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Speaker 1: day returns quins dot com slash chuck. Well joining me now,

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Speaker 1: is someone anybody elected after twenty sixteen I still call

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Speaker 1: a new member of Congress, but he's been there a

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Speaker 1: few terms now, so it's hard to call him a

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Speaker 1: new member. And we're going to get to that in

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Speaker 1: a minute. But it's Sean Caston. He is a republic

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Speaker 1: Democratic sees me from suburban Chicago, and we're going to

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Speaker 1: make him describe his district a little bit. He did

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Speaker 1: the original district he won. He flipped a Republican seat.

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Speaker 1: It has gotten after the normal redistricting. I have to

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Speaker 1: say normal redistricting now considering all the different ways iterations

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Speaker 1: that take place these days. But he got I think

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Speaker 1: a slightly less competitive district these days. But I booked

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Speaker 1: the Congressman because he did something that I've been dying

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Speaker 1: for somebody to do at one of these open committee hearings.

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Speaker 1: He asked detailed questions looking for a response, without being theatrical,

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Speaker 1: without trying to dunk on a person. He was just

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Speaker 1: trying to get information, and it went viral because the

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Speaker 1: person that didn't answer the question. In this case, it

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Speaker 1: was the Treasury Secretary didn't have an answer to what

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Speaker 1: was a fairly simple question. Though it was fraught with

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Speaker 1: how he answered. It was fraught with some political peril there.

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Speaker 1: But it was a reminder that you don't have to yell,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to perform for something to go viral

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Speaker 1: if you just have a really good question and you

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Speaker 1: stump the cabinet members. So Congressman, is good to see you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, and it's nice to it's nice to be

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Speaker 2: recognized for not doing this job just so that I

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Speaker 2: can become an influencer.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, that's it is.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: I used to joke and part of it is the

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Speaker 1: way leadership has sort of hijacked Congress. And I say

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Speaker 1: that I use that term intentionally because when I first

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Speaker 1: started doing this in the early nineties, committee chairs meant something,

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Speaker 1: subcommittee chairs meant something, and leadership would be deferential to

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Speaker 1: committees and to subcommittees and things like that. Now you know,

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Speaker 1: they're four hundred and thirty one excuse me, five hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirty one elected pundits and four people that make decisions.

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Speaker 1: And it's and when you do that, eventually you'll stop

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Speaker 1: having legislators and you'll start having more political pundits as

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Speaker 1: elected officials. You know. I I remember I interviewed Jake Laturner.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember him. Yeah, he's left

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Speaker 1: no reason.

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Speaker 2: To leave about Bob's big Boy's body double by the.

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Speaker 1: Way, Yeah, he is a but he he essentially left

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Speaker 1: because he didn't want to be an influencer that seemed

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Speaker 1: to be what it is he was. Look, he's more

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Speaker 1: of a Paul Ryan conservative and that's out of vogue

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Speaker 1: these days in the Republican Party. But he saw that,

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Speaker 1: you know, if he did something that meant that was

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Speaker 1: good for his district on the Egg Committee, nobody was

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Speaker 1: going to cover it. And he figured that that Congress

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Speaker 1: was you know more Marjorie Taylor Green and Alexandria Cassio

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Speaker 1: Cortes than it is. You know, the grinders. Do you

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Speaker 1: feel that well?

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Speaker 2: So I have a more I have maybe a more

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Speaker 2: boy scouted you of Congress. I think hearings. Hearings have

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Speaker 2: always been really important. There are places to get information.

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Speaker 2: It's also not lost that in the age we're in,

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Speaker 2: for better or for worse, they're all on TV, and

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Speaker 2: so there's always going to be some theater too.

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Speaker 1: Now I blame TV for a lot of problems. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think the minute the cameras got come came on.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is why I'm not for cameras in

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Speaker 1: the courtroom generally. I'm for audio. I'm for live audio.

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Speaker 1: I think the transparency matters. But I think that there's

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Speaker 1: something that triggers human beings to behave differently.

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Speaker 2: When they care. There definitely is, And I guess the

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Speaker 2: only thing that I'd say in their defense is that,

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Speaker 2: particularly when you're in the minority and you can't control

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Speaker 2: the legislative calendar, the only tool you really have in

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Speaker 2: the minority is to move public opinion, and so there

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Speaker 2: is a value in the televised hearings the extent that

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Speaker 2: you can inject something in. I mean, look, as you said,

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Speaker 2: I'm on your show today because I injected something into

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Speaker 2: the public conversation about what was going on in Venezuela

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Speaker 2: and some of the legal authority that wouldn't have happened

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Speaker 2: if this was a closed door hearing. And so there's

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Speaker 2: there's a there's value within that, and you know, but.

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Speaker 1: You also showed that you can you could do something

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Speaker 1: that may I don't believe you were trying to be performative.

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Speaker 2: Okay, no, well, I mean I'll tell you candidly because

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Speaker 2: there was a there was a political reporter who was

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Speaker 2: asking all this the day before, what are you going

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Speaker 2: to ask percent? And I said, what I know is

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Speaker 2: that he is going to be filled with talking points

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Speaker 2: from the Trump administration. He's going there's going to be

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Speaker 2: a lot of theatrics because that's his style. And therefore

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to

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Speaker 2: ask him because I'm working on on some things that

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Speaker 2: I don't want him to be prepared for, because I

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Speaker 2: want him to be engaged in this. And this reporter

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Speaker 2: came to me afterwards and he said, I understand why

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Speaker 2: you didn't tell me now, but what we were trying

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Speaker 2: to do was to say I had earlier written a

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Speaker 2: letter to the oil majors pointing out to them that

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Speaker 2: because the Trump White House has not outlined any legal

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Speaker 2: authority for seizing Venezuelan and oil, any investments they might

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Speaker 2: make to refine distribute that oil, they're going to be

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Speaker 2: exposed to Venezuela's creditors, the largest of which is China,

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Speaker 2: because this is a fraudulent conveyance. And I had wanted

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Speaker 2: to go in with that, and we got the uh,

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Speaker 2: the good fortune, the bad fortune that a day or

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Speaker 2: two before, Marco Rubio had been before the Senate Foreign

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Speaker 2: Relations Committee and had made some suggestions about things that

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Speaker 2: we knew were legally not true. And so it was

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Speaker 2: just an opportunity to go and frame those conversations with

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Speaker 2: percent to say, Okay, you either have to either have

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Speaker 2: to agree with Rubio, in which case you're in a problem,

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Speaker 2: or clarify clarifying, which is going to put you in

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Speaker 2: a pickle. And I didn't want him to be prepared,

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Speaker 2: and we had to and we had to keep our

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Speaker 2: tone down because if he got on the defensive of

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Speaker 2: starting to throw out all of the you know, the

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Speaker 2: Pam Bondi burn book stuff. Five minutes goes pretty quick

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Speaker 2: in that situation.

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Speaker 1: Well, what what I found interesting is that Besson didn't

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Speaker 1: react sort of as as a you know, the the

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Speaker 1: you know, he's you know, at first, he was sort

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Speaker 1: of tried to be an adult when he first took

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Speaker 1: the job, and now he you know, you see him,

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Speaker 1: I guess he's an adult behind the scenes now, But

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Speaker 1: you do, you know, because I think he look, I

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Speaker 1: think he does talk Trump off off of some ledges

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Speaker 1: that are even worse than the ledges that Trump that

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Speaker 1: we see Trump go out on. But I've noticed that

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Speaker 1: Besson is clearly trying to get on the President's good

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Speaker 1: side by by being performative in public against the quote

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Speaker 1: unquote owning the Libs or whatever it is that Scott

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Speaker 1: Besson thinks he has to do to keep his job.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't do that with you. Why do you

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Speaker 1: think that is? You think he was embarrassed that he

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Speaker 1: didn't know the answer.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure he understood the question, to be honest.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if he did it either. Yea, Because and.

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Speaker 2: This was where we get into it, because Rubio had

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Speaker 2: said that Treasury was managing these funds under their authority,

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Speaker 2: and we knew the Treasury.

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Speaker 1: He didn't actually kept saying what authority, yeah and.

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Speaker 2: So and so. You know, at least framing the question

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Speaker 2: that way, you can't say, well, this is just because

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Speaker 2: you know you're some liberal. You either have to point

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Speaker 2: to the specific one of the you know, Congress has

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Speaker 2: given Treasury ninety one separate authorities to manage ninety one

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Speaker 2: different types of trust accounts. If if the Treasury Department

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Speaker 2: had done what Rubio said they it had done, the

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Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary would know which of those trust accounts applied.

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Speaker 2: And when you read those ninety one trust accounts, and

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Speaker 2: none of them actually fit the bill. So, I you know,

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Speaker 2: I think I think he was trying to well, let

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Speaker 2: me not expect them what I was trying to do.

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Speaker 2: I think there was no way for him to answer

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Speaker 2: that question in ways that just sort of made Trump

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Speaker 2: happy that he went viral and made a Democrat look bad.

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, I fear something worse. I fear

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Speaker 1: that they haven't thought about this yet.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, and I don't want to. It's dangerous to

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Speaker 2: go down too many conspiracy rabbit holes if we If

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Speaker 2: you agree with my point that they have not, well,

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Speaker 2: this isn't just This isn't even something I'm agree with.

