Speaker 1: With the Senator yield for.
Speaker 2: A question, Chuck, she were, is the only time in
Speaker 2: my life I can tell you no, I just.
Speaker 1: Want to tell you a question. Do you know you
Speaker 1: have just broken the record? Do you know how proud
Speaker 1: this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud
Speaker 1: America is of you?
Speaker 2: The power of the people is greater than the people
Speaker 2: in power. It is time to heed the words of
Speaker 2: the man. I began this whole thing with John Lewis.
Speaker 2: He said, for us to go out and cause some
Speaker 2: good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation.
Speaker 1: I want you to redeem the dream.
Speaker 2: Let's be bold in America, not to being into great Americans,
Speaker 2: not divide us against each other. Let's be bolder in
Speaker 2: America with a vision that inspires with hope, charts with
Speaker 2: the people of the United States of America. That's how
Speaker 2: this country started. We the people. Let's get back to
Speaker 2: the ideals that others are threatening. Let's get back to
Speaker 2: our founding documents that those are perfect geniuses had some
Speaker 2: very special words at the end of the Declaration of
Speaker 2: Independence was one of the greatest in all of humanity.
Speaker 2: Declarations of interdependence when our founder said we must mutually pledge,
Speaker 2: pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our
Speaker 2: sacred honor. We need that now from all Americans. This
Speaker 2: is a moral moment. It's not left or right, it's
Speaker 2: right or wrong. It's get in good trouble. My friend,
Speaker 2: Madam President, I yield the floor.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the stephen A. Smith Show. That was
Speaker 3: my next guest who made history this week on the
Speaker 3: Senate floor. He currently serves as the Senator from the
Speaker 3: great state of New Jersey. Please welcome back to the
Speaker 3: stephen As Smith shod to one and only Senator Corey Booker.
Speaker 1: Senator.
Speaker 3: First off, how are you? Have you gotten any rest?
Speaker 4: I've gotten a bit. Body's still weary, but the soul
Speaker 4: is soaring right now. So I'm doing all right.
Speaker 3: I know your limited on time. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for your time. Let's get right to it. On Monday,
Speaker 3: you stood on the Senate floor and beginning marathon twenty
Speaker 3: five hour plus speech and you know, criticizing the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: You set the record for the longest speech in the
Speaker 3: chambers of passing the previous mark scept in nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: seven by segregation the Senator Strom Thurman. Thurmann spent more
Speaker 3: than twenty four hours philibustering the Civil Rights Act. You
Speaker 3: aren't doing a filibuster.
Speaker 1: I want to.
Speaker 3: Know what the reason for this was for you, and
Speaker 3: what do you think you accomplished.
Speaker 4: I'm grateful for the question, you know. We started by
Speaker 4: being very plain what this was all about. A lot
Speaker 4: of folks are hurting in this country right now, and
Speaker 4: we wanted to center their stories. My office has gotten
Speaker 4: tens of thousands of folks reaching out out farmers who
Speaker 4: are losing their farms because of the policies of this administration,
Speaker 4: Veterans who are being laid off or having their benefits undercut.
Speaker 4: We wanted to center their voices. We were having people
Speaker 4: who were receiving Social Security who couldn't get responses from
Speaker 4: the Social Security off Office because of the tens of
Speaker 4: thousands of people that are being cut there as well.
Speaker 4: We wanted to tell stories, and we didn't want to
Speaker 4: make it partisan, so we brought in Republican voices, from
Speaker 4: Republican governors to Republicans afraid of losing their medicaid. We
Speaker 4: brought in Republican thank tanks like the Manhattan Institute and
Speaker 4: the Cato Institute, just to really lay it plain that
Speaker 4: this wasn't about left or right, it's about right or wrong.
Speaker 1: It's about America. It's taking care of each other.
Speaker 4: So when he asked what we accomplished, the first and
Speaker 4: foremost is most people don't pay attention to that institution,
Speaker 4: and probably for good reason, but we wanted to have
Speaker 4: people pay attention to the people who are hurting in America,
Speaker 4: whose voices often don't get told. Because I stood for
Speaker 4: twenty five hours, but you and I both know this.
Speaker 4: There are people like those folks workings at the ihop
Speaker 4: in Newark right now on Bergham Street, who are working
Speaker 4: two shifts, no rest and hoping they can maybe get
Speaker 4: a third around the clock so that they can make
Speaker 4: enough ends meet to afford rent. Well, the rent's going up,
Speaker 4: price of groceries are going up, price of everyday living,
Speaker 4: and so we've got to start talking about the real
Speaker 4: issues of our country, not in a way that talks down.
Speaker 1: To each other, but lifts folks up. And that's what
Speaker 1: I was trying to Senator.
Speaker 3: There were some people that were looking at you and
Speaker 3: in terms of what you had to say about fears
Speaker 3: of medicaid being destroyed, and essentially they use that as
Speaker 3: an example to highlight that primarily some of the things
Speaker 3: that you were complaining about haven't even happened yet, So
Speaker 3: why is he doing this now? What do you say
Speaker 3: to those to such assertions like that that you were
Speaker 3: talking about things that haven't happened yet.
Speaker 4: Well, God, I mean it's been seventy two days and
Speaker 4: a lot of things have happened.
Speaker 1: That are real. Health insurance is up.
Speaker 4: He cut funding to the ACA portals, making it different
Speaker 4: vote for people to get health care, and roll back
Speaker 4: things that the Biden administration did that brought down the
Speaker 4: price of prescription drugs. People are feeling that pain we
Speaker 4: know when it comes to healthcare. Those things have happened.
Speaker 4: What's happening to the VA? No president in my lifetime
Speaker 4: or yours has laid off more VA members, including many
Speaker 4: of them that are doing things to prevent veteran suicide,
Speaker 4: which is a shame of our nation. But when you
Speaker 4: talk about specifically Medicaid hasn't been cut.
