Transcript

Norm, Or Fascin' · Politix

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SPEAKER_00: That to me is why doing these exercises now,
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SPEAKER_00: impeaching cabinet members,
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pointing out in a much more vivid way the level of corruption
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done not just by the
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SPEAKER_00: president,
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SPEAKER_00: by Steve Witkoff,
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SPEAKER_00: by Jared Kushner,
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SPEAKER_00: by Howard,
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SPEAKER_00: I call him Nutlick.
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Hey everyone,
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it's Brian,
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and you're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
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Matt's away this week,
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or since he's in London,
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I guess we should say he's on holiday.
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SPEAKER_01: So with the show all to myself,
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SPEAKER_01: and since I'm always going on about how Democrats should fight harder,
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SPEAKER_01: I thought it'd be worth trying to define fighting.
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SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
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SPEAKER_01: How can we distinguish real fighting from the artifice of fighting?
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SPEAKER_01: What would a fighting party look like now,
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SPEAKER_01: and what would it look like in 2027 and in 2029,
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assuming Democrats take over Congress in this year's midterms
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and then win the 2028
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SPEAKER_01: elections?
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SPEAKER_01: Since that's all ultimately a question of the use of formal power,
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SPEAKER_01: I invited Norm Ornstein,
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SPEAKER_01: who studied the formal powers of Congress for decades,
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SPEAKER_01: to talk it over with us.
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SPEAKER_01: If you want to hear our whole conversation,
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SPEAKER_01: you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
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SPEAKER_01: Hey, everyone.
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SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Politics Podcast.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian Boitler, and we've got a fun twist in store for you this week.
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SPEAKER_01: Matt's away on vacation, which is part of the fun for me.
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But that meant I had to think about what to do with the show in
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his absence.
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SPEAKER_01: And I decided it'd be a good opportunity to talk about fighting,
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SPEAKER_01: which is something I gesture at a little vaguely from time to time.
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But I don't know that we've ever set aside a whole episode
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where I talk about sort
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SPEAKER_01: of what I mean and how I assess whether fighting is real or good.
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SPEAKER_01: So since last week's episode,
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SPEAKER_01: Hungarians went to the polls and they ousted their authoritarian leader,
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SPEAKER_01: Viktor Orban,
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SPEAKER_01: after 16 years.
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SPEAKER_01: The incoming government is currently confronting efforts to cover up
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SPEAKER_01: the crimes of the Orban regime,
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SPEAKER_01: and they're contemplating really how to rebuild a democracy there,
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how to change procedures and rules and so on so that what
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happened there doesn't
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SPEAKER_01: happen again.
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SPEAKER_01: Similar questions I think obviously confront Democrats in the US today.
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SPEAKER_01: or will confront them in the near future.
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And that's part of why I tend to fixate on sort of how members
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of the party view
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the role of the opposition and how they could and should use
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the tools available to
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SPEAKER_01: them.
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SPEAKER_01: So whether that's how to use official powers
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Whether and how to use official powers is a big part of
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opposition in all of
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SPEAKER_01: democratic politics.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I thought it'd be good to talk to Norm Ornstein,
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who's a longtime student of the Congress and of America's two
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political parties,
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SPEAKER_01: about this,
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SPEAKER_01: the limits of the possible foreign opposition party.
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SPEAKER_01: Is there more Democrats could be doing now?
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How will they have to conduct themselves differently in the
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majority if they win the midterms?
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SPEAKER_01: And what,
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SPEAKER_01: if anything,
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SPEAKER_01: can they learn from foreign parties,
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foreign governments that have overthrown authoritarian
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breakthrough attempts?
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SPEAKER_01: So, Norm, welcome to Politics.
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SPEAKER_01: Great to be with you, Brian.
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SPEAKER_01: So let's get to the news in a minute.
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But for the benefit of listeners who aren't as familiar as I am
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with your work over
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SPEAKER_01: the years,
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SPEAKER_01: I think it's fair to say that you were like a go-to source of
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of raw factual information and analysis of politics and
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Congress until the early
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SPEAKER_01: mid Obama years when you wrote,
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I think it was first an op-ed and then a book with one of your
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colleagues about the
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SPEAKER_01: unique problems of the Republican Party in our system.
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So can you talk a little bit about that and like what made you
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decide to break out
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SPEAKER_01: of the comfort zone?
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure.
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SPEAKER_00: So I actually go back a long ways, back to the 70s.
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SPEAKER_00: And my colleague,
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SPEAKER_00: Tom Mann,
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and I worked for decades on institutional reforms and
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improvements in Congress and
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SPEAKER_00: more broadly in the political process.
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SPEAKER_00: And during that time, we worked with
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SPEAKER_00: Almost an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.
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I've been going through some old files and came across an
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announcement of a press
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SPEAKER_00: conference that Tom and I did with a couple of members,
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SPEAKER_00: including the Republican David Dreyer of the House on ethics reform.
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SPEAKER_00: We did it on committee reforms.
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SPEAKER_00: We did it on election reforms and a whole host of other areas.
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SPEAKER_00: In 2006,
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the two of us wrote a book called The Broken Branch about how
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Congress had lost its
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SPEAKER_00: way.
