Speaker 1: Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. So what do you remember from
Speaker 1: election night two thousand and sixteen. You and I worked
Speaker 1: there together covering it when we were both working at Yahoo.
Speaker 1: We were in the studio in Times Square, right, and
Speaker 1: everybody you went into that night with the expectation the
Speaker 1: Hillary was gonna win. The only question was what was
Speaker 1: her margin of victory, how many Republican states was she
Speaker 1: going to carry? And it quickly became sort of the
Speaker 1: Baton death March as Florida fell, then North Carolina, Virginia
Speaker 1: she eked by despite the fact that her vice presidential
Speaker 1: running mate was Tim Kane, the Senator from Virginia. I
Speaker 1: started wondering about the outcome when that happened. And then
Speaker 1: she started showing weakness in states that had been won
Speaker 1: by Democrats for a generation. States like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Was it Wisconsin before Michigan, because wasn't Michigan? Really was wisconin?
Speaker 1: I remember it was around ten o'clock, I believe, when
Speaker 1: Wisconsin was called for Donald Trump. I wrote a note
Speaker 1: to Jamal Simmons, the Democratic Right, and I said, how
Speaker 1: bad is this? And he wrote me back. I put
Speaker 1: it on my legal pad really bad, and he looked,
Speaker 1: honestly sway he did. He looked so stunned, and I
Speaker 1: think everybody was kind of thinking, wait, seriously, what is
Speaker 1: going on here. I'll never forget that one moment when
Speaker 1: a Donald Trump presidency became a reality. Well, I remember
Speaker 1: the Clinton official I was texting with who earlier in
Speaker 1: the evening, had said, Yeah, we can afford to lose Florida,
Speaker 1: we can afford to lose North Carolina. He wasn't arguing
Speaker 1: that they could afford to lose Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. They
Speaker 1: just always assumed that those states were in the bag,
Speaker 1: and as it turns out, they were not. Here we
Speaker 1: are nearly one year since that election night in two
Speaker 1: US in sixteen, and we thought this was a good
Speaker 1: time to take stock of what happened and what has
Speaker 1: happened since by talking to one of my favorite political analysts,
Speaker 1: Norm Ornstein. Norm is kind of like the fourth branch
Speaker 1: of government. He's been around, so that's what that's what
Speaker 1: he tells us kidding. He's a very modest, wonderful guy,
Speaker 1: and he's made a bit of a transition over the
Speaker 1: last few years. He was kind of a centrist thoughtful,
Speaker 1: very academic analyst of thoughtful but low key, and he's
Speaker 1: gone rogue, to quote Sarah Palin, and and has become
Speaker 1: just a ferocious, angry critic of the way Washington has
Speaker 1: failed in general, and Donald Trump in particular, and the
Speaker 1: Republican Party as well specifically. He's taken sides. You know,
Speaker 1: he used to say, oh, both parties were broken. Now
Speaker 1: he says very clearly no, no, the Republicans have gone
Speaker 1: off the deep end. So we had a wonderful conversation
Speaker 1: with Norm about election night, about what happened, about what
Speaker 1: has happened since. We also talked to Norm about his
Speaker 1: commitment to really removing the stigma of mental illness in
Speaker 1: this country, something that is very personal to him, Brian,
Speaker 1: as you know, because his son died in two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen after wrestling with mental illness for a very long time.
Speaker 1: So this is something that's extremely personal to Norm. So
Speaker 1: here's our conversation with Norm Ornstein one year after the
Speaker 1: election of two thousand and sixteen. Norm Ornstein, Welcome to
Speaker 1: our podcast. It's a joy to be with you. So
Speaker 1: first of all, you know this podcast is is marking
Speaker 1: almost the one year anniversary of Donald Trump's election. And
Speaker 1: it's still actually when I say those words, I still think, Wow,
Speaker 1: how did that happen? Brian and I were just recalling
Speaker 1: norm what our experience was like on election day, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious, what was it like for you. So when
Speaker 1: you said we're almost there one year, I did a
Speaker 1: spit take, of course, in the classic vein. Um so
Speaker 1: I was not in the same room. Yeah, definitely, and
Speaker 1: please wipe off the microphone. Uh. So I was up
Speaker 1: in New York actually on air with BBC, and uh,
Speaker 1: to my credit, I would say, trying not too hard
Speaker 1: to pat myself on the back I had back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen said uh, watch out for Donald
Speaker 1: Trump to win a nomination. But I still thought, based
Speaker 1: on what I was seeing in the polls and elsewhere,
Speaker 1: that Clinton was gonna win, but by a narrower margin
Speaker 1: than we had thought otherwise. And watching as the results
Speaker 1: began to come in, uh from Florida, I got this
Speaker 1: eerie feeling. I'll never forget that. When Frank Lentz came
Speaker 1: to Yahoo where we were covering this, uh, he said
Speaker 1: to me in the green room, Oh, it's going to
Speaker 1: be early. She's got this. You know all the exit
Speaker 1: poline blah blah blah. And I was there when he
Speaker 1: called Paul Ryan to tell him that that same information
Speaker 1: and oh my god, I mean it's just insane. And
Speaker 1: Kissinger right, he called Henry Kissinger too, and it was
Speaker 1: sort of fun. He was showing off that, you know,
Speaker 1: he had them on speed dial. But anyway, what in
Speaker 1: a nutshell norm that's frightening in and of itself. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we have we have so much ground to cover, but
Speaker 1: in a nutshell real quickly. Just to remind our listeners
Speaker 1: and help them get their heads around this, what happened?
Speaker 1: Why did Trump win? Uh? Some of this goes back decades.
