Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wik f Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the home bunker.
Speaker 1: I have a question to start out today's show. What
Speaker 1: was the last time that any of you received a
Speaker 1: tenth try at anything? You know, you get a first try,
Speaker 1: you get a second try, maybe sometimes you even get
Speaker 1: a third try. What was the last time? Somebody said
Speaker 1: the last nine, but here you go, here's number ten.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that the answer is going to be.
Speaker 2: Never.
Speaker 1: But if your name is Donald Trump, then you get
Speaker 1: as many tries as there are humanly available, and even
Speaker 1: after that, we'll just keep manufacturing them. But Judge Merchant,
Speaker 1: the judge in the hush money bribery case, has now
Speaker 1: held Donald Trump in contempt of court for the tenth time.
Speaker 1: For the tenth time, Donald Trump has violated the gag order.
Speaker 1: For the tenth time Donald Trump has violated a court order.
Speaker 1: And Judge Marshan, you know, directly addressing Donald Trump, says,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not basically above threatening jail time. And
Speaker 1: here's my thing. Can we just stop with the fucking
Speaker 1: threats and just get to the doing. And if you're
Speaker 1: gonna say that, holding Donald Trump in prison would be
Speaker 1: a logistical nightmare because of the Secret Service, because of this.
Speaker 1: Because of that, then I have another idea. Maybe you
Speaker 1: start finding Donald Trump in a way that is actually
Speaker 1: fucking painful and on par with however much money he
Speaker 1: lies about having in the bank. So we know that
Speaker 1: the appeals judge in his you know, other fraud trial
Speaker 1: with in terms of how he ballooned the costs of
Speaker 1: his real estate properties, he was supposed to pay out
Speaker 1: half a billion dollars and there wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: a bank that was going to give him that money.
Speaker 1: And then, of course an appeals court comes back and
Speaker 1: they lower it and then he's able to pay it off.
Speaker 1: My thing is start making it actually fucking hurt, and
Speaker 1: then maybe Donald Trump will shut the fuck up. So
Speaker 1: if for every time that he violates the court's gag order,
Speaker 1: it is going to cost him one hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and we know that that is going to happen on
Speaker 1: a weekly basis, then you're talking about by the end
Speaker 1: of the month him racking up somewhere between four hundred
Speaker 1: and five hundred thousand dollars. That to me makes fucking sense.
Speaker 1: But if you're just gonna roll out and say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find you one thousand dollars. What the fuck
Speaker 1: Donald Trump spends that at McDonald's for lunch. So I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I'm tired of the consistent finger wagging at
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the empty threats that are never going to,
Speaker 1: you know, measure up to anything, or like the moments
Speaker 1: that we think that the justice system has finally caught
Speaker 1: up to him, only to make an entire u turn
Speaker 1: and start the erase over again. I'm just fucking over
Speaker 1: it because you all know that if it were any
Speaker 1: of us that were on trial, we would have been
Speaker 1: in jail. Oh I don't know. Nine times ago people
Speaker 1: are thrown in contempt of court folks for showing up
Speaker 1: late to their trial by a few minutes. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, in order to teach them a lesson.
Speaker 1: So if you want to teach Donald Trump a lesson
Speaker 1: and it's too much of an obstacle to throw him
Speaker 1: in jail, then I I say that you start making
Speaker 1: it financially painful for him to shut the fuck up.
Speaker 1: Like I you know it, just like in so many ways,
Speaker 1: everything is just beyond exhaustion. I don't know what we
Speaker 1: go beyond exhaustion. Is it burnout, is it a coma?
Speaker 1: I have no fucking idea, But I do know that
Speaker 1: I'm completely and totally over every single one of these
Speaker 1: lawsuits that are never going to see any outcome before
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the election. And the fact is that
Speaker 1: I continue to say that the only thing that is
Speaker 1: going to hold Donald Trump accountable are the American people
Speaker 1: voting to end his political career, to end the political party. Finally,
Speaker 1: that's it. You know, After that, then the justice system
Speaker 1: will be clear to actually treat Donald Trump the way
Speaker 1: that he should be treated, because you won't be running
Speaker 1: for a political office and won't be able to say
Speaker 1: that this is some type of political witch hunt. It'll
Speaker 1: just be another fucking old, privileged white dude on trial
Speaker 1: for shit that shit caught up to him four decades ago.