Speaker 1: When do you want people to speak up? It's just
Speaker 1: like the ACA.
Speaker 4: You know, we started fight to protect the ACA months
Speaker 4: before it happened, But god, we had to Garner and
Speaker 4: galvanize people to join us in the fight, and that
Speaker 4: public pressure made John McCain and Lisa Murkowski and Susan
Speaker 4: Collins change their vote. So you and I know you
Speaker 4: don't prep for game day on game day. You've got
Speaker 4: two A days during the summer, sometimes three A days.
Speaker 4: You start prepping long before the actual vote comes.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're doing.
Speaker 3: I don't know if see this the way that I do,
Speaker 3: but when I was watching you, and I did not
Speaker 3: watch the whole twenty four twenty five plus hours, so
Speaker 3: I did not do that, but I certainly tried to
Speaker 3: watch some of it. Make no mistake about that. When
Speaker 3: I watched you talk about these things, I found myself
Speaker 3: growing a bit concern. And here is the reason why
Speaker 3: I give you credit, because I thought that you are
Speaker 3: adroitly utilized fears pertaining to Elon Musk indulge as opposed
Speaker 3: to going at Trump directly, because I think that he's
Speaker 3: become the master at playing the victim, and every time
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party has come at him in such a
Speaker 3: way directly, it's worked to it's his benefit as opposed
Speaker 3: to his detriment. Nevertheless, I do find I did find
Speaker 3: myself asking where was this Cory Booker and where were
Speaker 3: the Democrats leading up to the election, because as outspoken
Speaker 3: as you were, there were an abundance of people clamoring,
Speaker 3: maybe not directly for you, but for the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: to speak on issue use that were far more substantive
Speaker 3: than the stuff that we was hearing during the campaign.
Speaker 3: What do you say to that?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, what I said it on the floor,
Speaker 4: and maybe this wasn't the part you were listening to,
Speaker 4: is before you even get the Democrats Republicans. I just
Speaker 4: stood before the American people and said I could be
Speaker 4: doing better that I'm out here because my constituents we're
Speaker 4: saying exactly what you're saying is you're not doing enough.
Speaker 4: Do something different, Take a risk, show us how much
Speaker 4: you're how far you're willing to go to fight for
Speaker 4: the people who are getting hurt. I again, I keep
Speaker 4: bringing it back to sports, because I know that's a
Speaker 4: common plane we stand on. Yes, the team that loses,
Speaker 4: if you don't learn from that loss, you're going to
Speaker 4: be a loser over and over again. And whatever you
Speaker 4: want to say, the Democratic Party has to own up
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 1: Now. It's not about pointing Blaine.
Speaker 4: It's about taking responsibility right, and so I said that
Speaker 4: quite plain to the American people. Absolutely I accept responsibility.
Speaker 4: The Democratic Party is made mistakes. I said in the
Speaker 4: one hundred body, we've all made mistakes around him. Let's
Speaker 4: stop talking about each other and let's start talking about
Speaker 4: the possibilities of this nation. I asked folks that, I said,
Speaker 4: it's a new generation of leadership coming in America. Baby
Speaker 4: boomers are leaving, and they've done incredible things. My parents
Speaker 4: were baby boomers, The Civil Rights generation were baby boomers.
Speaker 4: You know, this is the last baby booming, President Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: It's time for us though in our generation, like the
Speaker 4: young John Lewis did, like a young Fred Shuttlesworth did,
Speaker 4: like the young Ella Baker did, It's time for us
Speaker 4: to redeem the dream and start talking about American a
Speaker 4: way that inspires people. Because this is what King did
Speaker 4: that was powerful to me. He didn't stand up on
Speaker 4: the march on Washington and talk about how racist Bull
Speaker 4: Connor was or how evil George Wallace was. He started
Speaker 4: to talk about us and who we could be together.
Speaker 4: He called us to our moral imagination. He redeemed the
Speaker 4: dream by saying I have one and put out a
Speaker 4: dream that nobody denis at where we should be going.
Speaker 3: But Senator Brooker, respectfully, a lot of people will look
Speaker 3: at a certain thing and hear what you're saying, and
Speaker 3: it's very difficult to refute anything that you're saying at
Speaker 3: this particular moment in time. But in the same breadth,
Speaker 3: there's a difference to being listened to and being heard.
Speaker 3: And when we think about the Democratic Party and you say,
Speaker 3: and you are absolutely accurate when you say that, you
Speaker 3: said on the floor you've made mistakes. The party has
Speaker 3: made mistakes. What were those mistakes? What were those mistakes
Speaker 3: that need to be corrected by the Democratic Party. Because
Speaker 3: even though you're saying that you don't want to talk
Speaker 3: about party affiliations, you're talking about human beings. You're talking
Speaker 3: about American citizens and American lives. The fact of the
Speaker 3: matter is you're a senator for the Democratic Party. So
Speaker 3: people are looking at you and they're saying, there's one
Speaker 3: side or the other. If you're talking to folks, they
Speaker 3: still see you as a Democrat. What did the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party do wrong that you felt compelled to take responsibility
Speaker 3: for it to some degree?
Speaker 4: Anyway, Well, forgive me for the inadequacies in my communicating
Speaker 4: right now, and I'll try to say it more plainly.
Speaker 4: The mistake that I spoke to on that floor was
Speaker 4: we didn't do what I did that night. We didn't
Speaker 4: do a good enough job of centering other people's pain,
Speaker 4: other people's hurt, other people's struggle. People don't care how
Speaker 4: much you know until they know how much you care.
Speaker 4: I started my career in Newark, New Jersey. I still
Speaker 4: live in that same neighborhood that I moved in to
Speaker 4: be a tenant organizer because the worst slumlords were taking
Speaker 4: advantage of people.
