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Graham Platner Isn't Backing Down · Pod Save America

0:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. Our guest
0:24
Speaker 1: this Sunday is Graham Plattner, who's running for Senate in Maine.
0:28
Speaker 1: He's currently in a Democratic primary race against Maine Governor
0:31
Speaker 1: Janet Mills that will be decided in June. And the
0:33
Speaker 1: winner will try to finally defeat Susan Collins in November.
0:38
Speaker 1: Graham has been on the show before. You might remember
0:40
Speaker 1: that his interview with Tommy in October is where he
0:43
Speaker 1: revealed that he got a skull and crossbones tattoo as
0:45
Speaker 1: a young Marine that he says he later learned was
0:48
Speaker 1: a Nazi symbol. And right after his PSA appearance, he
0:51
Speaker 1: got the tattoo covered up. I, of course, asked about that.
0:55
Speaker 1: but I mainly wanted to learn more about what Graham
0:57
Speaker 1: Plattner actually believes about politics. What life experiences shaped his beliefs,
1:03
Speaker 1: what his theory of change is, what kind of a
1:05
Speaker 1: person he is, and what kind of a senator he'd be.
1:08
Speaker 1: All important questions because despite the early controversies over the
1:12
Speaker 1: tattoo and his long trail of Reddit posts, Plattner didn't
1:16
Speaker 1: just decide to stay in the race. He's now the
1:19
Speaker 1: front runner, at least according to the polling averages and
1:22
Speaker 1: fundraising totals. At the very least, Judging by the crowds
1:25
Speaker 1: he's getting and the organization he's building, he will be
1:28
Speaker 1: a formidable challenger to Mills, and this will be a
1:32
Speaker 1: very competitive and much-discussed primary in the months ahead. With
1:37
Speaker 1: that said, I really enjoyed the conversation, and I hope
1:40
Speaker 1: you do too. Here's Graham Platner. Graham Platner. Graham Platner.
1:48
Speaker 1: Good to see you.
1:49
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot. It's good to be here.
1:50
Speaker 1: Welcome back. It's good to have you here in person.
1:52
Speaker 2: No, it's an absolute pleasure, man.
1:55
Speaker 1: You've been running for Senate for six months, right?
1:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, we launched the campaign on August 19th. Okay. So, yeah,
2:01
Speaker 2: whatever that is now, around that.
2:02
Speaker 1: You've gone from completely unknown challenger to rising star to
2:08
Speaker 1: scandal-plagued candidate who faced calls to drop out to fundraising
2:12
Speaker 1: leader and maybe, if you believe the latest polls, frontrunner.
2:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been quite the whirlwind.
2:18
Speaker 1: How has your thinking about politics and campaigns and being
2:22
Speaker 1: in public life changed since you started running? What have
2:26
Speaker 1: you taken away so far from this journey?
2:29
Speaker 2: What I've taken away, I mean, I was already pretty
2:30
Speaker 2: cynical about money and politics, and that cynicism has just
2:35
Speaker 2: been supercharged. I mean, it is like, and the problem
2:38
Speaker 2: is you clearly need to raise money to compete for
2:41
Speaker 2: this stuff. But there is just a whole apparatus that
2:45
Speaker 2: seems to exist just to suck up money. And that
2:49
Speaker 2: has been really eye-opening. I mean, the political industrial complex
2:54
Speaker 2: or the campaign industrial complex, whatever you want to call it.
2:56
Speaker 2: And it is this kind of like, it's a wild
2:58
Speaker 2: thing to actually interact with personally. I mean, we're lucky
3:02
Speaker 2: because our fundraising has been so much small dollar stuff.
3:06
Speaker 2: And because, frankly, the establishment of even my party wants
3:11
Speaker 2: nothing to do with me. It kind of keeps all
3:13
Speaker 2: of that at arm's length, like automatically. So I'm not
3:16
Speaker 2: that mad. But you're like just interacting with it. It's like, man,
3:19
Speaker 2: there's a whole industry around this stuff.
3:22
Speaker 1: Is it the time suck that's really– It's the time.
3:24
Speaker 2: Totally. I'm not going to say I understand why people
3:30
Speaker 2: go the kind of like corporate pack dark money route
3:34
Speaker 2: because I mean just ideologically I can never really grasp that.
3:39
Speaker 2: But from a practical perspective, there is an element where
3:41
Speaker 2: I can see someone who might not have the same
3:44
Speaker 2: like just sort of political foundation that I have. I mean,
3:48
Speaker 2: if somebody comes along and says, hey, you never have
3:50
Speaker 2: to make a phone call again, and you don't have
3:53
Speaker 2: to go beg anybody for money, I can see someone
3:55
Speaker 2: being like, oh, well, that would mean that I could
3:57
Speaker 2: do more other stuff.
3:59
Speaker 1: Right.
4:00
Speaker 2: Although, I mean, that's not in any way, shape, or
4:03
Speaker 2: form remotely worth it. And then there's just kind of
4:10
Speaker 2: interacting with the whole media landscape and political world. Mm-hmm.
4:15
Speaker 2: as a pretty normal guy up until August. Uh, and
4:20
Speaker 2: so like, that's a whole wild experience. Cause I'm like,
4:22
Speaker 2: I'm going to open my phone and see my name.
4:24
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't know. No, no, no. I
4:26
Speaker 2: don't want to see that. Like that's, it's just this very.
4:28
Speaker 1: And it's not always good. Not mostly good.
4:30
Speaker 2: No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's such a, yeah, it's
4:32
Speaker 2: a very like, it's just very surreal. Yeah. And, and I, uh,
4:37
Speaker 2: I also very much understand why, I guess the biggest
4:40
Speaker 2: lesson I have learned is that, structurally it's borderline impossible
4:46
Speaker 2: for regular people to pull this off. Like if you're
4:49
Speaker 2: a regular human being with not a lot of money
4:52
Speaker 2: and having lived a pretty normal life who doesn't want
4:55
Speaker 2: to like, just get your entire existence ripped to pieces.
4:59
Speaker 2: I can see why people don't want to do this.
5:01
Speaker 1: I think about that often because especially with people, uh,
5:05
Speaker 1: our age and younger, like in everyone younger, because we've,
5:09
Speaker 1: and if you look, if you've never spoken about politics
5:13
Speaker 1: or posted about politics your whole life and have lived
5:15
Speaker 1: a perfect life, maybe, but you've obviously found out.
5:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:20
Speaker 1: You've said quite a bit about politics.
5:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:22
Speaker 1: I mean, all the time and everyone knows now.
5:23
Speaker 2: And everybody knows. I mean, like, and for me, like
5:25
Speaker 2: it's a, when I got into this thing, I, I'm
5:27
Speaker 2: an elder millennial. I've spent most of my life on
5:30
Speaker 2: the internet. I was well aware when the moment I
5:33
Speaker 2: said yes to this whole experience that somebody was going
5:36
Speaker 2: to come along with a bunch of resources and dig
5:39
Speaker 2: up every single thing I ever did on the internet
5:41
Speaker 2: and try to use it. Like I knew that was coming. Um,
5:44
Speaker 2: and when it came, I was happy to talk about
5:45
Speaker 2: it because quite frankly, I think it's a pretty standard
5:49
Speaker 2: story of people that aren't trying to get into politics
5:53
Speaker 2: or just regular human beings in general. You go through
5:56
Speaker 2: phases in life. Yeah. You believe things when you're younger,
5:59
Speaker 2: you say things, you do things and then you learn
6:01
Speaker 2: new things and then you change and then you become
6:05
Speaker 2: a different version of yourself, which I mean, in my
6:07
Speaker 2: experience is pretty much just like what most people go through. Um,
6:11
Speaker 2: so it was actually very kind of ironic that that
6:14
Speaker 2: whole thing blew up as if it was this huge scandal.
6:18
Speaker 2: And in reality, I think it actually really strengthened the
6:21
Speaker 2: campaign because a lot of people could like directly engage
6:25
Speaker 2: with that feeling of like, yeah, I have not, most
6:28
Speaker 2: of us have not always been who we are today. Yeah.
6:32
Speaker 2: And we also have to very much understand that if
6:34
Speaker 2: we're going to build a better future, we need to
6:38
Speaker 2: keep an opening for a lot of people to change.
6:41
Speaker 2: Because if we're all stuck right now in some ossified
6:43
Speaker 2: political thought and nobody's capable of changing, then what's the
6:47
Speaker 2: point of doing any of this? Yeah.
6:49
Speaker 1: No, and look, we appreciate you coming on here. I
6:52
Speaker 1: know you talked to Tommy in an interview, which became
6:56
Speaker 1: part of the story because he asked you about a
6:58
Speaker 1: lot of the old posts. He also asked you, and
7:00
Speaker 1: then you talked about the tattoo. You've since had the
7:03
Speaker 1: Tattoo covered up.
7:04
Speaker 2: Actually, I had it covered up like two days after that.
7:07
Speaker 1: I remember. I remember a few weeks after that, I
7:10
Speaker 1: had a main voter who I know say to me,
7:12
Speaker 1: I like Plattner. I'm leaning Plattner. I don't think he's
7:15
Speaker 1: a secret Nazi. But then they said, you know, my
7:18
Speaker 1: concern is I saw that a few people left his campaign.
7:21
Speaker 1: One of them said Plattner knew the tattoo was a
7:23
Speaker 1: Nazi symbol when he started running. Someone else told CNN
7:26
Speaker 1: the same thing. I'm just wondering if I can trust him. Now,
7:30
Speaker 1: if you win the primary... Because I'm sure you've probably
7:34
Speaker 1: been able to meet a lot of primary voters just
7:36
Speaker 1: campaigning around Maine. And general voters, to be honest.
7:40
Speaker 2: Maine's not very big. Right.
7:41
Speaker 1: If you win, of course, Super PACs will run millions
7:45
Speaker 1: of dollars of ads to this effect. Can we trust him?
7:48
Speaker 1: Is he telling the truth? What about all these positions?
7:51
Speaker 1: To reach voters who aren't politically engaged or aren't as
7:55
Speaker 1: politically engaged or aware. as maybe some of the voters
7:57
Speaker 1: who've come to your events, what will your response be?
8:01
Speaker 1: And what is your strategy to push back?