Speaker 1: I digress, folks. Coming up next, I'm gonna be in
Speaker 1: conversation once again with friend of the show, and you
Speaker 1: know someone who I think provides a great deal of
Speaker 1: clarity to us, which is Sky Perriman, who is the
Speaker 1: CEO of Democracy Forward, is going to join me to
Speaker 1: discuss you know, where we are right now, in this moment,
Speaker 1: as we make the slow march to the election, and
Speaker 1: what they think is necessary to make the American people
Speaker 1: aware that this election is not the most consequential, it
Speaker 1: is going to be the last election of the United States,
Speaker 1: if in fact people decide to either sit out or
Speaker 1: vote for Donald Trump. That conversation is coming up next, folks.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to welcome back to ook f Daily,
Speaker 1: the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, Sky Perryman, to
Speaker 1: give us kind of you know, Sky, Democracy Forward. What
Speaker 1: is it's kind of like Democracy Forward? Question mark. I
Speaker 1: feel like you need you need to add to the
Speaker 1: to the organization website and branding. But I don't know
Speaker 1: what's happening. I don't you know, you tell me because
Speaker 1: between right now, following the Supreme Court, following h Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's cases before the Supreme Court in Manhattan, you know,
Speaker 1: and and following what is happening with the Biden campaign,
Speaker 1: It's just it's a lot. So I want to start
Speaker 1: off with asking you what are you all keeping track of?
Speaker 1: What do we need to be you know, honestly paying
Speaker 1: attention to because as of the time of this recording,
Speaker 1: we are are less than two hundred days away from
Speaker 1: election day, which every day I'm not going to provide
Speaker 1: my audience with a countdown because I don't want them
Speaker 1: to lose their mind. But it's wild where we are,
Speaker 1: So talk to me. Where is democracy forward and where
Speaker 1: are you? Well?
Speaker 2: We are both fighting for democracy and fighting to move
Speaker 2: the country forward, not backward, and that is a real
Speaker 2: fight right now. So thanks for having me on. I
Speaker 2: think you know, in terms of what to pay attention to,
Speaker 2: I always like to ground ourselves in what we know,
Speaker 2: which is that the vast majority of the American people
Speaker 2: are pretty fair minded people, that they believe in the
Speaker 2: promise of democracy. They may not agree on everything, that
Speaker 2: there are some basic things that we believe in the
Speaker 2: promis of democracy. That our country has changed a lot
Speaker 2: since it was founded, and that there are a lot
Speaker 2: more people that look like you, there are a lot
Speaker 2: more people that look like me, There are a lot
Speaker 2: more people that look like all of our friends and neighbors.
Speaker 2: And that we are a real multi race, multi generational,
Speaker 2: diverse society. And that there is a movement to seek
Speaker 2: to push us back to a time where that was
Speaker 2: not the case, or where power structures sought to undermine
Speaker 2: the ability of so many people to be able to
Speaker 2: determine who governs them, to be able to determine their
Speaker 2: lives and their futures. And so that's what we're fighting for.
Speaker 2: So just yesterday I was at the Supreme Court where
Speaker 2: the Court heard a case concerning access to abortion in
Speaker 2: emergency situations, with people who literally go into an emergency
Speaker 2: room with life and health threatening conditions. This extremism has
Speaker 2: gone so far extreme that we are having to basically
Speaker 2: beg at the Supreme Court as women to be treated
Speaker 2: as fully human to be able to approach an emergency
Speaker 2: room like everyone else in this country and be given
Speaker 2: the care that we need in emergent situations. And that
Speaker 2: we saw that on display yesterday at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: There was literally a debate about how many organs a
Speaker 2: woman has that needs to be threatened before she can
Speaker 2: obtain an IDAHO, for instance, the care that she needs.
