Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hi,
Speaker 1: friends and listeners, welcome back to another work in progress.
Speaker 1: It is definitely a week for the whips murtys. I
Speaker 1: know y'all are engaged. I know you care about what's
Speaker 1: going on in the world, and let's be frank, she's
Speaker 1: been wild. I decided to call two of my absolute
Speaker 1: favorite men in America to ask them what the hell
Speaker 1: is going on? And I feel so lucky that they
Speaker 1: are both joining us today. Congressman Eric Swalwell is here
Speaker 1: and one of my best friends and one of the
Speaker 1: most brilliant Democratic strategists I know. Jordan Brown is here
Speaker 1: as well. Eric is an absolute legend. He represents the
Speaker 1: people of California's fourteenth congressional district up in the East Bay.
Speaker 1: He has served on the House Intelligence Committee, overseeing the CIA.
Speaker 1: On that committee, he has helped lead the House in
Speaker 1: their investigation into Russia's interference in the twenty sixteen election,
Speaker 1: the first and second impeachments of Donald Trump. He was
Speaker 1: on the House floor on January sixth and has done
Speaker 1: incredible work standing up for our law enforcement officers who
Speaker 1: were harmed on that day. He currently serves on the
Speaker 1: House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, which is why I
Speaker 1: really wanted to talk to him about Signal Gate. And
Speaker 1: he is the chairman emeritus and founder of Future Forum,
Speaker 1: a group of young Democratic members that are focused on
Speaker 1: issues and opportunities for millennial Americans. He's also a dad,
Speaker 1: a husband, and an absolute lovely friend. And then we
Speaker 1: get onto Jordan. He is one of the most brilliant
Speaker 1: political strategists that works at the intersection of politics, technology,
Speaker 1: and entertainment. He really works to drive progressive social change
Speaker 1: and for more than fifteen years he has advised local, state,
Speaker 1: and national political campaigns, from Secretary John Kerrey's campaign in
Speaker 1: four the Obama campaign in two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and for a few years even advising Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 1: He is absolutely brilliant at gathering people to ensure that
Speaker 1: everyone in our country has a seat at the table.
Speaker 1: He's helped advance legislation and advocacy campaigns for issues that
Speaker 1: run such a diverse spectrum, cancer prevention, self esteem, LGBTQ rights,
Speaker 1: gun violence, mental health, poverty, immigration, HIV prevention, and more.
Speaker 1: And as if he's not busy enough, he is a
Speaker 1: member of the Policy and Advocacy Committee of Global Citizen
Speaker 1: working to end Extreme Poverty by twenty thirty. He is
Speaker 1: an advisor to represent US, a bipartisan organization that brings
Speaker 1: together conservatives and progressives to pass anti corruption laws, and
Speaker 1: he's on the board of Lyft Communities, an organization that
Speaker 1: partners with working parents to break the inter generational cycle
Speaker 1: of extreme poverty. He is also a husband and a
Speaker 1: father to a new baby boy who is so sweet oof.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk to both of these gentlemen
Speaker 1: about how they balance it all and what the we're
Speaker 1: all supposed to do. Two months in to this new
Speaker 1: administration and you know, the daily horrors. Let's dig into
Speaker 1: what's really happening, what deserves our focus, and how we
Speaker 1: remain both engaged and hopeful With Eric and Jordan, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I am so glad you are both here today. Jordan,
Speaker 1: you are one of my best friends, always one of
Speaker 1: my first calls, whether about life or certainly democracy. And Eric,
Speaker 1: you have become not only are you someone in the
Speaker 1: political landscape that I look up to, whose takes I
Speaker 1: always know I can trust, who tells your voters and
Speaker 1: Americans around the country the truth. But thanks to Jordan,
Speaker 1: you've also become a friend, and the fact that I
Speaker 1: get to text you and I have questions still makes
Speaker 1: me feel like deeply cool. I think about twenty year
Speaker 1: old me in journalism school at Annenberg, knowing that this
Speaker 1: is my life now, and it's pretty crazy. So bless
Speaker 1: you both for coming. Obviously, everything's nuts. We are two
Speaker 1: months into an administration that seems to be taking a
Speaker 1: slash and burn approach to everything that is holy about America,
Speaker 1: our constitution, our morals, our values, our not only even
Speaker 1: our power, but our soft power, which I think has
Speaker 1: changed the world for the better in recent decades. Certainly,
Speaker 1: I have so many questions for you guys about how
Speaker 1: we got here. But quickly so our friends who are
Speaker 1: listening can get to know a little bit about you.
Speaker 1: Will you each tell us a little bit about your
Speaker 1: jobs today. You know what you do, what keeps you busy,
Speaker 1: and how you two first connected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, buddy, I work in Congress. I've been doing this
Speaker 2: for about thirteen years. I guess I was a child
Speaker 2: sent to Congress, but before that I was a prosecutor,
Speaker 2: and before that I was a Congressional intern. When I
Speaker 2: was twenty years old and was here September eleventh. Happened
Speaker 2: kind of opened my eyes and led me to leave
Speaker 2: like an athletic scholarship after interning here for a summer,
Speaker 2: and never thought I'd spend this much time.
Speaker 3: I'm here.
Speaker 2: Actually have thought a couple of different ways that I would,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe be doing something else. But Donald Trump
Speaker 2: and is just threat to all of our freedoms and
Speaker 2: what I think makes this country so special just makes
Speaker 2: me think I can't leave. I can't leave the fight.
Speaker 2: Like you're in the fight, You're in the fight. We're
Speaker 2: all in it in our own unique way, and this
Speaker 2: is the most effective way I think that I can
Speaker 2: help the people I represent my districts in the East
Speaker 2: Bay up in northern California, everything from essentially Fremont, California,
Speaker 2: up to San Leandro and then out to wine country
Speaker 2: in Livermore. And Jordan and I met as everyone meets
Speaker 2: when they don't know each other in southern California, which
Speaker 2: is over pickleball, and we've had some pretty spirited, intense
Speaker 2: pickleball matches. His husband Colton, has been a part of
Speaker 2: that as well, and then my wife Brittany you know,
Speaker 2: has also been able to meet Jordan and Colton, whether
Speaker 2: at the DNC or just through friends.
Speaker 3: But Jordan.
Speaker 2: What I admire about Jordan is he's a doer, Like
Speaker 2: he is a let's get shipped done kind of person,
Speaker 2: and it only wants to use active verbs as far
Speaker 2: as like what are you going to do to fix things?
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: It's a It really is an honor and I don't
Speaker 4: use a word likely to be with both of you.
Speaker 4: And so if you know, I adore you, and it
Speaker 4: has been so much fun even during the toughest times
Speaker 4: that you know, I think for both of us being
Speaker 4: the same age and sort of growing up together, we
Speaker 4: never really thought that we would go backwards like this.
Speaker 4: And you know, we were at the Obama inauguration together
Speaker 4: and I still laugh at those photos of those two
Speaker 4: kids who were like, everything's just going to keep getting
Speaker 4: better all the time, and you know.
Speaker 1: Half the day we did it. Yeah, And now.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, we know that nobody really gets
Speaker 4: you a full lifetime without this kind of backwards thing,
Speaker 4: and so this is the fight. And I think the
Speaker 4: wisest people among us sort of know that and have
Speaker 4: taught us how to do this. And Congressman It's an
Speaker 4: honor to call you a friend, and I've admired you long.
Speaker 5: Before we met in person.
Speaker 4: And there's youth is not something that comes up a
Speaker 4: lot when we talk about the people running this country.
Speaker 4: And for all of the wisdom that we're grateful for
Speaker 4: among our elders, we have seen in so many painful
Speaker 4: and sad ways over the last five or ten years
Speaker 4: in both parties, what happens to our country and how
Speaker 4: it can grind to a halt or have really awful
Speaker 4: consequences when people who are not healthy and in their
Speaker 4: prime are.
Speaker 5: In positions of great power.
Speaker 4: And so for somebody to have gotten to where you
Speaker 4: are as young as you were and still are and
Speaker 4: to be a leader in this fight means so much.
Speaker 4: And there's just a handful of people like you that
Speaker 4: are kind of in that bucket. One of them we
Speaker 4: were just talking about before we started recording is on
Speaker 4: the Senate floor right now. You know, our friend and
Speaker 4: someone we all love, Senator Booker, And you have been
Speaker 4: a really clear clarion voice in the last seventy something
Speaker 4: days since Trump returned to the White House in saying
Speaker 4: this is not right, this is not normal, and here's
Speaker 4: what we got to do.
Speaker 3: So he was plain Jordan Sophia.
Speaker 2: I ran when I was thirty one, and I ran
Speaker 2: against a guy who had been in Congress for forty
Speaker 2: years and he was eighty one.
Speaker 3: And I was.
