Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live from my Brooklyn Cilarium. Folks,
Speaker 1: I want to start off today with saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: I've taken a week off, right, and when I take
Speaker 1: time off, I usually you know, spend more time with friends,
Speaker 1: spend time out of the toxic Twitter verse um, and
Speaker 1: kind of you know, disconnect from the news. The more
Speaker 1: that I begin to get back up to speed on
Speaker 1: all of the things that I've missed, all of the tragedy,
Speaker 1: all of the trauma, it's sitting with me my continued
Speaker 1: contempt and disappointment with this country. You know, there are
Speaker 1: multiple trials that are happening right now, but the biggest
Speaker 1: trial that I think is the one that we all
Speaker 1: need to be paying attention to is America at large.
Speaker 1: Through the Written House case, through the you know, McCullough
Speaker 1: brothers case, right the family that murdered Ahmad Aubrey. All
Speaker 1: I can keep thinking about is this is who America is.
Speaker 1: We often continue to say to ourselves every time that
Speaker 1: something bad happens, every time that something just so absurdly
Speaker 1: cruel happens in this country. We love to say, this
Speaker 1: is not who we are. Donald Trump rips children away
Speaker 1: from their families. This is not who we are, except
Speaker 1: we've been doing this for centuries. It started with Native
Speaker 1: American children that we were ripping away from their families,
Speaker 1: moved into hundreds of years of slavery where we ripped family,
Speaker 1: Black families apart in this country, sold off right. And
Speaker 1: then we come to present day and we love to say, oh,
Speaker 1: this isn't who we are, and yet it is a
Speaker 1: part of our history. And it is this very part
Speaker 1: of our history that the radical right, the Insurrectionist Party,
Speaker 1: doesn't want you to know anything about. It's why they
Speaker 1: have created the boogeyman of critical race theory, something that
Speaker 1: isn't even taught, isn't even taught at the K three
Speaker 1: twelveth level. It's something that is actually only taught at
Speaker 1: the graduate level right and in law school. But they
Speaker 1: don't want you to understand your history. They don't want
Speaker 1: us to be able to unpack and ask critical questions
Speaker 1: about this nation's founding and how we have developed policies
Speaker 1: right and laws that have moved forward that are actually
Speaker 1: a part of our white supremacist founding. Because you see
Speaker 1: that when you prepare people, when you educate them in
Speaker 1: a way to begin to the world around them, then
Speaker 1: you have to answer for the things you don't want
Speaker 1: to answer for. And so what is the radical rights
Speaker 1: response to that? Just don't teach it. Ban those books,
Speaker 1: ban those conversations, Ban the mentioning of race inequity, of
Speaker 1: gender inequity. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. That's their idea
Speaker 1: of how they preserve America, how they don't make white
Speaker 1: kids feel bad about themselves. Let's all just pretend that
Speaker 1: racism doesn't happen, that there is gender equity, and women,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, make equal pay, knowing good
Speaker 1: God damn well, that that is not the truth. But
Speaker 1: you see where I find myself struggling these days is
Speaker 1: that I feel like I have been having these conversations
Speaker 1: at nauseam about the democrats inability to message, about their
Speaker 1: inability to actually talk about the things that they are
Speaker 1: providing Americans with as opposed to the things that the
Speaker 1: radical right tells us they are stripping away. You know,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that want to have a whole campaign
Speaker 1: around cancel culture, and yet they're throwing book burning parties
Speaker 1: and yet they're throwing mask burning parties. They are the
Speaker 1: ones that are trying to cancel fucking common sense. And
Speaker 1: instead of having a conversation about that, instead of us
Speaker 1: being very real about how they are trying to roll
Speaker 1: back the clock, how they are trying to continue to
Speaker 1: perpetuate a culture of violence, a climate of written houses
Speaker 1: that all feel like they have the power and the
Speaker 1: ability to sling on in AAR fifteen and go play
Speaker 1: target practice with other American citizens. This is the climate
Speaker 1: that we are setting up, and it is being signaled
Speaker 1: from the top. We have a Supreme Court case, for instance,
Speaker 1: right that we have talked about with our friend doctor Jonathan.
Speaker 1: That's all a Supreme Court case that is about getting
Speaker 1: ready to essentially ban individual states abilities to be able
Speaker 1: to create sensible gun control laws. So they just think
Speaker 1: for a minute that the party that initially was about
Speaker 1: quote unquote states rights has now brought up laws and
Speaker 1: ideology that is about ripping away those very rights that
Speaker 1: they say that states should have away from them. If
Speaker 1: it's a red state, no no, you can continue on.