Speaker 1: The new book I did with E. J. Dean and
Speaker 1: Tom Man, One Nation After Trump. We spend the first
Speaker 1: third of the book looking at the roots of Trump
Speaker 1: is um and it goes to the decline and community,
Speaker 1: the kind of atomization and society that Robert Putnam wrote
Speaker 1: about in Bowling Alone decades ago, the sorting that's taken
Speaker 1: place in the society that Bill Bishop wrote about in
Speaker 1: the book The Big Sort. And then it moves to
Speaker 1: the tribalism in our politics that Nude Gingrich really generated.
Speaker 1: Starting in the late nineties seventies when he came to
Speaker 1: Washington into Congress, and it goes right up through the
Speaker 1: young Guns as they called themselves, Eric Canner, Paul Ryan,
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: using that populist anger flowing from the Troubled Assets Relief
Speaker 1: Program or the bailout TARP as we know it, that
Speaker 1: brought this enormous level of anger on the left with
Speaker 1: the occupy movement and on the right with the Tea
Speaker 1: Party movement. And by the time we get to the
Speaker 1: Republican nominating process, the likelihood that some establishment figure was
Speaker 1: going to win a nomination had declined precipitously. They were
Speaker 1: going to go for an outsider, and especially one who
Speaker 1: played on the unease caused by the stagnant economy and
Speaker 1: the atomization that included this focus on race and on immigration,
Speaker 1: and somebody who would say, I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: like those wosses in my party who cave to Obama
Speaker 1: and the Democrats. I won't take crap from anybody, and
Speaker 1: you play that turbo charging all of those factors that
Speaker 1: you haven't mentioned is the siloed media environment where some
Speaker 1: people get a different set of facts from people following
Speaker 1: the mainstream. Well, I think it further exacerbates the tribalization
Speaker 1: or tribalism that nor mentioned. Absolutely does, and if you
Speaker 1: if you look back, of course, the fairness doctrine was
Speaker 1: repealed in seven. Rush Limbaugh then went national with a
Speaker 1: radio show and it was rocketed to stardom with a
Speaker 1: populist reaction against a big pay raise for Congress and
Speaker 1: public officials. In nine then we have uh Matt Drudge
Speaker 1: discovering that the web was a force that could be
Speaker 1: used to promote his own ideology. He gets an intern
Speaker 1: named Andrew Breitbart who takes it to the next level
Speaker 1: and then moves to Bannon, and along the way we
Speaker 1: get Fox News and the rest of talk radio and
Speaker 1: a tribal media that thrives on division, on apocalyptic views.
Speaker 1: And along with that, let's just throw in that deeper
Speaker 1: anger at people in Washington, the sense that when Donald
Speaker 1: Trump says, what the hell have you got to lose?
Speaker 1: That resonated with a lot of people who didn't realize
Speaker 1: what we have got to lose and what we are losing,
Speaker 1: and the effects of all of these factors that you've
Speaker 1: described were pretty striking on election night. You mentioned Florida.
Speaker 1: Florida is an interesting microcosm of what happened because a
Speaker 1: lot of people assume Clinton would carry Florida because she
Speaker 1: did as well or better than Obama and a lot
Speaker 1: of the swing counties. But then we started to see
Speaker 1: what happened in Republican areas, and Trump just blew the
Speaker 1: meter off. You know, if Reagan won sixty or seventy,
Speaker 1: he was winning, and so here we go. But I
Speaker 1: think that's the first sign that any of us kind
Speaker 1: of recognized that something really different was happening that evening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely true. And of course, let's face it, we thought
Speaker 1: there was a blue wall in the final stages that
Speaker 1: she'd eke out some narrow victory, uh by winning in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And remember the Philadelphia Boss Brady uh said, you know,
Speaker 1: if we can get our turn out to four hundred thousand,
Speaker 1: were golden there, and they did better than that and
Speaker 1: still lost because it was in those areas in the
Speaker 1: you know, the middle of the state, uh, the Alabama
Speaker 1: part of Pennsylvania. That once again just what you said, Brian,
Speaker 1: numbers that would have been fifty five, sixty six for
Speaker 1: a Republican went to and I think some of it
Speaker 1: was colored by just antipathy toward Hillary Clinton, to which
Speaker 1: I don't think you really mentioned as you were going
Speaker 1: down your laundry list of reasons that Donald Trump wont
Speaker 1: some deep seated sexism and discomfort with uh I think
Speaker 1: the Clinton brand, if you will, but also with the
Speaker 1: notion of a woman who many, unfortunately did not find
Speaker 1: very appealing. And you know, there was a thirty year
Speaker 1: campaign to demonize and delegitimize the Clintons. You can add
Speaker 1: to that the misogyny. You're absolutely right on that front.
Speaker 1: And it made her a figure who was marginally more
Speaker 1: likable than than Trump, but not likable at all to
Speaker 1: sizeable swath of the electorate. And that did make a difference.
Speaker 1: And let's face it, the campaign against her, the monomaniacal
Speaker 1: focus on emails by the New York Times and other places,
Speaker 1: including stories that were hyped and went way by on
Speaker 1: the facts, and some that relied on sources that were
Speaker 1: less than reliable, didn't help any well, less than reliable,
Speaker 1: like i e. The Russians, right, I remember a friend
Speaker 1: of mine. I remember a friend of mine, not to
Speaker 1: mention sort of, you know, giving Donald Trump endless media
Speaker 1: access without oftentimes without any critical analysis attached to it.
Speaker 1: But I'll never forget a friend of mine sending me
Speaker 1: a video about Whoma Aberdeen's connection to the Muslim Brotherhood
Speaker 1: and her family, and it was actually a very quote
Speaker 1: unquote well done, professional looking piece of video. And I
Speaker 1: remember this was somebody who was very smart, worked with
Speaker 1: me in local news in Washington. And I wrote her
Speaker 1: back and I said, Dana, this is bullshit. And yet
Speaker 1: I thought, gosh, if she's receptive to this kind of propaganda,
Speaker 1: you know, propagated by the Russians, who else is watching
Speaker 1: this stuff and buying at hook line and sinker. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we could talk all day about this stuff, and we're
Speaker 1: going to well at least for an hour. But Norm,
Speaker 1: I just want to backtrack for a quick second and
Speaker 1: tell people a little bit about you. I suddenly have
Speaker 1: turned into Oprah, But um, Norm, tell us about your background.
