Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast.

I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bullwork, and this week we are going to lean in to a debate that has been at the heart of the Democrats' recriminations and readjustments since the 2024 election.

Did Kamala Harris make a mistake by going on tour with Liz Cheney as her closing argument?

Was her campaign too moderate?

And did it focus on turning out the wrong people?

And what are the lessons Democrats are taking from their loss in 2024 as they work to rebuild a coalition that can win against the current MAGA dominance, which also goes to the heart of what are Democrats doing right now?

How can we make things better?

So my guest today is Jen Saki, former Biden White House press secretary, host of Inside with Jen Saki on MSNBC,

and host of their new podcast, The Blueprint with Jen Saki.

Welcome to podcasting, Jen.

I love podcasting.

First of all, I wear jeans and sneakers, which I'm also trying to normalize on sets in Washington, D.C.

You and me, both, sister.

They're very normalized in New York.

In D.C. were a little more formal.

And I just love that you can have longer conversations.

And it's not like people telling you three minutes left, two minutes left.

And you're like, I'm just going to talk about the state of our democracy in four and a half minutes, which is really hard to do.

I'm glad you brought that up. And this goes to the heart,

I think, of why podcasting is taking off. And no offense to the other part of what you do,

but I would say that sort of cable is in decline or just in general, sort of the TV news,

because you do, you've got somebody in your ear being like, rap, rap, you know, whatever,

...