WEBVTT - Katie Porter Enjoys Being a Fish Out of Water 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.400 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:10.360 Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is United 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:15.160 States Congresswoman Katie Porter, a Democrat in her second term. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:21.799 Porter represents California's district in Orange County, which is traditionally conservative. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.919 She's a consumer protection attorney and a law professor. She 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.480 quickly developed a name for herself in her first term 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.720 with tough questioning of people testifying before Congress, often using 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:38.920 her famous white board to hold CEOs and political appointees accountable. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.080 Katie Porter grew up on a farm in Iowa. During 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.280 the farmer crisis of the nineteen eighties. She broke with 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.000 family tradition of attending state school to go to Yale 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.280 and went on to Harvard Law School. She decided to 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.360 run for office after Trump's win in two thousand sixteen, 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.960 and became the first Democrat elected in her district. Katie 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:05.280 Porter is comfortable being a fish out of water. I 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.320 like to be challenged. UM. I like to learn, and 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.959 I think that was a huge part of, you know, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.560 why I chose to to go, you know, off to 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.399 college far away from Iowa to kind of stretch myself. Um. 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:19.560 I loved being a professor. I was a professor here 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.319 at the University of California, Irvine, teaching business law horses, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.720 and then really stretched myself when I ran for Congress. 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:28.840 And one of the great things about being in Congress 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.440 that I never hear anyone talking about, which makes me 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.600 kind of skeptical, frankly, is that the great thing about 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.000 this job is every minute you should be learning something, 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.480 whether that's listening to your constituents, whether that's a briefing 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.760 from about national security, you know, whether that's you know, 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.600 having a meeting with your staff. There's just so much 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.320 to learn to be able to do this job effectively. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.320 And I like that. So in some ways it's very 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.640 much like being a professor. My job is to learn 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.400 stuff and then to help teach, and so in this case, 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.360 instead of teaching a classroom, I think about teaching the 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.840 American people. You graduated Harvard Law School one year two one, 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:06.840 So when you left there, where did you go from there? 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:08.640 Where did you first go out of school? So I 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.120 went to clerk for a federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas. 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.160 He was a wonderful judge. And this won't surprise people, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.040 there weren't a lot of other law clerks who wanted 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:23.200 to work on the bankruptcy cases. Um and so literally 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.520 I think I got to work on every single bankruptcy 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.560 opinion the entire Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which stretches 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.079 from North Dakota down to Arkansas, worked on that year. Um. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:33.760 And then I went off and I practiced. I took 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.360 the bar exam, and I practiced law in Portland, Oregon 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.120 for a couple of years. What led you to Portland 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:45.920 from Little Rock? My now ex husband is from their family. Yeah, family, 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.520 and you know, it was a good place to practice there. 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.040 And then decided that I wanted to become a law professor. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.680 And I hadn't really gone to law school thinking maybe 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.320 I want to be a professor. I had thought about 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.760 getting a PhD. Um And at the time, the idea 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.400 of writing a book seemed really long to me, which 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.760 is funny because I've now written two law textbooks that 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.240 are like a thousand pages each. Um. But when I 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.280 got to law school, I was I really liked it. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.720 I wasn't sure what I wanted to teach, what did 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:16.239 I love? Where did I wanted to spend my whole 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.560 career studying and then I took Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy class, 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:21.679 and that was it. That was what I wanted to 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.880 spend my life working on. This is why you were 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.680 in law school. This is when I went to law school. 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:27.720 My third year in law school. Tell the story if 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.440 you would have you approached Warren after she was less 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.520 than cuddly towards you in class. Yeah. Yeah, So Elizabeth 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.640 was a really great professor. She called on students um, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:41.600 and you had to have your homework done. You had 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.440 to be prepared if you showed up. And so I 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.800 was a rule follower. I did my homework. I sat 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:48.960 in the front row, which I thought would help her 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.680 overlook me, but it didn't really work out that way. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.200 And so you know, one of the solutions to not 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.000 being called on is to raise your hand um. And 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.720 so she was asking a question and I raised my 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.400 end and I gave what I thought was a pretty 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.839 good answer, and I remember her turning to me, I'll 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:07.800 never forget I mean the hand yester, I can do 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.680 it today. She said, thank, miss Porter, thank And I 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.960 remember just wilting inside because I was thinking. I was 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.040 thinking so hard and I was coming up short um, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.320 and I went to see her after that, and I said, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.960 don't give up on me. I've never taken a course 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.320 like this before. I didn't take some of the there's 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.480 a couple kind of courses you often take, their introductory 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.760 to bankruptcy, and I just jumped into the deep end. 