Speaker 1: You graduated from high school at fourteen. We hadn't worked
Speaker 1: together at CBS News, and I never realized you were
Speaker 1: quite the child prodigy. Apparently you are, but then you
Speaker 1: went on and got a PhD. You were born in St.
Speaker 1: Louis within an area close to Tom Friedman, Al Franken
Speaker 1: and the Cohen brothers. What the hell were they feeding
Speaker 1: new people? You know? It was St. Louis Park, the
Speaker 1: Jewish suburb of Minneapolis. UM, and I actually had a
Speaker 1: a more checkered background than that. Um. I was born
Speaker 1: in Minnesota and uh grew up largely there. But I
Speaker 1: also my father had originally been Canadian, and I actually
Speaker 1: went to high school in Winnipeg with Neil Young, among
Speaker 1: other things. Uh, and then we moved back. If only
Speaker 1: love could break your heart. Sorry, I sing once. I
Speaker 1: try to sing once during every podcast, so thank you
Speaker 1: for that opening. I think once would be good. Um. No,
Speaker 1: once is good, It's really good. Uh. Any And actually,
Speaker 1: you know, Neil would perform at all of our assemblies
Speaker 1: and around and he had a little group called the
Speaker 1: Straight Gators and they played a coffeehouse and we all
Speaker 1: thought that he would be able to make it as
Speaker 1: a sideman uh somewhere. And but the band we had
Speaker 1: playing with us UM because we needed a band for
Speaker 1: all of the dances and proms, also decided to go
Speaker 1: to l A when he did and change their name
Speaker 1: to the Guests Who. So we had to rock and
Speaker 1: roll Hall of Fame Max and high school time. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: I in health it Okay, you're mentioning the artists from
Speaker 1: my past. Norm How can I resist the role done
Speaker 1: Randy where I was headed for. Don't forget American Woman.
Speaker 1: Uh I love, I know, I like America also done
Speaker 1: well by Lenny Kravitz. But anyway, we digress. Well, given
Speaker 1: the company you kept and your experiences growing up, what
Speaker 1: made you want to earn your living working with politicians
Speaker 1: and hacks and really as an observer of our national
Speaker 1: political scene. So I think some of it went back
Speaker 1: to when I was younger. My grandfather, who had come
Speaker 1: from Russia, became a labor leader in Minneapolis and was
Speaker 1: one of the group of people, a kind of kitchen
Speaker 1: cabinet that recruited Hubert Humphrey to run for mayor of
Speaker 1: Minneapolis and then to get involved with politics. And I
Speaker 1: had an uncle who was in the state legislature and
Speaker 1: ran for attorney general in Minnesota, and just uh, I
Speaker 1: was really interested and intrigued by how politics works and
Speaker 1: how the institutions work, and then working on the hill
Speaker 1: was just really interesting and exciting. And you know, I
Speaker 1: must say at a time when there were a lot
Speaker 1: of people you could look up to as heroes, people
Speaker 1: who were in it for the right reasons and courageous
Speaker 1: and doing the right things. And then I found, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, as I started to teach and I began
Speaker 1: to write for journals and things. It was frustrating because
Speaker 1: you write a piece and send it to a political
Speaker 1: science journal, and maybe a year later you would get
Speaker 1: word back on whether they were going to accept it,
Speaker 1: and then it would get published a year after that
Speaker 1: and be read by a couple of thousand people. And uh,
Speaker 1: then I just stumbled into writing a book review for
Speaker 1: The Washington Post that came out two days later and
Speaker 1: was read by many, many thousands, and I even got
Speaker 1: a little money for it. And all of that. The
Speaker 1: intersection of politics and the public how the Institution's work
Speaker 1: really kind of intrigued me. So, norm, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are surprised given your political bent, given
Speaker 1: the tweets you've written not just against Trump but against Republicans,
Speaker 1: that you've been based at the American Enterprise Institute for
Speaker 1: all these years, which is a right wing think tank,
Speaker 1: former home of the Chineese etcetera. You know how did
Speaker 1: you end up there? I mean, are you kind of
Speaker 1: the skunk at the garden party? Uh? So in the
Speaker 1: nine UM, my dear friend Tom Mann, who had gone
Speaker 1: to Michigan with me and came to Washington, and I
Speaker 1: decided that we needed to try and find a place
Speaker 1: with more resources than a university would provide. And we
Speaker 1: went to a EI, which was then you discovered all
Speaker 1: the Republican money. Uh. You know, back then it was
Speaker 1: more sort of little center right, but more center than
Speaker 1: anything else. And we pitched the idea of doing what
Speaker 1: we call the Congress Project, kind of acting Congress as
Speaker 1: an institution, all the changes, how it affected policy, and
Speaker 1: they bought it and we did it part time, and
Speaker 1: then in four uh, I quit teaching and went to
Speaker 1: a e I full time and I've been there ever since. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I didn't change much. I was basically a moderate person. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh the institution, as the politics of the country evolved,
Speaker 1: became more sharply conservative on the whole. But the most
Speaker 1: important element for why I stayed there, and uh, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that they allowed me to stay there was that
Speaker 1: I had and continue to have complete freedom to do
Speaker 1: anything I want and to say what I want, and
Speaker 1: nobody's ever said to me you can't do that, you
Speaker 1: can't say that, And if they did, I'm fortunate, especially
Speaker 1: at this stage of my life, where um, I could
Speaker 1: leave without a second thought. We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break now and we'll be back soon with more from
Speaker 1: Norm Ornstein. So, Norm, at the American Enterprise Institute where
Speaker 1: you work, which is a conservative think tank, Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: came in one day as a speaker and you had
Speaker 1: a pretty sharp exchange with him, and I just want
Speaker 1: to play a little bit of that. I've enjoyed dueling you,
Speaker 1: Norm over the years. You've been consistently wrong on almost everything,
Speaker 1: and h I've always wondered, you know who each lunch
Speaker 1: with you over here at an organization. I got more
Speaker 1: friends than you think you're And actually, some of the
Speaker 1: worst things have been said about me over the years
Speaker 1: have been staid of a normal Arnstein and you and
Speaker 1: you've been entirely wrong on virtually every occasion. I'm glad
Speaker 1: to see you. What's on your mind? Ouch? Awkward? That
Speaker 1: was where that must have felt pretty uncomfortable, Norm, uh So,
Speaker 1: I had to think at that time, how am I
Speaker 1: going to respond to this, and my first inclination was
Speaker 1: to say, not only will people have lunch with me, Senator,
Speaker 1: they'll even have a drink with me. Um. But I
Speaker 1: didn't touche. So you got into a big fight with
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell over a campaign finance reform, among other issues.