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Speaker 2: Administration has not given any indication that they have any

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Speaker 2: legal authority to take title to Venezuelan oil or to

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Speaker 2: distribute Venezuelan oil. As a result of that, you now

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Speaker 2: have this account that we're taking. They've moved it to Cutter,

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Speaker 2: which is a whole other set of problems because there

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Speaker 2: are superios where Treasury takes custody to accounts, but we

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Speaker 2: keep them in US banks where we can monitor. This

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Speaker 2: is now in a place that's notorious for hiding money, right,

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Speaker 2: and then said that they have no wateritor in place

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Speaker 2: to monitor the inflows and the outflows. Well, if you

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Speaker 2: were doing all that, then you take Trump in his

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Speaker 2: face that there are a lot of bad people in

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Speaker 2: Venezuela who are using money to funnel drugs and run

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Speaker 2: these narco terrorism empires. How do you possibly know that

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Speaker 2: the money you're distributing back to Venezuela isn't going to

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Speaker 2: those bad actors. And as I was asking the questions,

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Speaker 2: what I was trying to get them to acknowledge is

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Speaker 2: I'll stipulate for the purpose of the hearing that Maduro

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Speaker 2: a bad guy. You didn't want the way to go

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Speaker 2: through there. Why wouldn't you have an audit regime in

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Speaker 2: place to monitor that? Rubio said they did have an

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Speaker 2: audit regime regime. Bessen said they didn't have one yet

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Speaker 2: but would set them up, which suggests that the two

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Speaker 2: of them didn't coordinate their story, right, And so now

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Speaker 2: this raises this is where the conspiracy starts. Is it

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Speaker 2: not being audited because it's going to shady characters in

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Speaker 2: Venezuela or is it not being audited because it's going

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Speaker 2: to shady characters in the United States?

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Speaker 1: Right, I don't know if they want to.

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Speaker 2: There's no time. Would you even know how to answer

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Speaker 2: that question? Right?

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Speaker 1: Well, it gets into this administration, and I think you know,

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Speaker 1: and I'm curious if you now see this trickling down

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Speaker 1: to the cabinet secretaries. Look, if the president doesn't believe

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Speaker 1: that some of these rules don't apply to him, separation

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Speaker 1: of powers doesn't apply, you know, all these little things

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Speaker 1: in it. And it takes the Supreme Court rebuke that

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Speaker 1: he got late last week on tariffs, and even then,

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Speaker 1: he's not really accepting the rebuke the way normal presidents would.

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Speaker 1: A normal president would do one of two things, find

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Speaker 1: another you know, find another way, or ask Congress to

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Speaker 1: give him the authority whatever. You know, he's just attacking

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Speaker 1: the institution itself. Do you get the sense now that

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Speaker 1: many of these cabinet agencies that come before you guys

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Speaker 1: and these hearings, when they do these testimonies, they feel

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Speaker 1: as if they don't really have to abide by the

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Speaker 1: rules of Congress. They just have to do just enough

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Speaker 1: performance and they'll be protected by the majority.

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Speaker 2: Sadly, that's true, and frankly that's probably been true for

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Speaker 2: a long time. I mean, remember, you know, Jim Jordan

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Speaker 2: denied a sub poena to come and testify before January sixth,

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Speaker 2: and he was never really prosecuted for that. And so

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Speaker 2: I think there is a sense that, if you know,

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Speaker 2: a government based on the rule of law is predicated

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Speaker 2: on the idea that the people force in the rule

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Speaker 2: of law will comply with the rule of laws, that

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Speaker 2: falls apart pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: A constitution becomes a piece of paper if you don't

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Speaker 1: use it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I think there's a I think there's a

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Speaker 2: separate issue in this Trump administration. And I certainly don't

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Speaker 2: want to, you know, be here praising Jeff Sessions but

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Speaker 2: in the first Trump administration, he was constrained because there

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Speaker 2: were a number of people in his administration, people like

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Speaker 2: John Bolton, people like Jeff Sessions who understood the independence

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Speaker 2: of what they had to do and and you know,

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Speaker 2: respected the president, were there to carry out his orders,

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Speaker 2: but took took their oath to the constitution. Seriously, the

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Speaker 2: people who Trump nominated for cabinet secretaries, virtually to a person,

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Speaker 2: where nominated because they'll take orders. Anybody who was going

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Speaker 2: to stand up has been has been merged from the party.

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Speaker 2: I mean, Adam Kinsinger and I did not agree on

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Speaker 2: very much. That Adam Kinzinger was dangerous because he challenged

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Speaker 2: the president. Right, I agree with Marjori Taylor Green on

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Speaker 2: virtually nothing. She's dangerous because she challenges the president. And

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Speaker 2: so the people who are left there. I mean, think

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Speaker 2: of all the criticisms Trump had of Marco Rubio back

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Speaker 2: in the presidential race. Those criticisms stung because Marco Rubio,

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Speaker 2: he's a beta dog, right, that's who is person.

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Speaker 1: Well, I joke, you know, Marco, Marco needs to know

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Speaker 1: and understand that when when Venezuela goes south, or Cuba

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Speaker 1: go south, or Iron Goo South. Whichever one of these

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Speaker 1: adventures that either we're about to embark on or have

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Speaker 1: embarked on and we haven't and it sort of had

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Speaker 1: some either becomes unpopular for some reason or whatever. It's

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Speaker 1: Rubio that's getting thrown under the bus. Yeah, and you know,

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Speaker 1: this is how he operates. He does not It is

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Speaker 1: never his fault, no matter what happens. But it is.

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Speaker 1: It also explains Congressman, you know what you've never heard

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Speaker 1: ever out of this White House. Donald Trump had a

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Speaker 1: meeting today with one of his business partners from thirty

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Speaker 1: years ago. Donald Trump had a meeting today with an

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Speaker 1: old college roommate. Donald Trump had a meeting today with

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Speaker 1: some he has no friends or colleagues or acquaintances that

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Speaker 1: will do business with him who did business with him

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Speaker 1: in the seventies, eighties or nineties, or the first.

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Speaker 2: Technoy at least not since I stained bad.

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Speaker 1: Right, I mean, but he went through. It's a pattern

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Speaker 1: about it. I mean you look at it from first

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Speaker 1: term to second term. You basically have Steven Miller. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's basically it. And so because

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Speaker 1: when he loyalty is one way with him, and when

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Speaker 1: he throws somebody away and they you know, that's it,

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Speaker 1: and they won't come back. You know, most of them

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Speaker 1: don't come back into the fold unless they're kind of

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Speaker 1: like Lindsey Grant, right, who were just desperate for it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I mean, it's like it's a certain type

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Speaker 2: of person I was. I was a CEO for sixteen

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Speaker 2: years in the energy industry before I came to Congress.

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Speaker 2: And there is a certain type of person who is

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Speaker 2: who is transactional and always wants to make sure they

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Speaker 2: get the best end of the deal. And you never

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Speaker 2: do a deal with that person twice, right, the people

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Speaker 2: who So.

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Speaker 1: That's been the view of that's basically Donald Trump in

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Speaker 1: his life. Nobody's ever done a second deal with him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the parable of Giuliani. Right.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you about why you're in Congress. Congress.

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Speaker 1: You know, when you look at our problems today, it

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Speaker 1: is ultimately Congress's fault. Like this is, and I go

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Speaker 1: back forty years. Congress's inability to do things is put

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Speaker 1: pressure on the courts. Congress's inability to do things is

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Speaker 1: put pressure on the presidency's. Congress's decisions to to not

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Speaker 1: make tough decisions, to let the executive branch do it.

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Speaker 1: And it's been sort of a slow thing, right, It's

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Speaker 1: it's an emergency here, trade authority there. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: been it's been over time. But here you are running.

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Speaker 1: You're a CEO. Here you are and I so I'm

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Speaker 1: glad somebody who's had a real career, meta pay role

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Speaker 1: wants to come to Congress. But it is not a functional,

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Speaker 1: small d democratic institution these days, particularly when you join

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Speaker 1: starting in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 2: What keeps you there? Well, so let me let me

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Speaker 2: give you what I take a lot of inspiration from.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of beauty in the story. So I

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. We sold our company in twenty sixteen. I

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Speaker 2: was trying to figure out what to do next. I

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Speaker 2: had a one year non compete, so I couldn't work

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Speaker 2: in the industry that I was in for a year.

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Speaker 2: And I started going around because I was frustrated that

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Speaker 2: my representative wasn't standing up to Trump, and I felt

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Speaker 2: like what we needed in this era, so someone was

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Speaker 2: standing up to Trump. And my my big issue for

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Speaker 2: my whole life has been trying to do something about

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Speaker 2: climate change. That the businesses I ran and most of

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Speaker 2: what the legislating I've done. And a good friend of mine,

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Speaker 2: Katie McGuinty, who had been the head of the Council

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Speaker 2: of Environmental Quality and the Clinton White House, she said,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to encourage you to run, but I

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Speaker 2: will tell you that this is if you know what

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Speaker 2: you wanted, I want to have written on your tombstone

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Speaker 2: about what you contributed to the Earth during your time

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Speaker 2: on it. There's no better job than being a member

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Speaker 2: of Congress. And if you don't know what you want

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Speaker 2: written on your tombstone, there's no worst job, because you

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Speaker 2: have such enormous levers that you can pull on. And

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Speaker 2: so you know, in my private sector life, we deployed

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Speaker 2: a couple hundred million dollars I'm worth the capital projects,

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Speaker 2: made some money for various investors. It looks good in

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Speaker 2: a resume. My first year in Congress cut a billion

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Speaker 2: dollars of legislation passed specifically to deploy clean energy technologies.

