How To Really Run A City

Michael Smerconish: I know I’m gonna sound like the, the, old guy now, right? Get off my lawn.

But I look at like, we use Slack, okay, and, and these people who are younger, they go back and forth, back. I’m like: Pick up the fucking phone! Like nobody wants to speak to anybody, you know what I mean, much less take a meeting or go have a drink.

Larry Platt: You know, you’re absolutely right.

Kasim Reed: I had a sign on my door that said: If you want to change the people, change the people.

Platt: Is that right? Was that? That was the sign? Yeah. How did that go over?

Reed: I think it was what most people generally said, Yes.

Platt: I remember a clip. I think we might have played it, of you firing, was it the airport guy?

Reed. I fired the airport commissioner and the water and sewer commissioner in the same day,

Platt: But I think it took place on, like, live TV.

Reed: I didn’t fire them on live TV, but I mean, it was the sound. Mean, it was the same day they both needed to go though. I think the city is always improving and always evolving. And we had really talented people under them. And so … No. if you want to change the people, change the people.

Platt: I first became aware of Mayor Reed in, I forget what year it was. Thomas Friedman wrote a column in the New York Times about this young mayor who was embarking upon radical pension reform, and — correct me if I’m wrong here — bringing groups of city workers into his office with charts that showed what will happen (to your future)  if we do nothing to your future, and what will happen for your future if, in four years we make these, these, these changes.

Reed: Yeah. 

Platt: And in four years, reelected in a landslide, because it, it your, your vision became true. 

Reed: Yeah. Yep.

Platt:  But I love what stuck with me was that communication.

Kasim Reed: … of New York Times. So Tom Friedman came and we met. That was my first year in office, when we were doing pension reform, and we did the most sweeping pension reform in America. And folks said we wouldn’t, wouldn’t be able to do it. And we did it with a 15-0 vote, after an awful lot of work. I mean, the city was going to go bankrupt. We were going to be the next Detroit. And now, now we’re triple A.

Platt: You use that, that’s that old Rahm Emanuel line, right? You use that crisis as an opportunity.

Reed: Yeah, yeah, Rahm and I were actually mayors at the same time, and we were talking, and, you know, he was, he was taking on school reform, and I was doing pensions. So he was advising me to do school reform. And I said, that might work for you, but that work for a Black mayor of a major American city, that if you’re a Black mayor with a city that’s in bankruptcy, you’re, you know, your career is kind of over.

Platt: Laughs.

Reed: You have to do you have to get the finances right, was the point that I was making, in order to change the trajectory from being a typical Democrat city. I mean, our credit rating was a couple of levels above junk. By the time we got done, we were double-A plus from standard, Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch, just raised us to triple A.

Platt: Wow. And job growth in Atlanta, especially black job growth, is like off the charts.

Reed: Yeah. The state of Georgia’s now got the largest number of black millionaires in America. I believe that stat’s right.

Platt: Wow. All right, so let’s, let’s just dive in. I, we are honored to be with author, thought leader, media legend Sirius XM and CNN host Michael Smerconish, one of the smartest thinkers about politics, the media and culture in these trying times.

Smerconish: I should leave now. Leave now. Gets no better. It’s all downhill.

Platt: I have to be transparent with you and the mayors and Michael Nutter is five minutes out, a apparently, we’re good friends.

Smerconish: Yeah, we have been for years, for decades, right? I posed naked for you.

Now, Mayor Reed. Mayor Reed took interest in that.

Reed: I’m like: Yeah, we’re off to a great start. I’ve got three podcasts worth of material now.

Platt: Now we’ve got to give some context. When I was editor of the Philadelphia Magazine, I don’t even know how this came about, we did a big feature on Michael Smerconish, and the opening spread, so to speak, was literally him naked from behind.

Smerconish: Wasn’t my idea. Was your idea.

Platt: I seem to remember you were hankering to be shown.

Smerconish: Shown no, you wanted my wife to pose naked, and then you sent the photographer to the house when you were profiling me, and I, you know, I sort of called the bluffer. He called my bluff. Who the hell knows what? My kids, my kids were horrified, that I can tell you.

Reed: Tell you what, this episode is getting off to a roaring start. I don’t know what’s going on.

Nutter: What the hell kind of question is that, Larry?

Reed: And the friendship’s still intact.. 

Smerconish: I took it as a compliment. I took it as a compliment. What can I tell you …?

Platt: We were doing a health issue, and I thought, who’s healthier than Lavinia Smerconish? Right?

Nutter: So what’s that got to do with her naked? Show a bicep.

Platt:  Hey, I was also looking to sell magazines. Man, it was a different, different media era. So anyway, I will say fellas and welcome Mayor …

Nutter: And he’s still on TV?

Smerconish: You would think they would have found it by now. I mean, it’s not so hard to Google Smerconish’s ass, and you can find it, and now I’m proud of it. I mean, it is from the back, by the way, just so we’re clear, it is not frontal. But although I’ve offered if he wants to sell mags, now that he’s back in control, we can talk.

Platt: Yeah, I feel like, I feel like that ship has sailed on a number of levels. I should say that ship has sagged on a number of levels.