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:34.960 I was like, don't give up on me. I really 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:36.960 care about this stuff. And the reason I cared so 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.479 much about bankruptcy was growing up in Iowa in the 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.240 nineteen eighties during farm made and the tractor motorcades, and 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.360 watching the farming community where I grew up really struggle economically. 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.719 When I got to bankruptcy, I realized there are tools 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.960 in law and policy to help. Right now. When you 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.160 made that request of war, did she granted what she 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.039 were given? Take with you in the classroom? Did she 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.520 be going? I mean no, it actually was the opposite. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.440 She came back to me even more because she knew 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.720 I really cared, like she knew that it mattered to me. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.479 My message to her wasn't taken easy on me. It 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.920 was don't give up on me. And a lot of professors, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.640 I mean I see this in witness rooms actually in hearings, 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.000 and people will ask a witness a question, and the 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:22.080 witness will stonewall give a nonsense and answer another question, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.520 answer another question. And what my colleagues will do is 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.600 they'll just give up. They'll move on, they'll start giving 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.560 a speech. But just like in the classroom, when I 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.440 gave a wrong answer, Warren didn't say, oh well, let 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.679 me go find someone more cooperative. She told me think 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.840 she stuck with me as I was learning. So whenever 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.400 I hear someone, you know, they give a nonsense answer, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:47.039 I'm not going anywhere. You said something interesting. When people 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.600 don't give a good answer, you know, I myself become 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:55.360 exhausted by the unwillingness of people to answer the questions 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.960 of the duly elected members of Congress. You are here, 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.520 and Congresswoman, poor order or anybody, you're not doing this 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:03.320 for your health. You're doing this on behalf of your 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.039 constituency of the American people. You're representing the American people, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.640 and many of them are so smug and so arrogant 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.159 and won't answer your question. And I was wondering, do 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.560 you find that the authority of the Congress is weakened 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.000 in recent years because people feel like, what does it matter? 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.760 There's no teeth behind this. So I think that some 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:22.960 of the things that we've been able to do with 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:28.400 our hearings is actually restore a sense of accountability to this, 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.680 which is if you if I ask you a question 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.359 and you give me a nonsense answer, I'm not going 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.560 to pretend that what you said makes sense. I'm not 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.480 going to accept a wrong answer. If you're dodging, if 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:41.920 you're stonewalling, I'm going to try to get you to answer, 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.000 so you would think, I mean, it's sort of an 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:45.800 interesting to mean. I remember, like maybe the second or 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.839 third hearing I was at, I said, well, surely you know, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.440 now everyone will come really prepared, like I won't stomp 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.480 anybody anymore because they'll know that you have to show 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.240 up and take me seriously. But you know, I've been 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.240 underestimated my whole life. At this point, I kind of 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.440 exploit that. And when does this still show up and 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.840 they're contemptuous or they're unprepared. I mean, the other day 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:13.680 Steve Minuchin said, well, are you a lawyer? Like, yes, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.280 I am, Like since you mentioned it, but I think 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.840 that you know the goal is that these shouldn't be 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.360 performance art moments. They should be substantive and so you know. 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.080 The one thing I will say about the white board 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.880 is it's not about trying to go viral um. It's 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.400 not about an antic. It's not an antic. It is 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.120 a tool. And so sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.760 Sometimes I use other things I don't, you know. I 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.560 think it was maybe one of my staffers m when 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.160 we started. The first time we ever used it was 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.720 with Jamie Diamond. We were trying to go through the 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.760 budget of a worker, what a typical family would spend 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.920 and compare it to the salary and show that even 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.120 though he's paying more than minimum wage, people can't make 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.640 against meat On that she had two thousand, four hundred 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.840 twenty five dollars a month. She rents a one betterm apartment. 