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Because we are cultured people too.

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I will not let my audience down, AJ.

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Schnack.

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Welcome to dirty moderate.

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How are you?

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I'm good at him.

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Thanks so much.

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Yeah.

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So AJ is our first

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guest really, from the culture section.

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We do intend listeners.

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You should notice it be culture vultures as time goes on in

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this podcast.

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But again, we link everything to something

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political something in the realm of social policy,

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something in the realm of, we're what's going on in

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America.

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AJ should knock.

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Is a nonfiction filmmaker.

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He's an artist and a writer whose La based.

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He is prolific.

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Matter of fact, his latest nonfiction feature is called

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long gone summer

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to ESPN film 3430 documentary.

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It's all about the 1998

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home.

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Run.

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Chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for those Baseball

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fans.

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There you go.

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But AJ is an incredible political documentarian and AJ.

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I promise, I'll let you talk as soon as I get through this.

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I for about 10 years.

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I'm not mistaken, right?

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They believe Big C 2008 when he covered the Obama convention in

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Denver till around 2018.

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He has been doing a Politics as Cinema verite.

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Is that right?

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AJ?

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Yeah, that's right.

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I did it did not intend it to be a decade-long project.

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But,

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yeah, we started doing stuff around the 2008 convention, the

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Democratic Convention in Denver, and it just kind of

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carried on through the 2016 elections.

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And yeah, it was a very interesting time.

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Obviously, so much changed over that time.

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Period.

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Now, tell us

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about

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How you?

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I mean obviously an incredible document are incredible

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filmmaker.

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What?

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Drove you beside?

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You know, it's something good to cover caucuses and primaries

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are just right there.

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Fascinating human interest stories their case studies in

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idiosyncrasy and lunacy, right?

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How did you what drove your political passion or political

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interest to do this?

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Tell us first about your background and love to know how

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you grew up.

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And what makes a Json object relational.

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Well, I grew up outside of st.

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Louis and

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Nice little small town called Edwardsville, Illinois, little

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college town,

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and went to Mizzou.

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I was a journalism

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student and graduate at the University of Missouri and

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worked in the broadcast

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sector there.

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Thought maybe I would go into working at a TV station, but

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really found that long-form storytelling was more of what I

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was interested in.

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And one of the documentaries that I had always loved

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was a no Old film called primary

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from

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Robert, Drew and Associates and he had got together a bunch of

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like filmmakers.

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At the time, Al maysles da pennybaker.

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I love

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Ricky Ricky leacock and they went up and went and covered

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one of the Kennedy and

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I guess there was Humphrey at the time,

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it's a great.

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Eight

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kind of early look and one of the early Cinema verite kind of

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Classics.

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And that was something I always

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wanted to do both

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both from a standpoint of,

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you know, covering politics, but also the way in which they

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kind of got a bunch of different people who are all

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great filmmakers in their own, right.

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And

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we're able to like bring them all together and cover this,

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this one event.

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So that was always kind of in my mind when I was a student at

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the First day of Missouri.

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I did kind of a variation on that for the student newspaper

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where we took a bunch of

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reporters with us up to Des Moines from Colombia.

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Well,

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like I stayed in one small hotel room and and just

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covered.

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Then 88

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primary caucuses in Des Moines.

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And anyway, right way the but both parties both parties.

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Yeah, so

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the caucus in Bush, but you cover it over buddy, do Dole

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was in that and dull.

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Paul Simon Ricard, you know, Gary Hart would it be?

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He was out by the Yeah, he was out but

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Pat, Robertson Robertson, Jack, Kemp, Jack Kemp.

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Yes, so and and it was just the most amazing thing because you

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know, it's like every

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buddy was there for a young college student like seeing

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just this whole

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situation where the entire political Universe has

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descended upon Des Moines

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just really It just struck me.

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And so,

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you know,

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bubbling under my thoughts about making documentary, which

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was maybe making a film about the Iowa, caucuses one day and

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we tried to do it in 2008, but really just couldn't pull the

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trigger and get everyone together in time.

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But I had a bunch of friends in

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Denver and

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was talking to them and just started thinking about the

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convention that year and, you know,

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An interesting idea that this really huge event,

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you know, even before we knew whether it was going to be

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Obama or Hillary, right?

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It was just going to be like, this huge event.

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In this pretty small town in Denver is a pretty small town

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and had never really dealt with anything kind of on that level.

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It's really like a small town masquerading as a big city.

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That's right.

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Yeah,

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and so the notion always was like, what would it be?

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Like if we did the kind of primary approach and got a

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bunch of To come in and we all just tackle the different

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aspect of how does a city the size of Denver, you know, it's

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it's it's city government its local journalists.

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It's protesters like how, how do they all kind of tackle an

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event of that size?

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And so that's something we ended up doing for a film

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called convention and brought in a bunch of other filmmakers

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who have like since then they've four of them have won

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Academy Awards for the documentary work.

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Another one was nominated this year for a feature documentary.

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So it's a really talented group of people trying to just tell

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the story of what it was like

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for Denver to be part of this.

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In the end huge event that led to Obama.

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Speaking at Mile High Stadium

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that summer.

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I you mentioned the pennybaker

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both because I

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was a person of the theater and I'm a personal Politics, the a

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penny The famously did

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Moon Over Broadway about this play, Boone of a buffalo of

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Carol Burnett, as you know, he did company, the original

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recording, you know, the Sondheim musical company, but

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the thing that I was, I can watch over and over and over

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again, that really was impactful upon me and it

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was early in my political Awakening was the War Room.

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Yeah, although I'd already we'd already gone through the 92

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cycle and I thought watching, you're watching primaries and

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some of your other stuff.

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I thought that's it's interesting.

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This was the A war room because a, it felt pennybaker worthy.

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And I say they're both praise.

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But we should the War Room.

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The first, I hope you didn't read a primary but was the War

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Room.

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The last kind of

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thing of its kind before documentarians like you and

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others began diving in and covering more of this because I

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don't know of any

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other.

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Like I remember seeing that going.

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Wow, how come we've never seen this before and then up until

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I guess the last decade or so I've seen several people

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wanting to cover

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the day-to-day, the pleasure of New show of campaigns.

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I hadn't seen that since War Room.

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What's the

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like?

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Is there a link to this here or any kind of yeah there.

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There were, you know, there were few in

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and I'll

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make the mistake of not remembering, you know with the

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directors.

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We're on each one.

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I know that you know, like there have been campaign films.

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There's some others in the 90s famously.

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There's a

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and Oliver North

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Campus.

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Oh, right, right.

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Yeah.

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I think they closed the In terms of like, really seeing

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early early days of George w-- Bush.

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There's Alexandra Pelosi these Journeys with George,

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which was on HBO.

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Yeah, and but I think, you know, it was definitely,

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no,

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no one had really done what we had done with caucus.

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I think,

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in terms of just making the decision early on that.

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We're covering every candidate.

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Wow, and that was something I think that, you know, was, was

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brought to us by primary.

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You were they covered both candidates who are still viable

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at that point, but it was really interesting

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to us to like

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sort of like none of the candidates

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that year felt interesting enough in singular.

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But as a field, you know, having Michelle Bachman, Rick

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Santorum Herman, Cain Newt, Gingrich Mitt Romney,

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you know, I mean as and Ron Paul, I mean, as a group, I

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think that it felt pretty pretty compelling.