Speaker 1: But you helped write the McCain fine Gold bill, and
Speaker 1: he was the principal opponent of that. Can you describe
Speaker 1: a little bit about about that fight and why since
Speaker 1: that legislation was passed and signed, the campaign finance system
Speaker 1: is still a mess and big money is still so
Speaker 1: powerful in our system. Well, of course, the answer to
Speaker 1: the latter question, Brian starts with two words, citizens united.
Speaker 1: It goes to another two words, a decision that followed
Speaker 1: speech now by the Appeals Court that led to super PACs.
Speaker 1: I could see in the mid nineteen nineties that we
Speaker 1: had a real problem emerging in the campaign finance system.
Speaker 1: I convened a little group of people who knew a
Speaker 1: lot about it. We sat down and hammered out some
Speaker 1: pragmatic solutions. I went to John McCain and Russ fine
Speaker 1: Gold and somehow convinced them to take a different approach.
Speaker 1: Um and uh then with some adjustments, we managed to
Speaker 1: get a bill through and I was one of many players,
Speaker 1: but I was proud of helping to shape it. And
Speaker 1: then I saw Mitch McConnell at the Supreme Court when
Speaker 1: the oral arguments were there with McConnell versus F. E. C.
Speaker 1: Which was the case challenging this law, and the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court rebuffed him. He was not at all a happy camper.
Speaker 1: And then Sandra Day O'Connor left the court because her
Speaker 1: husband had Alzheimer's and that not the Constitution, but O'Connor
Speaker 1: leaving and sam Alito coming in set the seeds for
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court to blow up all of the campaign
Speaker 1: finance regulations that were actually working pretty well, and now
Speaker 1: we have the hell of dark money and billionaire dominance
Speaker 1: of our process. You've written a book called One Nation
Speaker 1: After Trump norm and since we are at the one
Speaker 1: year mark of the election, how would you assess this
Speaker 1: last year in terms of Donald Trump's accomplishments. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you kind of turned this question on its head.
Speaker 1: Do you give him credit for anything? I give him
Speaker 1: credit for poisoning the discourse in America, creating a kleptocracy,
Speaker 1: defining deviancy down to use Pat Moynihan's term uh and
Speaker 1: UH not doing much of anything to either drain the
Speaker 1: swamp or help out those working p bowl. He said
Speaker 1: he would much less as he addressed African Americans, what
Speaker 1: the hell have you got to lose? Uh? Showing them
Speaker 1: very bad things. I have a hard time, Mrs Lincoln.
Speaker 1: I have a hard time, Katie, finding anything positive there.
Speaker 1: During the course of a year, Um and Tom Man
Speaker 1: and I wrote a book in two thousand and six
Speaker 1: called The Broken Branch, How Congress is Failing America and
Speaker 1: How to get it back on track, and we lamented
Speaker 1: what had happened to the institution, but we blame both
Speaker 1: parties for it. Two thousand and twelve, we wrote a
Speaker 1: book called It's Even Worse than It Looks, and that
Speaker 1: was heralded by a Washington Post outlook piece from the
Speaker 1: book that our editor called UH, titled UH, Let's just
Speaker 1: say it the Republicans or the Problem, And it was
Speaker 1: a Republican party that had gone off the rails and
Speaker 1: become an insurgent outlier, and we saw the seeds of
Speaker 1: Trump is Um emerging. At that point. We revised that
Speaker 1: and didn't one called it's even worse than it was.
Speaker 1: And now we have this and what Trump has done
Speaker 1: is in some ways the logical extension of a party
Speaker 1: that had turned from a conservative problem solving one to
Speaker 1: a radical one, and a party that opened up the
Speaker 1: doors with its uh desire to blow up government and
Speaker 1: to give enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest um for
Speaker 1: a guy like Donald Trump. And now they're putting no
Speaker 1: checks and balances on him, and that is maybe, in
Speaker 1: some ways the most depressing part of this story. The
Speaker 1: political system was set up by our framers to build
Speaker 1: some boundaries around the possibility that and a moral uh
Speaker 1: kleptocratic sociopath, if somehow that person got elected, we would
Speaker 1: be able to put boundaries around And it started with
Speaker 1: an independent Congress. And now you look at what the
Speaker 1: Speaker Paul Ryan says, what the Senate majority, the leader
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell says, and what they say is, well, never
Speaker 1: mind that we're going to get our tax bill through.
Speaker 1: All of that has to leave you alarmed, um. But
Speaker 1: also what we are seeing is so many people are
Speaker 1: alarmed that maybe we're going to have a jolt that
Speaker 1: gets the public more engaged and gets the possibility of
Speaker 1: bringing those boundaries back. Before we talk about that, I
Speaker 1: want to ask you about your tweets. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: called him a seventy one year old, lifelong narcissist, sociopath.