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SPEAKER_00: And there we pointed fingers at both parties to some significant degree,
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although it was pretty clear the speaker at that point of the
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House was Dennis
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SPEAKER_00: Hastert.
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who whose indiscretions,
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shall we say,
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were not public when he was still in as speaker.
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SPEAKER_00: But he had changed the role of speaker.
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SPEAKER_00: Forget about his sexual assaults on young boys for the moment.
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He changed the role as speaker by basically making it one where
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he was the
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SPEAKER_00: lieutenant to the president,
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SPEAKER_00: the Republican president.
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SPEAKER_00: taking away from the independence of Congress as a separate institution.
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SPEAKER_00: And it didn't get better.
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SPEAKER_00: But by 2012,
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Tom and I saw that what had happened is the parties had become
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more polarized,
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SPEAKER_00: but it was asymmetric polarization.
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SPEAKER_00: Democrats had moved more center left as a general matter.
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SPEAKER_00: Republicans had moved to a more radical right.
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SPEAKER_00: And we wrote a book,
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SPEAKER_00: uh,
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it's even worse than it looks how the American constitutional
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system collided with
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SPEAKER_00: the new politics of extremism.
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SPEAKER_00: And out of that book on the day of publication day before publication,
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SPEAKER_00: the Washington post,
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SPEAKER_00: uh,
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SPEAKER_00: did a,
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SPEAKER_00: uh,
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SPEAKER_00: outlook section piece,
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SPEAKER_00: the late lamented outlook section for the late lamented post,
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SPEAKER_00: uh,
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SPEAKER_00: in which the then editor of the section,
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SPEAKER_00: Carlos Lozada,
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SPEAKER_00: who's now the book critic for The New York Times,
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SPEAKER_00: titled it,
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SPEAKER_00: Let's Just Say It,
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SPEAKER_00: The Republicans Are the Problem.
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And that reflected our views that the Republican Party had
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become an insurgent
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SPEAKER_00: outlier,
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SPEAKER_00: contemptuous of facts and science and its opposition,
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SPEAKER_00: and fundamentally the role of the institutions and
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The state of the Constitution and all of the norms that
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undergirded it all.
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SPEAKER_00: And we got a lot of blowback, as you might expect, from Republicans.
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SPEAKER_00: I will tell you also,
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SPEAKER_00: Brian,
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I got a lot of blowback from the mainstream press in many cases
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because we took on
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SPEAKER_00: the press for its both sides addiction.
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SPEAKER_00: which had basically elided over where the responsibility lay for this.
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SPEAKER_00: And I got a number of reporters who wrote me or said to me,
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SPEAKER_00: hey,
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SPEAKER_00: our job is to report both sides.
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SPEAKER_00: And my response was, your job is to report the truth.
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SPEAKER_00: And I mention that right now because this was 2012.
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SPEAKER_00: 14 years later,
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SPEAKER_00: the press is still grappling with its rampant both sides-ism,
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SPEAKER_00: normalizing Donald Trump and the behavior of Republicans in a way that is
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SPEAKER_00: journalistic malpractice.
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SPEAKER_00: But the big problem was the Republican Party that had gone rogue.
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SPEAKER_00: And this was before Donald Trump.
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So it was becoming a cult,
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but Trump became the cult leader and took on that mantle.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's the sorry state we're in right now.
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So do you sort of see it as like maybe a bookend to your career
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that you started
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when the parties weren't so sorted and the Republicans weren't
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so extreme?
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proposing and thinking up institutional reform ideas that would
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make the two-party
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SPEAKER_01: democracy function better,
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SPEAKER_01: that on the other side of that,
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SPEAKER_01: where we were experiencing this attempted authoritarian breakthrough,
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is that if there's a chance that you could apply the same sort
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of skill set to
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coming up with the kinds of reforms or accountability measures
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that might sort of
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SPEAKER_01: ensure against just repeating this cycle over and over again.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I hope it's not a bookend.
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I hope that there'll be another chapter here that'll get us out
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of this sorry mess.
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SPEAKER_00: But I can't say that I'm wildly optimistic.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's for a couple of reasons.
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SPEAKER_00: We have a whole generation of Republicans who have no,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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the term that we've used in the past about the norm is
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institutional patriotism.
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They don't see anything about the prerogatives of Congress as
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mattering their
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SPEAKER_00: following in the footsteps of their cult leader.
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SPEAKER_00: And I will say, Brian, that polarization is a reality.
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SPEAKER_00: You can have polarization and still govern.
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SPEAKER_00: And the fact is,
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SPEAKER_00: and what comes close to what might be an ideal way out of this,
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SPEAKER_00: we're going to have a very conservative Republican party.
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SPEAKER_00: This is not a conservative party right now.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a radical nihilist cult, not a party.
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SPEAKER_00: But if it comes back to being a party,
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which means an institution of people not just interested in
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winning for winning's
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SPEAKER_00: sake,
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SPEAKER_00: but then moving to solve problems.
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SPEAKER_00: And if they have different ideas about how to solve those problems,
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then you grapple together with the other side and try and come
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up with a mix of
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SPEAKER_00: things that can move you in the right direction.