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Speaker 2: Not that not that things are measured in dollars, but

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Speaker 2: this was a fresh number of Congress and movement in

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Speaker 2: different ways. And the part of it that I think

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Speaker 2: is sort of beautiful and inspired hiring is that the

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Speaker 2: I flipped seat. They'd been Republican for fifty years. There

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Speaker 2: were forty of us in that class of eighteen who

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Speaker 2: flipped seats. Of the forty of us, Jennifer Wexton, Ben mccadams,

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Speaker 2: and Anthony Brindisi had held prior elected office. The other

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Speaker 2: thirty seven had never held any elected office before coming in.

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Speaker 1: No, it's what made it a really good class.

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Speaker 2: And you know, and it was you know, me and

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Speaker 2: Dean Phillips had been CEOs. Lauren Underwood with a nurse.

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Speaker 2: Alissa and Abigail were spies. Tom Melanowski and Andy Kim

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Speaker 2: were in the State Department. JOHNA. Hayes was a teacher.

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Speaker 2: You had all these people who you know, the single

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Speaker 2: greatest thing that Donald Trump has ever done is he

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Speaker 2: made people feel like they wanted to contribute to society. Right.

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Speaker 2: And yes, you know the I think everything that you

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Speaker 2: say to criticize Congress is fair. I think it goes

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Speaker 2: back way more than twenty years. I went forty founders.

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Speaker 2: Our founders created a Congress that was the article one branch.

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Speaker 2: It was where all the people were, it was where

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Speaker 2: all the budget was. Congress is now less than one

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Speaker 2: half of one percent of the total federal budget, because

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Speaker 2: every time we identify a problem, we basically create an

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Speaker 2: executive branch agency to fix it, and we gradually, you know,

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Speaker 2: make ourselves weaker and weaker. And I, you know, I

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Speaker 2: think other than other than the War Powers Act, I'm

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Speaker 2: hard pressed to think of a time where Congress took

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Speaker 2: power back from the other agencies or the other branches.

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Speaker 2: But I can think of lots of time, starting with

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Speaker 2: Marbori versus Madison, where the judicial branch took power from

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Speaker 2: the legislative branch. Lots of times where the executive has

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Speaker 2: taken power from legislative And I think we're vastly overdue.

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Speaker 2: You know, if we still believe that it's important to

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Speaker 2: have a government with three co equal branches, we got

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Speaker 2: to be a little more equal. And I think we

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Speaker 2: need to sort of push for some structural reforms. And

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Speaker 2: the while I'm not naive about a loan that's going

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Speaker 2: to take, what other job could I possibly get where

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Speaker 2: I could actually have a role in fixing that.

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Speaker 3: to admit I was surprised by how good I felt

433
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 3: the next morning. Disable the pop right out of bed,

434
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 3: get a workout in, have a great day of work.

435
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:30,640
Speaker 3: So pre alcoholic gets my stamp of approval.

436
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Speaker 1: So there you go. You ready to try it? Go

437
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Speaker 1: Chuck podcast at checkout for the fifteen percent discount. Again,

444
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 1: use the code Chuck podcast. You you have made the

445
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: case for why you should be there, and I appreciate

446
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,440
Speaker 1: that attitude. I fear that not many have the same

447
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: attitude that you have. You know, some wanted as a

448
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 1: stepping stone as well. Some are you know, some are

449
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 1: Some actually want it on their resume so they can

450
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:26,120
Speaker 1: say they did it on that front. But let's talk

451
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: about so one of the way. One of the ways

452
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: I describe myself as I always say, I'm short term pessimistic,

453
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: but long term optimistic that history shows that when we

454
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:41,679
Speaker 1: are in these moments, we do the structural changes or

455
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: updatings that are needed. And the only question is whether

456
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: how much violence it takes before we get to that point.

457
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: And I know that sounds harsh. I don't mean to

458
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: sound or doomer gloom, but when you look at the

459
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: we've really only had about four periods where we've made

460
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: serious changes to the constitution to try to update the democracy,

461
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:05,200
Speaker 1: right at the start, during and after the Civil War,

462
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: and the period that I'm currently obsessed with, basically the

463
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: first twenty five years of the twentieth century, where we

464
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 1: had where we had three of the most important reforms

465
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: that were added to the constitution, women, the right to vote,

466
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: income tax, and direct election of senators, and all three

467
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: were really direct responses to what felt like a crisis.

468
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 1: In the moment. It felt like income inequality was out

469
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: of control with the industrialists and they weren't paying their

470
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: fair share. Tariffs were not the way to fund a government.

471
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: People realize this, The democracy felt like it wasn't really

472
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: responsive to the people. I think we now feel that

473
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: same that same thing. Now I've got my own theories

474
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: as to why that is. I think Congress is too

475
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: damn small. But we'll get to that in a minute.

476
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: And of course, with the feeling that hey, the Senate's

477
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: rigged and it's it was a bribery scandal, by the way,

478
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: in the great state of Illinois that helped accelerate the

479
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: cause of direct election for senators. Illinois, of course, has

480
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: its fair share of scandals political scandals over the century.

481
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 2: You say a bribery scandal involving an Illinois senator, I

482
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 2: have to ask which one you refer to.

483
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: I know, I know, you know, I knew my five

484
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: governors had served time. I was like, oh wow, so

485
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: they also were the cause of the direct election of

486
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:33,359
Speaker 1: senators too. Yeah, apparently votes went for thirty five grand

487
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: in today's dollars, was what a vote for a US

488
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: senator was in the state ledge back in nineteen oh nine.

489
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: But you know, a couple of weeks ago, there's a

490
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: there was a constitutional amendment that was introduced in Congress

491
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: to give Congress nullification powers on pardons if if enough

492
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 1: members decided it was yes. While it was actually I

493
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: think Johnny Olewinsky, Okay, he introduced it, and Bacon became

494
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: the first Republican to sign on to it. What's the appetite.

495
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: You sound like you're a reformer. You you'd like to

496
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: get involved in some of the updating of the American democracy,

497
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: reforming the institution. Maybe it's a constitutional amendment, some stuff

498
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: you can do just with an Act of Congress. What

499
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: are the reforms that you'd like to focus on for

500
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: the rest of this decade?

501
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 2: So Number one, I think you are spot on that

502
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 2: there are so many echoes both to the reconstruction era

503
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 2: and the twenties, and I think trying to not repeat

504
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,879
Speaker 2: the mistakes of reconstruction, but also to recognize, like we

505
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 2: I think we appropriately lionized Teddy Roosevelt because he was

506
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 2: someone who came in and said, I'm not going to

507
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 2: burn the institutions down, but I'm not going to praise

508
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 2: them as being perfect either. We have to make some

509
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 2: significant structural reforms to fix this. And it's you know,

510
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,919
Speaker 2: the whole trust busting era. I think that, arguably, you know,

511
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 2: is what set us up for such a booming century.

512
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 2: I think if you look at the reforms we've made

513
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 2: over time, everything we're really proud of in our history

514
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 2: has made democracy more inclusive, whether that was you know,

515
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 2: expanding the franchise to women, to minorities, to Native Americans,

516
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 2: direct election of senators. The most anti democratic institutions in

517
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 2: the United States are still the ones that hold us back.

518
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 2: The Senate, the Electoral College, and the structure of the

519
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. The Senate sort of has a self destruct

520
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 2: button that Article five of the Constitution says that you

521
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 2: can't You're not even allowed to amend the Constitution in

522
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 2: a way that would reduce the proportional power of the states.

523
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 2: Because I think our founders understood how deeply anti democratic

524
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 2: the Senate was and what the problem is, We've introduced

525
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 2: a bill to get around that in a sort of

526
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 2: a sideways way by saying, let's create twelve nationally elected

527
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 2: at large senators so that the Senate would actually have

528
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 2: a significant block of senators who had to be responsive

529
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 2: to national public will, as a way to fix that.

530
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court, I think, on any objective analysis, has

531
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 2: always been political and has always been lowercase C conservative.

532
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 2: I mean, with the exception of the War in Court,

533
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 2: they have always protected the power of incumbents over expansions

534
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 2: of democracy. And there's nothing particularly wrong with them being

535
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 2: political other than the fact that they tell themselves a

536
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 2: story that they are just gods on high who live

537
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 2: in a temple and dispense wisdom, and they're not political actors,

538
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 2: and yet we all know they are. And so we've

539
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 2: introduced some legislation that would basically take advantage of the

540
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: fact that Article three of the Constitution specifically says that

541
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 2: the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is limited to disputes

542
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 2: between the States admiralty law and the maritime law, matters

543
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 2: related to ambassadors and such a pellet jurisdiction, as the

544
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 2: Congress provides. So Congress has the ability if we choose

545
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 2: to strip all the pellet jurisdiction from the Supreme Court.