Reed: Damn.

Nutter: I’m with Mayor Reed. You know, I don’t even know what this episode is about. 

Reed: You gotta role with it. 

Nutter: We may not have anywhere to go.

Platt: Well, we had to get our friendship on the table. But I also, the reason I wanted, we have not talked about this, the media and the state of media on our podcast. We’ve done it in passing, but I don’t know anyone else who’s a better thinker about the state of media in America and who’s a more entrepreneurial, innovative thinker. You are your own brand. You built a brand.

Smerconish: I’m trying. 

Platt: Yeah. So talk to us about your take on the state of media and politics right now, and how that how they intersect to create the crap that we’re in.

Smerconish: Okay, I was, I was thinking in … Thank you for having me, and nice to meet Mayor Reed. I know Mayor Nutter. And I was thinking, in anticipation of this, that one of my favorite stops when I go to Atlanta is to stop at The Varsity on the way back to the airport, which I get, you know, hot dogs and a bunch of things I should not be eating, right?

But Mayor, when I was most recently at The Varsity, and this kind of sums up the answer to Larry’s question, there was a Fox room and there was an MSNBC room. I don’t even know if CNN had a room, but literally, there’s a television in different dining rooms.

Reed: Yes, CNN has one.

Smerconish: Does CNN have a room? Okay, thank God. I mean, I’d like to think of it as our town, but, but, doesn’t that kind of sum it up? Like, are you now going to take your hot dog and eat in the Fox room or the CNN room or the MS Now room? It’s crazy.

Platt: Yeah, that’s that’s really and you contrast that to like, when we’re roughly the same age, when we were growing up, it was Walter Cronkite. It was … Where we live, it was The Philadelphia Inquirer or the Evening Bulletin, right? We were all operating from the same set of facts.

Nutter: Jim Gardner, …

Smerconish: Jim Gardner, Larry Kane.

Platt: We were all operating for the same set of facts. That is no longer the case anywhere in America, I think, right.

Smerconish: And I had a front row seat for the whole progression of this, because I get it, because when, when Rush Limbaugh was syndicated, it made sense that he would have success, because conservatives didn’t feel like they had a home. It was pre satellite radio. It was pre cable television. Your choices were very limited, and they did skew left of center, so Limbaugh rolls out this red carpet for conservatives. Suddenly, stations all across the country, including where I was just getting started, here in Philly, they wanted to have Limbaugh and they wanted to have a stable of his imitators.

Then, Fox News comes online. They take a page out of that handbook. MSNBC struggles to find their voice. So too, CNN, but everyone has resorted [sic] into this very partisan corner, and unfortunately, today, you’ve got so much choice, but very few people seem to be exercising it. Whatever you want, you can find it, but I say you got to use that remote, man, mix up your media diet.

Platt: Well, I was, I was watching your CNN show after the Colbert issue. I love this guy, Talarico, by the way. I’m very impressed with him. But. So, he was scheduled to go on Colbert, 

Smerconish: Right. 

Platt: The FCC commissioner basically vetoes it …

Smerconish: Not really directly, but close.

Nutter: He uses the Equal Time Rule.

Platt: An Equal Time Rule that is sort of that has, has heretofore been, accept the exception on force, rarely …

Smerconish: Rarely, yeah, and not with regard to late night television, rarely for, enforced with it was all premised on scarcity like it made sense when your choices were so narrow that if Mayor Nutter is running for re-election, okay, we better bring in his opponent. But today, I don’t think you really need to do that.

Platt: That’s right, but your advice to the nation right was,

Smerconish: Use the remote. Mix it up. Don’t, don’t rely on government to do it. Do it yourself.

Platt: That’s exactly right. I thought that was exactly right. But I want to get get you guys in here and talk about your experience, about with the media, and how it’s changed, and how it’s changed our politics, even from the time that you you both were in office.

Reed: Well, I think it’s being hollowed out. I mean, in Atlanta, aside from The Varsity, a staple was The Atlanta Journal Constitution, which is owned by one of the wealthiest families in the United States, the Cox family, is no longer in print anymore. And that was always a very important value. But I think in January that last printed edition, the investigative departments, which were very tough on me, and I’m fine with that, are all gone. So you used to have a Dale Russell* and Richard Belcher. These are people that used to have time to do deep dives into stories. They’re all gone. So the press is functionally gutted. There’s no longer a paper on your porch. It’s digital. And I think that government is suffering. And then there has been a conservative effort to buy up local media across the United States, because local media still has credibility with folks. That’s what I’ve seen since I left off.

[*Dale Russell was a reporter for Atlanta’s Fox affiliate station.]

Nutter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were, I would say, pretty much the same. You can change the names, Larry, and Michael certainly know the kind of coverage in the 90s and the 2000s coming out of City Hall, coming out of North Broad Street, you know, where The Inquirer and the Daily News used to be, the amount of reporters … You had your day-to-day folks, and then there were always a couple names. They were the longer term people, right? And when they called your office, you’re like: Aw, shit, What does he want? What does she want?