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The example I always use about polarization and problem solving
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is from two people
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SPEAKER_00: I knew quite well who
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SPEAKER_00: Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch.
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SPEAKER_00: Ted Kennedy, who in the 90s anchored the left wing of his party.
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Orrin Hatch,
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who now would be a raving moderate,
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anchored the right of his party.
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They were an odd couple,
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dear friends with wildly different backgrounds and lifestyles.
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SPEAKER_00: But they sat down together and said, we got a problem.
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SPEAKER_00: Way too many children don't have health insurance.
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SPEAKER_00: It's not their fault, but it's not good for them or for the society.
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And so they put together what became the Children's Health
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Insurance Program that
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SPEAKER_00: still ensures something like 9 million kids.
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SPEAKER_00: And of course,
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SPEAKER_00: the way they did it was to say,
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SPEAKER_00: well,
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SPEAKER_00: here's a little core of things that we can agree on.
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And then we'll take some from the Kennedy side and some from
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the Hatch side.
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We'll try and build a compromise and then hold it together on
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the floors of the
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SPEAKER_00: House and Senate.
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SPEAKER_00: We don't have that anymore.
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SPEAKER_00: and it will be hard to reproduce.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think what makes it particularly hard is a combination of things.
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SPEAKER_00: One is the mainstream media,
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SPEAKER_00: of course,
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SPEAKER_00: have largely been overshadowed by tribal media and social media.
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The tribal media are much stronger on the right,
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and that's talk radio,
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Fox,
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and other avenues.
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SPEAKER_00: And
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SPEAKER_00: They have a business model.
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SPEAKER_00: The business model is to encourage tribalism,
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SPEAKER_00: not to say,
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SPEAKER_00: let's find ways to work together or to report factual stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: Social media,
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SPEAKER_00: including now,
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SPEAKER_00: of course,
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having it dominated by right-wing billionaires who do not
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believe in democracy and
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SPEAKER_00: who only care about their own well-being,
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SPEAKER_00: tax rates,
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SPEAKER_00: and the like.
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SPEAKER_00: But also...
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SPEAKER_00: willing to take on interference from Russia,
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SPEAKER_00: China,
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SPEAKER_00: and others,
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SPEAKER_00: and AI is going to make it harder.
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But when I look at the next generation of Republicans who might
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move into national
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SPEAKER_00: office,
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SPEAKER_00: into Congress,
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SPEAKER_00: into the House or the Senate,
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SPEAKER_00: or any other level,
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SPEAKER_00: coming from the state legislatures,
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SPEAKER_00: the state parties,
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SPEAKER_00: now,
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SPEAKER_00: God help us,
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SPEAKER_00: the school boards,
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SPEAKER_00: they're more radical than the Freedom Caucus,
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SPEAKER_00: because most of them don't know any better.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's face it,
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SPEAKER_00: there are plenty of Republicans in Congress,
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SPEAKER_00: some of whom I worked with in the past,
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SPEAKER_00: who know better,
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SPEAKER_00: but have caved.
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SPEAKER_00: They caved out of avarice.
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SPEAKER_00: They caved out of cowardice.
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SPEAKER_00: But the next generation,
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they've grown up completely on this radical right-wing populist
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craziness.
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And it's going to take a long time to move from them back to
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the sort of responsible
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SPEAKER_00: conservatives.
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SPEAKER_00: So we got a long ways to go.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'd make one other point while I'm rambling a little bit.
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SPEAKER_00: And that is, we have a nihilist in office now.
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SPEAKER_00: We have a set of nihilists.
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SPEAKER_00: They're blowing up as much as they can.
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SPEAKER_00: They're blowing up the scientific establishment,
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SPEAKER_00: the medical establishment,
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SPEAKER_00: the legal infrastructure.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be very hard if somehow we prevail
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and change the nature of governance in 2028 and into 2029 to
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rebuild all of that.
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SPEAKER_00: It's like you've had a fire that has completely destroyed a neighborhood,
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and you want to encourage people to move back while you rebuild
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houses in a much
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SPEAKER_00: shakier fashion,
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but don't do anything to prevent the possibility of another
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conflagration four
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SPEAKER_00: years later.
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SPEAKER_00: So we got a lot to work on and it's going to take some time.
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SPEAKER_00: You can be a little bit encouraged by what happened in Hungary,
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SPEAKER_00: but it's going to take a lot more for us to get back.
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So I think maybe then the best way to approach this is to kind
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of go linearly in time.
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SPEAKER_01: If in 2006, the imperative, if you could have had your way, was to make
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SPEAKER_01: you know, are sort of ossifying institutions function better.
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SPEAKER_01: By 2012,
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you seem to recognize that the asymmetric radicalization of the
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Republican Party
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was gonna maybe sort of obviate the need for that kind of more
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incremental reform
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SPEAKER_01: because at what point did you realize that,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: that like we might be instead of approaching gridlock
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SPEAKER_01: like sort of the inability of Congress to legislate that kind of problem,
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that we were seeing an authoritarian movement brewing in the
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United States,
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SPEAKER_01: and that we might end up in a situation like this,
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where America goes the route of liberal authoritarianism rather
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than sort of
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SPEAKER_01: center-right factionalism.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: So the book came out in 2012,
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but we realized that we were in the middle of a truly
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pernicious change by January
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SPEAKER_00: of 2009.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, what happened?
