years ago. I think democrats have to think more holistically about how they get their message out. They have to think about, in terms of their content strategy. It is how do i get the information that i know matters. Getting to a win number to get to 270 or when a governorship or a marriage ship. This is where all the perfect media comes in. We have to build up a true viable vibrant media infrastructure in the country. In the world of facebook, media is a quantity gig. Everything trump says is not just trump and his 50 million or whatever it is twitter followers going to people. Trump is saying it and fox news is saying it. We focus all the time and energy on what happens on fox news tv. I wish it did not happen, but it is seen by like 3 Million People too many people. What really matters is what fox puts on facebook. Fox is a massive facebook presence. There is this huge information organ pumping right wing propaganda into facebook. There is nothing on the Progressive Side to do that. The conversation automatically tilts right. Nonpolitical people that dont pay a ton of attention are more likely to be exposed to right wing often propaganda and often completely false. People in their network are sharing it. They are seeing it more often. The infrastructure on the left. That has begun, but happening way too slow. A project that will have to continue long after the 2020 election. Especially if we win. There is not a progressive media ecosystem for them to supporters to their and. He or she will be governing with one hand tied behind their back. We were getting swamped. Republicans had so much more information firepower than we did. We could run ads all the time. Very hard to break through. We did not have folks who were singing from the same song she is as we were. My strong hope is that we build that to help the next democratic president. Do you think twitter and facebook have the same impact . No s. Incredibly impactful, but they are impacted very different. Facebook is the largest Media Company in the world. Overwhelmingly more impactful to people individually because there are so many more people on it. A primary way in which a lot of americans get their news. The news they are getting is conservative and tilting right. Twitter has a different impact. Twitter shapes the political conversation of this country. Ion think 10 of americans are n twitter. Something like that. 100 of reporters and politicians. They are having this conversation and the incentives for, the incentives are disconnected to what actual people care about. A lot of politicians and reporters down these bad rabbit holes. They get a lot of retweets, but completely disconnected or they are being counterproductive to that because they are missing the conversation. I say every day i should get off twitter. D i cannot. It may solve a real problem. If more politicians and more reporters spent less time, is not a great place to get information. I often describe the that twitter has on media as forcing reporters to do man on the street interviews as a craziest invention in the world. People that choose to be on twitter. It is not a great sign. [laughter] 2020 chapter you outline these things that candidate should be doing to push back on trump. You talk about acknowledging his failures. Not feeding into the way he shapes things. Anybody doing these things well right now . I know you probably will not endorse a candidate tonight, but you could. [laughter] yes. The answer to that is yes and no, i guess. It is actually hard to know. What works in a primary, particularly this primary, it is very different. These candidates ares going afr committed democratic voters who are very politically engaged. Everything i said about talking to the media being the best way to reach people. In doing that or being on cnn, something that is actually seen by a lot of people you care about. They will have to change their behavior to get to the general. Reaching a bunch of voters that i paid no attention to the primary. I do think that a couple of the candidates have, several candidates have economic messaging and are willing to win this election. If we win the economic battle of trump. I think Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren have economic messages that work very well for that. I thinkhe Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and pete have in different ways, the most sophisticated understanding of how the media works. Bernie sanders and Elizabeth Warren have helped incubate and work with a progressive media infrastructure. Mayor pete understands inherently that the person who is creating content all the time and shaping the conversation is winning which is why he is a media figure. Going from the unknown mayor of a very small town to being a front runner because he knew how to be in the media, much like trump. Other candidates have done other things. We are seeing pieces here. Why is the primary so hard. You have to guess based on the very small dataset who would do the besto job. A very different environment in a general election. To the point you made earlier about the media, bloomberg can afford it. Do you think that is maybe not in light of the last meeting, but, what do you think about him . It is very hard to evaluate bloomberg. He is the only person that can do what he is doing. You have to look at two parts of his strategy. Is spending half a billion dollars on advertising effective . On yes. Only he can do that. An amazing statistic. He has now spent more money on ads in three months than barack obama did in the 2012 election. Yes, that works. Bloomberg also, he is trying to dominate the conversation. Buying the conversation. Also doing things. Today this campaign bought these billboards in vegas where trump wasn. They were along the route that trump would have to drive five. I think one of them said, hillary won the popular vote. [laughter] another one said trump eats burnt steak. [laughter] i dont know if that is effective or not. Bloomberg has this advantage. Really fierce advocates for media. I will vote for trump then. He does not have to make any decisions. A candidate who, well, we can run these ads. This outer this ad. I run both ads. They literally are paying people. They are paying people 2500 a month to post on social media abouton them. Not a strategy that will be available to democratic nominees Elizabeth Warren or whoever. They will not be able to afford paying people to post on facebook for them. You also have something about the dnc. People confuse the dnc and the party all the time. Do you think it is fixable . I was on the Transition Team for the dnc. I saw up close and personal. In a lot of problems. Can we fix that . Yes. But we have to understand what it is. Whenever anything goes wrong anywhere in the party, people are like why did tom perez screw that up . Somebody has a good idea about an ad to run or something, why is it he running that add. The dnc is not some sort of, you know, superhero headquarters where all the politicians get together make d