So, you know, and I think to Michael’s point, now, there are so many choices and options and so few on the ground reporters, that they can’t keep up with all the things that are coming either, you know, out of City Hall or the State House, and, you know, D.C. is a whole, whole other story. But at the local level, I mean, they, they, they just, they don’t have enough players on the field.

You know, it’s like one team is playing with 11, and the other team is playing with five. You just can’t cover you can’t cover everybody. Somebody’s always going to be open. Somebody’s up to something. At the end of the day, I think the public loses.

Smerconish: Can I? Can I add to that, that the public loses, not only from the watchdog loss, and I have to, I have to add to what the mayors just said. Because in a prior life, in the first Bush administration, I was a regional administrator for HUD, and I had responsibility for public housing in five states, including …

 Platt: I remember you moved into public housing.

Smerconish: True, that didn’t go over so well, but I, but I did do it. But here’s the point to Mayor nutter’s point. There was a guy named Matt Purdy at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Do you know what his full-time gig was, covering housing, covering public housing. Like the idea that, and today he’s at the New York Times in like the two or three position, so I completely understand what Mayor Nutter is saying, but, but to Mayor Reed’s point about the hollowing out, then the media gets nationalized.

Forget the big city mayors on a local level, like I grew up in the burbs, you know, there aren’t suburban newspapers anymore. And so consequently, people now look nationally, and everything becomes far right and far left, which is a shame.

Platt: That’s right, and where you can really have impact is in your backyard. And one of the reasons everyone feels so helpless and hopeless is because they’re blinded by the national debate and national discourse, which is so frustrating. If you focused on the local, you could actually do something. It’s this real interesting conundrum.

Nutter: Larry, so, Michael brought it up first, but actually I wanted to, I’m taking style points from, from Mayor Reed. This is the kind of question, he would, he would ask.

[laughter]

Nutter: Tell us …

Smerconish: What did I get myself into here?

Platt: A comedy show.

Nutter: Tell us about your transition. You know you were at HUD. I think Jack Kemp …

Smerconish: Yeah, was my boss.

Nutter: … was the HUD secretary. So when I was thinking about being with you today, I said, you know, Michael Smerconish is like a, it’s like a Kemp Republican, which immediately disqualifies him from the current state of affairs.

He can’t be MAGA. He’s in the media, so he can’t technically be anything. But Michael, how did, and Larry started out talking about, you created a brand so, like, seriously, in the classic Mayor Reed style, walk us through: How did you move from government into media to this branding to now this, you know, kind of mega-person/ What was that? What was that process?

Smerconish: Okay, so it’s a long story, and not an all that interesting story, but the short version is, I had unique political experiences. I had the bug when I was, when I was, young. My dad, who was a high school teacher turned guidance counselor, ran for the state legislature in a Republican primary in my senior year of high school, and lost. And I got all wrapped up in his campaign. I mean, I remember handing out rulers with our very long name on them at a local Acme. And I was …

Nutter: You would need a long ruler for that.

Smerconish: Exactly. And I was just totally, you know, like, taken with it and worked my way in different Republican political campaigns. Something fortuitous happened to me with papa Bush, and I ended up doing advance work for him while he was still in college. And all the while I was pursuing my education and became a lawyer, the politics interested me and the local Philly outlets then came to me for sound bites, including on election night. And the ego of it consumed me. That’s the honest answer, and I hoped that I had a skill set for it. And all the while that I was going to law school and trying to establish a career, the media bug was kind of gnawing at me.

And when I had the opportunity to reverse careers and stop practicing law, I had a good thing going. And I was with Jim Beasley. He was a trial lawyer of, you know, great reputation in Philly, but I made that move, and I never looked back. And so consequently, for 30 years now, I’ve watched all the changes that have taken place in the business, most of them not for good.

Platt: But you’ve also maintained or built yourself this, I think The Washington Post called you, the “betting his career, that there’s a great untapped center in American politics.” And JP, do we have the theme song, the Smerconish theme song? It’s, it’s called, “Stuck in the Middle With You.” And how did you become the center guy in, in, in media today?

Smerconish: Well, the break point for me was 2008. I had been a Republican my entire life. I’d voted for plenty of Democrats, but I’d always voted Republican at the top of the ticket, and then I became so disenchanted with the Bush administration — W. — for their inability to go kill bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, and this junior Senator from Illinois came on my radio program, even though I was on a right of center station, and my politics at the time much more conservative than they were liberal, and established this rapport with Senator Obama. 

And it got to the point where, and largely predicated on him saying — this is kind of interesting in retrospect, that he would — if necessary, he’d even go into Pakistan to get bin Laden.

Reed: He would kill him. I remember that.

Smerconish: In Pakistan,  though, and he was ridiculed by Hillary Clinton and by Joe Biden and by John McCain for saying that. So now I decide I’m going to cast a ballot for Obama in ’08. Am I going to tell my audience this, because they’re going to go batshit? But I’m not going to tell them what they should do, but I feel like I’m being dishonest if I don’t tell them, here’s what I’m about to do. So I did and I published it as well, so there’d be a written record of it. And people went crazy, and it was just sort of a break point and wake up call for me to stop reading off the consistent hymnal.