546
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 2: And so what we've done is introduced legislation that would

547
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 2: say the Senior Appellate Court would now be a separate

548
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 2: court and judges would be randomly assigned from the seventy

549
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 2: or eighty Senior Circuit Court judges, so that you couldn't

550
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 2: you couldn't choose your docket right, And that would go

551
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 2: through to set that case so that we would actually

552
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 2: have you wouldn't have a way to politicize the court

553
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 2: and do that. We can do that, you know, and

554
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 2: I for one, think that Clance Thomas and Samuel Lto

555
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 2: are really good at maritime law and admiralty law, and

556
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 2: they could continue to do that. Matters related to ambassadors, fine,

557
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 2: you can have your lifetime appointment. I think beyond that though,

558
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 2: on the Supreme Court, prior to nineteen twenty five, the

559
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: Supreme Court didn't get to set there on docket. Congress

560
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 2: gave them the power to set their dockete and grant

561
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 2: cert in the judges active nineteen twenty five. We could

562
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 2: take that away, right, and all of a sudden you

563
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 2: wouldn't have the situation where Thomas makes a footnote in

564
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 2: a dissent and somebody says, Okay, I see what you're saying.

565
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 2: If I bring this case, we can go in and

566
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 2: bring this down. We can take that away. We could

567
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 2: We have the power of the purse. Why don't we

568
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: always give the Supreme Court one hundred percent of the

569
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 2: appropriation they ask for. We could go back and say

570
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 2: we're going to give you less next year unless you

571
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 2: institute the following ethics reforms. Right, let's make people trust

572
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 2: the court. Then, all things that we could do within

573
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 2: our power, And I know there are a lot of conversations.

574
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm one of those who thinks incentives

575
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: you got to fix incentive structures, meaning you can have

576
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: a good person with bad incentives, they'll do bad things. Yeah, agree, right,

577
00:31:57,640 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: and a bad person with good incentives can end up

578
00:31:59,880 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: doing good things. You know what if it took seventy

579
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: five votes to confirm a Supreme Court justice, I promise

580
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: you would get people that were the least partisan people

581
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: you could find, no matter who the president was.

582
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 2: True, although I would remind you of that Hamilton's line

583
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 2: that supermajorities create the problems they're designed to solve.

584
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: I understand that he argues that, but he also argues

585
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: in Federal seventy eight that the goal should be to

586
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: find the least If the goal in finding a judge

587
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: is whatever it takes to get the least, you know,

588
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: sort of the most neutral person you can get. That

589
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: was the point of lifetime appointments. I mean, look, imagine

590
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: if we didn't have lifetime appointments, Donald Trump would have

591
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: fired Neil gorsicch this weekend. Yeah, okay, right, I think

592
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: that's what we do. Know that he probably does that,

593
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: and probably you would have fired Amy Cony Barrett after

594
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of times ago. So it is,

595
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: I take your point on supermajorities, but if you so,

596
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: I had a source of mine who worked in the

597
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: Bush Justice Bush Council office in the Bush w forty

598
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: three's and back then it took sixty votes essentially to

599
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: get a judge through, and he said, if it had

600
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: been fifty that they wouldn't have nominated any of the

601
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: people they nominated.

602
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, dad, what Kevin? I got what fifty one votes? Like? Right?

603
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: So the point is that we haven't had you would

604
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: You'll nominate a partisan, You'll nominate a partisan warrior. I

605
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: think the three Liberals are, you know, I mean, I

606
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: think Kagan's the least of the least partisan of the

607
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: three liberals, but I think all of them are more

608
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: partisan warriors than Stephen Bryer was or Ruth Bader Ginsburg was,

609
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: And you certainly see that with Alito in particular, I mean,

610
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: he certainly is a partisan warrior. I mean, although ironically

611
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: he came through during the sixty the sixty zone.

612
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: I mean, and I don't have a way legislator to

613
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 2: fix this because of Article five, but it's worth noting

614
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 2: that for every state in every country that's copied the

615
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,280
Speaker 2: US form of democracy. None of them copied the structure

616
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 2: of the Senate, you know, the over representation.

617
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,399
Speaker 1: The way we don't would we export a democracy. We

618
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: also recommend multi member districts.

619
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's funny so many This was probably three

620
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 2: or four years ago. We run a bipartisan, bicameral trip

621
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 2: to Iceland. Iceland has had they have the longest continuously

622
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 2: active parliamentary form of government. They first met in like

623
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 2: the year nine hundred. There's all this fascinating history and

624
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 2: so we're meeting with them and they're showing us their

625
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 2: chambers and they described how sometime in the last century

626
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 2: they essentially adopted the US form of government. And they

627
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,919
Speaker 2: went through and he said, after twenty years we got

628
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 2: rid of what you would call the Senate because it

629
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 2: just come things up. And there sitting there and Tom Carper,

630
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 2: it's this big frown in his face and all of

631
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 2: US House members start churning. But there's sort of an

632
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:09,760
Speaker 2: acknowledgment that that structure and I say this on the judges,

633
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 2: because the Senate always is going to skew you know,

634
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 2: conservative and again in the lowercase see sense because it

635
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 2: always overly represents rural areas, people closer to the land.

636
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 2: You know, we're sort of you know, you know, traditional,

637
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 2: all that sort of stuff, And maybe that made sense

638
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty nine, but it means that, you know,

639
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 2: the the swing vote in the Senate is always very

640
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 2: far to the right of the Median American voter.

641
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: Look, the national Senators are because I have a founding

642
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 1: founding father historian, and she's she runs the George Washington

643
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: Library right now at Mount Vernet, and her fix for

644
00:35:55,320 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: the Senate is to essentially carve out you know, you

645
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: basically you take the top six, get five senators. The

646
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,399
Speaker 1: top six most popular state gets five senators, The next

647
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: say six, get four senators, the next five or six

648
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:18,439
Speaker 1: get three, and then everybody else gets two. I don't

649
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: know if that passes Article five muster only it.

650
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 2: Does because it says that you can't you can't amend

651
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 2: the Constitution in any way that would change the proportional

652
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 2: representation in the Senate.

653
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: But it's a but it in some ways, what you're

654
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: describing a twelve national Senators is potentially one thing. Let

655
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 1: me get something that I'm obsessed with because I think

656
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: it solves a couple of problems without touching the Constitution,

657
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: and that is and that is uncapping the House.

658
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 2: I've got to abile to do that too.

659
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,800
Speaker 1: It is we are you know, when we shut it

660
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 1: down to nineteen thirty, when they when they locked in

661
00:36:57,920 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: in at four thirty five, we were at about one

662
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: percon three hundred and fifty thousand each district. We're now

663
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: one per eight hundred and as I like to remind people,

664
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand is the population of the fifteenth largest

665
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:12,320
Speaker 1: city in America. I don't think the Founders meant for

666
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty five congressional districts to be all

667
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: the size population wise of one of the fifteen largest

668
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: cities in America. So if you go back to what

669
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: it was in nineteen thirty, because we were doing it

670
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: every decade, expanding the House with the size of the population,

671
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: I think you might need a constitutional amendment to put

672
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 1: a put a numerator in there and say that no

673
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: congressional district can be bigger than point oh three percent

674
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 1: of the right Now, that would make it point oh

675
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: three percent of the population. If we went to one,

676
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: say three point fifty one per four hundred. Right around there,

677
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: we'd have about eight hundred and fifty eight hundred and

678
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: seventy members of Congress. But what it really does is

679
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: that it allows the electoral college to level, basically become

680
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: a level playing field. Wyoming goes from being six six

681
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: times more more an advantage of a presidential vote over

682
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: a Californian. They still have an advantage, but it's two

683
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: and a half. So it's it's what I would argue,

684
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: it keeps in what the founders always wanted, which is

685
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: at the small stage, should get a little more influenced,

686
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: but not a lot more influence. Right, two and a

687
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: half to one feels better than six to one, And

688
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: I think it would make jerrymandering just less necessary. You're

689
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: going to have it in some places, but it's it's

690
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: less and somebody's harder to do, and you probably lower

691
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:41,879
Speaker 1: you probably diversify Congress just by sheer numbers in ways,

692
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: and you'll get different walks of life and and it

693
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: will be the people's house again. But try telling, try

694
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 1: making the case that the problem in Washington is not

695
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: enough politicians.

696
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's number one. It's worth reminding people that

697
00:38:57,400 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 2: for all the people who work in Washington only five

698
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,399
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty seven and won an election. If you're

699
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 2: concerned about size of government, the elected folks are not

700
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 2: the problem. So we've got we've got legislation to do that.

701
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 2: We we The way we did ours is say we

702
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 2: will on every going forward census, you expand the members

703
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 2: of the You expand the number of members in the House,

704
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 2: rather than expanding the number of people we represent it.