Speaker 1: And I remember, as a.
Speaker 4: Bright young lawyer from Yale University and one of the
Speaker 4: old grizzly tenant leaders, a guy named Frank Hutchins, When
Speaker 4: I was sitting in the meeting, all all I needed
Speaker 4: to give me the information I need to file my complaint.
Speaker 4: But that meeting went on for three hours and more on,
Speaker 4: probably longer than that, And when we got out, I
Speaker 4: made some quip that a young lawyer probably would make, like, God,
Speaker 4: we had everything we need in the first three minutes. God,
Speaker 4: that was a long meeting. I made some obnoxious young
Speaker 4: quip and he stopped in his tracks, this old tenant
Speaker 4: leader at the record for the longest rent strike in
Speaker 4: Newark's history. He stopped and he looked at me, and
Speaker 4: he goes, we can't even begin to heal the buildings
Speaker 4: until we heal each other. You need to see people, Corey,
Speaker 4: you need to hear them, You need to love them.
Speaker 4: I think that the reason why neither party, either Donald
Speaker 4: Trump or the Democratic nominee, got the majority of votes.
Speaker 4: That means nobody more people voted against each candidate and
Speaker 4: voted for them both of them. Nobody got over fifty percent,
Speaker 4: is because Americans have stopped believing in their leaders and believing, frankly.
Speaker 1: In what we are capable of together.
Speaker 4: This dream of America, as Langston Hughes said, there's a
Speaker 4: dream in this land with its back against the wall.
Speaker 1: Save the dream for one. We must save it for all.
Speaker 1: This idea that we're all into it, to get all
Speaker 1: into it together.
Speaker 4: This idea that we lean on each other, that we
Speaker 4: need each other, we're losing, that we're so tribal now
Speaker 4: that we hate each other before we even listen to
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 3: Well, let me interject, because I'm talking about winning. I
Speaker 3: didn't vote for Donald Trump. I didn't want him to win.
Speaker 3: But he won the election. He won every swing state,
Speaker 3: he won the popular vote, he won the electoral college vote.
Speaker 3: He's got the House and the Senate. My god, I mean,
Speaker 3: the man won. And what I'm thinking about listening to you,
Speaker 3: I hear exactly what you're saying. My retort to that
Speaker 3: would be, you were on the floor the word demogogue
Speaker 3: was mentioned. You've got people complaining about dose. You got
Speaker 3: folks out there attacking Tesla and what have you. You
Speaker 3: see a lot of the things that the Republicans are
Speaker 3: using on the right to point to the victimization they're
Speaker 3: suffering from, and the fact that the Democratic Party hasn't
Speaker 3: spoken up about what's great about their party. They've spoken
Speaker 3: more about what's bad about Trump and the GOP. To that,
Speaker 3: you say, what, how do you explain that and how
Speaker 3: you feel about that people saying those things?
Speaker 1: Brother, I'll tell you this, Stephen.
Speaker 4: I I'm one guy, and every day I stand up
Speaker 4: and my mom tells me this, don't define yourself by
Speaker 4: who you're against, but by what you're for. I remember
Speaker 4: Donald Trump the first time he mean tweeted me. I
Speaker 4: think Chris Como was interviewing me in a morning show.
Speaker 4: It was a Democratic convention, and he said, this is
Speaker 4: what Donald Trump said about you. What do you have
Speaker 4: to say back to him? And I looked at that, Chris,
Speaker 4: Chris Coleman. I think I surprised him. I said, what
Speaker 4: do I have to say to Donald Trump? Because he
Speaker 4: said that about me? I have to say, I love you, man,
Speaker 4: I don't want you to be my president. I'm going
Speaker 4: to do everything I can to stop you, but you're
Speaker 4: never gonna pull me so low as to hate you.
Speaker 4: I sat on a plane not too long ago, and
Speaker 4: you know how this and you get this. People look
Speaker 4: at you. I know you from somewhere. So a lot
Speaker 4: of people say things to me in airports, and mostly
Speaker 4: kind things, but sometimes I think, you know, it's May
Speaker 4: is almost here.
Speaker 1: I think you should send me a Mother's Day card
Speaker 1: because I hear it a lot. You mother, yep.
Speaker 4: But this time I'm sitting down and the couple next
Speaker 4: to me, it's a mom and a daughter sixty and eighty,
Speaker 4: and they look at me and they go, who are you?
Speaker 1: Or you a professional athlete? Now I'm a big black
Speaker 1: guy and Stanford, yeah, and you know my ego.
Speaker 4: You don't want to be insulted the black guy. You're
Speaker 4: making an assumption. My ego is like, well, I could
Speaker 4: be funny, but I look at her and I said, no, ma'am,
Speaker 4: I'm not. And then she goes, well, who are you?
Speaker 4: Why are so many people saying take a notice of you?
Speaker 4: And I said, ma'am, I'm a United States Senator. And
Speaker 4: the very first thing she wants to know, which most
Speaker 4: Americans want to know when they meet some congressman or
Speaker 4: congresswoman out about in the wild, is are you on
Speaker 4: their team or my team? And she looks at me
Speaker 4: and she goes, are you a Democrat Republican? And I go, ma'am,
Speaker 4: I'm a Democrat. And then she crosses her arms, looks
Speaker 4: sour at me, and swivels herself away from me, as
Speaker 4: she says, at the last moment, I should have brought
Speaker 4: my Trump hat, and then put turns away.
Speaker 1: And so here I am.
Speaker 4: I am hearing the same old tune that is so
Speaker 4: hurting our country. It's now invading our own Thanksgiving tables.
Speaker 3: Okay, but we hold on.