Platt: Boy, that’s really interesting.

Reed: How do you feel about that vote today?

Smerconish: Oh my God, I feel great about it. I sleep well about it. And everybody who gave me such hell then, and so many in my own personal space, you know, expressing their disappointment with me. And it was really a brutal time. It was really just a very, very professionally difficult time for me. But I feel great about not only that, but how I voted in 2012 too. I felt a little .. the only thing that hurt me was I knew John McCain. I had hosted him. He would come to Philly for the Army-Navy, the Army-Navy game, and every year he’d come and do my show, and I’d do live events with him. I just thought he was a very decent and honorable guy. But I’d had enough …

Platt: And you had enough of what?

Smerconish: I’d had enough of, just the doc- … the increasingly doctrinaire view, and I also felt led astray, because now it’s, it’s ’08, and we haven’t gotten those who were responsible for September 11. Instead, we took a left turn and we went into Iraq. And I just that was, that was the whole part. It was foreign policy. Why did I vote for Barack Obama? It was foreign policy.

And then the whole Tea Party thing with its undertones, and I thought, okay, good riddance.

So I haven’t become a Democrat. I have no interest in becoming a Democrat. You know, I’m an independent, or whatever we call it in Pennsylvania, and I feel very comfortable there. I wish I’d done it sooner.

Platt: Wish you’d done …

Smerconish: I wish I’d changed my registration and, and, and had made that break at an earlier point.

Platt: Interesting, but it may have taken someone like Obama to … I think there were a lot. I believe I could be wrong about the stat, but I believe that 13 percent of Trump voters voted for Obama, which, is a fascinating …

Nutter: Yeah. I wanted to get into that myself. And Michael, if you have some perspective on this, I mean, so many, many years later. And it’s interesting, you know, it was often used as a, I’m a good person, kind of validation. You’d have … White men in particular. You know, I’m, I’m not racist. I voted for Barack Obama two times, and then voted for Donald Trump. And I’ve just never been able to — what do you call it? — I’ve just never been able to square that circle. Some perspective on that. I mean, how do you go? How do you go two times …

Smerconish: Well, that doesn’t describe me. Let me, let me, let me just make let me just make that clear. That doesn’t describe me, but I understand that. I think there were a lot of people who were looking to get their own ticket punched. For me, I was again, I told you … the ego of the business that I’m in was a large part of the reason that attracted me to it. It’s just the fact.

And once I had established roots in Philadelphia and did well in morning drive, which is where all the action is. Now, I wanted to be, I wanted to be syndicated. And I was on the cusp of syndication right when that ’08 campaign came up. So in my case, and the Mayor’s not saying that I was looking at it that way. And I get that.

But I do want to make this point that it was against my professional interests … One short, quick, indulge me one more story, guys, because this is, this is worth it. So now it’s 2012 and it’s Romney and Obama, and I am, I am invited in to do half-hour long, one-on-one, Oval Office interview with President Obama a week before the election, and it was right before that storm hit, where Chris Christie gave him the hug like just to place you in the time …

Platt: Sandy.

Smerconish: In the time period. OK. Sandy. What I remember is now I am syndicated, and I see a sales memo that goes out from the syndicator saying, Hey, we regret to inform you that Michael’s decided to go into the Oval Office and interview the president for a half hour. They were scared to death that the affiliates were going to abandon my program because I was now going to go be courteous to the President of the United States. That’s how crazy the business has been.

Platt: Wow, wow.

Smerconish: I have that memo. You know me.

Platt: And you think back to 2012 as more normal than now.

Smerconish: Now, yeah, for sure.

Platt: Which is that’s, that’s just a really interesting trajectory of how we’ve gotten here.

Reed: 2012 was a terrific presidential battle. I mean, Michael and I lived through the night that Mitt Romney dominated President Obama in the first debate.

Nutter: First debate.

Platt: Kicked his ass.

Reed: You want to talk about a total whirlwind. I did, I did Pierce Morgan. I was directed to do Pierce Morgan. I had been doing a ton of Meet The Press, and I got rolled out to do Pierce Morgan after that debate, because we were in free fall.

I mean, I remember the calls where they were sending everybody everywhere because President Obama just had ring rust. He hadn’t been touched in four years. He hadn’t been questioned in four years, not in a serious way. And then he goes in and Mitt Romney just smokes him.

And after the debate, he didn’t think he had done that badly.

Nutter: [Laughs.] Right?

Reed: And Michael, I remember, the only way that we could get through was to compare him to Muhammad Ali …

Nutter: Yeah.

Reed: Which is what we did in all of the press. So the only way that you could acknowledge that we have not prevailed, we’ll be able to get in the White House, was to frame it as Muhammad Ali losing to Joe Frazier in the first fight.

So that was something psychologically that he was comfortable with being compared to Muhammad Ali, which just shows you how you have to navigate and deal, you know, deal with a candidate. But I love the 2012 campaign. I actually think it meant more to President Obama. In fact, he said it, than the ’08 campaign, because if we hadn’t won in ’12, it was a fluke.

Platt: Michael, I wanted to get your … you mentioned that you’re an independent and you’re also not just an objective journalist. You’re also kind of an activist. You have sued the state of Pennsylvania.