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SPEAKER_00: We have Barack Obama elected.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a giddiness.
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SPEAKER_00: We've elected an African-American.
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SPEAKER_00: We have a wide margin of support for Democrats in the House and Senate.
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SPEAKER_00: But on the inauguration night,
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SPEAKER_00: When a lot of people were celebrating in parties around Washington,
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SPEAKER_00: a group of Republican leaders,
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SPEAKER_00: including the so-called young guns,
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SPEAKER_00: Kevin McCarthy,
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SPEAKER_00: Eric Cantor,
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SPEAKER_00: Paul Ryan,
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SPEAKER_00: along with Newt Gingrich and a number of others,
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SPEAKER_00: gathered at the Capitol Grill in Washington and
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SPEAKER_00: They were despondent.
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SPEAKER_00: They had their asses kicked.
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SPEAKER_00: They came out giddy because they emerged with a strategy.
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SPEAKER_00: We learned it very soon thereafter,
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which was we are going to oppose everything and we'll be happy
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if it makes America
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SPEAKER_00: worse because that will reflect on them.
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SPEAKER_00: And then we can come back.
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SPEAKER_00: And we were in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
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SPEAKER_00: And here, you know, 2008, what did we see, Brian?
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SPEAKER_00: We had a disaster on our hands.
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SPEAKER_00: The Republican president,
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SPEAKER_00: George W.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Bush,
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SPEAKER_00: his treasury secretary,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: his chairman of the Fed,
16:26
SPEAKER_00: went to Congress and said,
16:28
SPEAKER_00: we could end up with a global depression unless we act now
16:33
SPEAKER_00: to do something about the banks.
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SPEAKER_00: And they came up with their bailout package,
16:38
SPEAKER_00: supported by all the leaders,
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SPEAKER_00: and it failed in the House,
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SPEAKER_00: because House Republicans said,
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SPEAKER_00: no way,
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SPEAKER_00: we don't trust our leaders.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Then it eventually passed,
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SPEAKER_00: but it was clear we were on the brink of something very bad,
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SPEAKER_00: and that led to the Tea Party.
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SPEAKER_00: And let me say, the Tea Party was not just about the economic issues.
16:58
What we have learned and digging in much more deeply was it was
17:01
the cultural issues.
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SPEAKER_00: And I have to say on election night 2008,
17:06
SPEAKER_00: I was for 30 years,
17:08
SPEAKER_00: I've worked for CBS on election week as an analyst.
17:12
And we were sitting in New York in the aftermath of the results
17:17
coming in.
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SPEAKER_00: Grant Park in Chicago filled with joyous celebration.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: the first African-American elected to the presidency.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: And I turned to some of my colleagues and I said,
17:29
people who think that this is the end of racism in America
17:32
don't understand that
17:33
it's the beginning of a new pernicious form of racism because
17:38
people are going to
17:38
SPEAKER_00: have an excuse now.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: See, we elected a black man.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: We can be as racist as we want.
17:44
And race became a central part of what was going on with the
17:49
Tea Party movement,
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SPEAKER_00: It encouraged a level of nihilism,
17:53
of blocking everything for the sake of blowing it all up to
17:58
recapture control.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And then it spiraled out of control in its aftermath.
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SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the aftermath is Donald Trump wins the 2016 election.
18:10
We're definitely in sort of a new alignment forming where the
18:15
right wing is
18:16
SPEAKER_01: embracing or radicalizing against democracy,
18:19
SPEAKER_01: really.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And the Democratic Party is,
18:22
SPEAKER_01: I think it's fair to say that for a time at least,
18:25
SPEAKER_01: several years,
18:27
their hope was to sort of like white knuckle it and win the
18:32
2020 election and kind
18:33
SPEAKER_01: of hope everything went back to normal.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: And in Congress...
18:39
SPEAKER_01: The way I experienced it watching in 2019 and 2020 was this desire,
18:45
you have this president who doesn't respect laws or ethical
18:50
standards of any kind,
18:52
but a congressional leadership that's trying to do oversight
18:57
and accountability in
18:59
SPEAKER_01: fairly standard ways,
19:00
SPEAKER_01: you know?
19:01
SPEAKER_01: choosing their battles,
19:02
SPEAKER_01: and then trying politely,
19:05
SPEAKER_01: and then trying again politely,
19:08
SPEAKER_01: and then maybe threatening a subpoena,
19:10
SPEAKER_01: and then subpoenaing.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: And then when the subpoena is flouted,
19:13
SPEAKER_01: going to court,
19:15
SPEAKER_01: and then it stays in court for two and a half years.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: And by the time you get a resolution,
19:20
SPEAKER_01: any insight into what you were trying to investigate,
19:22
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
19:23
SPEAKER_01: it's sort of too late, you know, it's mooted.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: In Trump's case,
19:26
SPEAKER_01: he was actually out of office by,
19:28
SPEAKER_01: I believe by the time,
19:30
SPEAKER_01: like many of these,
19:32
SPEAKER_01: these standoffs were resolved one way or another.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: And,
19:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:39
SPEAKER_01: it might've worked out okay if Trump had actually been vanquished,
19:44
SPEAKER_01: but he wasn't,
19:44
SPEAKER_01: right?