8:04
Speaker 2: So this response is going to be exactly what it was,
8:06
Speaker 2: which is like, I'm happy to talk about all this stuff. I,
8:10
Speaker 2: when that whole thing started, it like never crossed any
8:13
Speaker 2: of our minds to like run away from it. It
8:16
Speaker 2: was just kind of like, no, I mean, this is just,
8:17
Speaker 2: it's part of my life. And in many ways, it's
8:20
Speaker 2: kind of part of my political journey. And so I'm
8:23
Speaker 2: happy to, happy to discuss it. One, What we're doing
8:28
Speaker 2: in Maine is we are truly trying to build a
8:33
Speaker 2: real on the ground, organized, broad coalition of frankly, working
8:39
Speaker 2: class power. And in the doing of that in a
8:43
Speaker 2: state that's as small as Maine is, by the time
8:47
Speaker 2: we get to the general, I'm going to have either
8:49
Speaker 2: directly connected with a substantial portion of the electorate or
8:53
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are just going to tell
8:55
Speaker 2: their friends and The way Maine tends to work is
8:58
Speaker 2: that people trust their friends and their neighbors more than
9:01
Speaker 2: they trust TV ads from political groups. And part of
9:07
Speaker 2: our strategy, quite frankly, is just to cut through all
9:10
Speaker 2: of it by engaging as many people as possible and
9:15
Speaker 2: personally interacting with this. I do three to six public
9:18
Speaker 2: events a day. I mean, I do not sleep much
9:22
Speaker 2: and that's fine.
9:23
Speaker 1: You might meet everyone in Maine then.
9:24
Speaker 2: We very well might meet everyone in Maine. And we
9:26
Speaker 2: go everywhere. I mean, this is not like, we're not
9:31
Speaker 2: doing some kind of weird math about like, oh, we've
9:34
Speaker 2: got our win number and we're only going to focus
9:36
Speaker 2: on that. Like for me, we truly need to change politics.
9:41
Speaker 2: And to do that, we have to engage with everybody,
9:43
Speaker 2: even people who we might not agree with, even people
9:45
Speaker 2: who might initially disagree. be very either resistant or hesitant
9:49
Speaker 2: or even oppositional to the message. Although we've found that
9:52
Speaker 2: when we do engage with those folks, we have a
9:54
Speaker 2: lot of common ground.
9:55
Speaker 1: Have you had conversations with people who are skeptical about
9:59
Speaker 1: all the tattoo stuff or any of the old Reddit
10:03
Speaker 1: posts or any of that?
10:04
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. How do those go? They go great. I mean,
10:07
Speaker 2: because I explain it, and frankly, most people are like,
10:09
Speaker 2: that all sounds eminently reasonable. And I think in Maine, folks,
10:15
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how to say this, but
10:19
Speaker 2: When people meet me, they tend to be like, okay,
10:21
Speaker 2: so he seems exactly like a normal human being. That's helpful.
10:25
Speaker 2: It's helpful. So there's that. And then, I mean, honestly,
10:29
Speaker 2: we're also just going to push back on TV, primarily
10:33
Speaker 2: with messaging that's positive. I mean, I know that once
10:38
Speaker 2: we get through the primary— That, you know, the whole
10:41
Speaker 2: thing's going to, I mean, there's so much money is
10:43
Speaker 2: going to get spent on this race, which drives me insane. Yeah.
10:45
Speaker 2: Because if I had my way, we would just take
10:47
Speaker 2: that money and like write everybody a check. Frankly, we'd
10:50
Speaker 2: be better off.
10:51
Speaker 1: Every cycle when you hear how much is being spent
10:52
Speaker 1: on the biggest Senate races.
10:53
Speaker 2: It's nuts. It's just like, oh, what a fucking. Although
10:56
Speaker 2: I will say for us, the way that we kind
10:57
Speaker 2: of fight back against that is we're like, we're building
11:00
Speaker 2: an on the ground organizing apparatus. So a lot of,
11:04
Speaker 2: we hire Mainers and we're going to, we're going to
11:06
Speaker 2: have Mainers learn how to be organizers and. in their
11:10
Speaker 2: communities and like have them on staff. Like we want
11:13
Speaker 2: the money that we spend to primarily be spent in Maine,
11:18
Speaker 2: not just give it to some DC consulting firm that
11:20
Speaker 2: makes another stupid ad that we've all seen a thousand times.
11:24
Speaker 2: It just changes little things, but we all know exactly
11:26
Speaker 2: what they are. So by, by building that and by
11:31
Speaker 2: sticking to a very like cogent, constructive message of the
11:38
Speaker 2: kind of future we want to build, the kind of
11:40
Speaker 2: policies that are going to get us there and a
11:42
Speaker 2: theory of power building that is also going to be
11:45
Speaker 2: necessary to get us there. I think that's how we
11:48
Speaker 2: push through all this stuff. And in my experience, like
11:53
Speaker 2: negative TV ads, I don't think they actually moved the
11:56
Speaker 2: needle much in Maine. You know, in 2020, the Sarah
12:00
Speaker 2: Gideon race outspent the Collins race almost three to one.
12:05
Speaker 2: They had some money left over. They had some money
12:06
Speaker 2: left over. an immense amount of money was spent on
12:09
Speaker 2: negative ads about Susan Collins. It didn't do anything. And honestly,
12:14
Speaker 2: living in the part of Maine I live in, which
12:16
Speaker 2: is rural Eastern Maine, a lot of the negative ads
12:19
Speaker 2: about Sarah Gideon also didn't change anything. It was really
12:22
Speaker 2: more about like a feeling on the ground. People couldn't
12:25
Speaker 2: really connect with the Democratic candidate, primarily because I think
12:30
Speaker 2: DC came in and ran the race like an old
12:32
Speaker 2: school DC race, which is not going to win against
12:35
Speaker 2: Susan Collins. And Collins was a known entity. And at
12:39
Speaker 2: that point, people could still sort of frame her as
12:42
Speaker 2: this sort of moderate. Roe had not yet been overturned,
12:45
Speaker 2: which is really important to remember. And I think that
12:49
Speaker 2: that to me just shows that it's not really about
12:51
Speaker 2: the ads or even the money spent. There's another, there's
12:55
Speaker 2: an X factor in there about connecting with people and
12:59
Speaker 2: about really being able to make people think that you are,
13:02
Speaker 2: or not think, but letting people engage with you directly
13:06
Speaker 2: and to show that you are like authentic.
13:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:09
Speaker 2: And which is why I, I mean, we hold, we've
13:12
Speaker 2: held 40 town halls and we're going to hold 20
13:14
Speaker 2: more before the primary. And we're going to hold a
13:16
Speaker 2: bunch more after that, like making myself accessible in a
13:22
Speaker 2: way that isn't controlled. Like we don't screen questions at
13:25
Speaker 2: these things. People just come and I literally pick on
13:28
Speaker 2: folks who raise their hands, drives the comms team insane.
13:31
Speaker 2: They are terrified. Uh, But I think that's how you
13:35
Speaker 2: make yourself accessible, and we need politics to be accessible
13:38
Speaker 2: again to regular folks.
13:40
Speaker 1: So you're running against Janet Mills. She is a popular
13:45
Speaker 1: governor who's accomplished quite a bit in comparison to other governors,
13:50
Speaker 1: even other Democratic governors, big healthcare expansion, free community college,
13:53
Speaker 1: more school funding. What governing decisions has Janet Mills made
13:57
Speaker 1: that you disagree with?
13:59
Speaker 2: So if– If anything, I'm very much a labor candidate.
14:04
Speaker 2: I believe in the need to strengthen unions. I believe
14:08
Speaker 2: in the power of organized labor within our society to advocate,
14:12
Speaker 2: not just for like their union members, but kind of
14:14
Speaker 2: for the working class in general. The governor has effectively
14:19
Speaker 2: vetoed every single pro-labor bit of legislation that's come across
14:22
Speaker 2: her desk. She's been an opponent of labor. I mean,
14:27
Speaker 2: right now I have, forget how many, but a bunch
14:29
Speaker 2: of union endorsements By the time it gets to the primary,
14:33
Speaker 2: we're probably going to have the vast majority of unions
14:35
Speaker 2: in Maine because they have a not great relationship with
14:39
Speaker 2: the governor. And, you know, to me, like we need
14:42
Speaker 2: to pass the PRO Act. We need to expand the
14:45
Speaker 2: NLRB or have the NLRB. We need to expand the
14:48
Speaker 2: labor courts and have an NLRB that actually acts as
14:51
Speaker 2: a good faith intermediary in like unfair labor practice disputes,
14:55
Speaker 2: which right now, I mean, it doesn't even have a
14:56
Speaker 2: quorum right now. So it's all not functioning. And like
15:00
Speaker 2: someone who's vetoed pro labor legislation over and over and
15:03
Speaker 2: over again, to me is not someone that's like going
15:05
Speaker 2: to go to the mattresses to fight for it in DC.
15:09
Speaker 2: I also think that Maine has a very fraught relationship
15:14
Speaker 2: with the Wabanaki nations. We have a specific law from 1980,
15:20
Speaker 2: which does not extend to the Maine tribes. The same
15:24
Speaker 2: protections that all other 570 nationally, federally recognized tribes get.
15:30
Speaker 2: So it means that the main tribes have to spend
15:33
Speaker 2: a bunch of money on lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Because
15:37
Speaker 2: for legislation to impact them, they need to be named specifically.
15:43
Speaker 2: So they have to have people in Washington to make
15:44
Speaker 2: sure that Maliseet, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, that that gets added as
15:51
Speaker 2: words into bills. There have been multiple attempts to fix this,
15:55
Speaker 2: and the governor has opposed all of them, both as
15:57
Speaker 2: attorney general and as governor. So, like, to me, that
16:01
Speaker 2: is also a pretty fundamental difference around, I don't know,
16:05
Speaker 2: like a foundation of political philosophy. Like, I do not
16:08
Speaker 2: see expanding tribal sovereignty in Maine as a bad thing
16:12
Speaker 2: at all. I think it's good, and I also think
16:14
Speaker 2: it's morally the correct thing to do since we have
16:17
Speaker 2: been not good faith actors in our relationships with the tribes. Yeah.
