WEBVTT - Katie Porter - Summer Staff Picks 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.040 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:11.000 Thing from iHeart Radio. It's officially summer, and that means 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.840 it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing, where 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:18.520 our staff shares their favorite episodes in our Summer staff series. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.560 Next up is our producer Maureen Hoben. 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:26.880 Thanks Alec. There are many things I admire about California 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.280 Representative Katie Porter. She's a single mother who fearlessly speaks 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.560 truth to power, from pharmaceutical executives to Wall Street CEOs. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:38.800 Which if you've ever seen her at a congressional hearing 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.640 using her infamous whiteboard, you know she fights to crack 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.360 down on price gouging to protect public land, and she 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.280 refuses money from any special interests or corporate packs. I 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.159 knocked on doors for her twenty eighteen campaign when she 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.640 flipped a seat that had always been held by Republicans, 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.160 and now after three terms, she's running for Senate. I'm 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.800 pleased to share Alex twenty twenty one conversation with Congressperson 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:04.640 Katie Porter. 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.399 My guest today is United States Congresswoman Katie Porter, a 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:16.399 Democrat in her second term. Porter represents California's forty fifth 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:21.240 district in Orange County, which is traditionally conservative. She's a 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.520 consumer protection attorney and a law professor. She quickly developed 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.440 a name for herself in her first term with tough 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.800 questioning of people testifying before Congress, often using her famous 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:38.960 whiteboard to hold CEOs and political appointees accountable. Katie Porter 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.960 grew up on a farm in Iowa. During the farm 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.680 crisis of the nineteen eighties, she broke with family tradition 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.040 of attending state school to go to Yale and went 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.160 on to Harvard Law School. She decided to run for 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.880 office after Trump's win in twenty sixteen and became the 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.640 first Democrat elected in her district. Katie Porter is comfortable 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.760 being a fish out of water. 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:04.800 I like to be challenged. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.040 I like to learn, and I think that was a 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.160 huge part of, you know, why I chose to go, 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.200 you know, off to college far away from Iowa to 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.280 kind of stretch myself. I loved being a professor. I 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.520 was a professor here at the University of California, Irvine, 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:24.320 teaching business law courses, and then really stretched myself when 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.200 I ran for Congress. And one of the great things 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.240 about being in Congress that I never hear anyone talking about, 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:30.679 which makes me kind of skeptical. 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.120 Act frankly, is that. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.160 The great thing about this job is every minute you 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.720 should be learning something. Whether that's listening to your constituents, 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.480 whether that's a briefing from about national security, you know, 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.760 whether that's you know, having a meeting with your staff. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.560 There's just so much to learn to be able to 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:48.760 do this job effectively. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:49.760 And I like that. 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.880 So in some ways it's very much like being a professor. 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:53.960 My job is to learn stuff. 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:54.960 And then to help teach. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.240 And so in this case, instead of teaching a classroom, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.600 I think about teaching the American people. 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.160 You graduated Harvard Law School. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.280 What year, two thousand and one? 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.280 So when you left there? Where did you go from there? 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:06.600 Where did you first go out of school? 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.400 So I went to clerk for a federal judge in 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.560 Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a wonderful judge. And this 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.160 mon't surprise people. There weren't a lot of other law 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:20.560 clerks who wanted to work on the bankruptcy cases, and 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.120 so literally, I think I got to work on every 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.200 single bankruptcy opinion in the entire Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.800 which stretches from North Dakota down to Arkansas. 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.400 Worked on that year, and then I went off and 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:31.920 I practiced. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.320 I took the bar exam, and I practiced law in Portland, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.160 Oregon for a couple of years. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:39.440 What led you to Portland from Little Rock? 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.360 My now ex husband is from there, right, family? Yeah, family, 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:46.960 and you know it was a good place to practice there. 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.520 And then decided that I wanted to become a law professor. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.080 And I hadn't really gone to law school thinking maybe 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:54.800 I want to be a professor. I had thought about 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.280 getting a PhD. And at the time, the idea of 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.920 writing a book seemed really long to me, which is 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.360 funny because I've now written two law textbooks that are 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.000 like a thousand pages each. But when I got to 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.880 law school, I really liked it. I wasn't sure what 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:13.840 I wanted to teach, what did I love? What did 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:15.960 I want to spend my whole career studying? And then 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.080 I took Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy class and that was it. