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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. I'm really pleased to

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Speaker 1: welcome my guest today, Senator Joe Lieberman. We've known each

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Speaker 1: other for more than thirty years, and when we were

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Speaker 1: in Congress, he was a Democrat from Connecticut, and of

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Speaker 1: course I'm a Republican from Georgia. But we managed to

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Speaker 1: find common ground to work together in key issues that

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Speaker 1: we're facing the country in the years we served together.

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Speaker 1: And that's the subject of his new book, The Centrist Solution.

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Speaker 1: How we made government work and can make it work again.

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Speaker 1: Reaching across the aisle to get things done in a

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Speaker 1: way that I think we'd both agree really doesn't happen anymore.

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Speaker 1: Senator Lieberman was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in two

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Speaker 1: thousand served twenty four years in the US Senate, retiring

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Speaker 1: in January twenty thirteen. During his tenure, Senator Lieberman helped

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Speaker 1: shape legislation and virtually every major area of public policy.

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Speaker 1: He served in many leadership roles, including as Chairman of

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Speaker 1: the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, where he

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Speaker 1: led numerous Congressional investigations, including investigations into Enron's collapse, the

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Speaker 1: federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, the Fort Hood mass shooting,

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Speaker 1: and the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libby. Prior to being

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Speaker 1: elected to the Senate, Senator Liebman served as the Attorney

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Speaker 1: General of the state of Connecticut for six years. He

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Speaker 1: also served ten years in the Connecticut State Senate, including

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Speaker 1: three terms as Majority of Leader. He is currently senior

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Speaker 1: counsel the Cassowitz Benson Taurres, a New York law offer.

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Speaker 1: I'm really pleased to welcome my guest and my good friend,

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Speaker 1: Senator Joe Lieberman. I am delighted to have a chance

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Speaker 1: to talk with somebody who I regard as a close

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Speaker 1: personal friend and a colleague. And we've done lots of

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Speaker 1: things over the years, and fact I was particularly honored

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Speaker 1: yesterday because his wife, had Assa introduced me at a

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Speaker 1: speech in New York and said a number of glowing things,

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Speaker 1: some of which were even true. Joelie is a remarkable guy,

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Speaker 1: and we have some things that are intriguing. When we

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Speaker 1: did research for this, I didn't realize that your earliest

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Speaker 1: big political memory was the election of Eisenhower. And you

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Speaker 1: write in your new book, The Centrist Solution, how we

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Speaker 1: made government work and can make it work again, which

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Speaker 1: I agree with totally. You said my grandmother and I

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Speaker 1: were quite logically supporting Eisenhower. As the evening went on

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Speaker 1: and became clear to me that my father and mother

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Speaker 1: were supporting Stevenson, which puzzled and irritated me. But I

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Speaker 1: was only ten, and besides, in the end one and

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Speaker 1: that was what counted. What I want to know is

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Speaker 1: why did your grandmother support Eisenhower? Oh? I think it

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Speaker 1: was totally because he was a hero. I mean he

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Speaker 1: was the American general who in many ways was responsible

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Speaker 1: for it, you know, defeating the Nazis and all that

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Speaker 1: that involved. So she couldn't understand and as the ten

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Speaker 1: year old, I couldn't understand how my mother and father

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Speaker 1: support this guy Stevens. Who was he? You know? What

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Speaker 1: had he done compared to Ike? That was what But

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Speaker 1: that sort of explains your whole career, because at some

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Speaker 1: deep level you've always been more than a traditional democrat.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, I noticed that after your sophomoreyear in college,

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Speaker 1: you volunteered to work for a Bribakov, who I thought

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Speaker 1: represented a brand of classic liberalism that was focused in

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Speaker 1: a common sense way on solving problems. And they're really

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Speaker 1: represented a generation that was into governing as opposed to

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Speaker 1: just politics. And it seems to me you sort of

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Speaker 1: caught that particular bug. At the time i've known you,

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Speaker 1: You've always started to started with you know, what is

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Speaker 1: it we could get done together as opposed to how

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Speaker 1: can we fight each other? Yeah. Thanks. I was very

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Speaker 1: lucky that I got to know Abribl club. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: really following closely when he was elected governor I think

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four. Again I was only twelve then,

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Speaker 1: but I went back and read it, and you know,

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Speaker 1: in his first term, Abe was a Democrat, that Connecticut

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Speaker 1: legislature was Republican. He gave a really excellent inaugural address,

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Speaker 1: I think it was our first State of the State,

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Speaker 1: in which he essentially said to the members of the Assembly,

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Speaker 1: the you're a majority of Republican, I'm a Democrat. We

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Speaker 1: can fight each other for the next two years, or

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Speaker 1: we can work together, compromise and get something done. And

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Speaker 1: it's not unethical to compromise, he said in the speech

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Speaker 1: he titled the Integrity of Compromise. It did have an

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Speaker 1: effect on me. I worked for him one summer during college.