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We certainly Only didn't anticipate how it was going to

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turn out but that was sort of our thinking I think going into

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it was let's try to see if we can cover everything and then

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that was successful enough.

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I think both creatively and also just in terms of finding

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an audience that we kept doing that kind of thing

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in the midterm elections of 2014 and then again for

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primaries in 2016, for those that don't know.

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The primaries is currently streaming on Amazon.

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So when we We're lucky to get AJ on the program.

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I started being able to how nice build your research to

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just watch this stuff, everyone who listens.

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This knows what a political geek.

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I am

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a couple things my primary.

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I thought were wonderful.

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One was first of all you captured

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the

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because other than Trump coming down the escalator and whatever

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was June or July 2015.

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It was June, you know, you start to capture the way in

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which this

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Thing called Trump is a metastasizes and we're

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witnessing it right there to the shock and consternation in

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many ways of the Des Moines Register, people Daily Beast

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reporters.

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And I love the way that it weaves in and out of their

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report eyes, you know, getting their take on what they were

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watching and how they saw that happen.

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So it was journalistically.

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Wonderful, but then you just get those great things of

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Chris, Christie, sort of back slapping in a in a pub and and

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you know, all that Marco Rubio, the scripted Little Marco just

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you know, And Torn to Pieces by Chris Christie.

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In that moment.

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That was an inflection point but then of course the

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phenomenon of trump, you know, the

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this this the rally Master of the showman, you know what I

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mean.

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The right wing, PT Barnum as he BS something that we're so used

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to but his command the ability of this guy as a star and I

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hate to say that but as a start of captivate

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and shocked the political establishment in retrospect, I

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watched primaries.

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Going course.

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This guy's going to be depressed.

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See, I didn't think that then, but now you go cheese.

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You also showed without bias, unless I read it, unless I

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watched it wrong.

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The feel the Bern movement, their support for Bernie and

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the and I voted for Hillary and I like Hillary.

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I don't say this disrespectfully, the stiffness

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of Hillary as a candidate, you know, and it's wonderful that

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people who I can watch this to see.

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Do you do remember sitting there thinking

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Donald Trump's be present at States despite what

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misgivings people have?

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No, I didn't.

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I didn't think he was going to win, but I will say that the,

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so one of the, I think the

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best things we were able to capture during that cycle, was

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his first big

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rally in

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in Iowa.

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And I think it meant Tumblr

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or Oskaloosa of one of the two,

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a no.

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No.

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No, I don't think anybody knows.

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Yes

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Oskaloosa.

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Yeah,

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It was, it was

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first thought was, you know, a lot of people

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showed up for that for this event, so much to the extent

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that Not only was he, in kind of a decent sized Auditorium,

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but there was a

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pretty decent overflow as well.

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And that, that kind of thing, that early just signaled that

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people were curious, you know, I mean there were certainly his

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celebrity Factor,

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but you know what?

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I told people after that was, he was funny.

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And he was,

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you know, he was not doing the things that Republicans had

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not.

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He the thing, he was making fun of like, Jeb Makin raising the

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he had reported that he had made a raise a bunch of money

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saying like, well, that's all people who he's going to owe.

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Those favors to.

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I know.

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Yeah.

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It was just a kind of the kinds of things.

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He was saying, I I thought was like, well this I have no, you

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know, having

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been around all the Republicans for years earlier, certainly

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nothing like any of this.

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This before and the audience was laughing.

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The other journalists, who were there were laughing.

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People were applauding they were excited.

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He went into the Overflow room.

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There was like a buzz in the air and then afterwards you

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could just hear people saying I showed up because I was curious

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or I wanted to see the TV star but I'm I like what I hear.

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I think this is interesting.

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So that was thing.

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And the so then the, I think the State Fair,

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Like a

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month later and you know, I mean a lot of the we were kind

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ensconced at the Iowa Pork tent.

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We had like two other

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better.

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Can I ask you a question or

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you feel like you're stuck in time or do you feel?

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No, this is like a well, wartime Warren tradition there.

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That you kind of like, what was the feeling of the?

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I've always wanted to go to Iowa either for this stuff?

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You know, I don't know.

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I like Like that kind of stuff.

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I, I've been, I've been to the Iowa State Fair a bunch of

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times.

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And I even went after

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I made friends with the folks at the pork tent.

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So in 2019, I actually went just to work at the pork tent

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not to film or do anything.

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So,

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yeah, there's something about it that I that I like,

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but, you know, it's like there were, you know, like look at

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Rick Santorum, who ends up being kind of the central

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character of caucus in the end, you know, he's come running

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again in 2016.

00:14:32 Speaker 1

He comes to the pork tent to like, flip his laptop won and

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he won having twins.

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Well, even though Romney was not me and Huckabee won in 08.

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Despite.

00:14:41 Speaker 1

McCain hasn't always happened that way, but that's so

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fascinating.

00:14:44 Speaker 1

Because I'm bhama wins, Iowa.

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He goes to the nomination.

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Trump didn't win, Iowa and still got the nomination.

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So it's gonna be interesting.

00:14:51 Speaker 1

Yeah, and Trump.

00:14:52 Speaker 1

Basically, he showed up at the

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Iowa State Fair.

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He like wanted to land his, his, his helicopter on the the

00:15:00 Speaker 1

grandstand.

00:15:01 Speaker 1

Yeah, and and they Wouldn't let him do that.

00:15:03 Speaker 1

So he did all these flybys

00:15:06 Speaker 1

over the over the fairgrounds and so like you're with the

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other candidates and people and there's this huge loud

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helicopter noise as this like Trump is circling and he lands,

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you know, somewhere, you know, nearby the whole bringing him

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into the fairgrounds the thing and it becomes one of

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the it was a crazy time because I think was the same day that

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Hillary was at the fair and the same day that Bernie was like

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speaking at the fair.

00:15:32 Speaker 1

It was like in though, all three of them, kind of Hit the

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fair with in like a three or four hour period, but right pad

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just like, I would say him and and, and Hillary, they both had

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this thing where they didn't do the, they didn't do the pork

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10th.

00:15:46 Speaker 1

They didn't do the soapbox

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speeches.

00:15:49 Speaker 1

They just did like a, they landed and they kind of did a

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walkthrough and the walkthrough was just total and utter chaos,

00:15:58 Speaker 1

and that maybe should have been, you know,

00:16:01 Speaker 1

I second clue after.

00:16:02 Speaker 1

The

00:16:03 Speaker 1

Oskaloosa sooretama rally, the good, something that something

00:16:07 Speaker 1

was happening that was going to up and everything else for the

00:16:12 Speaker 1

rest of the candidates in the field.

00:16:14 Speaker 1

But I think, you know, I still had a suspicion as to what that

00:16:18 Speaker 1

the crews would end up being

00:16:20 Speaker 1

the one to commit Victoria's out of Iowa.

00:16:23 Speaker 1

Whether you know, whether that would have been able to take

00:16:25 Speaker 1

him any further, which of course, it didn't, that was

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sort of unclear.

00:16:29 Speaker 1

The two things.

00:16:30 Speaker 1

I want to ask you, number one.

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What?

00:16:34 Speaker 1

What is and I want to explain this really from a cinema

00:16:39 Speaker 1

point of view.