Speaker 2: Probably a little in some of the ways that I was,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to contrast the age, showing my energy
Speaker 2: against like someone who completely had checked out, like didn't
Speaker 2: show up for votes in Washington, didn't pay any attention
Speaker 2: to his constituents. And I learned in that campaign that
Speaker 2: he had run when he was forty and he had
Speaker 2: beaten somebody in their eighties.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So as I look at it, like my district for
Speaker 2: essentially eighty years before I got there, was represented by
Speaker 2: people who stayed way too long. So to me, it's
Speaker 2: like it's staring me in the face. Jordan is like
Speaker 2: what you just said, like, don't be the guy that
Speaker 2: sticks too long, Like get in there, get stuff done,
Speaker 2: get out. And I think that's the hardest part of
Speaker 2: like this job is that you don't know when that
Speaker 2: is and people around us don't feel that they have
Speaker 2: the permission struggle to tell you that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only is it so important, I think
Speaker 1: for folks in our peer group to see these trends
Speaker 1: and to say, oh, I'm not going to do that thing.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure that I'm helping with turnover.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure that I'm fostering spaces where
Speaker 1: new ideas or evolving ideas can be heard. I also
Speaker 1: think it's so important to make sure you're training the
Speaker 1: next generation of leaders alongside you, people who can learn
Speaker 1: from your expertise. Like listen, there there have been negotiations
Speaker 1: that nobody could have gotten done, but Nancy Pelosi and
Speaker 1: I want to know who is being trained to be
Speaker 1: our Pelosi. I want to know you know who you're
Speaker 1: going to have your eye on in the next ten years,
Speaker 1: to say you should you should have your you know, eyes,
Speaker 1: ears and future on this district. It's so important, I
Speaker 1: think too, not that it's a stigma even but in
Speaker 1: a way to destigmatize the idea that politics is someone
Speaker 1: else's job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that you brought that up, because in
Speaker 2: my the end my first term, speak a Pelosi told
Speaker 2: me she wanted to speak to me on the floor,
Speaker 2: and I remember being so nervous and going over to
Speaker 2: talk to her and didn't really know if I was
Speaker 2: being called like to the principal's office, like what was
Speaker 2: this about? And she told me, she said, you know,
Speaker 2: there are enough young members now in Congress that I
Speaker 2: think you should bring them together as a group and
Speaker 2: go lead them and go around the country talk to
Speaker 2: young people and then come back and tell your colleagues
Speaker 2: what you've learned.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then the next term she would appoint me to
Speaker 2: be the youngest, like least junior person on the Intelligence Committee,
Speaker 2: and then she would make me what's called the Steering
Speaker 2: and Policy chair, like the person who chairs the committee
Speaker 2: that puts everyone on committees.
Speaker 3: And so I had the opportunity to sit next to her,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: She you know, there's still such a deep power divide
Speaker 2: between like what she was able to do and what
Speaker 2: I was able to do. But I saw in Speaker Pelosi,
Speaker 2: not just with me but others, that if you wanted
Speaker 2: to learn, she would meet you there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, learn, that's really cool.
Speaker 2: Her her advice was always if you don't ask, you
Speaker 2: don't get, And she often would say, if you don't
Speaker 2: buy a lottery ticket, you're never going to win the lottery.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of telling me, like, you have
Speaker 2: to seek these opportunities and then when you're around people
Speaker 2: like her and others like you can't help but learn.
Speaker 2: But that was a pretty like that was a big
Speaker 2: disparity and like my nior status in the Congress and
Speaker 2: like the leader of our party and I and I
Speaker 2: soaked it up as much as I could, but I
Speaker 2: didn't really have anyone between myself and Speaker Pelosi. And
Speaker 2: so what I have tried to do with the newer
Speaker 2: members is to be the person between them and Hakim,
Speaker 2: who is our leader. Because Hakem has like limited bandwidth.
Speaker 2: He can't do that with every member. And so Congress,
Speaker 2: for example, I went out of my way because I
Speaker 2: saw this young talented member of Congress who was just
Speaker 2: lighting up these congressional hearings.
Speaker 3: And her name is Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 2: And Jordan's smiling because I've since introduced Jordan to Jasmine
Speaker 2: and took her out for dinner one night, and I said, like,
Speaker 2: let's not even talk about Congress the job. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about like life and how you do life, because that's
Speaker 2: what no one taught me when I had.
Speaker 3: First gotten here.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so special.
Speaker 2: I do feel like a responsibility to try and not
Speaker 2: just use one hand to reach up and find mentors,
Speaker 2: but use the other hand to you know, reach down
Speaker 2: to people who have just arrived at you know, where.
Speaker 3: I've been, and try and help them.
Speaker 2: And I don't know about you, but I find that
Speaker 2: I still learn and grow find fulfillment in trying to
Speaker 2: help others.
Speaker 1: Of course, And now a word from our sponsors, who
Speaker 1: make the show possible. I think there's such value to
Speaker 1: intergenerational friendships and to having intergenerational mentors, you know. And
Speaker 1: we're all in this really sweet spot of our lives
Speaker 1: right now where we have both. You know, I have
Speaker 1: folks who are older than me and wiser than me
Speaker 1: that I call on, and I have folks that are
Speaker 1: younger than me who I learned so much from, and
Speaker 1: they really, you know, transcend industry political spectrum. And I
Speaker 1: think that's really important, and I'm curious about it. For
Speaker 1: you in particular, Eric and Jordan, even you know, knowing
Speaker 1: what I know about how you grew up. This willingness
Speaker 1: to reach across divides and learn and with new information
Speaker 1: change your mind, but also to require that things we
Speaker 1: know to be true are treated as such really stands
Speaker 1: out to me. For you Congressman, because I know you
Speaker 1: were raised in a very Republican household. You know, your
Speaker 1: dad was cop. You grew up in that space, and
Speaker 1: I'm really curious how you felt free enough to change
Speaker 1: your mind and to say, oh, you know, I agree
Speaker 1: with policies that take care of people, and that's happening
Speaker 1: in a different party than the one I was raised in.
Speaker 1: How did you make that shift? How did that go
Speaker 1: over with your family? And then, Jordan, can you talk
Speaker 1: to us a little bit about your own experiences, you know,
Speaker 1: as a kid, and how you found your way into
Speaker 1: this democratic space.
Speaker 2: My parents would say that the reason I'm the only
Speaker 2: Democrat in the family is because I'm the first one
Speaker 2: in the family to go to college, and that I
Speaker 2: was watched by those liberals. But frankly, I don't think
Speaker 2: my parents' values are that much different than mine, except
Speaker 2: that what I observed in them. And I talk to
Speaker 2: my parents every week and visit them as often as
Speaker 2: I can. But they, very much, I think, are Republicans
Speaker 2: who kind of lead with what they don't like about
Speaker 2: Democrats as the Republican party that they loved in the eighties,
Speaker 2: like the Reagan Republican Party completely changes, and as a
Speaker 2: bandon that I just hear from them and other family
Speaker 2: members more of what they don't like about Democrats, and
Speaker 2: so just by default they're not voting for Democrats, They're voting.
Speaker 3: Republicans.
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, what I like about our party
Speaker 2: is like, who were four and is someone who grew up,
Speaker 2: you know, going to eleven different schools and living in
Speaker 2: thirteen different houses before I graduated college. I saw two
Speaker 2: parents who worked hard and expected that they would do
Speaker 2: better and dream bigger. But I only saw one party
Speaker 2: that actually sought, you know, to advance that like in education,
Speaker 2: you know, in like ultimately you know, cost to college
Speaker 2: and to work in retirement security. And I had Republicans
Speaker 2: offering anything on that. But what I learned by being
Speaker 2: raised by Republicans, one thing I've learned, and I think
Speaker 2: this is something that I think my colleagues need to understand,
Speaker 2: is we often say as Democrats that, you know, Republicans,
Speaker 2: any appeal they make to you know, working class Americans
Speaker 2: or blue collar Americans or poor Americans is asking them
Speaker 2: to vote against their interests. We say that all the time, like,
Speaker 2: why would they want to vote against their interests? Yeah,
Speaker 2: my parents would tell you that their interest was not
Speaker 2: being poor, and their interest was not being in the
Speaker 2: middle class, and whether that was realistic or not, like,
Speaker 2: their interest was being like wealthy, and they didn't want
Speaker 2: to like be renters. They wanted to be homeowners and
Speaker 2: to have like, you know, nice vacations and not have
Speaker 2: to worry about money. And I think sometimes democrats are
Speaker 2: seen by people like my parents as like, we want
Speaker 2: to keep people in the status that they're in and
Speaker 2: will support you there, but we don't want you to
Speaker 2: be ambitious. And so I have tried in my own
Speaker 2: like to talk about issues is to say, you know what,
Speaker 2: I root for success. I want you to be wealthy, rich.
Speaker 2: I just want everyone to have the same chance at
Speaker 2: doing it. I want a free market economy, not a
Speaker 2: free for all economy. But I think that helps us
Speaker 2: connect with you know, working class folks like my parents
Speaker 2: who aspire to get out of like the status that
Speaker 2: they were in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gosh, I've never really thought about it in that
Speaker 1: way because it seems so obvious to me that if
Speaker 1: we're fighting for social programs and free education and making
Speaker 1: sure kids can eat in school and making sure you're
Speaker 1: drinking water is safe like, it's because we want you
Speaker 1: to be healthy enough and supported enough to advance in
Speaker 1: your life. It's wild to hear that to so many people.
Speaker 1: The policies we're trying to enact that allow for advancement
Speaker 1: make people afraid that they might stagnate. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think it's not because that's a feeling that you just
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 2: Keep me here and you don't want to see my
Speaker 2: advancement or well against the you go on a crusade
Speaker 2: against the rich, and so therefore, like you want when
Speaker 2: you say you're for the middle class, you want me
Speaker 2: to always be in the middle class.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's so interesting. I'm like, no, I want everybody
Speaker 1: to do well. I just want rich people to pay
Speaker 1: their taxes. Correct, that's like literally all I want. Was
Speaker 1: it really eye opening for you, like, you know, being
Speaker 1: a kid in the Bakersfield area and then having jobs
Speaker 1: that you know take you to DC and you live
Speaker 1: in LA and you have to be on the East
Speaker 1: coast all the time, Like, do you feel like understanding
Speaker 1: smaller city sector life so personally helps you remember the
Speaker 1: kinds of things the congressman's talking about.