Speaker 2: We have women in this country being life flighted out
Speaker 2: of hospitals because they cannot get the care to save
Speaker 2: their health and their life or even their fertility. And
Speaker 2: that was yesterday at the Court, and then today at
Speaker 2: the Court we have seen questioning that suggests that there
Speaker 2: is a movement in this country that believes that a
Speaker 2: person who has held political office can engage in all
Speaker 2: sorts of unlawful activity and it's just their prerogative. And
Speaker 2: that is really not what a democracy is. So we
Speaker 2: are watching a lot. We're watching what's in the courts,
Speaker 2: we're watching what is in communities across the country. But
Speaker 2: we're also watching, you know, the hope that we can
Speaker 2: have in this moment, if we all use our lives
Speaker 2: and if we all do what we can in this
Speaker 2: moment to say that this narrow, rigid, back words vision
Speaker 2: for the country does not represent you, it doesn't represent me,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't represent the vast majority of people in
Speaker 2: this country. And we need to use all the tools
Speaker 2: we have to fight back. So I'll start maybe I'll
Speaker 2: just start with that, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a lot, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: and it's hard. I think it's hard even for us
Speaker 1: whose job it is right to pay attention to all
Speaker 1: of the things that are happening and to try and
Speaker 1: make them digestible, to try and encourage people to engage
Speaker 1: that for lay people to understand and keep track, right,
Speaker 1: it's nearly impossible I want to go to the Idaho
Speaker 1: case and lift that up that you were just discussing,
Speaker 1: because I have to tell you that listening to the
Speaker 1: five men on the Supreme Court, particularly Justice Alito, just
Speaker 1: glossing over the health, the safety and well being of
Speaker 1: women and pregnant people is wild to me. And I
Speaker 1: honestly think you know, and I you know this is
Speaker 1: me saying this and not you, that cruelty really is
Speaker 1: the point, right, Because if a group of doctors recently
Speaker 1: sent an open letter to the Supreme Court saying, how
Speaker 1: many seces of blood does a woman have to lose
Speaker 1: before we can proceed with an abortion? How much oxygen
Speaker 1: right to your point, how many organs need to be
Speaker 1: in failure? Right? How far along does the sepsist need
Speaker 1: to be? These are people that went to law school,
Speaker 1: they didn't go to medical school. They didn't swear an
Speaker 1: oath to do no harm, because all they're doing is harm.
Speaker 1: So I wonder when we're thinking about how we move
Speaker 1: democracy forward sky and democracy not only does it it's
Speaker 1: not stuck, it's being rolled backwards. What does it look
Speaker 1: like in the next you know, less than two hundred
Speaker 1: days to galvanize people to the severity of the situation
Speaker 1: that we're in.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you asked that question. I'll just say,
Speaker 2: you know, in the in the Iaho case, I'm a
Speaker 2: counsel for the nation's medical associations doctors from her doctors
Speaker 2: to obg I N's to internal medicine physicians that are
Speaker 2: coming to the court to say this is really contrary
Speaker 2: to our medical ethics and it's not why we got
Speaker 2: into this business, and it's not the way you treat patients,
Speaker 2: and there's real harm. But to your question about galvanization
Speaker 2: of people, I think we need to be able to
Speaker 2: look at this reality in the face and to not blink.
Speaker 2: And so it's telling stories about what we saw yesterday
Speaker 2: and not trying to make people feel better about it.
Speaker 2: I was in the courts in the courtroom watching this
Speaker 2: exchange about how severe something needs to be. Are people
Speaker 2: looking down at their papers on the dais when when
Speaker 2: Justice Sodomayor was reading the accounts that have been filed
Speaker 2: with the court. And we need to be able to
Speaker 2: sit in this reality and not really. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: the United States was added to a list of backsliding
Speaker 2: democracies in the world, and we're the only country that's
Speaker 2: not part of the Global South, and that was not
Speaker 2: a former USSR affiliate country that is on that list.
