Bulwark Takes - Why Donors Are Giving Up on Democrats (w/ Tom Steyer)

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Tom Steyer joins Lauren Egan to talk about the rise of populism on the left, why short-term fixes like rent control can backfire, and what Democrats need to do to counter Trump.

Hey, guys, it's Lauren Egan here at The Bullwork, and I'm joined today by Tom Steyer. He is a climate investor and a former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Tom, thanks for being here. Lauren, it's nice to see you again. You recently wrote a substack piece. You're on Substack. Welcome to the Substack Club. You wrote a piece about rising populism and how it's gaining energy and visibility on the left.

And the piece, we kind of express some concerns about it. And you argue that some of the solutions that populists and populism put forward, quote, risk making the very problems they aim to solve even worse. So explain to me what you meant by that. So let me say that what the populists are doing to me has a lot of real value. What they're doing is they're listening to people. They're addressing actual problems on the ground that Americans are experiencing. So they're talking about rent, not inflate.

They're talking about food prices. They're talking about the issues that are kitchen table issues for Americans, and they're coming up with real-time solutions for them. And that's why they're getting so much attention and why they're getting real support. What I was trying to say in that article was this, we need to do what they're doing. We need to hear what's going on in the real world. I mean, my belief is we describe inflation as 2.9%. But when you really look at what people's costs are, for most people, it's rent, health care, food, gas, and utilities. And those are going up 9%.

So the real populace, the people that were described as populace are hearing that and reacting to it with solutions. But when we think about solutions, and obviously the American people are starved for real solutions to real problems, there's a short-term solution, and then there are the implications of it over time. So, for instance, if you talk about rent control, everybody's, I live in California, people can't afford to live here. So does rent control in the short-term a good solution? Yes, but when you talk about the long-term implications of rent control, it implies we're not going to build more housing.

People are not, landlords are not going to fix up their housing because they can't raise rents. and there's a shortage of housing by definition. So they're going to have somebody in there at the price. So why would we fix it up? Long term, the solution to rents that are too high is more housing. And rent control in a way prevents that from happening. So we need a short-term solution. We need to respond to people's real term right now problems in a way that's direct.

But we also have to do it with solutions that work over the long term and basically get a market back into or supply and demand or meeting so that rents go down. And so when I talk about it, I want to make sure that not only do we deal with the short term, but do we have realistic long-term solutions that work for people? There's been this debate in the party about abundance. And I'm curious sort of what you make of the abundance conversation, whether or not you've read the book. And it kind of seems like that's sort of what you're arguing here

and whether you identify with the abundance. Let me just talk about how I would interpret abundance and then let's talk about the implications of abundance. To me, abundance is just saying we need growth. We need to build real things. We need to do things. We need to build housing. We can't talk about housing. We can't solve housing without building more houses, building more apartment buildings. So that's what abundance means to me is let's in the real world succeed in outcomes that matter to people. Okay. I think that's true. And I think that a growing pie is much, much easier to deal with than a pie that's not growing. So growth in and of itself is important, but it's not enough. So for instance, if we have

real growth in the economy and people go like, oh, the economy is going, and it all goes to the richest people in this country. Who cares? That's not a solution. We have a gigantic inequality, economic inequality problem in this country. And so if we're growing, so that's good. That's what abundance is talking about. Good. But if all the benefits of that growth are going to Elon Musk, who my understanding has a net worth more than the bottom half of Americans put together, that's not okay. Who cares about growth if it's only going to a bunch of rich people? And let me say this, the idea of that kind of economic inequality is completely contrary to the idea of democracy. I don't believe the two can really exist in the same plan. So yes, we need growth

and abundance is right about that. But it's not enough. That growth has got to be shared in a real way. And if it's not, who cares? And that's my answer to you. To me, we can never walk away from the idea that this society should succeed together. Everybody should share. And if they're not sharing, it's not an answer. You know, the Biden White House had. a similar theory about deliverism, the idea that you know, you pass legislation, you get the work done, you get the bridge bill, whatever it is, and voters will reward you for it. But that obviously didn't work out for them. And I'm curious how you view and assess the Biden administration and whether you do think there is some limitation to this idea that you just need to deliver results,