19:45
SPEAKER_01: So he, he rebuilds power and he's able to come back to office.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: And so now it's time for Democrats to be the opposition party again.
19:53
And I want to get to what that means for oversight if and when
19:58
they win the
19:59
SPEAKER_01: midterms later this year.
20:01
But it's not like the minority in the House and Senate have no
20:06
official power.
20:07
So I'm curious for your assessment of how Democratic Party
20:12
opposition has looked
20:13
from January of last year to now in the fullness of everything
20:17
we've learned since
20:18
SPEAKER_01: 2016.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that's clear is that the comment by Michelle Obama,
20:28
SPEAKER_00: when they go low,
20:28
SPEAKER_00: we go high,
20:30
SPEAKER_00: is what dominated the Biden administration.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: It was the idea after the outrages of the first term,
20:38
SPEAKER_00: the politicization of the Justice Department,
20:40
SPEAKER_00: especially under Bill Barr,
20:42
SPEAKER_00: all of the other bad things that were done,
20:46
after January 6th and the violent insurrection clearly caused
20:50
by Donald Trump,
20:51
SPEAKER_00: as Mitch McConnell himself said on the Senate floor,
20:57
SPEAKER_00: the idea was,
20:58
we are going to show how it ought to be done because then
21:01
people will see the
21:02
SPEAKER_00: contrast.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: We know how that worked.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: But that sentiment of
21:09
SPEAKER_00: to some degree is still there among Democratic leaders in Congress.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's involved with another strategic point on their part,
21:21
SPEAKER_00: which is,
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I suppose you could go back to the old cliche,
21:24
SPEAKER_00: when somebody's committing suicide,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: you don't murder them.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And that's this idea that the Republicans under Trump are foundering.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: And we know what killed
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, more than anything else, it was inflation.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: It was that watchword of affordability.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: You can't say it was their fault.
21:52
They were coping as every other government was in the aftermath
21:55
of COVID with
21:58
SPEAKER_00: supply chain problems and all of that.
22:01
But the idea now is we just use affordability the way they used
22:05
it against us.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And
22:08
That could work in some ways because people vote against more
22:13
than they vote for.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: They don't like what's there.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: They want to throw them out and bring the others in.
22:18
And let me note that one of the lessons from Trump coming back
22:23
in 2024 is if
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Democrats somehow prevail and win big in 2028,
22:31
SPEAKER_00: to imagine that the Republican Party,
22:33
SPEAKER_00: which will descend further into the abyss,
22:36
SPEAKER_00: is dead.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: is a big mistake.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Memories are short.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: If people believe that they've screwed up and haven't governed well,
22:45
SPEAKER_00: they'll bring more radicals back,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: even if it's not Donald Trump himself.
22:50
But what's clear is that affordability alone and just stepping
22:54
back and talking
22:56
about all of the problems that people have making their bills
23:01
paid and getting away
23:03
SPEAKER_00: from the issues of soaring health care costs,
23:06
SPEAKER_00: soaring gasoline prices and all of that,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: is that that's not enough.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: You have to fight back.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And a good part of the reason I would say,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Brian,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: is in the aftermath of what happened in Hungary,
23:20
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to see Donald Trump or his minions step back and say,
23:24
SPEAKER_00: oh my God,
23:25
SPEAKER_00: this could happen to us.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: We better change the way we behave.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: They're going to say,
23:29
we're not going to make the mistakes that Orban made and allow
23:33
a free election.
23:35
We're not going to have just the relatively minor obstacles put
23:40
in place to keep
23:41
SPEAKER_00: people from voting when they're motivated to vote.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: They're going to put up all kinds of obstacles.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And here's the kicker with that.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: If you make it harder and harder for people to vote,
23:52
SPEAKER_00: you're going to have to go and re-register in person.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: You might have to wait in a line for eight hours.
23:58
You might be faced with threats,
24:00
ICE hauling a few people out of the line.
24:02
You might be told that you're not registered to vote when in
24:05
fact you are and
24:06
SPEAKER_00: you're going to have to prove it.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: You might have people saying your ballot doesn't count.
24:10
You're going to have to go back and show proof of who you are
24:13
or proof of citizenship even.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to get people to do that,
24:18
SPEAKER_00: it's not going to be just because they don't like what's there.
24:21
They're going to have to be more highly motivated to understand
24:25
what happens if you don't vote.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's particularly true of that Democratic base,
24:31
which right now does not have a positive view of their own
24:34
party because they see
24:36
SPEAKER_00: it as not being tough enough,
24:38
SPEAKER_00: as being too weak,
24:40
SPEAKER_00: as letting Trump and the people in his administration and
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Mike Johnson's and John Thuse of the world running right over them.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: So to get back to your question, you use the tools available to you.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: You block stuff that's bad from happening.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: To their credit,
25:00
SPEAKER_00: they've done it now for 59 days or more with holding back ICE funding,
25:06
even though the Republicans have provided so much funding that
25:10
they could pretty
25:11
SPEAKER_00: much keep on doing what they were doing.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: You hold your own hearings.