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.280 That was what I wanted to spend my life working on. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:22.960 This is why you were in law school. 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:24.360 This is when I went to law school. My third 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:25.200 year of law school. 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.680 Tell the story if you would have you approached Warren 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.520 after she was less than cuddly toward you in class. 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:32.000 Yeah. 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:36.719 Yeah, So Elizabeth was a really great professor. She called 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.800 on students and you had to have your homework done. 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.520 You had to be prepared if you showed up. And 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.920 so I was a rule follower. I did my homework. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:46.760 I sat in the front row, which I thought would 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.680 help her overlook me, but it didn't really work out 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.400 that way. And so, you know, one of the solutions 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.320 to not being called on is to raise your hand. 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.080 And so she was asking a question and I raised 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.320 my hand and I gave what I thought it was 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.000 a pretty good answer, and I remember her turning to me, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.160 I'll never forget I mean, the hand gesture. I can 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.000 do it today. She said, thank miss Porter. Think and 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.240 I remember just wilting inside because I was thinking. I 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.920 was thinking so hard and I was coming up short. 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.800 And I went to see her after that, and I said, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.440 don't give up on me. I've never taken a course 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.760 like this before. I didn't take some of the there's 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.200 a couple kind of courses you often take that are 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.200 introductory to bankruptcy. And I just jumped into the deep end. 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:33.440 I was like, don't give up on me. I really 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.400 care about this stuff. And the reason I cared so 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.920 much about bankruptcy was growing up in Iowa in the 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.720 nineteen eighties during farm Aid and the tractor motorcades and 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.840 watching the farming community where I grew up really struggle economically. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.240 When I got to bankruptcy, I realized there are tools 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:50.719 in law and policy to help. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.720 Right now. When you made that request of Warren, did 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.520 she grant it? Was she more give and take with 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:56.680 you in the classroom, did she really? 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.640 I mean no, it actually was the opposite. She came 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.880 back to me even more because she knew I really cared. 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.839 Like she knew that it mattered to me. My message 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.400 to her wasn't taken easy on me. It was don't 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.560 give up on me. And a lot of professors, I mean, 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.280 I see this in witness rooms actually in hearings, and 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.880 people will ask a witness a question and the witness 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:22.040 will stonewall give a nonsense answer, another question, answer another question. 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.920 And what my colleagues will do is they'll just give up, 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.680 they'll move on, they'll start giving a speech. But just 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.080 like in the classroom, when I gave a wrong answer, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.679 Warren didn't say, oh well, let me go find someone 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:34.560 more cooperative. 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.159 She told me. Think she's stuck with me as I 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:38.760 was learning. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.880 So whenever I hear someone, you know, they give a 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.640 nonsense answer, I'm not going anywhere. 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.240 You said something interesting. When people don't give a good answer, 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.960 you know, I myself become exhausted by the unwillingness of 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.200 people to answer the questions of the duly elected members 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:59.240 of Congress. You are here, and Congresswoman Porter or anybody, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.120 You're not doing this for your health. You're doing this 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.719 on behalf of your constituency, the American people. You're representing 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.120 the American people, and many of them are so smug 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.720 and so arrogant and won't answer your question. And I 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.000 was wondering, do you find that the authority of the 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.640 Congress has weakened in recent years because people feel like, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:16.760 what does it matter? There's no teeth behind this. 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.360 So I think that some of the things that we've 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.040 been able to do with our hearings is actually restore 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.640 a sense of accountability to this, which is if you 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.640 if I ask you a question and you give me 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.720 a nonsense answer, I'm not going to pretend that what 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:35.920 you said makes sense. I'm not going to accept a 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.040 wrong answer. If you're dodging, if you're stonewalling, I'm going 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:40.640 to try to get you to answer, so. 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:42.720 You would think. I mean, it's sort of an interesting 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:43.000 to me. 