or is there something more to it as well? Well, let me give you an example of why I think that that theory didn't work. Charging stations. The Biden administration said, I mean, I can remember at the very beginning of the campaign for the presidency, Joe Biden's whole climate policy was 500,000 charging stations across America. And then they passed the Inflation Reduction Act. They allocated tens of billions of dollars to charging stations. We built 8,200 charging stations. That is not 2% of what was promised. That is literally less than 150th of what was promised. So I think that we have a real problem in our society.

And I could use a lot of explanations where the intentions are good. The ideas are good. The rhetoric is good. But let's face it, not getting it done. We have to get it done. It's having the idea is nice. The rhetoric is nice. The time is over for delivery. We need to deliver. And when you say they really delivered, it's like, go to Americans and ask them if they delivered. Yeah, clearly they had some differing views there.

Yeah. You know, Bernie and AOC, I have been really kind of impressed by these large crowds that they've been able to draw at these rallies over the past few months, especially really red parts of the country. I'm curious how you look at that energy and whether you think that's a healthy thing for the party or, Does that concern you, that those are kind of the folks that are getting the most energy right now? How are you thinking about that? Look, I think they're doing something that I was trying to describe earlier that's really valuable. They are recognizing the problem. They are listening to Americans on both sides of the aisle.

You don't have to be a Democrat or a Republican to feel as if the government's not serving your needs. And they are saying, we are listening to you. we hear the real problems you have affordability is a huge deal. You know, institutional politicians have been telling people it's not a real deal. It's 2.9%. And, you know, it's like the old joke, who are you going to believe me or your own eyes? And Americans choose to believe their own eyes. And their world actually is very inflationary.

And what we're seeing from populist people on both sides of the aisle is we hear your pain. we feel what you're going through. We're aware of it. And here are some solutions for it that you can understand that will have impact very quickly for you. And so do I think that's doing a huge service. I agree with some of the actual solutions they're talking about. And I have, I feel as if I've spent decades thinking about what kinds of solutions

have impact in the short run and have good implications for the long run. And I feel it's really important to bring that. both short-term impact and long-term, you know, runway perspective to it. But the idea of dealing with real problems for real Americans on the ground, that's what, of course, people are reacting because they are starved for that. I want to talk a little bit about kind of going into that, how the Democratic Party fights back against Trump right now. During his first term, you spent a lot of money on ads calling for Trump's impeachment,

and obviously that was ahead of your presidential run as well. There's really no serious talk about impeachment this time around. And I'm curious how your thinking has evolved on that and just how the Democratic Party needs to fight back Trump. And like, what does fighting Trump even mean right now when Democrats just aren't in power? So let me talk about impeachment for a second. I expected him at that point to do what he is doing now. And I thought the only way to get ahead of it was to get ahead of it. And there was a democratic control of the House, which is what determines whether you can have an impeachment trial.

And I felt that if we could expose them to the American people, people could see for themselves and make their own decision. And that's what I was really fighting for, was for the American people to be able to see what was going on and make their own judgment. Obviously, the House is not controlled by Democrats now. So the idea, you know, has no real merit. I think the, when we think about what's impactful in terms of standing up here for what I think of as traditional American values, I think it's important to have some form of power. And let me describe what that would look like. So for instance, someone who I really respect who I think has power is Paul Krugman. Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for economics. If you read him, he has consistently been right here. He's been consistently insightful and prescient. He's thought forward. He's seen the future coming.