Speaker 4: Yes, is the short answer. The longer answer is I
Speaker 4: think you know, it's more informed by the people I
Speaker 4: grew up with and the place I grew up. And
Speaker 4: so I grew up in a small town in the
Speaker 4: Central Valley near Bakersfield, and it's I grew up in
Speaker 4: a very you know, conservative Christian household. But I think
Speaker 4: it's important to point out that in the eighties and
Speaker 4: nineties that looked much different than it does now. My
Speaker 4: parents went to church and they voted, but there was
Speaker 4: not twenty four hour news on in the house. There
Speaker 4: were not breaking news alerts, and between elections, they didn't
Speaker 4: think much about who was president or Speaker of the House,
Speaker 4: and it was not something that dominated my childhood or
Speaker 4: our lives. And I also have these really clear memories
Speaker 4: of coming home in high school when, you know, before
Speaker 4: my own political identity had formed, and before I sort
Speaker 4: of came to terms with being gay, and I had
Speaker 4: gotten yard signs from a friend's house for these propositions,
Speaker 4: two of them that were in the late nineties.
Speaker 5: On the ballot in California.
Speaker 4: One was a really draconian measure that was anti immigration
Speaker 4: but really inhumane and awful, and the other was that marriage,
Speaker 4: you know, was between a man and a woman putting
Speaker 4: that in the Constitution, and my mom said, I don't
Speaker 4: want those in my yard. And this is a Republican
Speaker 4: Christian woman, and I was like, wait, what do you mean,
Speaker 4: Like I got it from this friend's house, and like,
Speaker 4: isn't that what we believe? And she's like, I don't.
Speaker 4: You know, people can live how they want to live,
Speaker 4: and we you know whatever, like I don't want to put.
Speaker 5: Those in my yard.
Speaker 4: And I was like, and it was my first I'm
Speaker 4: kind of remembering, and you know, this is my mom
Speaker 4: who has since left the Republican Party because you know,
Speaker 4: she didn't agree with with where it was going. And
Speaker 4: I think, you know, my story is part of this
Speaker 4: like larger journey where like you now have a lot
Speaker 4: of people on the right, I think, who are confused
Speaker 4: that this country was founded as a Christian country, because
Speaker 4: we're really headed that way to the point where I
Speaker 4: find myself getting in debates on social media with people
Speaker 4: who were like, yes, we're getting back to our Christian roots,
Speaker 4: and it's like you missed the entire point of why
Speaker 4: the people who founded this country did so. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: you can be a Christian and I can choose to
Speaker 4: not be, or I could be Buddhist.
Speaker 5: Or whatever else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the antithesis actually of a Christian nation. But
Speaker 1: people missed the fine print, I guess, and I yeah,
Speaker 1: so I.
Speaker 5: Guess what I feel.
Speaker 4: And when I think back to like all the people
Speaker 4: I grew up with, they're wonderful people.
Speaker 5: They're hardworking.
Speaker 4: Many of the kids I grew up with served in
Speaker 4: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them were
Speaker 4: tough jobs and you know, a prison system that's like
Speaker 4: really in need of reform, but still like you know,
Speaker 4: or other like working class like manual labor jobs, and
Speaker 4: they're not you know, I think there's just this assumption
Speaker 4: they probably all voted for Trump and they don't. There
Speaker 4: is something that feels to me like what I don't
Speaker 4: understand the most, and I'm seeking to understand is to me,
Speaker 4: a lot of the people on the right who are
Speaker 4: driven by their religion to vote for Trump seem to
Speaker 4: believe that their religion is under an attack, when what
Speaker 4: it seems like to me is they just want everyone
Speaker 4: else to have the same religion they have. So that
Speaker 4: when I think about where I grew up, all of
Speaker 4: those things are sort of swirling around, and you know
Speaker 4: sort of feel like inform the way that I'm taking
Speaker 4: in what's happening in this moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now a word from our sponsors. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing certainly for me. You know, my full time
Speaker 1: job is not politics. I have a calling I believe
Speaker 1: to use my platform and ability, as you know, a
Speaker 1: storyteller and a communicator to help people understand this stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about it. And yeah, it is tough when
Speaker 1: the sort of live and let live seems to have
Speaker 1: been lost and this iron fist you do it our way,
Speaker 1: you copy these things, you know, very Handmaid's Tale vibe
Speaker 1: seems to be everywhere. It's scary to me. I think
Speaker 1: part of it is because it seems like what's happening
Speaker 1: is being downplayed. It seems like what's up is down
Speaker 1: It seems like not just that the double standards have
Speaker 1: gotten so crazy, but that we have really lost the
Speaker 1: plot on facts. And I think the fact, you know, fact, science, truth,
Speaker 1: constitution kind of have to be the foundation of the house.
Speaker 1: Like we've all got to have a foundation based on justice,
Speaker 1: not someone's opinion about their faith. Because to your point, Jordan,
Speaker 1: you can't rule that way because then what if someone
Speaker 1: who had a faith it isn't your faith was ruling.
Speaker 1: How would you feel about that? Like, we need the
Speaker 1: law to sort of be our spot, and it seems
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of lawlessness going on that I
Speaker 1: can't quite understand because as a as a citizen, as
Speaker 1: a concerned constituent, it feels like, no matter how you vote,
Speaker 1: some of this stuff should bother you. I think Number one,
Speaker 1: this signal leak, which, by the way, just for our
Speaker 1: friends at home, Jordan and Eric and I scheduled this chat.
Speaker 1: I was like, can y'all just give me and the
Speaker 1: listeners some perspective on this first sixty to ninety days
Speaker 1: of this new administration? And then highly classified top secret
Speaker 1: information was leaked on a non secured devices on personal
Speaker 1: phones on a social media app. And then people tried
Speaker 1: to say it wasn't a big deal, and I was like,
Speaker 1: huh so can we start there? I mean a couple
Speaker 1: of facts I just have to list for the people.
Speaker 1: High ranking officials in the administration shared war plans on
Speaker 1: a group chat, again on a social media app, not
Speaker 1: secure plans that are not meant to be viewed or
Speaker 1: discussed outside of a skiff and they accidentally put a
Speaker 1: journalist on the group chat, like this is the kind
Speaker 1: of embarrassing drunk thing you might do in college when
Speaker 1: you put the person who's surprise party you're planning on
Speaker 1: the chat at two am, or like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's a very positive you know, what if? What does
Speaker 1: this mean? And what is what is true?
Speaker 4: I just wish everyone who's listening could see the resign
Speaker 4: face you just made.
Speaker 5: Put your hands over your eyes like this this.
Speaker 1: Guy, literally, I'm like, how do I even ask the question?
Speaker 1: This is so insane, I can't believe it's happening.
Speaker 2: Well, it shows one like how dumb they are and
Speaker 2: should not be in charge of our safety, right, Like,
Speaker 2: my first job, no matter what I do, is to
Speaker 2: keep the people I represent safe, Like when we feel safe,
Speaker 2: nothing else can happen, right, Not like you can't have commerce,
Speaker 2: you can't have education, but you can't do anything else
Speaker 2: until you feel safe. So that's the president's first job
Speaker 2: is to make us safe. And these idiots failed that test.
Speaker 2: Then they lied about it, right, They compounded their inability
Speaker 2: to keep us safe by just gaslighting the American people
Speaker 2: about it. And they did it as if like there
Speaker 2: would be no penalty for it at all. And they've
Speaker 2: been proven right because my Republican colleagues don't want to
Speaker 2: talk about it at all. And I'll say, like, I
Speaker 2: think my Democratic colleagues like have, with what little resources
Speaker 2: we have been in the minority, have a lot of
Speaker 2: resources as far as like communication and building. Public sentiment
Speaker 2: certainly have elevated. You know that these guys are not
Speaker 2: going to keep us safe. I do want to say,
Speaker 2: though it is dark as it feels right now, public
Speaker 2: sentiment is working. For example, you're seeing on the President's
Speaker 2: like big beautiful bill as he keeps calling it, where
Speaker 2: he's going to take, you know, nine hundred billion dollars
Speaker 2: and give tax cuts to the wealthiest people. And you know,
Speaker 2: no one that we know or anyone who needs help
Speaker 2: is going to get it. It's going to be a
Speaker 2: billionaire bro tax package. Public sentiment has been so hard
Speaker 2: and so strongly against that that they're already stories this
Speaker 2: week that they're actually considering raising the highest income level brackets.
Speaker 2: So to anyone who's like does any of this matter,
Speaker 2: you know, what are you going to do? We can't
Speaker 2: wait for the midterms, Like we're already seeing that you know,
Speaker 2: the public sentiment like protesting and being engaged and whatever
Speaker 2: the outcome is going to be in Wisconsin and Florida,
Speaker 2: I think it's going to go our way. That it's
Speaker 2: moving the administration and it's affecting what they're going to do,
Speaker 2: which to me, he just means we can't stop, we
Speaker 2: can't let up.
Speaker 3: Same thing in the courts.
Speaker 2: We've won nearly forty cases in the courts, and so
Speaker 2: what are they doing right? They're trying to impeach judges
Speaker 2: now because they see that, oh, they have found an
Speaker 2: effective path not just democratic appointed judges, but judges appointed
Speaker 2: by Reagan and Bush and are siding with us. And
Speaker 2: so the courts can be speed bumps. And I say
Speaker 2: all of this because we essentially have to live. We
Speaker 2: have to allow democracy to live long enough so it
Speaker 2: can hopefully live forever. That means get through these court
Speaker 2: cases when in Wisconsin, win in New Jersey and Virginia
Speaker 2: and the governor's races this year, have the electoral infrastructure
Speaker 2: where you can have free and fair elections in the midterms,
Speaker 2: win the midterms, and then cut our time and.
