Rethinking the Democratic Playbook | Interview: Jim Kessler

The Dispatch Podcast

The Dispatch

Politics, News

4.4 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jim Kessler, the executive vice president for policy at the Third Way think tank, joins Jamie Weinstein to discuss the failures of the Biden administration, where Democrats could gain ground, and whether Donald Trump will lose his mojo. The Agenda: —What is Third Way? (00:00) —Did the Democrats botch the government funding fight? (1:48) —Where Trump could lose his mojo (5:00) —Dealing with defeat and Trump’s first few months (7:00) —Democrats are out of touch (15:30) —Transgender issues and winning common-sense battles (19:00) —Israel, education, and young voters (28:00) —Should Joe Biden have stayed in the race? (36:30) The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and regular livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:28.3	Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is Jim Kessler. He's
0:34.4	executive vice president for Third Way, which he helped found in 2005.
0:39.7	It's a center-left think take. Before working for Third Way, he, among other things, was the legislative and policy director for Senator Chuck Schumer.
0:50.3	Thirdway recently had a retreat with a lot of Democratic legislators to see what they
0:56.6	need to do to get back into the victory column in elections.
1:16.4	Jim Jim Kessler, welcome to the dispatch podcast.
1:18.4	Love to be here. Thanks so much.
1:22.9	Jim, let's start for some of the listeners who may not be familiar with Third Way.
1:24.4	What is Third Way?
1:32.4	So Third Way, it's a center-left think tank in Washington, D.C. We started in 2005, we're 20 years old. I'm one of the co-founders of the organization. And really sort of the raison d'etra of, and there's a Washington elite term, the raison d'etra of
1:40.2	Third Way was really like, how do you make sure that the Democratic Party does not veer too far off to the left,
1:45.8	which is its inclination, veer off to the left and then like tug back to the center.
1:50.9	We do policy work, we do political work, we work a lot with Congress, we work with Democratic administrations,
1:57.2	and we oppose Donald Trump.
1:59.4	Well, one of the issues that you guys wrote some, I think you yourself wrote something about
	...

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