Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and Ejen Carol may sue Donald Trump
Speaker 1: for a third time.
Speaker 2: That would be peril three. We have such a great show.
Speaker 1: Today, Senator Debbie Stabanaw talks to us about the complexities
Speaker 1: of Michigan politics and the presidential primary. Then we'll talk
Speaker 1: to Congressman Colin Alred about his run against Senator Lion
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz in the Great State of Texas on this
Speaker 1: third anniversary of the senator's trip to Cancun, Mexico. But
Speaker 1: first we have the Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampal.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Katherine Rampal, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So I always want.
Speaker 1: To have you on the podcast because I think you're
Speaker 1: really smart and a good writer, and also because you
Speaker 1: went to college with my brother.
Speaker 2: That's true. This is true.
Speaker 1: So basically, the thing that I always think about when
Speaker 1: people and really the mainstream media and especially the right
Speaker 1: wing media is demonizing migrants, immigrants, people coming in this
Speaker 1: country for the hopes of a better life, is that
Speaker 1: this is also a very financially unsound way to look
Speaker 1: at the world, and so you wrote just a really
Speaker 1: concise piece about that last week, just talk us through
Speaker 1: exactly why immigration is good for the economy.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 3: The reason I wrote this, just to back up for
Speaker 3: a second, is that I feel like both parties have
Speaker 3: accepted the premise that the fact that the United States
Speaker 3: is able to draw immigrants around the world is a curse.
Speaker 3: It is a bad thing, It is a problem to
Speaker 3: be solved, and I just think that premise is wrong.
Speaker 3: That immigration is a blessing. The fact that we are
Speaker 3: able to pull in and attract talent from around the
Speaker 3: world is just such a gift.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the places where both parties
Speaker 1: are the same. Framing is actually correct because both parties
Speaker 1: have decided that immigration is somehow not the boon that
Speaker 1: it really is.
Speaker 2: So I'm really glad that you said that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously the narrative is pushed mostly by Republicans,
Speaker 3: but I think Democrats have essentially conceded the point. So
Speaker 3: that's sort of where I came from with this piece.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, like there are lots of moral
Speaker 3: humanitarian reasons as well to accept people fleeing persecution and
Speaker 3: dangerous circumstances and to show you our light is the
Speaker 3: city on the hill or whatever, providing refuge to people
Speaker 3: around the world. But just from a like self interested
Speaker 3: financial perspective, it is also a really good thing. So
Speaker 3: if you look at, for example, the Congressional Budget Offices
Speaker 3: recent new forecasts for the budget and for the economy,
Speaker 3: they put these out periodically, they were revised upward that
Speaker 3: the numbers for like how big the economy is and
Speaker 3: will grow, as well as other kinds of metrics along
Speaker 3: those lines have been redrafted, essentially revised to be much
Speaker 3: more favorable. And a large part of the reason why
Speaker 3: is that we've had this surprise increase in immigration, which
Speaker 3: has led to more people in the labor force. At
Speaker 3: the same time that, you know, native born Americans, boomers
Speaker 3: among others, are increasingly retiring. The native worn population in
Speaker 3: the United States is aging, so fewer people as a
Speaker 3: share of the populace are in the labor force. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: immigrants who are coming here are disproportionately working age, they're
Speaker 3: very likely to work, and so that alone is a
Speaker 3: major engine for the economy. On top of that, you
Speaker 3: also have the fact that foreign born people in the
Speaker 3: United States are much more likely to start businesses. You know,
Speaker 3: they have higher entrepreneurship rates. If you were talking about
Speaker 3: skilled immigration, so people who are here on H one
Speaker 3: b's it's a skilled immigrant visa category. You know, they're
Speaker 3: very highly productive. They start companies at high rates. They
Speaker 3: are responsible for issuing a lot of patents, so they
Speaker 3: generate a lot of innovation R and D in the
Speaker 3: United States. And this is not just me saying this.
Speaker 3: There's like tons of research that goes into all of this.
Speaker 3: So there are a number of ways in which this
Speaker 3: infusion of new talent and new energy in the United States,
Speaker 3: both historically and at the present time, has been responsible
Speaker 3: for really strong economic growth and has put us at
Speaker 3: a much more advantageous position relative to lots of other
Speaker 3: developed countries that are not as dynamic in terms of
Speaker 3: people coming in, Like if you look at countries like Japan,
Speaker 3: which have historically made it much more difficult to immigrate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was just about to say, Japan.
Speaker 1: But I wondered if you could even see this example
Speaker 1: really the most starkly when it comes to Brexit.
Speaker 3: Yes, Brexit has handicapped the UK economy in all sorts
Speaker 3: of different ways, not only about the flow of immigrants,
Speaker 3: but certainly the fact that they've made it much more
Speaker 3: difficult for talent to come in for labor, for talent
Speaker 3: to come into the UK from around Europe has really
Speaker 3: harmed the British economy. Not only like high tech jobs,
Speaker 3: you know, people high tech jobs, finance jobs, things like that,
Speaker 3: people who might have been more seamlessly moving from Germany
Speaker 3: and France and other parts of the EU to the UK,
Speaker 3: but even lower skilled jobs, people with less formal education,
Speaker 3: the canonical examples of the Polish plumber, not only that
Speaker 3: particular example, but people who worked in hospitality. All of
Speaker 3: that was really critical to keeping a lot of industries
Speaker 3: in the UK going and has been challenging for the
Speaker 3: British economy. And the other thing that I should mention
Speaker 3: in all of this is actually, since I wrote this
Speaker 3: peace that we're talking about, which you know, heavily talks
Speaker 3: about those CBO numbers, there was also a report that
Speaker 3: came out of the Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 3: looking at the refugee in a PSI lee population, which
Speaker 3: people usually hold up as well, you know, like maybe
Speaker 3: it's true that those Indian born engineers who are here
Speaker 3: on H one B Visa's like contribute a lot because
Speaker 3: they're you know, quote unquote high skilled. But all these
Speaker 3: people flooding over the border or coming in, you know,
Speaker 3: penniless as refugees, clearly they're not contributing anything. And actually
Speaker 3: that is not true in fact, even for that population
Speaker 3: over a longer term horizon. I think that the HHS report,
Speaker 3: I forget exactly, I think it was like ten or
Speaker 3: fifteen years, found that including state and local and federal levels,
Speaker 3: these people also are net fiscal contributors, meaning that they
Speaker 3: pay more in taxes, and.
Speaker 2: They pay into Social Security.
Speaker 3: Pay into Social Security. So if we're you know, obviously
Speaker 3: I'm sort of talking about a whole bunch of different
Speaker 3: populations of immigrants here, but.
Speaker 1: They are all unified by the fact that they are
Speaker 1: coming to this country, either legally or illegally, and that
Speaker 1: they are workers, which is the fundamental thing that an
Speaker 1: enormous country with an aging population doesperately need.
Speaker 3: Right And on the point about paying taxes, ironically, on
Speaker 3: some metrics, you could imagine that those who are here
Speaker 3: unlawfully are the biggest net boon fiscally, you know, to budgets,
Speaker 3: because they are paying into the tax system, but they
Speaker 3: are not eligible for virtually any social safety net benefits
Speaker 3: by virtue of the fact that they are not here legally.