16:22
Speaker 2: And so like there are, and then last but not
16:24
Speaker 2: least rather big one, I think is, I think we
16:27
Speaker 2: have to tax the rich and the governor's vetoed multiple
16:31
Speaker 2: bipartisan bills. Some written by Republicans that were trying to
16:35
Speaker 2: raise taxes on the wealthy in Maine, creating three new
16:38
Speaker 2: tax brackets was completely reasonable. And the governor vetoed that.
16:42
Speaker 2: And again, that just doesn't show a commitment to going
16:45
Speaker 2: after where the money is. Um, which I think as
16:49
Speaker 2: we move into this next phase in American history, I
16:53
Speaker 2: think that that's going to have to be like a
16:54
Speaker 2: pretty foundational element of our politics going forward.
16:58
Speaker 1: I want to step back and ask about how you
17:13
Speaker 1: came to believe what you believe about politics. Like when
17:16
Speaker 1: did you start paying attention to politics and, What was
17:20
Speaker 1: your worldview like back then and sort of how has
17:23
Speaker 1: it evolved?
17:25
Speaker 2: I mean, I've always been politically, I was a big
17:29
Speaker 2: history buff when I was a kid, which in many
17:31
Speaker 2: ways kind of makes you sort of politically aware just
17:35
Speaker 2: because you're doing that. In high school, I was introduced
17:40
Speaker 2: to more critical thought like Howard Zinn and Chomsky. At
17:45
Speaker 2: that point, But I remember reading those things and being like, yeah,
17:48
Speaker 2: some of this makes sense. But I also still was
17:50
Speaker 2: very much like a bit of a patriotic young man.
17:54
Speaker 2: And I always wanted to join the military. So I
17:57
Speaker 2: had this kind of weird militaristic bent that I really
18:01
Speaker 2: can't explain. But since I was two, I wanted to
18:03
Speaker 2: be a soldier. It was really after my military service
18:09
Speaker 2: that I began to think much more deeply about it.
18:12
Speaker 2: Primarily because, I mean, I had four tours in the infantry.
18:17
Speaker 2: I fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. I really came to
18:21
Speaker 2: believe that what we were doing was not what we
18:26
Speaker 2: were claiming to do. I could not figure out what
18:31
Speaker 2: the immense amount of violence I partook in, what that
18:35
Speaker 2: did for the town of Sullivan, Maine. To this day,
18:39
Speaker 2: no one's ever been able to explain to me. I
18:41
Speaker 2: do know that some people made a lot of money.
18:44
Speaker 2: off the wars that I fought in. And it wasn't
18:46
Speaker 2: the young men and women who did the fighting. And
18:48
Speaker 2: it certainly wasn't the civilians that we inflict inflicted just
18:52
Speaker 2: wild amounts of violence upon. I, it's defense contractors and it's,
19:00
Speaker 2: it's folks in political power. Like it really is. And that,
19:04
Speaker 2: that began to, I, so I became, it became very
19:07
Speaker 2: critical of American foreign policy, which as I, Then that
19:12
Speaker 2: kind of just set me on a road of being, well,
19:13
Speaker 2: if I'm critical of foreign policy, why is our foreign
19:15
Speaker 2: policy like this? So I became more critical of our
19:18
Speaker 2: political structures. And once you start being critical of the
19:20
Speaker 2: political structure, you're like, well, why is our political structure
19:23
Speaker 2: like this? And that takes you into like an economic critique.
19:26
Speaker 2: And you start to realize that, oh, I like this
19:28
Speaker 2: whole system in many ways does seem to be built
19:32
Speaker 2: by people in power with wealth to maintain or expand
19:36
Speaker 2: their wealth and power generally to the to the immiseration
19:41
Speaker 2: or diminishment of regular working folks. And I think you know,
19:49
Speaker 2: the reason this campaign has sort of blown up the
19:52
Speaker 2: way it has is I think a lot of people
19:54
Speaker 2: are getting wise to this. I think a lot of
19:57
Speaker 2: folks are like, wait a second, like this stuff that
19:58
Speaker 2: we all thought for years, we are getting a totally
20:03
Speaker 2: different outcome from what we claim we're trying to do.
20:07
Speaker 2: So are we actually trying to do the thing that
20:09
Speaker 2: we claim or is all of this doing something else?
20:11
Speaker 2: And when you reframe the question of like, does all
20:13
Speaker 2: of this exist just to like screw working people and
20:16
Speaker 2: make somebody else rich? Suddenly a lot of decisions we
20:19
Speaker 2: make begins to become a lot more clear. And so
20:23
Speaker 2: that's kind of where I've, it's been a long journey.
20:26
Speaker 2: I mean, it's definitely not been, I didn't like have
20:28
Speaker 2: a day where I'm like, oh, I figured it out.
20:31
Speaker 1: Well, and obviously, so obviously you're like shaped by your
20:34
Speaker 1: experiences in Iraq. You come home. all the, everything you
20:39
Speaker 1: just said, you know, you could, you could have found
20:41
Speaker 1: out by just being on the internet, right. And, and
20:43
Speaker 1: reading about politics and reading the news. Um, but you
20:46
Speaker 1: decided before you, long before you ran for Senate to
20:48
Speaker 1: like get involved in community organizing, which I find really interesting.
20:52
Speaker 1: What got you into that? Like, did you, what did
20:54
Speaker 1: you want to change in your community specifically? And like,
20:56
Speaker 1: and what did you find about the work? What was challenging?
20:59
Speaker 2: What was fulfilling? I forget what year this was, but
21:03
Speaker 2: I read a book called No Shortcuts by Jane McAlevey.
21:07
Speaker 2: She is a pretty storied labor organizer who sadly passed
21:09
Speaker 2: just a few years ago, which is a shame because
21:12
Speaker 2: we could use her now. In it, the book really
21:16
Speaker 2: talks about the difference between organizing and mobilizing, developing a
21:21
Speaker 2: deeper theory of power in which power really is accessible
21:25
Speaker 2: for people who are willing to organize and to take
21:28
Speaker 2: it in many ways, in that we in our society,
21:31
Speaker 2: even in like liberal circles, still kind of have this
21:34
Speaker 2: vision that there is an elite who's like worthy of
21:38
Speaker 2: wielding power and the rest of us kind of have
21:39
Speaker 2: to like, you know, let them do it. And her
21:43
Speaker 2: argument is like, that's simply not true. That really power is,
21:47
Speaker 2: power is for everybody, but it requires organizing to bring
21:50
Speaker 2: it around. It requires trust building and relationship building. And
21:56
Speaker 2: I read that and it kind of changed my life actually,
22:00
Speaker 2: because I began to think that Like I spent a
22:03
Speaker 2: lot of time, especially coming back. My last trip to
22:07
Speaker 2: Afghanistan was in 2018. And it was just, to call
22:11
Speaker 2: it disillusioning would be an understatement. I was there for
22:15
Speaker 2: six months. Hadn't been there in seven years. And I
22:17
Speaker 2: was like, okay, well, nobody has any new ideas. This
22:20
Speaker 2: is insane. And I came back and I was really
22:23
Speaker 2: kind of just at a loss of what to do.
22:28
Speaker 2: And I decided to kind of opt out. And I
22:30
Speaker 2: moved back to my hometown, became an oyster farmer, started
22:32
Speaker 2: working on the ocean and really wanted to just check out.
22:37
Speaker 2: But while I did that, I also began to connect
22:40
Speaker 2: to my community and I'm in, I live in a
22:42
Speaker 2: town of a thousand people. It's the town I was
22:44
Speaker 2: born and raised in. I wound up on the planning board.
22:47
Speaker 2: I wound up being the harbor master. And in doing
22:50
Speaker 2: all that, I began to see like really the, the
22:53
Speaker 2: value of building trust and relationships and just organizing. And
22:59
Speaker 2: I also began to realize that organizing is actually not
23:01
Speaker 2: that complicated. It's just really hard and that there is
23:05
Speaker 2: no graduate version of it. It's all one-on-one stuff.
23:08
Speaker 1: And it's hard because it is difficult to get people
23:12
Speaker 1: to participate, to care, to break down barriers.
23:15
Speaker 2: And because you have to put a lot of time,
23:17
Speaker 2: unpaid labor into it. You have to believe. And you
23:21
Speaker 2: have to go out into your community and you have
23:24
Speaker 2: to tell people what you believe, which is also hard.
23:28
Speaker 2: And it requires you to kind of open yourself up
23:32
Speaker 2: to a lot of people who like, where I like
23:35
Speaker 2: people who I know who you have to like, kind
23:37
Speaker 2: of say like, this is what I believe. And sometimes
23:39
Speaker 2: people like, I'm not into that. And they're like, oh,
23:41
Speaker 2: you're my neighbor. I, that, that bums me out. Um,
23:44
Speaker 2: but you have to do it. And we had a
23:48
Speaker 2: number of issues in, uh, in Eastern Maine. Uh, for instance,
23:52
Speaker 2: there was a school board race and out of, uh,
23:58
Speaker 2: came in with a bunch of money and backed a
24:04
Speaker 2: very anti-trans candidate and somebody who'd been on the board
24:08
Speaker 2: for 13 years, who was well-respected in the community, who
24:11
Speaker 2: everybody liked, lost his seat. And a month later, the
24:15
Speaker 2: school district pulled back protections for LGBTQ kids that had
24:19
Speaker 2: been there for six years. For no reason.
24:21
Speaker 1: Outside packeting involved in a local school board race in Sullivan.
24:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. Technically in Franklin, but yeah. We have an RSU,
24:31
Speaker 2: so a regional school unit. And it was this moment
24:34
Speaker 2: for myself and a few other people where we watched
24:37
Speaker 2: this happen. And it only happened because it was no
24:40
Speaker 2: organizing versus a little bit of organizing. They had people
24:44
Speaker 2: to knock doors and this guy had himself. It was
24:48
Speaker 2: a small town school board race. And there was no
24:51
Speaker 2: apparatus to support him. There was no way of like
24:55
Speaker 2: getting people to knock doors for him. He was calling
24:58
Speaker 2: around almost like frantic, uh, understanding what was happening like
25:02
Speaker 2: with a week until the election. And there really wasn't
25:04
Speaker 2: anything that existed. And so a number of us, we'd
25:08
Speaker 2: already been, we'd already formed like kind of a small
25:11
Speaker 2: community organizing group, but we use this as kind of
25:13
Speaker 2: an example of, we, understood that if we don't have
25:18
Speaker 2: people who can make signs and put them up, if
25:19
Speaker 2: we don't have people who can knock doors, who can
25:21
Speaker 2: make phone calls in their communities, talking to their neighbors,
25:24
Speaker 2: people that they trust or people who would trust them,
25:28
Speaker 2: if we don't build that, then we're going to lose
25:31
Speaker 2: this kind of fight. And so we just started to
25:34
Speaker 2: build it. And we reached out to folks and we
25:36
Speaker 2: got a number of the other larger statewide groups. We
25:39
Speaker 2: reached out to local democratic committee. We reached out to Frank,
25:42
Speaker 2: just a lot of individuals who we knew kind of
25:45
Speaker 2: had who are worked up about this. Cause every, like
25:47
Speaker 2: a ton of people are angry, but again, there was
25:49
Speaker 2: no mechanism. And we kind of, we realized that especially
25:54
Speaker 2: right now after Trump's reelection, people want to do something.
25:59
Speaker 2: They want to fight. They want to get involved. The
26:03
Speaker 2: problem is in a lot of places, there is no,
26:07
Speaker 2: there's no room to go into. There's no place. And
26:10
Speaker 2: we figured we just have to build the room. And
26:13
Speaker 2: once you build the room, people come into it and
26:15
Speaker 2: they start talking to each other and they start building relationships.
26:18
Speaker 2: And I mean, the way we did it was pretty non-hierarchical.
26:20
Speaker 2: So essentially like folks would get together and be like,
26:23
Speaker 2: this is the thing I care about. And she was like,
26:24
Speaker 2: I care about that too. And we're like, go forth
26:26
Speaker 2: and make that a campaign. And, uh, and, and it's,
26:29
Speaker 2: and it worked like we, we actually wound up like
26:32
Speaker 2: winning the next school board race. And like we, and
26:35
Speaker 2: we're still like kind of, now we're trying to get
26:37
Speaker 2: candidates to run for County commissioner or stuff like that.
26:40
Speaker 2: So there is a, to me, that was a direct, uh,
26:43
Speaker 2: It was a moment where I realized, oh man, this
26:45
Speaker 2: kind of power building is very real. It just requires
26:50
Speaker 2: people to really get out of their comfort zone and
26:53
Speaker 2: start building relationships again. And for me, it was the
26:58
Speaker 2: foundation of when the campaign started. One of the reasons
27:03
Speaker 2: I agreed to do this was purely to use it
27:06
Speaker 2: as a statewide organizing vehicle. With the visibility... resources that
27:13
Speaker 2: we're going to get. We can take that kind of strategy,
27:16
Speaker 2: those kinds of tactics, that kind of on the ground
27:20
Speaker 2: trust building that we do, and we can supercharge it
27:24
Speaker 2: and we can get the labor unions involved and we
27:26
Speaker 2: can get all the other community organizations around the state involved.
27:29
Speaker 2: And then we can bring in all these people who
27:31
Speaker 2: engage with politics via electoral campaigns and we can train
27:36
Speaker 2: them how to be organizers and activists in their community.
27:40
Speaker 2: And I think that's how you build the apparatus to
27:44
Speaker 2: knock on enough doors, talk to enough people, and build
27:47
Speaker 2: enough trust. I'm convinced we're not just going to beat
27:51
Speaker 2: Susan Collins in November. I think we're going to trounce
27:53
Speaker 2: Susan Collins. And if the worst thing happens and we
27:58
Speaker 2: have an election that is contested or called into question, well,
28:02
Speaker 2: we still have an apparatus to turn people out. To
28:06
Speaker 2: actually have people mobilize. And if we have to, you know,
28:09
Speaker 2: resist fascism in the streets with a mass movement, which
28:13
Speaker 2: is really the only way you can. And we're trying
28:16
Speaker 2: to build the apparatus to do both. And when we're done,
28:19
Speaker 2: we want it to stay. I don't want any of
28:22
Speaker 2: this to die because one single Senate seat is not
28:24
Speaker 2: going to get us universal health care. So we're going
28:26
Speaker 2: to need to have the power of people still on
28:28
Speaker 2: our side in order to, like, get the wins we're
28:31
Speaker 2: going to need down the road.
28:33
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd, so I looked up the election results
28:35
Speaker 1: in Sullivan for the last decade. Quite a bellwether. Barely
28:39
Speaker 1: goes for Trump in 2016 by like less than 1%,
28:42
Speaker 1: although as you said, it's like a thousand people. Jared
28:45
Speaker 1: Golden barely wins in 18, barely flips to Biden in 20.
28:49
Speaker 1: Trump squeaks out a win in 2024. I'm sure you
28:52
Speaker 1: know most of the people there. What are their politics like?
28:54
Speaker 1: What do people believe there?
28:56
Speaker 2: It's a, I mean, everybody works really hard. Eastern Maine
28:59
Speaker 2: is fantastic. economically depressed. Um, we have, it's most, it's
29:06
Speaker 2: commercial fishing. Uh, it is a lot of construction, um,
29:11
Speaker 2: mostly because we have some pretty substantial summer communities nearby, uh,
29:14
Speaker 2: which brings money in. And then across the Bay from us,
29:16
Speaker 2: we have Acadia national park. So there's a lot of
29:19
Speaker 2: folks that work in industries that are related to tourism. Um,
29:23
Speaker 2: so it's a very, it's a very working class area,
29:28
Speaker 2: which I frankly, as I think why it, is this
29:32
Speaker 2: kind of weird back and forth between like Trumpism and
29:36
Speaker 2: not Trumpism? Because, I mean, Trump, I have a lot
29:40
Speaker 2: of friends who voted for Donald Trump three times. And
29:44
Speaker 2: they hate billionaires. They think corporate tech folks are like
29:49
Speaker 2: manipulating all of us. They think that corporate owned agriculture
29:54
Speaker 2: and food systems are exploiting all of us and essentially
29:57
Speaker 2: poisoning us. They think that hedge funds and private equity
30:01
Speaker 2: are like destroying working people's lives. I agree with all
30:05
Speaker 2: of this. One of the reasons they voted for Trump
30:08
Speaker 2: is because Trump came along and he told them the
30:10
Speaker 2: one thing that they knew was true was true, which
30:13
Speaker 2: is that they live in a system that is not
30:14
Speaker 2: built for them. And somebody somewhere is robbing them blind.
30:20
Speaker 2: And once he said that they were, they were willing
30:24
Speaker 2: to kind of forgive all the other stuff because that was,
30:26
Speaker 2: that's the core thing that people understand. that we live
30:29
Speaker 2: in a political and economic system that does not have
30:31
Speaker 2: their best interests at heart. When you tell people that
30:37
Speaker 2: something they know in their bones is real, they're willing
30:40
Speaker 2: to kind of go along with a lot more, I think, afterwards.
30:42
Speaker 2: And one of the biggest problems we as Democrats have
30:44
Speaker 2: had is that we didn't have a counter to that.
30:47
Speaker 2: We told folks that we had to protect the status quo.
30:49
Speaker 2: We told folks that, no, the economic system's actually doing great.
30:52
Speaker 2: Did you guys not see that Wall Street's doing fine?
30:56
Speaker 2: GDP looks great. Unemployment is record low. It's yeah, but
30:59
Speaker 2: everybody works three jobs and they hate them. So it
31:02
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if unemployment's low, working people are working themselves
31:06
Speaker 2: to the bone. I think that that's why, and I'm
31:11
Speaker 2: utterly convinced that economic populism going after the oligarchy, that
31:18
Speaker 2: is how we kind of rebuild trust with working people.
31:22
Speaker 2: And I mean, I say this, this is not like
31:24
Speaker 2: a radical idea. I mean, honestly, it seems, pretty obvious.
31:29
Speaker 2: But the Democratic Party, at least elements of it, certainly
31:32
Speaker 2: in D.C., have really walked away from that. And I
31:36
Speaker 2: think working people walked away from them because of it.
31:50
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about that a little more.
31:53
Speaker 1: What do you think happened? Because Hancock County, where Sullivan is,
31:58
Speaker 1: went for Obama by 17 points in 2012. And, you know, obviously,
32:05
Speaker 1: I've heard you say, and I get it, that the
32:07
Speaker 1: Democratic Party has become too tied to corporate interests. Like,
32:11
Speaker 1: where specifically has the party gone wrong in the last
32:14
Speaker 1: decade in terms of policies, decisions, positions? Are there things
32:19
Speaker 1: you can point to where you're like, that's what they're doing?
32:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, absolutely to the financial crisis. bailing out
32:26
Speaker 2: the banks, bailing out the big industries, letting people walk
32:30
Speaker 2: away with gold or jump away with golden parachutes while
32:34
Speaker 2: those banks still turned around and foreclosed on people's homes.
32:37
Speaker 2: While the average working person saw their, frankly, their retirement
32:42
Speaker 2: savings just disappear. And then we watched the political apparatus
32:47
Speaker 2: back up the people that broke the thing in the
32:49
Speaker 2: first place. I think that, I think that was huge.
32:52
Speaker 2: That broke a lot of trust. And I, And then
32:56
Speaker 2: further on, you know, like the– So I was in–
33:00
Speaker 2: I was there.
33:00
Speaker 1: I was in the White House. We sort of knew
33:04
Speaker 1: that this was going to happen. We walk into the
33:06
Speaker 1: White House. Bush had already done the bailout.
33:10
Speaker 2: Yep.
33:12
Speaker 1: And we can't really undo it at that point because
33:14
Speaker 1: we can't let the banks fail because the whole system
33:16
Speaker 1: goes under. And we make sure that the banks pay
33:20
Speaker 1: all the money back with interest. Right. the fucking executives
33:23
Speaker 1: get away with the golden parachutes. And I remember like
33:27
Speaker 1: trying to, I remember talking to Larry Summers about it.
33:31
Speaker 1: And I was like, he's like, we, it's contract law.