00:16:40 Speaker 1

Okay, but art directors point of view, but also to help

00:16:42 Speaker 1

people understand since you're on the ground and every four

00:16:46 Speaker 1

years, we go over this and nobody still knows what it is.

00:16:48 Speaker 1

What is a caucus?

00:16:50 Speaker 1

But what's going on there?

00:16:51 Speaker 1

Can you like talk us take us through that you captured on

00:16:53 Speaker 1

video, but I want, you know, I feel like someone from the

00:16:56 Speaker 1

world of culture can explain this better because sometimes,

00:16:58 Speaker 1

you know, politicos make this a little more convoluted.

00:17:00 Speaker 1

Sure.

00:17:01 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:17:01 Speaker 1

I mean, I think the Republican caucus makes a lot more sense.

00:17:04 Speaker 1

It's because it's people show up,

00:17:07 Speaker 1

you know, kind of at their,

00:17:09 Speaker 1

their equivalent of a polling place, whatever.

00:17:10 Speaker 1

The caucus location is, right and they vote.

00:17:13 Speaker 1

I mean, they're sometimes their speeches

00:17:16 Speaker 1

candidates, either the candidates themselves, or

00:17:19 Speaker 1

depending on the, especially at the larger caucus locations,

00:17:22 Speaker 1

the candidates might show up and give a speech or they'll

00:17:24 Speaker 1

send,

00:17:26 Speaker 1

you know, a representative to give a speech

00:17:29 Speaker 1

or if you're the might just be like, you know, a local person.

00:17:31 Speaker 1

Who's like, oh, I volunteered for

00:17:34 Speaker 1

Mike Huckabee, and I just wanted to

00:17:36 Speaker 1

just reiterate, what a great guy is and hopefully, you'll

00:17:38 Speaker 1

vote for him.

00:17:39 Speaker 1

And at the end of all that everybody just puts their

00:17:43 Speaker 1

little tally their boat into into a box there, tallied

00:17:48 Speaker 1

pretty quickly.

00:17:48 Speaker 1

And then everybody goes in this takes place in gymnasiums and

00:17:52 Speaker 1

Civic calls, and whoever people are congregating, with, by the

00:17:55 Speaker 1

way, groups of people supporting different

00:17:58 Speaker 1

candidates.

00:17:58 Speaker 1

Obviously, it's not like just one, right?

00:18:00 Speaker 1

It's not one Hall.

00:18:01 Speaker 1

I when people understand this, they don't go into said, For

00:18:04 Speaker 1

Ted Cruz, it's there to cruises there and Romney or whoever.

00:18:07 Speaker 1

Yeah, and I mean, you might be sitting, you might be in a

00:18:10 Speaker 1

gymnasium with like six different caucus locations, but

00:18:13 Speaker 1

your location will will vote.

00:18:15 Speaker 1

You'll put it in the box and then it's like a community

00:18:18 Speaker 1

meeting in a way where they read the votes right there.

00:18:21 Speaker 1

You'll know who won your caucus location

00:18:24 Speaker 1

and then those get sent into, you know, kind of the central

00:18:27 Speaker 1

party and they tally everything up and, you know, him sometimes

00:18:32 Speaker 1

on Election night sometimes later.

00:18:35 Speaker 1

And that's that's that's how the Republicans work.

00:18:37 Speaker 1

So it makes the Republican thing just makes sense.

00:18:39 Speaker 1

It's it was easy to visualize.

00:18:42 Speaker 1

The Democrats.

00:18:43 Speaker 1

I think are

00:18:44 Speaker 1

sort of well known that their process is is weirdly different

00:18:47 Speaker 1

that you you get

00:18:50 Speaker 1

you have to be in a certain portion like you get gather

00:18:53 Speaker 1

with the other supporters.

00:18:55 Speaker 1

You have to reach a certain threshold to be viable within

00:18:59 Speaker 1

that.

00:19:00 Speaker 1

Allow me to interject the Democrats.

00:19:01 Speaker 1

Never make it easy.

00:19:03 Speaker 1

Yeah, always, I let me See, there's something of a

00:19:05 Speaker 1

shambles, aren't they?

00:19:06 Speaker 1

Did that just I mean you hear this and you go what now?

00:19:08 Speaker 1

Say that again, one more time, come again with this.

00:19:10 Speaker 1

They do what?

00:19:11 Speaker 1

Yeah, and it's so in this whole thing.

00:19:13 Speaker 1

So it's like you could have you could be one the shy of my

00:19:17 Speaker 1

ability which mean May mean that you have a considerable

00:19:19 Speaker 1

support,

00:19:21 Speaker 1

but you didn't reach a certain level.

00:19:22 Speaker 1

And so in that case, all of your supporters now, we'll go

00:19:27 Speaker 1

to somebody else.

00:19:28 Speaker 1

They will you know, so you don't meet the threshold and

00:19:31 Speaker 1

you have to then shift that those votes.

00:19:34 Speaker 1

Sore that support.

00:19:35 Speaker 1

Oh right.

00:19:35 Speaker 1

That happen with Martin O'Malley in the Heat and get

00:19:37 Speaker 1

anywhere.

00:19:38 Speaker 1

No malli supporters, you know where you're going to go, you

00:19:42 Speaker 1

know, after afterwards and so I think that was you know, this

00:19:45 Speaker 1

last I didn't do the 2020 but I think in that case it was a

00:19:49 Speaker 1

much more.

00:19:49 Speaker 1

It was a much bigger question because there were so many

00:19:52 Speaker 1

Democrats running, you know, like, you know, if Biden does

00:19:55 Speaker 1

is that person who's one or two votes short?

00:19:57 Speaker 1

And we saw that in a lot of the different caucus locations that

00:20:00 Speaker 1

he was just under viability places.

00:20:03 Speaker 1

And so then, where did that go?

00:20:04 Speaker 1

That go to Elizabeth Warren.

00:20:06 Speaker 1

Did it go to Bernie.

00:20:07 Speaker 1

Did it go to pee poo to judge?

00:20:09 Speaker 1

So yeah, that's their processes is complicated and you know,

00:20:14 Speaker 1

visually it's kind of interesting because you can see

00:20:16 Speaker 1

the people like kind of drifting around the room, but

00:20:19 Speaker 1

it doesn't make just as much

00:20:22 Speaker 1

inherent sense as the Republicans system

00:20:26 Speaker 1

with the caucus, you know, and the other thing primaries.

00:20:28 Speaker 1

Are you?

00:20:29 Speaker 1

Your film shows is how change hung in the air.

00:20:33 Speaker 1

You may say, like a paw.

00:20:34 Speaker 1

All over any candidate that was running a traditional campaign.

00:20:37 Speaker 1

And you saw Martin O'Malley, who was basically like a wooden

00:20:41 Speaker 1

marionette and the guy who I like but really looked like,

00:20:45 Speaker 1

you know, wallpaper.

00:20:47 Speaker 1

I mean, he did you saw the enthusiasm of Bernie talking

00:20:50 Speaker 1

about, you know, things are not going to say the same and you

00:20:52 Speaker 1

see the rise of trump and then you see the patheticness of Jeb

00:20:56 Speaker 1

Bush who you would have thought, given his namesake and

00:20:59 Speaker 1

his hat passed would

00:20:59 Speaker 1

be the odds-on.

00:21:00 Speaker 1

Favorite.

00:21:01 Speaker 1

You know, Marco Rubio is pegged as a future Republican Party.