25:16
You go into Republican districts where they're not holding town
25:19
halls and you hold town halls.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: You go in front of rural hospitals,
25:25
which are being forced to close because of the health care
25:29
policies and the
25:30
SPEAKER_00: economic policies of Trump.
25:33
You go to museums in red areas that are in trouble because
25:37
Trump's cut off the funding for them.
25:40
You use the discharge petition in the House to bring up things
25:45
that Republicans
25:46
SPEAKER_00: don't like,
25:47
SPEAKER_00: but that are popular.
25:48
Have all your Democrats sign them and then find the three or
25:51
four Republicans.
25:52
Or if they don't sign it,
25:54
you go back to their districts and hold them accountable for
25:57
it.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: you use the filibuster even more in the Senate.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: If they're going to do away with it,
26:03
SPEAKER_00: and they might well anyhow,
26:05
then you might as well use it because they're going to stop it
26:09
as soon as they
26:09
SPEAKER_00: think it's in their interest to do so.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: But you do it to highlight
26:13
SPEAKER_00: the problems and the issues that are out there.
26:16
And we just haven't seen that from more than a relatively small
26:20
group of determined
26:22
House and Senate Democrats who understand what the stakes are
26:26
and how to deal with
26:27
SPEAKER_00: it.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: But I don't see it from the leaders.
26:29
I'm glad you circled back or that that's where you landed
26:32
because,
26:34
you know,
26:35
SPEAKER_01: I agree with you.
26:36
It's not like the record has been defeat after defeat or just
26:42
Democrats refusing to
26:43
SPEAKER_01: pick any fights whatsoever.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: But if you start the clock,
26:48
SPEAKER_01: even just say in March of last year,
26:50
give Democrats maybe a few months to lick their wounds and
26:53
stuff like that.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: There was an appropriations deadline in March and some people –
27:01
noticed that Trump was just basically violating the law with
27:07
all of the agencies of
27:08
SPEAKER_01: government and not respecting the budget law of the United States.
27:13
So funding him was in essence enabling him until he could be
27:19
brought closer into
27:21
SPEAKER_01: alignment with the law.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: And the leadership didn't want to pick that fight, so they didn't.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: And
27:28
SPEAKER_01: that deferred the fight until September.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: There was another deadline.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: The leadership remained reluctant, but kind of got forced into it.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: And I think that they thought they were going to lose the fight,
27:41
SPEAKER_01: at least in the realm of public opinion,
27:43
SPEAKER_01: but they won.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: But then they gave up anyway.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: And then come this year,
27:52
They found the size of the fight that it seems like they're
27:56
willing to fight,
27:56
which is where you whittle it down to just the Department of
27:59
Homeland Security and
28:00
SPEAKER_01: really actually just ICE,
28:01
SPEAKER_01: right?
28:02
SPEAKER_01: ICE and CBP.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: And now they're like,
28:05
SPEAKER_01: as you say,
28:06
SPEAKER_01: they're holding firm,
28:08
but it does feel like they are really uncomfortable maxing out
28:14
on authority and
28:15
just seeing whether like really throwing their whole bodies at
28:19
trying to stop Trump
28:20
SPEAKER_01: might work.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: You know,
28:23
one of the interesting ironies here is that it was Republicans
28:27
who used the weapons
28:28
of mass obstruction to block a lot of things from happening or
28:33
to make the whole
28:33
SPEAKER_00: process look awful and messy for years.
28:37
And they benefited from it because people looked at government
28:41
under Democrats and
28:42
SPEAKER_00: said it's not working.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And they rewarded the ones who had created the problems.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Well,
28:48
You can have an excess of a feeling of responsibility for
28:53
governing,
28:54
and you want to have that.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to bring more pain than is necessary.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: But right now,
29:00
we need to show that government is blowing it up because of
29:06
Trump and his allies in
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Congress and not enable them
29:11
SPEAKER_00: to get away with some of the things that they want to get away with.
29:14
And I'll give you one other example where I think Democrats
29:17
really need to step up their game.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: You look at Hungary,
29:22
and one of the things that was a major motivator was the depth
29:26
of corruption in the
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Orbán administration,
29:29
SPEAKER_00: his buddies making billions,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: everybody basically on the take.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: And it horrified
29:39
SPEAKER_00: a lot of Hungarians.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Well,
29:43
the corruption in the Orban administration was a misdemeanor
29:47
compared to the Trump
29:48
SPEAKER_00: administration felonies.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: And one of the examples,
29:53
SPEAKER_00: I did a piece with a representative who doesn't understand all of this,
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Madeleine Dean,
29:58
in the New Republic a couple of weeks ago on the abuse of the
30:02
pardon power,
30:04
SPEAKER_00: which continues on and on.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just that Trump
30:08
SPEAKER_00: is taking money and giving out pardons,
30:11
SPEAKER_00: which is shocking to a level that it's hard to even imagine,
30:17
SPEAKER_00: and rewarding his friends.
30:19
He is pardoning some of the biggest fraudsters in history and
30:24
then enabling them to
30:26
SPEAKER_00: get away without paying back their victims.