705
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 2: And you lack a district at five hundred thousand. We

706
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 2: picked five hundred thousand for sort of arbitrary reasons. But

707
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 2: there's been a number of political scientists who look at

708
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 2: this cube root law that if you look at all

709
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 2: the parliamentary democracies of the world, you put population on

710
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,240
Speaker 2: one the access how many members, It kind of follows

711
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 2: a cube route, and it's about five hundred. So at

712
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: least just say, well, we know this works because other

713
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 2: governments kind of run on this form.

714
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you my math. When I went to

715
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: I went to the fiftieth largest city in America, which

716
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: happens to be Arlington, Texas. They have a population of

717
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand. Fair enough, I thought, you know what,

718
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: that's pretty that they are one community of interest, right,

719
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 1: A suburban you know, small city from Dallas is a

720
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: community of interest, and I thought so it felt fair.

721
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: But I take your point at five hundred. I mean,

722
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: I think at this point four to five hundred isn't.

723
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 2: A huge Yeah. The distinction there's there are people smarter

724
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 2: than me who have argued that you increase the odds

725
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 2: that the chance for gerrymandering shenanigans if you expand, and

726
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,800
Speaker 2: I can't argue either side of that. I think broadly speaking,

727
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 2: you are going to get more districts where there are

728
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 2: more people, which means that I think you counter some

729
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 2: of the reason why the electoral college stuff works out

730
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 2: is that essentially large rural areas are overrepresented, urban areas

731
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 2: are underrepresented.

732
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: Since the people are in the right that levels that out, you're.

733
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 2: Going to skew more votes that way. We added a

734
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 2: provision that said if any state has more than two

735
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 2: districts allocated, they can at their at their choice, go

736
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: to multi member districts with choice voting, because there's there's

737
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 2: some really interesting analysis that if you have a multi

738
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 2: member district, it's really hard to jerrymander so that the

739
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 2: top two are of the same race and same party

740
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 2: all the time. You can do that for the top one,

741
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 2: but it's hard to do it for the top two.

742
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 2: And so if you get a situation where you know

743
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 2: me and whoever comes in second are representing the same communities,

744
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 2: you should, in theory get rid of some of the

745
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 2: polarization in Washington. But put it that way, and we're

746
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 2: with other ideas, but that's the way that we've structured it.

747
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,600
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802
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Speaker 1: the few members that engages in this conversation. There aren't

803
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Speaker 1: many members that are thinking about this. You know, is

804
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: it a caucus of twenty thirty. Who's the group that

805
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Speaker 1: you're working with that are animated on this.

806
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:58,879
Speaker 2: So I would say there have always been a number

807
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 2: of members. Don Bayer from Virginia is very thoughtful on this.

808
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 2: Earl blooming Hour was great, still is, but not a

809
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Speaker 2: member of Congress anymore. Jamie Raskin's very thoughtful. I think

810
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 2: the challenge that all of us get in, you know,

811
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 2: we're elected every two years. We got to stay focused

812
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Speaker 2: on things that the public cares about. And I think

813
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 2: the number of members who think about this stuff and

814
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 2: care about it is much higher than the number of

815
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 2: members who are willing to say, I'm going to prioritize

816
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 2: this over all the things that voters are telling me

817
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 2: to prioritize at any given time. And so I did

818
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,280
Speaker 2: a thing about this with some various other podcasters recently,

819
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 2: and when everybody said, what's the most important thing we

820
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 2: can do to drive this forward is just make noise

821
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 2: about it. You know, the more that voters care, the

822
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 2: more that those of us in elected office have to

823
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 2: do something about it now.

824
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 1: So I've made it a huge part of any time

825
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 1: I do a speaking gig. I talk about this all

826
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 1: the time, like, there are things that we can do

827
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:53,800
Speaker 1: and you don't even have to pass constitutional amendment. And this,

828
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: this to me, is one of the biggest small de

829
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: democracy reforms you can make without a constitutional amendment, because

830
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: then there's a bunch of there's a bunch of after

831
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 1: on effects that are that are interesting.

832
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 2: And I would also say that whether it's you know,

833
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand or four hundred thousand, the barriers are

834
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 2: more construction, Like we're probably need another office. We could

835
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 2: do that. There's space on the mall.

836
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 1: You know what I'd love to do. You know what

837
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that we flip the script and

838
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: a majority of all staff is in the district and

839
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: only a small handful of staff is in Washington. I

840
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,439
Speaker 1: could argue that you could you could do that. I'd

841
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 1: also allow for remote voting. I think that with eight

842
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty members of Congress, maybe that is something.

843
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing. You know, if you make it

844
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: just a little bit harder for the lobbyist to find

845
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: the member of Congress, maybe that's not so bad.

846
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I want to sound like an old

847
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,279
Speaker 2: fuddy duddy who I know you're going to last see. Well,

848
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 2: I was you know, the last time I was a

849
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,760
Speaker 2: CEO was before COVID. I I'm still a firm believer

850
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 2: in the water cooler.

851
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that isn't look I'd love to see that.

852
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: I'd love to see all of the members of Congress

853
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,759
Speaker 1: move here with their families. I think that, you know,

854
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 1: if you want to. There's I teach a class called

855
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: How Washington Works to college students, and I was doing

856
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: a whole thing on Congress last week and I said,

857
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:25,240
Speaker 1: we've had these various moments where it just got worse

858
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: for a specific reason, and this current era it began basically,

859
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: it began with the rise of Gingridge and the rise

860
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: of Gingrich happened because of partisan of a partisan decision

861
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:43,240
Speaker 1: by Democrats back in eighty six in an Indiana congressional district.

862
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: It's known as the Bloody eighth. It's a it's got

863
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: sort of this this there's a sort of mythical status

864
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: to it. But it gave rise to Newt, and then

865
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 1: Newt when he became the leader, basically got rid of

866
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: He didn't want any more. He wanted all his members

867
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: to be in the you know, he stop people working

868
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 1: Mondays and Fridays, and everything became about, you know, only

869
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: be in Washington Tuesday through Thursday and be in the

870
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: district and that prioritize not bring in your family. And

871
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: then you know, that had all sorts of and frankly

872
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: both parties now have accepted that schedule. And so yeah,

873
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: I'd love to see you guys two months here, one

874
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: month not here, two months here, you know, something like that.

875
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 2: But I'm curious, Chuck, if you think through that. I've

876
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 2: only served obviously in the post Gingridge era, there are

877
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 2: members who stay in DC through the weekends and there

878
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 2: are those of us who go home. Broadly speaking, you

879
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 2: don't stay in DC over the weekend if you're not

880
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 2: in a really safe seat. And so I would I

881
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 2: would worry a little bit about that because since so

882
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 2: much of this job as relationships. Wouldn't that concentrate power

883
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 2: in sort of the senior safest seat members who could

884
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 2: stick around you got to go back to your district

885
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 2: if you don't know whether you're going to win your

886
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 2: next election, well it could.

887
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 1: But if you're changing the way Congress works, right and

888
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: it's sort of everybody has to work two months on

889
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,879
Speaker 1: right and it's sort of, then that's that's evening out

890
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: a little bit. Look, I think the fact that you

891
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: know you could. The other idea that sits out there

892
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: is if you're going to do term limits for House members.

893
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 1: And I'm not a huge fan of term limits. I

894
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: don't think they've worked in the state legislative level. I

895
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 1: think they've only made lobbyists more powerful. They've made governors

896
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: more powerful, they've made state legislatures less powerful, just generally.

897
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I could doing a broad stroke. But the

898
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: best idea I've heard if you do institute term limits,

899
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: which would need a constitutional amendment, is to make the

900
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 1: House four year terms. And if you had the House

901
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: at four year terms, would you at least maybe for

902
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: the first you know, and and by the way, if

903
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 1: you end up doubling the size of the House, you

904
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 1: might actually want to have half the house up two years,

905
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: the other half up the other two years, and go

906
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: with four years. There might be some logistical reasons to

907
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: do that. But if you did four year terms, would

908
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 1: it would it encourage what it discourage? Because right now

909
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: you're running for reelection. The day you get sworn in

910
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: on January third, you're dialing for dollars.

911
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 2: And I again, I'm gonna sound boy scouty, but I

912
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:30,800
Speaker 2: had this conversation with Timmy Duckworth at one point, you

913
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 2: know who, of course was in the house before, and

914
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 2: she made the observation that the one thing she missed

915
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 2: about the house, like she didn't miss not having to

916
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 2: run every two years, right what she missed was that

917
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: in the house you you have to be right on

918
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 2: the pulse of where Americans are all the time. And

919
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 2: in a six year term, you know, you can the

920
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 2: first couple of years just working on things like dictated

921
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 2: by your own wisdom. And there's a value in that

922
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 2: in the Senate. But you do that, there's you know,

923
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:00,400
Speaker 2: none of us like dialing for dollars. Some of us

924
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:02,399
Speaker 2: like kissing babies for weird reasons.

925
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 1: And that in the Epstein files, be careful sorry, thinking.

926
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:10,320
Speaker 2: Much, yeah, week but but there is a value in

927
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 2: being out there and saying, Okay, where's the pulse of

928
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 2: the country right now? And I have to respond to

929
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 2: because I'm going to be on the ballot again shortly.