00:21:04 Speaker 1

Chris Christie was and all these people.

00:21:06 Speaker 1

Christie less come off like a manicured, lawn, you know, and

00:21:10 Speaker 1

the people who did not speak to that restive angry, populist

00:21:15 Speaker 1

did not hear the populist, call the populace, and the

00:21:18 Speaker 1

populists,

00:21:20 Speaker 1

and they lost.

00:21:20 Speaker 1

And it's and it's interesting.

00:21:22 Speaker 1

There's 2016

00:21:24 Speaker 1

AJ, we talk about a lot of things on here, you know,

00:21:26 Speaker 1

people have all sorts of reasons.

00:21:28 Speaker 1

Why Donald Trump won that election.

00:21:29 Speaker 1

He did win that election and steal it just like Joe.

00:21:32 Speaker 1

Biden didn't steal it.

00:21:33 Speaker 1

So I'm not R4 that he narrowly edged Hillary out in the

00:21:37 Speaker 1

Electoral College and we don't do elections by popular votes.

00:21:39 Speaker 1

I'm so sick of hearing that, but but I think what people

00:21:42 Speaker 1

underestimated, which is what primaries your film catches and

00:21:46 Speaker 1

that's what I want people to watch this in its all of its

00:21:48 Speaker 1

nuances,

00:21:49 Speaker 1

it it was much more.

00:21:51 Speaker 1

Yeah, they're a lot of racists.

00:21:52 Speaker 1

There's a lot of sexist.

00:21:53 Speaker 1

They're the kind of people were throwing

00:21:58 Speaker 1

the, the two-party system out with the bathwater.

00:22:00 Speaker 1

It happened to be Trump, but the Republican party, but in

00:22:03 Speaker 1

other words, they just had had Enough and for many people in

00:22:06 Speaker 1

ass, why?

00:22:06 Speaker 1

I think he lost in 2020 because people realize seven and half

00:22:09 Speaker 1

million more people realize it wasn't disastrous experiment,

00:22:12 Speaker 1

but I think people said, you know,

00:22:14 Speaker 1

this is a change year.

00:22:16 Speaker 1

We believed in Obama, things have not gotten better.

00:22:19 Speaker 1

You know.

00:22:19 Speaker 1

Both parties have screwed up.

00:22:21 Speaker 1

Hillary Clinton is not somebody who represents the future to us

00:22:25 Speaker 1

as many ways represents a kind of cynical core of the two-

00:22:29 Speaker 1

party system and that there she was more qualified smarter

00:22:32 Speaker 1

should have been president.

00:22:33 Speaker 1

It's all those things.

00:22:34 Speaker 1

But the appetite was not there, you know, they were serving

00:22:36 Speaker 1

meat at a vegetarian buffet or, you know, and I think you're

00:22:41 Speaker 1

you really you really captured that, you know, and each

00:22:43 Speaker 1

segment, you sort of see, you know, the way in which all the

00:22:47 Speaker 1

rallies that had any meaning

00:22:49 Speaker 1

were rallies like Bernie's or Trump or I should say, meaning,

00:22:51 Speaker 1

any resonance, among the vast majority of Voters.

00:22:54 Speaker 1

Didn't you think?

00:22:54 Speaker 1

That's what you I think you cause you caught that really

00:22:57 Speaker 1

well, then you think that was great to sort of be able to be

00:22:59 Speaker 1

witnessing that.

00:23:01 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:23:01 Speaker 1

I mean, there were several things that were just kind of

00:23:04 Speaker 1

you know, Really caught our attention as they were

00:23:06 Speaker 1

happening and we so having film that 2008

00:23:11 Speaker 1

convention, you know, there were a lot of Hillary

00:23:14 Speaker 1

supporters in Denver who had this notion going to Denver

00:23:18 Speaker 1

that Hillary could still be the nominee.

00:23:21 Speaker 1

You know that that was

00:23:23 Speaker 1

Obama was a phenomenon.

00:23:25 Speaker 1

Nobody could have predicted.

00:23:26 Speaker 1

Right?

00:23:26 Speaker 1

Right.

00:23:27 Speaker 1

But I mean there were there were definitely like we

00:23:29 Speaker 1

followed some delegates who really thought that there was a

00:23:32 Speaker 1

chance.

00:23:32 Speaker 1

There was a chance that That Hillary could somehow pull it

00:23:37 Speaker 1

out and when and when she gave her speech saying, you know,

00:23:43 Speaker 1

this is not, I'm it's not me and you're not doing this for

00:23:45 Speaker 1

me.

00:23:45 Speaker 1

This is for something bigger.

00:23:48 Speaker 1

I mean, there were women on the floor.

00:23:50 Speaker 1

He said women because those were some of the ones I saw.

00:23:52 Speaker 1

I'm sure there were some upset gentlemen, as well, but women

00:23:55 Speaker 1

who particularly saw this as

00:23:57 Speaker 1

this, transformational representation representational

00:24:01 Speaker 1

candidate,

00:24:03 Speaker 1

you know, they were in tears and And just really just felt

00:24:05 Speaker 1

like, you know, couldn't couldn't believe, it wasn't

00:24:08 Speaker 1

going to happen

00:24:10 Speaker 1

fast forward, eight years.

00:24:11 Speaker 1

And, you know, the

00:24:13 Speaker 1

burning people who showed up in Philadelphia.

00:24:17 Speaker 1

They not only thought that they could still get the nomination.

00:24:23 Speaker 1

They wanted no part of Hillary

00:24:27 Speaker 1

and the level of

00:24:30 Speaker 1

You know, we're going to take our ball and walk we're going

00:24:34 Speaker 1

to boo every single person who comes on stage who has like

00:24:37 Speaker 1

endorsed Hillary

00:24:40 Speaker 1

that level of dissatisfaction.

00:24:44 Speaker 1

However, it happened.

00:24:45 Speaker 1

However, like so many of those people got into the, the

00:24:47 Speaker 1

convention center

00:24:49 Speaker 1

that compared to, you know, the Republican convention the week

00:24:54 Speaker 1

prior, which certainly there are people there who didn't

00:24:57 Speaker 1

want Trump, and there were those those

00:25:00 Speaker 1

I still like,

00:25:01 Speaker 1

you know, last-minute attempts to try to do something about

00:25:04 Speaker 1

it,

00:25:05 Speaker 1

but it was, you know, that was a, that was a convention that,

00:25:10 Speaker 1

you know, when it endorsed when endorsed him.

00:25:13 Speaker 1

And when it nominated him, that that there was a level of

00:25:15 Speaker 1

enthusiasm and excitement that they had, despite the overall

00:25:19 Speaker 1

convention being pretty dark and Troublesome

00:25:23 Speaker 1

that that when you got to the Democratic Convention,

00:25:28 Speaker 1

it really felt like If the energy on both sides was behind

00:25:33 Speaker 1

somebody who was going to blow up, what we knew, right?

00:25:37 Speaker 1

And, you know, was there enough of an appetite to you know,

00:25:42 Speaker 1

keep going in the way we've been going a yeah, you would

00:25:46 Speaker 1

that was a question.

00:25:47 Speaker 1

I still think you know, we thought that Trump was so

00:25:51 Speaker 1

so much of an outlier right?