Speaker 1: But if it's a blue state, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you don't have the ability to say that. In New
Speaker 1: York City, a city of eight million fucking people, that
Speaker 1: we all shouldn't have assault weapons right because oh, that
Speaker 1: will infringe upon their Second Amendment right, not my right
Speaker 1: to exist free of fear. That's not the conversation that
Speaker 1: we are having. No, Instead, we are having the conversation
Speaker 1: about everyone's right to be able to bear arms, everyone's
Speaker 1: right to be able to be Kyle Rittenhouse and shoot
Speaker 1: up who they will when they want. We are the
Speaker 1: times that we are living in, folks is so incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 1: But the conversation that I will have in a bit
Speaker 1: with our friend Kurt Bardella is this, if every single
Speaker 1: election is urgent, then why is it that Democrats continue
Speaker 1: to fall behind? If we looked and knew that Virginia
Speaker 1: was going to be an alarm right for what could
Speaker 1: happen in the midterm elections, then why was Terry mccaullough
Speaker 1: falling behind from the beginning with a no name fucking
Speaker 1: Donald Trump light in a vest? How are we not
Speaker 1: prepared for the tactics that they are using. There's a
Speaker 1: new study that just came out right media hawks who
Speaker 1: pay attention to you know, the Fox News is of
Speaker 1: the world before the Virginia election, the number of times
Speaker 1: that critical race theory was mentioned on Fox was like
Speaker 1: in the hundreds on a daily Right now post the election, oh,
Speaker 1: critical race theory is no longer a conversation. It's no
Speaker 1: longer you know, hide the books from your children or
Speaker 1: decide to homeschool. It's barely barely registering. And so if
Speaker 1: you know that they are using these bullshit tactics, right,
Speaker 1: and you know that they are creating a boogeyman out
Speaker 1: of nothing, then why are we constantly operating from the defense.
Speaker 1: Why aren't we able to see what they are doing?
Speaker 1: Because it's not that fucking deep, do you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's not as if this is a highly
Speaker 1: strategic maneuvering and conversation and nuance that they are having.
Speaker 1: It's the same race baiting shit that they've been doing
Speaker 1: for decades. Just each and every election they pick a
Speaker 1: new boogeyman. And you would think that Democrats would be
Speaker 1: prepared for that. But the moment that you find yourself
Speaker 1: right explaining what you're not doing, you are fucking losing.
Speaker 1: And that is where Democrats are. So the question that
Speaker 1: I am posing with less than a year until midterm elections.
Speaker 1: Is have we already lost? Right? Because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When you have anchor anchors and host asking members of
Speaker 1: Congress whether or not Democrats are two woke, you have
Speaker 1: lost Democrats saying fucking woke. If they were, we would
Speaker 1: have passed voting rights out of the fucking gate. We
Speaker 1: would have blown up the filibuster. We would have been
Speaker 1: active on climate change. Why because we would have been
Speaker 1: woke and conscious too, the fucking racist ass filibuster right
Speaker 1: that allows these small as states to have outsize power. Right,
Speaker 1: we would have done what was necessary, what the voters
Speaker 1: called us to do, because we would have been in
Speaker 1: alignment with them. But are we doing that? No, we're not.
Speaker 1: But when you are having to go on the defensive
Speaker 1: about being woke, which means being conscious too, injustice, you
Speaker 1: are fucking losing. So here we are with a handful
Speaker 1: of months, and I'm telling you it's going to go
Speaker 1: buy in a blink of an eye, because the other
Speaker 1: day it occurred to me, said, shit, there are like
Speaker 1: six weeks until the end of this year. Right when
Speaker 1: we get to January, it'll almost be two years. It'll
Speaker 1: be two years that we've been living with COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: and we still have people fucking dying. That's how quickly
Speaker 1: time has gone, because we lost an entire year in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Right, twenty twenty one went by like boom,
Speaker 1: And so what is in store for twenty twenty two?
Speaker 1: Dare I ask? Because I'm terrified? But back to these cases,
Speaker 1: You know, when you already know what the outcome is
Speaker 1: going to be, when you can comfortably say to yourself, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Kyle's not going to go to jail. He wasn't even
Speaker 1: remanded to prison, right while he awaited did trial, and
Speaker 1: yet low level drug offenders. Right Caliph Browder, the young
Speaker 1: black man who was picked up and held in Rikers
Speaker 1: for three years under suspicion of stealing a backpack, who
Speaker 1: would then later be released no charges and kill himself
Speaker 1: after the trauma that was inflicted upon him when he's
Speaker 1: remanded for stealing of a backpack. But Kyle Rittenhouse was
Speaker 1: able to go out drink beers and fucking live his
Speaker 1: life after killing two people, You know that this justice
Speaker 1: system ain't fucking right. When a judge can decide that
Speaker 1: we're not going to use the word victim because he
Speaker 1: believes it's too politically loaded. You know this justice system
Speaker 1: ain't right when cops can get off after we witnessed
Speaker 1: them on video shooting people in the back. You know
Speaker 1: that this justice system ain't right. But what are we
Speaker 1: doing to fix it? What conversations are we doing, what
Speaker 1: conversations are we having? We're not So how is it
Speaker 1: that the radical right is able to say that the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is too woke when they ignore all the
Speaker 1: same fucking shit. You know, and this is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It is all a distraction. It is all a distraction
Speaker 1: in order to keep white supremacy alive. If you are
Speaker 1: paying attention to this shit over here, then you are
Speaker 1: not focused on the bigger picture, which is who is
Speaker 1: making money off of all of this? Right? Who benefits
Speaker 1: from this, whether it be through power for power's sake
Speaker 1: or money right at the sake of greed. But somebody
Speaker 1: is benefiting. And this country only works right at the
Speaker 1: expense of the least among us. So when we decide
Speaker 1: to have honest conversations about that, right, when we decide
Speaker 1: to tell the truth, right, that will be us being
Speaker 1: whoa But right now, both parties, if you ask me,
Speaker 1: are just a bunch of political ostriches. They're just burying
Speaker 1: their heads in the sand. The radical right knows exactly
Speaker 1: how to talk to their base. They know exactly what
Speaker 1: they want to hear. It doesn't matter that they don't
Speaker 1: deliver shit. They deliver the rhetoric that they love. Right.