30:29
So we have probably over a billion dollars in what was ordered
30:34
by courts in
30:35
SPEAKER_00: restitution for people bilked by major league fraud artists,
30:42
SPEAKER_00: wiped out by the Trump administration.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Find these victims.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Democrats in Congress need to do that.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Bring them in.
30:50
do videos,
30:52
having them explain what happened to them,
30:54
why they're getting screwed.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: And it's because Trump has pardoned these fraudsters,
31:01
SPEAKER_00: even as he talks about going on a big campaign against fraud.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Because the press corps,
31:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:06
SPEAKER_00: part of the problem is what we saw from 2015 when Steve Bannon said,
31:15
SPEAKER_00: we can manipulate the media.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: We know how it works.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: We flood the zone with shit.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: We have scandal after scandal after scandal,
31:23
SPEAKER_00: and they just wash right over them,
31:25
SPEAKER_00: and people don't pay any attention,
31:27
SPEAKER_00: and they get no attention.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: What it takes is a sustained effort.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: You look at scandals in the past, including some that were not scandals.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Whitewater dominated the front pages of the New York Times for weeks,
31:41
SPEAKER_00: huge stories,
31:43
made it into something that was like the biggest scandal in the
31:46
history of the
31:47
SPEAKER_00: country when it was actually the Clintons'
31:50
Buying a piece of some property that failed,
31:54
they lost money on it,
31:56
was no big scandal.
31:58
But it penetrated a public consciousness for people who don't
32:01
pay a lot of attention.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: None of this is registering with Americans right now.
32:06
And it's not going to happen with the mainstream media unless
32:08
Democrats pound away
32:10
SPEAKER_00: at it and force the coverage.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: And they're not doing that.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: This is why I wanted to ask you about the contemporary,
32:18
SPEAKER_01: the ongoing dust-up within the House caucus about whether...
32:23
Democrats should force a vote on impeachment because that's a
32:25
privilege resolution.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: They can do that from the minority.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And this wasn't actually a point of controversy really until last week.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: I think most Democrats were resigned to not impeaching Trump this,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: or not trying to impeach Trump this Congress or even next Congress.
32:41
But then while we were all waiting on tenterhooks last week to
32:44
see if he would make
32:45
SPEAKER_01: good on his threat to destroy Iranian civilization,
32:49
SPEAKER_01: many dozens of House Democrats said,
32:50
SPEAKER_01: okay,
32:50
SPEAKER_01: this is actually the
32:53
SPEAKER_01: like something close to the worst case scenario we can imagine.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: We really need to get on the front foot and say,
32:59
this is the kind of thing that requires like getting this
33:02
president out of office
33:03
SPEAKER_01: on an emergency basis,
33:04
SPEAKER_01: right?
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And, but Congress wasn't in session.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: So they deliberated.
33:11
And it seems like what's going to happen is that Hakeem
33:14
Jeffries is going to say no.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: And the reporting that I have from Time Magazine
33:21
SPEAKER_01: portrays his thinking like so,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: that Jeffrey's views impeachment as,
33:26
SPEAKER_01: quote,
33:26
a distraction from the party's planned midterm campaign focused
33:30
on high costs and
33:31
SPEAKER_01: unchecked corruption.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: The counterpoint in that article is from Congressman Al Green,
33:39
SPEAKER_01: who's definitely,
33:40
SPEAKER_01: he's an impeachment happy
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Member of the House Democratic Caucus.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: But here's what he says.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: He says,
33:47
there are people who believe that impeachment should only be
33:49
done at a certain time
33:50
when you have a certain amount of people in Congress that you
33:53
can be assured that
33:54
SPEAKER_01: you will get the impeachment articles through.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: That is not the case.
33:58
Impeachment is what we can do to express our disapproval of a
34:00
president's behavior.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: And so I am wondering where you fall on this question is,
34:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:07
stipulating that Trump will most likely not be removed in this
34:11
Congress because
34:13
Republicans control it and maybe not even in the next one is
34:17
using impeachment as
34:18
like a slam on the brakes mechanism to get the country to pay
34:22
attention to the
34:23
SPEAKER_01: things you were saying that they're not attuned to at all,
34:27
SPEAKER_01: a worthy exercise.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: Is it something that you would expect a fighting opposition party to do?
34:31
SPEAKER_00: So I have a more complicated view of this.
34:36
I wrote a piece this past week called Break Glass,
34:40
which was about the 25th Amendment.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: And it,
34:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:44
SPEAKER_00: basically the metaphor is we all have seen those the fire alarms,
34:49
SPEAKER_00: the little red things on the wall and says,
34:52
SPEAKER_00: in case of emergency,
34:53
SPEAKER_00: break glass.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: And the break glass for me is the 25th Amendment.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: We're not just dealing with a malignant, narcissistic psychopath.
35:01
We're dealing with a malignant,
35:02
narcissistic psychopath who's losing it even more.
35:06
And he's surrounded by people who will obey any outrageous and
35:10
illegal order.
35:11
And as we know,
35:12
he's already promised them all he'll pardon them if they do
35:15
something illegal.
35:17
And I did this recognizing that the 25th Amendment is a much
35:21
higher hurdle than impeachment.