00:25:53 Speaker 1

And you know

00:25:55 Speaker 1

and being in Cleveland that convention felt so disconnected

00:25:58 Speaker 1

from everything, we Experienced in the past at other

00:26:01 Speaker 1

conventions.

00:26:02 Speaker 1

We've been to other campaigns, we've been around because

00:26:04 Speaker 1

because you Feud ever expected Trump to be standing there or

00:26:07 Speaker 1

the convention itself.

00:26:08 Speaker 1

Yeah, the convention itself, tell me about that.

00:26:10 Speaker 1

What happened?

00:26:10 Speaker 1

What do you remember?

00:26:12 Speaker 1

We were at that point.

00:26:12 Speaker 1

We we couldn't believe Trump was going to be the nominee.

00:26:15 Speaker 1

But at that point at the convention was the energy weird

00:26:18 Speaker 1

on the ground.

00:26:19 Speaker 1

Is that very weird.

00:26:20 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:26:20 Speaker 1

And so one of the things that would happen with with Trump

00:26:23 Speaker 1

that was interesting during the campaign for us,

00:26:27 Speaker 1

you know, kind of just journaling it.

00:26:30 Speaker 1

It was a few months before that at the, in Vegas

00:26:34 Speaker 1

at the Nevada caucuses

00:26:36 Speaker 1

that he gives the he's in front of a huge crowd and he does.

00:26:42 Speaker 1

It's the first one where he's like, you know, I

00:26:45 Speaker 1

we used to take guys like that out on a stretcher, whatever,

00:26:48 Speaker 1

whatever the comment was.

00:26:50 Speaker 1

And that was a moment.

00:26:51 Speaker 1

Where,

00:26:53 Speaker 1

as I said, you know, the first time we saw him, it was like,

00:26:55 Speaker 1

oh, this guy's funny.

00:26:56 Speaker 1

He is,

00:26:58 Speaker 1

he's not doing things the way anybody else.

00:27:00 Speaker 1

Doing it, but this kind of Darkness like starts to seep in

00:27:05 Speaker 1

and the some of the fun that people are having has this

00:27:09 Speaker 1

violent tinge to it.

00:27:11 Speaker 1

And so when you get to Cleveland

00:27:13 Speaker 1

that aspect, it's not just the lock em up stuff, which was

00:27:17 Speaker 1

obviously, you know, present there, right, you know, the

00:27:21 Speaker 1

first night was like, very ven Ghazi heavy,

00:27:26 Speaker 1

you know, they it was intended, you know, Joni Ernst to, you

00:27:29 Speaker 1

know, We covered in 2014 when she ran for Senate.

00:27:33 Speaker 1

She was supposed to be like the keynote speaker.

00:27:36 Speaker 1

She was supposed to on the Monday night was supposed to be

00:27:38 Speaker 1

the future showing the future of the party.

00:27:41 Speaker 1

She does not get to speak because Michael Flynn just

00:27:45 Speaker 1

filibusters and keeps talking well into a lock her up.

00:27:49 Speaker 1

They'll change the lock her up and everybody's leaving, you

00:27:52 Speaker 1

know, the next night is the Ted Cruz, and everyone's booing

00:27:54 Speaker 1

him.

00:27:56 Speaker 1

There's there's a, there's an aspect of every day of that.

00:28:00 Speaker 1

That that just feels super Bleak.

00:28:04 Speaker 1

Not like, you know, the contingency agreement grew up

00:28:06 Speaker 1

around.

00:28:07 Speaker 1

I mean, I kind of like Chicago, but like, you know, the

00:28:09 Speaker 1

brightens and the fun and like everything else.

00:28:11 Speaker 1

Lightening Gore waving, you know, 88 and Richards.

00:28:15 Speaker 1

George Bush, born with a silver foot in his mouth, there felt

00:28:17 Speaker 1

like.

00:28:18 Speaker 1

Yeah, you know, we don't want Bush but if he got in its like

00:28:21 Speaker 1

the world isn't ending.

00:28:22 Speaker 1

This started to you.

00:28:23 Speaker 1

Yeah, there was a kind of nascent

00:28:27 Speaker 1

almost like not.

00:28:27 Speaker 1

I want to be dramatic but kind of like, you know, you feel

00:28:29 Speaker 1

like the Of I'm our Republic is coming to an end.

00:28:32 Speaker 1

It's like little bit and I know, I mean, it definitely was

00:28:35 Speaker 1

it was a very different vibe and it was very

00:28:40 Speaker 1

it, just felt.

00:28:40 Speaker 1

I keep saying felt very dark, but it did it just felt like

00:28:43 Speaker 1

there was there was this an undercurrent of both, just

00:28:47 Speaker 1

violence and, you know, like revenge against one's political

00:28:51 Speaker 1

enemies.

00:28:52 Speaker 1

That just was unlike anything I had ever witnessed before and

00:28:56 Speaker 1

we would like you to reach the crescendo and the idea that

00:28:59 Speaker 1

they had.

00:29:00 Speaker 1

Ben Michael Flynn like this moment and he, you know, he had

00:29:04 Speaker 1

sort of like just on his own.

00:29:07 Speaker 1

I mean the convention no one was in control of that

00:29:09 Speaker 1

convention.

00:29:10 Speaker 1

I mean the show who the hell was Michael Flynn?

00:29:11 Speaker 1

If you think about it that time, nobody you know, why is

00:29:14 Speaker 1

he taking up Joni Ernst?

00:29:17 Speaker 1

Who is then a popular Senator?

00:29:18 Speaker 1

I mean, you see the Republican Party morphing into this cult,

00:29:22 Speaker 1

right?

00:29:22 Speaker 1

Yeah, right.

00:29:23 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:29:23 Speaker 1

And so I think that then when you go from that and then the

00:29:25 Speaker 1

next week, I mean like over the weekend then the whole

00:29:27 Speaker 1

Wikileaks stuff happens.

00:29:30 Speaker 1

And, and then you go into Philadelphia and it's like half

00:29:33 Speaker 1

of the people there.

00:29:35 Speaker 1

I mean, it really did feel like half and half of like Hillary

00:29:38 Speaker 1

supporters.

00:29:39 Speaker 1

People who felt like this was a historic, glass ceiling

00:29:42 Speaker 1

breaking moment and, you know, the people who were like, she's

00:29:46 Speaker 1

corrupt.

00:29:47 Speaker 1

She's the past.

00:29:50 Speaker 1

She's, you know, the worst person we could nominate.

00:29:53 Speaker 1

And we're going to lose

00:29:55 Speaker 1

that.

00:29:56 Speaker 1

That was a, it was a, it was, it was not a fun couple.

00:30:00 Speaker 1

We,

00:30:01 Speaker 1

it was not as funny as speaking of this and you capture it, you

00:30:04 Speaker 1

know, and you can convention politics when everybody, you

00:30:07 Speaker 1

know, students of political Geeks, know, and you as a, as a

00:30:10 Speaker 1

student of this, and a filmmaker of this, you know,

00:30:12 Speaker 1

conventions used to be the back

00:30:13 Speaker 1

room.

00:30:13 Speaker 1

The other cigar-chomping guys, would choose the candidate

00:30:16 Speaker 1

before really, 1972 with McGovern, you know, your

00:30:19 Speaker 1

nominee was just chosen.

00:30:20 Speaker 1

They were anointed which is what's interesting.

00:30:23 Speaker 1

Is conventions had real suspense often.