Speaker 3: There are some exceptions to that, like in California, if
Speaker 3: you're an undocumented woman and you're pregnant, you can get
Speaker 3: access to certain kinds of prenatal care. But other than that,
Speaker 3: these are people who cannot get food stamps, cannot get
Speaker 3: Social Security, cannot get Obamacare tax credit, things like that.
Speaker 1: So they're paying in but not taking out, which is
Speaker 1: actually the opposite of the lie that all Republicans say,
Speaker 1: or at least a lot of Republicans shop, this lie
Speaker 1: that people are coming to this country and taking your stuff,
Speaker 1: but in fact, they are coming to this country paying
Speaker 1: for your Social Security and not getting anything.
Speaker 3: Yes, at least those who are here off the books,
Speaker 3: that is certainly the case. It's kind of ironic because
Speaker 3: the United States has this serious long term challenge with
Speaker 3: the funding of entitled programs, you know, sort of safety
Speaker 3: net programs for the elderly, and one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why we haven't hit the crisis point yet is that
Speaker 3: we have brought in so many working age immigrants who
Speaker 3: are paying into the system and keeping it solvent. And meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the population, who in general is most averse to that
Speaker 3: influx of people, tends to be older, more consertive, few.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want a general but they do
Speaker 2: tend to be benefiting from these immigrants.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 1: It's such a really important point, and I would love
Speaker 1: you to just talk about what happens to an aging economy, like,
Speaker 1: for example, I think about Italy.
Speaker 2: I think about.
Speaker 1: Countries where, you know, the people in the economy get
Speaker 1: older and older and there aren't workers coming in to
Speaker 1: replace them. I mean, what happens is Japan too, Like
Speaker 1: what happens that economy when you can't get people to work?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And look, I'm not suggesting that we should force
Speaker 3: older people to work up until their deathbed.
Speaker 2: I am no, I'm no, no, no one's suggesting that.
Speaker 1: But the economy can only survive if there are people
Speaker 1: there to do the jobs.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It is very challenging for a number of reasons. One is,
Speaker 3: of course, if a country has promised various kinds of
Speaker 3: safety net benefits social insurance benefits to people in their
Speaker 3: older age, not like I pay into social security, and
Speaker 3: then there's like a discrete account that has my money
Speaker 3: in it, and it stays like in a private account.
Speaker 3: I mean, George W. Bush tried to propose things like this,
Speaker 3: but that's not how it actually works, and that it's
Speaker 3: there for me when I retire. It's like a Pazi scheme.
Speaker 3: It's like, I pay in. The money that I am
Speaker 3: paying in is funding the benefits of the people who
Speaker 3: are retired now, it's not funding my benefits directly.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Money is fungible, so it's like, doesn't really matter. But
Speaker 3: you have lots of countries where there are these very
Speaker 3: large promised benefits for the elderly that must be paid for,
Speaker 3: and if nobody is paying into the system, that's challenge
Speaker 3: number one. Challenge number two, of course, is that you
Speaker 3: need people working, not just for the benefit of the
Speaker 3: tax revenue to go to fund those safety net benefits,
Speaker 3: but also because you need people to run the restaurants
Speaker 3: and the other companies and keep the infrastructure going and
Speaker 3: invent new technologies and all of the other parts of
Speaker 3: the economy that don't have to do with just sustaining
Speaker 3: the living standards of elderly people. It's a serious challenge.
Speaker 3: You've seen major productivity slowdowns as a result of that
Speaker 3: you have. What's economist tomographer is often reverred to is
Speaker 3: like the old age ratio. You know, an increasingly large
Speaker 3: number of retirees per working person in many of these countries,
Speaker 3: and it is a real challenge and again part of
Speaker 3: the reason why the United States has not had such
Speaker 3: a tough situation. I mean, there are a lot of
Speaker 3: things that set the US economy. Part one is that
Speaker 3: we have had higher fertility rates than most of these
Speaker 3: other countries, which means that our demographic skew is not
Speaker 3: quite as bad. But we are below replacement rate right now,
Speaker 3: meaning that we are not having enough kids basically to
Speaker 3: replace the existing population. And so our fertility rate alone
Speaker 3: is not going to prevent this fiscal time bomb from
Speaker 3: going off.
Speaker 2: Even with flat Musk having all those children.
Speaker 3: You know, he's doing his part.
Speaker 2: Also, I think we should both agree that people should
Speaker 2: not have children just for the economy.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe they should.
Speaker 1: Nor anyway, as someone who has three children, you know,
Speaker 1: it is quite expensive and it is like the leading
Speaker 1: indicator of bankruptcy right is having children. But anyway, but
Speaker 1: the point is, I mean, you need people to grow
Speaker 1: your economy. So one of the things we had Hannah
Speaker 1: Dreyer on this podcast, and she's incredible and what she
Speaker 1: had this unbelievable reporting about child labor. And it was
Speaker 1: a couple months ago, so no one remembers because we're
Speaker 1: the United States of Indonesia. But around that time there
Speaker 1: were also stories about red state state governors like Sara
Speaker 1: Hakkabi Sanders signing signing bills that would make it less expensive,
Speaker 1: make the fines less expensive, and make child labor legal lure.
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly this means that children are working in
Speaker 1: a lot of these jobs.
Speaker 3: It's just so bizarre to me. Like we have we
Speaker 3: have this obvious solution, two way problem, which is we
Speaker 3: have a lot of job openings going begging.
Speaker 2: A tight, tight labor market.
Speaker 3: Right exactly in a lot of industries where Americans don't
Speaker 3: want to work, they're low paid. And rather than saying, huh,
Speaker 3: we have this pool of people who really want to
Speaker 3: come here and take those and you know, work in
Speaker 3: those jobs and support themselves again because they cannot qualify
Speaker 3: for public benefits despite misconceptions, rather than saying, yeah, let's
Speaker 3: plug those people who want the jobs into the jobs,
Speaker 3: we're like, you know what, like have some thirteen year
Speaker 3: olds go and work in that you know, meat processing
Speaker 3: plant or whatever instead. It's just it's so bizarre to me.
Speaker 3: It's like, this is not that hard of a puzzle
Speaker 3: to fit together, and yet we're like searching for all
Speaker 3: sorts of other ways to deal with labor shortages. And
Speaker 3: I want to be clear, poorly managed immigration flows definitely
Speaker 3: cause stresses to the economy, particularly to local economies. Like
Speaker 3: if you look at you know, you and I live
Speaker 3: in New York. If you look at the number of
Speaker 3: migrants who are coming to New York largely being bussed
Speaker 3: by the governor of Texas without any coordination with the
Speaker 3: FEDS or with the State of New York or with
Speaker 3: the you know, with city officials in New York. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that causes lots of stress on the local economy. And
Speaker 3: we have a broken immigration system that doesn't adequately or
Speaker 3: sufficiently quickly process people who are coming here. All sorts
Speaker 3: of problems with that, and that causes severe stress, you know,
Speaker 3: on the housing system in New York, among other places.
