‘Pod Save America’ Host Jon Lovett Knows What Democrats Need in This Moment—and It’s Child’s Play
Jon Lovett, host of Pod Save America and co-founder of Crooked Media, is done with “little bits of denial.” During an interview on this week’s episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, he lamented Democrats' failure to counter Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election; someone who “inspired and tried to lead an insurrection. He was a terrible president. He is manifestly unfit, and yet—we couldn’t convince enough people of that.”
Lovett attributed this to several factors: “Failures in the media, a lack of credibility on the part of Democrats, people’s dissatisfaction with inflation and Joe Biden leaving the bully pulpit empty for a year.”
Though arguing Democrats need to sit with the reality of their lot in this moment (and not avoid its implications), he added that “holding space” can only lasted so long. Here, Lovett pivoted to solutions, arguing that Democrats must meet Trump’s constant broadcasting with leaders who can do the same. “They need someone willing to be out there, in people’s faces, every single day, for hours at a time—taking every question, afraid of no one, worrying less about talking points or saying the wrong thing to Joe Rogan.”
Joanna Coles agreed, lamenting the lack of Democratic “counter-programming.” She recalled Hillary Clinton’s laughter when Trump quipped about renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” suggesting such moments could throw him off his game. Lovett, however, argued Democrats are distracted by inconsequential debates. “What matters? What affects people?” he asked. “What’s our goal? If Democrats got everything we wanted, what does that world look like?”
“This is the beauty,” he concluded. “We have shaken the Etch-a-Sketch. It’s everybody back to one. And so tell your story, make your case. And by the way, we don’t know what’s going to work!”
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