Hi, Liz. Thanks for being here. Hi, Claire. Thank you for having me.

Of course, of course. Well, Liz, you've worked on a number of Democratic campaigns you and I met when you were on Pete Buttigieg's 2020 campaign. And you've been in plenty of conversations

about the party's future.

Does this current moment feel unprecedented?

Or does it echo another time

when the party was trying to figure its way back

from the wilderness?

I think the Democrats are pretty close to rock bottom.

And, you know, it's not worth hand-wringing or bedwetting about it,

I think, but I do think we've got to get really, really serious about rebuilding. For the last 10 years,

a lot of us in politics have talked about Donald Trump as someone who has been very bad for the

Republican Party and ruinous for the Republican Party.

I think there's a case to be made that he's almost been worse for the Democratic Party

because the Democratic Party sort of got out of the ideas business, thinking about what it

stands for, and has oriented itself almost completely around reacting to Donald Trump

and being anti-Trump and voters have sent a very clear message that that is incontinent for them.

That's Liz Smith, the strategist who helped turn Pete Buttigieg from the little-known mayor of South Bend

into a serious presidential contender in 2020. She's made a career out of advising Democrats on how to talk to voters,

and she wrote about it in her memoir, Any Given Tuesday, a political love story. The Democratic Party

is facing what many see as an identity crisis. They lost the presidency in

2024, their base is shrinking in the polls and in voter rolls, and Trump, despite being

deeply unpopular, still look stronger than they do. Democrats are left debating why voters

...