Factually! with Adam Conover - Why Did Democrats Lose So Hard with Congressman Ro Khanna

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

What the hell is going on with the Democratic Party? For the past eight years, it seemed like the party’s entire identity revolved around defeating Donald Trump. Now, Trump is returning to office with more power than ever, following a catastrophic 2024 election for the Democrats. This defeat has raised serious questions about the party’s strategy, messaging, and even its core identity. This week, Adam sits down with Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA 17th District) to unpack what went wrong in this election cycle, what it means for the party's future, and how this pivotal moment can be a turning point to build a stronger, more effective Democratic Party.SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. People throwing parties, ugly sweaters everywhere, stockings hung up by the chimney with care. It could only mean one thing. McRib is here. At participating McDonald's for a limited time. I don't know the truth. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.

Yeah, but that's all right. That's okay. I don't know anything. Hey there, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you for joining me on the show again. So, what the fuck is up with the Democratic Party? They spent eight years telling us that Donald Trump was a monster, a disaster,

that he was gonna be the end of democracy, that he was a historic villain in American politics. And then they lost to the guy. Like they armed the torpedoes, they fired every missile they had at the motherfucker, and they still handed him a victory bigger than any victory he had ever had in the past. He not only, of course, has a commanding electoral college victory, but for the first time he has won a plurality of the popular vote as well.

And again, this is despite the Democrats making their entire political identity for the last eight years, taking down Donald Trump Trump and they failed to do it. This has left the party in an unprecedented state of not knowing where the fuck is going next. And you know, we've had a couple conversations on the show about this so far, and it's all well and good to talk to political analysts, political scientists, journalists, etc. to understand what's going on. But at some point, you kind of want to talk

to one of the actual players in the game, an elected official who actually is in control of the party and influences what it does next. So that is what we're going to do today. On the show today, I have representative Ro Khanna, who's a Democratic congressman from Silicon Valley. And I just want to remind you that when I talk to elected political officials

on this show, I want you to listen a little bit differently than when you listen to one of the experts we have on the show, right? Experts have expertise that we defer to, but that's not why we talk to a politician. We're talking to a politician to get their worldview, to find out why they do what they do as a player in the game. It's kind of like talking to a basketball player after the game and saying, Hey, why did you guys fucking lose so badly? Right? That is the conversation that we're here to have today. And how might you change things going forward? Now real quick before we get into it, if you want to support the show and all the conversations we bring you every week,

head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of this show ad free. And if you like stand-up comedy, and I hope you want to laugh at this time in American history, head to AdamConover.net for all my tickets and tour dates. Coming up soon, I'm headed to Dallas, Texas, Toronto, Canada, Vermont, a bunch of other cities as well. Head to AdamConover.net for tickets.

And now let's get to this week's conversation with Representative Ro Khanna from Silicon Valley. We're gonna discuss how the hell the Democrats lost so badly, how they can regain the trust of voters and where they're gonna go from here. Please welcome Congressman Ro Khanna. Congressman, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me.

Appreciate your voice. I was saying all flying. You've got humor and substance mix, the winning combination. Oh my God, well, you're trying to flatter me to soften me up. Yeah, of course, you know. I just didn't know if you were gonna announce

your candidacy for president or something, you know. You gotta be almost, you gotta have comedic skill these days. Apparently so, you know. The worlds are merging more than we ever thought they could. And certainly, my own interest in politics is going up and up given recent events. We have to talk about, to start off,

this catastrophic failure for the Democrats. And I don't wanna overplay how bad the future might be, et cetera, I've talked about that elsewhere. But I wanna underline the fact that what the Democrats told the public was that, you know, Donald Trump is a fascist, it's, you know, it's going to be the end of democracy, democracy's on the line. And yet Democrats ended up choosing a strategy that lost,

despite that by their own, you know, statement, this is the most consequential election ever, somehow managed to lose. You know, and that seems, how the hell did that happen? Right? What was the failure in your mind? Well, first of all, every candidate usually calls the other candidate a communist or a

fascist. It goes back to Harry Truman, who called John Dewey a fascist. Now I'm not saying that Donald Trump is in a unique threat, but I don't think the American people bought that we aren't going to have 26 or 28 elections. And I think that one of the mistakes made is that people were asking for sweeping change, radical change, because these institutions haven't worked for them. They see for 50 years they've fallen behind. There's a sense of stagnancy around the country that,

yeah, Silicon Valley, where I represent $12 trillion, Apple, Google, a lot of wealth. But if you're in Johnstown, if you're in Milwaukee, if you're in Ashwabula County, you've seen jobs leave, you've seen your kids not be able to get a house or a car, you want the system changed. And then you see these billionaires fighting, whether it's the Elon Musk billionaire pack or the Bill Gates billionaire pack or the Soros pack. And you're wondering, where's yours say?