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Speaker 1: I guess it was nineteen sixty three, and you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a small office and there only three interns.

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Speaker 1: He only had about ten staff. So I got to

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Speaker 1: spend time with him, and he taught me a lot,

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Speaker 1: and it was all about I mean, he right away

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Speaker 1: was accepted across a broad range of his colleagues, the

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Speaker 1: conservative Southern Democrats, who really were the powerhouses then, and

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Speaker 1: his Republican colleagues. And he put a lot of really

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Speaker 1: important agreements together and past some great legislation. I actually

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Speaker 1: tell a story of the book. I'll tell it just quickly.

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Speaker 1: He got asked to speak at the Senate prayer breakfast,

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Speaker 1: and as far as he knew, he might have been

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Speaker 1: the first Jewish senator to be asked to do that.

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Speaker 1: And he knew that I was religious. So he called

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Speaker 1: me in and asked me if I could draft the

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Speaker 1: speech for him. First draft, and the topic that I'm

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Speaker 1: one of the Titans of the Senate, I think it

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Speaker 1: was Richard Russell or James Eastland gave him for the

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Speaker 1: talk would be that the God of the Old Testament

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Speaker 1: is a god of vengeance two or false. What a

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Speaker 1: thing to end up doing as a summer intern Senators,

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Speaker 1: Because so I actually spoke to a professor of jewr

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Speaker 1: Studies at Yale where I was a student, which, of

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Speaker 1: course we said, no, not a god of vengeance, a

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Speaker 1: loving father who wants the best for his children, all

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Speaker 1: of us. And he went off and delivered the speech.

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Speaker 1: He came back and said, my colleagues loved it, and Joe,

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Speaker 1: I think this is one of the most important things

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Speaker 1: I could have done at the beginning of my career

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Speaker 1: in the Senate, and I had a laugh at it. It

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Speaker 1: It was just sort of a twist of faith. But

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Speaker 1: he did develop relations with those titans of the Senate

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Speaker 1: who had different points of view from him, but they

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Speaker 1: respected him a lot and they negotiated a lot. As

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Speaker 1: a result, he got a lot done for Connecticut and

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Speaker 1: the country. He was a mentor in a real role

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Speaker 1: model for me. Hey, Nude, I want to say about you.

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Speaker 1: Had loved introducing you yesterday, and you know, she and

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Speaker 1: I both feel the same admiration for you. Has just

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Speaker 1: been wonderful to work with you, and I highlight in

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Speaker 1: this book you're in a way surprisingly productive relationship during

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Speaker 1: the nineties with President Clinton in which you each smart,

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Speaker 1: each policy wants, and each having desire to get something done,

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Speaker 1: and you know, look what came out, a welfare reform,

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Speaker 1: criminal justice reform, and the greatest of all, I think

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Speaker 1: Balance Budget Act, which helped to stimulate the economy and

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Speaker 1: actually took the budget for the next three years into surplus.

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Speaker 1: And that's because of the way you approached your work

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Speaker 1: as Speaker. So you're one of the stars of the book.

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Speaker 1: And I'm so happy to talk to your No, I

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Speaker 1: don't have to be sure people get the centrist solution

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Speaker 1: how we made government work and can make it work again,

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Speaker 1: because you know a little self servant, you know, I

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Speaker 1: remember you and I could always talk. In fact, you

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Speaker 1: may remember you called me. I think right after I

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Speaker 1: got elected Speaker and I gave some speech each on television,

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Speaker 1: and you called me and said you and Hadassa had

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Speaker 1: watched the speech the night before, and you kept saying, gosh,

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Speaker 1: I agree with that, And that to me was one

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Speaker 1: of the signals. That conversation with you was one of

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Speaker 1: the signals. You know, if we could find a way

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Speaker 1: to reach out, you could create a bipartisan majority. And

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Speaker 1: I have to give some credit to Bill Clinton, because

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Speaker 1: despite what happened later in his career, Clinton had a

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Speaker 1: natural instinct that he was president to serve the country,

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Speaker 1: not just to serve the left wing of the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 1: To get to a balanced budget. We spent thirty five

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Speaker 1: days negotiating faces well, as you know, because you've done it.