33:34
Speaker 1: We can't claw back the bonuses. Like it's illegal. We're not,
33:37
Speaker 1: we're going to get fought. And I'm like, okay, we
33:38
Speaker 1: can talk about contract law, but there's like people with
33:40
Speaker 1: pitchforks outside the White House. So like, you know, same
33:43
Speaker 1: thing with like, why didn't anyone.
33:44
Speaker 2: Go to jail?
33:45
Speaker 1: Well, the laws aren't there. The DOJ won't prosecute because
33:48
Speaker 1: the laws aren't there. And obviously we can't direct the
33:49
Speaker 1: DOJ to do anything anyway. Obama gives an interview where
33:51
Speaker 1: he calls these people fat cats. He gets in trouble
33:54
Speaker 1: for calling them fat cats, let alone all the policies.
33:57
Speaker 1: I think looking back, there's plenty of criticism over our
34:02
Speaker 1: housing policy, though even then at the time I remember
34:04
Speaker 1: them being like, well, we'd love to bail out people
34:07
Speaker 1: who lost their homes in this, but we don't want
34:10
Speaker 1: to bail out the people who bought second and third
34:12
Speaker 1: homes that they knew they couldn't afford because then we're
34:14
Speaker 1: rewarding people who acted irresponsibly. So there was all this.
34:18
Speaker 1: We We pass the Recovery Act. We pass the Affordable
34:20
Speaker 1: Care Act. We spend a whole bunch of money that
34:21
Speaker 1: then we lose the midterms over.
34:23
Speaker 2: Not much money.
34:25
Speaker 1: And I only bring this up not to defend any
34:27
Speaker 1: of it because I often look back on it and think, like,
34:31
Speaker 1: we're going to have another crisis and another crisis. And
34:35
Speaker 1: you get Republicans who are like, we'll let the whole
34:37
Speaker 1: fucking thing fail and we don't care. And then we'll
34:39
Speaker 1: just blame the immigrants.
34:40
Speaker 2: That's right.
34:40
Speaker 1: And then you get the Democrats being like, okay, we're
34:43
Speaker 1: going to try our best to to solve the problem
34:45
Speaker 1: and it's not going to be good enough. And then
34:47
Speaker 1: everyone's going to hate us and say that we are
34:49
Speaker 1: tied to corporate interests. You know, it's like, it's a hard.
34:53
Speaker 2: Totally. But I, but I also think that that's why
34:55
Speaker 2: I'll just be entirely upfront. I mean, I think that's
34:57
Speaker 2: why we need to kind of change the political will
35:02
Speaker 2: of the democratic party to go a little bit further to,
35:07
Speaker 2: to actually go after. I mean, people should have gone
35:10
Speaker 2: to prison. I mean, Iceland put people in prison and
35:13
Speaker 2: I understand that.
35:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:15
Speaker 2: I mean, but Trump administration's happy to abuse the justice
35:19
Speaker 2: department and send them after folks. They send them after
35:22
Speaker 2: like Comey cause he hurt Trump's feelings. I honestly don't
35:26
Speaker 2: think the American people would be angry if the justice
35:28
Speaker 2: department went after folks that like destroyed their retirement savings
35:32
Speaker 2: or kicked their neighbors out of their homes. It's a,
35:36
Speaker 2: and I, and that's the problem.
35:38
Speaker 1: I think even before that, like, I mean, I assume, yeah,
35:42
Speaker 1: maybe they wouldn't be upset. I assume we want to
35:44
Speaker 1: make sure the Justice Department only goes after people who
35:46
Speaker 1: actually broke the law.
35:47
Speaker 2: Who actually broke the law, of course.
35:48
Speaker 1: But then the question is like, we still need to
35:50
Speaker 1: pass the fucking laws.
35:51
Speaker 2: But that's the other thing. We need people in the
35:55
Speaker 2: Senate and the House who want to pass these laws
35:59
Speaker 2: and also, frankly, put enforcement mechanisms in place. That's one
36:02
Speaker 2: of our biggest problems right now. We've got lots of laws,
36:05
Speaker 2: but then they get broken. I mean, the Trump administration
36:07
Speaker 2: breaks the law every day. And then a lot of
36:09
Speaker 2: people just stand around like, well, what do we do?
36:13
Speaker 2: What's the mechanism to actually enforce this stuff? And again,
36:18
Speaker 2: I don't think that the criticism is always correct, but
36:21
Speaker 2: the criticism is absolutely there and it's driven like the
36:24
Speaker 2: kind of narrative. And that's why I think that the
36:28
Speaker 2: only way to regain the trust of the American people
36:32
Speaker 2: as Democrats is to be radically different than what we've had.
36:36
Speaker 2: To really become... There should be no such thing as
36:40
Speaker 2: a labor Democrat. That should just be being in the
36:43
Speaker 2: Democratic Party. We do need to cut ties with the,
36:48
Speaker 2: I would say, the larger, the donor world that comes
36:54
Speaker 2: from the financial system, the donor world that comes from
36:56
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley, like that wants to use AI to either
37:01
Speaker 2: put us all out of work or I guess maybe
37:02
Speaker 2: kill us all as of a couple days ago. It's
37:05
Speaker 2: very insane. We need to cut ties with that. And
37:08
Speaker 2: I think we need to do it in a very
37:10
Speaker 2: clear public manner. Until we do, I think a lot
37:15
Speaker 2: of folks are still going to see Democrats as beholden
37:18
Speaker 2: to the same corporate apparatus that the Republicans are. The
37:21
Speaker 2: problem is that the Republicans have the weapon of just
37:26
Speaker 2: blaming marginalized communities, blaming immigrants. We need to blame the oligarchy.
37:33
Speaker 2: We need to blame the corporate power that resulted in
37:38
Speaker 2: the deregulation of the banking system. I mean, that's a
37:41
Speaker 2: big one. We used to have laws in place. There's
37:43
Speaker 2: a reason 2008 happened in 2008 and not 1994. I mean,
37:49
Speaker 2: we changed rules. And frankly, a lot of Democrats supported
37:53
Speaker 2: that stuff. And until we become a party that doesn't
37:57
Speaker 2: do that, until we become the party that uses the
38:01
Speaker 2: tax code to go after the money that, in my opinion,
38:05
Speaker 2: has actually been stolen from working people in this country
38:07
Speaker 2: over the past four decades until we use, frankly, like
38:10
Speaker 2: the anti-monopoly laws we already have on the books. We
38:14
Speaker 2: just have to stop having Robert Bork's wild reading of
38:17
Speaker 2: what a monopoly is. Until we do that, I think
38:20
Speaker 2: people aren't going to trust us.
38:22
Speaker 1: I guess a big question I've had for much of
38:24
Speaker 1: the last decade is, like, can Democrats win over people
38:29
Speaker 1: who have more culturally conservative beliefs with economic populism alone,
38:34
Speaker 1: because I very much want to believe that the answer
38:37
Speaker 1: is yes. I have not seen the evidence that it can,
38:41
Speaker 1: and I realize the sample size is small, but like,
38:44
Speaker 1: you know, Bernie Sanders runs in 2016, Bernie Sanders runs
38:47
Speaker 1: in 2020, gets a hell of a lot of votes,
38:50
Speaker 1: still getting big crowds, did not win either race, obviously.
38:54
Speaker 1: Friend Sherrod Brown, who there's, you know, a perfect example
38:58
Speaker 1: of an economically populist Democrat who still holds, you know,
39:02
Speaker 1: liberal views on other issues has not sort of tacked
39:04
Speaker 1: to the middle on any cultural views, um, you know,
39:07
Speaker 1: held out in Ohio for awhile and then just lost
39:10
Speaker 1: his last race. And hopefully he wins again this year
39:12
Speaker 1: as well.
39:12
Speaker 2: Oh, fingers crossed.
39:13
Speaker 1: But, um, but what do you think about that?
39:15
Speaker 2: I think that it's when I think the landscape has
39:19
Speaker 2: changed now, I do fundamentally think that a lot of people,
39:23
Speaker 2: even who hold culturally conservative views are realizing that they
39:27
Speaker 2: are in fact getting taken for a ride on the
39:29
Speaker 2: economic side. I think it's more clear now that it
39:33
Speaker 2: has been. Also, this can be a little, but the
39:36
Speaker 2: Epstein files also are showing people of all political stripes
39:41
Speaker 2: that there is in fact a class of people who
39:44
Speaker 2: lives above accountability and lives above and kind of sees
39:48
Speaker 2: the rest of us as like a like this sort
39:50
Speaker 2: of amorphous blob to either just extract wealth out of
39:54
Speaker 2: so they can go live depraved lifestyles. I think that's
39:57
Speaker 2: actually really helpful. One, because it's, you know, people are
40:00
Speaker 2: realizing that it's true. But in my experience in Maine
40:03
Speaker 2: thus far, I have a lot of people come up
40:06
Speaker 2: to me at events and in public who identify as Republicans,
40:12
Speaker 2: identify as conservatives, tell me straight up that they do
40:15
Speaker 2: not agree with some of the things I say. But
40:18
Speaker 2: that they think the fact that I'm fighting back against
40:20
Speaker 2: the establishment in the system, that that's more important and
40:23
Speaker 2: that's why they're going to vote for me. And it's anecdotal.
40:26
Speaker 2: But it also pans out in the polling. I mean
40:29
Speaker 2: we do really well with independents. For a long time,
40:32
Speaker 2: the whole story was is that independents are this like
40:35
Speaker 2: magic moderate middle and that if you have any kind
40:38
Speaker 2: of sort of populist or progressive, as we define it, views,
40:43
Speaker 2: that you'll never appeal to those folks. Well, it turns
40:45
Speaker 2: out when you just go out there and talk about
40:46
Speaker 2: the fact that billionaires are robbing you A lot of
40:48
Speaker 2: folks are like, yeah, that's what I'm here for. That's the,
40:51
Speaker 2: and so it's, so I think the landscape has somewhat changed.
40:56
Speaker 2: But like, you know, with Sherrod Brown, Sherrod was a
40:59
Speaker 2: victim of the larger failure of the Democratic Party. He
41:03
Speaker 2: was not a victim of his own politics, I think.
