Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd and this is the Chuck Todd cast believe it or not 25 years ago.

A democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed what was called the Defense of Marriage Act.

It was a law that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions.

Well, believe it or not, today that looks obviously bizarre in hindsight, but today marriage

equality is the law of the land and it all happened without the help of Congress.

So how did that happen?

And where did the politics of equality go from here?

So joining me today to discuss this is Sasha Eisenberg, he's the author of the engagement.

America's quarter century struggle over same-sex marriage, Sasha.

Welcome to the Todd cast and as we were discussing before, you know, when I think Sasha

Eisenberg, I think the political, you know, the sort of the data historian, you sort of

moved political reporting and really helped surface the world of how political strategy

was changing, how the use of polling, microtargeting, all of those things.

So when I saw this book that you're writing, I was thinking, all right, how did he get here?

You have an interesting explanation.

So how did you get here?

Yeah, so, you know, I was writing this book, The Victory Lab, and it started about a decade

ago.

And I kept on having conversations with pollsters or people who were measuring opinions

so that they had never seen attitudes on a single issue the way that they were moving

on marriage, all in one direction.

People were becoming more liberal and favor same-sex marriage.

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