Speaker 1: They make these people feel proud with their millions of guns, right,
Speaker 1: and the desire for members of Congress to post videos
Speaker 1: of them killing another member of Congress. That's the shit
Speaker 1: that their base wants to see. But the stuff that
Speaker 1: we want to see as a base of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: we're told, oh no, no, no, no no, that's too much,
Speaker 1: because I'm too busy fucking chasing the Karens right, trying
Speaker 1: to get them to switch parties, when since nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: they have shown exist us exactly who the fuck they
Speaker 1: are and where their allegiance lies. But we're still trying
Speaker 1: to bring them back. You know, all I can say
Speaker 1: with regard to this current political climate is take good
Speaker 1: care of yourself, right, take good care of yourself. You
Speaker 1: have got to be balancing out what it is that
Speaker 1: we are ingesting with what we are putting back out
Speaker 1: into the universe. We cannot sustain on rage alone. Trust me,
Speaker 1: this is what I am learning after years of doing Woke,
Speaker 1: after years of raging against the machine, that if I
Speaker 1: am not working to fill my own cup, if I
Speaker 1: am not working right as a way to speak and
Speaker 1: say what it is that I have to say, but
Speaker 1: then let it go, relieve myself of the expectations that
Speaker 1: anything is truly going to shift in this country other
Speaker 1: than waking more people up. But knowing right this is
Speaker 1: my turn with the baton, but that I am not
Speaker 1: going to see justice in my lifetime, right, But I
Speaker 1: can only do what I can to pass the baton
Speaker 1: to the next generation, to the next group of people
Speaker 1: who care and hope that they carry the work further.
Speaker 1: But I cannot in the process burn myself out and
Speaker 1: make myself sick, because that would be feeding into the
Speaker 1: system of white supremacy that has a death grip on
Speaker 1: this country. Coming up next, friends, is my conversation with
Speaker 1: our dear friend who has returned to Woke, f Kurt Bardella,
Speaker 1: about what he believes the Democratic Party needs to do
Speaker 1: in order to win in this next election and whether
Speaker 1: or not we're going to have the stomach for the
Speaker 1: kind of fight that we are up against, folks. I
Speaker 1: am so excited to welcome back to Woke f Daily
Speaker 1: our friend Kurt Bardela. You know him as a DNC
Speaker 1: and d Triple C spokesperson as well as a columnist
Speaker 1: and regular guesting contributor on MSNBC. Kurt, let's just you know,
Speaker 1: cut the bs from the jump. Democrats are not in
Speaker 1: good shape. Even though you know, finally, finally, after months
Speaker 1: of deliberation, after back and forth with Senator Kirsten Cinema
Speaker 1: and Joe Manchion and you know, the Progressive Caucus in
Speaker 1: the House, we have a bipartisan infrastructure deal that was
Speaker 1: signed this week. However, there are many people, including myself,
Speaker 1: that are wondering whether or not Democrats have already lost
Speaker 1: the midterm elections before we even get started. With less
Speaker 1: than a year and now to go until those midterm
Speaker 1: elections happen. What kind of shape do you think that
Speaker 1: Democrats are in right now? Well, Daniel, I think it's
Speaker 1: an uphill climb, candidly, and part of the reason why,
Speaker 1: and this doesn't get talked about nearly enough, the redistricting
Speaker 1: process that is happening right now, the partisan Jerry Mandarin
Speaker 1: of congressional districts. Before we even get on the playing
Speaker 1: field in twenty twenty two, we could have already lost
Speaker 1: our majority just based on how Republicans in the state
Speaker 1: houses are drawing these lines and grouping communities of color
Speaker 1: and very concentrated areas so that they don't have widespread
Speaker 1: representations blatant racism, and it's happening in broad daylight, and
Speaker 1: it underscores I think one of the real blind spots
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party from an organization standpoint, which is,
Speaker 1: for too long we've kind of ignored what goes on
Speaker 1: in the local and state level, while Republicans have very
Speaker 1: systemically and deliberately launched multi million dollar campaigns to build
Speaker 1: up their bench in these places. I've always said that
Speaker 1: today's city council member, today's state assemblyment is tomorrow's congressman
Speaker 1: or tomorrow senator. And we're seeing that happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: right now, local school boards are under siege by the
Speaker 1: radical extreme right, and that is a deliberate plan by
Speaker 1: the Republican Party to try to hijack all of the
Speaker 1: institutions and put them in their column. And that's going
Speaker 1: and as we see every ten years, that has a
Speaker 1: very significant impact. When we look at the playing field
Speaker 1: for mid term elections, I think that after what happened
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago in Virginia and New Jersey,
Speaker 1: even though we won New Jersey was alarmingly close, democratsy
Speaker 1: to wake up and realize something. On climate change, we
Speaker 1: saw Republicans hijack the issue and turned the Green New
Speaker 1: Deal into a bad word. On voting rights and police reform,
Speaker 1: we saw Republicans hijack those issues and turn it into
Speaker 1: defund the police. On the issue of infrastructure and congressional spending,
Speaker 1: we saw them hijacket and just make it into a
Speaker 1: price tag designed to scare away of voters. On education,
Speaker 1: we saw them hijacket and turned it into critical race theory.
