91: The Last Line of Defense with Matt Bennett
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2021
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Host Reed Galen is joined by Matt Bennett, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President for Public Affairs at Third Way, as well as Co-Founder of Shield PAC. They discuss their views on the 2022 election, the types of candidates Shield PAC supports/defends, and the foreseeable concerns for the pro-democracy coalition in the next year. Plus, how can the Biden Administration better execute their infrastructure rollout?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reed Gill. Today, I'm joined by Matt Bennett, |
| 0:14.0 | co-founder and executive vice president for Public Affairs in Third Way, |
| 0:17.8 | a national think tank that champions modern center left ideas. He's also a co-founder of |
| 0:22.5 | Shield Pet, a group dedicated to defending moderate Democratic members of Congress in 2022. |
| 0:28.0 | Prior to his time at Third Way in Shield Pet, Matt worked on a variety of campaigns, |
| 0:31.9 | including the presidential efforts of Michael Ducakis and Bill Clinton, |
| 0:35.6 | and also worked at the Clinton White House as deputy assistant to the president for intergovernmental |
| 0:39.5 | affairs. Matt has a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from |
| 0:43.9 | University of Virginia Law School, which makes him far more credentialed that I could ever hope to be. |
| 0:48.7 | Matt, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So, I want to talk to you today about your |
| 0:53.6 | broad view of 2022. The types of candidates that you all at Shield Packer are looking to support and |
| 0:59.2 | defend, as well as some of what you see as sort of the assets in your arsenal and concerns that |
| 1:03.7 | you foresee. But first, I just want to say that like we're both former advanced guys. You know, |
| 1:08.8 | you go back to Ducakis and Clinton and even beyond that. But with what I've seen in the wake |
| 1:14.8 | of the infrastructure bill, you know, if this had been president George W. Bush for whom I was in |
| 1:19.8 | advanced guy, admittedly this was pre-COVID, there would have been wall to wall travel to every |
| 1:25.6 | fricking state, county district you could imagine. Is it just that there's a difference with COVID? |
| 1:32.0 | Is it that this White House doesn't operate that way? What's your sense of sort of the public |
| 1:36.8 | facing piece of this White House? We don't really know how this White House operates in normal times |
| 1:43.3 | because it's never been normal times. And it is possible that the president might have been |
| 1:47.4 | out there doing bigger events with bigger crowds had they're not in COVID. On the other hand, |
| 1:52.6 | he's got a lot to do. He's still trying to pass bill back better. He's juggling a lot of other |
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