Morris Katz

Well, I, I will tell you having, you know, having been in, in China recently and come back, a- and strangely enough, this sort of ties into the Biden conversation, which is that, you know, I think [laughs] if you asked Americans, if you sort of look across the, uh, our, our, um, our...

If you look across the country and you ask people, "What, what do you find frustrating right now?" They would say, "National politics in this country is nuts." There, there are, there's a, a, a memorable line from, uh, this campaign advisor, Morris Katz, who's worked on, you know, he's the guy that got Zoran Mamdani elected and so on, and he's picked up on something in the ether.

He says, "Look, if you've wanted to be president since you were five years old, a lot of Americans think you're kind of a loser." What does he mean? He means that there's a real, there, people are pretty sick of the idea of the Washington style.

Washing- I, I'm talking to you from Washington here, but the, the idea of the sort of professional politician.

Data centers is an issue of twenty twenty-six.

I saw, I think it was, like, Morris Katz, the political consultant, actually saying, like, "People are gonna make a mistake and think it's a twenty twenty-eight election cycle issue."

Oh, yeah.

"It's actually a very twenty twenty-six election cycle issue, and probably by twenty twenty-eight we will have something new to get mad about."

There's obviously lots of Zoran David comparisons to add an angle to that comparison or an additional person.

when we had Morris Katz on, I told a story about how in, in fall of 2024, I was crashing at his place in New York.

And I was like, so what's going on with mayor? You know, Brad Lander, he seems good.

And Morris was like, just met with this guy, Zoran.

That sentiment being so widely shared, it breeds a righteous anger that the right type of campaign and the right type of candidate can really tap into and galvanize people around.

And I think that's what David was able to do in this race.

I think it's what Mamdani was able to do in his campaign with the help of Morris Katz and so many other excellent operatives that worked on that campaign.

And I'll say, Aaron, I studied what they did.

Now, this lead is within the margin of error, but we're talking about ruby red Kansas here, so this is also a big deal.

Joining me now to talk about all of this and more is Democratic progressive strategist Morris Katz.

Okay, Morris, I could go and just do a race review with you.

I'm sure everybody watching would like to do that.

I don't think there's anyone who believes that the party that's fully sold itself out to big tech is going to regulate AI at a moment that I think increasingly we're aware that this is a existential crisis for our economy and maybe, like, our own livelihoods.

Um, and that's increasing with voters and is another issue that's gonna drive people out for Democrats and a liability for a struggling lost Republican Party.

Morris Katz, thank you as always.

Sometimes I think Donald Trump is, like, doing things to throw the game, you know? It's like-

You're welcome, America.

Morris Katz is a partner at Fight Agency, a senior Democratic strategist who played a pivotal role in the successful campaign of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

His agency's current clients include Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, among others.

Ben Wikler, of course, served as the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, author of The New York Times bestseller This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy, and they both join me now.

He just started spending in Wisconsin again.

Like, people hate this, and they don't want these guys in charge.

Ben Wikler and Morris Katz, great to have you both here.

Thanks for coming on.

Potentially.

I was actually, last week I got invited to a private kind of like gathering of these senior Democrat strategists with Morris Katz and a couple of other folks and like, and they were trying to figure out, it had just been timed that this kind of AI thing exploded while that was happening.

And in the room, it was really interesting because they were trying to talk about how to handle it heading into 2028.

You've seen Barack Obama say that it should be a big issue.

Once you are speaker, I would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation." This is him talking to Hakeem Jeffries very clearly.

Uh, just on that vibe, if you will, uh, Politico went to a meeting of top Democratic strategists to talk about crafting an AI strategy, and during that meeting, Morris Katz, who is working on a lot of Democratic campaigns, said, "If Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer stood together tomorrow hand-in-hand and said, 'Give us the majority, and the first thing we'll pass is the Data Center Moratorium,' we would pick up more seats."

Yeah.

Uh, maybe, uh, perhaps, but the tech lobby's very powerful, and perhaps that's one reason why we're not gonna maybe see that coming from the Democratic leadership.

They were really boosting him as a star of the Democratic Party.

I mean, he was Graham Platner before Graham Platner, and it's the same folks, I believe, like the Morris Katz and the Daniel Moraffs, the same consultants who were boosting Platner.

They got really their first taste of politics in doing this with Fetterman, and then, at least in their eyes, Fetterman betrayed them.

I'm not sure if that's – who knows who Fetterman is or what his convictions are, but he definitely has disappointed that Democrat base.