Speaker 1: And we saw how that played out in the most
Speaker 1: recent elections. Time and again, Republicans take our issues and
Speaker 1: scare us away from talking about them. And I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: if you would to set a year ago, Danielle that
Speaker 1: the Virginia elections can come down to the issue of education,
Speaker 1: who do you think is gonna win? Everybody would have said, oh,
Speaker 1: that faris of Democrats, and education debate is a Democrat
Speaker 1: wheelhouse issue. And yet somehow we lost that, and we
Speaker 1: have got to stop letting Republicans hijack our issues and
Speaker 1: just run unopposed and unabashed on them, thinking that no
Speaker 1: one's going to notice, no one's going to actually buy
Speaker 1: into their fear mongering. Listen, folks, the myth that people
Speaker 1: don't buy into this bullshit should have been completely destroyed
Speaker 1: after the twenty sixteen election. We've got to start matching
Speaker 1: fire with fire here or we're just gonna get wiped out.
Speaker 1: So let's look at the Virginia race from a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, Kurt, you know, and I want to
Speaker 1: be honest where I feel that Terry mcculloff ran a
Speaker 1: bullshit campaign. I think that Terry mcculloff did not offer
Speaker 1: the voters anything right other than I am not Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and sadly because of the I don't know, hesitation, ignorance,
Speaker 1: blatant obstructionism of two of our own Democratic senators, he
Speaker 1: also had nothing to run on right in terms of
Speaker 1: Democrats get things done, so put me back in office.
Speaker 1: That being said, if you were running that campaign right,
Speaker 1: and in hindsight, we saw that junkin use critical race theory,
Speaker 1: parents should have quote unquote a choice. Right. We saw
Speaker 1: book banning and book burning come back into come back
Speaker 1: into focus in the twenty first century in such a
Speaker 1: way that should have been alarming, but we kind of
Speaker 1: just shrugged at it. What would you have said to
Speaker 1: Terry mccauliff's campaign, What would you have said to him
Speaker 1: in terms of how you combat this wayward messaging about
Speaker 1: critical race theory, which, by the way, is not even
Speaker 1: taught in our K through twelve school systems. It is
Speaker 1: a higher education curriculum, right, What would you what would
Speaker 1: you have said to him to do so as not
Speaker 1: to fall into the rabbit hole of defending something that
Speaker 1: is actually nonsense. I think I would. I would have
Speaker 1: owned the issue of education and never let Glenn young
Speaker 1: can take it from you, and to begin, I remember
Speaker 1: very early on in the campaign one of the first
Speaker 1: public speeches that Terry gave on the sign on the
Speaker 1: podium were the word's education. And yet I never felt
Speaker 1: like I heard Terry talk about that very much. And
Speaker 1: it gave this opening to the Republicans to just kind
Speaker 1: of seize this issue, put millions of dollars of advertising
Speaker 1: behind it, so that by the time Terry woke up
Speaker 1: to the issue that hey, this is becoming a problem.
Speaker 1: It was kind of too late, the person already baked in.
Speaker 1: You know, I really feel like this again. This happens
Speaker 1: all the time and it drives me nuts. Democrats just
Speaker 1: surrendered these issues to the Republicans and they get trapped
Speaker 1: in that, oh, we're not going to go there now
Speaker 1: that the Republicans have touched it, because we don't want
Speaker 1: to play into their into their hands, Ignoring the issue
Speaker 1: is playing into their hands. Terry should have owned the
Speaker 1: issue of education. The guy was governed for four years.
Speaker 1: He has a track record in an education that he
Speaker 1: could have promoted and talked about every single day, so
Speaker 1: that by a time Young Can and the Republicans went there,
Speaker 1: it would have been seen for what for what it
Speaker 1: really was a political stunt, a desperate effort to grab
Speaker 1: onto an issue radicalize it in the same way that
Speaker 1: Republicans like to talk about. Remember the twenty eighteen in terms,
Speaker 1: all you heard on foxes of caravans are coming, are coming,
Speaker 1: Yet they have never arrived, and they never arrived in
Speaker 1: never hear anything about a since. But that's what they did.
Speaker 1: It didn't work because we took that head on. We
Speaker 1: didn't let them get away with that in this case
Speaker 1: in Virginia, I felt like we kind of did. And
Speaker 1: I would have told Terry, listen, do not underestimate this campaign.
Speaker 1: Do not underestimate the money that young can is able
Speaker 1: to have at his disposal to run TV ad after.
Speaker 1: I mean, I live in Virginia, I can tell you
Speaker 1: for months, all I saw were these Glenn Young can
Speaker 1: ads every single day on daytime television, specifically targeting women.
