Super PACs can now fund campaign ground operations

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 1:03:39

   okay so the counter to that and what people believe he's going to try to do is win a couple of seats in the house travis win maybe one or two senate seats if you were to do that those things are pretty affordable to back a couple of million dollars for a house race senate maybe 25 five minutes. million. If Elon puts, I don't know, 250 million to work every two years, which he put 280 million to work on the last one, he could kind of create the Joe Manchin moment. And he could build a caucus, a platform, Grover Norquist kind of pledge along these lines. So what do you think of that?

2. 1:04:21

   If he's not going to create a viable third party presidential candidate, could he, Travis, this, pick off a couple of Senate seats, pick off a couple of congressional seats. Okay. So first I have this axiom that I'm making up right now. Okay. Okay. It's called Elon is almost always right. Okay. All right. Elon was right about everything. Seriously, let's just be real. And like, honestly, the things he's upset about and that he's riled up about, especially when you look at the deficit, like, man, I am right on board that train.

3. 1:04:54

   Part one, part two. we've never had somebody with this kind of capital that can be a quote unquote party boss outside of the system. Right. And there's a lot of people that agree with the types of things he's saying. And he knows how to draw, you know, he, Elon in his own right, kind of has a populist vibe, like he does his thing. And he's turned X into what it is. And he's, he's a big part of X. And so I think it's the I think it's great. And honestly, there's, there's the moves you can make on Senate and House and just having a few folks, and then being you being levers then to get the things you want done. That's part one. And then part two of that is the threat of that happening can make good things happen separately, even if it doesn't go all the way. I just love it.

4. 1:05:51

   i'm on the elon train yeah i'm i'm in love with this role for elon more than picking a party because he's picking a very specific platform that i think resonates with folks which is just balance the budget don't put us in so much debt and let's have some sustainable energy you know job done great jobs yeah the problem with that is like he's actually wrong about the reason why we have a deficit or debt it's not because we're undertaxed it's we're massively overspending.

5. 1:06:21

   No, I think he believes we're overspending. They should have been supporting the last beautiful bill. Because if you just held federal spending to 2019 levels, 2019 is not like decades ago, literally with our current tax revenues, we would be in a surplus. $500 billion. Yeah. So all we need to do is cut spending. Now, I admit that- Why didn't that happen with the big beautiful bill? So this is where details do matter.

6. 1:06:49

   i think there is a willingness in a you know discipline problem on both parties and i think maybe he can help fix that the second thing is that we have these arcane rules particularly in the senate that you need 60 votes in many ways to cut things except through very hacky methods and that's a reality so the best thing truthfully you could do is help get a republican party to 60 votes and then in then in theory he could be absolutely furious if you didn't cut back to 2019 levels, but it's very tricky. Or you can just overrule. The filibuster is an artifact of history. And at some point, some majority leader is just going to say, we're done with the filibuster and just steamroll through all the cuts at 50 or 51 votes, which you can do. There's no constitutional right to a filibuster. It is an artifact of centuries of American history.

7. 1:07:39

   And at some point, it's going to go away. So maybe the time is now. Maybe we should just fix everything now. I think you're exactly right. I think that the filibuster, it's just a matter of time. I think it's on borrowed time. And I think in a world where it is on borrowed time, Jason, I think your path is probably the one that gives the American party, if it does come into existence, the most leverage.

8. 1:08:00

   which is if you control three to five independent candidates, you gain substantial leverage. I just want to take a step back and just note something. I don't know if you guys know this, but the only reason we're even having this conversation or this is even possible is because in 2023, the FEC, Federal Elections Commission, they actually released guidance and they changed a bunch of rules. and the big change that they made then was it allowed super PACs to do a lot more than just run ads. Up until that point, all you could do if you were a super PAC is just basically run advertising, television and radio. I guess online as well. But what they were allowed to do starting in 23 was they were allowed to fund ground operations. They were allowed to do things like door knocking, phone banking, you know, get out the vote. So in other words, what happened was

9. 1:08:55

   a super PAC became more like a full campaign machine. And Trump showed the blueprint of using a super PAC, specifically his to win the presidential election. So he was able to fund this massive ground game, he built infrastructure across the swing states, he was obviously incredibly effective. And now that playbook can actually be used by other folks. And so to the extent that Elon decides to use those changed FEC rules, Jason, I think what you said is the only path. But I just I thought I just wanted to double click on Keith's point, because it's so important. I do think the filibuster is going to go away. And it is because the the arcaneness of these rules, having to do a reconciliation build and, you know, needing a supermajority veto proof supermajority and the other case, it just means that nothing gets done.

10. 1:09:47

    And I think somebody will eventually get impatient and just steamroll this thing. We've never had so many people say they feel politically homeless as we did the last two cycles.