And so I think that a Democratic party has to embrace radical change, be the party that's going to question the status quo, not stand up for the status quo, and offer a sweeping economic vision to revitalize parts of the country. I do think that's the case that the Democratic Party allowed itself to be the status quo party in a year when people were not wanting the status quo.

And certainly, I shouldn't just say allowed itself to be, the Democratic Party has upheld the status quo for many years, especially if you look at the, you know, the Bernie versus everybody else struggle from 2020 and 2016, right? We know which side won that struggle. So during this election, were you watching, saying, oh my God, we are way too much in the middle here,

we're trying to stand up for everything that already exists rather than talking about the change people need? Did you have that sense before November? At times, and what Bernie bit his tongue during that campaign, he would vent to us privately, say, you know, we're not talking enough about the change for working families. But here are a couple of concrete examples.

How many times did you hear us talk about increasing the minimum wage? I mean, it's a simple, small thing, but what was never part of the campaign, AMLO won in Mexico and then Claudia Scheinbaum was going to succeed him, won as an incumbent party in COVID. Partly, he raised the minimum wage from $4.65 a day in Mexico to $14 a day over six years. And there was no talk about we're're gonna raise wages, no talk about giving stock to machinists or auto workers. I mean Mary Barra makes 30 million dollars. Why? Because her compensation is tied to company's performance.

Well, why can't the folks on the auto lines be, assembly lines be making money in some part tied to company performance with stock? So there was that part that was missing, but then it really struck me when we were campaigning all around with Liz Cheney. I mean, she's the embodiment of institutions and institutions that didn't work. I believe the Iraq war was a much bigger blunder for America than Donald Trump's last four years.

Now we'll see what happens in these next four years, but that was a colossal mistake for the United States. And we're around campaigning with her. It just didn't make sense. Well, does Liz Cheney, I just want to say, does Liz Cheney support the Iraq war still? Is she like, no, my dad was right about that because that wasn't her. She's that's not her personally, right? No, but she's she's at least what she was on the Armed Services Committee.

She would support it and she would support a neocon agenda of higher, higher defense spending, much more military muscular foreign policy. I don't think she's repudiated the Dick Cheney worldview on foreign policy. I mean, in terms of getting into conflict with Iran and certainly on the campaign trail, she didn't come out and say, look, my father was wrong about the war in Iraq. Of course she's her own person, but my understanding of that is that she is, she comes from that school of thought in foreign policy.

And I guess, look, I respect her as a person in terms of standing up on January 6th, but in terms of signaling to the American people that are sick of wars overseas, that see their kids not having a shot, they think we're spending more money on overseas wars than we are on their futures. Liz Cheney is not the person who's gonna tell you,

yeah, Kamala Harris is gonna bring radical change to help my family that's been struggling for the last few decades. Yeah, and it is very striking how the Democrats allowed themselves to become not the anti-war party, but the pro... I mean, there's... again, there isn't currently an American armed conflict overseas, but there's conflicts that we're supporting that are certainly very present in the public's mind. American interventionism seems alive and well under Joe Biden. We're a long way away from Barack Obama being the anti-war candidate and harnessing that

energy. And it does feel like Trump was able to harness it. And that's part of the strange realignment that's been going on. What do you think about why the Democratic Party is hemorrhaging working class voters? What explains that? Some of it is we haven't spent enough time in these communities, in rural communities, in factory towns, going to places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and listening to folks who lost steel plants. I mean, when I went there, they told me Western Pennsylvania used to make more steel

than Japan and Germany combined in World War II. And it's been one hollowed out factory after another. One gentleman, Fred, gave me a binder in Anderson, Indiana of every factory that had closed over the last 40 years and what that meant for marriages breaking up, for suicides, for depression. So we better, one, go to these communities and speak to that frustration, pain, anger, and talk about a rigged economy and political system that allow that to happen. Both parties watched it happen with NAFTA, with the World Trade Organization, Ascension to China, and criticized that and say, we're going to have a change. We're going to have, I call it a new economic deal.