Speaker 3: None of that is good. And I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: suggest that there is no problem here, but there are
Speaker 3: much more creative ways to deal or to take advantage
Speaker 3: of the fact that lots of people are trying to
Speaker 3: come here, rather than throwing up our hands and saying,
Speaker 3: I guess we can't. I guess we just need to
Speaker 3: like try to get these people out. There are so
Speaker 3: many more compassionate, humanitarian ways to handle the demand of
Speaker 3: people to come here and to match them up with
Speaker 3: very real economic needs that we have. And by the way,
Speaker 3: on your point about the child labor laws, you know,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite or least favorite, I guess comments
Speaker 3: that has been made about this, you know, border crisis issue,
Speaker 3: is that Mike Collins, who's a representative Republican representative from Georgia,
Speaker 3: tweeted the other day import the third world and become
Speaker 3: the third world. And it's like, okay, well, first of all,
Speaker 3: if anybody's trying to turn the United States into the
Speaker 3: third World, which I think is a term we don't
Speaker 3: really use anymore, the developing country, it is not immigrants.
Speaker 3: It is people like Collins himself, you know, by relaxing
Speaker 3: child labor laws, not to mention supporting the return of
Speaker 3: a would be dictator and gutting the safety net and
Speaker 3: gutting clean water standards and all that, like the reasons
Speaker 3: why they're fleeing those developing countries with their poor institutions
Speaker 3: and their poor quality of life. The reason why they
Speaker 3: are coming here is that we do have various kinds
Speaker 3: of institutions that are much better than those in their
Speaker 3: home countries that people like Mike Collins are now trying
Speaker 3: to degrade.
Speaker 2: I mean, these people are trying to elect an autocrat.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, if we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: countries that are undeveloped, like going from democracy to autocracy
Speaker 1: is generally thought of as a step backwards and not
Speaker 1: a step forwards.
Speaker 3: When it comes to like civil rights and economic metrics
Speaker 3: and every possible measure well being.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so I think that's really important with Brexit.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I always think about is
Speaker 1: my husband always says, is they sanctioned themselves. And when
Speaker 1: I think about like America and part of that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's certainly a group of people in this country who
Speaker 1: believe in secession, right, who believe that it's too big
Speaker 1: and we don't have enough in common with people, you know,
Speaker 1: the white supremacists in Iowa, right, the groups that are
Speaker 1: trying to separate themselves. Can you explain to us just
Speaker 1: quickly quickly, Why it's so that that is so bad
Speaker 1: for the economy.
Speaker 3: I think it matters more for democracy than for the
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I would prioritize the consequences for
Speaker 3: the republic as opposed to the economy. Look, we are
Speaker 3: an integrated, an economically integrated nation. We have a lot
Speaker 3: of institutions in infrastructure that are dependent on the free
Speaker 3: flow of commerce among the states, and it's in our constitution,
Speaker 3: and so certainly that would be very unhelpful depending on
Speaker 3: who's seceeding. If we're talking about lower income states seceeding
Speaker 3: that red states that are disproportionately subsidized by the tax
Speaker 3: revenue of blue states. You know, I'm thinking about a
Speaker 3: lot of like lower income for capita states like in
Speaker 3: the South, that rely on a lot of tax revenue
Speaker 3: and federal borrowing to keep money flowing into the state,
Speaker 3: whether it's through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 3: certainly worse for them, probably than for a high GDP
Speaker 3: per capita a state like New York. But again, I
Speaker 3: would emphasize the consequences for the United States as an
Speaker 3: idea and as a democracy ahead of the consequences for
Speaker 3: the economy, which would be poor as well.
Speaker 2: Catherine Rampal, thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Did you know Rick Wilson and I are bringing together
Speaker 1: some friends for a general election kickoff party at City
Speaker 1: Winery in New York on March sixth. We're going to
Speaker 1: be chatting right after Super Tuesday about what's going on,
Speaker 1: and it is going to probably be the one fun night.
Speaker 2: For the next eighty days. If you're in.
Speaker 1: The New York area, please come by and join us.
Speaker 1: You can go to City Wine His website and grab
Speaker 1: a ticket. Debbie Stabinow is the senior senator from Michigan.
Speaker 1: Welcome too Fast Politics, Senator stabnaw.
Speaker 4: Well, it's great to be with you, Mollie. I appreciate
Speaker 4: all of your efforts, and we are certainly in a
Speaker 4: rough and tumble time, that is for sure.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm really excited to have you on for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons, but also you are leaving the Senate.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It's a funny one. I actually got involved in politics
Speaker 4: and public service a long time ago. I was a
Speaker 4: grad student and took on Republicans at a county commission
Speaker 4: trying to close a local nursing home. I was very
Speaker 4: engaged in healthcare and ended up winning. And turned out
Speaker 4: I lived in the district of the guide trying to
Speaker 4: close the nursing home, and one thing led to another.
Speaker 4: People urged me to run. I was really mad at him.
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything about politics, was really mad, and
Speaker 4: I ran and he called me that young broad, and
Speaker 4: the young broad meet him, and so that actually started
Speaker 4: me saying, hey, I think I can actually do something
Speaker 4: on a bigger picture in terms of making things better
Speaker 4: by being involved in politics. So County Commission, State Legislature,
Speaker 4: US House four years and then ran in two thousand
Speaker 4: for US Senate. I didn't know when I ran in
Speaker 4: two thousand that a woman had never beat an incumbent before,
Speaker 4: but I did win, and it's been a wonderful journey
Speaker 4: and a tough but you know, I wouldn't trade it
Speaker 4: for anything. I mean, if you really want to make
Speaker 4: change happen, you've got to have a lot of patience, tenacity,
Speaker 4: stubbornness and right values. But you can make change happen.
Speaker 4: And that's why I've done it. And so end of
Speaker 4: the year it's done for me. I think that there
Speaker 4: is a point where you need to pass the torch.
Speaker 4: I always said to folks, you know, I was the first.
Speaker 4: This the first that the first woman sharing the State
Speaker 4: House of Representatives, A first woman from Michigan from the
Speaker 4: Senate doesn't count unless there's a second and a third
Speaker 4: and a fourth. And I think it's in my time
Speaker 4: to pass the torch.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because it's like you've done twenty
Speaker 1: four years.
Speaker 2: I have a very.
Speaker 1: Warm feeling in my heart for Michigan because we have
Speaker 1: sort of the best of young Democratic women in legislature
Speaker 1: and then the best of older Democratic women in legislature.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like that was very intentional.
Speaker 4: No, very much so. And you know, I have to say,
Speaker 4: I mean I went into the State House. When I
Speaker 4: went in the State House, there were eight women in
Speaker 4: the House, none in the Senate, none statewide. And I
Speaker 4: had this committee called the Constitutional Visions and Women's Rights Committee,
Speaker 4: and they wanted to put everybody on that committee, and
Speaker 4: I refused it. I'd been sharing a board of commissioners,
Speaker 4: I built a jail, I judged the lake. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to serve in that committee. But that kind of
Speaker 4: was where we were. And now not only myself having
Speaker 4: served for twenty four years in the Senate. But we
Speaker 4: have a great woman governor, Attorney General, Secretary State, and
Speaker 4: we have the first state Senate majority leader when he branks.
Speaker 4: We also, by the way, have a great Speaker of
Speaker 4: the House who's the first African American, first African American
Speaker 4: lieutenant governor. I mean, we have been profoundly changing Michigan,
Speaker 4: and I have been laser focused on that and organizing
Speaker 4: Michigan and doing the work over and over again to
Speaker 4: get us where we are.