Speaker 1: You don't run ads during general hass Bill unless you're
Speaker 1: targeting a certain constituency. And I never saw mccalliff out
Speaker 1: there early enough, and I think that they started too
Speaker 1: late getting into the game. I think that they gave
Speaker 1: Glenn a huge runaway. Listen, Glenn Yonkin wasn't unknown. He's
Speaker 1: never run for office before, so he kind of had
Speaker 1: a clean slate. So he got to create his own
Speaker 1: first impression with the voters, and he had that playing
Speaker 1: field all to himself for months. And by the time
Speaker 1: the Democrats got along to trying to say, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: this guy is Donald Trump and a vest don't be fooled,
Speaker 1: it was too late. Voters had already made a first
Speaker 1: impression about Young Kin. Because he was able to do
Speaker 1: that without any pushback for months. But I mean, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If every election we are being told right
Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen, no, actually, let's go back to Obama,
Speaker 1: since two thousand and eight, has been the most consequential
Speaker 1: election of our lifetime. Every single election we hear that
Speaker 1: mantra from the Democrats, except this actually was one of
Speaker 1: the most consequential elections, right, and not saying that all
Speaker 1: is lost because mcculoff lost the race. But let's be clear,
Speaker 1: we had been owning Virginia for the last decade, right
Speaker 1: after hard fought like ground games done in Virginia to
Speaker 1: turn it blue, and so here we are, right. How
Speaker 1: is it that they started late, Kurt? How is it
Speaker 1: that we want to tell people that they need to
Speaker 1: get out and vote it's so consequential, and yet mcculloff's
Speaker 1: campaign could allow such runaway for Yuncan's team and yet
Speaker 1: have no recourse. Yeah, I think that Democrats at times
Speaker 1: are it's hard for them. I think to reconcile that
Speaker 1: after the four years that was Donald Trump, that somehow
Speaker 1: the republic Party has actually gotten stronger and been able
Speaker 1: to gain ground. You know, I go back to the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, and while yeah, it was great that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden won, obviously, but I think about the congressional
Speaker 1: losses we absorbed, how our majority got narrowed down to
Speaker 1: just a handful, how we barely have the United States
Speaker 1: Senate if not for the miracle that really was you know,
Speaker 1: Warnock and ass Off in Georgia happening. This was not
Speaker 1: a good election cycle in twenty twenty for the Democrats.
Speaker 1: We won by the skin of our teeth. And Donald
Speaker 1: Trump still managed to get something like seventy two million
Speaker 1: votes or whatever, right, or sixty three million or whatever
Speaker 1: it was. But it's like, man, that that should have
Speaker 1: been the wake up call that it was that close,
Speaker 1: and that the reality is Donald Trump got the second
Speaker 1: most votes for president in the history of our country.
Speaker 1: The only person only Joe Biden got more. But like,
Speaker 1: that's a ship a ton of people still voting field
Speaker 1: this guy. Ye after four years of what we saw,
Speaker 1: So what does that tell me? It tells me that
Speaker 1: we have a huge messaging problem. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like we've been having this conversation for like five years anil.
Speaker 1: But but honest to god, it's like, clearly we have
Speaker 1: not been articulating in a way that is resonating with
Speaker 1: a large swath of this country. And I think it
Speaker 1: begins with and I've been thinking a lot about this late,
Speaker 1: and I said this the other day on joy Read.
Speaker 1: You don't hear democrats say enough. I love this country.
Speaker 1: I'm proud to be an American, and I'm proud of
Speaker 1: our story, however imperfect it is, because it is a
Speaker 1: story about becoming better and the pursuit of a better
Speaker 1: and more perfect union. That pursuit never ends. That's why
Speaker 1: we need to talk about social injustice and racial inequality
Speaker 1: in America, and sexism in the workplace and you and
Speaker 1: all the things that Democrats care about and talk about.
Speaker 1: But I think that they need to begin that conversation
Speaker 1: with the simple phrase, I love this country because I
Speaker 1: want to make it better. If I didn't give a
Speaker 1: shit about this country, I wouldn't care about any of
Speaker 1: these things. I just say it is what it is
Speaker 1: and move on. But ever since September eleventh, somehow Republicans
Speaker 1: have been given this monopoly on patriotism. That's wrong. Republicans
Speaker 1: are nationalist, Democrats are patriots. And we got to start
Speaker 1: talking about it that way, we should not be afraid
Speaker 1: to lean in to say that we love this country
Speaker 1: and that more things should unite than divide us. But
Speaker 1: we surrender all of that to Republicans year after year,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand why. And it allows them to
Speaker 1: use words like liberty and freedom and all these buzzwords
Speaker 1: that they use to try to mask their frankly white
Speaker 1: nationalist policies that they're trying to impose on the rest
Speaker 1: of us. But we got to change the way that
Speaker 1: we talk about this stuff, because I'll tell you that
Speaker 1: I spent, as you know, a lot of my time
Speaker 1: in the country music world, were a lot of concerts
Speaker 1: all over this country. And now I was able, thanks
Speaker 1: to the vaccination that Joe Biden got through and shots
Speaker 1: and Arms campaign, I was able to go to a
Speaker 1: lot of different shows this summer and in the fall.