We're going to have a new FDR-like program to rebuild these factories, but modern factories, not the old stuff. And we're going to have new, an AI robotics actually is going to make new industrialization possible. And by the way, it's going to have less carbon emissions. It's going to have high paying jobs. And we're going to the wealthiest country in the world can rebuild America to be the top producers and have the best airports

and have the best infrastructure in the world. I just think that we needed a vision, a sweeping change and to speak to the anger and frustration of working people. Well, so a couple of things on that, because first of all, you're right that the Democrats did not advance a vision of a sweeping change. And in fact, didn't even say, hey, if you vote for us, we're gonna do ABC, we're gonna raise the minimum wage,

we're going to do big splashy things, right, that people might wanna have done. Paid family leave, whatever it was, this stuff was not foregrounded. It was we're gonna restore the stuff Trump took away, we're gonna look, you know, abortion rights, et cetera, and then we're gonna stop him from destroying more things rather than you vote for me,

here's the awesome new thing you will get that you might want. That is the case. However, I will say when Joe Biden came in, I remember this very clearly. He came in as the new FDR. That is what his aides were talking about, right? And I have to say from my standpoint as, well, how would I describe myself? An economic progressive or whatever the fuck.

I care about antitrust reform. I care about a lot of things like that. A lot of those things got done right or we made progress on right. If we absolutely did absolutely did fighting corporate power in terms of antitrust. The inflation reduction act, you know, injected a huge amount of money into, you know, the American economy and you know, you can say those things weren't messaged well, but hey, I did see the parties start to move a little bit on these topics.

He was doing some Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, adjacent stuff, and yet the public didn't seem to notice. And so what do you think the failure is there? Were the policies not big enough? Was the messaging not right? Is it both? Does something bigger need to change? What is it?

First of all, I give Joe Biden a lot of credit. I think he realized that the traditional economic order wasn't working for a lot of people. He saw that on the campaign trail. He did have big ambitions to be the modern day FDR and things like the Chips and Science Act, which I helped write to build semiconductors, he signed. He signed the Inflation Reduction Act

to build new batteries and solar plants in places, by the way, that had been deindustrialized. And we put out stimulus checks. We gave money to schools under the American Rescue Plan. We had the child tax credit that reduced child poverty. But I would say a couple things. One, he didn't communicate about it morning, afternoon, and evening. FDR was a great communicator.

He didn't channel people's angers and fear that, yeah, we're doing this stuff, but you've been shafted for 50 years. It's not going to be overnight that this is going to work. He didn't take on enough of the fights when we couldn't get any minimum wage increased. I said, fire the parliamentarian. Oh, how dare we fire the parliamentarian. It would be anti-institutional. Who the hell is the parliamentarian of the Senate?

And why do we give two craps about who she is? Fire her. Say, I'm taking her on for the American people. We're gonna get a raise and I'm not gonna deal with this institutional BS. We're gonna fire people who've been standing in the way. And I don't think he had enough of that sense of the institutions are broken. You can't be FDR by having incremental change.

You've got to be willing to take on some fights and be bold. And so I think it was communication and just while it was directionally correct, it wasn't sweeping energetic enough. And he wasn't sweeping, energetic enough. And he wasn't out there enough. You know, Thomas Friedman, who I don't agree with on everything, has a great column about Kamala Harris and it actually inspired me. I was just a congressman, though. But he said she spent four years in rural American factory towns going around talking

about the economic renaissance and black communities, Latino communities, the heartland instead of being the border czar. And I think both Biden and her had to do that to say, look, we're going to really revitalize this country. We've done all this and give us four more years to help continue in that direction. It also felt like they weren't meeting the country where they were emotionally, right? That Trump was saying, hey, you're getting screwed, right? And if you say to

most people in this country, you go up to them and say, hey, are you getting screwed right now? They'll say, fuck yeah, I am. The world's out to get me, right? Look how much I just had to pay for parking. Look how little I'm making. You know, look, I can't buy a house, et cetera. Trump went out and said, said you're getting screwed You know who did it immigrants, which isn't true, but at least there was a story Democrats provided no Story they didn't start with you're getting screwed They started with actually the economy is doing pretty well, and we're building an opportunity economy Which who who the hell even knows what that means you know yeah exactly what does that mean in a place like? Yeah, exactly. What does that mean in a place like Ashtabilla County, Ohio or Downriver, Michigan, an opportunity to come?