Speaker 4: Okay, go ahead, go ahead, because I'm not blaming her. Okay,
Speaker 4: I am not blaming her. I look at the woman
Speaker 4: and I say, ma'am, ma'am, excuse me. Donald Trump, he
Speaker 4: signed two of the biggest bills I've ever written as
Speaker 4: a United States Senator. One called the First Step Act,
Speaker 4: Liberty of thousands of people from prison. Too, I did
Speaker 4: with a man named Tim Scott, Republican from South Carolina.
Speaker 4: That brought hundreds of millions, hundreds, excit me, tens of
Speaker 4: billions of dollars of new investment into the poorest rule
Speaker 4: and urban areas.
Speaker 1: And she looked at me, She turned back around, looked
Speaker 1: at me, confused. Here I was talking about the work
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump and I did together. By the end
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: Flight, we were laughing and talking and connecting and finding
Speaker 4: out that the lines that divided us are nowhere nearest
Speaker 4: the ties that bind.
Speaker 3: Okay, and I get that. So that tells me that you,
Speaker 3: as a politician, can work across the aisle and communicate
Speaker 3: and deal with somebody from the opposite party that happens
Speaker 3: to be in the White House. You ran for president
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. Clearly you have aspirations to be a
Speaker 3: leader in this because you already considered a leader in
Speaker 3: this country. So what do you say when you look
Speaker 3: at how you've conducted yourself, which appears to be the
Speaker 3: right thing to do because you're getting stuff done across
Speaker 3: the isle like you just articulated, But clearly the party
Speaker 3: doesn't feel that way, and it's working against them. I'm
Speaker 3: looking at the Democratic Party right now, and I'm telling
Speaker 3: you send a man and man straight up. When you
Speaker 3: talk about individuals like yourself, like Governor wesmore like others
Speaker 3: that I have met, no problem. When I look at
Speaker 3: the party on the left right now, I've never been
Speaker 3: more disgusted with what I'm seeing because of the ineffecture,
Speaker 3: the ineffectiveness of the party in terms of competing against
Speaker 3: the other side. I'm not talking about you individually. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about the party that doesn't seem to vibe with
Speaker 3: the kind of communication skills and the kind of message
Speaker 3: that you just finished preaching about a couple of minutes ago.
Speaker 1: There's no singular party leader right now. There's all of us.
Speaker 4: And I'm gonna tell you this. I am a competitor.
Speaker 4: I want to win. I'm going to fight so my
Speaker 4: team wins. But what I'm going to tell you right
Speaker 4: now might surprise you. My team is not the Democrats.
Speaker 4: My team is Team America, okay, and the reason why
Speaker 4: I am one voice, but there's a lot of voices
Speaker 4: right now trying.
Speaker 1: To talk about where our party is going.
Speaker 4: I believe that when we start talking about more about
Speaker 4: where America can go, will go, must go, than that person,
Speaker 4: regardless of party, is a person that's going to be followed.
Speaker 4: We need more up and coming leaders to let folks
Speaker 4: know they are more concerned and connected to community than
Speaker 4: they are doing a party's bidding. If you can't lead
Speaker 4: the people, if you don't love the people. And I'm
Speaker 4: looking for a leader, I know we share a friend,
Speaker 4: Frank Lenz. He came into my office, shock, now, what's
Speaker 4: this Republican poster doing up in here? And he's said,
Speaker 4: we are at such a pivotal point in American history.
Speaker 4: He told me he's just looking for people that might
Speaker 4: be able to help heal this nation and lead us
Speaker 4: to the next generation. And he said, I got a
Speaker 4: few people on both sides of the aisle that I'm
Speaker 4: betting on. And so I'm telling you right now, I
Speaker 4: am a Democrat, as my grandfather was, who moved to Detroit,
Speaker 4: Michigan and got a job on an assembly line like
Speaker 4: many blacks did. He was one of the early black
Speaker 4: union organizers, and he used to tell me that Democratic
Speaker 4: Party ain't right all the time, but when you throw
Speaker 4: up the issues, they're the party of civil rights, They're
Speaker 4: the party of workers' rights, they're the parties of women's rights.
Speaker 1: They're the party of labor. They're the party of Medicaid
Speaker 1: and Medicare.
Speaker 4: He's like, when I I'm going to be a Democrat,
Speaker 4: but he looked at me, but he looked at me,
Speaker 4: wanted me to vote Democrat, right, But he said, your
Speaker 4: loyalty must always lie with your ancestors, calling your ancestors
Speaker 4: were Republicans and Democrats, because when my granddad started, most
Speaker 4: blacks were Republicans. The only thing turning Lincoln's picture to
Speaker 4: the wall we're going with FDR.
Speaker 3: Has has the Democratic Party taking the Black community amongst others.
Speaker 3: For granted, think about what you just said, Think about
Speaker 3: all the things that the Democratic Party stood for according
Speaker 3: to what you just articulated, and think about the fact
Speaker 3: that we didn't hear much of that message during the election,
Speaker 3: because that's where my discussed lives, sir, My discussed lives,
Speaker 3: was that we were involved in culture wars we were
Speaker 3: involved in talking, you know, about ideology and identity politics.
Speaker 3: We weren't talking about the issues that you just finished
Speaker 3: articulating at all.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I don't know if I agree
Speaker 1: with that. Man, go ahead. I the only hold on.
Speaker 4: I am the only United States Senator, the only one
Speaker 4: that lives in a black community that's edterable of the poverty.
Speaker 4: I live in that same neighborhood I lived when I
Speaker 4: moved in after.
Speaker 1: Law school and started getting it.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about you.
Speaker 4: I got my VI from Stafford, my PhD on the
Speaker 4: streets of Newark, right, and I still live there.
Speaker 1: I am connected to my community. I know you're not
Speaker 1: talking about me.
Speaker 4: But what I'm saying to you is I would get
Speaker 4: the same folk challenge of me in the barbershop. And yes,
Speaker 4: I know you're thinking, you go to the barbershop, I
Speaker 4: get the same folks challenge. Yes, I get the brother's
Speaker 4: challenge for me in the barbershop. What has a Democratic
Speaker 4: Party done for us? And so here was the breakdown.