Speaker 1: And the feeling that I get everywhere that I went
Speaker 1: was that there's this perception that Democrats are out to
Speaker 1: take things away from us and to h and we
Speaker 1: have got to change that that lexicon a little bit here,
Speaker 1: or we're gon we're just gonna get slacked. You know
Speaker 1: that that feeling is very real. And while some of
Speaker 1: it is justified. Yeah, we are trying to cancel racism
Speaker 1: and sexism and sexual harassment and bad behavior. Everybody is
Speaker 1: tripping over themselves, like worrying about did I say the
Speaker 1: right thing to a t Is this going to blow
Speaker 1: up on Twitter? Twitter is not real life, thank god,
Speaker 1: because it's accessful, thank god. Right, But we got to
Speaker 1: start as Democrats showing that we want to do things
Speaker 1: four people, not two though. You know, Kurt, you articulate
Speaker 1: this so clearly, and you and you're right in your
Speaker 1: assessment that we have been talking about this for five
Speaker 1: plus years, right, that Democrats, when it comes to messaging,
Speaker 1: they don't have it. And then we cower behind the
Speaker 1: excuse that, well, it's easier to sell fear, right, it's
Speaker 1: easier to sell hate. But yet we watched in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight and again in two thousand and twelve
Speaker 1: as the Obama team build a coalition with the same
Speaker 1: freagan Americans that we're dealing with today. Now, yes, is
Speaker 1: the climate more fraught. Absolutely, is racism more potent? Correct,
Speaker 1: it is? Is violence against various marginalized communities on the rise, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But it's the same people that we are dealing with right.
Speaker 1: And so my problem here is that when is it
Speaker 1: and whose responsibility is it to say we need an overhaul,
Speaker 1: that it is time to throw out our bullshit playbook,
Speaker 1: that it is time for us to stop being on
Speaker 1: the defensive right and say, because to your point, when
Speaker 1: we are forced into a corner that says no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not trying to take your guns away, we are
Speaker 1: too We are left too busy explaining what we are
Speaker 1: not trying to do, as opposed to what it is
Speaker 1: that we are actually actively trying to do. If I
Speaker 1: am telling you that critical race theory doesn't actually exist,
Speaker 1: and that's where I'm spending my time and energy, that
Speaker 1: I'm not having conversations about how we're not making students
Speaker 1: that are globally competitive, we're not preparing them for a
Speaker 1: twenty first century workforce that, by the way, again we've
Speaker 1: been talking about for decades but still haven't rectified. So
Speaker 1: if we're doing all of this defense work, there is
Speaker 1: no opportunity for us to create the narrative about where
Speaker 1: we are trying to push America. And my question is
Speaker 1: who is in charge of saying, let's scrap this shit
Speaker 1: that we've been doing for the past three decades. That
Speaker 1: is having us on the losing end and let us
Speaker 1: move forward. Yeah, that's a great point too. And let
Speaker 1: me just say I've always send in campaigns if you
Speaker 1: are explaining you are losing. Yep. For better or worse.
Speaker 1: Republicans are very good at branding. I mean they seize
Speaker 1: on the things and they come up with something and
Speaker 1: you hear it over and over and over again. There
Speaker 1: is repetition, there is frequency, there is volume, and we
Speaker 1: can learn a thing or two about about that and
Speaker 1: start employing that. You know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: they do feel optimistic about. You know, I'm a big
Speaker 1: Jamie Harrison family. You know, I think that he is dynamic.
Speaker 1: He is not a creature of Washington. He is someone
Speaker 1: who has been on the ground and hard fought campaigns
Speaker 1: in a very unique state in South Carolina, a state that, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, if it weren't for South Carolina, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden wouldn't be our president, right And shout out to
Speaker 1: Jim Plyburn, who literally saved democracy, who does not get
Speaker 1: enough credit for that. You know, someone like Jamie Harrison
Speaker 1: running the DNC that makes me feel hopeful because that's
Speaker 1: such a different type of character that we've had there
Speaker 1: than the previous kind of establishment types, Washington types who
Speaker 1: are at times very out of touch with the rest
Speaker 1: of this country. Not to mention, he's a personal color.