Speaker 1: You've called him a congenital liar blowing up American ideas.
Speaker 1: You've called him an ignoramus. Is it his personal behavior
Speaker 1: that you find so offensive or are you equally um
Speaker 1: incensed by the policy proposals he's put forth and the
Speaker 1: way he's actually conducted the real business of governing versus
Speaker 1: the personality of his presidency. Uh So it's all of
Speaker 1: the above, but more. And Uh, you know, the Twitter
Speaker 1: has become a catharsis for me as I watch things deteriorate.
Speaker 1: The biggest the biggest problem that I see is the
Speaker 1: direct challenge to the fundamentals of our small, our republican
Speaker 1: or representative form of democracy. And if you look at
Speaker 1: all of the indicators that historians have written about Timothy
Speaker 1: Snyder in his book on Tyranny, even the exhibit at
Speaker 1: the Holocaust Museum about the signs that you're moving towards
Speaker 1: uh fascism. Uh. It starts with de legitimizing the press.
Speaker 1: When you have a president who says that the press
Speaker 1: is the enemy of the people, a phrase begun by
Speaker 1: Stalin that was banned by Kruschoff when he took over
Speaker 1: because it was too dangerous. That is the most disturbing element.
Speaker 1: When you have next a president who moves to delegitimize
Speaker 1: the judiciary, as Trump has done by attacking judges and
Speaker 1: they're into a gritty and then goes after any kind
Speaker 1: of legitimate judicial or process of prosecution moving forward. That's
Speaker 1: disturbing when you have a president who pays no attention
Speaker 1: to truth, and when you have a president who, instead
Speaker 1: of moving to unite the country moves to divide it,
Speaker 1: as we saw even now with the reaction to the
Speaker 1: horrible tragedy in New York City, but we have seen
Speaker 1: with the reaction to Charlottesville in other places. His personal behavior,
Speaker 1: the crudeness of his past, all of those things are horrible.
Speaker 1: The fact that nobody else in the political arena in
Speaker 1: his party except for a handful of dissidents, is challenging
Speaker 1: those things is disturbing, But it's the direct challenge to
Speaker 1: our governance. To that point, norm you're an expert on Congress,
Speaker 1: is it as simple as Republican leaders realize that they
Speaker 1: have a pro Trump base and don't want to alienate it,
Speaker 1: or is there something deeper than that. I think it's that,
Speaker 1: and more certainly what we know is at Trump who
Speaker 1: has focused on shoring up that base and a base
Speaker 1: which may be shrinking a little. But let's give him
Speaker 1: thirty to thirty percent of the electorate. That's sixtent of
Speaker 1: the Republican primary voters for the House and Senate. And
Speaker 1: along with that, I think is the fear that they
Speaker 1: have that challenging Trump frontally means you're going to take
Speaker 1: on the Mercer family and their billions. You're gonna take
Speaker 1: on the talk machine that will be led by Alex
Speaker 1: Jones and Sean Hannity uh and Rush Limbaugh and Laura
Speaker 1: Ingram and Mark Levin and Bright bart Uh and they'll
Speaker 1: make your lives miserable. Along with a primary challenge, and
Speaker 1: in some cases, as we've seen with Bob Corker, maybe
Speaker 1: even give you death threats. And then you've got the
Speaker 1: other reality, which is they didn't want Trump. Very few
Speaker 1: endorsed him privately, most were appalled by him, but when
Speaker 1: he got elected, it was here we got a guy
Speaker 1: who has no policy interest, no policy knowledge, but he
Speaker 1: wants victories and he'll sign anything we put in front
Speaker 1: of him. So we want to protect that possibility because
Speaker 1: we can get tax cuts. And all of those are reasons.
Speaker 1: Some of them are reasons you can understand in terms
Speaker 1: of self preservation. Others do such violence to the fundamental
Speaker 1: norms of civic behavior and protection of all that we
Speaker 1: should hold dear about our democracy that it's uh troubling
Speaker 1: to say the least. So when all these people drop
Speaker 1: out and say they're not going to run for re election,
Speaker 1: like Bob Corker and Jeff Flake, will they be replaced
Speaker 1: by uber right wing senators. That's the real danger here now.
Speaker 1: It may not happen um in Arizona right now. Of course,
Speaker 1: the challenger who was going to take on Jeff Lake,
Speaker 1: Kelly Ward uh is a conspiracy theorist and somebody who
Speaker 1: is way off the charts on the radical right end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum. Maybe there'll be another Republican challenging her,
Speaker 1: and maybe the Democrat Kristen Cinema can actually win that race,
Speaker 1: But it's far more likely that you end up with
Speaker 1: somebody Jeff Lake is a very conservative guy. But he's
Speaker 1: also an right He's well, he's a real Barry Goldwater conservative,
Speaker 1: isn't he? He is? And Barry Goldwater, by the way,
Speaker 1: would also be appalled by what he's seeing now in
Speaker 1: his own party. But Jeff, whom I've known since he
Speaker 1: was in the House, also wants to find solutions to
Speaker 1: problems and build across party lines. And the same is
Speaker 1: true of Corker, who is more likely to be replaced
Speaker 1: by somebody much much further to his right. So you know,
Speaker 1: the prognosis at this point is a troubling one because
Speaker 1: the people who are inherently problems solving oriented are the
Speaker 1: ones who were most discouraged by this dynamic and willing
Speaker 1: to leave, and the ones who are more radical uh
Speaker 1: and believe in a revolution are waiting in the wings.