Smerconish: That is true. It is pending now.

Platt: So give us the background of this, of this wild-eyed activism.

Smerconish: So it’s not as nutty as it sounds, but I’m a non, nonpartisan affiliate. I guess we call them. I’m an independent in Pennsylvania. We call it something different. You can’t just register as an independent.

There are 1.4 million of us. We comprise 16 percent of the, the electorate, and we don’t get to vote in primaries. And yet, we’re, you know, to take that Ronald Reagan line from the ’80 campaign, “I paid for this podium, Mr. Green,” or whatever the hell the line was. And we are the largest growing area of the electorate, both nationally and in the Commonwealth. Forty-five percent according to Gallup, say they’re an independent nationally; 27 percent say they’re a D; 27 percent say they’re an R. We want to vote in primaries.

And I know you’re going to say to me, Well, why don’t you go join one of the parties? I don’t want to join one of the parties. Why should I have to in my case? That would, I think, jeopardize my profession? Now I’m going to be identified as an R or a D when I’m not one.

Platt: So where does this case stand?

Smerconish: So we attempted to go directly to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and we were unsuccessful. A king’s bench petition was filed that would have spared us going to the Commonwealth Court and work our way up the ladder. So okay, we went back to the front of the line. The case is pending right now, and you know, Mayor Nutter probably knows, and maybe, you know, there have been talks in Pennsylvania about the legislature doing this, which would be a nice, much cleaner way to make it happen. But when we didn’t see resolution, we decided: Let’s force it and take it to court.

Platt: I love that. I love that you did that, and I’m also, you know, it makes total … Why not let people vote? We have this closed primary system. Do you have a view on that Mayor Nutter? I don’t know how it is in Georgia.

Reed: No. I’m not for that.

Nutter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that might be, maybe it’s a generational thing, although Michael’s, I think, it’s around the same age as this, but. Yeah, I’ve never really been for that. And Michael, I heard your argument. You know, you’re obviously in a particular situation, but you know this, sometimes you do, you got to pick. They’re not interchangeable.

And you know, we’ve had, you know, I’ve seen campaigns. I mean, it’s an interesting tactic where, you know, one party will try to recruit the other party to switch during the course of, you know, for a primary, to help someone, or to hurt someone, in some instances. But, yeah, I’m not for the free-for-all, vote wherever you want, do whatever you want, kind of thing. I think this is, it’s of a nature that like you got to pick, you got to pick one.

Reed: I am in favor of folks. If folks want to go and build an independent party, have at it. I mean, I think we’re moving to a point in the United States of America where independent party for all of the challenges that both Democrats and Republicans put in front of it, will form. And I’m favor for competing independents, Democrats and Republicans. But allowing an independent to wake up and just pick between Democrats and Republicans, that, I’m not for that.

Platt: Does that come from a, a self-interested partisan view, or do you think it’s better for the country to have these, this or some combination thereof?

Reed: Yeah, I think it comes from both. I think it comes from a person that’s had their name on the ballot an awful lot of times, wanting to be able to understand the electorate and the people that I’m for. I think you choose parties by, by, by the individual or group of folks that you most agree with at the moment of the election. And so I would not be in favor of having folks get in my primary, influence my primary and primary results, who don’t have motives that I believe are as good as Michael.

Nutter: I have to agree.

Platt: So that’s, that’s it. That’s interesting, because I think one of the problems with this moment is our obsession with team colors.

Smerconish: Yeah.

Platt: I think you and I agree on that. So I think we’re, we’re, we need a, we need a tiebreaker here, because we have an even number of folks here. I get what you’re saying, but I do feel like we’re, we’re, we’re contributing to the polarization by not opening up the process.

Smerconish: My premise is, I want more people voting, because I think we water down the fringe on both ends. And too much fringe. So often, you’ve got the weakest candidates for a general election who get nominated, and then all of a sudden they’ve got to do battle. And you mentioned Talarico, and I think this is a great example of I think he’s a stronger general election candidate than Jasmine Crockett. We went through it here in Pennsylvania, you know, a couple of years ago, in our, in our Senate race, I looked at Conor Lamb and I thought, this is a, this is a guy who, who could be unbeatable in a general election, but he couldn’t survive a primary.

Platt: So I had that same thought, but is that? Is that the product of two guys, middle-aged, suburban, White guys?

Smerconish: Could be, yeah, could be. But I feel it nationally. I mean, again, the largest growing area are people who are done with both parties. And I’m for, I’m for change.

Platt: “I’m for change” is the, is the for me, and I think, I think we see this in our recent history.

Nutter: I think the parties have to do a better job of developing and recruiting strong candidates, you know? I mean, what about that?

Reed: But, I mean, I think getting your ass kicked does, does something to you, and if, as a party, you keep getting your ass kicked, and you don’t change your candidates, then you just keep getting your ass kicked. I also, also don’t think it’s a bad thing for us to not agree. I think that’s a great thing about podcasts to actually have to take your thought out and explain why you’re where you are. I think that this is a totally appropriate forum.