Speaker 1: Hell, yes, in half. But here's what drives me crazy. Congressman,
Speaker 1: and you said it. There seems to be no accountability exists,
Speaker 1: Telsey Gabbert. These people perjured themselves under oath testifying to
Speaker 1: elected officials about what was in that group chat. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is trying to impeach judges that are impartial, and
Speaker 1: he's calling them Obama judges, Democrat judges. You said it,
Speaker 1: some of them were appointed by President Bush. They are
Speaker 1: weaponizing identity and they are lying about it. And I
Speaker 1: am frustrated as a citizen because calling for the impeachment
Speaker 1: of judges who won't do your bidding when your bidding
Speaker 1: is to break American law is fascism. Making people bend
Speaker 1: the knee in advance is fascism. These insane executive orders
Speaker 1: against law firms that are now committing to do tens
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in pro bono work to defend
Speaker 1: Trump's indefensible legal desires. It really, I mean disappearing people
Speaker 1: to Venezuelan gulags like the canaries in the coal mines
Speaker 1: are they're past singing, they're dying, and it seems like
Speaker 1: nobody's paying attention or doing anything about it. And I understand,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, how important it is for people
Speaker 1: to see how depraved the administration wants to be. I
Speaker 1: understand that we are so lucky that that journalist was
Speaker 1: added to that group chat because at least we had
Speaker 1: a whistleblower. Because to be clear, for the folks listening
Speaker 1: at home, things happening in that group chat aren't happening
Speaker 1: in a secure channels, but be monitored channels, which means
Speaker 1: they would have been had we not found out about this.
Speaker 1: It would have been very hard to foil any of
Speaker 1: these records, which is the Freedom of Information Act. For
Speaker 1: folks at home who might not be as politically obsessed
Speaker 1: as the three of us are. They're trying to be
Speaker 1: to erase accountability and we know it. And then they lied,
Speaker 1: and then they lied under oath, and now what the
Speaker 1: Republicans don't want to talk about it, but I actually
Speaker 1: believe this is the kind of thing that should unite
Speaker 1: all of us, from the most liberal to the most conservative.
Speaker 1: This is an attack on the safety of our nation
Speaker 1: and on our national security, and the call is coming
Speaker 1: from inside the House. So how do we call for
Speaker 1: accountability if the people in majority power don't want it
Speaker 1: because it's their people doing the bad shit Like are
Speaker 1: the Democrats going to call for HEGXECHT resign? I know
Speaker 1: you already have. What what do we do from here?
Speaker 1: How do we stop this? Because right now it feels
Speaker 1: like we have no It feels like we have no
Speaker 1: AMMO in this fight.
Speaker 2: Right So we have, as I said, we have public sentiment.
Speaker 2: We have congressional hearings where we can put every official
Speaker 2: now on notice. When they come testified, we can ask them,
Speaker 2: are you using signal chat to communicate? You know? Are
Speaker 2: you discussing classified you know, information in non secure spaces?
Speaker 2: Are you using your personal phones? And you lock them
Speaker 2: in on those answers, because winning the House means that
Speaker 2: you can then bring accountability, you know, if they were lying.
Speaker 2: But again that's not the only thing that we can do.
Speaker 3: And on the.
Speaker 2: Judges, I'll just say small victories will lead to big
Speaker 2: victories for us. But something today in a Judiciary committee hearing,
Speaker 2: it was set a couple of weeks ago when Trump was,
Speaker 2: you know, tweet raging about impeaching judges, Musk was saying,
Speaker 2: let's impeach judges. This like brand new member of Congress
Speaker 2: from Texas who's just looking to like raise money, introduces
Speaker 2: articles of impeachment that he has no intention of actually
Speaker 2: following up onnie, just doing it to please Trump. So
Speaker 2: he gets his hearing today in the Judiciary Committee and
Speaker 2: they bring in New Gingrich is their witness to talk
Speaker 2: about like judges. And then the funniest thing happened. Not
Speaker 2: a single Republican on the committee other than the moron
Speaker 2: who wrote the articles of impeachment that he won't even
Speaker 2: move on, supported impeaching judges, not even New Gingrich. And
Speaker 2: so what that tells me is that this was like
Speaker 2: popular three or four weeks ago. Wow, as we are
Speaker 2: turning public sentiment against Trump and Musk because of the
Speaker 2: signal chat issues, because of the terrorists, because of the
Speaker 2: tax cuts, and because of what he's doing to the.
Speaker 1: Rule of law, I mean, the federal workers losing their jobs,
Speaker 1: the slashing of USAID.
Speaker 2: So we created this So in this hearing today where
Speaker 2: I was ready, you know, to go in, you know,
Speaker 2: ready to row down for democracy in our debate, and
Speaker 2: they didn't even no one wanted to defend it. And
Speaker 2: so that means to me, we created like a hot stove, right,
Speaker 2: we created a hot stove that they didn't want to touch.
Speaker 2: And so they didn't go in there wanting to defend
Speaker 2: Trump on this, So we just have them creating hot
Speaker 2: stoves that they don't touch, so that you know, none
Speaker 2: of us, you know, suffer the consequences and that small victory.
Speaker 3: But as I said, small victories will lead to big victories.
Speaker 4: Eric, I call you all the time when I think
Speaker 4: the most lucid, easy to understand example that's been given
Speaker 4: about what it's like to be in a number of
Speaker 4: congress these days comes from you. When you gave the
Speaker 4: WWE analogy can you And it just helped me to understand,
Speaker 4: you know, just the sort of two faced nature of
Speaker 4: public and private.
Speaker 1: Yeah, will you give that to us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sophia, it took me a while to realize that
Speaker 2: I work with pro wrestlers. And what I mean is
Speaker 2: that when we're in a committee hearing, we're on the
Speaker 2: House floor, or they're on Fox News, they are like
Speaker 2: one persona like they're the ultimate warrior, the.
Speaker 3: Under the rock whatever.
Speaker 2: But I would start running into these guys, you know,
Speaker 2: behind the committee room and like we call it an
Speaker 2: ante room, it's just off or at the Congressional gym,
Speaker 2: or just like bumping into them at the Dunkin Donuts line,
Speaker 2: and they would like come up to me and they'd.
Speaker 3: Be like hey, swall, well, hey buddy, like how are
Speaker 3: you doing?
Speaker 2: And like I would look at them like they have
Speaker 2: three heads because they had just like scorched me personally
Speaker 2: on Fox News or in a hearing. And I came
Speaker 2: to realize that, like to them, it's just the persona
Speaker 2: they have to carry, Like they can hit me over
Speaker 2: the head with the steel chair when we're in the ring,
Speaker 2: you know, like in the committee hearing, but backstage when
Speaker 2: there's no camera for them to perform to just two
Speaker 2: guys doing a gig, and I'm like, wait, but like
Speaker 2: it's not a gig, like yeah, and the fans that
Speaker 2: you are trying to please or called constituents when you're
Speaker 2: in He's second.
Speaker 3: Impeachment of Trump.
Speaker 2: When I was one of the prosecutors in the Senate,
Speaker 2: I had made this presentation about like the violence of
Speaker 2: the day, and I had the police officer portion of
Speaker 2: the presentation and it was very emotional, and even Mitch
Speaker 2: McConnell was like sitting in the front row like wiping
Speaker 2: a tear from his wow, because we're washing police officers
Speaker 2: just being crushed and then we take a break and
Speaker 2: I go to the bathroom and as I'm washing my hands,
Speaker 2: I see in the sink next to me, Ted Cruz
Speaker 2: washing his hands and he looks over at me and
Speaker 2: he drives his hands and he puts his fist out
Speaker 2: and he goes, hey, I'm Ted. And I look at
Speaker 2: him and I'm like, with my fist, hey Ted. And
Speaker 2: you can tell I'm so confused because the night before
Speaker 2: he was on Fox News calling Adam Schiff and me
Speaker 2: out by name, saying the worst thing, and he goes,
Speaker 2: I want you to know you're doing a really good.
Speaker 3: Job out there. He goes, no, I mean it, And I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, like, what is he talking about?
Speaker 3: But again it's just like it's just like what's crazy?
Speaker 2: So and that there are a few of them, though,
Speaker 2: I will give like Marjorie Taylor Green not a pro wrestler,
Speaker 2: like she believes her crazy, and I respect that.
Speaker 3: I actually respect somebody who's like this is what I believe.
Speaker 2: It may be, like Battie, But like what I don't respect,
Speaker 2: but I have a harder time squaring is people who
Speaker 2: actually know better and they just do it anyway because
Speaker 2: they think, yeah, the you know, politicainment or like political theater.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is hard to.
Speaker 4: Blame those people that because that is the only thing
Speaker 4: that has been rewarded on the right. And you know,
Speaker 4: like when Trump was elected for the first time in
Speaker 4: the primaries in twenty sixteen and got the nomination, nobody
Speaker 4: else was really kind of only playing to that fox
Speaker 4: crowd or only playing to like the most fringe elements
Speaker 4: on the right. And what Trump did is make the
Speaker 4: fringe the center of that party. And it's like, so
Speaker 4: now to compete, you have to mimic him. No one
Speaker 4: can quite do it right, And so you know, if
Speaker 4: it wasn't so high stakes, you would almost feel sorry
Speaker 4: for them, you know, because they look so ridiculous trying
Speaker 4: to do this. But it's like, like you said, it's
Speaker 4: like the stakes are too high, Like this isn't supposed
Speaker 4: to be entertainment, but like.
Speaker 2: It is kind of yeah, correctionally analogy, It's like there's
Speaker 2: this royal rumble right now where they're all competing to
Speaker 2: like who can outdo the other and Trump, right, Like
Speaker 2: one of them wants to put Trump on Mount Rushmore,
Speaker 2: one of them two hundred dollars Bill, one of them
Speaker 2: wants to rename Dulles after Trump.