41:06
Speaker 2: You know, Ohio went from being a blue stronghold of
41:09
Speaker 2: unions to becoming this red stronghold of disenfranchised, angry, working
41:15
Speaker 2: class people who 30 years ago, were Democrats because they
41:19
Speaker 2: were all in labor unions. And then, I mean, it's
41:23
Speaker 2: not like in the 1990s, it's not like the Clinton
41:26
Speaker 2: administration really stood up for labor. The Democratic Party has
41:31
Speaker 2: a lot of a role to play in the diminishment
41:35
Speaker 2: of labor power, in the free trade projects like NAFTA
41:38
Speaker 2: that really did, in the end, screw a lot of
41:41
Speaker 2: working Americans. I think that when you put it into
41:44
Speaker 2: the greater context, I think that's what's happened. And- In
41:49
Speaker 2: this moment, frankly, just because of the material reality that
41:53
Speaker 2: people are living in, it is becoming very clear to
41:56
Speaker 2: a lot of folks, whether they're conservative or liberal or
42:00
Speaker 2: whatever you want, or just in the middle and don't
42:02
Speaker 2: even care about politics, there's becoming a very clear awareness
42:09
Speaker 2: that they are, in fact, being taken for a ride
42:12
Speaker 2: by people with immense amounts of power and that those
42:15
Speaker 2: who are willing to stand up to that power those
42:18
Speaker 2: are the people they're gonna look to and support. And
42:21
Speaker 2: I think they're willing to sort of not care actually
42:24
Speaker 2: about a lot of the culture war stuff, which in
42:28
Speaker 2: my opinion, and I say this often, I think was
42:30
Speaker 2: all invented to keep us all from having the conversation
42:33
Speaker 2: about taxing billionaire wealth and breaking up corporate monopolies. I
42:39
Speaker 2: think that's why we have to argue about all these
42:42
Speaker 2: culture war issues that in reality, I mean, it keeps
42:45
Speaker 2: us all divided. But it doesn't reopen the hospital and
42:50
Speaker 2: it doesn't change the fact that your rent continues to
42:53
Speaker 2: go up or that the wages that you've been earning
42:58
Speaker 2: continue to stagnate while the prices of goods and services
43:01
Speaker 2: continue to rise. All the culture war stuff does nothing
43:04
Speaker 2: for that. And we need to be very clear and
43:07
Speaker 2: cogent and blunt about how we're going to change it.
43:12
Speaker 2: And I think if we do that, I do think
43:14
Speaker 2: that there is an opening to do this.
43:17
Speaker 1: Do you think the Democrats have, I don't want to
43:21
Speaker 1: say taken the bait, but engaged too much in some
43:23
Speaker 1: of these culture wars?
43:25
Speaker 2: And I think they have taken the bait. And I'll
43:27
Speaker 2: be entirely honest. I think some of them, some of
43:30
Speaker 2: them don't even take the bait. Some of them rise
43:33
Speaker 2: to it on purpose because they don't want to have
43:35
Speaker 2: the other conversation. I mean, there is an element, I
43:38
Speaker 2: see this all the time of, you know, more kind
43:41
Speaker 2: of establishment folks who are like, look, I don't want
43:43
Speaker 2: to talk about this, but They make me talk about it.
43:47
Speaker 2: And now I'm going to talk about how I don't
43:48
Speaker 2: want to talk about it for the next four hours.
43:50
Speaker 2: And I'll never talk about raising taxes on billionaires. And
43:54
Speaker 2: I think there's an element within the party that actually
43:57
Speaker 2: likes this stuff because it gives them this ability to
44:00
Speaker 2: pretend they hate this, but it sucks up all the oxygen.
44:04
Speaker 2: So then you never have to get around to the
44:06
Speaker 2: structural or systemic reforms that we have to make.
44:08
Speaker 1: Sometimes I wonder if it's because the coalition of the
44:12
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is now more college educated and upper income
44:16
Speaker 1: than it's ever been. That like what gets people angry
44:21
Speaker 1: and what gets people like eager to participate in politics
44:24
Speaker 1: are some of these issues, which, you know, and I,
44:26
Speaker 1: I will say like, I'm sure people feel strongly. I
44:28
Speaker 1: feel strongly about a lot of progressive cultural issues.
44:31
Speaker 2: And I am like, I do not back away from things.
44:34
Speaker 2: I think all the wins we've made for justice and equality,
44:37
Speaker 2: we take no steps back from any of this stuff.
44:38
Speaker 1: But I'm also very aware as someone who like now
44:41
Speaker 1: has money that you're like, Oh, when your life is like, comfortable,
44:45
Speaker 1: then you can say that, like, yes, it's important that
44:47
Speaker 1: people care about raising taxes and people care about health care.
44:50
Speaker 1: But also, are you going to be as angry about
44:53
Speaker 1: it as everyone else? And I think that, like, I
44:57
Speaker 1: am because I am very politically engaged. But I think
44:59
Speaker 1: for a lot of people who just show up at
45:00
Speaker 1: elections who are, like, more suburban, upper income, stuff like that,
45:03
Speaker 1: who have been voting Democrat for a long time, I
45:05
Speaker 1: wonder if it's, like, the driving force for them.
45:08
Speaker 2: It might be, but we're not winning with that. Right.
45:12
Speaker 2: I mean, there's that great Chuck Schumer line where, you know, it's...
45:16
Speaker 2: And we did.
45:18
Speaker 1: For everyone we lose, for every, like.
45:20
Speaker 2: For every working class person we lose, like, out in
45:23
Speaker 2: the countryside, we're going to gain two voters in the suburbs. Suburb, yeah.
45:28
Speaker 2: And it didn't happen. Yeah. Donald Trump won. Yeah. And
45:31
Speaker 2: then he won again. And we lost a lot of
45:34
Speaker 2: seats around the country. Like, so clearly that math did
45:38
Speaker 2: not pan out. I... I truly think that the only
45:42
Speaker 2: way forward for us as a party is to really
45:45
Speaker 2: become a real party of working people again. And, you know,
45:49
Speaker 2: when you do that, it doesn't mean you're like also
45:53
Speaker 2: not– I mean, look, when I talk about working people,
45:56
Speaker 2: I literally mean anybody that just makes money from wages.
45:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:58
Speaker 2: Which is everybody. Yeah. I mean, I'll just– like I've
46:01
Speaker 2: had a bunch of folks be like, well, what about
46:03
Speaker 2: the middle class? I'm like, yeah, man, in this America,
46:05
Speaker 2: the middle class is the working class. Quite frankly, somebody
46:08
Speaker 2: that started a business– and has just worked their asses
46:12
Speaker 2: off every day ever since, and might now have like
46:14
Speaker 2: a bunch of money, but still works. They're way closer
46:17
Speaker 2: to someone working three jobs in poverty than they are
46:21
Speaker 2: to a billionaire. Like the, like you, like we're all
46:25
Speaker 2: kind of down here. And when we talk about policies,
46:28
Speaker 2: about clawing a lot of that wealth back, we're not
46:30
Speaker 2: talking about going after small business owners. We're not talking
46:33
Speaker 2: about going after big business owners. We're talking about going
46:36
Speaker 2: after the people who used their wealth and power to
46:40
Speaker 2: change policies in the political system to then consolidate more
46:45
Speaker 2: wealth and power. They cheated. And we need to use
46:49
Speaker 2: political power to claw that stuff back. So I think
46:52
Speaker 2: that by becoming the party of representing working folks, we
46:56
Speaker 2: really would be becoming the party of like really representing
46:58
Speaker 2: the vast majority of Americans. And as people begin to
47:02
Speaker 2: realize that this right-wing populism, it's not making things cheaper.
47:08
Speaker 2: And it's not reopening hospitals. And it's not making your
47:11
Speaker 2: health insurance company any less awful to deal with. That
47:16
Speaker 2: realization will kick in. And we won't get everybody. But
47:19
Speaker 2: I think we will start getting folks back. But we
47:21
Speaker 2: need to be there with open arms. And we need
47:23
Speaker 2: to be there with policies that are very understandable. I mean,
47:28
Speaker 2: I think that's a big one.
47:41
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk about Medicare for all because
47:43
Speaker 1: I know that's like central to your campaign. And I
47:46
Speaker 1: now feel like I have talked about healthcare for most
47:49
Speaker 1: of my life in politics and went through this in
47:51
Speaker 1: the 2020 campaign, obviously had been there for ACA as well.
47:55
Speaker 1: So I've dealt with a lot of healthcare politics. I
47:58
Speaker 1: think insurance companies are horrible. I think that the for-profit
48:02
Speaker 1: system is insane. And I think it is, um, a
48:06
Speaker 1: no-brainer that if we were starting from scratch that we
48:08
Speaker 1: would have a single-payer system or some version of a
48:10
Speaker 1: single-payer system. I think that the figuring out how to
48:15
Speaker 1: win the political support to transition from what we have
48:18
Speaker 1: now to a single-payer system, Medicare for all or something
48:21
Speaker 1: like it, is a political challenge that is made more
48:26
Speaker 1: difficult in large part by all the money that the
48:29
Speaker 1: insurance companies and everyone else has. But there are also
48:32
Speaker 1: some real trade-offs and transitions that I think average people
48:36
Speaker 1: who very much dislike their insurance companies are still concerned about. And,
48:41
Speaker 1: you know, like they tried, they put it on the
48:43
Speaker 1: ballot in Colorado in 2016 as a ballot initiative. Medicare
48:47
Speaker 1: for all fails. Oregon fails. California fails. They pass it
48:50
Speaker 1: in Vermont, the only state that's tried. And then they
48:53
Speaker 1: failed at implementation, right?
48:55
Speaker 2: Well, one is because it needs to be a national policy.
48:57
Speaker 1: Yes.
48:58
Speaker 2: I mean, like, especially small rural states, we don't have
49:02
Speaker 2: the money. I mean, in many ways, we're talking about
49:05
Speaker 2: building a national risk pool. And the more people you
49:08
Speaker 2: have in a risk pool, the more effective your insurance is,
49:12
Speaker 2: which really is what we're talking about here. I'll just
49:15
Speaker 2: use my own experience. So I essentially get universal health care.
49:19
Speaker 2: I'm a disabled person. a disabled combat vet. And because
49:22
Speaker 2: of that, I simply get free point of service care.
49:28
Speaker 2: It allowed me to start a small business. It allowed
49:31
Speaker 2: me to take some time to figure out what kind
49:34
Speaker 2: of life I wanted to live after my combat service.