Nutter: Yeah.

Platt: Yeah, no. I love it, and I also feel like …

Nutter: And nobody called each other name and didn’t talk about your mama … It’s a san conversation.

Platt: Michael, you said “I’m for change,” and I do feel like since the ’08 election, that’s all we’ve had, is The electorate saying to us in the media and us in the professional political class: We want change.

Smerconish: Trump was a manifestation of that.

Platt: Trump and Obama was, I mean, I feel like like, and that’s and that’s where I feel like candidates like Josh Shapiro, who’s immensely talented, but if he is still from central casting, he’s not going to, he’s not going to play to that change, uh, mandate that we’re still seeing out there.

Smerconish: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that the forces that gave rise to Trump’s election are still going to be with us when he’s no longer the president. Whether somebody else can marshal all that? I don’t know.

Platt: Guys, what do you, what do you make of that?

Reed: I still think it’s the candidate, stupid.

Plat: It’s the candidate, stupid.

Reed; It’s who you put up. Donald Trump was a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. You say whatever you want. Everybody knows how I feel about it, but in raw politics, he was better than Hillary Clinton was. Barack Obama was better than everybody. And Michael’s opening comments about President Obama being on his, on his show, having the political savvy and skill at that age to take risk, because everywhere he went, he would tell you: I don’t have to win a rural district. I just got to not get beat 95-5. I just got to be beaten 85-15. And maybe when he was on Michael show, instead of getting beat 90-10 somewhere, he gets beat 78-22, and those small amount of votes across all of the precincts in the United States is exactly how he won in ’08. He dominated in ’12. And so I think that our challenge really has to be the candidate that we put up.

I think Biden was the perfect candidate in ’20 when he was still physically capable of running the vigor.

Nutter: 2020.

Reed: Yeah. I think it was malpractice in 2024 to bring Joe Biden to Atlanta and have him do five events and put him on TV, and everybody who was involved in that should have been fired the next morning. That man should have been in a hotel asleep.

Nutter and Platt: [Laugh.]

Reed: Everybody on here does politics for real. That’s why people tune in to the podcast, because they want to hear somebody that’s been in the trenches in a ditch.

Nutter: Yes, yes, yes.

Reed: They want to hear they want to hear somebody that’s had their name on the ballot or been in real situations. It’s the quality of who you going to, you put up your best. Is this your king? Is this your king? That’s what both parties do. They love Mitt Romney because of his hair, the way he looked and he was rich, is the truth. That’s how he won.

Platt: So that would have …

Reed: They gave Obama everything he can handle. Anybody who knows anything about the Obama reelection knows the person they feared the most was John Thune. They freaked out over them putting up John Thune because of the way he looked and he was modeling. He comes off as kind. He was a good match to Obama’s, you know, energy and charisma. And we got to get back to picking who can win.

Nutter: Well, this goes back to, but it goes back to ’20, It goes back to 2020, and I’d actually like to try to double back even on 2016. But everybody understood, at least on a D side and maybe some other sides: Once the truncated primary got truncated, and it all kind of collapsed, going into the pandemic, and everybody dropped out, pretty much was done after both Super Tuesday and South Carolina. The general consensus was Vice President Biden, not only can win, but will be the bridge to the future.

And you can’t say it publicly — but everyone understood privately — this is a one term thing.

Reed: That’s right.

Nutter: Back to Mayor Reed, because we want to win. This guy can take Trump out, and he did it.

Reed: And he did.

Nutter: The next campaign should have started in 2022 with an understanding that there will be a full-on eight people, 15 — however many people you can fit on a stage in a full-on Democratic primary in 2024 — not 107 days at the tail end of, you know, the most painful public process.

Reed: But imagine this, guys. There was a group of people who did an analysis of Hillary Clinton losing, right? She looked … I believe she lost because she took, she let that incident involving the Attorney General take Bill Clinton off the field. I never would have done that.

Platt: Loretta Lynch when she … on the plane?

Reed: Yeah. They send Bill Clinton to Siberia. After that, they disappeared the guy. Nobody would have gotten me to take Bill Clinton off the field. She loses, and then 54 percent of White women don’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

Nutter: Right.

Reed: Just just check out this analysis that these folks did, and they said, We’re going with Kamala. Now, if 54 percent of White women didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, where do you come up with the math if they’re gonna vote for Kamala Harris?

Nutter: Late.

Reed: I’m just talking about when the, when the United States is on the line, right, which is how I view the Trump presidency because of his threat to the NATO alliance, right? So I view our global positioning in the world. He is reshaping the strategic framework and world order between him and his Secretary of State, right? And that’s the decision we made.

Smerconish: Can I just say in follow up to something that Mayor Nutter said relative to and people knew this was like a one-term thing: I was going to say, but Joe Biden never got that memo right. And imagine … I feel sorry for him, because imagine the old Kenny Rogers, Know to hold them and fold them? If he knew it’s a one-term thing, and gracefully decided to get out, allow a primary or not, you know, endorse Kamala, whatever. But imagine how different it would be today and how people would look at his legacy.

Platt: And his presidency would be seen as like when you look at it legislatively, he got a ton of bipartisan stuff done. And now it’s all gone.