It means a lot in Silicon Valley. OK, we're all going to do our startups. But come on, that's not the experience that in every every place. But you know, you're getting screwed. You know, who did that for almost four terms was FDR. He did it in running for re-election. You're getting screwed of that Hoover guy. He messed things up so much. He was blaming Hoover in the 1940s, you know,

after three terms. And that's what we have to start by doing. You're getting shafted. Biden should have blamed both parties. You're getting shafted because of Trump, because of Reagan, because of people in our own party who signed NAFTA, because of my old self. You're getting shafted because of the Joe Biden

who was a Senator. And you know what? I was wrong. I was wrong. And now we're doing a new thing and we're gonna do this new thing, but it's gonna take me more than three years to dig out of a hole that was built in 50 years.

And so I agree with you that we never quite got that. And you can brag about the progress you're making while still starting with, you're still a victim and you've been screwed because it's true. Yeah. Well, I want to get into more, the ways in which you think the economy is rigged and what you think we should do about it.

But first, I've been listening to a lot of Democrats doing their post-election reconsider. And what everybody seems to say is, hey, you know the thing I thought before? We should have done that twice as hard, right? There's people out there saying, there were people out there saying Biden shouldn't have tried to be the second coming of FDR.

He should have been more economically centrist. There's people saying he should be more economically populist. There's people saying he should be more economically populist. There's people saying that we shouldn't have cared so much about trans issues. Even though when I look at Kamala Harris's statements, it seemed like she largely didn't talk about them at all or really care that much. Then you have people saying she should have stood up for those people because then they would have come out to vote, et cetera.

What I'm interested to hear from you as an elected official is, you know, I feel a lot of what you told me is what you already believed going in, and that's fair. But what have you reconsidered as a result of the election? Are there any positions that you are starting to doubt because you saw how it went? For instance, you know, I'm looking at it going, man, maybe people don't care about antitrust reform

as much as I hope they would. And is there any chance that other Democrats are gonna have the same reckonings? Because if it's just causing you to question other people in your party, that's not as helpful as like looking at your own fucking behavior, is it? Yeah, look, I'll answer the question for sure.

I'm not ducking it, but I fundamentally believe that Bernie Sanders was 15 years younger. I have no doubt in my mind he'd be president in 2028. So some of us who have been saying that he had the right approach and policies have been dismissed as economic illiterates when we did the Stop Bezos Act, have been dismissed as marginal fringe voices.

So if we're saying, you know, a lot of the things you were saying were right, it's because we've always been at the margins of the party and are finally having a seat at the table. But look, I think there are places that I've had to think through. I mean, immigration, clearly, there has to be some balance of having a secure

border and an orderly process of people coming in while still recognizing that this is a strong immigrant nation. And I think we didn't handle that correctly. I'm sure ICE had things about it that weren't sensitive enough to people's real concerns that the process wasn't orderly and that's one area. I think the area of talking with respect but engaging on issues of LGBT or trans rights, I went on Megyn Kelly's show and I wanted to talk about manufacturing and manufacturing and Megyn Kelly wanted to talk about trans rights and I gave her my position, which is I fundamentally believe trans folk

individuals have dignity and when it comes to youth sports, they should be included. And I understand her point of safety and fairness for, uh, above youth sports. But my instinct in the beginning, I was like, well, Megan, what I really want to talk about is manufacturing. And like, but after I tried that three times, she was like, no, well you're being dismissive of my point. Let's just talk about transgender rights. And then we talked about it for a half hour. And so I think it's like we have to

engage with people on these issues, and not be afraid, but engage in stability. You can't just you can't just say, Okay, I'm the economic robot and just going to talk about economics and not talk about culture. But she brought that up to you. I didn't see this interview, but presumably she didn't bring that up to you because of her sincere, well-reasoned, concern about sports. She's part of a right-wing media machine

and political machine that had chosen sports as being a particularly divisive issue that they could focus on. And that's in fact true of like, you know, of all the trans issues for trans Americans, the participation in sports is the one that they chose to dig in on because of its divisive power.

And so when I hear, and by the way, you know, it's in contrast to the fact that there's almost no trans athletes, child or otherwise, in America. It's the least important of the issues. You can have your position on it, but when I hear Democrats say, maybe we should, and I think a Democratic Senator said this, we should be not so progressive about trans people

in sports, I'm like, you're conceding to a attack line, right? That's not a real, it's not a real issue. I don't want to mention the person's name, but I disagreed with what he said. You know, I, I have no problem with trans youth being in sports for, so it's a very small percentage. Usually they are not great athletes. They're doing it with a sense of belonging. And I think we need to treat people with fairness and dignity. And I don't really give if it's a 30, 70 positions.