Speaker 1: We should just add for the benefit of our audience.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Mercers earlier, and I bet a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't know who they are. They're probably the
Speaker 1: most important conservative billionaire family now after the Cokes. They're
Speaker 1: big Bright Bart funders, huge Steve Bannon supporters, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: I want to ask you something different, Norm, which is
Speaker 1: you've been in Washington for all these decades. How have
Speaker 1: you seen Washington change, um, both as a as a culture,
Speaker 1: institutionally politically since you first got there. UM. When I
Speaker 1: first got to Washington, UM, I was very good friends
Speaker 1: with a lot of people in public life UH and
Speaker 1: an elected office from both parties, and we would all
Speaker 1: socialize together a fair amount. UM. There was a feeling
Speaker 1: of UH institutional loyalty and a pride in what you
Speaker 1: were able to do to help make the country better.
Speaker 1: We could get through very difficult times. And it's not
Speaker 1: to say that it was all rosie. Back then, we
Speaker 1: had the Vietnam War. When I arrived, we had been
Speaker 1: the impeachment process of Richard Nixon. We had some dark
Speaker 1: elements of racism and UH, issues of crime and other things.
Speaker 1: A lot of unsettling moments, but people on both sides
Speaker 1: who are dedicated to trying to steer their way through
Speaker 1: this and work together to find a better time. Democrats
Speaker 1: and Republicans saw each other as adversaries, not the enemy,
Speaker 1: and UH often an adversary one day would be an
Speaker 1: ally the next dinner. Parties were very much mixed. Now
Speaker 1: A couple of things changed. One was you didn't have
Speaker 1: very many members of Congress back then who would serve
Speaker 1: and then leave office and stay in Washington. Mostly they
Speaker 1: went back home. That began to change and they stayed
Speaker 1: and what they did was they went into law firms
Speaker 1: or became lobbyists. And the same was true of the staff.
Speaker 1: Back then. You had staff who would make careers out
Speaker 1: of it, were very proud that they could be a
Speaker 1: part of it. That began to change and instead people
Speaker 1: would see, UH, staff opportunities as jumping off point to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money outside. Uh. There is a
Speaker 1: swamp in Washington. Trump is adding to it, not draining it.
Speaker 1: But that's been a change from what we've seen in
Speaker 1: the past. And the tribal ism that began to develop
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies driven by Gingrich, has become
Speaker 1: much worse. And while you still have some instances of
Speaker 1: senators who will socialize across party lines, UH, you don't
Speaker 1: have it much compared to what used to be there.
Speaker 1: And we still have a situation that also really began
Speaker 1: with Gingrich in the seventies where members don't bring their
Speaker 1: families to Washington and they spend as little time there
Speaker 1: as possible. UH. And you now see dinner parties where
Speaker 1: people are very careful not to mix across these lines
Speaker 1: because you'll end up with shouting matches or cutlery being
Speaker 1: thrown or dishes broke. Before it's so depressings, I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: is there any hope for the future? Can we um
Speaker 1: do anything to make this better? So UM, let me
Speaker 1: come back to the book. And I have to mention
Speaker 1: the subtitle because I'm very proud of that. Uh. It
Speaker 1: is a guide for the perplexed, the disillusioned, the desperate,
Speaker 1: and the not yet deported um and UH, which covers
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But it's a hopeful book. UH.
Speaker 1: And the path forward I think comes in a couple
Speaker 1: of directions. And I'm hopeful in part because I think
Speaker 1: Trump could be our Dunkirk, the jolt that the civil
Speaker 1: society needs to realize that a lot of what we
Speaker 1: have held near and dear is imperiled. And it's a
Speaker 1: jolt in two ways. The first is a lot of
Speaker 1: these UH larger trends in the society, the loss of community,
Speaker 1: the atomization, the economic inequality, the stagnation of wages, the
Speaker 1: sharp divisions on race and party lines. But also UH
Speaker 1: between the thriving metropolitan areas and highly educated. Now we
Speaker 1: have to think about how we can bridge some of
Speaker 1: those divides and focus not on white working class people,
Speaker 1: but on working class people and on policies that can work.
Speaker 1: That's one part of it. A second is we've been
Speaker 1: jolted by the challenge to the fundamentals of our system
Speaker 1: by Trump, and now we're seeing all kinds of elements
Speaker 1: of the civil society step forward. It's the lawyers stepping
Speaker 1: up with the Travel Band to deal with some of
Speaker 1: these horrible cases of Ice stepping in and taking undocumented people,
Speaker 1: most recently, of course, a ten year old girl with
Speaker 1: cerebral palsy. It is the religious organizations, including the Catholic bishops,
Speaker 1: now focusing on the problems of destroying the safety net.
Speaker 1: It is conservative policy intellectuals and a handful of courageous
Speaker 1: lawmakers and people like Bill Crystal and Jennifer Rubin and
Speaker 1: Max boot Uh and Evan McMullen and others standing up
Speaker 1: to try and transform their own party back into a
Speaker 1: problem solving, albeit very conservative party. And then it's groups
Speaker 1: like Indivisible and the grassroots movement to try and get
Speaker 1: people more engaged. It's young people deciding now that they're
Speaker 1: going to be looking at running for office, something that
Speaker 1: we didn't see a decade or more ago. So there
Speaker 1: are signs out there. I have to ask you about
Speaker 1: Bob Muller. This is sort of the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Russian investigation, or or the outcome of the Expression investigation,
Speaker 1: as we've seen this week with with Paul Manafort and
Speaker 1: to other Trump associates. Um, how do you see this
Speaker 1: all shaking out? Norm? Uh? So, here's the worst case scenario, uh,
Speaker 1: that as uh it begins to close in on Trump,
Speaker 1: that we see another Saturday Night massacre, uh as we
Speaker 1: had in the early seventies with Nixon, and that Trump
Speaker 1: goes down the line and the Justice Department to find
Speaker 1: somebody who will fire Mueller and all the people around
Speaker 1: him and then pardons everybody, including himself. But if that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, then I think we're heading inexorably towards a
Speaker 1: large group of people around the president not only being
Speaker 1: charged with money laundering. And the president in his own
Speaker 1: family may very well find that their business dealings drag
Speaker 1: him into it in a different way. But to me,
Speaker 1: that is very very likely that Mueller is going to
Speaker 1: look at him, not necessarily for direct collusion with Russia,
Speaker 1: but for pretty obvious obstruction of justice. So when wait, wait,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? What does that mean? Does that
Speaker 1: do we think we're on the road to impeachment? Uh, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit I believe, uh sometime within the next
Speaker 1: six months to a year across roads for Republicans in Congress. UM.