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.000 I remember, like maybe the second or third hearing I 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.120 was at, I said, well, surely you know now everyone 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.800 will come really prepared, like I won't stump anybody anymore 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.200 because they'll know that you have to show up and 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.640 take me seriously. But you know, I've been underestimated my 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:58.760 whole life. 0:07:58.560 --> 0:07:59.080 At this point. 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.320 I kind of explain like that, and witnesses still show 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.880 up and they're contemptuous or they're unprepared. I mean the 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:12.080 other day Steve Menuchin said, well, are you a lawyer? Like, yes, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.640 I am, like since you mentioned it, but I think 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.280 that you know, the goal is that these shouldn't be 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:19.960 performance art moments. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:21.400 They shouldn't be substantive. 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:23.800 And so you know, the one thing I'll say about 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:29.520 the whiteboard is it's not about trying to go viral, right, It's. 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.720 Not about it's not an antic, it's. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:32.160 Not an ANTIQ. 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.720 It is a tool, and so sometimes I use it. 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.000 Sometimes I don't sometimes I use other things. 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.160 Whose idea was that, I don't you know. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.000 I think it was maybe one of my staffers when 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.599 we start. The first time we ever used it was 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.160 with Jamie Diamond. We were trying to go through the 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.200 budget of a worker where a typical family would spend 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:51.360 and compare it. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.319 To the salary and show that. 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.440 Even though he's paying more than minimum wage, people can't 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.000 make against meat On that she had twenty four hundred, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.240 twenty five dollars a month. She rents a one bedroom apartment. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.280 She and her daughter sleep together in the same room 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:07.880 in Irvine, California. That average one better apartment is going 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:09.160 to be sixteen hundred dollars. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:10.240 She spends one. 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.280 Hundred dollars on utilities, take away the seventeen hundred, and 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.880 she has nets seven hundred and twenty five dollars, four 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.840 hundred dollars for car expenses and gas net three twenty five. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.960 A low food budget is four hundred dollars. That leaves 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.520 her seventy seven dollars in the red. She has a 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.679 Cricket cell phone, the cheapest cell phone she can get 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.040 for forty dollars. She's in the red one hundred and 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.040 seventeen dollars a month she has after school childcare because 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.680 the bank is opened during normal business hours. That's for 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.000 fifty a month. That takes her down to negative five 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.880 hundred and sixty seven dollars per month. My question for you, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.600 mister Diamond, is how should she manage this budget shortfall 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.800 while she's working full time at your bank. And so 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.960 the idea of the whiteboard was just instead of having 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.160 all these numbers what she spends on rent and food 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.160 and rattling it all off a million miles an hour 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.199 and then he says, I'm sorry, could you repeat that? 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.800 I mean, that is what every the first refuge of 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:06.120 every unprepared student in every classroom in America is to 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.240 ask the teacher, I'm sorry, could you repeat the question. 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.240 That's a courtroom tactic, Yeah. 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.440 Exactly, So, especially in Congress, we only have five minutes. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.440 So if someone says could you repeat that, and you've 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.400 spent a minute setting up the question, your loss. So 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.959 the idea of the whiteboard was to prevent him from 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.319 being able to, you know, sort of dodge install. And 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.160 you know the interesting thing that he said is I'd 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.720 have to think about it. And I asked him, you 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.880 know again, and he said, I have to think about it. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:35.400 And I asked him, well, what about this? And he 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.040 said he'd have to think about it. And really, I 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.760 hope he is. I hope that moment did prompt him 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:42.160 to think. 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:44.960 When I was doing Saturday Night Live for this long 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.520 run during Trump's thing, and we would be there and 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.400 I would pitch ideas, and I wanted your character to 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.400 have the whiteboard everywhere, like you were with your kids 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.360 at the breakfast table. All right, let me show you 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:57.439 and think you have the whiteboard out of here, drawing 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.200 everything for your children and your boyfriend and your at 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.400 the gas station and whatever. Everywhere you go, someone is 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.880 handing you a whiteboard. But I wonder, is there a 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.439 distinction between when you're questioning people, not only the questions 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.440 you ask, the way you ask them again, you only 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.560 have five minutes, but the way you anticipate they're going 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.760 to respond when they are government administrators who are there 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.720 to protect an administration. Do you see there's a difference 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.439 between the two. When someone who is a political appointee 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.440 is before you, are they even worse in terms of 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:26.319 their caginess? 