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:06.840 She and her daughters sleep together in the same room 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.360 in Irvine, California. That average one better apartment is going 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.360 to be sixteen hundred dollars. She spends one hundred dollars 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.120 on utilities, take away the seventeen hundred, and she has 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.200 net seven hundred twenty five dollars, four hundred dollars for 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:23.120 car expenses and gas net three. A low food budget 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.800 is four hundred dollars. That leaves her seventy seven dollars 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:27.960 in the red. She has a cricket cell phone, the 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.680 cheapest cell phone she can get for forty dollars. She's 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.040 in the red. A hundred seventeen dollars a month. She 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.520 has after school childcare because the bank is open during 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.360 normal business hours. That's for fifty a month. That takes 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.480 her down to negative five hundred and sixty seven dollars 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.480 per month. My question for you, Mr Diamond, is how 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.400 should she manage this budget shortfall while she's working full 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.360 time at your bank. And so the idea of the 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.160 white board was just instead of having all these numbers 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.360 what she spends on rent and food and rattling it 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.240 all off a million miles an hour and then he says, 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.559 I'm sorry to repeat that. I mean that is what 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.880 every the first refuge of every unprepared student in every 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.520 classroom in America is to ask the teacher, I'm sorry, 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.680 could you repeat the question. That's a courtroom tactic exactly, so, 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.840 especially in Congress, we only have five minutes. So if 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.600 someone says kid, you repeat that, and you've spent a 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.640 minute setting up the question. Your loss. So the idea 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:24.760 of the white board was to prevent him from being 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.880 able to, you know, sort of dodge and stall. And 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.760 you know, the interesting thing that he said is I'd 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.240 have to think about it. And I asked him, you 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.440 know again, and he said, I have to think about it. 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.160 And I asked him, well, what about this? And he said, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.840 you have to think about it. And really, I hope 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.760 he is. I hope that moment did prompt him to think. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.480 When I was doing Saturday Night Live for this long 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.040 run during Trump's thing, and we would be there and 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.960 I would pitch ideas, and I wanted your character to 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.640 have the white board everywhere, like you were with your 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.960 kids at the breakfast table. All right, let me show you, 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:58.640 and like you have the white board out of your 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.440 drawing everything for your children and and your boyfriend, and 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.120 you're at the gas station and whatever. Everywhere you go, 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.360 someone is handing your whiteboard. But I wonder, is there 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.520 a distinction between when you're questioning people, not only the 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:12.760 questions you ask, the way you ask them again, you 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.959 only have five minutes, but the way you anticipate they're 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.320 going to respond when their government administrators who are there 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.280 to protect an administration. Do you see there's a difference 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.960 between the two. When someone who is a political appointee 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.000 is before you, are they even worse in terms of 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.600 their caginus? No, not always. I mean I think that, 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:32.880 you know, it just depends on the witness. We try 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.880 to anticipate what the witness will say. In other words, 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.280 what's the obvious thing they're going to try to dodge with? 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.760 Where are they going to try to misdirect us? If 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.880 we we research the witnesses, sometimes we'll watch video clips 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.840 of them to try to understand kind of what they're like, um, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.839 whether they get easily frustrated, whether they launch into long, 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.680 boring explanations. So I'm prepared to cut that off. But 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.880 I think one of the great myths is that, you know, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.400 the Oversight Committee, where I'm so excited to be serving 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.319 again in this Congress, somehow is less important or less 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:09.079 exciting in a democratic administration, given that I'm a Democrat 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.960 than it was when you know, we were a Trump administration, 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.480 and you know, so opposite. I would just tell you 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.840 that these are both oversight stays important. I mean, once 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.600 we're enacting programs that I have supported and I have 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.440 voted for as a Democrat, I'm even more concerned that 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.800 these programs are working as intended. So the responsibility to 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.559 do good oversight. It's not a partisan thing. It's part 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.800 of effective government. Now, do you go back to your 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.520 office sometimes and watch yourself, watch clips of yourself, and 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.120 review what you've done to see how effective or ineffective 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.760 you think it might have been. Not usually, I mean 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.640 it's interesting after I question, and when I'm questioning, I 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.280 typically have no idea what anybody else around me is 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.679 doing or saying or reacting. It's it's just me and 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.840 that witness, right and just looking at him, you know. 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.000 I like, after I question Postmaster de Joy, oh my god, 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.800 Oh my god, I wasn't sure that I made the 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:08.960 point that I wanted to make. Now it turns out 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.440 I think I did. But when I got off, I 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:13.120 was just like, I don't think I did it. I 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.640 think I messed it up. So it's often, you know, 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.000 it's it's not about how I'm feeling. It's about whether 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.560 it's resonating with the American people. So it often, you know, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:23.880 that's about how people react to it. So you can 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.360 make something that you think is great, you know, but 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.280 if other people don't find it moves them, then it 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.520 doesn't really work. What's going to happen with the joy? 