Speaker 1: And I don't know where they come out on this,
Speaker 1: I really don't. Um. We don't seem to have much
Speaker 1: leadership that is even willing to put some boundaries around Trump. Uh.
Speaker 1: Right now, for example, one of the obvious things that
Speaker 1: Congress should be doing is making it overtly clear to
Speaker 1: the president that if he fires Muller, all hell will
Speaker 1: break loose and that at minimum Congress will empower Muller
Speaker 1: to continue his investigation. And that's not happening. Uh. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise me that ultimately we end up with an
Speaker 1: indictment of the president. And for those who say that
Speaker 1: that's not allowable, we have a very long memo written
Speaker 1: by Ken Starr back in the nineteen nineties as he
Speaker 1: was investigating Bill Clinton about why a sitting president could
Speaker 1: be in fact indicted. Before we before we go and
Speaker 1: I think Brian and I could talk about this all day.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to ask you about the culpability of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, since you are so um willing to
Speaker 1: to really take aim at Republicans, But I don't think
Speaker 1: we have time to do that today. Norm So we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to have you back, or we're gonna have
Speaker 1: Let me say, Democrats are not angels here. It's not
Speaker 1: like one party is great and the other is awful.
Speaker 1: But what is the cases that one party is much
Speaker 1: much worse? Right now, let me ask you a little
Speaker 1: bit about something personal you shared with people in a
Speaker 1: New York Times article. Um, your son Matthew. You spoke
Speaker 1: very poignantly and movingly about his ten year battle with
Speaker 1: mental illness. He died in early two thousand fifteen. And that's,
Speaker 1: I know, a cause that is so important to you
Speaker 1: and that you've worked tirelessly for. Um. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about about Matthew and and sort
Speaker 1: of what happened? Sure? UM, Let me start by saying
Speaker 1: how proud I am of you, Katie, for taking your
Speaker 1: own personal tragedy and the role that you can play
Speaker 1: in society and trying to pay it forward so that
Speaker 1: others will not have to go through the horrors. And
Speaker 1: that's how I've felt about this. My son was a brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant kid. He was a national champion high school debater,
Speaker 1: or went to Princeton, went out to Hollywood and was
Speaker 1: having some success. Actually had his own little show on
Speaker 1: a kind of a funny take on debate. And then
Speaker 1: he had a psychotic break at the age of twenty
Speaker 1: four and went through a tenure struggle. A part of
Speaker 1: his illness is what's called a nosagnosia um, where your
Speaker 1: brain diseases such that you don't recognize that you're ill.
Speaker 1: He would not accept any kind of treatment or any diagnosis.
Speaker 1: And we live in a society id where if that's
Speaker 1: the case in your over eighteen family members, loved ones,
Speaker 1: medical professionals are powerless to do much of anything about it,
Speaker 1: and the family may not even be able to know
Speaker 1: what's going on. And he struggled, I'm sure, with horrible pain,
Speaker 1: I know, and we struggled as a family with pain.
Speaker 1: He died an accidental death. It was a carbon monoxide
Speaker 1: poisoning that we are pretty sure was not deliberate. Um
Speaker 1: many others, it is deliberate. Uh. But you know, the
Speaker 1: prognosis for people with serious mental illness is not a
Speaker 1: very good one, and the way the society deals with
Speaker 1: it is itself insane. And we've, uh, my family has
Speaker 1: spent a great deal of time and whatever money we can,
Speaker 1: and we've set up a foundation in his name, the
Speaker 1: Matthew Warnstein Foundation, to try and do something about this,
Speaker 1: and especially to try and bring about best practices. So
Speaker 1: many are homeless or are in horrible states because there's
Speaker 1: no way to bring them to treatment. Um. But also
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system is a disaster when it comes
Speaker 1: to dealing with people with mental illness. And we got
Speaker 1: a minor but important piece of legislation through Congress, but
Speaker 1: it's still very, very difficult to change the law and
Speaker 1: to change the way that people deal with this. And
Speaker 1: there isn't a family, I believe, in the country that
Speaker 1: is not touched in some way by the tragedy of
Speaker 1: mental illness. Uh So, Uh, this is something that has
Speaker 1: become a very near and dear to me. And I
Speaker 1: will have to say that on this subject, Paul Ryan
Speaker 1: and Mitch McConnell, who do not view me very highly, um,
Speaker 1: did step up to the plate to get that bill passed.
Speaker 1: It sounds like such an overwhelming problem. Are you optimistic
Speaker 1: norm that that things can be put in place that
Speaker 1: can actually, if not fixed, the problem, make it less
Speaker 1: dire and severe. And where by the way, so sorry
Speaker 1: for your loss. I can only imagine how how horrible
Speaker 1: that was, because not only did you have a son
Speaker 1: who was sick, you couldn't do anything about it. You
Speaker 1: must have felt so powerless. And you know, here, uh,
Speaker 1: we have a family, my wife, a lawyer with uh
Speaker 1: you know, a brilliant lawyer with all kinds of uh interest, knowledge, resources,
Speaker 1: another son who is also a brilliant kid. We had
Speaker 1: the resources and the connections that most people don't have
Speaker 1: and couldn't do anything. And that's the case with so
Speaker 1: many you know. Now, whenever I see a story about
Speaker 1: somebody losing a child, uh, you feel it in a
Speaker 1: different way when you've had that loss yourself. There's nothing like, uh,
Speaker 1: the unnatural event of losing a child. But you also
Speaker 1: see the frustration and an understand I understand in a
Speaker 1: way I didn't before. Uh that through no fault of
Speaker 1: his own. And a brain disease is a disease. It's
Speaker 1: the same as any other kind of disease, but the
Speaker 1: society doesn't view it that way. How difficult it was
Speaker 1: for him, and you become a pariah in the society.