49:37
Speaker 2: Without it, I would not have ever been able to
49:39
Speaker 2: be an oyster farmer because I would have had to
49:41
Speaker 2: work another job to have health care. It gave me
49:45
Speaker 2: a real material freedom that allowed me to build something
49:51
Speaker 2: that today is a successful small business that employs people
49:54
Speaker 2: in Eastern Maine. Never would have existed without my health care.
49:58
Speaker 2: That basic element of foundational support just around health care
50:03
Speaker 2: is what allowed me to become a successful small business owner.
50:09
Speaker 2: Not only do I think that providing that is going
50:11
Speaker 2: to unleash a lot of productivity in the real world,
50:14
Speaker 2: because this is important. We have a system and we
50:17
Speaker 2: have a lot of metrics that we use to judge
50:19
Speaker 2: our productivity that frankly, mostly seems to be fantastical in
50:23
Speaker 2: the financialized system. But in the real world where people
50:26
Speaker 2: actually build things and exchange them with each other for money,
50:31
Speaker 2: that in that world, I honestly do think that giving
50:35
Speaker 2: people just this simple foundational support is going to unleash
50:38
Speaker 2: a lot more productivity. People have the freedom to start
50:40
Speaker 2: small businesses or to engage in art, to engage in
50:45
Speaker 2: things that I think actually elevate all of us as
50:47
Speaker 2: a society. Also, we would take healthcare off the plate
50:52
Speaker 2: of small business owners, which it's a nightmare. You know,
50:56
Speaker 2: if you're like a lot of small business, medium-sized business owners,
50:59
Speaker 2: they want to provide healthcare to their employees. But I mean,
51:02
Speaker 2: I've spoken to folks in Maine who like, if you
51:03
Speaker 2: have a company, 50 employees and up, one of those
51:06
Speaker 2: employees is job is to just deal with the health
51:09
Speaker 2: insurance stuff, paying the premiums, dealing with the companies. It's
51:13
Speaker 2: a frig. You take that off their plates, well, now
51:17
Speaker 2: they can just focus on what their business is, not
51:20
Speaker 2: also having to be this intermediary around healthcare. I know
51:25
Speaker 2: that we can do it because the VA does it, right?
51:29
Speaker 2: That program exists. The VA only has problems when Republicans
51:33
Speaker 2: cut its budget. When we fund it and we resource it,
51:36
Speaker 2: it does a spectacular job. In Maine, the VA is awesome.
51:40
Speaker 2: And it's awesome because we have a small population and
51:43
Speaker 2: the resources and employees, the ratio for the population that's serving,
51:49
Speaker 2: it's a good ratio. So it works. I've lived in
51:51
Speaker 2: other parts of the country where the VA system is
51:53
Speaker 2: really hard to deal with because they don't get the
51:56
Speaker 2: funding and therefore the outcome. It's almost as though you
51:59
Speaker 2: get what you pay for, whoever would have guessed. When
52:05
Speaker 2: I think about Moments in American history where we had
52:11
Speaker 2: to address systemic problems, big ones. There are always going
52:18
Speaker 2: to be times of experimentation and frankly, growing pains. And
52:23
Speaker 2: the only way it ever works is when you have
52:27
Speaker 2: people in positions of power who have the political will
52:32
Speaker 2: to try to drive it forward. I mean, this is
52:34
Speaker 2: what the new deal was. The New Deal was FDR
52:38
Speaker 2: having built a broad coalition, having political power, and then
52:42
Speaker 2: really just ramming things through, making them happen. Some of
52:46
Speaker 2: them failed, and then they changed. They were imaginative. They experimented.
52:52
Speaker 2: Things worked. Things didn't work. I mean, the NRA worked
52:55
Speaker 2: for a little while, and then it kind of didn't,
52:57
Speaker 2: and so they got rid of it. When we electrified
52:59
Speaker 2: all of rural America— it was done with an array
53:06
Speaker 2: of options, whether it was public ownership or public private partnerships,
53:09
Speaker 2: and sometimes just straight up private companies. But we, we
53:13
Speaker 2: used to use our imaginations to fix problems. And I
53:16
Speaker 2: think our biggest problem recently has been, we have a
53:20
Speaker 2: political class that has sort of forgotten how to dream big.
53:23
Speaker 2: Everything's a tax credit. Everything's a block grant. Everything's like
53:27
Speaker 2: something weird. And when you try to explain it to people,
53:30
Speaker 2: like you lose them in like five seconds because everyone's like,
53:33
Speaker 2: I don't even what is this weird wonky language you're using? Which,
53:36
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one of my biggest, biggest criticisms of
53:40
Speaker 2: the Biden administration where they did a lot of amazing
53:43
Speaker 2: things and then just never told anybody about them. And
53:46
Speaker 2: then we all sit around being like, they were like,
53:47
Speaker 2: why did nobody like that we did this? I'm like, dude,
53:49
Speaker 2: nobody knew. And when he did explain it, it was
53:52
Speaker 2: always in this kind of very complicated legal language. Then
53:55
Speaker 2: nobody engages with that. When it comes to healthcare, I mean,
54:01
Speaker 2: I'll be honest. I think we have to do a
54:02
Speaker 2: lot of big things. We're going to need federal money
54:05
Speaker 2: to reopen hospitals. I think we need to start thinking
54:08
Speaker 2: about mental health care as being as much a part
54:12
Speaker 2: of health care as everything else and incorporating that into
54:15
Speaker 2: a larger system. I mean, in rural Maine, health care
54:20
Speaker 2: is collapsing now. Not next year. Not down the road.
54:24
Speaker 2: It's already happened. I know.
54:26
Speaker 1: I was going to say, like, one of the big
54:27
Speaker 1: problems or one of the big challenges with Medicare for
54:29
Speaker 1: All is— that hospitals are open right now because they
54:34
Speaker 1: get reimbursed. And if you suddenly have every hospital go
54:39
Speaker 1: to the Medicare reimbursement rate, suddenly hospitals are closing all
54:42
Speaker 1: over the place. I mean, I think this is why
54:44
Speaker 1: Bernie and his plan has like a transition period.
54:46
Speaker 2: It's a four-year transition period.
54:48
Speaker 1: Four-year transition period.
54:48
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, to be fair, I've read Bernie's
54:50
Speaker 2: full bill. And it's essentially universal health care with the
54:53
Speaker 2: name Medicare for All. As you really kind of get
54:56
Speaker 2: through it, I mean, it covers dental. It covers vision.
54:59
Speaker 2: Medicare doesn't cover those things. It's an expanded program that
55:05
Speaker 2: really is just a single-payer universal healthcare system that is
55:09
Speaker 2: based around basic things. You can still get insurance for
55:17
Speaker 2: higher-level procedures that it doesn't cover, but it does cover
55:20
Speaker 2: all the stuff like if you get sick or if
55:22
Speaker 2: you get injured and you just don't have to think
55:25
Speaker 2: about it. I got to say, having traveled a lot
55:29
Speaker 2: and been to a lot of other countries, I just
55:32
Speaker 2: have this element of me where I'm like, dude, everybody
55:34
Speaker 2: else does it differently. They all figured it out. And yeah,
55:38
Speaker 2: of course it's never perfect. These systems will always help.
55:42
Speaker 2: I mean, we're talking about large bureaucratic systems. They're going
55:44
Speaker 2: to have some problems. They have a lot more problems
55:46
Speaker 2: when you get neoliberal policies in place that start taking
55:49
Speaker 2: money away from them. But everybody else has a better
55:52
Speaker 2: version of this and it's cheaper. And the care in
55:55
Speaker 2: many ways is better for most people. I mean, a
55:59
Speaker 2: lot of folks are always, well, in America, you know,
56:01
Speaker 2: like the rich come here to get great procedures. I'm like,
56:04
Speaker 2: that does no good for somebody with no money. Right. Like,
56:08
Speaker 2: or who can't afford, who can't even afford ACA coverage
56:13
Speaker 2: now because premiums have gone up by like triple fold. Yep. And,
56:17
Speaker 2: and I mean, these are people I know. These are
56:19
Speaker 2: my neighbors. I mean, my, a relative of mine had
56:24
Speaker 2: to drop her health insurance because her premium doubled because
56:29
Speaker 2: of the loss of the ACA extensions.
56:32
Speaker 1: And even that, it's like, we're just, even if we
56:34
Speaker 1: keep expanding the subsidies and the credits for the ACA,
56:37
Speaker 1: you're just like, they're raising prices and we're all just
56:40
Speaker 1: subsidizing the higher end. Like at some point you have
56:42
Speaker 1: to figure out how to contain the cost of the
56:44
Speaker 1: healthcare system.
56:45
Speaker 2: And I'll just be entirely, entirely upfront. As long as
56:48
Speaker 2: there is a substantial profit motive with a substantial middleman,
56:53
Speaker 2: we're just going to like, unless we address that part
56:56
Speaker 2: of the problem, subsidies, won't be enough because somebody's going
57:00
Speaker 2: to figure out how to pull more money out of
57:02
Speaker 2: the thing. Costs will go up. So I, I think it's,
57:06
Speaker 2: I do not pretend that it will not be a
57:10
Speaker 2: transition period. I mean, we're going to, it would be
57:12
Speaker 2: one of the largest projects we've really ever undertaken as
57:16
Speaker 2: a nation to transition from the healthcare system we have
57:19
Speaker 2: to a single payer universal healthcare system. But we also
57:22
Speaker 2: have to do it because what we're doing now is
57:24
Speaker 2: insanely expensive and it's terrible. In many places in rural America,
57:31
Speaker 2: it's totally unsustainable. It's absolutely falling apart.
57:35
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this because it's in
57:36
Speaker 1: the news. And by the time people hear this, Trump
57:38
Speaker 1: could have already launched a war with Iran. I do
57:41
Speaker 1: want to get your response to what a White House
57:43
Speaker 1: source told Politico about selling the war. Quote, there's thinking
57:47
Speaker 1: in the administration that the politics are a lot better
57:50
Speaker 1: if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians
57:53
Speaker 1: retaliate against us and give us more reason to take action.