Speaker 1: So that segue is really into what I was going
Speaker 1: to ask. It's like a state filled with contradictions. Right,
Speaker 1: you have this incredibly amazing team of women running the state,
Speaker 1: and then you have the Michigan militia.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, it's very weird. So talk to me
Speaker 2: about how I mean.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of Democratic anxiety about Michigan
Speaker 1: because of the war in Gaza, and I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you could talk a little bit about how Democrats can
Speaker 1: come back from that politically.
Speaker 4: There is understandable concern in our sides. And as someone
Speaker 4: who has been honored to represent the Airban community and
Speaker 4: the Jewish community, in fact, we have over two hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy five different nationalities in Michigan, which make us stronger.
Speaker 4: It's really hard. You know, people are losing family members,
Speaker 4: and it's whether it's a Palestinian baby or Jewish baby
Speaker 4: or families. It's so, so, so hard. All I can
Speaker 4: say is that we have got to listen and respect
Speaker 4: and work as hard as possible to be able to
Speaker 4: bring the hostages home and to be able to stop
Speaker 4: the violence on innocent people. And I know that is
Speaker 4: what President Biden and his team are doing. By the way,
Speaker 4: it's just not always visible because so much of what
Speaker 4: they are doing is behind the scenes to push although
Speaker 4: it's becoming more visible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the temporary ceasefire.
Speaker 4: Yet yah, who should you know? My mind should be
Speaker 4: gone and come ons not now. Both should be gone
Speaker 4: and we should be focusing on hope and opportunity, you know,
Speaker 4: and safety for the future. So it's hard, and I
Speaker 4: think you can't push people. You have to listen. They
Speaker 4: have to have time. And so that's what's happening and
Speaker 4: will continue to happen as we move forward. And so
Speaker 4: it's all I can tell you is that, you know,
Speaker 4: on the other side, I remember when Trump came in
Speaker 4: an proposing ban, and we were all standing at the
Speaker 4: airport protesting, and so in the end, it's going to
Speaker 4: be a really stark choice about our future for the country,
Speaker 4: and it's it's very real, it's very serious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there is time to meet legislators.
Speaker 1: I mean, Rashida Tilly represents her constituents, and I feel
Speaker 1: like there is time for Democrats to be able to
Speaker 1: make I mean, obviously you can never make right civilian
Speaker 1: death on this scale, nor can you make rite any
Speaker 1: of it. But I think there's time to reach out.
Speaker 1: Do you feel there's a concerted effort towards.
Speaker 4: Us I do. I think there is a concerted effort now.
Speaker 4: I think given the immediacy of everything that was happening,
Speaker 4: it could have happened faster, for sure. But I do
Speaker 4: think that's happening and has to happen, and people have
Speaker 4: got to listen and respect each other's pain and anger,
Speaker 4: and that's how we move through it.
Speaker 2: So Michigan is a really interesting state.
Speaker 1: Besides what's going on there, there are just a lot
Speaker 1: of different You have really rural, you have cities, you
Speaker 1: have what is the outreach to black voters?
Speaker 2: Look like in Michigan, and do you feel like that's landing.
Speaker 4: Well, we always have to work hard, and we have
Speaker 4: to work early. And let me go back, just wind
Speaker 4: the clock back for a second, because it relates to
Speaker 4: what we're building on right now. After Trump was elected
Speaker 4: in sixteen, I felt I could either jump off the
Speaker 4: highest building, which was a real pot, or going and
Speaker 4: reorganize the party. And I chose to do that. And
Speaker 4: we started with organizing the fact that Trump was trying
Speaker 4: to take away the Affordable Care Act takeaway health care.
Speaker 4: First big rally in the country was done in Michigan
Speaker 4: with Bernie and Chuck Schumann, I mean, a whole bunch
Speaker 4: of people, and we started building building, and then in
Speaker 4: eighteen I was up for reelection. Governor Whitmer was the ballot.
Speaker 4: All of our great people and we doubled down and
Speaker 4: the first doors we hit knocking on doors were in Detroit.
Speaker 4: Congressman and Brenda Lawrence and I led this effort because
Speaker 4: everyone would say, you don't come talk to us till October.
Speaker 4: Nobody's paying attention, so we said okay. At June one
Speaker 4: door won in Detroit and started a concerted effort there
Speaker 4: that resulted in we took back the state, and then
Speaker 4: I kept my campaign manager, took him over to the
Speaker 4: party to keep it going. I talked to Reid at
Speaker 4: the time, who you know, did year round organizing at
Speaker 4: the party, and okay, Harry, how'd you do that? But
Speaker 4: my point in saying is we at twenty twenty biggest
Speaker 4: you know, voter turnout for a presidential then we kept
Speaker 4: going twenty twenty two biggest voter turnout for non presidential.
Speaker 4: Now we have to keep that going. And so it's complicated.
Speaker 4: There's so many different messages people are getting coming out
Speaker 4: of COVID. People are feeling so many different kinds of
Speaker 4: things that it's hard. People on the you know, one hand,
Speaker 4: say I want to know what the president has done
Speaker 4: for the black community, and then you talk about the
Speaker 4: fact that it's the lowest black unemployment ever, more African
Speaker 4: American small businesses led by Black women, by the way,
Speaker 4: which is really cool, and we can go on and
Speaker 4: on about it, and then folks say no that you know, no,
Speaker 4: that's not enough. And I don't say that the numbers
Speaker 4: not enough. It's like we need to do different things,
Speaker 4: more things talk about Trump. Some people say we should
Speaker 4: lean in more on Trump. Other people say more on
Speaker 4: the president.
Speaker 2: Right, everybody has a suggestion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And honestly, I think it's all the about. So
Speaker 4: there's just now, you know, the presidential primary is coming up,
Speaker 4: and African American communities absolutely critical, always has been, and
Speaker 4: there's outreach going on that's just going to have to
Speaker 4: continue all the way through the election in the fall.
Speaker 1: I really want to go back to what we were
Speaker 1: talking about with talking to Harry Read about organizing, because
Speaker 1: that really is you know, we see this again and again.
Speaker 1: Democrats win when they organize right, and they lose. I
Speaker 1: mean a great example is this special that just happened
Speaker 1: New York three. That was the seat that was a
Speaker 1: Democratic seat. Everybody kind of forgot about it in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and we had a sort of governor who
Speaker 1: wasn't as popular as other democratic governors have been, and
Speaker 1: so it ended up being that the just people didn't
Speaker 1: get out there and we ended up with George Santos
Speaker 1: in Congress.
Speaker 2: So I think what you're talking about is great.
Speaker 1: This idea of focusing on it seems like that is
Speaker 1: a really like something that you sort of started, and
Speaker 1: that what Mirror has and that those three ladies have
Speaker 1: sort of kept going. Do you feel like that's true
Speaker 1: and is there voter registration that's continuing.