Speaker 4: I would say, open the door, let me point to stuff.
Speaker 1: Because we in Newark, from Flint, Michigan to.
Speaker 4: New York had lead in our water. I worked to
Speaker 4: get the stuff in the bill that help us get
Speaker 4: every lead pipe out of the ground in the United
Speaker 4: States of America, because lead poisoning may not be some
Speaker 4: sexy issue, but it was plague in our communities. Let
Speaker 4: me give you another one. The maternal mortality rate in
Speaker 4: America is shameful. We're the wealthiest country in the world,
Speaker 4: but we have women dying in childbirth higher than any
Speaker 4: of the countries. But for Black women, it's three times
Speaker 4: the rate. We got Joe Biden working with him to
Speaker 4: expand Medicaid address this issue in a very significant way.
Speaker 1: They're rolling it back down this administration. I turn around.
Speaker 4: I said, the asthma rates in our city are four
Speaker 4: times in suburban towns. I talked about literally the biggest
Speaker 4: tree planting and for urban areas in all of humanity.
Speaker 4: I would go through my list and can see and
Speaker 4: people would say exactly what you're about to say. But
Speaker 4: I didn't know that. But I didn't know that. Ok
Speaker 4: So now we're talking about a different issue. Okay, comes
Speaker 4: from what they're.
Speaker 1: Doing for black people.
Speaker 4: Because I could go I could go to SBA loans
Speaker 4: and coming in and making sure I could go to
Speaker 4: criminal justice. I could go through all the issues that
Speaker 4: I know my community cares about and often feels like
Speaker 4: no one else does.
Speaker 3: And I can, and I can, and I can point
Speaker 3: the finger right back to you about your your contemporaries
Speaker 3: on the left and say it would have been nice
Speaker 3: to hear about those things and while they were campaign
Speaker 3: and for the presidency about you.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you a job I took on.
Speaker 4: Okay, I was a big group of people, about two
Speaker 4: three hundred people, and I said, everybody here was born
Speaker 4: It was March. I said, everybody here was born in March.
Speaker 4: Yell as loud as you can, yell truth, truth, truth,
Speaker 4: and they sorted yelling.
Speaker 1: I could stop.
Speaker 4: I said, rest the audience, everybody here that was not
Speaker 4: born in March, yell lie loud as you can. They
Speaker 4: channel lie. So I go, now we're gonna do the experiment.
Speaker 4: Everybody do it at once, yell it. Everybody did, and
Speaker 4: I said, okay, stop, now let's fight out about this experiment.
Speaker 4: How many people heard the word truth? Nobody sug your
Speaker 4: head And I pointed to somebody was born in marsh.
Speaker 4: Did you hear the word truth even though you were
Speaker 4: chanting it? They said, I couldn't hear it? Did you
Speaker 4: know the Democratic Party? I went to my Chuck Schumer,
Speaker 4: and I said, most voters now get their news here,
Speaker 4: especially low information voters, which I don't blame. You got
Speaker 4: so many other things to do in life, you don't
Speaker 4: have time to watch the news twenty four to seven,
Speaker 4: And I said, most voters get their news here on
Speaker 4: digital platforms, podcasts like this one and others. How many
Speaker 4: more times were Republicans on these platforms and Democrats about
Speaker 4: twelve to one? Donald Trump had about fourteen times that
Speaker 4: that podcast downloads and comma.
Speaker 3: And why was that?
Speaker 4: Why weren't showing up where the voters thank you? Back
Speaker 4: in the day, Mixon made the mistake mix it versus Kennedy.
Speaker 4: You remember those debates. I think knew that it too young,
Speaker 4: but one person knew where the future was television. I
Speaker 4: could not believe. I went to Chuck before the last
Speaker 4: election and said, our caucus compared to their caucus on
Speaker 4: just the social media engagement, they're crushing us by orders
Speaker 4: of magnitude.
Speaker 1: So since I've been to work, it's only been eight weeks.
Speaker 4: Now, with my own caucus, we've quadrupled the amount of
Speaker 4: impressions that we're getting on these things.
Speaker 1: I've been literally doing classes, bringing people.
Speaker 4: In to talk to them about show you up on
Speaker 4: these platforms, show your authentic self. Don't have somebody polish
Speaker 4: it and do all that. Just talk to people, look
Speaker 4: them in the eye, direct the cameras. You know this,
Speaker 4: and say what you do because I see your videos. Yes,
Speaker 4: and be mad, be angry, be yourself. One of my
Speaker 4: friends here, Mark Kelly, this amazing guy. He's a ball
Speaker 4: brother from New Jersey, but he's a senator from Arizona.
Speaker 4: He's in the New Jersey Hall of Fame because he
Speaker 4: was an astronaut out of this world. He started his
Speaker 4: TikTok count within two days had millions of views. So
Speaker 4: I would just tell you a lot of people didn't
Speaker 4: hear this because we weren't andect communicating effectively.
Speaker 1: Communications is three.
Speaker 4: Things real quick communication is the message, the medium, and
Speaker 4: the messenger. You got to do well in all three
Speaker 4: and sir, the reason why you probably make a lot
Speaker 4: more money than I do because you've got the message.
Speaker 1: People want to hear what you have to say.
Speaker 4: You're on the right mediums, people are listening to you
Speaker 4: where you are, and you're a damn good messenger and
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party right leaders in general.
Speaker 1: This is why, this is why Fred.
Speaker 4: Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King and the man that was
Speaker 4: at the center of my speech, John Lewis, were so good.
Speaker 1: They had the right message. They created a way.
Speaker 4: To capture the moral imagination of the country because they
Speaker 4: found ways to make the media pay attention.