Speaker 3: So it's just like this pathetic effort to.
Speaker 2: Just try and be the most in you know, service
Speaker 2: to Trump among my colleagues and they all.
Speaker 1: And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. It makes
Speaker 1: me feel crazy because not only is it also stupid,
Speaker 1: but as you said, Jordan, it is so high stakes.
Speaker 1: This is life and death for people. When our veterans
Speaker 1: lose their healthcare, and we know how many veterans commit
Speaker 1: suicide in this country every week, that is life and death.
Speaker 1: It is a betrayal of our people. And you know,
Speaker 1: to say kids should go hungry in school feels like
Speaker 1: a betrayal of who we are. And I guess what
Speaker 1: frightens me about what trump Ism has unleashed is such
Speaker 1: a movement of the Overton window. We have seen the
Speaker 1: spectrum of acceptability get pushed so far into violence and
Speaker 1: belittling and bullying. It's so classless and something I respect,
Speaker 1: particularly about our country, about American people, about our working
Speaker 1: class folks, like we have always had a level of honor.
Speaker 1: We haven't always done everything right, but there has been
Speaker 1: like a grit and a and some level of decorum
Speaker 1: to what we believe in and it's just gone. And
Speaker 1: the way that they talk about people, in the way
Speaker 1: that they talk about women in the way it's just
Speaker 1: like it. It pains me. And I guess I'm curious
Speaker 1: in terms of how we communicate about this stuff, because
Speaker 1: you said, Congressman, that public sentiment is working, and Jordan,
Speaker 1: you are an incredible communicator out in the world to
Speaker 1: explain why the political is personal, how everything that happens
Speaker 1: in our world, everything around us, is a result of policy.
Speaker 1: I'm breathing clean air on the East Coast right now
Speaker 1: because of the EPA. I can trust the water that
Speaker 1: comes out of my sink to drink because of policy.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious about the keep the pressure applied from
Speaker 1: the public and how you see us doing that best, Jordan,
Speaker 1: because I know that the protests happening around the country
Speaker 1: aren't being covered on the mainstream news right now. We're
Speaker 1: barely seeing them on Instagram. We got to go looking
Speaker 1: to see tens of thousands of people in the street.
Speaker 1: You know that big rally AOC and Bernie did in
Speaker 1: Colorado just a few weeks ago, for example, How do
Speaker 1: you encourage us to keep that foot on the gas
Speaker 1: pedal of public sentiment. What's your advice for listeners who
Speaker 1: want to be involved, who don't want to see federal
Speaker 1: workers lose their jobs, veterans lose their healthcare, kids lose
Speaker 1: access you know, to healthy start and snap. What do
Speaker 1: we do because people feel overwhelmed because of this flood
Speaker 1: zone strategy and I I don't want us to risk
Speaker 1: the momentum of sentiment.
Speaker 5: Well, it's a.
Speaker 4: Tough answer because the answer is essentially we have to
Speaker 4: what I would say for people, find the person who
Speaker 4: most represents you and your beliefs personally and support them.
Speaker 4: And you know, I offer every member of Congress you know,
Speaker 4: says call my office because that is the thing that
Speaker 4: I really get a barometer on what people are thinking.
Speaker 5: And I think that's really true, and Eric, you can
Speaker 5: tell us.
Speaker 4: But the other thing I would say is I often
Speaker 4: look at, you know, members of Congress who I know
Speaker 4: and admire. I'll look at their social media comments and
Speaker 4: often it's like, yes, give them hell, you're fighting, thank you.
Speaker 4: But just as often with the Democrats since Trump came
Speaker 4: back into power, it's like, okay, okay, but this feels performative.
Speaker 4: What are you actually doing? And I think it's important
Speaker 4: to remind people that we are living in a truly
Speaker 4: unprecedated moment in American history. The Democrats don't run anything
Speaker 4: in our federal government, not the White House, not the Senate,
Speaker 4: not the House of Representatives, and not the highly part
Speaker 4: is Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: So it's the wrong question.
Speaker 4: It's why or is the Republican Party accepting a reality
Speaker 4: in which there is no red line. The President of
Speaker 4: the United States can help our adversaries, can unwind one
Speaker 4: hundred years of economic prosperity and protection of democracy around
Speaker 4: the world and have no consequences. No senators privately coming
Speaker 4: to the White House to be like, hey, you better
Speaker 4: stop this year.
Speaker 5: You're going to lose the support of Congress. I mean Nixon.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: President Clinton when he was impeached, had those types of
Speaker 4: private things happening to him to sort of make sure
Speaker 4: that they were responsive to the political realities of like, hey,
Speaker 4: if you keep doing this, we're going to lose and
Speaker 4: we're all use our seats and you got to stop
Speaker 4: or you gotta resign. This is a moment in which
Speaker 4: none of that is happening. And Donald Trump signed an
Speaker 4: executive order this week to try to take over elections
Speaker 4: and make it harder people. So they're literally doing everything
Speaker 4: they can to where they can't lose.
Speaker 2: And so there's this weird thing going on I think
Speaker 2: with my colleagues where it's this wishful and you wouldn't
Speaker 2: blame him for thinking it type of thinking, where well,
Speaker 2: we can just keep enabling him, because if to Jordan's point,
Speaker 2: Trump makes it harder for people to vote, and if
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is successful in Wisconsin and buying that election,
Speaker 2: that I will have a ballot box that's harder to
Speaker 2: get to and hold me accountable, and a billionaire willing
Speaker 2: to bankroll my election so I'm invincible. So that that's
Speaker 2: kind of the accountability problem that we have right now.
Speaker 2: But to Jordan's point, that question in the comments on
Speaker 2: social media, like what are you doing besides like giving us,
Speaker 2: you know, a good show and a committee hearing, I
Speaker 2: am telling like myself, our family and my constituents, we
Speaker 2: all in our activism have to go.
Speaker 3: One rung higher. So whatever we were.
Speaker 2: Willing to do in the last election, for now we
Speaker 2: have to go one rung higher. I think we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to go a few rungs higher ultimately to save
Speaker 2: this thing, but right now, just take yourself one wrung higher.
Speaker 2: What I'm doing personally is I'm going to Republican districts
Speaker 2: where they will not hold town halls, and I'm holding
Speaker 2: a town hall. I was in Annapaulin and A Luna's
Speaker 2: district two weekends ago. Six hundred people showed up. I
Speaker 2: did it with the former Republican in Congress. We had
Speaker 2: a fifteen hundred person wait list and we listened to
Speaker 2: those constituents and there was talent in that crowd who
Speaker 2: may end up being a candidate to run against her,
Speaker 2: you know, in the future, and so committing to doing
Speaker 2: that is my one rung hire to your listeners, I
Speaker 2: would say, if you've never gone to a public protest,
Speaker 2: go to your first public protests April five, there's.
Speaker 3: Going to be one day of that centric.
Speaker 2: If you've never gone to a city council meeting, go
Speaker 2: to a city council meeting. If you've gone to a
Speaker 2: city council meeting but you've never put yourself on the
Speaker 2: agenda to speak, it's a public agenda speaking. But just
Speaker 2: go one rung higher for now home personal activism, and
Speaker 2: I think that's what it's going to take to get
Speaker 2: us out of this hell that we're in now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like that. When Jordan mentioned how important
Speaker 1: it is for you guys to hear from callers, can
Speaker 1: you give us a little bit inside baseball on that,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people are nervous to call their
Speaker 1: elected representatives. They're not quite sure what to say, they're
Speaker 1: not quite sure if it's going to be impactful. So
Speaker 1: how much does that matter in congressional offices.
Speaker 2: If that's the only thing you do, I would say,
Speaker 2: probably won't make you feel that much better and it
Speaker 2: probably won't move the needles too much for the congressional office.
Speaker 2: But as I said, if you're willing, if that's all
Speaker 2: you've ever done, if you're willing to go one rung
Speaker 2: higher and also go to their town hall or go
Speaker 2: to their office. There's been protests at different offices around
Speaker 2: members who won't hold town halls. I think that starts
Speaker 2: to add up because when you're a member and you're
Speaker 2: seeing that the phone lines are you know, hot today,
Speaker 2: and there's two hundred people outside in my congressional office
Speaker 2: demanding that I hold it down, and my dms are
Speaker 2: blowing up of people saying, you know why, won't you
Speaker 2: talk to me like that? That reaches me and I
Speaker 2: can be quite effective, and I you know, I get
Speaker 2: a report every week of like what the call volume is,
Speaker 2: what the email volume is, what the mail We call
Speaker 2: it the mail report. And I also just like talking
Speaker 2: to the interns and our staffers and I'll say like,
Speaker 2: how is it on the phones, because I just want
Speaker 2: the sense of what it's like And you can tell
Speaker 2: if it's a stressful day because people are calling and
Speaker 2: you know they're pissed off. So yes, that works, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't work if you're the only one doing it,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't work if that's the only.
Speaker 3: Thing that you're doing.
Speaker 2: So we need a lot of people to do things
Speaker 2: like that, and we need to do more more than
Speaker 2: just you know, calling your rep.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's a great website for our listeners
Speaker 1: at home called five calls dot org that will help
Speaker 1: you identify your reps, identify how to speak about the
Speaker 1: issues that are important to you, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a really great resource. I have an alarm on my
Speaker 1: calendar that goes off every Monday, and it's like, call
Speaker 1: your representatives once a week, takes ten minutes. Got to
Speaker 1: do it, and I do think to continue to remind
Speaker 1: your reps that they work for you. You know you
Speaker 1: said it. Your job is to keep your constituents safe
Speaker 1: and then to work to better their lives. And I
Speaker 1: think a great way to remind people of how to
Speaker 1: do that is to stay in communication. Can you give
Speaker 1: me a little overview? I know we're coming up on time.