Speaker 4: Yes? Absolutely. In fact, you know, I set up what
Speaker 4: we call the one campaign for Michigan, and even before
Speaker 4: you know our primaries, I guess so even before the
Speaker 4: governor was elected or the training General Secretary of State,
Speaker 4: all our great people, we were on the ground setting
Speaker 4: up things so that when they won the primary, the
Speaker 4: offices were open, things were happening, and that they could
Speaker 4: just go and our wonderful candidates could win. But what
Speaker 4: is additionally important is that we kept it going. As
Speaker 4: I said, my campaign manager from twenty eighteen went over
Speaker 4: to run the party in nineteen and twenty, and frankly,
Speaker 4: when COVID came, as we all remember, and the Michigan
Speaker 4: primary was in March, we changed on a dime to
Speaker 4: all virtual and kept it going, and we used the
Speaker 4: tools we had. We had passed new reforms. Contrary to
Speaker 4: what's happened in other states, we actually have more voting.
Speaker 4: You can sign up permanently to be on the absentee
Speaker 4: ballot list now. So in nineteen and twenty, actually it
Speaker 4: was in nineteen we knocked on eighty five five thousand
Speaker 4: doors to sign people up to be on the permanent
Speaker 4: absentee ballot voter list. So we have been using the
Speaker 4: tools now this year. I mean in the last election,
Speaker 4: we added nine days of early voting that started Saturday.
Speaker 4: First day, sixty five hundred showed up. Next day it
Speaker 4: was another like four thousand. We've had over six hundred
Speaker 4: thousand people vote absentee so far for the February twenty
Speaker 4: seventh election. But it's about building and using the tools,
Speaker 4: using the issues. Choice is obviously huge for us. I mean,
Speaker 4: we put on the ballot and passed a change in
Speaker 4: our Michigan constitution in twenty twenty two. People got signatures,
Speaker 4: they worked hard, we got that passed. And now we
Speaker 4: know that if Trump is reelected in Republic and Congress
Speaker 4: and they pass a national abortion band, that all goes away.
Speaker 4: Nothing that we put in a month matters. And people
Speaker 4: are suddenly going, oh my goodness, I mean, we have
Speaker 4: to do this, yes, we have to do this again.
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a minute about abortion. I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that they took the federal right away from
Speaker 1: us is just infuriating. I think a lot of women
Speaker 1: continue to be furious about it. When you talk to voters,
Speaker 1: I mean, do they understand that a second Trump term
Speaker 1: will be in a federal abortion.
Speaker 4: That they do, although it's something that people are just
Speaker 4: beginning to really understand. I think for all of us,
Speaker 4: we work so hard, and in twenty twenty two, I
Speaker 4: mean twenty twenty two, it was the number one reason
Speaker 4: that young people came out to vote. I think the
Speaker 4: last voter if you're in line at eight pm, you
Speaker 4: know you can vote on less night. And I think
Speaker 4: the last voter was like one am in the morning
Speaker 4: in Michigan and Michigan State. And we won that and
Speaker 4: we put it in the constitution, and then we elected
Speaker 4: for the first time in four years, not only a
Speaker 4: Democratic governor, but Democratic state House and state Senate, the
Speaker 4: trifecta for the first time in forty years. They went
Speaker 4: in and repealed all these other laws that related anti
Speaker 4: choice laws and so on. And so we think in
Speaker 4: Michigan people have felt like, hey, we're good. You know,
Speaker 4: we're good. And there's twenty two states that have done,
Speaker 4: you know, some form of what we did in Michigan,
Speaker 4: And so now we are saying to folks and people know,
Speaker 4: but I don't think everybody knows yet. So this is
Speaker 4: going to be a major focus for US going forward
Speaker 4: that it doesn't matter what states have done, the federal
Speaker 4: ban will take away all of that. So between now
Speaker 4: and the election, believe me, people are going to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to say, the reporting of the
Speaker 1: New York Times this weekend about the architect of SBA,
Speaker 1: the Texas van which did functionally overturn Row, with him
Speaker 1: fantasizing about using the Comstock Act to make it so
Speaker 1: that you can't send the pill in the mail, was
Speaker 1: pretty terrifying.
Speaker 4: Well, and if a pristone, you know, the Supreme Court
Speaker 4: has a case before them that they'll have to deciding,
Speaker 4: you know, before they leave in June. And essentially, you know,
Speaker 4: the majority of early abortions and the for several weeks
Speaker 4: are done through medical you know, through methi pristone, through medicine,
Speaker 4: and so that becomes another way. They have a band.
Speaker 4: They're not going to give up. They are not going
Speaker 4: to give out. That's why we got to take back
Speaker 4: the US House. We got to hold the Senate. Joe
Speaker 4: Biden and Kamala Harris have got to get re elected.
Speaker 4: Donald Trumps you know, at some point we'll be going
Speaker 4: to prison, I predict, and then we move on. So
Speaker 4: that's the way we protect this.
Speaker 1: In some ways, we've come so far as women and
Speaker 1: just generally is it more progressive society, And in some
Speaker 1: ways we're just right back there with Roe. I mean,
Speaker 1: it must be really just a sort of tough thing
Speaker 1: to sort of make sense of.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean, it's totally is I mean, I
Speaker 4: was in college and Roll became law and it was like,
Speaker 4: oh my god. I mean, and to see this, you know,
Speaker 4: we make step forward and then the opposition pushes back.
Speaker 4: And that's always been the case, always been the case,
Speaker 4: and that's what's happening now. For every positive reaction, your action,
Speaker 4: there is a reaction. And a wonderful woman, doctor Carol Anderson,
Speaker 4: has done several books, one called White Rage, where she
Speaker 4: talked about every positive step forward on race, there was
Speaker 4: a reaction, you know, I mean, and we elect President
Speaker 4: Barack Obama and then the reaction is Donald Trump. It's
Speaker 4: back and forth and back and forth. And the key
Speaker 4: is that we keep moving forward even when it is hard,
Speaker 4: and we're probably being tested now more than certainly anytime
Speaker 4: in our lifetimes. There are other moments in history, but
Speaker 4: for us, this is it. We cannot give up, we
Speaker 4: cannot try to ignore this, and hopefully it's going to
Speaker 4: go away. So we've just got to do what needs
Speaker 4: to be done. Lack in leaders that are going to
Speaker 4: stand up for our freedoms, including a reproductive freedom, and
Speaker 4: then just keep moving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm struck by where we are in technology right now.
Speaker 1: Is the technology has not respected local news and has
Speaker 1: really kind.
Speaker 2: Of crushed it.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a chance that Congress, if there
Speaker 1: is a Democratic Congress Senate, that there is any way
Speaker 1: that electeds will sort of take a step back and
Speaker 1: sort of regulate social media.
Speaker 2: In any way or you think that's never happening.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that will happen if we have a
Speaker 4: democratic majority. There has to be guardrails, parameters. We've seen
Speaker 4: so much change, and honestly, you go back to Nugenrich
Speaker 4: and the Republicans in the House, and I think it
Speaker 4: was nineteen ninety six when they did a way with
Speaker 4: the fairness doctrine. Remember if you ask somebody, you got
Speaker 4: equal time, and that went away, and the guardrail around
Speaker 4: how much media one company or a person could own
Speaker 4: went away. And ever since then, it's got worse and
Speaker 4: worse and worse. And then you add on top of
Speaker 4: that social media and the explosion on all of this,
Speaker 4: and we all know that, you know, they create algorithms,
Speaker 4: they want to keep you on by keeping you man
Speaker 4: and so on. So this we have to we have
Speaker 4: to have accountability around this. I think more than anything else,
Speaker 4: this has created the explosion of people's anger and hate
Speaker 4: and distrust of one another and so on. So we
Speaker 4: have to get arms around this.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Senator, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Congressman Colin already represents Texas's thirty second district and is
Speaker 1: a candidate for the United States Senate.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Colin.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, mel I really
Speaker 6: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Well, you're back on a very special anniversary.