00:30:25 Speaker 1

The vice president was nominated separately, right?

00:30:27 Speaker 1

Up until I'm late 50s and so you Have like

00:30:31 Speaker 1

you could go in there and be like wait is is this really

00:30:34 Speaker 1

going to be a delay Stevenson again?

00:30:35 Speaker 1

Is Estes kefauver of Tennessee going to be the running mate or

00:30:38 Speaker 1

as young John Kennedy, you know, you didn't know.

00:30:40 Speaker 1

So what I'm finding interesting on both sides, you're at

00:30:43 Speaker 1

conventions and you have Bernie people thinking Hillary is not

00:30:46 Speaker 1

going to actually get the nomination and other people to

00:30:49 Speaker 1

cruise.

00:30:50 Speaker 1

People whomever thinking Trump isn't going to get the

00:30:52 Speaker 1

nomination but yet they're standing there, which is it's

00:30:55 Speaker 1

already.

00:30:55 Speaker 1

Excuse me.

00:30:57 Speaker 1

It's already a done deal.

00:30:58 Speaker 1

I mean, they're standing there.

00:31:00 Speaker 1

Being coordinated because there is no contest.

00:31:02 Speaker 1

These conventions are televised as political theater admittedly

00:31:05 Speaker 1

by the media because they're not there to nominate their

00:31:08 Speaker 1

there.

00:31:09 Speaker 1

00:31:10 Speaker 1

kind of culminate the nominating process, which is

00:31:12 Speaker 1

already been settled.

00:31:13 Speaker 1

Don't you think that's what?

00:31:14 Speaker 1

Yeah, that's exactly what they are.

00:31:16 Speaker 1

And that's why the you know, I think

00:31:19 Speaker 1

Bernie had like giving a speech to his supporters on either

00:31:21 Speaker 1

Saturday or Sunday before the convention and had said

00:31:24 Speaker 1

something about like we're going to take the fight to the

00:31:26 Speaker 1

floor and that that was like it was like he knew Knew that that

00:31:30 Speaker 1

wasn't going to happen.

00:31:31 Speaker 1

I mean, it was just

00:31:33 Speaker 1

crazy.

00:31:34 Speaker 1

The other thing people, I wanted they switched it in

00:31:36 Speaker 1

2020, but you know, so long as there have been

00:31:40 Speaker 1

voters choosing candidates, the Republicans never had super-

00:31:44 Speaker 1

delegates meaning that in 2016.

00:31:46 Speaker 1

Super-delegates actually ensured that was.

00:31:49 Speaker 1

So you could win a number of delegates in voting and then

00:31:51 Speaker 1

there are party leadership meet state that cast votes and that

00:31:55 Speaker 1

not only buttresses, but can call.

00:31:57 Speaker 1

So superseded kind of week showing by the Handed it, which

00:32:01 Speaker 1

sort of made.

00:32:01 Speaker 1

Sure Hillary wouldn't lose the nomination even though she was

00:32:04 Speaker 1

damaged by Bernie severely losing badly in the industrial

00:32:08 Speaker 1

Midwest, which kind of mirrored her defeat in that fall and it

00:32:11 Speaker 1

actually made her, I think a weaker candidate than she

00:32:13 Speaker 1

already was.

00:32:14 Speaker 1

And on the Republican side, the guy like Trump could get there

00:32:17 Speaker 1

because there is no stop Gap.

00:32:19 Speaker 1

In other words, the super-delegates her let's put an

00:32:22 Speaker 1

English or kind of supposed to be like Alicia's a leash on the

00:32:24 Speaker 1

crazies.

00:32:25 Speaker 1

But well they got rid of it.

00:32:27 Speaker 1

Now, you know what I mean?

00:32:28 Speaker 1

And the Democrats don't do it anymore.

00:32:30 Speaker 1

Whatever.

00:32:30 Speaker 1

And I believe a super delegates, you know, because

00:32:33 Speaker 1

you saw Cruz win a fair number of fights.

00:32:35 Speaker 1

Cruz might have been the nominee and them.

00:32:36 Speaker 1

In other words.

00:32:37 Speaker 1

They might have yoked back on Trump and this is cute.

00:32:39 Speaker 1

He'll win some, you know, like you said.

00:32:42 Speaker 1

But that darkness that I mean he was inciting violence very

00:32:45 Speaker 1

early on and that's what you were saying after the show was

00:32:48 Speaker 1

over and on, he's funny, and he's mr.

00:32:49 Speaker 1

Apprentice there.

00:32:51 Speaker 1

He was saying in my day, when you know, hit him and take him

00:32:54 Speaker 1

out on a stretcher.

00:32:55 Speaker 1

Basically things, we send South Carolina, brutal off to a crowd

00:32:58 Speaker 1

that starts.

00:33:00 Speaker 1

You know, chillingly in a kind of Beer Hall Putsch, kind of

00:33:03 Speaker 1

way cheering on the violence, you captured that to and it you

00:33:07 Speaker 1

know, so that was really fascinating in your work as a

00:33:11 Speaker 1

documentarian because you actually are showing and I'm

00:33:14 Speaker 1

saying this a locks.

00:33:15 Speaker 1

I really want people to see this.

00:33:17 Speaker 1

You we get to watch as an audience this bizarre

00:33:21 Speaker 1

sort of confounding, but also scary transformation before our

00:33:25 Speaker 1

eyes.

00:33:25 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:33:26 Speaker 1

I mean, it definitely felt that way to just being in the

00:33:28 Speaker 1

opening round.

00:33:30 Speaker 1

Then.

00:33:30 Speaker 1

I mean, yeah, I mean there was because it was, you know,

00:33:33 Speaker 1

it went from,

00:33:35 Speaker 1

you know,

00:33:37 Speaker 1

when you cover entire campaigns and I

00:33:40 Speaker 1

haven't really talked about this directly with with a lot

00:33:42 Speaker 1

of journalists, but I know a few kind of we've all kind of

00:33:46 Speaker 1

said the same thing, which is,

00:33:48 Speaker 1

you know, the ones where it's

00:33:50 Speaker 1

going to the thing.

00:33:51 Speaker 1

You're like a cheese,

00:33:53 Speaker 1

I gotta go shoot this guy, again.

00:33:55 Speaker 1

I gotta go like, film.

00:33:56 Speaker 1

This me, like you mean, like, Martin O'Malley's Rally or

00:33:58 Speaker 1

something like that.

00:34:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, we're like even, I mean,

00:34:02 Speaker 1

even like,

00:34:03 Speaker 1

you know, this Santorum stuff in 2012, you know, like you

00:34:09 Speaker 1

drive to a small town, you knew he was going to be talking to

00:34:12 Speaker 1

like somewhere between 9 and 18 people and he would, he would

00:34:18 Speaker 1

go on for a couple hours and it's just, it's,

00:34:21 Speaker 1

it's exhausted.

00:34:22 Speaker 1

And I mean like, live physically because we were

00:34:25 Speaker 1

shooting handheld cameras, you know, you're just it's

00:34:27 Speaker 1

exhausting to try to capture when you get a moment.

00:34:30 Speaker 1

How many people is he speaking to it?

00:34:31 Speaker 1

Something like that?

00:34:32 Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, I think that was the

00:34:35 Speaker 1

room would like I would like a group of like Kiwanis people.

00:34:38 Speaker 1

I what I mean.