35:24
What has to happen is that the vice president joined by a
35:29
majority of the cabinet
35:30
SPEAKER_00: say the president's not fit to serve right now.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: And he is immediately taken away from office.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: The vice president becomes the acting president.
35:39
Congress is notified within 48 hours and they have 21 days to
35:43
make a judgment.
35:45
And it would take two thirds of each house to say,
35:49
keep him out of office.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: That's not going to happen.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: And my point was not that it was going to happen.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: It was to say this should happen.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And the more he deteriorates,
36:00
SPEAKER_00: the more we can see who's responsible for not getting him out of the way.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, impeachment is another one of those vehicles.
36:08
But I actually would have used impeachment in a different way
36:12
going back many months.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And that is to selectively impeach members of the cabinet who are clearly
36:20
SPEAKER_00: corrupt, inept, or worse in their positions.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Impeach Pete Hegseth because impeachment is a privilege resolution.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: They have to bring it up.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Mike Johnson can't sit on it.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: And if you do it for Hegseth and you do,
36:38
SPEAKER_00: and they have to allow some debate,
36:40
SPEAKER_00: even if it's debate to table the motion,
36:43
But you're going to have an opportunity to say why Pete Hegseth
36:47
doesn't belong in office.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: And that'll get covered by the press.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And you do the same with Tulsi Gabbard.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: And you do the same with a labor secretary who's out of control.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And you do the same with Robert F.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: Kennedy Jr.,
37:02
SPEAKER_00: with Marco Rubio,
37:03
who is responsible by taking over AID and greenlighting it for
37:08
the deaths of more
37:09
than 700,000 innocent people abroad by taking away their
37:14
drug-saving medicines and
37:16
SPEAKER_00: food and water.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, do you do it for Trump?
37:21
I'm of two minds about that because I'm afraid that would be
37:24
portrayed by the press
37:26
SPEAKER_00: as an overreach by Democrats.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: It would push Republicans to rally further around him.
37:33
And I'd reserve that for when Democrats are in the majority and
37:37
they can tailor a debate.
37:39
Because you can limit the debate to one hour on each side for
37:42
an impeachment
37:43
SPEAKER_00: resolution against the president.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'd rather...
37:47
SPEAKER_00: use it in other ways right now.
37:49
But having said that,
37:51
it's clear we need every weapon in the arsenal to be at the
37:54
ready.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: And there may come a time in the next month or two,
37:58
SPEAKER_00: as Trump descends further into madness and dementia,
38:04
SPEAKER_00: when that becomes a necessary tool.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: So,
38:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
38:07
it sounds like whether you and I might disagree at the margins
38:10
over how the tactics
38:11
SPEAKER_01: should be deployed,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: but we both agree that the tool should be used and that
38:17
The practical effect is likely to be changing the information
38:20
environment,
38:21
like making the people who are unhappy with Democrats right now
38:24
because they're not
38:25
SPEAKER_01: fighting hard enough,
38:26
SPEAKER_01: see that they're fighting harder.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: That might make Democrats a little less unpopular.
38:31
Maybe it would get word out to swing voters in the frontline
38:35
districts and states
38:37
that things are really bad in Washington right now and they're
38:40
bad because of
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Trump.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Like the purpose is to clarify, right?
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Not to...
38:46
SPEAKER_01: not to effectuate an outcome,
38:49
a removal of any cabinet official or Trump from office in the
38:52
immediate term.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: It is certainly to make it clear to more and more Americans,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: including those who just don't follow this stuff,
39:02
why the stakes are so high right now and why this is not a
39:06
typical administration,
39:09
SPEAKER_00: much less a typical Republican administration.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's zoom ahead.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Let's say whatever Democrats choose to do between now and the midterms,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: if they win the midterms,
39:18
SPEAKER_01: they are going to take the gavels in January of 2027.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: And then it's going to be time to use actual power,
39:30
SPEAKER_01: not just messaging power,
39:32
SPEAKER_01: to try to constrain Trump.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: But Trump has his own methods, right?
39:39
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that it's
39:41
SPEAKER_01: if Democrats were to wargain this out,
39:43
they would have to presuppose that Trump is just going to
39:48
announce an embargo
39:49
SPEAKER_01: essentially on cooperating with congressional oversight,
39:51
SPEAKER_01: right?
39:52
Like,
39:52
it doesn't matter whether you subpoena us or not,
39:54
we're not playing ball.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And,
39:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:59
I was frustrated in 2019 and 2020 watching that game play out
40:03
and Democrats say,
40:03
SPEAKER_01: well,
40:04
SPEAKER_01: I guess we'll,
40:05
SPEAKER_01: I guess we'll like ask a court to enforce our subpoenas for us.
40:09
Talk to me a little bit about what you think Democrats should
40:12
be prepared to do in
40:14
2027 and 2028 that would give oversight real teeth or at least
40:20
cause Trump real
40:21
SPEAKER_00: pain if he manages to obstruct the oversight.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: All right.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: How about let's take a break.
40:27
And if you want to hear that part of the conversation between
40:30
me and Norm Ornstein,
40:30
SPEAKER_01: you can go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.