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about the anniversary the one
Speaker 1: year anniversary of a very special day?
Speaker 6: Well we're three years.
Speaker 2: Three years.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you could tell him, laser focused on what matters.
Speaker 1: The three year anniversary of the day that Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: went to Mexico.
Speaker 6: It's a remarkable anniversary because still every text I come
Speaker 6: across knows exactly where they were and what they experienced
Speaker 6: during the statewide freeze. It's that they could just sear
Speaker 6: it into our minds. And this is in the moment
Speaker 6: that Ted Cruz decided it was a good time to
Speaker 6: go on vacation to kan Kum. And since then he
Speaker 6: has just joked about it. And he just joked about
Speaker 6: the other day saying, when we had our freeze at Texas,
Speaker 6: it gets too cold, you can join me in kang Kum.
Speaker 6: And there's nothing funny at all about this. And I
Speaker 6: said on TV during the crisis that I was shocked
Speaker 6: at how arrogant and callous he was behaving. Our governor
Speaker 6: was going on TV blaming renewable energy when that that
Speaker 6: wasn't the cause of what happened. I couldn't believe just
Speaker 6: how arrogant the folks who were supposed to be responsible
Speaker 6: for trying to help Texans get out of this we're
Speaker 6: behaving when hundreds of Texans died, millions more didn't have power,
Speaker 6: thousands more were forced from their homes or had enormous
Speaker 6: damage that are homes from pipes bursting, causing all kinds
Speaker 6: of damage. It really is a remarkable thing, and I
Speaker 6: think it's an example of what happens when you have
Speaker 6: left the officials in place, like Ted Crews, who don't
Speaker 6: really care about the folks that represent.
Speaker 1: Texas is a really interesting state because your power grid
Speaker 1: is not on the national.
Speaker 2: Grid because of deregulation.
Speaker 1: Right, explain to our listeners exactly why Texas, an enormous
Speaker 1: state that is bigger than many countries, has these energy problems.
Speaker 1: And then also, I would hope you might talk about
Speaker 1: how Texas this summer at least was saved by renewable.
Speaker 6: It's a paradox that we are the energy capital of
Speaker 6: the country and I think in some ways of the world,
Speaker 6: and we've been having enormous issues keeping the lights on.
Speaker 6: And that's because of as you mentioned, we are not
Speaker 6: a part of the national grid network. There are parts
Speaker 6: of Texas, like Opasso that do get some of the
Speaker 6: national grid, but most of the state is not on
Speaker 6: the national grid. And so if we have something and that.
Speaker 2: Was a decision made by Republicans.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, And the idea here was that they didn't
Speaker 6: want to have to comply with the regulations that would
Speaker 6: be necessary to be a part of that. We had
Speaker 6: a similar kind of crisis that wasn't quite as bad
Speaker 6: a few years before this statewide freeze in which the
Speaker 6: federal regulators made some suggestions about what should be done
Speaker 6: to prevent this from happening, but they couldn't enforce it,
Speaker 6: of course, because we weren't part of the national grid,
Speaker 6: and those suggestions were ignored, and then what happened was
Speaker 6: actually quite a predictable outcome if you have a kind
Speaker 6: of a unique situation, but not one that was unforseeeable,
Speaker 6: where you had almost the entire state under a freeze
Speaker 6: and you had multiple gas lines frozen, multiple forms of
Speaker 6: thermal energy offline. It was a predictable outcome, and it's
Speaker 6: one of these things that also I think shows when
Speaker 6: you have irresponsible leadership in place, what can happen. Because
Speaker 6: we were on notice that this is something that we
Speaker 6: could have happened in our state, and as you said,
Speaker 6: this summer, actually every summer, we're going to set a
Speaker 6: record for killawatt power needed. Every summer's for US is
Speaker 6: going up in terms of hotter summers, but also we
Speaker 6: have more folks, so we're rapidly growing states. So every
Speaker 6: summer we are setting a record in terms of how
Speaker 6: much energy we need. And the only reason that we
Speaker 6: kept the lights on this summer was because of dramatic
Speaker 6: and really substantive supplies from wind and solar. In some cases,
Speaker 6: we are the number one wind energy state in the country.
Speaker 6: We're number two in solar. Our energy mix is actually
Speaker 6: quite diversified, and that has been not a result of
Speaker 6: our state politicians. Has actually been a result of those
Speaker 6: renewable sources being so competitive and so cheat that they
Speaker 6: were able to play a role in keeping the lights on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically, Republicans didn't want right now, so they left
Speaker 1: the federal power grid.
Speaker 2: They then found because of global.
Speaker 1: Warming, because of the lack of regulation, the temperatures were
Speaker 1: so high or so low that you wouldn't have the
Speaker 1: gas or the energy to power your grid that was
Speaker 1: not attached to the federal grid. And then now that
Speaker 1: renewables are so cheap, Republicans are sort of unable to
Speaker 1: stop them.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing is is that
Speaker 6: a lot of our energy companies have already seen the
Speaker 6: benefits of renewable energy can provide, and they've moved in
Speaker 6: this direction on their own. The market has moved in
Speaker 6: that direction, and I think some smart investments at the
Speaker 6: federal level, like the Inflation Reduction Acts, which for folks
Speaker 6: who don't know what that bill is, it's really just
Speaker 6: the biggest green energy bill in the American history. Have
Speaker 6: I think added to that just in recent months. But
Speaker 6: this is because these sources of power are really good
Speaker 6: and they are an important part of our mix, and
Speaker 6: so I've always advocated for in all the above approach.
Speaker 6: In Texas, we're energy steak. We're always going to be
Speaker 6: an energy state. Our energy mix is changing, but we
Speaker 6: are adding jobs in the energy sector by having renewable
Speaker 6: as part of our mix, not taking jobs away. And
Speaker 6: that's an important distinction because I think we have a
Speaker 6: lot of folks here who work at energy and this
Speaker 6: is a growing part of our economy.
Speaker 1: Right It's important because it shows that ultimately renewables are
Speaker 1: cheap enough so they will hopefully save us if Republicans can, so.
Speaker 2: I try to stop them.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what Texas looks like right
Speaker 1: now from those of us in the outside. For Democrats, certainly,
Speaker 1: Texas has been a heartbreak. Tell us why it's not
Speaker 1: going to be a heartbreak this time.
Speaker 6: Well, listen, for us, this is about the future. This
Speaker 6: election that's coming up, and it's also about a senator
Speaker 6: who hasn't been doing the job that any a senator
Speaker 6: I think could be expected to do, which is to
Speaker 6: try and pass legislation, to help his constituents, to be
Speaker 6: concerned about the lives of its constituents, to actually care.