Speaker 1: I feel like I could talk to you both for hours.
Speaker 3: Our former allies. I think my office has been like
Speaker 3: a therapist couch for.
Speaker 2: Ally and their leader to come in and just ask me, like,
Speaker 2: what did we do wrong? I bet I'm just like
Speaker 2: on this apology tour of like it's not you.
Speaker 1: You're like you've you've done nothing wrong. This is crazy.
Speaker 1: One of those means yeah, well, and thank you for
Speaker 1: taking the time out of your day to come and
Speaker 1: talk to us about this. Can you give us a
Speaker 1: quick overview of things that listeners should be watching, Like
Speaker 1: what are Trump and Musk coming for that people need
Speaker 1: to know? We know it's healthcare, we know it's abortion access,
Speaker 1: we know it's gay marriage, we know it's voting, we
Speaker 1: know it's the VA, Like, are there things you really
Speaker 1: want people to know they should be tracking?
Speaker 3: And watching yes on this.
Speaker 2: It's called reconciliation. That's the name of the procedural process.
Speaker 2: But for Trump to give nearly a trillion dollars in
Speaker 2: tax cuts to billionaires, republic Ks in Congress will have
Speaker 2: to vote for it, and they have a very narrow majority.
Speaker 2: And so watch who benefits and who loses who does
Speaker 2: he take them? Right now, the only way for the
Speaker 2: billionaires to get their tax cuts is for him to
Speaker 2: take away healthcare and social security benefits.
Speaker 3: Period.
Speaker 2: We should be watching that as he tries to make
Speaker 2: it harder to go to the ballot box. You're seeing
Speaker 2: lawsuits being brought to stop and Leader Jeffries just brought
Speaker 2: a lawsuit on behalf of House Democrats on one of
Speaker 2: the executive orders that makes it a lot harder for
Speaker 2: people to vote. Also, if you live in a democratic state,
Speaker 2: meaning like you have a democratic governor, make sure that
Speaker 2: your governors are maxing out democracy. Because we talk a
Speaker 2: lot about voting rights and access to the polls, but
Speaker 2: it's not like we're perfect in blue states. It's not
Speaker 2: like you have voting lines of thirty minutes or less
Speaker 2: in a blue state, right Like, there's still long lines
Speaker 2: in states. So we should have high expectations on our
Speaker 2: secretaries of state and governors in blue states that in
Speaker 2: the lead up to this upcoming election where the midterms
Speaker 2: are on the line, that we are maxing out democracy
Speaker 2: and we are leading by example, not the lowest common
Speaker 2: denominator as it relates to, like how people get to
Speaker 2: the polls and are able to vote.
Speaker 1: I love that. Thank you so much, Thank you, Congressman.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask Jordan a last couple of questions,
Speaker 1: but please go to your meeting. We're with you, We
Speaker 1: love you, you.
Speaker 3: Too, You're in it. I love it.
Speaker 2: It inspires me, it reminds me why we all have
Speaker 2: to stay in it, and just so grateful.
Speaker 3: You could do anything else.
Speaker 2: You have so many options, but you care about you know,
Speaker 2: making sure our freedom and our opportunities do not evaporate
Speaker 2: around the wall.
Speaker 1: So I care about it the most. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1: All right, see you guys, good luck out there. And
Speaker 1: now a word from our sponsors that I I really
Speaker 1: enjoy and I think you will too. Jordan, You're doing
Speaker 1: a really cool thing that really makes me feel excited
Speaker 1: because we do this a lot together. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: one of the people I talked to about, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, everything going on in life, but certainly what's
Speaker 1: going on in the world. And I've sat on many
Speaker 1: a flight, in many a car canvassing, and certainly on
Speaker 1: many a night in your backyard or mine over a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine trying to figure out why people that
Speaker 1: actually are so much more aligned than the algorithms or
Speaker 1: these media silos would have us think, think they're so
Speaker 1: far apart. And I think anytime you sit down with
Speaker 1: people you know, you break bread, you meet their kids,
Speaker 1: you spend time in their town, you realize we all
Speaker 1: want a lot of the same things. You decided to
Speaker 1: take those conversations out into the world and ask, what
Speaker 1: if you're wrong, can you sit and talk to someone
Speaker 1: who has a different opinion than you and make space
Speaker 1: for their thoughts and feelings. Can you, you know, come
Speaker 1: to some sort of mutual agreement. And you've done a
Speaker 1: lot of those conversations over you know, dinners and and
Speaker 1: at gatherings, but now you're doing it in this space,
Speaker 1: in the podcast space. Why did you feel like this
Speaker 1: was the moment and what do you think you've learned
Speaker 1: so far?
Speaker 4: Thanks for asking. Yeah, it is first of all, as somebody.
Speaker 4: You know, your podcast is one of you know, it
Speaker 4: doesn't that I subscribe to and listen to. And so
Speaker 4: just first of all, respect because it's a lot harder
Speaker 4: than I thought it was going to be so good
Speaker 4: for you. The thing that there are two things that
Speaker 4: made me made me do this. Number One, I married
Speaker 4: the love of my life, who's family, you know, like
Speaker 4: most American families has every political viewpoint represented, but several
Speaker 4: people who are major Trump supporters and AREFK supporters who
Speaker 4: are really excited about this new moment in our country.
Speaker 4: And so I found and I love them and I
Speaker 4: love spending time with them. And what I realized is
Speaker 4: when I'm getting all these news alerts that make me
Speaker 4: want to puke, they're like pumping their fists in the
Speaker 4: air that they love them because it's not because they're
Speaker 4: bad people.
Speaker 5: It's because I mean.
Speaker 4: First of all, they may have different values than me,
Speaker 4: but we share a lot of the same values. But
Speaker 4: really what it is is like they spend every waking
Speaker 4: moment in a totally.
Speaker 5: Different reality than I do.
Speaker 4: Right, So everything that they are subscribed to or that
Speaker 4: their algorithm shows them is representing this viewpoint. And I
Speaker 4: think you know, we know that YouTube radicalized a lot
Speaker 4: of people, right with the algorithm of like if you
Speaker 4: like this, you're gonna like this, and then yeah, there
Speaker 4: is this famous experiment that if you sign up with
Speaker 4: no information about yourself and you want you know, within
Speaker 4: like thirty videos, you're watching some fringe conspiracy videos. So
Speaker 4: this has been something that is people aren't choosing to do.
Speaker 4: It's happened to them, and it has broken our society.
Speaker 4: And so the second reason is when Trump won the
Speaker 4: first time, it was very close and a shock, and
Speaker 4: I think there was this sense among many of us
Speaker 4: that this is a fluke, you know, where there was
Speaker 4: something unique to like the right had vilified Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: for so long that just like she couldn't like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but he won this time.
Speaker 5: It was not close. It wasn't a blowout, but you know,
Speaker 5: he won every battleground state.
Speaker 4: It was close in the popular root, but it was
Speaker 4: the kind of thing where like we all went to
Speaker 4: bed that night knowing you was going So it wasn't
Speaker 4: like this drawn out thing.
Speaker 5: It really humbled me.
Speaker 4: And so what I realized is like, what can I
Speaker 4: do because it's not helping me to sort of just
Speaker 4: like stay in my bubble, but it's really uncomfortable to
Speaker 4: talk to people.
Speaker 5: You know, my husband and I had a.
Speaker 4: Baby, and there are like millions of people out there
Speaker 4: who think that's not okay or that it's wrong. And
Speaker 4: it's so tempting to just be like, put my little
Speaker 4: blinders on and be like everyone who's in my circle
Speaker 4: loves us and it's all good. But I'm not doing that,
Speaker 4: and I'm choosing to sort of engage in some of
Speaker 4: those tougher conversations where I think it's the only way
Speaker 4: out of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I mean part of the you know,
Speaker 1: the joy for me of my career is that it
Speaker 1: takes me to live in so many places around our
Speaker 1: country sometimes around the world. I'm always kind of tickled
Speaker 1: when I spend time with really conservative people and we
Speaker 1: get along really well, and they're like, I thought you
Speaker 1: were going to be a banshee, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I just I just want us to care about each other.
Speaker 1: And if the media you are receiving isn't telling you
Speaker 1: about these true things, you know, the RFK of it all.
Speaker 1: For example, people are like, yeah, too many EPA regulations
Speaker 1: deregulate and I'm going y'all are worried about supposedly worried
Speaker 1: about heavy metals and foods. Do you know how they
Speaker 1: get there? They get there from environmental pollution. They get
Speaker 1: in the water and the soil, and then it's in
Speaker 1: the food we eat. And what bothers me is realizing
Speaker 1: that the right in particular has weaponized the gotcha moment.
Speaker 1: But they'll take the smallest slice of a whole big
Speaker 1: pie and say this slice is the information, and they
Speaker 1: leave out all the rest of the context, all the
Speaker 1: rest of the facts. And so you know, yesterday, for example,
Speaker 1: when Aaron Parness broke the news that they are removing
Speaker 1: the terms safe drinking water from EPA legislation, I'm going,
Speaker 1: this is going to hurt you, no matter how you've
Speaker 1: It's going to potentially poison my kids and yours. And
Speaker 1: so I think being willing to sit down with people
Speaker 1: and get us out of these silos, you know, get
Speaker 1: us out of the WWE energy that Congressman Swolwell was
Speaker 1: speaking about. I'll never forget years ago, a friend to
Speaker 1: you and I have in common, a comedian who shall
Speaker 1: remain nameless because I don't want to blow up a spot.