Speaker 3: So I know, I got you for less.
Speaker 1: Cool. It's cool.
Speaker 3: I like it, But you the one living I got time.
Speaker 3: You the one that got to leave it a few minutes.
Speaker 3: That's why I got. I got your point. Let me
Speaker 3: get let me get to some points quick before I
Speaker 3: let you get on out of here. You brought up
Speaker 3: you brought up Joe Biden, and you talked about what
Speaker 3: legislation he obviously he obviously signed off on. I asked
Speaker 3: this question, what about people that look at the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party right now and said, you know, this man was
Speaker 3: debilitating and you have the Republicans leaning on the fact
Speaker 3: that you hid that from the American people and they
Speaker 3: think that that plays a role and things that are
Speaker 3: being held against you right now as a party to that.
Speaker 1: You say, what, I don't even know why that's an issue, right?
Speaker 4: I talk her By the way, Joe Biden called me today,
Speaker 4: he sounded very copis. Man just got very argumentative, not
Speaker 4: argumented with me, but very fired up when he was
Speaker 4: talking to me. I don't know, man, and I never
Speaker 4: saw it, and he would call this man would literally.
Speaker 1: Call me up to discuss Potts. I've met no president
Speaker 1: like him.
Speaker 3: The reason why, the reason why I bring stuff like
Speaker 3: that up is for this reason. Like, for example, I
Speaker 3: love talking to you, you know one, but the one
Speaker 3: person that I don't ever want to interview. I've never
Speaker 3: said this about any other human beings. And I respect her.
Speaker 3: She's a center. I'm sure she works very diligently, she
Speaker 3: has passion in her heart. But Elizabeth Warren I can't
Speaker 3: talk to her. You know why, because every time I
Speaker 3: see her, it comes acurse as if you don't agree
Speaker 3: with her, you're going to hell. You're gonna hell, your
Speaker 3: destined for hell, just because you don't agree with her.
Speaker 3: And it's like, wait a minute. Everything has to be
Speaker 3: an emotional tug of war. Sometimes it's got to be
Speaker 3: about beer, bones and facts. When you were complaining about
Speaker 3: Elon Musk, what was your primary complaint as it pertained
Speaker 3: to him specifically.
Speaker 1: Is this.
Speaker 3: I know there is a multitude of things that you
Speaker 3: could provide, but a lot of Americans were looking at
Speaker 3: him and say, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: Waste fraud.
Speaker 3: I saw Nancy Pelosi on video back in twenty ten
Speaker 3: talking about how medicare needed to be cut. I saw
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer saying the same thing. But suddenly, you know,
Speaker 3: he saying stuff like that, and I wasn't support to
Speaker 3: him being in that position either. Please don't get me wrong,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, do we not know that folks are
Speaker 3: gonna see those videos and they're gonna point to what
Speaker 3: appears to be a level of hypocrisy on the part
Speaker 3: of the left with that stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, I want to make two points. I'll make him
Speaker 4: make a goal with him. The first point is I
Speaker 4: was as a guy influencer. I love he's a doctor
Speaker 4: and challenges the science of our now h H and
Speaker 4: S Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, And so he kept challenging him,
Speaker 4: bringing up the scientific research, taking him down, taking him down.
Speaker 1: And then one day he did a video that blew
Speaker 1: me away.
Speaker 4: He did a video where he said, I'm reading my
Speaker 4: comments and people are attacking Robert F. Kennedy because of
Speaker 4: his voice. They're attacking his very perk, and he went
Speaker 4: off on his own people. He said we should attack
Speaker 4: him on his science and where he's wrong, do not
Speaker 4: demean and degrade him as his character. And so I
Speaker 4: will tell you I've met Elon Musk, I met the man.
Speaker 4: I'm sure he did not have the kind of success
Speaker 4: he had. I don't want to demean his character at all.
Speaker 4: But I'm telling you this what he's doing. He's even
Speaker 4: said it. They've had to pull down things off of
Speaker 4: this thing. He is ready fire aim As a guy
Speaker 4: who played football, we prepared, we thought out our game plan,
Speaker 4: we did the strategy with the research, then we made
Speaker 4: our execution on the football field.
Speaker 1: He is not doing that.
Speaker 4: He's firing people from the FAA that we desperately need
Speaker 4: for our security and then trying.
Speaker 1: To call and get them back.
Speaker 3: Slash and Burney the where to go?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 3: Slash and burneight the way to go completely? But signing
Speaker 3: at government.
Speaker 1: This is really important is you need to have transparency.
Speaker 4: This man was being investigated by multiple government agencies. That
Speaker 4: then he gets in there and he tears down the
Speaker 4: ferry people that were investigating his companies and he's not
Speaker 4: coming before Congress to be transparent about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 3: But to get on him about the cuts when even
Speaker 3: even though Clinton was an elected official, there was an
Speaker 3: abundance of cuts that he put forth towards the federal
Speaker 3: He did thousand budgets.
Speaker 1: Obama reduced the deficits he did. The biggest person who
Speaker 1: has blown holes in our buggets.
Speaker 4: The biggest deficits have been accrued under Donald Trump's first term.
Speaker 1: And he's now putting a budget before this Congress that
Speaker 1: we're gonna be voting on. It's going to bust another.
Speaker 4: Three trillion dollars annually or more in our budgets. There's
Speaker 4: no physical responsibility in this man. So his whole plan
Speaker 4: is to cut and gut Medicaid in order to give
Speaker 4: more tax cuts to people in the highest income brackets disproportionately,
Speaker 4: and bull hole in the deficit.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty incredible feat to be able to do
Speaker 1: all three of the same.
Speaker 3: Well, somebody on the right wood ask what's wrong with,
Speaker 3: for example, let's touch on the issue of terrorists real,
Speaker 3: real quickly, what's wrong with being reciprocal in that regard
Speaker 3: in terms of other countries are putting tarifts on you.