Speaker 1: And there are you know, worse uh tragedies for many
Speaker 1: who have these kinds of illnesses. They get put in
Speaker 1: prison and uh, they get locked up in solitary confinement.
Speaker 1: Very few people in prisons have any understanding of how
Speaker 1: to treat those with mental illnesses. I will say one
Speaker 1: of the things that I find most troubling about the
Speaker 1: Trump administration is Attorney General Sessions wanting to bring back
Speaker 1: private prisons, which are a cancer on everything that we
Speaker 1: should believe in. They want more prisoners, They make money
Speaker 1: when there are more people. They don't care how they
Speaker 1: care for people. They love recipivism. Uh, and it's much
Speaker 1: much worse. We see these tortures Shareff Clark and mill
Speaker 1: wall Key, one of Trump's favorite people, uh in his jail. Uh.
Speaker 1: They tortured somebody with a serious mental illness, wouldn't give
Speaker 1: him food or water, and watched him die in a cell.
Speaker 1: And that's not an uncommon experience. But I do think
Speaker 1: that we have lots of people out there dedicated to
Speaker 1: trying to make this better. And if we can mobilize
Speaker 1: those people whose families have been touched by this, many
Speaker 1: of whom I don't want to talk about it because
Speaker 1: there's such a stigma. Uh, then I believe we can
Speaker 1: turn a corner on this. I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think if more people speak out. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I just want to add, as brain science becomes more
Speaker 1: advanced and our understanding of mental illness increases, which is
Speaker 1: happening right now with technology and and and an ability
Speaker 1: to really, you know, take a deep dive literally into
Speaker 1: into our brain, perhaps that yeah, perhaps, yeah, well no,
Speaker 1: actually no, with with scans and um, you know, all
Speaker 1: sorts of the science that allows us to really look
Speaker 1: deeply into brain chemistry. You know, That's what I meant.
Speaker 1: I don't mean, yeah, we're not putting it on our
Speaker 1: wet suits and going into the brain. You guys know
Speaker 1: what I meant figuratively. Okay, thank you, Brian. But anyway, UM,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that that will help reduce the stigma associated
Speaker 1: with with mental illness as we show their real physiological
Speaker 1: biological factors that are responsible for when someone is sick
Speaker 1: with mental illness. Just as if they're sick with cancer. Norm.
Speaker 1: I always love talking to you and hearing your perspective
Speaker 1: on just about everything, and we're so grateful for you
Speaker 1: joining our podcast today. Brian, I think you should come
Speaker 1: to the lunch that Norman I have in New York
Speaker 1: if you're in town. I didn't. Of course, you're invited. Um,
Speaker 1: if you let me get a word in edgeways, if
Speaker 1: you don't pull out like what happened in nine and
Speaker 1: uh was consin in the eighth congressional district. And if
Speaker 1: you don't do that, come up with a hard I
Speaker 1: think Reagan carried that distress anyway. Norm, so wonderful to
Speaker 1: have you, and we should mention the name of your
Speaker 1: book again, Brian. The book is called One Nation After Trump.
Speaker 1: And for those of you who are depressed, despondent, disillusioned,
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna like the book. For those of
Speaker 1: you are big Trump supporters, Uh, maybe maybe keep reading
Speaker 1: the Danielle Steele, Well, actually, isn't that part of the problem.
Speaker 1: People should read Norm's book at their trumps. Everybody should
Speaker 1: read Well. Not only that, but I think part of
Speaker 1: this siloing of American discourse is also at the foundation
Speaker 1: of why we are so divided, and uh gosh, I
Speaker 1: don't know how you solve that except for people who
Speaker 1: are really willing to to listen to the other side
Speaker 1: and to acknowledge some of their issues and concerns. Politicians
Speaker 1: are just a reflection of us on some level. So
Speaker 1: it's we've got a there's a problem with the voters
Speaker 1: as well as the as well as the politics, as
Speaker 1: well as the media. Yeah, indeed, anyway that note, Norm,
Speaker 1: thanks so much and any email you and please send
Speaker 1: me an autograph copy of your book. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: To our team behind the scenes, Giannah Palmer is our producer,
Speaker 1: Nora Richie is our production assistant. Jared O'Connell engineers and
Speaker 1: mixes the show. Alison Bresnik is our social media mastermind,
Speaker 1: and Emily Beana holds things down over at Katie Currik Media.
Speaker 1: Mark Phillips wrote our theme music. And remember, if you
Speaker 1: want to keep up with us on social media, you
Speaker 1: can find me under Katie Currik on Twitter and Instagram
Speaker 1: and Facebook. On Snapchat, I'm under Katie dot Kurric and
Speaker 1: Goldsmith the is on Twitter That is Brian's handle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like two followers short of two thousand followers. Really,
Speaker 1: let's get you over the two thousand mark. Come on,
Speaker 1: and how many followers do you, Katie? I have one
Speaker 1: point seven million. Brian, uh, not dragon or anything, but
Speaker 1: I think to make you feel better, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of them are dead or our bots, so who knows.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Russians, don't be a stranger. Drop us an
Speaker 1: email at comments at current podcast dot com. We love
Speaker 1: reading and we're flying to those. Some of you are
Speaker 1: so nice. Thank you. They really make our day. Or
Speaker 1: feel free to leave us a voicemail at nine to
Speaker 1: four four six three seven. We'll take guest ideas, feedback,
Speaker 1: anything you want to say, but please people keep it clean.
Speaker 1: I'm like us anyway, Thanks for listening. Bye,