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Speaker 1: You were the Senate majority leader in the Connecticut Senate,

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Speaker 1: so you know you've got to take time with people

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Speaker 1: if you're going to get things done. And I'm very

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Speaker 1: curious in that sense, because it seems to me your

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Speaker 1: career at one level has to be a little bit frustrating.

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Speaker 1: You're a great leader, you're clearly one of the most

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Speaker 1: important defenders of Israel, and somebody who has had a

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Speaker 1: very deep passion for national security. And you co chaired

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Speaker 1: the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, so you must have watched

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Speaker 1: the last year with a certain sense of horror. And

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Speaker 1: since twenty fourteen you are an honorary founding chairman of

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Speaker 1: No Labels, which is a real effort to bring together

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Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans in which I think, at one level

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Speaker 1: has actually made some progress despite the atmospherics and the hostility.

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Speaker 1: But did you apply back in the Connecticut Senate the

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Speaker 1: same kind of principle of reaching across and of trying

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Speaker 1: to find a way to build a bipartisan majority. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a great training ground for me. And again

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Speaker 1: just goes with you in Clinton. You know the old

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Speaker 1: line it takes two to tango. It takes two leaders

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Speaker 1: or two parties to break the grid luck and get

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Speaker 1: something done for the people and for the state or country.

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Speaker 1: And Connecticut was a partisan state, but that didn't stand

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Speaker 1: in the way of us working together. And during the

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Speaker 1: six years particularly that I was a majority leader of

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Speaker 1: the Connecticut State Senate, there were two men who were

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Speaker 1: the Republican leaders, Dick Bazoo and Lou Rome. These were

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Speaker 1: just great people, and honestly, we would meet pretty much

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Speaker 1: every day to discuss the calendar for the day, and

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Speaker 1: we always divided it in three after we talked to

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Speaker 1: our clocks. This part we agree on, so let's get

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Speaker 1: it done unanimously. This part we don't agree on, so

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Speaker 1: we're probably gonna just not take it up. And this

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Speaker 1: part we don't agree on now, but maybe if we

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Speaker 1: work on it, we can negotiate a compromise. And more

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Speaker 1: often than not we did. But just what you said before,

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Speaker 1: New you've got to know people, You've got to trust people,

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Speaker 1: and even helps to like people to be able to

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Speaker 1: have those kinds of relationships. With my years in the

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Speaker 1: Connecticut they Sate ten and particularly the sixth majority leader,

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Speaker 1: working with those Republican leaders really gave me a lesson.

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Speaker 1: I mean, some of this is so obvious that you

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Speaker 1: wonder why people don't do it all the time, which

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Speaker 1: is in most legislative Bobby, certainly in the center of

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Speaker 1: the United States, you're rarely, rarely going to get anything

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Speaker 1: significant done with the votes have only won party. So

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Speaker 1: if you really came to Washington to get something done,

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Speaker 1: to be part of change in a good direction, then

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Speaker 1: you better negotiate or have friends in the other party.

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Speaker 1: And honestly, I ain't made it a rule. I never

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Speaker 1: introduced anything that I was really a priority for me

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Speaker 1: in the Senate unless I had a Republican co sponsor.

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Speaker 1: At least I knew I had a chance to get

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Speaker 1: it past, which is what it's all about. Today, you

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Speaker 1: don't see that as much. And again I want to

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Speaker 1: come back to your relationship with Bill Clinton, because at

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Speaker 1: the beginning, when you carry that historic sweep of the

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Speaker 1: House two Republicans in nineteen ninety or people said, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, this is going to be civil war for

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Speaker 1: the coming years in Washington. But you and Clinton developed

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Speaker 1: a sort of trust in each other. But as you said,

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Speaker 1: it took time. You can't just plu fly in from

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Speaker 1: somewhere kind of given days, sit down and negotiate with

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Speaker 1: somebody you don't really know or like or trust, and

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Speaker 1: think you're going to get anything done. It doesn't work

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Speaker 1: that way. But to your greater than Clinton's, you took

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Speaker 1: the time and you really did some things that are historical.