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.480 Is it? A civil service thing? In his job is safe, 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.520 he can't be fired. Well, so he was appointed by 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:43.000 the Postal Board, which oversees the post Office, so they 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.360 can remove him, um, and I hope they do. There's 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.559 also the possibility that he does what so many people 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.960 have done you who came from the Trump administration, which 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.600 is that they quit um, which I certainly hope is 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.600 what happens. If he doesn't quit, then I helped the 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.400 Postal Board holds him accountable because they really a lot 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.080 of the problems that he created, um, you know, he 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.440 has not been able to fix. And the most revealing 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:08.400 part of that was when I asked him, I said, 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.400 will you keep saying you didn't do all these things? 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.040 Not my fault. Someone else did this. So I'm a 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.520 very last person to question. I think I am the 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.319 forty eight person to ask questions or something crazy like that. 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.840 So I asked him, well, you said you didn't do this, 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.000 who did? I'm with you, which seems like a pretty 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.280 obvious question, right, But nobody had asked something he should know, 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.199 Like all day long, people had just said why did 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.520 you do this, and the answer had been, well, I didn't, 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:39.360 And I asked him, well, who did it? And he 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.679 said he couldn't tell me, which tells you there was 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.080 an even bigger problem. I'm sorry that you don't have 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.080 the opportunity to remove him yourself, because I mean, he 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:49.480 basically turned the post office into an office max for 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.800 the Republican Party. But I want to get back to 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.120 something else, and that is so when you're down in 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.960 southern California and you go to Orange County, it was 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.160 primarily to take the teaching gicket. You see Irvine. If 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.040 you see Irvine is a campus inside the red, red 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.120 red part of California there in Orange County. What was 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.520 it like for you down there working there? Was Was 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.960 it a very conservative staff and an administration and faculty? No? 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.760 I mean, look, Irvine has changed a lot, and a 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.640 big part of the reason that Irvine and Orange County 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.240 has changed is in part the presence of the university. UM. 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.600 It's a large employer here. It attracts bright and interesting 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.320 and thoughtful people from all around the country and even 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.520 the world. UM. And so you know, my kids go 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.120 to school, UM in public school here, and they are 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.800 they have some very conservative classmates. I mean one of 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.960 my former cub Scouts. I was his cub Scout dead 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.080 leader for five years. That kid actually made phone calls 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:49.240 from my Republican opponent in eighteen So I don't know 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.680 what that says about my cub Scout skills. But you know, uh, 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.200 you know, actually there are a real diversity of opinion here. 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.160 But there are very progressive people here too. There are 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.880 people in the middle, there are Republicans. I like that diversity. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.720 I represent roughly equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats, and no 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.360 party preference or independent voters. And what that means is, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.560 on any given topic, I need to know how to 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.720 talk to people who will come at it from a 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.680 lot of different perspectives. And that is an incredible skill 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.560 to have, and I wish all of my colleagues had it. Frankly, 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.760 So when you won in it was it was close. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.160 It was tight race, correct, very close. I lost. I 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.400 like to say I lost before I won. So on 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.680 election night you typically have three speeches in California, you 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.840 have um I won, I lost, and we don't know 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.080 because it often takes a while to count all the 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.920 mail ballots. And so I gave that I don't know 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.880 speech that we don't know. But everybody was crying and 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.280 telling me, good try. I got all these sympathy calls, UM, 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:59.640 and sympathy emails. You know, we love you anyway. Nice try, um. 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:01.760 You know you made a difference, even though you're you're 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:03.520 not going to make a difference kind of things. And 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.680 then slowly but surely, over the next couple of days, 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.320 took about seven days. I won. That's why would get 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:14.720 these messages back. Never mind to leave my hero. I 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.520 knew you could do it. Remember more faith than you. Yeah. Now, 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.080 in the second race, this last election, you won more handily. Correct. 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.080 I won by a couple six percent, I think, um, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.440 And the first time it was four. So I made 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.120 up I made up a little bit of ground. Yeah. 