Speaker 3: Why can't you put it on them?
Speaker 4: What do you say to that, Because this is not
Speaker 4: the playground. It's not the playground, my friend. This is
Speaker 4: a sophisticated, complicated economy. We're the biggest economy on the
Speaker 4: planet Earth, and we don't need somebody that if you
Speaker 4: mess with me or talk about me, I'm coming after you.
Speaker 4: We need somebody that says, what is the best using
Speaker 4: a surgical like precision and strategy, What is the best
Speaker 4: way to go about utilizing tariffs to ensure that we
Speaker 4: do what everybody wants to do, make America more affordable
Speaker 4: and create more jobs. Look at the stock market right now.
Speaker 4: The average family, because of the way he's going about tariffs,
Speaker 4: is going to pay three to four thousand dollars more.
Speaker 4: This is not a precision tuning of our economy for
Speaker 4: the outcomes that we all want. This is a guy
Speaker 4: that has just taken a sledgehammer to our economy and
Speaker 4: the global economy, and people all over the planet, especially
Speaker 4: the folks I care about in New Jersey are going
Speaker 4: to be hurting because of these incredible trade wars.
Speaker 1: He's starting out. He's starting Chuck Chuma.
Speaker 3: Obviously, went against you guys with the spending bill and
Speaker 3: what have you, because obviously you know they didn't want
Speaker 3: the federal government to shut down. And then you had
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of Democrats speaking out against him, folks
Speaker 3: wanting him going. What's your position about him still maintaining
Speaker 3: a leadership role within the Democratic Party? Number one? And
Speaker 3: number two, how are you feeling about the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: right now moving forward in light of some of the
Speaker 3: things that we've been seeing, not from the right, from
Speaker 3: your own party in terms of how they choose to
Speaker 3: conduct themselves. I asked Minority Leader Hakim Jeffreys the same thing,
Speaker 3: and I'm asking it to you because looking at that
Speaker 3: full screen right there, voter's views of the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: only a twenty seven percent positive. It's pretty bad for
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party right now.
Speaker 4: Your thoughts, Sir Mike Parts is like, if you get
Speaker 4: up every day thinking about what can I do to
Speaker 4: help the Democratic Party, you're thinking about the wrong thing.
Speaker 4: You need to get up every day and thinking about
Speaker 4: what you're doing for the American people. I'm sorry New
Speaker 4: Jersey did not send me here to try to repair
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: They sent me to watch in the DC to fight
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 4: When I go home to New York this weekend, people
Speaker 4: are not gonna say what are you doing for the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party? They're saying, hey, what are you doing to
Speaker 4: fight for my healthcare? To fight for my veterans benefits,
Speaker 4: to fight for my social security? I'm sorry, I'm just
Speaker 4: not getting up every day and going to bed every
Speaker 4: night worrying about the Democratic Party. I'm worrying about the
Speaker 4: Americans that are suffering and hurting. But by the way,
Speaker 4: that's probably the best thing we could do Democrats. It's
Speaker 4: to be focused on people and concerned with people.
Speaker 3: Fair enough, But Senate a book and you just told
Speaker 3: me you weretor. I know you play football at Stanford.
Speaker 3: I know you know your sports. I know you like competition,
Speaker 3: which means you like to win. So what I'm asking
Speaker 3: to what I'm asking you is based on what you've seen.
Speaker 1: You see what he's doing.
Speaker 3: I saw a man get convicted of thirty four felony
Speaker 3: counts and his campaign dollars rolls.
Speaker 1: That's what I saw.
Speaker 3: I saw the man impeached twice and the popularity didn't dissipate.
Speaker 3: I am asking you, sir, do you believe that what's
Speaker 3: transpiring right now in terms of how y'all are going
Speaker 3: after him because of tariffs, because of Doge, because of whatever.
Speaker 3: Do you believe it as a winning formula, particularly and
Speaker 3: specifically for the midterm elections.
Speaker 4: I believe Donald Trump got elected because a whole bunch
Speaker 4: of swing voters heard him say I'm going to lower
Speaker 4: your grocery bills, I'm gonna lower your costs. That the
Speaker 4: number one thing people were talking to me about was
Speaker 4: ends aren't meeting. And this man was going on and
Speaker 4: on about that. That's the reason why not because he
Speaker 4: was a Republican, because people trusted and believed in him
Speaker 4: that he would do better for his family. Now, most
Speaker 4: Americans are not better off than they were seventy two
Speaker 4: days ago.
Speaker 1: They're worse off. And again, that's how he won.
Speaker 4: And if I want to win, if our party wants
Speaker 4: to win, stop talking about parties and start talking about people,
Speaker 4: about purpose, about possibilities. Get back in the streets and
Speaker 4: help some folk before you ask for their vote. And
Speaker 4: that's why I stood up on the Senate floor to
Speaker 4: center folks in the conversation and to try to inspire
Speaker 4: some people to understand that we can do better than
Speaker 4: we're doing.
Speaker 3: Now stay in touch because I definitely am going to
Speaker 3: want to talk to you more as everything continues to unfold.
Speaker 3: But i'd be remissing neglecting to ask you about a
Speaker 3: bill you know you introduce. You establish and due process
Speaker 3: protections for college athletes during the NCUBA, you know, with
Speaker 3: these nc DOUBLEA investigations. I just want to read from
Speaker 3: this article here. Yourself, along with Marsha black Are introduced
Speaker 3: the nc DOUBLEA Accountability Act, which would establish due process
Speaker 3: protections for college athletes, coaches, and universities that are under
Speaker 3: investigation by the nc double A. Talk about that before
Speaker 3: I let you go.
Speaker 4: Please saut that I wish we started the conversation here
Speaker 4: because I got a lot of say please take it away.
Speaker 4: The NCAA for decades has been allowing athletes to be exploited.