Speaker 6: And that's what makes this I think a different election,
Speaker 6: is that Ted Cruz is somebody who, as we just
Speaker 6: talked about, does abandon us thirty million Texans are freesently
Speaker 6: and dark, but also who votes against every piece of
Speaker 6: legislation that would help our state, whether it's the Chips
Speaker 6: Science Act that John Cornen helped pass and Crews vote against,
Speaker 6: or just recently this effort to try and help secure
Speaker 6: the border and have some reforms to the asylum system,
Speaker 6: and Ted Cruz opposed it not because of the policy,
Speaker 6: but because of the politics. You know, he wanted to
Speaker 6: run the problem. And so that's made him be in
Speaker 6: this situation where he is not the most vulnerable Republican
Speaker 6: senator in the country, but also where most Texans are
Speaker 6: just ready to move on from him. I have a
Speaker 6: very different story, one that has rooted in being four
Speaker 6: generation Texan, being raised in Dallas by single mom, playing
Speaker 6: at Baylor, being captain the football team there, making to
Speaker 6: the NFL, going to voting rights, and serving the Obama administration,
Speaker 6: and serving in Congress in a way that has shown
Speaker 6: that it's possible to actually bring folks together. And I'm
Speaker 6: proud that I've been the most part partisan member of
Speaker 6: the Texas delegation while also being one of the leading
Speaker 6: voices for democracy and civil rights, you know, I think
Speaker 6: in the coingris And so this election is one that's
Speaker 6: going to be incredibly important for the future Texas. We
Speaker 6: are experiencing what a total ban on abortion or near
Speaker 6: total ban on abortion looks like. And the only way
Speaker 6: that we can resolve this is at the federal level,
Speaker 6: because our state is not going to do it. Our
Speaker 6: state courts are not going to do it, our state
Speaker 6: legislature is not going to do it. The only way
Speaker 6: for us to restore these rights to Texans, Texas women,
Speaker 6: to Texas families, to restore access abortion and just medical care,
Speaker 6: we'll be at the federal level by codifying Roby Wade.
Speaker 6: And that's something that I've goted to do in the House,
Speaker 6: but we have him be able to get through the Senate.
Speaker 6: When I'm in the Senate, we will.
Speaker 1: Texas would actually be Democrats really their closest to pick
Speaker 1: up opportunity. You know, I think so much about like
Speaker 1: in previous cycles. I remember having a candidate for Senate
Speaker 1: on this podcast and everyone said I was crazy because
Speaker 1: the polling showed him about eight points behind in the
Speaker 1: state of Wisconsin. He ended up losing about like half
Speaker 1: a point. So I'm hoping you can like just talk
Speaker 1: to us about why Texas is bluer than we think.
Speaker 6: I don't see us in terms of red or blue.
Speaker 6: I do see us in terms of a weirre state
Speaker 6: that hasn't had enough folks voting, and we've been a
Speaker 6: non voting state. That's been our biggest issue, and it's
Speaker 6: in the millions, the numbers that we're talking about here.
Speaker 6: We had nine point five million registered voters who didn't
Speaker 6: vote in the last election, so the numbers are staggering.
Speaker 6: Now we are a big state, so those numbers can
Speaker 6: be big, and our task in every election has to
Speaker 6: be a chip away I had that and try to
Speaker 6: get more of our fellow Texans involved, both for fairer
Speaker 6: elections but also just for our democracy. I mean, you
Speaker 6: just can't really have a representative democracy when that many
Speaker 6: folks are not involved in it. But the other part
Speaker 6: of it is, you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 6: folks out there who are looking around and saying, you know, listen,
Speaker 6: I'm a Republican, but I'm not that kind of Republican.
Speaker 6: In fact, I had an event last night. Several folks
Speaker 6: came out to me and said, you know, I've never
Speaker 6: supported them Prey before. This is the first time done.
Speaker 6: I cannot sport ted Cruz and where things are going.
Speaker 6: This is a very real phenomenon. And this is part
Speaker 6: of how you know, I got elected to Congress by
Speaker 6: a lot of folks who were big supporters of George W.
Speaker 6: Bush and felt like the party had changed beneath them.
Speaker 6: They no longer recognized it. And you know, and I
Speaker 6: certainly want to run a campaign, and I certain have
Speaker 6: tried to serve in Congress in a way that can
Speaker 6: be inclusive enough for folks like that to feel like
Speaker 6: they can also be a part of our movement. If
Speaker 6: you accept election results, if you believe that we should
Speaker 6: stand up to Vladimir Putin and not try to let
Speaker 6: him take over countries and kill political dissidents, If you
Speaker 6: believe that we shouldn't try to undermine all of our
Speaker 6: fundamental institutions in this country, whether it's our court systems
Speaker 6: or in the way that we process and count the
Speaker 6: votes after an election. Then you're part of my coalition
Speaker 6: and I want your vote. And there are a lot
Speaker 6: of folks out there who are like that, and a
Speaker 6: lot of folks out there who look at Ted Cruz
Speaker 6: and say, you know, you really should be trying to
Speaker 6: actually get something done at some point. And that's why
Speaker 6: we're in this situation where we're going a very close
Speaker 6: race right now. It's going to finish as a very
Speaker 6: close race, and I need folks help, need them to
Speaker 6: get involved, go to Colin alread dot com, help us
Speaker 6: out and make sure that who we are actually as
Speaker 6: sexans is represented.
Speaker 1: On November fifth, it does seem to me like Ted
Speaker 1: Cruise has gone really full maga.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think that's probably true. And I think it's
Speaker 6: surprising because of how personal the attacks were on him
Speaker 6: by Donald Trump. Apparently there's no level of debasement that's
Speaker 6: low enough, you know. I mean, I know how I
Speaker 6: would respond if somebody, you know, talked about my family
Speaker 6: that way, and it certainly wouldn't be to try and
Speaker 6: overthrow an election for them just a couple of years later.
Speaker 6: But that's the choice that's been made. Obviously. To me,
Speaker 6: the real issue, though more so than whether or not
Speaker 6: he's got a full MAGA, is that he is completely
Speaker 6: incapable I think of being a functioning United States senator
Speaker 6: for US. You know, he is not serious about the work.
Speaker 6: I come across so many people who there's an issue.
Speaker 6: They know they can contact me, and they're in my
Speaker 6: congressional district that they can contact John Cornyn. They know
Speaker 6: they can't contact tecers because he's not going to do
Speaker 6: anything for them.
Speaker 2: So that's on the constituent services.
Speaker 6: Side, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, but also it's big businesses.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's not just you know, folks who need
Speaker 6: help with you know, their tax returns. I mean, this
Speaker 6: is across the board. It's an attitude and an arrogance
Speaker 6: that I think leads Hooks to feel like we really
Speaker 6: don't have two senators right now. And you know, we
Speaker 6: see have a guy who's podcasting three times a week,
Speaker 6: which Molly, you know how much time that take.
Speaker 2: You know, he is but a humble podcast.
Speaker 1: I was hoping you could talk about Ted Cruz's he
Speaker 1: found a Biden whistleblower, and the whistleblower turned out to
Speaker 1: actually be lying, and now that was a blower has
Speaker 1: been indicted. I haven't seen a lot of or any
Speaker 1: miacopa from Ted Cruz.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that.