Fine. You know what? What I think people don't respect is when you don't say what you believe, when you don't say or if someone disagrees with you or you say, oh, you're canceled. They want you to go into the arena, take your positions. But but but then also realize that people could come from a position that's of a different value and you shouldn't cancel them, you should engage with them. And I think the Democrats make two mistakes. Either we cancel people who we disagree with or shame them, which we shouldn't, or we're so afraid to be out there defending any position that's a 30,

70 or 40, 60 position. Why? Like that's politics. You're not supposed to be majoritarian on everything. There's something wrong with you if you're a majoritarian position on everything. But I don't think that's how people vote. They don't vote like, okay, I agree with Krannow on seven issues and disagree with him on four issues, and so I'm going to vote for him or not vote for him.

They look at the person. Is this person who stands for something? Is this person who's going to make me feel embarrassed or not? Is he using it? You know, it's a more gut check. And I, and my view is take strong stands, disagree with stability. Uh, I like that a lot. Not like, I think the worst thing that Democrats and people on the left did,

as far as quote canceling goes, is cut off conversation or remove themselves from conversation, saying, I'm not even gonna engage with this person, right? I still think you're in a tricky position when you're going on something like Megyn Kelly and they're bringing up a specific issue like that because it is a honeypot for division and the conversation

is being had in bad faith. But you're a skilled conversationalist and I'm sure you did well in that interview and other people could take your meaning. But I am concerned about Democrats compromising their positions. You talked about the border, right? And yes, Americans have more inflamed opinions about the border. A lot of that is because of, literally because of the Trump campaign

and because of the right-wing media blowing up the importance of the border. It is not actually the case that there's a huge amount of crime caused by people coming across the border. There has been an influx, but it's the same people as we're coming across, but we're people who wanna work and people who are escaping something horrible. And as a person who cares about other people,

I give a shit about those people to the same degree as I did in 2015. And I'm very concerned about, it's like Trump's gonna deport millions of people, people the amount of misery and death that is gonna cause is very is Obviously really concerning. I'm concerned about Democrats taking Oh my god We have to we have to like be really considerate to all of the to the right-wing echo chamber and how it portrays immigrants I mean is there not a fear of swinging too far in the other direction

and basically acquiescing to the right-wing framing of these issues because an election was just lost? Absolutely, there is. And I think we should start with the fact that immigrants are an extraordinary source of strength in the United States, not only because they help make us innovative and help create enormous value in technology and businesses, but they also are picking crops and doing things in meatpacking and keeping food prices low and are an enormous

benefit to our economy. They're paying taxes. As you know from the studies, immigrants commit statistically less crime than people like you and me who were native born in the United States. And I think we should say all these things. But we can also say that we want people to come here with a pro to a process that we want them to learn English. I mean, it's that's a advantage to them culturally and economically. Well, hold on a second. We don't have English as a state language or anything.

Why do they have to learn English? Well, you don't think they should. I think they should. Why do they have to learn English? You don't think they should? I think they should. I think I should learn Spanish, but I'm not going to. I don't have time. You know, like I live in LA, like so many people here speak Spanish. Why shouldn't I learn Spanish? Well, I think if they want to be president of the United States or a congressperson or

a senator or a CEO. It's helpful if you want to be president. That's true. You know, I think you're limiting yourself if you're not learning English. I'm not saying we have to force it, but I think that they should learn about American history and put it in perspective. This is a great country. Now we should also learn about 250 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow because

that's an honest part of our country. But ultimately, they should learn about also the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the unique ideals of America and be, you know, one of the things in how we talk about immigrants, which is so odd because I come from an immigrant family with my parents who came from India and my grandfather was in jail alongside Gandhi as part of India's independence movement. I was born in Philadelphia in 1976. And my grandfather was in jail alongside Gandhi as part of India's Independence Movement. I was born in Philadelphia in 1976. My parents rarely talked about my rights.

They talked a lot about my responsibilities. They said, you were born in America, you won the lottery. Go make good grades, go learn about this country, go learn history. That's usually the immigrant experience in this country. And it's usually patriotic. And I think there's no problem of us talking not just about the rights of immigrants,

but also their responsibilities to what they're gonna give to the nation and to a society. And so how do we have a process that is fair, that makes sure that people who wanna work here can work here, contribute, many of them wanna go back. How do we make process that people who are coming because they're facing gang violence, that they're able to come here through asylum,

through the process, that there are enough immigration judges, those are all things we should do. We shouldn't compromise our values, but we can say that the system is broken. Even the left believes that. What do you think happens? What do you think the Democratic party does if Trump goes through with his deportation plan, right,

deport people in the millions, and we're talking about like camps in the desert to hold people while they figure out where to send them. Like if it gets really bad, are the Democrats gonna have a response to that? Because that is my concern, given the new language that I'm hearing from a lot of folks on your side of the aisle.