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Speaker 1: I think both of us had this sense, and maybe

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Speaker 1: it's because we're children of the greatest generation who fought

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Speaker 1: World War Two and they had a real sense of

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Speaker 1: American patriotism, and we both had this idea that we

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Speaker 1: actually had a responsibility to the country to try to

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Speaker 1: find some way to work together. You know, I'd never

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Speaker 1: read it until I saw it in your book The

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Speaker 1: Centrist Solution, but your quote from John Adams, and I'm

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Speaker 1: going to read it because I think people need to

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Speaker 1: realize how real this is. Adams writes, there is nothing

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Speaker 1: I dread so much as a division of the republicanto

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Speaker 1: two great parties, each arranged under its leader and concerting

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Speaker 1: measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension,

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Speaker 1: is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under

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Speaker 1: our constitution. And I think that's part of what Bill

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Speaker 1: and I try to avoid, sort of the way you

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Speaker 1: to set back. You and I use very similar models

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Speaker 1: about what is it you have to have, what is

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Speaker 1: it you can't have, and then what's in the middle

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Speaker 1: where we can find a deal, where we can get

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Speaker 1: something done. Exactly what we're experiencing now in Washington. It

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Speaker 1: was the nightmare and the great fear of a lot

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Speaker 1: of the founding generation Adams. That quote says it bluntly

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Speaker 1: and disconcertingly. George Washington has a few sentences in his

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Speaker 1: inaugural address that Warren of the same, of the dangers

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Speaker 1: that people elected to office in Washington would be re

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Speaker 1: loyal to what he called their political collection, which we

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Speaker 1: call parties today. Then they went to the country, and

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Speaker 1: that would compromise none of the unity of the country.

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Speaker 1: But ultimately it's independence. Of course, back then their independence

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Speaker 1: was not a guaranteed thing. Today it is. But of

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Speaker 1: course we heard ourselves by the disunity and division and

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Speaker 1: constant attack counterattack that exists in Washington. I thought in

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Speaker 1: the recent election in Virginia particularly, and in the closeness

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Speaker 1: of going and New Jersey that you know, again the

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Speaker 1: ultimate answer and our system, thank god as the voters,

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Speaker 1: and the voters sent a message that in this case,

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Speaker 1: but they don't particularly like the direction which the Democratic

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Speaker 1: Party is going, which is left word an internal whole

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Speaker 1: value system, defund the police, oh my goodness, tell this

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Speaker 1: wokeness and public education that the people don't want. And

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Speaker 1: hopefully the people who are dominant in the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: will hear that, including President Biden, and not the first

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Speaker 1: so much to the left wing of the party, which

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Speaker 1: really doesn't represent, in my opinion, the values or interests

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Speaker 1: of the great majority of the American people. You know,

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Speaker 1: Dinard White and his remarkable Making of the President of

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two has a line where he said that

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Speaker 1: the problem that McGovern faced in trying to deal with

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Speaker 1: the left was that the liberal ideology had become a

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Speaker 1: liberal theology, and where you could have debates about the ideology,

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Speaker 1: the theology demanded obedience. It seems me that in your career,

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Speaker 1: part of what affected the trajectory of your career was

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Speaker 1: the gradual transition of your party from a great straordinary

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Speaker 1: collection of people across a very broad range of ideologies

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Speaker 1: to an increasingly selective and anti descent kind of forced uniformity.

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Speaker 1: As you were living through that, I mean, how did you,

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Speaker 1: in your own mind cope with the transitions that were

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Speaker 1: under way, particularly, I think after the two thousand election. Yeah, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I think you've described it accurately. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: the first up on the two party system. As you

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Speaker 1: well known, the remarkable thing in American political life is

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Speaker 1: the resilience of the two party system. Because some people

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Speaker 1: probably think the two parties are required by the constitution,

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Speaker 1: they're not mentioned at all, nor is there other laws

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Speaker 1: that ordained that we should only have two parties. But

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Speaker 1: they've built up over the years. They have a resilience

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Speaker 1: to them, and of course as they gained power, they

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Speaker 1: began to use legal power to protect what one of

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Speaker 1: the professors at Harvard, Michael Porter close, they're due aufuly,

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Speaker 1: not monopoly, but the du afuly of the two parties.