Speaker 4: It wasn't remember when shabaznap here they win the Final
Speaker 4: four and then put a microphone in front of him
Speaker 4: and says, I go to bed Hungary because God forbid
Speaker 4: you accept some groceries from somebody or sell your jersey
Speaker 4: and they would kick you out of the sport. When
Speaker 4: the scholarships and the moneies that they were making available
Speaker 4: at NCAA was below what they would need to survive
Speaker 4: on campus, and then they leave campus, and then their
Speaker 4: jersey with their name on is still being sold. They're
Speaker 4: putting people in seats making millions and millions of dollars,
Speaker 4: and yet I know guys who blew out their knees,
Speaker 4: have spinal injuries, and they're going in their own pockets
Speaker 4: right now to pay for their health care for injuries
Speaker 4: they got back when they played ball. So I've been
Speaker 4: on this issue for a long time to make sure
Speaker 4: that we have college sports that make sense, but where
Speaker 4: the athletes who are through their struggle, their sweat, their grit,
Speaker 4: sometimes their blood, they're the wealth that is being generated.
Speaker 1: But they have not been taken care of.
Speaker 4: The concussion protocol, sexual assault, medical issues, academic issues, lots
Speaker 4: of promises made but not promises kept. And so there
Speaker 4: is a lot going on in college sports right now,
Speaker 4: and I'm working very very hard in a bipartisan way
Speaker 4: to try to create some fair rules, some real fair
Speaker 4: rules about what's going on. And it's not just with
Speaker 4: partnering across the aisle with the good senator you were
Speaker 4: talking about in the Republican Party, but I'm working with
Speaker 4: Moran and some others Bloomhaal on my side to try
Speaker 4: to make some progress where athletes get a fair shake
Speaker 4: and fair system, because I know a lot of people
Speaker 4: are focused on the athletes. They're through all this nil
Speaker 4: and the portals who are making lots of money and
Speaker 4: all that.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you there are thousands of athletes. There should
Speaker 1: be a basic bill of rights.
Speaker 4: We put out an Athletes's Bill of Rights that athletes
Speaker 4: should be guaranteed to guaranteed if they're entering this and
Speaker 4: helping universities and TV stations and all these people make
Speaker 4: a lot of money and long careers, but they wind
Speaker 4: up five years after they've played with medical bills, with
Speaker 4: the education that hasn't been completed, and a lot of bruises,
Speaker 4: a lot of beatings, but not enough to show for
Speaker 4: it for the wealth that they created.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, I'm a moderate, obviously, and so when you
Speaker 3: talk about crossing the isle and working in partnership with anybody,
Speaker 3: particularly for an issue like this, it's near and dear
Speaker 3: to my heart. I cracked my kneecap when my first
Speaker 3: gear in college. I know exactly the kind of stuff
Speaker 3: that you're talking about. I am here to help in
Speaker 3: any way that I can send it a book. I
Speaker 3: really appreciate your time. I really really do. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 4: No, I'm a fan of yours and appreciate your voice
Speaker 4: because you do talk about sports. But I like how
Speaker 4: you stand up and when you say you're a moderate.
Speaker 4: That's really what I want to see more people say,
Speaker 4: not that they're moderate. I don't care what your politics are,
Speaker 4: but the key point is of people in this country
Speaker 4: that remind us that there is one American destiny, that
Speaker 4: we belong to each other, and that those words that
Speaker 4: are over the Senate eplervispunum, they need something. And so
Speaker 4: I appreciate you, and especially in the context of sports,
Speaker 4: which is a great part.
Speaker 1: Of American culture where we do all come together.
Speaker 4: I was in the locker room next to Republicans and
Speaker 4: Democrats everybody else, and we found out that when we
Speaker 4: bled together, when we swept together, we still get together
Speaker 4: and love on each other because we know that the
Speaker 4: bond is deeper than the political parties we have. We disagree,
Speaker 4: but we still know we belong to each other with brothers,
Speaker 4: and so I appreciate you, man.
Speaker 1: I've looked up for you for a long time.
Speaker 4: I hope we can get back on it in the
Speaker 4: future and we can get into some of these issues
Speaker 4: because I like sparring with you to that's.
Speaker 3: Right, we definitely will without question and disseminating that kind
Speaker 3: of message to the masses. I think that's what could
Speaker 3: potentially win for the Democrats.
Speaker 4: Let me just say this last thing, team, because I
Speaker 4: say it my colleagues in Caucus. When we're driving down
Speaker 4: the field, I know I used to know when we
Speaker 4: were going to score a touchdown when the other teams
Speaker 4: start arguing in their huddle, started yelling at demeaning and degrading.
Speaker 4: I used to tell my guys in my huddle, we're
Speaker 4: gonna score. We're gonna score because that team is divided
Speaker 4: against itself. So I'm hoping that voices like yours are
Speaker 4: gonna remind us we got to We may disagree with
Speaker 4: the play, you may have messed up on that play,
Speaker 4: but when we get back in that huddle, we got
Speaker 4: to regroup, come together. Because it's a crazy world out there,
Speaker 4: a lot more competitive than people know. And our adversaries
Speaker 4: who have a different idea about freedom and liberty and justice,
Speaker 4: or adversaries who want to see democracies die. They're coming
Speaker 4: after us, and our team needs to come together and
Speaker 4: be prepared to leave the world order and preserve the
Speaker 4: values that we fought in Normandy on we fought in
Speaker 4: the Pacific. We fought to say that freedom and democracy
Speaker 4: should be the best form of government, and that's something
Speaker 4: we have to get together and continue to affirm.
Speaker 1: To each other.
Speaker 3: Senator the Corey Booker right here on the step and
Speaker 3: A Smith Schew. Really shate you, buddy, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: We'll talk so appreciate you. Thank you, m HM.