That's my fear. And I keep having going on sometimes on TV and saying that and people like, oh, why are you talking about mass deportation? And the polls show that two thirds of the country want that. No, they theoretically may want that, but they don't want military showing up at their place of work and businesses and then asking everyone for their papers. And by the way, in past deportations, 20% of the people deported have been American citizens. You really want people be asking you for your papers if you don't look, if you look different like me or have a different sounding name. And that's not America. And I don't think that's what the American people, when they see it in the actuality will be for. What they want is this sense of Trump, that people shouldn't just be rushing across the border without going through a process. And there shouldn't be

people who are violent criminals, but they don't want these mass raids on employers. And so we need to be vigilant. We need to, we're working with Amigos de Guadalupe in my district. We have a whole resource of centers. Let me tell you quickly the story of Gabriela. 25 years undocumented in this country. I won't mention her last name. She drives down from my district, Northern California

to Southern California in the mornings once a month to see her daughter who's studying to be a doctor. And she drives back the same night because she can't afford a hotel room. And she can't afford a hotel room because she's a dental hygienist who's underpaid 50% because she hasn't had the right documents and her daughter is going to go become a doctor. That's the American dream. You want to deport Gabriella and possibly her daughter, that is not America. And so we should be talking about these stories that we need to be working with community groups to make sure that when Trump goes overboard,

that we are there to push back. And remember, Joe Biden was winning by 15 points at immigration in 2020. So it's not that the American people want cruelty on this. Yeah. My fear is just the Democrats are the party that supposedly looks out for every type of person and average people, right? Talking about people of color, immigrants, LGBT people.

And I'm discomfited by the degree to which I see, I've seen Democrats running away from that, right? At the same time as Trump has tried to increase his tent and say, oh, let's bring in people of color, et cetera. So I hope that other folks stand with you when you do that. Hey, everybody, today's episode is brought to you by Alma. You know, finding someone who truly understands what I'm going through has been a tremendous help

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Oh, that's power, baby. I want to talk about Silicon Valley, because I find it very interesting that you've called for greater regulation on the tech industry, etc. Correct? Correct. I've go for Kids Online Safety Act, Internet Bill of Rights on Privacy, certain antitrust policies. Yes.

So I'm curious when this last election cycle, we saw Silicon Valley really come out for the Republicans. I mean, I know there's billionaires on both sides, but if you look at Elon Musk as being the, obviously, iconic symbol of this, and the crypto industry, et cetera, I find it very interesting that you're a Bernie-wing Democrat coming from Silicon Valley.

How do you feel that industry has changed and is it even possible to regulate it now given how politically active it's become on specifically that other side of the aisle? I don't think it's possible to regulate it. It's been a failure at Congress. We haven't even had regulation to protect kids, haven't had regulations to protect privacy. But I think the biggest thing which people say, how do you reconcile Bernie progressivism with being from Silicon Valley?

The one thing I do believe is that the technology we have, AI, robotics, the wealth generation, that we've got to figure out a way to deploy it to spread the wealth, the wealth opportunity in other parts of the country. And what to me the tragedy is Elon is going into government to dismantle it. And there's some places where I think hopefully he can go after the bloated defense budget. But imagine if he was instead one of FDR's dollar a year men or today dollar a year men

or women, business leaders coming in to build things and actually working with unions and communities to build new factories, new industries. My view is let's harness Silicon Valley's technology and wealth generation to help mobilize more economic opportunities in other parts of the country along with unions and along with government to build that kind of partnership to do that. But, you know, that's not, you know, right now, a lot of the focus is just deregulation and cutting things. And that's not, in my view, what's going to create new jobs in many parts of the country. That's not what Hamilton did.

