A group of Democratic Party insiders turned the left’s opposition to President Trump into the successful Pod Save America podcast.
Now they’re trying their luck on the stage of a Las Vegas casino showroom.
The Obama White House veterans are bringing the Pod Tours America roadshow to The Joint at the Hard Rock on Sunday. There they’ll continue the discussions from their twice-weekly podcasts.
Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau moved from being Washington insiders to podcasters during the 2016 election. But it was after Donald Trump won the presidency that they became more focused.
“We decided that evening that the stakes of this election, the issues before our country were too important to not be a part of the process anymore,” Vietor told KNPR's State of Nevada.
Favreau, who was President Barack Obama's head speechwriter, thought he was done with politics when he left the White House but decided since he was still following the news and politics every day he might as well make it his work.
“Once Donald Trump was elected, I just felt too strongly that everything I had worked for during my years in the Obama administration was at risk, everything I believed in was at risk and I needed to get involved in some way,” he said.
And they chose to podcast because of the flexibility it provides to cover a topic in-depth.
“A podcast allows for the time and space to have a more nuanced, subtle, interesting conversation about the news of the day, where you don’t just hear a bunch of screaming talking points,” Favreau said.
He said most cable news shows feature a Republican strategist and a Democratic strategist yelling at each other. However, a podcast allows guests, whatever their political opinion, to make their point and dissect the issues.
Vietor said their stage show is essentially the podcast but in front of a live audience.
“What makes the live show special is a community of people who are concerned about the future of the country get to come together and talk about it together,” he said.
Politics may not come to mind when someone pictures a Las Vegas show but Vietor and Favreau said they picked Las Vegas because of how important Nevada is going to be in the 2018 election.
They believe Nevada is moving from a purple state to a blue state all the time and on top of that Senator Dean Heller is one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for election this year.
“I think it is seen as a very important city and state for the future of the Democratic Party,” Vietor said.
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Jon Favreau, podcaster and former White House speechwriter; Tommy Vietor, podcaster and former national security spokesman for President Obama