Speaker 2: We are a complete outlier for that list. And that
Speaker 2: was the state of democracy in twenty twenty one before
Speaker 2: we started looking at the threats and seeing the threats
Speaker 2: we have today. One of the things we need to
Speaker 2: galvanize around that. If your listeners are tuning in, please
Speaker 2: go google it, learn about it, talk about it is
Speaker 2: something called Project twenty twenty five YEP, which is a
Speaker 2: project that has been put out. It is nine hundred pages.
Speaker 2: I have read it, so I'm happy to come on
Speaker 2: and talk about that at some point in more detail.
Speaker 2: But it is a man asserted effort, a manifesto, a
Speaker 2: concerted effort of a society that they want a society
Speaker 2: where we are not prioritizing our climate, we're not prioritizing
Speaker 2: our workers in our workforce. We're criminalizing women's health on
Speaker 2: a national basis, as opposed to now where we have
Speaker 2: a lot of states that are seeking to criminalize women's health.
Speaker 2: And all I could think about yesterday in the courtroom,
Speaker 2: that's how powerful it was that the United States was
Speaker 2: who was there, represented by our Solicitor General was there,
Speaker 2: and they were there on the side of the federal government,
Speaker 2: and they were there on the side of women who
Speaker 2: need emergency care. And that doesn't happen right if we're
Speaker 2: looking at Project twenty twenty five. We don't have that
Speaker 2: Solicitor General, and we don't have the United States government,
Speaker 2: at least the federal government putting its full full force
Speaker 2: behind some of these issues. And so I think the
Speaker 2: stakes are really high. But for galvanizing, we've got to
Speaker 2: be able to sit in this reality. We've got to
Speaker 2: be able to have these conversations and talk to people
Speaker 2: about it. And if it makes you uncomfortable, it should,
Speaker 2: and that discomfort should get you motivated to do anything
Speaker 2: you can do at this moment in our country.
Speaker 1: Let's switch gears to the presidential immunity case, which is
Speaker 1: extraordinarily dangerous. I think that sky it goes beyond just
Speaker 1: dangerous for democracy. What the Trump lawyers are arguing is
Speaker 1: that presidents are absolutely one hundred percent above the law.
Speaker 1: And I thought about something before we even started recording,
Speaker 1: and I said, my god, how bleak of the times
Speaker 1: that we are living in. With the argument that the
Speaker 1: Trump lawyers are putting forward basically, the president of the
Speaker 1: United States could kill the first lady in the White
Speaker 1: House and nothing would happen to them, could order the
Speaker 1: Secret Service protection to kill the first lady in the
Speaker 1: White House and in less according to the Trump attorneys,
Speaker 1: they were convicted under impeachment, and then it went to
Speaker 1: a lower court and a court isci you know, it
Speaker 1: would basically be okay, your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this is one of the most critical
Speaker 2: representations of how this moment that we're in the country
Speaker 2: where you have you know, one day, we're debating about
Speaker 2: how many organs women have to lose at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: At the other day, we're hearing arguments about how a
Speaker 2: country that was founded on the idea that there are
Speaker 2: no kings and queens, on the idea that no one
Speaker 2: is above the law, we're now in a situation where
Speaker 2: we're having and seeing this being given, you know, and
Speaker 2: seeing this extremism. So, you know, I think this is
Speaker 2: definitely something to pay attention to. But I want to
Speaker 2: make sure your listeners because we've been talking with a
Speaker 2: lot of media and you know, everybody's very they're following this,
Speaker 2: They're following the trial in Manhattan. That's very important and
Speaker 2: it symbolizes where we are in the country. But you know,
Speaker 2: last year we had over four thousand fans and communities
Speaker 2: throughout the country. We have access to healthcare issues. There
Speaker 2: are still people that are making such low wages that
Speaker 2: they can't put food on their table, and the price
Speaker 2: of food is where it is. And so I just
Speaker 2: want to also ground us in not falling for thinking
Speaker 2: about the very tip of the headline and not really
Speaker 2: looking at how we can be part of a change
Speaker 2: and holding people accountable to the American people, not just
Speaker 2: on one or two issues, but on all the issues
Speaker 2: that are so critical and so intertwined and under attack
Speaker 2: at this moment. So that's one thing I'll say. But
Speaker 2: I do think you know, the other thing we know
Speaker 2: from history is that when democracies fall, you can go
Speaker 2: look at it. They often fall because people take for
Speaker 2: granted they think, well, that could never happen here. And
Speaker 2: so I really want your listeners to just and I
Speaker 2: think you do a good job of it on your show.