It's not what Lincoln did. It's not what FDR did. Yeah, unfortunately, it's what Musk did and what Bezos did and what, you know, even Tim Cook came out for Trump and it, I don't know. It seems like the hyper individualist ethos of Silicon Valley might not be all about building things for other people. It sure seems to be about, you know, I've got mine right now. And you know, I was someone who grew up with, you know, with technology as well. And I saw it as it as a good thing

that we could use to improve society. But I don't know, at the moment, it seems like something people are trying to use to destroy as much as they can so they can enrich themselves. It's a... I certainly think, you know, there was always on a plane coming from California, I happened to sit next to

a sociology PhD student at Stanford. And she said the thing that surprised her the most when she moved to the Bay Area, she almost thought that all these engineers and all would have a sense of doing things for people and building things. And what she sees there is they're all talking about

just how they're gonna get rich and how they're gonna build money. And I think the ethos of the Valley has become much more monetized than when Huland and Packard and Andy Grove and even Steve Jobs were there, where it was a lot more about building things and innovating. And so certainly, if you're going to argue that there's an excess of greed

and monetary materialism there, I think that's a fair critique. But ultimately, if that is not changed, if wealth inequality continues, if the geographical inequality continues, you're going to have massive anger and backlash against immigration, against globalization, against global trade, against technology. And that's not good for Silicon Valley. So it is in their long-term interest to make sure that you're not just doing tax cuts and deregulation. And there are people there who get that, maybe not the loudest voices today, and I'm hopeful they're going to start to get them more and more

as some of the Trump agenda becomes obvious that it's not working. I'm curious how a guy like you got elected in Silicon Valley, given that how much of it is money-driven and individualist. Is there some secret in the coalition that you put together in your own voter base that indicates a well of support for those ideas? Well, it took me three tries. I lost twice. Yeah. So, you know, but I think it is a recognition

that my first responsibility is to those who've been left out and for who can't afford a housing, who can't afford a good paying job, who aren't part of the tech league. And it took me a while to get there. Look, when I first ran against Miconda, I had all these tech supporters. That was this Indian American guy

who had worked with the Obama administration. I was like, we gotta have more innovation. We've got to have more technology. And I had a list of all these technology endorses. And the guy who beat me, Miconda, said, I knew I had you beat when you came out with that list. I said, Mike, how did you know that you had me beat? He said, because I had all the PTA leaders

and all of the grassroots leaders, and there are a hell of a lot more of them than there are the tech leaders. And so that loss actually humbled me, and it forced me to really go deep into the community. And it gave me much more empathy and understanding for people who've been left out, and much more sympathy for Bernie, who then was running,

and I supported him and really made me grow as a leader. So I, it really, I already had the kind of belief and still do in technologies, benefits and entrepreneurship but it made me realize how many people were left out. And I think that really shaped my not only ability to win but the politician that I've become. I appreciate that story because I feel like you can never really understand a

politician until you understand exactly how they got elected. Cause that shapes almost always shapes everything about their worldview. I want to talk about where the Democratic party goes from here. I mean, the Democratic party basically since 2016 has been doing anti-Trump, anti-Trump, anti-Trump, anti-Trump. That unites everybody from AOC to Nancy Pelosi. And it was a winning electoral strategy for a long time, especially after the end of Roe v. Wade, et cetera.

There was something to rally against, right? Except that now, that strategy has failed, and Trump won a majority. You can no longer bet, you know, he has a popular vote plurality at least. You can no longer bank on the fact that like, oh, Americans overall are going to reject the guy. In fact, he has gained support over the last eight years. And so that combined with the failure of, you know, the Biden administration, centrism to progressivism, they were kind of doing both things,

and both of them failed. The centrism failed and the progressivism, the Lina Kahn and the, you know, et cetera, failed. Simultaneously, starts to feel like you need an entirely new democratic politics. My question is, how the hell do you build such a thing when the party seems to have no leaders anymore, right? Biden is out, Kamala Harris was defeated, Bernie, as you said, is very old, AOC is very young, right? And you have all these different politicians who are all from different districts,

right? They have different, you know, pressures on them in different positions. And they're all saying, well, I think we should do the thing that I've always thought that we should do. I think we should be more centrist. I think we should be more progressive, right? They're all just saying the same shit, right? So how do you create a new politics that is gonna run in two years and then again in four years when everything you had done was demolished

and you don't have that strong figure who is gonna say, hey guys, here's what we should do and I'm gonna build support for it. How do you start to put a new coalition together? I think it's really exciting because I think what you're gonna have is 10, 15 people like me and others who are gonna be saying, here's what we should do.

Maybe it's some of what we always thought. And it's gonna be a clash of ideas and you're gonna have the most open clash ideas that this party has seen and probably the other party too, post-Trump, and something new is going to emerge from that for the country. And this has been too long suppressed, frankly. We've had the same leadership in a status quo that have been dominating politics for too long.