930
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 2: I think our founder has got that right, even though

931
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 2: the consequences of that have for a little goofy.

932
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:28,280
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Democratic Party brand.

933
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 1: There's a poll over the weekend that if you just

934
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 1: looked at Trump's numbers, you'd be like, oh, this has

935
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:39,760
Speaker 1: got to be good news for Democrats, right, He's sixty

936
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:43,359
Speaker 1: percent disapproved upside down in every issue. But then, when

937
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: given the choice of you have the main problems, who

938
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 1: do you trust? Democrats are Trump? They were both in

939
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 1: the low thirties, and neither was also in the thirties.

940
00:51:55,680 --> 00:52:00,120
Speaker 1: The Democratic brand has really taken a beating. Do you

941
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: think the four years of Biden we're a successful four

942
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:09,320
Speaker 1: years and it's just been bad messaging or is this

943
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: a is this a much bigger problem than Democrats want

944
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 1: to face.

945
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:17,799
Speaker 2: So I never quite know what to make of those

946
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:24,240
Speaker 2: studies because are those polls because named members always perform

947
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 2: well ahead of what the party idea is, like you know,

948
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 2: Congress broadly is unfavorable. The Democratic Party is broadly unfavorable,

949
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 2: the Republican Party is broadly unfavorable. Sean Caston is popular,

950
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 2: right at least in our district. You know, you know,

951
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:45,840
Speaker 2: go on down the list and I think the I

952
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 2: think depending on the question we're asking. You know, we

953
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 2: for all sorts of reasons that you were well aware of,

954
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 2: we have political parties. If you ask people what are

955
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:57,319
Speaker 2: the things that you want government to do and where

956
00:52:57,360 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 2: your values are those those things are very popular across

957
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 2: broad bipartisan swaths of the economy. We want we want

958
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 2: to get shot when we go to school. We think

959
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 2: all people should have equal rights. We you know, we

960
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 2: want a peaceful transfer of elections. You know, those things

961
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 2: tend to skew democratic in this moment. The brand isn't

962
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 2: so good. But it's sort of like saying, do you

963
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,959
Speaker 2: like do you like Jerry flavored kolas? That's one question.

964
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 2: What is the brand status of mister pibb. That's a

965
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 2: different question, right even though even though they're synonyms, so

966
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 2: so all that really says to me is, okay, maybe

967
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 2: don't hang your don't hang your party after your idea

968
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 2: and get votes. But that doesn't necessarily mean whether or

969
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 2: not Democrats or Republicans are going to win the next election.

970
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:45,439
Speaker 2: I think ultimately that's a race by race.

971
00:53:46,719 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 1: No, I I guess what I'm I mean. Do you

972
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 1: think the the party has a leadership problem or a

973
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: brand problem or is it just you know, a better

974
00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at look, I think a better

975
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: leader if Biden, And I don't know if maybe if

976
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 1: he had fifteen years younger, he could have done the

977
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: job better, could have traveled the country more or whatever.

978
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 1: But I look, I look at the Biden term and

979
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: I think a better leader keeps the country from looking

980
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,479
Speaker 1: to Trump again. Like I think that a better leader

981
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 1: turns figures out how to help the country turn the page,

982
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: and he couldn't do it. Is that all on him?

983
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 1: Was it circumstances? Was it starting the presidency with an

984
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 1: impeachment trial and create an impossible situation? Maybe I'm not like,

985
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: but you know, I do think that the Democrats are

986
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 1: being punished by some voters for somehow not putting Trump away.

987
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 1: And I don't know what that means in their head, right,

988
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean putting him in jail, just means, you know,

989
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: how is it that we did not how did we

990
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: end up with him still here?

991
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I think, look, everybody knows who the voice

992
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,759
Speaker 2: of the Republican Party is. Nobody knows who the voice

993
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party is right now. And that's not

994
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:09,240
Speaker 2: a criticism of the Democratic Party. That's just the reality

995
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 2: of when you're out of power in all three chambers ways,

996
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:14,760
Speaker 2: nobody is. Nobody's going to look to the Senate Majority

997
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 2: leader or Senate Minority leader to be the voice of

998
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:18,760
Speaker 2: the party you know, or that you know, etcetera, etcetera.

999
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 2: I think at the same time, Biden's great strength and

1000
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:26,840
Speaker 2: his great weakness was that he was a senator. Trump's

1001
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 2: great strength in his.

1002
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:29,360
Speaker 1: Way, by the way, you really don't like the Senate.

1003
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm not saying true. But that's not

1004
00:55:31,680 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 2: why I'm making a point. Trump's great strength and his

1005
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 2: great weakness is that he's always been a CEO, right.

1006
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 2: And I think, and I say that that because Biden

1007
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 2: was an extremely effective president in terms of the infrastructure

1008
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 2: bills that we passed, the climate bills, we passed, the

1009
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:51,920
Speaker 2: recovery from COVID, the way the economy turns around. He

1010
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 2: got that done because he had a masterful understanding of

1011
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 2: how to get things through the Senate. And I think

1012
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 2: that reads the American people as being way down in

1013
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 2: process that I don't care about. Why are we Why

1014
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 2: am I having to talk about what we did to

1015
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 2: make a compromise with Joe Manchin in order to get

1016
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,879
Speaker 2: this thing through. Compare that to Trump, who says, look,

1017
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 2: this is what we're going to do. I don't care

1018
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 2: what happens. I don't care what my favorability is. This

1019
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 2: is where it's going. And I think there's a I

1020
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 2: think there's a forceful executive that we need in the

1021
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,359
Speaker 2: White House that you just don't get there if all

1022
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:26,959
Speaker 2: of your formative years are crafted in a legislative body

1023
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 2: with an ousesource in it. We haven't had a leader

1024
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:37,640
Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party with executive experience. It's Bill Clinton, right,

1025
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:43,759
Speaker 2: and the Republicans consistently nominate people with executive experience. And

1026
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,480
Speaker 2: you know, when you look back, go back to your

1027
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 2: period in the twenties, you know Roosevelt Teddy. Roosevelt walks

1028
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:56,800
Speaker 2: into a room, you are not under any confusion of

1029
00:56:56,840 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 2: who the top dog in this room is. Donald Trump

1030
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 2: walks into a room, You're inder no confusion about who

1031
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 2: the top dog is. Biden walks into a room. He's

1032
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 2: a nice guy, right and and like morally I like him.

1033
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 2: I think he was extremely effective for what he did.

1034
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 2: But I think we need to you know, as we

1035
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 2: get to our nomination process, we need we need to

1036
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 2: get people who, you know, make it very clear that

1037
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 2: this is where the buck stops.

1038
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: You want an alpha dog, whatever that means in the moment.

1039
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:31,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, look like, Look, we're at a moment that demands

1040
00:57:31,480 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 2: you know, I want a Churchill. I want somebody who

1041
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 2: says I have nothing to promise you but blood, sweat

1042
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 2: and tears. I can't guarantee will win, but I can

1043
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 2: guarantee we'll lose if we don't fight. So once more

1044
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 2: to the Battlement's my dear friend. Like, that's that's what

1045
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 2: we need in this moment, right. I don't particularly want

1046
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,800
Speaker 2: someone who's going to talk about the reconciliation process.

1047
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: What have you seen out there that you like?

1048
00:57:56,600 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 2: I mean for the people who are running or look,

1049
00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 2: I'm gonna My prediction is that whoever we nominate is

1050
00:58:06,120 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 2: not going to be someone who has no executive experience.

1051
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:11,560
Speaker 2: Does that mean a governor? Does that mean someone who

1052
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 2: haven't named yet. I think it's a I don't think

1053
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:15,640
Speaker 2: the leading candidate at this point in the cycle has

1054
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:16,440
Speaker 2: ever emerged.

1055
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 1: I mean, Scout Walkers, that is one hundred percent true.

1056
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 2: Didn't become president, right.

1057
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:23,240
Speaker 1: I remind people of this all the time. Well, just

1058
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 1: the three Democratic presidents of my lifetime. I guess Biden

1059
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 1: is the outlier because he was kind of always pulled

1060
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: well early on, and I've look I've always viewed his

1061
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,840
Speaker 1: nomination as sort of a COVID accident. I don't think

1062
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: he earned it. I just think it the band, you know,

1063
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 1: the music stopped and everybody agreed to just give it

1064
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: to him. But if you look at the other three Obama, Clinton,

1065
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:49,480
Speaker 1: and Carter at this point in time and all of

1066
00:58:49,560 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: those presidential cycles that they ended up president, they were

1067
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:55,440
Speaker 1: not the front runner at this point, and they were

1068
00:58:55,480 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 1: not even being they were they were barely registering as can.

1069
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 1: It's in the in Carter and Clinton, and you know,

1070
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 1: Obama was seen as somebody that was going to be

1071
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: four years down the road. You know, he wasn't necessarily

1072
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 1: right away. So I tend to agree with that. Do

1073
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 1: you think this is a party that would nominate somebody

1074
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 1: with a CEO background, and I'm not you know, it's

1075
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 1: unusual for the Democrats to do something like that, like

1076
00:59:22,160 --> 00:59:23,280
Speaker 1: a Mark Cuban.