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Speaker 1: So what's happened in recent times? And I could speak

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Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party because they have been it still

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Speaker 1: are a registered Democrat even though the last election of

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Speaker 1: mine I was elected as an independent. Is that the

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Speaker 1: party has become more narrow and narrow, and that's not

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Speaker 1: the way it was meant to be. By narrow, I

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Speaker 1: mean dominated by a group of people think they have

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Speaker 1: you might say, inherited truths and are not willing to

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Speaker 1: listen to other people. And ultimately, I fear that some

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Speaker 1: of them think that they know better what the people

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Speaker 1: want or should want than the people know. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: the social entitlement bill that's being considered now alongside the

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Speaker 1: more traditional infrastructure bill in Congress has a lot of attractive,

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Speaker 1: appealing programs to people, and I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: the Democrats supporting them feel that they're not only consistent

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Speaker 1: with their ideology, which is the grow government of government

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Speaker 1: play a much larger role. But of course people will

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Speaker 1: like them. But you know, people are smart, and first off,

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Speaker 1: now they're beginning to think, as we saw on some

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Speaker 1: of the polling in Virginia New Jersey, hey we're gonna

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Speaker 1: have to pay for this stuff with Texas. And the

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Speaker 1: second thing is which the people on the left end

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Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party are totally unfocused on, is that

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Speaker 1: cultural values, defunding the police, the kind of open borders

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Speaker 1: philosophy just turn people on the education wokeness in the

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Speaker 1: elementary and public schools. The party's only windom when they

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Speaker 1: put together coalitions. It's the Republican candidate in Virginia put

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Speaker 1: together a very interesting and somewhat unique coalition of traditional

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Speaker 1: Republican voters, Rural Republican voters, suburban voters who were turned

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Speaker 1: off by this left or drift of the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: even though most of them had not voted for Trump

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Speaker 1: last year. And working class people who for decades in

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Speaker 1: my political career voted for Democrats almost reflexively, and now

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Speaker 1: they feel that Democrats don't reflect their point of view,

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Speaker 1: not only economically, but as you know now, it's always

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Speaker 1: a fascinating insight and it's real. A lot of lower

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Speaker 1: income people, minority people, African American, Hispanic American, mainstream cultural values, patriotic, religious,

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Speaker 1: and they don't like the way the left wing Democrats

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Speaker 1: are taking the party. And I think they spoke up

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Speaker 1: in various ways the other day, Joe, I want to

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Speaker 1: thank you for joining me. I think your new book,

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Speaker 1: The Centrist Solution How We Made Government Work and can

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Speaker 1: make it Work Again, is so helpful in this political

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Speaker 1: age where we lack true by partisanship, and I want

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Speaker 1: to let our listeners know. We'll have a link to

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Speaker 1: purchase The Central Solution on our show page at newsworld

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Speaker 1: dot com. You're quite welcome. Thank you for all your leadership.

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Speaker 1: And I just end with history nineteen ninety four. You

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Speaker 1: swept the House Republican. I got reelected and I promised

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Speaker 1: my wife we go to Florida. So we're there and

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Speaker 1: it's raining, you know, so we turned on the television.

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Speaker 1: We're flipping the dial and we get the c span

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Speaker 1: of all places and there is they soon to be

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Speaker 1: speaker New Gingrich and you gave a talk which was

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Speaker 1: just so big and broad and civilization and historic. And

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Speaker 1: I turned to Hadass and I said, you know, this

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Speaker 1: guy is really somebody that we should get to know.

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Speaker 1: He's onto something. He's a big thinker and a big

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Speaker 1: door and she'd agreed with me. So that's the way,

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Speaker 1: as they say in the movie, our beautiful friendship began,

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Speaker 1: and God willing, it'll go on for a long time.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing with us. Thank you, nude all

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Speaker 1: the best. Thank you to my guest, Senator Joseph Lieberman,

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Speaker 1: you can get a link to buy his new book,

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Speaker 1: The centrist solution how we make government work and can

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Speaker 1: make it work again on our show page at newtsworld

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Speaker 1: dot com. Newts World is produced by Gingwish three sixty

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Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Debbie Myers, our producer

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Speaker 1: is Garnsey Sloan, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The

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Speaker 1: artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special

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Speaker 1: thanks to the team at Gingwish three sixty. If you've

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Speaker 1: been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast

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Speaker 1: and both rate us with five stars and give us

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Speaker 1: a review so others can learn what it's all about.

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Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of newts World can sign up from

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Speaker 1: my three free weekly columns at Gingwish three sixty dot

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Speaker 1: com slash newsletter. I'm newt Gingrich. This is neutral