57:57
Speaker 2: Thoughts? I hate everything so much. I mean, one, I
58:04
Speaker 2: think it's disgusting that we've got people in the White
58:08
Speaker 2: House who are literally sitting around thinking about how do
58:11
Speaker 2: we sell a war? I mean, we went through the
58:17
Speaker 2: run-up to the war in Iraq. At least then, the
58:22
Speaker 2: Bush administration had the decency to really try to trick us.
58:27
Speaker 2: At least they really went out of their way. They
58:29
Speaker 2: made Colin Powell sully his entire reputation at the UN.
58:35
Speaker 2: They put the work in. And it's insulting to have
58:42
Speaker 2: these folks who are just like, oh, we're going to
58:44
Speaker 2: figure out a war in a week. We're just, oh, man,
58:47
Speaker 2: this Epstein stuff is getting out of control. Iran. We're
58:50
Speaker 2: going to invade Iran now. The Venezuela thing, we did that.
58:55
Speaker 2: We're still screwing around down there. We need to start
58:57
Speaker 2: another one. Let's just go to war with Iran. And
58:59
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what they're doing. All this is, is posturing.
59:03
Speaker 2: And as somebody who fought a war too, it's it's disgusting. Uh,
59:12
Speaker 2: and it also is, I think for me, I mean,
59:15
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I want to go to the
59:17
Speaker 2: Senate specifically is we need a Senate who's really going
59:22
Speaker 2: to take their power back when it comes to war making.
59:27
Speaker 2: I mean, the constitution is pretty clear. Yeah.
59:30
Speaker 1: I saw that the Democrats think that the War Powers
59:33
Speaker 1: Resolution will now get a vote in the House.
59:36
Speaker 2: Yep.
59:36
Speaker 1: I don't know if it'll pass because I think there's
59:38
Speaker 1: a few Democrats who.
59:39
Speaker 2: I mean, this is... Dude, this is... I mean, this is...
59:42
Speaker 2: And by the way, you want to talk about one
59:43
Speaker 2: of those reasons why working people or regular people don't...
59:46
Speaker 2: It's also because of this stuff. Yeah. Because there is
59:48
Speaker 2: this connection like, we just should be the anti-war party.
59:51
Speaker 2: I mean, the fact that there is an element of
59:53
Speaker 2: the right that this kind of isolationist version of it
59:57
Speaker 2: that actually gets to almost... take on the mantle of being,
1:00:01
Speaker 2: that only works when we have elements of the democratic
1:00:05
Speaker 2: party that are like willing to go along with this stuff.
1:00:08
Speaker 2: We shouldn't be fighting wars. I'm sorry. We should not
1:00:11
Speaker 2: be sending young American men and women off to kill
1:00:15
Speaker 2: a bunch of people in foreign countries. I mean, for
1:00:19
Speaker 2: essentially any reason, like I'm, it is hard for me
1:00:24
Speaker 2: to see any intervention post-World War II that in the
1:00:26
Speaker 2: long run really worked out well Korea, maybe you could
1:00:30
Speaker 2: make the argument. Everything else though. And it is a, like,
1:00:37
Speaker 2: I'm not a, I'm not a pacifist, but at this
1:00:40
Speaker 2: point I've become essentially anti-war when it, when it comes
1:00:44
Speaker 2: to like the nation writ large and how we use
1:00:46
Speaker 2: our power internationally. Because every time we do this, when you,
1:00:52
Speaker 2: when you go back and look at it in hindsight,
1:00:54
Speaker 2: it's pretty much always a bad idea. But more importantly
1:00:57
Speaker 2: for me, like, there's a human cost to this stuff
1:01:00
Speaker 2: that you've seen. Yeah. Like, like I know what, I
1:01:04
Speaker 2: know what it looks like when American made high explosive
1:01:07
Speaker 2: interacts with children. Like I've touched it. It, it's a,
1:01:12
Speaker 2: it's a horrifying thing. You know, I, I know what
1:01:15
Speaker 2: it feels like to have friends die and to have
1:01:20
Speaker 2: a lot of other friends of mine and myself included
1:01:23
Speaker 2: have to deal with the trauma of that for years afterwards.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: We need more people in positions of power, frankly, who
1:01:33
Speaker 2: either understand it because they've experienced it or who are
1:01:38
Speaker 2: just kind of ideologically opposed and don't want us to
1:01:41
Speaker 2: do this kind of stuff. And it's not just about
1:01:44
Speaker 2: like the moral component. It's about the fact that like
1:01:46
Speaker 2: this stuff, it doesn't make us safer. It doesn't make
1:01:50
Speaker 2: the world safer. It tends to, to quote a famous,
1:01:57
Speaker 2: a famous Marine who came long before me, War is
1:02:00
Speaker 2: a racket. And there are people that make an immense
1:02:03
Speaker 2: amount of money off of it. And when you go
1:02:06
Speaker 2: look at a lot of the wars we fought, frankly,
1:02:08
Speaker 2: certainly in my lifetime, at the end of the day,
1:02:10
Speaker 2: that's usually what happens. And I do not see a
1:02:14
Speaker 2: war with Iran falling into a different category. In fact,
1:02:17
Speaker 2: it seems to be almost like, I mean, I said
1:02:19
Speaker 2: this about Venezuela as well. It's like Iraq, but dumber.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: But we need people in places of political power who
1:02:27
Speaker 2: are really willing to call it exactly for what it is.
1:02:30
Speaker 2: and to stand up against it. I mean, this can't happen.
1:02:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, last question, hopefully a lighter note. You recently
1:02:37
Speaker 1: took a campaign hiatus to travel to Norway with your wife.
1:02:39
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: Uh, to try IVF.
1:02:41
Speaker 2: Speaking of healthcare. Yeah, exactly.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: In the hopes of having your first child. Uh, can
1:02:45
Speaker 1: you talk to me about that decision and why Norway?
1:02:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we've been, uh, Amy and I have been
1:02:49
Speaker 2: dealing with infertility for about two and a half years now. Um,
1:02:54
Speaker 2: and went through all the previous steps. Eventually got to
1:02:58
Speaker 2: the point where like, all right, IVF is the last thing.
1:03:01
Speaker 2: And because of, I mean, the VA doesn't cover it
1:03:06
Speaker 2: if it's not like clearly my problem. And Amy's not
1:03:09
Speaker 2: a vet, so it doesn't cover her. It's kind of weird,
1:03:13
Speaker 2: which needs to be changed, by the way, because to
1:03:15
Speaker 2: have children, you do need both people. But whatever, it's
1:03:17
Speaker 2: a whole other thing. I'm going to work on that
1:03:19
Speaker 2: when I get to the Senate. Her insurance didn't cover it.
1:03:26
Speaker 2: The VA stuff didn't cover it. And so we started
1:03:30
Speaker 2: to look into doing it in the United States. And
1:03:33
Speaker 2: the cost is astronomical. And in New England, there's only
1:03:37
Speaker 2: one clinic. And their only clinic is in Portland, Maine,
1:03:41
Speaker 2: which is three hours away from where we live. So
1:03:43
Speaker 2: we'd have to be traveling anyways. We started to look
1:03:47
Speaker 2: into it. We saw how expensive it was, but we
1:03:49
Speaker 2: really weren't sure what else to do. And then a
1:03:52
Speaker 2: friend of Amy's had either a relative or someone who
1:03:56
Speaker 2: had gone to Norway. They're like, you know, in Norway,
1:03:58
Speaker 2: it's really cheap and everybody's really nice. And it's an,
1:04:01
Speaker 2: it's a wonderful personal experience. And so Amy reached out
1:04:06
Speaker 2: to a clinic in Norway, like on a Monday. And
1:04:09
Speaker 2: we had like an hour long intake exam with the
1:04:12
Speaker 2: surgeon on Thursday. And the moment I knew we were
1:04:15
Speaker 2: going to go is at the end of an hour
1:04:18
Speaker 2: long intake exam. I was like, okay, how much do
1:04:21
Speaker 2: we owe you guys? And they were like, why would
1:04:24
Speaker 2: you give us money? Like nothing has happened. And I'm like, yeah,
1:04:28
Speaker 2: we're definitely, we're going to Norway. I mean, this is, uh,
1:04:32
Speaker 2: it was amazing. And it was amazing. It was a,
1:04:35
Speaker 2: and in the end, even with the travel, staying in
1:04:38
Speaker 2: a Airbnb for two weeks, the plane tickets, it was
1:04:44
Speaker 2: one quarter, the cost of just the baseline of doing
1:04:48
Speaker 2: it here in the United States. It's insane. And you
1:04:52
Speaker 2: get treated like a human being. Like the clinic is small.
1:04:55
Speaker 2: Everybody's really nice to you. They don't look at you
1:04:57
Speaker 2: as like just something to pull more money out of.
1:04:59
Speaker 2: They like treat you like a human being, which as
1:05:01
Speaker 2: you're going through infertility, you know, that's very helpful because
1:05:05
Speaker 2: it's an emotional experience. And, you know, we developed like
1:05:08
Speaker 2: a really nice relationship with those folks. And so, yeah,
1:05:11
Speaker 2: it was a very, I mean, we're still in it.
1:05:14
Speaker 2: We're still kind of going through the process. But it's been,
1:05:17
Speaker 2: we actually, I mean, I talk about this, we joke
1:05:21
Speaker 2: about it, that even if it costs the same, we
1:05:23
Speaker 2: still would have done the Norwegian version because like, it's just,
1:05:26
Speaker 2: it's so, it's so much more pleasant. It's pleasant. And
1:05:29
Speaker 2: I mean, you go to like Norwegian hospitals where, you know,
1:05:32
Speaker 2: literally no one, no one is sitting there worried about
1:05:34
Speaker 2: how much this costs.
1:05:35
Speaker 1: They've really figured it out in those Nordic countries. We
1:05:38
Speaker 1: shouldn't invade Denmark. They're pretty nice.
1:05:39
Speaker 2: We should not invade Denmark. No war with Greenland. Yes,
1:05:42
Speaker 2: that's good. On top of all the other ones. I
1:05:45
Speaker 2: feel like that one might be the most.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: I think we can get that done.
1:05:48
Speaker 2: We should definitely not do that one.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: Well, good luck on your journey there, and also good
1:05:52
Speaker 1: luck on the campaign, and thank you for coming by.
1:05:54
Speaker 2: No, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
1:05:59
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