Speaker 2: Oh but we've got to come to the reality. This
Speaker 2: is what was happening in the Supreme Court today, this
Speaker 2: is what people are suggesting, and we had questioning from
Speaker 2: the justices suggesting that you know, if you hold the
Speaker 2: president accountable to the laws, well then the president may
Speaker 2: not we may not want to like move on from
Speaker 2: a peaceful transition of power. That is, you know that
Speaker 2: this is the kind of situation that we're seeing, which
Speaker 2: is just an extremism from from some of the justices
Speaker 2: as well as from Council in that case. And so
Speaker 2: we have power in this country. We don't have to
Speaker 2: stick with courts that are rigged. We don't have to
Speaker 2: stick with a rig gain. We don't have to coordinate
Speaker 2: our leaders as kings and queens, and we need to
Speaker 2: be thinking about in using all the tools our democracy provides.
Speaker 2: It's voting, but it's being informed, it's advocating. We're going
Speaker 2: to be in court, you know, arguing for the right things,
Speaker 2: but it's we need to be using all of those
Speaker 2: tools at this time.
Speaker 1: Do you think Sky right now that the average American
Speaker 1: is paying attention to the things outside, Like you said
Speaker 1: of the tip of the headline, I don't even know
Speaker 1: if they're paying attention to the headline. So I'm wondering
Speaker 1: because like to me, everything is about civic engagement and
Speaker 1: also education. But the Republicans have made it clear exactly
Speaker 1: what it is that they want to do. I've talked
Speaker 1: about Project twenty twenty five for the last year on
Speaker 1: this show. Yep, you know, to raise the alarm and
Speaker 1: say it's not something that they're doing behind closed doors,
Speaker 1: like it's on their website. You can download it, it's free,
Speaker 1: and so I just wonder do you think Americans are
Speaker 1: paying attention. Do you think that they recognize that this
Speaker 1: election really is the most consequential election or have we
Speaker 1: been saying that for too long that it doesn't resonate anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, I think what we know is that people are
Speaker 2: concerned and concerned about issues. So they're concerned about how
Speaker 2: they're going to afford their life, what the economy is
Speaker 2: going to be, like, they're concerned about healthcare, they're concerned
Speaker 2: about their kids' education. We know that on those issues,
Speaker 2: and what we've got to do is to make sure
Speaker 2: that we're educating people about this movement that is afoot
Speaker 2: in the country. The Project twenty twenty five early represents
Speaker 2: this highly coordinated far right movement that is finding common
Speaker 2: cause with other interests and that seeking to normalize this
Speaker 2: five alarm fire. I mean, I'm going to say, you know,
Speaker 2: the democracy has been under threat for many years for
Speaker 2: their entire existence for many people who aren't included in
Speaker 2: our nation's founding, and it has been an urgent matter
Speaker 2: that needs to be addressed, and it remains urgent. But
Speaker 2: what we're seeing now is just on on a wider scale.
Speaker 2: Were even even rights of people who have enjoyed more
Speaker 2: privileged throughout the country, even rights of people those are
Speaker 2: now being threatened, and we're now seeing even you know,
Speaker 2: this is just a much It's a much more extreme
Speaker 2: version of a lot of a lot of the fights.
Speaker 2: And so I think that paying attention really matters. But
Speaker 2: educating and making sure that we all understand how this
Speaker 2: affects our lives. Dobbs has been devastating. One of the
Speaker 2: things that it did, though, was it has forced people
Speaker 2: to come to grips in many ways with what this
Speaker 2: really means, as the harrowing accounts that Justice Sotomayor and
Speaker 2: others were referring to yesterday at the argument. And so
Speaker 2: I think we really need to be able to connect
Speaker 2: for people where the threats to our democracy are coming from.