Speaker 1: But told me that because of a project he'd wound
Speaker 1: up spending some time with Tucker Carlson and was like,
Speaker 1: he's actually really smart and totally hates Trump and thinks
Speaker 1: the whole thing's bullshit, but knows all the rich people
Speaker 1: are making a ton of money, so they're going to
Speaker 1: go along with it for a little while. And you know,
Speaker 1: they don't assume America is going to blow up or anything.
Speaker 1: And I was like, huh, Like we're saying this like
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. You know, it's bullshit, but you know,
Speaker 1: it riles people up in their homes, It makes people upset,
Speaker 1: It makes people hate neighbors, it makes people not trust
Speaker 1: their doctors. It's not just a money grab. It has
Speaker 1: real consequences. And so I think when we can actually
Speaker 1: be with people and reconnect, it can hopefully push back
Speaker 1: against some of that really poisonous messaging one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: And I think there's this dynamic of something that's happening
Speaker 4: on the right and something that's happening simultaneously on the
Speaker 4: left that I think feeds what you just described. So
Speaker 4: on the left we could be a lot better. There
Speaker 4: are some people who are open to being allies with
Speaker 4: some of the groups we fight for. Yeah, they feel
Speaker 4: really a lot of pressure and nervousness around using the
Speaker 4: right terminology or saying something right.
Speaker 5: And we know.
Speaker 4: Now that a lot of the online discourse that the
Speaker 4: left perpetuated alienated people who whatever with us on the issues,
Speaker 4: but they're kind of like, you guys are too much.
Speaker 4: At the same time, on the right, there's this famous
Speaker 4: John Lennon quote that's one of my favorite quotes.
Speaker 5: It's so simple, don't hate what you don't understand. To me,
Speaker 5: it just gets everything right.
Speaker 4: So we know that with the gay rights movement, things
Speaker 4: got a lot better for queer people. Once you had
Speaker 4: a gay neighbor or a teacher or a coach, or
Speaker 4: just someone that you knew in your lists that was gay,
Speaker 4: and you're like, oh, I like this person. They should
Speaker 4: have rights. Yeah, And you know, so that is the
Speaker 4: natural trajectory. And so what they do on the right
Speaker 4: is parody the most extreme examples.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So, with regard to gender, if one person posts on
Speaker 4: Twitter my pronouns are like a tree. There is an
Speaker 4: entire news cycle of the right wing media sphere that
Speaker 4: is like, oh no, you can identify as a tree.
Speaker 5: You know what's next?
Speaker 4: You're going to identify as a spaceship when in reality,
Speaker 4: ninety nine point nine percent of people who feel, you know,
Speaker 4: who are non binary or have some gender not performing issue,
Speaker 4: which is like a real thing. It's an actual thing,
Speaker 4: and it's a serious.
Speaker 1: And it's always been a thing. It's not new.
Speaker 4: It takes so little effort and energy just to you know,
Speaker 4: be human about it. But all of that is suddenly
Speaker 4: non serious because they're expert at taking those French things.
Speaker 5: And there's an.
Speaker 4: Example with everything, yeah, of making something really fringe look like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is what the left's trying to do. When you
Speaker 4: call on one, they don't want anyone to pick up right,
Speaker 4: No more police because one guy got killed, you know,
Speaker 4: on YouTube.
Speaker 5: And you know, to me, like the most.
Speaker 4: Haunting image so far of what you were describing earlier,
Speaker 4: of like the bending the knee and the total subservience
Speaker 4: of the major law firms. But was seeing them jackhammer
Speaker 4: black lives matter the words black lives.
Speaker 5: Matter jackhammering them, or the.
Speaker 4: NFL taking the words end racism out of the end zone.
Speaker 4: And it's like across the culture, government, business, the news media. Yeah, everyone,
Speaker 4: there is a real cost, real or perceived but it
Speaker 4: almost doesn't matter because the things that they are doing
Speaker 4: are trying to placate Trump so he doesn't come after them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's scary. It's scary to give in to cruelty.
Speaker 1: And what frustrates me is it's the opposite of efficient.
Speaker 1: You have any idea how much money it costs to
Speaker 1: jackhammer up three city blocks in Washington, DC and repave them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for what? You know, the cuts that we're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: cutting usaid when there's in a bullet outbreak in Africa,
Speaker 1: It's like, what are we doing? And you know, medications
Speaker 1: already on the ground, and these clinics are being told
Speaker 1: throw it away, life saving medication, they're being told to
Speaker 1: throw it away. The cruelty and the wastefulness is so
Speaker 1: hard for me, but I agree with you. They they
Speaker 1: message with these slogans that can be so far off
Speaker 1: from what's true. And what it seems to have done,
Speaker 1: in my observation is it's made it It's made truth
Speaker 1: feel like a non necessity. People don't even care what's
Speaker 1: true anymore. They're just tired. And that is scary. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious, how do you encourage people to stay hopeful?
Speaker 1: What helps you not just throw your hands up in
Speaker 1: the air and go back to bed in the morning.
Speaker 1: Aside from your perfect, precious little baby's so cute.
Speaker 4: I try really hard to practice what I preach is
Speaker 4: the first thing. So you know, I'm someone who has
Speaker 4: spent twenty years trying to help Democrats win elections and
Speaker 4: raise money in this really broken system where wealthy people
Speaker 4: like you on. But he's certainly not the first. He's
Speaker 4: just the largest contributor. But you know, our system is broken, right,
Speaker 4: and we have to work with the system we have
Speaker 4: in order to change it. But one of my favorite
Speaker 4: personal sayings is you have to win elections in order
Speaker 4: to govern. In order to help all these people that
Speaker 4: we care about, we first have to win an election,
Speaker 4: and that means you have to convince enough Americans that
Speaker 4: we have better ideas.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 4: What I mean by practicing what I preach is, you know,
Speaker 4: this analogy I use a lot is like we're at
Speaker 4: the social media.
Speaker 5: Broke politics, right.
Speaker 4: You made us all where put on a jersey that
Speaker 4: was red or blue, And so think about how fanatically
Speaker 4: you love your favorite sports team. You have the merch
Speaker 4: you go to the games, you get season tickets, you're
Speaker 4: cheering and screaming for them, you watch highlight reels. It's
Speaker 4: very hard then, in the big game to get somebody
Speaker 4: to actually be, hey, can you take off this jersey,
Speaker 4: go to the other side of the field, sit in
Speaker 4: those stands and not cheer for these players who you
Speaker 4: don't know or you hate. Yeah, And so what I
Speaker 4: try to do that as have moments where I can
Speaker 4: at least acknowledge that there's someone in my party who
Speaker 4: I disagree with, or I think they.
Speaker 5: Did something wrong or that's harmful for the country.
Speaker 4: And I want to be able to articulate that what
Speaker 4: I expect from all of the people who voted for
Speaker 4: Trump is the same thing. So a very powerful question
Speaker 4: that I've been asking to my friends and family who
Speaker 4: voted for him and support him is just simply this,
Speaker 4: is there anything that he could do that would cause
Speaker 4: you to stop supporting him. It's a really powerful question,
Speaker 4: and people it takes them a really long time to answer.
Speaker 5: And you're so politics has become like religion. The fervor
Speaker 5: is so real that and answer it.
Speaker 4: But that's to me, like, if we can't answer that,
Speaker 4: then we're kind of cooked, right, Unless we can figure
Speaker 4: out a way to win an election, because that really
Speaker 4: is what it comes down to in this moment is
Speaker 4: we've just never had this moment before, where like you know,
Speaker 4: famously Trump said when he was running the first time,
Speaker 4: I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not support
Speaker 4: It felt so extreme to say. But not only was
Speaker 4: he right about that, it's I could cozy up to
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin, who runs America's adversary. I could dismantle NATO.
Speaker 4: I could ruin the American economy with pointless tariffs that
Speaker 4: will cause a trade war, and we know don't work,
Speaker 4: and I won't lose support. So it's like, at this point, what,
Speaker 4: you know, where can we go?
Speaker 5: What can we do right?
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think I.
Speaker 4: Do think that you know, we obviously can't give up
Speaker 4: and we have to remember, you know, Kamala Harris got
Speaker 4: forty eight percent of the popular vote, Yes, Trump about
Speaker 4: forty nine Each of the battleground states was within you
Speaker 4: know a point. There's not something fundamental that has happened
Speaker 4: in the country. We had this really difficult situation as
Speaker 4: Democrats where everyone saw in real time that President Biden
Speaker 4: was no longer up to the job. There was a panic,
Speaker 4: you know, and there was this process or lack of
Speaker 4: a process, really a very difficult position for Vice President
Speaker 4: Harris to step into. And I think she did a
Speaker 4: really wonderful job. She had one hundred years to do
Speaker 4: something that most people who have ever run for the
Speaker 4: job have two years. Yes, so there's not something that's
Speaker 4: totally broken about the dump or is it humbling? Yeah,
Speaker 4: could we have a more attractive message, yes, Could we
Speaker 4: have more dynamic leaders step up to the plate, for sure.
Speaker 5: But the only way that.
Speaker 4: They can have a permanent majority is if enough of
Speaker 4: us sit back quietly while they fix the courts and
Speaker 4: make yes, sorry, fix them in the way like rig
Speaker 4: them better word. But there's a playbook, you know, from
Speaker 4: Hungary to Brazil to all kinds of other countries in
Speaker 4: the world. Like it's it's just a playbook that everyone
Speaker 4: knows about.
Speaker 1: It's how to the authoritarian playbook.
Speaker 3: And so, like.