00:34:38 Speaker 1

Is that what that is?

00:34:39 Speaker 1

Yeah, like there's a, there's a, there's a moment in caucus

00:34:43 Speaker 1

where he shows up and he's walks up and, and he's like,

00:34:46 Speaker 1

how many we got, and they're like, it's okay.

00:34:48 Speaker 1

It's about 12.

00:34:52 Speaker 1

Well, how about that moment?

00:34:53 Speaker 1

I didn't know.

00:34:53 Speaker 1

Don't think it was in if it wasn't primaries apologize.

00:34:57 Speaker 1

When Jeb Bush said, please clap.

00:34:59 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:35:00 Speaker 1

Get that on this.

00:35:00 Speaker 1

I don't know.

00:35:01 Speaker 1

If no I was not.

00:35:01 Speaker 1

We were not there for that night.

00:35:03 Speaker 1

But you know guys remember, you know, Jeb Bush is petering out

00:35:06 Speaker 1

Bush.

00:35:06 Speaker 1

I mean, Trump is making mincemeat of them and at some

00:35:09 Speaker 1

point, his rallies become so listless.

00:35:11 Speaker 1

And so if you know poorly attended that like one guy is

00:35:15 Speaker 1

like, you know, he's like, please clap it was kind of a so

00:35:17 Speaker 1

pathetic.

00:35:18 Speaker 1

I'm neither a Jew or Jeb Bush fan or a Jeb Bush photo, but I

00:35:21 Speaker 1

just thought

00:35:22 Speaker 1

this guy this guy's not going to be hungry president.

00:35:25 Speaker 1

I don't know why he's running, you know,

00:35:27 Speaker 1

we we did.

00:35:30 Speaker 1

The equivalent that we that I was at and that we did film

00:35:33 Speaker 1

was what was to be a big event for him and in South Carolina

00:35:38 Speaker 1

and right before

00:35:41 Speaker 1

he is to go on Lindsey Graham is there to like, you know,

00:35:44 Speaker 1

speak on his behalf word comes out

00:35:49 Speaker 1

that the governor

00:35:51 Speaker 1

mistaken

00:35:52 Speaker 1

her name at the misplaced her name.

00:35:54 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:35:54 Speaker 1

Yeah

00:35:55 Speaker 1

Nikki.

00:35:55 Speaker 1

Haley has just endorsed Rubio and there was that to it.

00:36:00 Speaker 1

So bizarre, it's literally like the you saw like the news

00:36:05 Speaker 1

filtering to team jab.

00:36:08 Speaker 1

Like in that moment.

00:36:10 Speaker 1

You see the error of the blue like Priya and it's just like

00:36:13 Speaker 1

this is, you know, that's easy cratering before your eyes,

00:36:16 Speaker 1

right there, something you captured all this in real time.

00:36:19 Speaker 1

And again, like you said, there's been so much done as I

00:36:21 Speaker 1

get since pennybaker and whatever and really besides the

00:36:23 Speaker 1

war room, but this was like, you know, you're not just

00:36:26 Speaker 1

feasting on in a voyeuristic way and mean you really really

00:36:29 Speaker 1

Watching

00:36:31 Speaker 1

something profoundly shape, our political system.

00:36:34 Speaker 1

And the way we live The Way, We Now govern in 2016.

00:36:38 Speaker 1

And here we are.

00:36:38 Speaker 1

Six years later with the wake of this and Trump is, and then

00:36:42 Speaker 1

still here and he is coming back.

00:36:43 Speaker 1

And what is going to ask, uh, eggs?

00:36:45 Speaker 1

I do have to ask, and I want to know before we before we wrap

00:36:48 Speaker 1

00:36:49 Speaker 1

to questions.

00:36:50 Speaker 1

Okay, it's

00:36:53 Speaker 1

you do it.

00:36:53 Speaker 1

You're there.

00:36:54 Speaker 1

You're on the ground.

00:36:55 Speaker 1

What are your politics?

00:36:57 Speaker 1

Like?

00:36:57 Speaker 1

Where do you stand?

00:36:58 Speaker 1

Are you coming at this?

00:36:59 Speaker 1

Are you like a die-hard?

00:37:00 Speaker 1

I'd leftist to protest your kind of guy who wanted to know.

00:37:03 Speaker 1

I'm a skier.

00:37:03 Speaker 1

You

00:37:04 Speaker 1

rode your dirty moderate.

00:37:05 Speaker 1

I don't know.

00:37:06 Speaker 1

I mean like I want to know because your passion and your

00:37:07 Speaker 1

such a you know, you're really an art, a fabulous artist, but

00:37:11 Speaker 1

I love the way you capture politics, but I want to know

00:37:14 Speaker 1

when I think you want to

00:37:15 Speaker 1

know your great filmmaker.

00:37:16 Speaker 1

What are your politics?

00:37:18 Speaker 1

I'm not.

00:37:18 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:37:18 Speaker 1

I'm a liberal Democrat.

00:37:20 Speaker 1

I grew up in the Midwest and you know is

00:37:23 Speaker 1

I'm used to

00:37:25 Speaker 1

being around people who have very different opinions.

00:37:29 Speaker 1

Ins than I do, you know, it was raised Christian and,

00:37:33 Speaker 1

you know, her real

00:37:35 Speaker 1

south,

00:37:35 Speaker 1

South

00:37:36 Speaker 1

West, Illinois.

00:37:37 Speaker 1

00:37:42 Speaker 1

the same time that we started.

00:37:43 Speaker 1

This process from 2008-2012

00:37:47 Speaker 1

II, made a film with my friends, David Wilson and

00:37:49 Speaker 1

Nature's Del a film called, we always lie to strangers,

00:37:53 Speaker 1

which is about the town of Branson, Missouri.

00:37:56 Speaker 1

And so, we spent a lot of time.

00:38:00 Speaker 1

Yes, it is.

00:38:01 Speaker 1

Yeah,

00:38:02 Speaker 1

and spend it.

00:38:03 Speaker 1

We spent a lot of time there and you know, I think to me one

00:38:06 Speaker 1

of the best things about getting to make these films is

00:38:10 Speaker 1

you know, you're really asking people to kind of let you in to

00:38:15 Speaker 1

their world.

00:38:16 Speaker 1

And so I think you have to

00:38:18 Speaker 1

try to be empathetic and open to views that are very

00:38:22 Speaker 1

different than your own.

00:38:23 Speaker 1

I think you know with with caucus part of our initial

00:38:26 Speaker 1

thinking was I was curious about the the Tea Party

00:38:29 Speaker 1

Movement.

00:38:29 Speaker 1

Movement

00:38:31 Speaker 1

and kind of thought maybe we would have more Focus around

00:38:34 Speaker 1

Michelle Bachman because she's just seemed to be

00:38:38 Speaker 1

you know, somebody who's getting a lot of that support

00:38:40 Speaker 1

and that attention.

00:38:41 Speaker 1

But really our first full day of spending time with her

00:38:46 Speaker 1

was noticing, she was showing up late

00:38:48 Speaker 1

to each

00:38:50 Speaker 1

of her

00:38:51 Speaker 1

appearances.

00:38:52 Speaker 1

And one of her first appearance is somebody said, you know, if

00:38:55 Speaker 1

you're late for the first appearance of the day, your

00:38:58 Speaker 1

whole day is going to be behind.