Smerconish: Now nobody remembers that.

Nutter: That’s because no one wants to have the tough conversation. 

Reed: Tip of the hat to our podcast, which we said when the whole kerfuffle happened, he shouldn’t have left with 107 days without the ability to have the party go through an appropriate process and pick a new leader. All of this conversation, I think, is very important as Democrats approach the 2028 process …

Nutter: Lack of discipline …

Reed: … which is wondering why we’re having this conversation with this vigor.

Platt: By the way, I never thought of this before, but you reminded me, Mayor Reed, that when you said that Hillary took Bill off the, off the table. Al Gore did the same thing in, in 2000 because of the intern scandal.

Smerconish: Because of the intern scandal. 

Platt: Yeah, for sure. So twice, I think the greatest political actor of my lifetime was, was sidelined by, by his own party. I never thought of it before, but it’s sort of malpractice, politically. Although I understand the reasoning behind it and so forth. But turns out that reasoning wasn’t right. I mean, I think, I think he still could have made a difference. That’s fascinating.

Reed: Republicans would never have taken a weapon like Bill Clinton off of the table, Never, not in a million years. The guy is, the guy is, as talented a human being in politics, and Michael Nutter and I were involved in Secretary Clinton’s campaign. You knew you were going to lose when you walked into the campaign headquarters.

Platt: Why is that?

Nutter: It was rough.

Reed: The energy was terrible. They were rationing out Coca Cola is …

[Laughs]

Nutter: Which you know is a mortal sin with, with Kasim Reed.

Reed: Michael Nutter, they charged people to get a Coke. Do you understand me? They had a pay Coke machine. Are you serious?

Nutter. Right. National campaign.

Platt: And to you, that’s a sign of something’s wrong with this campaign.

Reed: Yes, yeah, and the mood in the campaign headquarters was a tomb.

Nutter: Yeah, yeah. And there was a disconnect between the campaign operation and the streets. This is when we did that was the whole Mayor Reed, do you remember? That that was, that was the era of analytics. We’re going to analyze our way to victory. And I like data as much as the next person, but I like being in the street, right? When I, when I was, when I was running first, first time, you know, Neil Oxman was my, did our political stuff.

Platt: Neil Oxman a famous political consultant who, had he done a presidential … would be as as much of a media darling as James Carville.

Smerconish: And did the commercial with Michael’s daughter. That was, that was the commercial.

Reed: That was that I hired my firm.

Platt: Was, that’s right, you hired the same firm.

Nutter: That’s right.

Reed. It was wonderful.

Nutter: So I’m sitting there in fifth place on my thing. I’m going to candidates, candidate forums almost every night. And, you know, slugging it out with these guys and the whole thing. And at some point I go to Neil and I say, You know? and no one was paying any attention to me, because no one thought that I could win, right?

So Congressman Brady, he’s fighting with Tom Knox and Dwight (Evans) and Chaka (Fattah) would mix it up every now and then and then, and then it was me. So finally, one day, I said, you know, I think I need to, I think I need to start mixing it up with these guys. I need to get in the fray. And he said, Well, why would you do that? How’s it going at these forums? I said, Oh no, I think we’re pretty much winning. He said, Well, why would you do anything different? Did anybody give you a snake eye when you were at the transit stop the other day? I said, No, everybody’s been very nice. He said, So keep doing what you’re doing. You don’t need to fight with these people.

Platt: Interesting. So. Was like: You act like the front runner, and you become the front runner … swagger.

Nutter: That’s a little bit of it. We would put on a press release at every one of the major forums? The press secretary who had one of these portable printers. Right after the, right after the forum, we would hand out to all the press “Nutter wins again” The thing’s been over two minutes. “Mike Nutter wins the forum him tonight.” Just creating our own momentum.

Reed: Yeah, I was so far behind they didn’t even show my face when they would mention the mayor’s race. You know how they show the pictures? They wouldn’t even put mine up. They were just like, put a little name …

Platt: Well that’s what I love about both these guys were, like, last in the polls in their initial runs for, for, for mayor. I do think that builds character.

Nutter: It builds something.

Platt: I do think that, like, that’s a you get, you get tested. 

Before we close. I want to come back to this issue of Michael’s media activism. Can you share with these guys? Because I think you have the answer. I hate to give him more credit because of that big head of his. But I think you have the answer.

Nutter: Larry: Your heads are the same size. Two bald White guys.

Platt: I mean, we’re like the Hair Club for Men — the Hair Club for Growth.

Nutter: How many barbers you putting out of business?

Platt: I think this Mingle Project that you’ve devised, is the answer for America. Can you explain what it is and the genesis of it?

Smerconish: Yeah, it’s shorthand for me trying to explain what I think most ails the country. And the short version is lack of common experience that, fueled by technology, we’ve just all self sorted gone into our respective corners. The Internet makes it easier to find people with whom you have some particular interest. You know, it could be an obscure hobby, or it could be politics, and it also enables you to stay away from people who don’t have your mindset.