Speaker 4: Congressman Swollwell said, there's all things we can do to
Speaker 4: push back against it, and they are all in some
Speaker 4: ways equally important. So, you know, the leaders the future,
Speaker 4: Our future leaders come from state and local politics, right,
Speaker 4: So like, yeah, Obama was a state senator in Springfield, Illinois. Right,
Speaker 4: Clinton was the governor of Arkansas, like one of our
Speaker 4: smallest states.
Speaker 5: And so we've I think.
Speaker 4: Again, find identifying somebody that you think represents your values
Speaker 4: and that's you're excited about in kind of supporting them
Speaker 4: helps motivate you.
Speaker 1: And now for our sponsors, who are you excited about?
Speaker 1: Who are the leaders that you love right now?
Speaker 4: So many people I think that you know, the first
Speaker 4: that comes to mind is the wonderful new governor of
Speaker 4: Maryland who.
Speaker 5: You and I met together, Wes Moore.
Speaker 4: Yes, in addition to just being like a wonderful human being,
Speaker 4: you know, he and his wife are so dynamic and
Speaker 4: he's already done it a lot that was bipartisan in Maryland.
Speaker 4: I love Congressman Richie Torres from the Bronx. He was
Speaker 4: the first gay man of color to be elected, along
Speaker 4: with Manda Jones, the former congressman from New York.
Speaker 5: I think Richie Torres is great.
Speaker 4: I love Gina Raymondo, who was a governor before she
Speaker 4: was in President Biden's cabinet. Ruben Diego, the new senator
Speaker 4: from Arizona, who were Kirsten Cinema Boo.
Speaker 1: Ruben's wonderful I got to campaign with him quite a
Speaker 1: bit this year and just our guess last year and
Speaker 1: just adore him and his family.
Speaker 5: Pete Boota judge, you know who's new.
Speaker 4: But you know, we forget that. Pete Poota Judge won
Speaker 4: the Iowa caucus in twenty twenty, right before COVID started.
Speaker 4: He's a serious, serious leader of our party. Jasmine Crockett,
Speaker 4: who's Congressman.
Speaker 1: Swallow mentioned, she's so wonderful.
Speaker 4: She's so I mean, she's a brilliant lawyer, but you know,
Speaker 4: she's obviously feeling that void that people feel sometimes, like
Speaker 4: why don't we have someone who's like more of a
Speaker 4: fighter you.
Speaker 5: Can really like take. Yeah, so that's Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 1: If you don't know her, yeah, she's amazing. Somebody, uh, somebody.
Speaker 1: I posted something about how disrespectful Marjorie Taylor Green was
Speaker 1: to a journalist this week, and someone was like, you
Speaker 1: have nothing to say about Jasmine Crockett, And I said, honey,
Speaker 1: Jasmine Crockett is just matching their volume.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm like, if you don't like it, get your people
Speaker 1: to stop.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I was in a room recently with her and
Speaker 4: there was just tremendous grassroots support for her kind of
Speaker 4: unlike anything. Seemed like people whipping their napkins at the table,
Speaker 4: like yeah, got it. There's a lot of talent in Michigan,
Speaker 4: obviously the one Yes, Gretchen Whitmer and the new son love.
Speaker 1: Big gretch walk In. She's wonderful too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of people we have wonderful, wonderful talent.
Speaker 4: But to me, it's like what happened in twenty seventeen
Speaker 4: when Trump won is a bunch of talented badasses ran
Speaker 4: for office. A bunch of veterans, nurses and doctors, people
Speaker 4: who are running the PTA and saw what was going
Speaker 4: on the schools and they're now in Congress and they're
Speaker 4: like amazing. You know Abigail Spanberger from Virginia, more In
Speaker 4: Underwood from Illinois'.
Speaker 1: Yes I love her, who was a nurse.
Speaker 4: And saw with the Affordable Care Act and was like, no,
Speaker 4: you know, that is how we fight back and build
Speaker 4: and win. So to your listeners, I would also say,
Speaker 4: like there's nothing magical about running for Congress. Start small, like,
Speaker 4: but get in the mix if you care about the
Speaker 4: cool board, even being involved, you know, in your community,
Speaker 4: organizations matters right now.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, it's all such good advice in it, and
Speaker 1: it does remind me of the power levers that we
Speaker 1: as citizens can still pull and push on, which feels exciting.
Speaker 1: Who do you hope will make a bid for our
Speaker 1: party for president twenty twenty eight?
Speaker 4: Well, it's a tough thing to answer, because what I
Speaker 4: think about in my quiet moments is like, has has
Speaker 4: something changed that to the degree that we won't go
Speaker 4: back to how it was before?
Speaker 5: So we know that we've.
Speaker 4: Always had If there's a Venn diagram of like what
Speaker 4: makes you a talented politician and what makes you a
Speaker 4: talented actor or entertainer, big overlap from Ronald Reagan to
Speaker 4: Jesse Ventura to Donald Trump, and there are many more,
Speaker 4: you know, Sonny Bono, Yes, So what I don't know
Speaker 4: is like, are we at a place now where we
Speaker 4: need a celebrity to win? And I'm just not sure.
Speaker 4: So there's a world in which you have George Clooney
Speaker 4: or Matthew McConaughey or the Rock running for the Democratic
Speaker 4: nomination a year and a half. While none of those
Speaker 4: people would be a bad president, I think any of
Speaker 4: them would be one thousand times better than Donald Trump
Speaker 4: and Jade Vance. That is very different though, from a
Speaker 4: primary that has Pete Boodha Judge and Wes Moore and
Speaker 4: Gretchen Whitmer and Amy Klobuchar. Or is there someone from
Speaker 4: business you know, Howard Schulton, Michael Bloomberg tried last time.
Speaker 4: Is Mark Cuban gonna throw his hat in the ring?
Speaker 4: I don't think he will? But or is there someone
Speaker 4: else who runs a beloved you know, Bob Iger who's
Speaker 4: run the most beloved corporation on Earth for twenty years, Like, yeah, Iran, well, Oprah.
Speaker 4: So I don't know what I hope there's not one person.
Speaker 4: I know that we will have a really competitive primary.
Speaker 4: Vice President Harris might choose to run again, And I
Speaker 4: just I know that I'm proud to be a Democrat
Speaker 4: right now because the people standing on our primary stage
Speaker 4: are going to look like the country, and there will
Speaker 4: be kind of everything, And I hope that What I
Speaker 4: do think we've moved beyond is identity politics.
Speaker 5: And we know why they started and why we needed
Speaker 5: them right.
Speaker 4: Marginalized groups had to organize to get rights. But now
Speaker 4: what we have realized is that most people who are
Speaker 4: in those communities don't want to be grouped into that.
Speaker 4: And so you know, six months ago we had Ombre's
Speaker 4: Coen Harris right for like Latino men who were hare like.
Speaker 5: People didn't react well to that.
Speaker 4: And so I think ideas and talking about the future
Speaker 4: and the aspirational part of like being an American who
Speaker 4: has enough money to like have a nice life, that
Speaker 4: is what our nominee should and I think will represent, yeah,
Speaker 4: rather than like, oh, here's the gay candidate, here's the
Speaker 4: black candidate, here's the Latino candidate.
Speaker 5: That's not what we need. And I don't think that's
Speaker 5: what our party will offer going forward, right.
Speaker 1: Well, And I guess what's frustrating is if you are
Speaker 1: described by any of those words, people act like that's
Speaker 1: your whole personality or the whole reason you're a candidate.
Speaker 1: It must be DEI and it's like, no, these are
Speaker 1: just people who will ensure that people are represented. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not that complicated. And I do hope that the
Speaker 1: more conversations we can have in our communities, the more
Speaker 1: engagement we see people participating in from town halls to
Speaker 1: making calls to Congress, to protesting to volunteering. My wish
Speaker 1: is that it reminds us that we all really are
Speaker 1: in this together, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the more people that are represented in any room, the better.
Speaker 1: The outcomes in that room are for everyone, even the
Speaker 1: people who've traditionally had the power. So I hope we
Speaker 1: can show people another way. And for now, I'm really
Speaker 1: grateful to have both of you gentlemen on my speed dial,
Speaker 1: and we'll just keep going.
Speaker 5: Thank you for everything you're doing.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's like Eric said at the start
Speaker 4: of the conversation, you don't have to be doing this,
Speaker 4: but I think, knowing you for almost twenty years, like
Speaker 4: it's what makes you come alive, and it's in your bones.
Speaker 4: And I know that out of your millions of followers,
Speaker 4: just as many are coming to you for how to
Speaker 4: be a citizen as they are for their favorite show
Speaker 4: or podcast, and that it's a real testament to how
Speaker 4: you show up in the world and the reputation you've
Speaker 4: built for fighting for everyone, even the people that don't
Speaker 4: look like you.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Thanks Jordan, Thank you. I met a
Speaker 1: really sweet Alan Wilmington about a week ago who said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to law school because of you. I've followed
Speaker 1: all this stuff, you know, since middle school, and now
Speaker 1: I'm going to law school and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this makes me want to sob. She's going
Speaker 1: to be a human rights attorney, and it was it
Speaker 1: was very special. So it is meaningful to do this
Speaker 1: work with you. It's meaningful to get to have these
Speaker 1: conversations with everyone who's listening at home. Thank you all
Speaker 1: you know for being here. And I do hope that
Speaker 1: some of this pragmatic advice has has reminded you to
Speaker 1: stay hopeful and stay in the game because we're not
Speaker 1: going to see our territory. We're not going to see
Speaker 1: this country to anybody who wants to take it apart.
Speaker 1: Damn it.
Speaker 5: Well, I love you, I love you, Thank you for
Speaker 5: having me