Speaker 1: What a radical idea that is, right? You know, I
Speaker 1: look at someone who's running the D Triple cy Sean
Speaker 1: Patrick Maloney. This is a guy from New York who
Speaker 1: won in a Trump district, so he understands and has
Speaker 1: done successfully the impossible. He is an openly gay Democrat
Speaker 1: who won in a Trump district. That's a very different
Speaker 1: type of person that we've had that, you know, in
Speaker 1: that position than we've had before. And then I also think,
Speaker 1: as with anything, when you have a president of your party,
Speaker 1: everything begins and ends there. You know, it's you know,
Speaker 1: the White House is hopefully starting to kind of get
Speaker 1: their footing passing infrastructure, hopefully getting the second part of
Speaker 1: that done in the next week or so, finally have
Speaker 1: things to go out there and promote. You know, there's
Speaker 1: then the use there's going to be a thousand events country,
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the country promoting what this infrastructure bill is,
Speaker 1: what it can do. Using people like Secretary Boota Chedge
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Granholm to go out on the road and
Speaker 1: start getting into people's faces in communities. You know, that's
Speaker 1: a part of it too. I personally think that the
Speaker 1: president has been a little bit too protected by his
Speaker 1: staff and that we need to see more of him,
Speaker 1: not less of him. I don't I don't buy into
Speaker 1: the nonsense and DC narrative abiding gaffs. I'm like, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: The last guy that was in office was a freaking
Speaker 1: garbage monster who was calling the press the enemy of
Speaker 1: our country, who said you could grab women by the pussy,
Speaker 1: who on a like nothing just by all countries. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, so if if every now to
Speaker 1: get Biden doesn't get the right word or the right phrase,
Speaker 1: so fucking what, who cares? My God? Like, we got
Speaker 1: to stop being in front of yone shadow and let
Speaker 1: him get back out there. One of the funniest things
Speaker 1: and most intuitively smart things I saw was the SNL
Speaker 1: cold Open or they or Jason Sidekis was hosting, and
Speaker 1: they had the current Biden than Sadekis was the the
Speaker 1: Joe Biden of twenty twelve, if you will, and that
Speaker 1: kind of more Uncle Joe, the freewheeling have a good time,
Speaker 1: very gregarious. I want I think we need more of
Speaker 1: that right now. Actually, and there is that kind of
Speaker 1: let Biden be Biden. It's like, yeah, he's gonna say something.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're gonna Sath Mike cringe. But it's but I'd
Speaker 1: rather have more more of him out there than not,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of the administration, I want to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the latest stories around the vice president
Speaker 1: right um. You know, over last weekend there were you
Speaker 1: know a couple of stories that came out about there
Speaker 1: either being friction or whether or not she's being used
Speaker 1: strategically in the way that is within her wheelhouse and
Speaker 1: her skill set. And you know, I can tell you
Speaker 1: that for the last couple of months on Woke a app,
Speaker 1: I have been wanting to put Kamala Harris on a
Speaker 1: milk carton because I had wondered since inauguration, right and
Speaker 1: since the Shots in your Arm campaign where you saw her,
Speaker 1: you know, right next to Joe Biden, as Biden was
Speaker 1: right next to Obama. Then all of a sudden we
Speaker 1: didn't see her. What are you making of the banter
Speaker 1: around her? You know, her her kind of disappearing act
Speaker 1: and what and what can be rectified as we move
Speaker 1: into what is going to be once again one of
Speaker 1: the most consequential midterm election cycles. You know, I think
Speaker 1: a couple of things are true at the same time,
Speaker 1: and they're not mutually exclusive. One, Yes, the invistras should
Speaker 1: do about her job using Kamala Harris. There's just no
Speaker 1: doubt about that. I think back even to the Summer
Speaker 1: Olympics and I thought to myself, Wow, we're looking at
Speaker 1: all these remarkable women bring home gold medals, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think of even the especially our Simone Biles and
Speaker 1: our gymnastics team. I wouldn't be having Harris do something
Speaker 1: with some of these great champions on invisible way, you know.
Speaker 1: Number Two, I do think that the way that Harris
Speaker 1: is being judged and scrutinize is so different than what
Speaker 1: we saw the prost to Mike Pence, to Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: to Dick Cheney, to any vice president we've ever had.
Speaker 1: And the only thing different about her than those people say,
Speaker 1: she's not a white guy. So that leads to tell
Speaker 1: me that there's still an inherent bias, sexist bias against
Speaker 1: a woman, the first female vice president, that she's being scrutinized.
Speaker 1: No one seemed to give a ship that Mike Pence
Speaker 1: was just enough on the shelf for four years, that's
Speaker 1: the best. I don't remember seeing an avalanche of narratives
Speaker 1: about that. So there's there's there's definitely an element of,
Speaker 1: you know, just typical nonsense, bullshit sexism from the press corps.
Speaker 1: Number three. I think that one of Kamala Harris at
Speaker 1: her best I always thought was when she was at
Speaker 1: a congressional hearing, grilling to shit out of somebody. Yep,
Speaker 1: you know that that the prosecutor in her comes out
Speaker 1: that the Attorney General, Kamala Harris, that was on California,
Speaker 1: Like that's her wheelhouse, that's her strength. I would have
Speaker 1: her front and center prosecuting the case, if you will,
Speaker 1: of the anti democratic insurgents like Donald Trump, like Steve
Speaker 1: band And like Marjorie Taylor Green, like Lauren Baubart, like
Speaker 1: Matt Gates, like Man Scutler. I would have her just
Speaker 1: ripped them all day, every day, because that's when she's
Speaker 1: on fire. And I think that's closer to who she
Speaker 1: actually is. Um And I also think that one of
Speaker 1: the big areas that we've seemed to have lost, and
Speaker 1: we saw this in Virginia. Are with you know moms interesting?
Speaker 1: I would be using the Vice president a lot more
Speaker 1: in that, in the Mamola figure, if you will, because
Speaker 1: she is accomplished, she is smart, she is a fantastic speaker,
Speaker 1: she is great in person. There are a billion different
Speaker 1: mom coalitions out there. Let's get her out there with
Speaker 1: those people too. Let's start. Let's start using her that way.
Speaker 1: She is a unique resource that we have that we
Speaker 1: need to deploy aggressively and frequently. And that's not happening
Speaker 1: right now. You know, going back to the insurrection for
Speaker 1: a moment and the prosecuting the case, you know, that
Speaker 1: was Kamala Harris's mantra for her candidacy for the presidency.