00:39:00 Speaker 1

And

00:39:00 Speaker 1

and that to me was like, that's

00:39:03 Speaker 1

that's interesting because this is less about, yes, it is about

00:39:08 Speaker 1

the issues and it is about the things that they're saying, but

00:39:12 Speaker 1

it's also about a bunch of people who may have run for

00:39:15 Speaker 1

Congress.

00:39:16 Speaker 1

They may have run for governor.

00:39:17 Speaker 1

They may have run for Senator successfully or unsuccessfully,

00:39:20 Speaker 1

but now they're going to do this thing, which is very

00:39:24 Speaker 1

different and we're going to see all of the foibles

00:39:28 Speaker 1

of human.

00:39:29 Speaker 1

Save Yer

00:39:30 Speaker 1

and and that's what was interesting to man.

00:39:33 Speaker 1

The rub to me.

00:39:34 Speaker 1

That's what you capture and I was going to say when you watch

00:39:37 Speaker 1

this and you see the transformation happening before

00:39:40 Speaker 1

your eyes.

00:39:41 Speaker 1

What I think is also.

00:39:42 Speaker 1

And that's why I want to know your politics, your your work

00:39:45 Speaker 1

betrays.

00:39:46 Speaker 1

No ideology to me.

00:39:47 Speaker 1

Meaning.

00:39:47 Speaker 1

I have no idea.

00:39:49 Speaker 1

It's not like you covered the Republicans with any contempt

00:39:52 Speaker 1

or Venom and it's not like you covered Bernie and Hillary

00:39:54 Speaker 1

certainly in the primaries film.

00:39:55 Speaker 1

I mean, with any

00:39:57 Speaker 1

any affection, you know, you let the camera And because our

00:40:01 Speaker 1

political system is unraveling and crashing and undergoing

00:40:04 Speaker 1

major transformation.

00:40:05 Speaker 1

You were able to capture that without Nest without me

00:40:07 Speaker 1

necessarily knowing the filmmaker.

00:40:10 Speaker 1

In your case is politics.

00:40:11 Speaker 1

I like that.

00:40:12 Speaker 1

I do because I really don't want to watch.

00:40:15 Speaker 1

I don't want to watch a hard right documentary of some, you

00:40:17 Speaker 1

know, hay geography of trump.

00:40:19 Speaker 1

Cultish thing, of course, or even, or even a, some kind of

00:40:22 Speaker 1

heavy pro-republican things.

00:40:23 Speaker 1

I'm an independent, but I really, I'm so sick.

00:40:26 Speaker 1

This is just me your lipstick.

00:40:27 Speaker 1

I don't want to watch some liberal propaganda of move.

00:40:29 Speaker 1

See, I just I just it's just not what I want to see and that

00:40:33 Speaker 1

you didn't do that.

00:40:34 Speaker 1

So I love that.

00:40:35 Speaker 1

It's real journalism.

00:40:36 Speaker 1

It's real document work.

00:40:38 Speaker 1

And also before we go, who's going to win the midterms, we

00:40:41 Speaker 1

got to be impressed

00:40:43 Speaker 1

going to be akka wave of deep Crimson or what?

00:40:46 Speaker 1

Yeah, probably, I mean, I think it's

00:40:49 Speaker 1

the funny thing is is we were on the ground, the midterms in

00:40:52 Speaker 1

2014 and

00:40:54 Speaker 1

here for the Democrats bad year and and I can't say that, you

00:40:58 Speaker 1

know, even though we were in, Iowa.

00:41:01 Speaker 1

It felt closer

00:41:03 Speaker 1

on the ground than it ended up being.

00:41:07 Speaker 1

And and similarly, you know, we covered the the senate race in

00:41:12 Speaker 1

North Carolina, Kay Hagan,

00:41:15 Speaker 1

losing her seat to taunt millets plus, right?

00:41:18 Speaker 1

Yeah, and and that you know, she had led.

00:41:21 Speaker 1

Okay.

00:41:21 Speaker 1

I liked her a lot.

00:41:22 Speaker 1

She had let up until like toward the end of that, that,

00:41:27 Speaker 1

that campaign.

00:41:28 Speaker 1

00:41:30 Speaker 1

Think things?

00:41:31 Speaker 1

Yeah, if they are where there are now

00:41:35 Speaker 1

then?

00:41:35 Speaker 1

Yeah, it's a pretty red

00:41:37 Speaker 1

year,

00:41:39 Speaker 1

but it's early still, you know, I think that that's the thing

00:41:42 Speaker 1

of, you know, if you would have asked me in

00:41:45 Speaker 1

late September of that year.

00:41:47 Speaker 1

I would have said K, probably hangs on because she had never

00:41:50 Speaker 1

really trailed

00:41:52 Speaker 1

and there was a possibility that

00:41:55 Speaker 1

that Joni wouldn't wouldn't win her race because I would have

00:41:58 Speaker 1

probably told you that Iowa likes.

00:42:00 Speaker 1

Having one of each have I made them a

00:42:02 Speaker 1

republican.

00:42:11 Speaker 1

Mike Dukakis,

00:42:17 Speaker 1

deep red and insane is just

00:42:20 Speaker 1

it's a huge cards in 2020 and it's Mike.

00:42:24 Speaker 1

I mean I went for Dukakis and eat the caucus 110 States.

00:42:27 Speaker 1

I mean, it's just an Iowa was one of them.

00:42:28 Speaker 1

Wow.

00:42:30 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:42:30 Speaker 1

No, I mean it

00:42:32 Speaker 1

the difference between 2012 which as you said, Obama went

00:42:35 Speaker 1

on and while yes, they are and just kind of being

00:42:38 Speaker 1

around and the energy and the state while we were filming the

00:42:41 Speaker 1

Republicans

00:42:42 Speaker 1

to 22

00:42:44 Speaker 1

years later

00:42:45 Speaker 1

in 2014.

00:42:46 Speaker 1

And every know we covered a house race and the senate race

00:42:49 Speaker 1

and

00:42:50 Speaker 1

in Iowa and the Republicans

00:42:52 Speaker 1

won both and you know, obviously they've held on to

00:42:54 Speaker 1

the governorship.

00:42:56 Speaker 1

It's it's a red State and

00:42:59 Speaker 1

yeah.

00:43:00 Speaker 1

Yeah, that's that's that's a lot different than it was 10

00:43:02 Speaker 1

years ago.

00:43:02 Speaker 1

When we were there doing caucus.

00:43:04 Speaker 1

Yeah.

00:43:04 Speaker 1

Well, our politics are calcifying into deep blue deep

00:43:07 Speaker 1

red.

00:43:08 Speaker 1

I don't like guy any of that.

00:43:09 Speaker 1

I certainly don't want them to be redder.

00:43:11 Speaker 1

That's for sure.

00:43:11 Speaker 1

And that's, that's a disappointment.

00:43:12 Speaker 1

Anyway, jaysh knock a filmmaker documentarian, Politico.

00:43:16 Speaker 1

I love this

00:43:18 Speaker 1

guy who brings.

00:43:19 Speaker 1

I think the best of filmmaking, best journalism together with

00:43:23 Speaker 1

an Eagle Eye for our political landscape.

00:43:26 Speaker 1

Yep, and our detail AJ.

00:43:27 Speaker 1

Thanks for being on the show.

00:43:29 Speaker 1

Thanks for having me.