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.280 No, not always. I mean I think that you know 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.479 it just depends on the witness. We try to anticipate 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.679 what the witness will say. In other words, what's the 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:37.959 obvious thing they're going to try to dodge with Where 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.360 are they going to try to misdirect us? If we 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.640 research the witnesses, sometimes we'll watch video clips of them 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.600 to try to understand kind of what they're like, whether 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.679 they get easily frustrated, whether they launch into long, boring explanations. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.000 So I'm prepared to cut that off. 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.760 But I think one of the great myths is that, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.400 you know, the Oversight Committee, where I'm so excited to 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.199 be serving again in this Congress, somehow is less important 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:06.840 or less exciting in a democratic administration, given that I'm 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.880 a Democrat than it was when you know, we were 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.880 Trump administration on so opposite. I would just tell you 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.960 that these are both oversight stay is important. I mean, 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.920 once we're enacting programs that I have supported and I 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.800 have voted for as a Democrat, I'm even more concerned 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:30.160 that these programs are working as intended. So the responsibility 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:32.600 to do good oversight, it's not a partisan thing. It's 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.280 part of effective government. 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:36.880 Now, do you go back to your office sometimes and 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.760 watch yourself watch clips of yourself and review what you've 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:41.920 done to see how effective or ineffective you think it 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:42.480 might have been. 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.760 Not usually, I mean it's interesting after I question, and 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:51.840 when I'm questioning, I typically have no idea what anybody 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.800 else around me is doing or saying or reacting. It's 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.600 just me and that witness, right and just looking at them, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.880 you know. I question postmaster to Joy. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:03.080 Oh my god, Oh my god. 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.880 I wasn't sure that I made the point that I 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.200 wanted to make. Now it turns out I think I did. 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:10.520 But when I got off, I was just like, I 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:11.440 don't think I did it. 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:12.559 I think I messed it up. 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.160 So it's often, you know, it's it's not about how 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.280 I'm feeling, it's about whether it's resonating with the American people. 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.640 So it often, you know, that's about how people react 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.440 to it. So you can make something that you think 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.280 is great, you know, but if other people don't. 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.640 Find it moves them, then it doesn't really work. 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.439 What's going to happen with the Joy? Is it a 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.400 civil service thing? In his job is safe, he can't 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:34.880 be fired. 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.920 Well, so he was appointed by the Postal Board, which 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:43.600 oversees the post office. So they can remove him, and 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.440 I hope they do. There's also the possibility that he 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.200 does what so many people have done it, you know 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.000 who came from the Trump administration, which is that they quit, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:54.560 which I certainly hope is what happens. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.160 If he doesn't quit, then I helped. 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.640 The Postal Board holds him accountable because they really a 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.520 lot of the problems that he created, you know, he 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.880 has not been able to fix. And the most revealing 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.040 part of that was when I asked him, I said, well, 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:08.920 you keep saying you didn't do. 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.520 All these things. Not my fault. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.600 Someone else did this, So I am the very last 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.760 person to question. I think I am the forty eighth 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.760 person to ask questions or something crazy like that. 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.240 So I asked him, well, you said you didn't do this, 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:24.960 who did? 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.040 I'm with you, which seems like. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.600 A pretty obvious question, right, But nobody had. 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.320 Asked something he should know, Like all day long. 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.600 People had just said why did you do this? And 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:36.720 the answer had been well I didn't. And I asked him, well, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.000 who did it? And he said he couldn't tell me, 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.160 which tells you there's an even bigger problem. 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.560 Well, I'm sorry that you don't have the opportunity to 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.240 remove him yourself, because I mean he basically turned the 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.040 post office into an office max for the Republican Party. 