He's, and he brings that. So he has real power. When Paul speaks, a lot of people, including me, listen, because you think, gosh, that's a guy who's earned his stripes, who's really gotten it done. I'll give you another example of someone. I thought what Governor Pritzker did of saying, here are the people of Illinois. We're saying we don't want this. We don't want this invasion.

he's bringing as a governor representative of his whole state saying here's the power of the people organized by me and i think what governor newsome is done why does he have the ability to be heard here to be able to make a stand redistricting he has he is actually doing something that has impact and importance and that gives every word he says that much more You need to listen to it that much more. So when you think about how to push back, you have to ask, what do we have that gives us the right to be heard? And so that's, you know, I would say what you guys are doing, you have convinced a lot of people that you're thoughtful and are paying attention and are ahead of the game. And if they want to understand what's going on, they need to listen to you.

that is power in and of itself. So when we think about pushing back, we need to think about how to organize together and how to get that kind of, in one way, shape, or form, institutional, independent power that insists on being listened to and has impact in the real world.

If Democrats were to take back the House in 2026, do you think that pursuing impeachment is a good strategy anymore? Or is it kind of like we tried that, people didn't really seem to care all that much. I mean, just kind of how do you think about what Democrats should do if they do control at least one chamber? What I believe we need right now, and which would be my answer to your question is this, I think we need a vision. I think we need to stand for something that we're not just not Trump. What are we going to do that's going to affect Americans' lives positively?

That is, I believe, what Americans are demanding really is a government that responds impactfully and effectively to their needs. And I think if we put that forward, that is the strongest argument. It's like, this is going to be to Americans, no, no, what we're doing is smart. It is responsive to what you want. It also happens to be right, but much more than that, we are doing the things that will make your life better, that will produce a better life expectation for your children. People are very worried, not just about affordability. Of course, they're worried about affordability. And they're

worried about jobs. But more than that, they're worried about their kids' futures. They're sitting here going, gosh, it's really bad right now, and it looks like it's going to get worse. People need to understand there's a vision here that that's not true. That not only is it going to be better in the short run, but we're going to do the hard work to make the long run look better. So when you look forward and think about your kids, you're not sitting here despairing. You're sitting here thinking we're on a train that's going forward. That's how we need them. Another thing I wanted to ask you about is you spent some time raising money for Democratic candidates and for the Democratic Party.

And I'm curious what you think of the party's struggles to raise money right now. I think like by the end of June, the RNC had 80 million on hand compared to the 15 million that the DNC had on hand. And so you're in these circles, and I'm curious why you think this is such a struggle for the party in this moment. Well, my experience of people writing checks is they write checks for two basic reasons. One is they want to write check to support a vision that they support. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be something they understand and broadly support. And secondly, they want to write a check to an organization or a candidate. who they think has momentum and can actually impact something in the real world.

Sometimes I think the second one is more important than the first one, believe it or not. But in fact, they want to be, they want to support a winner. And of course they want that winner to represent them, but they really care about the second part too. And when you think about where we are right now, institutionally broadly, it's very hard to see what the Democratic Party stands for. And I think that, so for starters, I think that vision is something that is, I say, it's, you know, unformed. And the second thing I'd say is this, they don't have any momentum. So when people think about it, you said, you know, what are my friends saying?

My friends are all saying, tell me what to do that will work. It's not that they don't care. They care a ton. They are anxious. They are worried and they want to act. But tell me something I can do that will work, and they're not hearing that. Who is that vision supposed to come from? I mean, like, if people are saying that to you, do you feel like that's kind of an indictment of the DNC?

And Ken Martin, who's the chair of the DNC, like they could be doing more to convince donors to get on board or to give them a vision of, you know, their path forward? You know, I think that the vision's going to come from the outside, Lauren. I think it's very unrealistic at this point to think it's going to come from the institutional part of the Democratic Party. To me, I think it's outsiders. I mean, the people you've been talking about are by and large outsiders and they're listening and they're hearing the real problems and they're proposing solutions that are resonating with people. I think there's no doubt in my mind that the vision will come from somebody from outside the center of the party, that they will have something that people can hear and think, oh, yeah, that's it.

I've always known that. I've just never been able to articulate it. And that is what we're looking for, and I don't think that comes from Washington, D.C. Yeah, well, Tom, thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it. It was great to chat with you again and come back soon. Nice to see you again, Lauren.