Speaker 6: It's just been ir remarkable. Yeah, there's the kind of
Speaker 6: the again, the arrogance of you know, well, if that
Speaker 6: didn't work, and then we'll just ignore it. This is
Speaker 6: what he's interested in, the culture wars, the fake political fights,
Speaker 6: not actually doing any big substance in for Texans. And
Speaker 6: when you grow up like I did in Dallas and
Speaker 6: you're raised by a single mom, and you go to
Speaker 6: our public schools like I did, and you rely on
Speaker 6: your community, yeah, I think you get a much more
Speaker 6: kind of grounded perspective of how important it is that
Speaker 6: you know, these kind of ladders of opportunity be in
Speaker 6: place for folks. That's why you know, my bipartisanship isn't
Speaker 6: a function of that. I'm trying to just have like
Speaker 6: a stat that said I'm trying to get something done
Speaker 6: anything through a Congress that's incredibly difficult to get anything passed,
Speaker 6: because I know there are oaks out there who are
Speaker 6: working two jobs or three jobs, and they're hoping they're
Speaker 6: elected officials working as hard as they are, and Ted
Speaker 6: Cruise isn't right.
Speaker 1: They really wanted to impeach President Biden really because they
Speaker 1: thought it would help Trump, which is really not high
Speaker 1: crimes and misdemeanors.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not how any of this is supposed
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 1: I mean, just the perversion of our democratic norms, that's
Speaker 1: just so insane.
Speaker 6: Well, we just had the I guess it's like the
Speaker 6: you know, the Seinfeld impeachment of my orchis, you know,
Speaker 6: because it's about nothing, right, I have to say, just
Speaker 6: in my now, my sixty year in Congress, the stunts
Speaker 6: have taken over, like the tale is fully bagging the dog.
Speaker 6: To be honest, we have to have a correction here
Speaker 6: in the selection where we send a message as text
Speaker 6: and certainly as Americans that we need serious people in
Speaker 6: public office, that we can't just have all these clownish
Speaker 6: stuff going on. I don't want to go too much
Speaker 6: into it because I'm part of the Foreign Afairs Committee
Speaker 6: and I'm brief done these things. But the Russians are
Speaker 6: doing very real things, Chinese are doing very real things.
Speaker 6: We have a rash of coups in Africa. We are
Speaker 6: seeing democracy on the run in some ways around the world.
Speaker 6: Everybody is looking to the United States to be that
Speaker 6: central point that can stand strong in a storm and
Speaker 6: say we're going to make it through this and we're
Speaker 6: not going to fall into some kind of global conflict
Speaker 6: again or some kind of era of human rights being
Speaker 6: taken away instead of expanded for the first time in
Speaker 6: fifty or sixty years. And this is a time that
Speaker 6: the United States has to be there, and we are
Speaker 6: failing in that because of our political dysfunction, because of
Speaker 6: these extremists who just want to have something that can
Speaker 6: tweet out instead of something they want to actually pass legislatively.
Speaker 6: And it wasn't always this way. Friends with a number
Speaker 6: of my Republican colleagues who are no longer in Congress
Speaker 6: because they've been driven out, and it just wasn't that
Speaker 6: long ago that we had a fairly substantive Republican Congress
Speaker 6: that even if I disagreed with what they were trying
Speaker 6: to do, that they actually had something they wanted to do.
Speaker 6: And folks like tech crews are responsible for this. They
Speaker 6: put us into this ridiculous era. And if it's such
Speaker 6: a message for us and such a self correction for
Speaker 6: us to be able to urse that here really true.
Speaker 1: I think it would be amazing if you could just
Speaker 1: sort of give us, like what do people need from you?
Speaker 2: I mean, is it door knocking? Is it? I mean
Speaker 2: if you were able to flip the seat.
Speaker 1: I think it would mean so much, not just for
Speaker 1: like Texas, but also just it would mean a real
Speaker 1: rejection of MAGA and burn it down principles.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, I always say this is going to be
Speaker 6: about Texans talking to Texans in neighbors, talk at neighbors.
Speaker 6: So this is going to be about us here in Texas.
Speaker 6: But we could use a lot of help in terms
Speaker 6: of making sure that our fellow Texans can be engaged
Speaker 6: in this election. And to me, that comes down to
Speaker 6: there's no easy way to help help a voter or
Speaker 6: to turn a maybe voter into a voter. It's just
Speaker 6: hard work. It's just you know, ten twelve fourteen interactions
Speaker 6: with that individual. And I've done it as a voting
Speaker 6: rights lawyer before I ever came to Congress, and I've
Speaker 6: done it now. Of course, it's a candidate running in
Speaker 6: districts where we needed to get more folks out to
Speaker 6: vote in order to win, and so it's incredibly labor intensive.
Speaker 6: You know, it's also something that does take resources. So
Speaker 6: I'm asking folks if they can to get involved with us.
Speaker 6: Text Texas to nine zero six seven eight. Find out
Speaker 6: how you can get involved, whether that's phone banking or
Speaker 6: door knocking or contributing, or telling your friends in Texas
Speaker 6: how they can be involved. This can be an effort
Speaker 6: that can be such a positive for Texas and for
Speaker 6: our country. You know, when I ran in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 6: I rank It's a twenty two year incumbent Republican who
Speaker 6: had been unopposed in the previous selection. Nobody thought he
Speaker 6: could be beatn he was the chairman of the rules committee.
Speaker 6: He was like the furniture. We couldn't get rid of them.
Speaker 6: And we beat him by nearly seven points by mobilizing
Speaker 6: new voters who'd ever been involved, and by reaching across
Speaker 6: out and getting independents and principal Republicans to come over
Speaker 6: to our side. And we can do that here though
Speaker 6: we need chell us help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Colin.
Speaker 6: Okay, thank you so much, Molly. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: They're no moment full Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 5: You know Middog first. Many times we are guests that
Speaker 5: when we say things are going to get bad. But
Speaker 5: the second Trump term really looks like it would be
Speaker 5: the Handmaid's Tale. Just like everyone was saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible stuff here out of Politico. This is what
Speaker 1: we talk about when we talk about the steaks as
Speaker 1: opposed to the odds, right like, instead of a million
Speaker 1: Nate Silver pieces about the odds of a Biden re elect,
Speaker 1: what we really need are these steaks of a Trump reelect.
Speaker 2: And here we go.
Speaker 1: Among some of the top proposals for second Trump admin
Speaker 1: end surrogacy. Okay, they're going to end having a surrogate
Speaker 1: to carry your child, which has provided children for all
Speaker 1: of these childless couples.
Speaker 2: And no fault divorce, which was by.
Speaker 1: The way, signed into law by communist Marxist liberal Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan in the state of California. It has been a
Speaker 1: huge boon for women's empowerment, and it has cut the
Speaker 1: numbers for domestic violence way down. So you bring that back,
Speaker 1: you're going to see more women murdered by their romantic partners.
Speaker 1: Invoke the Insurrection Act to stop protests. He's already talked
Speaker 1: about it. We know that's coming insects, ad in school.
Speaker 1: No better way to get teen pregnancy going than to
Speaker 1: endsecx AT and stop policies that subsidize single motherhood. Spoiler,
Speaker 1: there is no subsidizing single motherhood in this country.
Speaker 5: And with the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos
Speaker 5: are children and citing the Bible in an opinion, I
Speaker 5: think we could see here they're not joking about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Chrysto fascism here they come. And that is
Speaker 2: our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 2: And again, thanks for listening.