1077
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 2: Or or you know, you know, or a governor. I mean,

1078
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:30,240
Speaker 2: I think we we lionized the business sector a little

1079
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:34,840
Speaker 2: bit too much. Government's a fundamentally different job. I think

1080
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:37,080
Speaker 2: it's important to have somebody who's led a large organization,

1081
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 2: you know, who has been who has been the decider

1082
00:59:39,720 --> 00:59:42,440
Speaker 2: in that George Bush ism. You know, you could get

1083
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 2: that in the private sector. You can get that in

1084
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:47,920
Speaker 2: a governor's mansion. You know, you could get that, you know,

1085
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 2: you know, major cabinet secretary, you know it kind of

1086
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:53,040
Speaker 2: but I think I think it needs to be someone

1087
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 2: with those kind of backgrounds. I also think, you know,

1088
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:04,400
Speaker 2: I think you want somebody who's who's who's authentic. I think,

1089
01:00:04,800 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 2: without naming names, there are some people who are in

1090
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 2: the mix right now who are very different people when

1091
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 2: the curtain is down, then when the curtain comes up

1092
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 2: and it becomes very clear as they go through, you know,

1093
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:16,960
Speaker 2: and I think there are some people who are just

1094
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 2: sort of consistent in who they are at all at

1095
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 2: all moments. And I think that's again, like for all

1096
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:27,160
Speaker 2: of Trump's faults. People appreciate that that he is who

1097
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 2: he is all the time.

1098
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 1: Right, Well, it's interesting, let me and you may have

1099
01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:34,680
Speaker 1: already kind of answered this question with your Churchill response

1100
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: with your Churchill remark that you're really looking for Churchill,

1101
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: which because one of the things that I like to

1102
01:00:42,200 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 1: I look at the divide inside the party right now

1103
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 1: is less left versus center, and that exists. I think

1104
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:53,080
Speaker 1: that's more of a tactical debate. What I the real

1105
01:00:53,160 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 1: divide I'm sensing and I think the Texas primary really

1106
01:00:56,720 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 1: sort of shows this one pretty well is U And

1107
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:05,600
Speaker 1: even in the presidential I could I could compare Gavin

1108
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,960
Speaker 1: to rom which is, do you want a fighter or

1109
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 1: do you want a uniter? Are you looking? Are we

1110
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 1: looking for? Is the next president need to be somebody

1111
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:19,080
Speaker 1: who's going to take the fight and one you know

1112
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:21,920
Speaker 1: you're to or is the next president going to be

1113
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:27,040
Speaker 1: tough but try to bring the country together? And I

1114
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 1: think it's a fun of Mike. I think there are

1115
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: some Democrats who say, hey, we tried the united stuff

1116
01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: with Biden. It didn't work. It's time to It's time to,

1117
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: you know, get somebody who's not afraid to throw a

1118
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: punch somebody more like Bill Clinton. I mean, you could argue,

1119
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 1: do you want Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? Right? You

1120
01:01:44,080 --> 01:01:47,040
Speaker 1: know that? And those are distinctively they were two different

1121
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 1: types of presidents. Where do you fall?

1122
01:01:53,240 --> 01:01:56,080
Speaker 2: So I had this conversation with Pelosi after January sixth

1123
01:01:56,120 --> 01:02:00,320
Speaker 2: that I said, this moment calls on us to figure

1124
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 2: out how to be better politicians than Abraham Lincoln. Because

1125
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 2: in Abraham lincoln second inaugural when he said, it may

1126
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 2: seem strange to you know, for any just God to

1127
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:10,720
Speaker 2: bless a man for earning his spread from the sweat

1128
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:12,400
Speaker 2: of another man's face. But let us not judge less

1129
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:15,280
Speaker 2: we we judged ourselves. And the butt was Lincoln saying,

1130
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know how to unite the country

1131
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 2: and be morally clear about what just happened. And I

1132
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 2: think that tension has always been in our politics, doesn't

1133
01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:29,280
Speaker 2: you know? To be a uniter is to is to

1134
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 2: forgive some sins. To not forgive the sins is to

1135
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 2: not be a uniter. I see the divide as being

1136
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:39,360
Speaker 2: a little bit different than you going into this cycle

1137
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 2: that I think the particularly with the wealth inequality and

1138
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,960
Speaker 2: with the huge disruptions and unemployment. My daughter's a freshman

1139
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:51,080
Speaker 2: in college right now. When we were looking at colleges,

1140
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 2: one of her comments was that every college she looks

1141
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:59,680
Speaker 2: at is sixty sixty five percent female. The you know, you,

1142
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 2: you've got a whole lot of young men who who's

1143
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:07,840
Speaker 2: who's forward forward expectations is different than what they thought

1144
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:10,000
Speaker 2: it was going to be. And AI is making that

1145
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:13,280
Speaker 2: worse because the jobs that are being displaced are jobs

1146
01:03:13,320 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 2: that historically skewed very male people who analyze large sets

1147
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:19,120
Speaker 2: of data, identified trends, and prepared memos for their bosses,

1148
01:03:19,200 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 2: right whether that was a bank or a law firm

1149
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:23,680
Speaker 2: or an engineering firm. There's a lot of uncertainty there.

1150
01:03:23,680 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 2: And I think the I think the person who gets

1151
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 2: really energized at Bernie Sanders rally is not that much

1152
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 2: different than the person who gets really energized at a

1153
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:36,880
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk rally. The institutions are terrible, and I want

1154
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:39,360
Speaker 2: to I'm going to support them and burns them down. Yeah,

1155
01:03:39,920 --> 01:03:44,440
Speaker 2: And I think the I think there's sort of a

1156
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:50,280
Speaker 2: nihilism at the fringes that's really dangerous. If you if

1157
01:03:50,280 --> 01:03:53,080
Speaker 2: you come forward as a politician and say trust me,

1158
01:03:53,160 --> 01:03:56,080
Speaker 2: the institutions are going to be fine. You're not very credible.

1159
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:01,040
Speaker 2: I think there are very few politics I've seen, but

1160
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 2: I think this is what we wanted. I keep going

1161
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:05,280
Speaker 2: back to Teddy Roosevelt, who says, I love the institutions

1162
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 2: and they are desperately in need of repair, and this

1163
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:11,520
Speaker 2: is what we're going to do, right, And that I

1164
01:04:11,600 --> 01:04:15,040
Speaker 2: think is the more interesting divide right now. Not uniers

1165
01:04:15,080 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 2: have dividers. But who's the person out there who can say,

1166
01:04:17,120 --> 01:04:19,760
Speaker 2: I can I understand your pain. I understand that the

1167
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 2: system did not work for you in the way that

1168
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 2: you thought it was going to go for it, But

1169
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:26,040
Speaker 2: we're not going to burn it down. We're going to

1170
01:04:26,080 --> 01:04:28,760
Speaker 2: work together and make it better and make it more inclusive, right,

1171
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:36,240
Speaker 2: you know. I keep going back to the twenties. Was

1172
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:38,800
Speaker 2: that there was that Louis Brandeis line when he said,

1173
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:40,600
Speaker 2: when you have great concentrations of wealth, you only have

1174
01:04:40,640 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 2: three choices. You can let the wealth take over the government,

1175
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:45,480
Speaker 2: which is to embrace fascism. You can have the government

1176
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:47,480
Speaker 2: take over the wealth and embrace communism, or you can

1177
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 2: break up the wealth and embrace capitalism. Right there, you go,

1178
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:54,680
Speaker 2: That's that's kind of where we are right, but that.

1179
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:57,000
Speaker 1: Well you're you're you're not wrong, I mean, I am.

1180
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: You know, if if if Trump supporters decide to prioritize

1181
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: their economic concerns over their cultural concerns, there is a

1182
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:15,960
Speaker 1: majority that will burn this place down. I have often

1183
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 1: I you know, I it's sort of like there's a

1184
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:22,560
Speaker 1: you know, the the you know, Steve Bannon and Bernie

1185
01:05:22,600 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: Sanders talk very similarly at times, they have a lot

1186
01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:30,600
Speaker 1: more in common they Burnie would hate. Neither one of

1187
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:33,720
Speaker 1: them would accept that premise, though they may agree in

1188
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:36,000
Speaker 1: a couple of acknowledge that they agree on some of

1189
01:05:36,040 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 1: this stuff. But the distrust of big corporations in particular,

1190
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:46,000
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and I think that moment is coming.

1191
01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:48,760
Speaker 1: And I think the question is is the person who

1192
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: puts that coalition together a responsible actor or an irresponsible actor?

1193
01:05:53,720 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 1: FDR was did that FDR put that coalition together? And

1194
01:05:57,720 --> 01:05:58,880
Speaker 1: he was a responsible actor.

1195
01:05:59,680 --> 01:06:04,320
Speaker 2: I find myself thinking that there's almost an exact parallel,

1196
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 2: but exactly inverted to the Reconstruction era. Time it was,

1197
01:06:08,440 --> 01:06:10,440
Speaker 2: you know, the Democrats were the party of essentially the

1198
01:06:10,520 --> 01:06:14,880
Speaker 2: oligarchs and the white working class. The Republicans were everybody else.

