Democrats had a delayed start to their presidential campaign fundraising, allowing the incumbent Donald Trump to build a substantial 'war chest' early in the election cycle.

• Flawed Fundraising & Resource Mismanagement

• "he had amassed uh quite a war chest uh by the time the Democrats had their nominee uh so Joe Biden had a lot of catching up to do but he has done that and surpassed uh the total funds raised by the Trump campaign."

  0:12 Original video no longer public

• "we did see extraordinary fundraising by the Trump campaign uh you know starting on day one uh the Trump campaign was was fundraising and he had amassed uh quite a war chest uh by the time the Democrats had their nominee uh so Joe Biden had a lot of catching up to do but he has done that and surpassed uh the total funds raised by the Trump campaign."

  12:22 Original video no longer public

Democrats fail when they focus too heavily on raising money from donors everywhere except their own state, and then don't deploy those funds effectively to build a strong campaign organization and a clear message that connects with local voters.

• Flawed Fundraising & Resource Mismanagement

• "the candidates need Charisma they need hustle they need a good a strong organization they need to keep the money rolling in of course but uh but if it again if it's if they're relying too heavily on uh connecting with with donors uh everywhere but in their state that's a cause for concern"

  24:34 Original video no longer public

• "the money is critical to set up a good strong campaign organization to uh help with um communicating with the voters in the state and to um you know ensure that the resources are there for messaging uh but if it's not deployed effectively and not um relied on too heavily uh you know if it's not deployed effectively it it can't help the the candidates are challenged to both raise huge amounts of money because it does take Millions"

  23:29 Original video no longer public

Democrats were strategically outmaneuvered and failed to prevent the long-term conservative takeover of the federal judiciary orchestrated by Don McGahn during the Trump administration.

• Process-Driven Governmental Failure

• "Don McAn was the White House Council and he was in charge of the umbilical CT between the president and his base the judges and because of Trump's sort of unusual way of operating he gave McAn the ability to pick and choose the judges to essentially serve as a committee of one to bring nominations to the president to put on the federal bench and McAn took such an aggressive approach on that and wanted such a specific Judge a judge that is highly conservative and has a Anthony Scalia Clarence Thomas view of the world and McAn filled and stacked the courts in his time at the White House and because of that because of the remaking of the federal Judiciary including two justices on the Supreme Court we will be living in Don mcan's country in in the influence of Don McAn for decades and decades to come."

  41:39 Original video no longer public

• "this opportunity was very very special for McAn because what happened was is he had he had a a once in a never again chance to remake the courts because as taking as part of taking his job as the president's lawyer he got the president to allow him to essentially sayi be in charge of the judges I'll bring the nominees to you and it gave McAn an immense power"

  44:14 Original video no longer public

Democrats are overly reliant on national, out-of-state fundraising, which generates large sums of money but doesn't translate directly into votes because the donors are not constituents.

• Flawed Fundraising & Resource Mismanagement

• "one thing that I think it is important to keep in mind is that the Democrats Biden on down especially Senate in compe competitive Senate races uh have been doing very well um again leveraging the ACT blue the reach of the ACT blo platform to raise massive amounts from large numbers of individuals that will not help them on Election Day if those donors aren't in their state or District so you know it's it's great uh to have a huge bank account and have money coming in from all over the country but on Election Day what matters is whether you've used that money to connect with the constituents you hope to represent"

  20:22 Original video no longer public

Democratic candidates can win the fundraising battle with out-of-state money but still lose the election because that money doesn't translate to local votes and they get overwhelmed by Republican-aligned outside spending that attacks them.

• Flawed Fundraising & Resource Mismanagement

• "we do see for instance um in uh say the the Kansas Senate race uh Barbara Buller Buller is running against Roger Marshall and massively outraising him $24 million to less than six million but the outside spending is on Marshall side attacking Boler 21 million spent to attack Boler and most of her money or more of her money is coming from out of state so those are donors who uh have connected with her campaign see it as an opportunity to pick up an important seat for the Democrats but are not going to be to able to do anything on her behalf on Election Day"

  21:07 Original video no longer public

Wealthy Democratic primary candidates like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer demonstrated that you cannot simply buy an election, and their strategy of self-funding on a massive scale was a failure.

• Flawed Fundraising & Resource Mismanagement

• "Bloomberg spent over a billion dollars of his own money uh to run an unsuccessful campaign that single-handedly accounted for 12% of the total amount of money that was raised as of two weeks ago so you can you can spend big but you can lose big uh it it it isn't enough you know that is certainly still true money by and of itself is not enough to win office at the national level"

  31:15 Original video no longer public

Democrats were ineffective in their congressional oversight role, failing to enforce subpoenas and compel key witnesses like Don McGahn to testify, which undermined their investigations into the Trump administration.

• Process-Driven Governmental Failure

• "at the end of the day McAn was subpena to testify um the White House um sought to assert different privileges to stop that and that issue is being litigated many Democrats are upset with Manan because they believe that he should uh come and testify uh despite the White House trying to stop him from doing that um and whatever the case we've got less than two months too before the election domigan has never testified before Congress right"

  52:02 Original video no longer public

A significant portion of the Democratic coalition attributes the 2016 election loss to the external actions of then-FBI Director James Comey, rather than focusing on internal campaign weaknesses.

• Internal Party Dysfunction & Organizational Decay

• "a major portion of the country believes that we live in the world we live in today because of decisions that Jim Comey made if you're a Hillary Clinton supporter you believe that he may have cost her the election if you're a Donald Trump supporter you believe that he tried to undermine the president and did things that led to a special Council being appointed and cast an enormous Cloud over the presidency and those decisions that Comey made are just highly consequential to the world that we live in today whether there decisions he made made in the Clinton email investigation or the Russia investigation or even after he was fired"

  40:54 Original video no longer public

Incumbent Democrats, along with Republicans, benefit from the current broken campaign finance system and therefore have no political will to reform it, failing to address issues like dark money and creating a system that is not in the public's best interest.

• Flawed Fundraising & Resource Mismanagement

• "… the incumbents are reelected at a 90% rate for the house uh usually in the uh 80s for the Senate there's there's very little these are the people who won on this system they're not really excited about changing it largely um there are some who uh who are committed or have promised to um Shak things up and and and make change"

  35:24 Original video no longer public