So it’s, it’s kind of a crusade of sorts that I’m on to say: Maybe it’s the JCs, maybe it’s the Urban League, maybe it’s the Knights of Columbus, maybe it’s that local newspaper, the kind that has the honor roll and the pictures and the obituaries, but somehow, everybody’s got to find their way … volunteerism? You know, the King Day of Service that we have in Philly with our buddy Todd Bernstein?

People need to find a way to be connected in the community. My parents were joiners. You know, my dad refereed high school and college football in the fall, and that was a way that he gave back. And he was in the Rotary Club, and he was a Mason. And my mom was a part of a group of women that raised money for a local hospital. Mom was in a bridge club. Dad was in a poker club. They were both in the Moose Lodge.

Platt: Wow.

Smerconish: And like that kind of connection is, I think, what’s most lacking, especially with young people. So, I’m not here to prescribe what you should do. It has to find your own level, but find a way that you can be plugged in and meet people who aren’t like you.

Platt: And what you’re doing is having these meetups.

Smerconish: Well, Larry, I deserve no credit for that. Like this is a part of the pitch that I make on radio and television, any chance I get, and I interview guests solely about this, like, Mingle idea. But listeners of mine then took it upon themselves to organize Mingle meetups. And there are, I think, 40-plus of them, all across the country. I’ve attended some just as like a surprise guest.

And it’s kind of funny, because sometimes I walk in, it’s a small group, maybe 20 people, and they have no idea who I am, except for the organizer, because they heard about in social media that there’s a get-together. And it takes on, like a whole dating kind … I don’t care, as long as you’re getting out of the house and meeting people you would otherwise not meet. I’m cool with it.

Platt: That is awesome. Guys. Do you have thoughts on that?

Reed: I think, I think it is a very strong remedy for what we’re going through. The bottom line is connection, yeah, but I do think people need forums. You know what Michael is doing, he’s not just saying connection. And so to the extent that Mingle gives people a view, you know, in Atlanta, they have this thing called Go Say Hello. And so Go Say Hello is this app that shows when you have similar interests, but it will actually show you if you’re near someone. You’re in a restaurant and another person is a part of Go Say Hello, it lets you know whether they feel like talking. And it was something that came up …

Smerconish: I love that. I hadn’t heard of that, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Reed: Yeah, so and you have to ask for permission, but you wave, and if the other person clicks and waves back, it shows, hey, you’re in the same room. So I am on board with connectivity.

Nutter: Yeah, I’m not saying that everything was perfect and sunshine and rainbows before the pandemic, but I think we continue to suffer the deficiencies and the impact of the pandemic still to this day, and the and the bonds and the ties that were broken during that time, many of them have not reconnected, have not healed. And people are trying to literally — and both of you are saying it — trying to find their way, like, where, you know, where’s my crew? Where are my people? Where are my people, right?

Reed: Right.

Smerconish: Everything, everything that we used to do in the company of others, we now do at home, you know? And by the way, when we’re at home, maybe we all now have a flat screen, but we’re not even watching the same TV shows anymore.

Platt: Right. Right.

Smerconish: Now, somebody recommends a TV show to you, and you’ve never even heard of it, even if you’re paying for the streamer on which it’s being carried. And it used to be, you’d go to work the next day and have something to bullshit about. Only now people aren’t going to work! So consequently, they’re not being mentored. They’re not going to happy hour; they’re not going to lunch. You know that, that whole part of the work experience to bring this all back to where we started?

Platt: You’re absolutely right. This is … I regret that these guys were in Philly in November, and we had this amazing dinner. I want to invite Michael to our next dinner, just to just for shits and giggles, because I think, I think, it would be great. We went to Borromini and Mayor Reed …

Smerconish: I can’t get in there, so please do invite me. I can’t get into the place. So please ask me.

[Laughs]

Nutter: Give me a call, Mike, I’d be glad to help.

Platt:  Thank you so much. This has been awesome, and thank you guys. So much fun with Michael Smerconish.

Smerconish: Can I, can I plug the Mingle project that I made reference to? I delivered a full-on presentation for an hour, and we put it online, and people are enjoying it. So if it sparks any curiosity, it’s very easily found, and I lay it all out with data like it’s very data driven. I tell a lot of stories, and hopefully there are a couple of laughs, but I tell the story through data about the impact of lack of connection with our kids and with and with our seniors. I mean, with all of us, frankly.

So please watch it.

Platt: So we’re going to link to it, and maybe, and maybe we can also run it on our platform as well as thank you.

Nutter: Do you have one coming up in Philly anytime soon?

Smerconish: I do not in Philly, but I, but I’ll figure out a way that I can make all the data accessible to you, because you, I think, Mayor, you’d really love it. I think you really would. 

Reed: Where do we find it, Michael?

Smerconish: All you’ve got to do is Google Smerconish and Mingle project. I know that’s a mouthful, but, you …

Platt: Don’t google Smerconish naked.

Smerconish: You could Google that too.

Platt: Save yourself.

Nutter: You know, some things you can’t unsee. I like Michael the way he is, and I just, I don’t want any of that interfering.

Platt: This is awesome. Thank you all so much. I love all you guys. See you.

All: Thanks, man. Thank you.