1199
01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:17,760
Speaker 2: And if you're the oligarchs in the white working class,

1200
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 2: you have plenty of room for the klan. Right. But

1201
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:25,840
Speaker 2: in that era, the Republicans who said we need to

1202
01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:29,440
Speaker 2: hold people account for their sins, they were the radical Republicans, right,

1203
01:06:30,440 --> 01:06:33,440
Speaker 2: and they had that same sort of like they were

1204
01:06:33,480 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 2: defined not by who they were, but who they weren't.

1205
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 2: And I feel like we're flopped on that right now

1206
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 2: and strung a lot of the same issues. And I

1207
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:44,120
Speaker 2: don't know what lessons we learned from that era, because

1208
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 2: ultimately the radical Republicans didn't. You know, we got three

1209
01:06:49,280 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 2: solid amendments out of it, and one hundred years later

1210
01:06:52,800 --> 01:06:54,440
Speaker 2: we actually started enforcing those amendments.

1211
01:06:55,600 --> 01:07:01,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and that's the I guess that's why I'm

1212
01:07:01,480 --> 01:07:04,200
Speaker 1: long term optimistic. I know we're going to make these changes.

1213
01:07:05,280 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 1: I just wondered, do we have to have do we

1214
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: have to run into more roadblocks? Do we have to

1215
01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 1: have more people die? I go back to this. You

1216
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:15,440
Speaker 1: know we didn't you know, we had to see you know,

1217
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:19,479
Speaker 1: child labor laws didn't pass overnight. We had to see

1218
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:25,200
Speaker 1: kids getting you know, abused and die from from these

1219
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:28,600
Speaker 1: terrible workplaces before we made the changes. That were necessary

1220
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,440
Speaker 1: because we were letting the industrialists were running a monk, right,

1221
01:07:31,600 --> 01:07:34,360
Speaker 1: AIS kind of may end up running a mock. So

1222
01:07:35,160 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 1: we'll get there. It just how much damage has to

1223
01:07:39,040 --> 01:07:43,840
Speaker 1: be done before we before we collectively decide to act, right. Yeah, yeah,

1224
01:07:44,400 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 1: to quote Churchill, right, you can trust the Americans to

1225
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:50,720
Speaker 1: eventually do the right thing after they've exhausted every other

1226
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: what is it, every other path of that doesn't work.

1227
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:56,560
Speaker 2: So I don't I don't want to throw this member

1228
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:58,840
Speaker 2: under the bus. But at one point we were voting

1229
01:07:58,880 --> 01:08:02,080
Speaker 2: on one of these gotcha votes and he came up

1230
01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 2: to me on the floor. I said, he, you're voted

1231
01:08:03,160 --> 01:08:05,040
Speaker 2: on this one. And I said, well, you know, Churchill said,

1232
01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: you can always count on Americans do the right thing

1233
01:08:06,720 --> 01:08:09,160
Speaker 2: after they have exhausted all the other options. So if

1234
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 2: you just always do the right thing, history will view

1235
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:14,600
Speaker 2: you as being very precient. And I voted one way

1236
01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:16,080
Speaker 2: and he sticks his card in the machine boats the

1237
01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:17,360
Speaker 2: other wind and says, yeah, I can't do that.

1238
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:24,360
Speaker 1: Well, maybe his districts just slightly more purple than yours.

1239
01:08:27,320 --> 01:08:29,840
Speaker 2: It isn't, but that's another story.

1240
01:08:30,600 --> 01:08:33,840
Speaker 1: Well, look, I didn't know where our conversation was going

1241
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,000
Speaker 1: to go. We went deep in the reform rabbit hole,

1242
01:08:36,040 --> 01:08:39,360
Speaker 1: which I I I will jump right in when that

1243
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:44,719
Speaker 1: will take place. We look you, you are the type

1244
01:08:44,720 --> 01:08:46,559
Speaker 1: of member of Congress, and I'm glad to know is there.

1245
01:08:46,720 --> 01:08:49,320
Speaker 1: You're thinking about these things. You're thinking about the institution.

1246
01:08:49,520 --> 01:08:51,640
Speaker 1: You're thinking about what what are you gonna what's the

1247
01:08:51,680 --> 01:08:56,040
Speaker 1: institution going to look like when you leave? I hope

1248
01:08:56,080 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: there are more members like you.

1249
01:08:58,479 --> 01:09:01,479
Speaker 2: No, we'll look there. Congress is better than you think.

1250
01:09:02,280 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: There are a lot line Look and I used to

1251
01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:06,439
Speaker 1: tell people this too. I'd say, you know, ninety percent

1252
01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: of the stuff that that Congress does, they you know

1253
01:09:11,240 --> 01:09:14,960
Speaker 1: they do without much debate because we agree on ninety percent.

1254
01:09:15,240 --> 01:09:17,799
Speaker 1: Ten percent we disagree on, we disagree on vehemently.

1255
01:09:18,200 --> 01:09:19,360
Speaker 2: One of the things I like to point out to

1256
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:22,280
Speaker 2: people is if you think through all the members of Congress,

1257
01:09:23,120 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 2: come up with a list of the members that you

1258
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:27,360
Speaker 2: think are bona fide knuckleheads, and just come up with

1259
01:09:27,439 --> 01:09:30,200
Speaker 2: your list and count them, divide that by five thirty five.

1260
01:09:30,520 --> 01:09:34,360
Speaker 2: That's the congressional knucklehead ratio. Then then go to your

1261
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 2: own office. Your own office probably has the same knucklehead ratio.

1262
01:09:37,400 --> 01:09:39,800
Speaker 2: We are a representative body, and you know, and it's

1263
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:42,800
Speaker 2: and you know, is it is it ten to fifteen percent? Maybe,

1264
01:09:42,880 --> 01:09:44,240
Speaker 2: but it's it's not ninety percent.

1265
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:46,280
Speaker 1: Is there a let me ask you this for I

1266
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:49,040
Speaker 1: let you go, Is there a reform caucus that has

1267
01:09:49,120 --> 01:09:53,640
Speaker 1: developed that people where this stuff's being incubated, whether it's oh,

1268
01:09:53,680 --> 01:09:56,439
Speaker 1: should we uncap the House? Should we do this constitutional amendment?

1269
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:59,080
Speaker 1: Should we do this? Or is it just certain members

1270
01:09:59,120 --> 01:09:59,439
Speaker 1: doing it?

1271
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:02,760
Speaker 2: And it's certain members and you and you you raise

1272
01:10:02,840 --> 01:10:04,679
Speaker 2: the good question that maybe we should start a caucus.

1273
01:10:04,760 --> 01:10:06,320
Speaker 1: But I think i'd like to see that because I

1274
01:10:06,360 --> 01:10:08,960
Speaker 1: bet you you get a biparty. I bet you'd be

1275
01:10:09,080 --> 01:10:11,880
Speaker 1: quickly become a bipartisan caucus, you know, sort of how

1276
01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 1: to remodel the democracy.

1277
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:18,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, Derek Kilmer had his Modernization Caucus that was very

1278
01:10:18,479 --> 01:10:21,840
Speaker 2: bipartisan last term. They tended to focus on some smaller

1279
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:23,600
Speaker 2: boar issues, you know, and one of the things that

1280
01:10:23,680 --> 01:10:26,160
Speaker 2: sort of makes it partisan that you wish it wasn't.

1281
01:10:26,600 --> 01:10:28,600
Speaker 2: And I had conversation with my Republican colleagues, is that

1282
01:10:29,640 --> 01:10:33,439
Speaker 2: the Republican Party today has a has a strategy that

1283
01:10:34,479 --> 01:10:38,040
Speaker 2: can win the control of the minoritarian institutions. The Democratic

1284
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:40,640
Speaker 2: Party has a strategy that can win the minoritary institutions.

1285
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:44,800
Speaker 2: So the democratic policy agenda is much better at winning

1286
01:10:44,840 --> 01:10:46,839
Speaker 2: the House than winning the state in the electoral college.

1287
01:10:47,439 --> 01:10:51,800
Speaker 2: And to really make democratic reforms is partisan because of that.

1288
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:53,880
Speaker 2: It shouldn't be, but it's just sort of the way

1289
01:10:53,920 --> 01:10:54,720
Speaker 2: we're skewed right now.

1290
01:10:55,720 --> 01:11:02,439
Speaker 1: No, it's that that's a that's a I totally understand

1291
01:11:02,479 --> 01:11:06,080
Speaker 1: how that works out to be the case.

1292
01:11:06,160 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, we appreciate having me on. You give

1293
01:11:10,160 --> 01:11:10,360
Speaker 2: me more.

1294
01:11:10,479 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 1: No, this was great, and I want to you know,

1295
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:15,400
Speaker 1: the next time, if you've got a new thing you're

1296
01:11:15,479 --> 01:11:18,240
Speaker 1: to do any if you get this caucus started, whatever

1297
01:11:18,280 --> 01:11:19,920
Speaker 1: it is, I want to do this again.

1298
01:11:20,320 --> 01:11:20,920
Speaker 2: Sounds great.

1299
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:23,840
Speaker 1: H