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:50.840 But I want to get back to something else, and 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.880 that is so when you're down in southern California and 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.160 you go to Orange County, it was primarily to take 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.480 the teaching giket you see Irvine. If you see Irvine 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.160 as a ca us inside the red, red red part 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.880 of California, there in Orange County, what was it like 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.400 for you down there working there? Was it a very 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.880 conservative staff and administration and faculty. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:12.520 No. 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.200 I mean, look, Irvine has changed a lot, and a 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.080 big part of the reason that Irvine and Orange County 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.080 has changed is in part the presence of the university. 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.040 It's a large employer here. It attracts bright and interesting 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.800 and thoughtful people from all around the country and even 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.160 the world. And so you know, my kids go to 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.320 school in public school here and they have some very 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.000 conservative classmates. I mean, one of my former Cub Scouts, 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.000 I was his Cub Scout dead leader for five years. 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.160 That kid actually made phone calls for my publican opponent 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:46.120 in twenty eighteen. 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:48.760 So I don't know what that says. About my cub 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:49.560 Scout skills. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.920 But you know, actually there are a real diversity of 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.080 opinion here. But there are very progressive people here too. 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.920 There are people in the middle, there are Republicans. I 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:05.800 like that diversity. I represent roughly equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.120 and no party preference or independent voters. And what that 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.720 means is, on any given topic, I need to know 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:14.840 how to talk to people who will come at it 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.160 from a lot of different perspectives. And that is an 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.760 incredible skill to have, and I wish all of my 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:21.560 colleagues had it. 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.800 Frankly, so when you won in twenty eighteen, it it 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.920 was close. It was tightrase correct, very close. 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:27.440 I lost. 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.560 I like to say I lost before I won. So 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.960 on election night, you typically have three speeches in California, 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.320 you have I won, I lost, and we don't know 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.040 because it often takes a while to count all the 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.320 mail ballots. And so I gave that I don't know 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.320 speech that we don't know. But everybody was crying and 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.760 telling me, good try. I got all these sympathy calls 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:54.320 and sympathy emails. 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.800 You know, we love you anyway. Nice try. 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.240 You know you made a difference even though you're you're 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.000 not going to make a difference kind of things. And 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.400 then slowly but surely, over the next couple days, took 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:06.280 about seven days. 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:06.720 I won. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.439 And so why would get these messages back? Never mind 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:11.480 delete my message? 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:12.320 You're my hero. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:14.399 I knew you could do it. 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:16.800 I always I lost faith in you. 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:17.679 Yeah. 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.240 Now in the second race, this last election, you won 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:21.560 more handily. Correct. 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.639 I won by a couple six percent I think, and 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.280 the first time it was four, So I made I 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:28.359 made up a little bit of ground. 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.520 Yeah, who was your opponent in the twenty twenty race. 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.320 My twenty twenty opponent was a man named Greg Raths 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.360 who's been on the city Council of Mission Viejo here. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:38.399 And what did he come after you with? What was 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:39.200 his pitch? 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.840 It was just, you know, she is a Democrat. She's 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.159 a Democrat and this is Orange County. Yeah, I mean 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:47.440 just sort of like, like, you. 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.560 Know, I think there is an attitude that you know, 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.080 sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation here. 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:55.840 What they're entitled to is. 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.600 Good representation, right, people who listen to them, people who 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.400 fight for the people, who are not corrupt, And that 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.480 can come in your Democratic or Republican forms. And so 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.000 the fact that I don't take corporate pack money, that 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.600 I'm grassroots funded, I think that really helped me reach 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.880 a lot of those independent voters and even Republican voters 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:19.200 who are really skeptical, including younger Democratic voters who are 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.800 really skeptical about whether in people in Washington really work 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:23.920 for them. 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.800 Congressperson Katie Porter, I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:33.560 here's the thing from iHeartRadio. If you like conversations about politics, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.879 go to our archives from my live show with Nixon, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.880 Whitehouse and Watergate figure John Deane. 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.880 It's after listening to that conversation, I let my fingers 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.240