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:34.120 Who was your opponent? In opponent was a man named 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.240 Greg Raths who's been on the city Council of Mission 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.200 v A. How here and what did he come after 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.120 you with? What was his pitch? It was just you know, 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.720 she is a Democrat. She's a Democrat, and this is 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.640 Orange County. Yeah, I mean just sort of like like 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.080 you know, I think there is an attitude that you know, 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.680 sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation here, 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:00.000 but they're entitled to is good representation, right, people who 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.120 listen to them, people who fight for them, people who 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.960 are not corrupt, and that can come in you know, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.040 democratic or Republican forms. And so the fact that I 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.000 don't take corporate pack money, that I have grassroots funded, 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.480 I think that really helped me reach a lot of 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.400 those independent voters and even Republican voters who are really skeptical, um, 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.880 including younger Democratic voters who are really skeptical about whether 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:27.119 and people in Washington really worked for them. Congressperson Katie Porter, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.160 I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:35.080 from my Heart Radio. If you like conversations about politics, 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.439 go to our archives from my live show with Nixon, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:43.320 White House and Watergate figure John dene It's after listening 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.000 to that conversation, I let my fingers do the walking 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.199 in the criminal code to figure out what in the 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:52.280 world are we doing. And I discovered the obstruction statute, 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.160 and I discovered the conspiracy statute, and I realized we're 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.840 in a whole lot of trouble. Now. You might have 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.840 thought that for reaction would be to run for the Hills. 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.480 I mean, I had exactly the opposite reaction. That's when 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.040 I doubled down. That's when I try to make the 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.280 cover up work. Here more of my conversation with John 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:17.200 Deane in our archives at Here's the Thing dot org. 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.960 After the break, I talked to Katie Porter about what 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.960 surprised her when she got to Washington in early two 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:36.040 thousand nineteen. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.560 Here's the Thing. I wanted to know how Katie Porter 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.560 won her seat. People people send me money, How much 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.040 do you spend? I spent six million dollars to raise 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.439 six million from individual contributory, spent six million UM and 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.840 I spent six million. TV is incredibly expensive here. I 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.840 have to advertise to all of Los Angeles UM and 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.680 all of Orange County UM, even though I just represent 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:01.800 a little part of a part of Orange County. But 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.160 you know, people will send five dollars, ten dollars, they'll 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:10.280 send notes with it. When you got there, what did 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.040 you think the job was going to be like? And 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.040 how what did you find out? It was? Really like? 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:17.879 I think one thing that surprised me, and I know 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.720 it's surprised some of my fellow colleagues is how much 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:26.800 I really loved doing the work in the district with 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.960 my constituents here in my home UM, and how much 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.800 I really didn't like being in Washington. Right. So I 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.560 ran for Congress because I wanted to make policy. I 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.199 wanted to make people's lives better, and I think I 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.399 associated that with things that happened in Washington. But it 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.080 turns out that a lot of the time you spend 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:49.080 in Washington is just scoring back and forth two votes 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.800 that are sometimes important but sometimes are really like, you know, meaningless, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.440 frankly or almost meaningless. And be here in the community 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.520 was so rewarding. So you know, behind kind of the 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.680 stucco and the neatly trimmed hedges of Orange County are 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.720 amazing and interesting businesses and nonprofits and community organizations. So 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.239 some of the favorite things I've done are I toured UM, 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:18.119 a lightweight body armor manufacturer here in Irvine that I 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.520 had driven down that road a million times taking my 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.240 kids to the target and never known that right there 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.960 they are making body armor that keep men and women 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.359 safe UM, and they're working to design actually special armor 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.800 that better fits women's bodies UM. And so you know, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.960 seeing those little parts and pockets of your community and 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:42.600 realizing just how amazing things are around you. You really 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.600 learned every nook and cranny of your district and what's 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.800 really going on there. I'm still learning. I absolutely love it. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.720 And when you went to Washington, and you talk about 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.520 the importance of the work that you do within the district, 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:57.760 But when you went to Washington, what did you think 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.919 that was going to be like with your colleagues as 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:01.960 so forre than what did it turn out to be. 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:08.720 I thought there'd be more substantive policy discussion among regular members. 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.040 House of Representatives is four hundred and thirty plus people, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.520 so it's big. And so it turns out that a 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.880