Speaker 1: I'm going to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. And
Speaker 1: yet what we have seen time and time again with
Speaker 1: this administration is pretty much them wanting to seemingly turn
Speaker 1: the page. I don't hear Joe Biden on a regular
Speaker 1: basis talking about the insurrectionists. I don't hear him talking
Speaker 1: about Steve Bannon, you know, finally being indicted right for
Speaker 1: not showing up for subpoenas. And to your point, if
Speaker 1: it is not the president's role. Then shouldn't the vice president,
Speaker 1: who is a famed prosecutor, who was an attorney general,
Speaker 1: have been made the advisor to the House Committee for
Speaker 1: the insurrection. Couldn't she have been front and center on
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that we need to return dignity
Speaker 1: and integrity and faith and trust into our government institutions
Speaker 1: and be out there you know, doing that, Like, is
Speaker 1: there not a way for us to do both and right?
Speaker 1: And we need to? I mean, this is the thing.
Speaker 1: There's an irony that in some ways vice president would
Speaker 1: have made it. I think of a far better attorney general. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: I agree, as an attorney general than vice president. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, um, you know, obviously, when you were a
Speaker 1: vice president, of first and foremost role and responsibility is
Speaker 1: to serve the pleasure the president, you know, and to
Speaker 1: and to do the White House is bidding. That's that's
Speaker 1: the job that's signed up for. And she knew that
Speaker 1: going into it. I mean, but there's no secret about
Speaker 1: what that job is, and certainly the president knows that
Speaker 1: better than anybody, having had to do that job for
Speaker 1: eight years. Um. But I do think that we're missing
Speaker 1: you know again, I look at her as an untapped
Speaker 1: resources that are parts of her, and I think about what,
Speaker 1: like you said that candidate Harris and Senator Harris and
Speaker 1: former Attorney General California Harris, that that that can create
Speaker 1: value right now, and that we need someone on the
Speaker 1: national stage doing that with regularity. I mean, because, make
Speaker 1: no mistake about it, right now, we're seeing, as some
Speaker 1: of these trials are are, you know, unfolding before of
Speaker 1: her eyes, a deliberate effort to paint these insurrectionists as heroes,
Speaker 1: as patriots, as victims. Somehow that is just mind blowing,
Speaker 1: and I for one would like to see a more
Speaker 1: fierce response from everybody about how that's just nonsensical, how
Speaker 1: it's dangerous, how it's paid me in the way for
Speaker 1: an even more violent and deadly insurrection attempt if things
Speaker 1: don't go there away next time. The democracy is on
Speaker 1: fire right now, yep, and that fire is always spread
Speaker 1: and grown. In the last year, we got members of
Speaker 1: Congress who thinks it's it's actually okay to create videos
Speaker 1: of the murdering other congressman and no accountability or responsibility.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure as hell not looking at Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy to do a goddamn thing with his spineless jellyfish self.
Speaker 1: But like, I mean, everybody else, And like, we got
Speaker 1: a guy who leads Rome and Party who thinks it's
Speaker 1: okay that a mob of people wanted to literally hang
Speaker 1: his vice, isn't it. I'm no Mike penns fan, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to see him hung on our gals
Speaker 1: in front of the United States Capital for crying out loud. No.
Speaker 1: I mean, so this is just a fire alarm going
Speaker 1: off in my head as I see these things happen,
Speaker 1: and I feel like there's still that a lack of
Speaker 1: urgency and understanding really the erosion to our democratic norms
Speaker 1: that are unfolding before us every single day. There needs
Speaker 1: to be a forceful response to that. And it does,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, reach to the level of the presidency
Speaker 1: in terms of responsibility to acknowledge it and to call
Speaker 1: it out. And I know that the argument, oh, we
Speaker 1: don't want to give it fuel. We don't want to
Speaker 1: give it that, Like guess what it's got fuel? Right,
Speaker 1: it's burning hard, ye, Like it's spread the we don't
Speaker 1: want to give it oxygen And maybe I'll go away
Speaker 1: theory that died on January six, folks, come on, so
Speaker 1: we need to get into the game. And I and
Speaker 1: like you said, I can't we walk into them at
Speaker 1: the same time. Why can't we do that as well
Speaker 1: as promoter our policies and and accurately label the Repuibament
Speaker 1: Party for what it is. We should able to do
Speaker 1: all those things, you know, and it is it is.
Speaker 1: It is my hope right at ye of little faith
Speaker 1: left in midst democracy and in this party. It is
Speaker 1: my hope that you know, the Virginia election was an
Speaker 1: alarm that the alarms that have been set by this
Speaker 1: insurrectionist party where numbers of people who are actually involved
Speaker 1: at the insurrection are now elected officials, that if that
Speaker 1: is not setting off this sense of urgency that I
Speaker 1: am looking for, then I don't know what will. Kurt Bardella,
Speaker 1: it is lovely, has been lovely to have you back
Speaker 1: on Woke F. We have missed you and your analysis
Speaker 1: and appreciate you making time for us today. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you soon, my friend. That is it for me
Speaker 1: to day on woke F as always, Power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people. Power, get woke and
Speaker 1: stay woke as fuck.