Speaker 2: And then what tools we have to push back.
Speaker 1: I think that it is incredibly important to remind people
Speaker 1: of the two that we do have tools, right, Like,
Speaker 1: That's the point of my show and my work is
Speaker 1: to remind people that they still have power, even though
Speaker 1: they may find themselves in a really dark moment and
Speaker 1: place right now in our democracy. You know, just a
Speaker 1: last question for you for those people who feel extraordinarily
Speaker 1: bleak right, who are thinking and I they're all over
Speaker 1: my social media page about not voting or not voting
Speaker 1: for democracy, and they're serious about it. They say they
Speaker 1: can't stomach it. What do you say, Well, look.
Speaker 2: Our country is only as strong and our democracy is
Speaker 2: only as real as the people who are going to
Speaker 2: keep it that way. And so whether that is volunteering
Speaker 2: in your local community, signing up to vote, you know,
Speaker 2: getting involved civically listening to the show and then talking
Speaker 2: to three friends about these issues. Being willing to sit
Speaker 2: with the discomfort and the injustice at this moment and
Speaker 2: to voice and to do something about it. It is
Speaker 2: going to take all of us. And we have seen
Speaker 2: in prior times where people thought, well, it couldn't get that,
Speaker 2: you know, it couldn't get worse. I mean, we saw
Speaker 2: you know before it was always well everyone was saying
Speaker 2: Roby Wade is under threat, and it was like, well,
Speaker 2: that's really not going to happen. Well, you know it has,
Speaker 2: and we're now having debates at the US Supreme Court
Speaker 2: about how many women have to die and how many
Speaker 2: organs women have to lose in order to get healthcare.
Speaker 2: And so I think that we know that these are
Speaker 2: matters that concern the well being of people in communities,
Speaker 2: and there should you know, we can't be apathetic and
Speaker 2: maybe that there's something that motivates you. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of ways that people can get involved, and not everybody
Speaker 2: needs to be Not everybody's an activist. Not everybody's going
Speaker 2: to show up to a rally or hold a sign.
Speaker 2: Not everybody wants to run for office. Not everybody wants
Speaker 2: to be a lawyer, not everybody wants to be a journalist.
Speaker 2: But there are things that we can do in our
Speaker 2: individual lives. Libraries are under attack, schools are under attack,
Speaker 2: public servants are under attack. You know, find a way
Speaker 2: in your community, in your localized setting to get involved
Speaker 2: and get involved civically and to see the people in
Speaker 2: communities that are at stake, and then we have to
Speaker 2: use our power to try to make things better. And
Speaker 2: one of those powers is obviously getting involved in making
Speaker 2: sure that we're voting and that we're showing up for democracy.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of other things as well. So
Speaker 2: I would just say, you know, I couldn't do my
Speaker 2: job if I didn't have hope. And what gives me
Speaker 2: hope is seeing the people yesterday. I mean, we had
Speaker 2: doctors from across the country, patients from across the country
Speaker 2: at the Supreme Court demanding more. We see this in
Speaker 2: schools across the country. Is people that are saying, you know,
Speaker 2: democracy is not going to fall on my watch, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to do what I can in this moment.
Speaker 2: I had a cab driver the other day that said
Speaker 2: to me he was a former civil servant. He's retired,
Speaker 2: he drives in retirement, and he wanted to talk. We
Speaker 2: drove past the Washington Monument. He wanted to talk about
Speaker 2: our country, and he said, you know, now is the
Speaker 2: time that good people need to come to the aid
Speaker 2: of their country. And that was a when he was
Speaker 2: when he was in civil service in the civil rights movement.
Speaker 2: This was something and in the Vietnam War that people said,
Speaker 2: and he said that it was a good saying for today,
Speaker 2: and I think it is now is the time that
Speaker 2: good people need to come to the aid of their country.
Speaker 2: And so thanks for having me on, and we all
Speaker 2: got our hat to hold on to that home.
Speaker 1: Yes we are. Thank you, Skuy. Always appreciate you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Dear friends on woke
Speaker 1: ay app as always, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.