I actually think it's good that we're a leaderless party right now and let there be a broad clash of ideas and let a be a broad clash of ideas and let a new politics emerge. I tend to believe it's going to be a part of a politics that is going to tackle the top issue, which is how do we deal with wealth and equality in modern America? Whether you have a more centrist approach to it or a more progressive approach to it like I do, that is going to be, I think, the through line that may unify the Democratic party. Is there such a thing as a centrist approach to inequality? I mean, to me, the recognition of inequality is a problem.

Seems like a progressive or a left approach. Well, now David Brooks is saying that's the central approach. I guess you could, here would be a fair argument. If someone, here's another thing I reconsidered. I think we spent too much time worrying about how much money we were allocating to things and not enough time on how efficiently it was spent and whether factories were actually coming up and what the timeline was

and the actual construction of these things. So we said, yay, we won. We put in a trillion dollars of this and that, but what was the execution on the ground? And that was something I didn't pay enough attention to and believe after the election that we should have. And I also didn't totally we paid enough attention to what we could do immediately.

I mean, I was always for the minimum wage increasing, but didn't realize how much that mattered to give immediate benefits. But look, a centrist approach would have a different view. They'd say, I don't agree with Connell on Medicare for All and a massive apprenticeship program of 100,000 for machinists and electricians and free public college. I think we can do this with a more private sector approach and let's give investment

in research and development and give tax cuts to corporations that are investing. I don't agree with that, but you could see someone articulating it. What I'm saying is can we at least agree that the inequality of modern society, of the modern economy is the central mission that the Democratic Party should be solving? Like the Republicans agree that it's all tax cuts. It's increased defense tax cuts. Can't we be the party that's gonna tackle inequality?

And then we can argue about how. Right, well, so talking about that, what do you think is the cause of inequality in America? I mean, it's obviously a giant question to answer in one answer, but if we're gonna be real about, hey, people are suffering and here's why, how do you think about the problem? You have to do that before you know how to solve it, right? Well, here's what I think.

And obviously there are people who report smart and I have thought about it, but I spent some time thinking about it. One is the rig rules of the economy, something as simple as stock buybacks that weren't allowed before 1982. So you have GM that just engages in $6 billion of stock buybacks that weren't allowed before 1982. So you have GM that just engages in $6 billion of stock buybacks, and yet they're laying off a thousand workers. I mean, how is that fair to those workers? You used to have a situation at Sears Roebuck in 1968. You could be a sales representative and you would retire with a million dollars because

you got some seer stock. But then we had private equity come in and say, why are you giving all this stock to all these sales reps? That's a bottom line cost. Let's get rid of that. And they got rid of that and they maximize shareholder value and they got rid of stakeholder capitalism.

And that there need to be rules that incentivize companies to give stocks again to their employees, higher corporate tax rates if they don't, and making sure that stock buybacks aren't there. We could go through other rigged rules of the economy. That's one. Two, we had massive support for technology that created $12 trillion of wealth in my district but not enough thought about what was happening to the hollowed out places.

And people said, go get a job, go train for a job. But, you know, those jobs didn't materialize and there was no economic development, really strategy in town after town. And we just allowed wealth to accumulate to people who are good in benefiting from the digitization and automation of the economy. A third point is that we spend 400 to one

on college education compared to those who don't get a college degree. And why don't we have a massive program for skilled trades of electricians and plumbers and actually fund that. A hundred thousand that we want every year from government. So there were some systematic policy reasons that this happened and also the globalization and technology revolution.

I think you're right about so many of those diagnoses. And when I look at why the Democrats failed and why Trump won so much of the time, I have to put the blame on liberalism itself. Right? When you look at Trump's campaign, identifying real pains that Americans really felt, you know, um, look at RFK RFK is running on, uh, the medical system is fucked up. Well, the medical system is fucked up, right? But it's not fucked up because, you know,

all the scientists are lying, which is what he says. It's fucked up because of the economics, because so many people can't afford healthcare and medical coverage is so insanely expensive. The, you know, Trump is saying the economy is rigged, but he's saying it's rigged because of immigrants. It's not. It's rigged because of corporate power and etc.

That's also something that Democrats have allowed to overpower the country. When I look at everything getting more expensive, housing is one of the greatest costs for people. And yet, if you look at blue cities and blue states, they've completely failed to reckon with housing prices and failed to build, failed to protect renters, et cetera. And so all of these issues that you're talking about that are real and that I've been talking about for years, I'll give myself some credit for being right for a long time, as everyone does,

but I'm gonna give myself that, right? And you're saying we have to start talking about these things, right? Well, the Republicans have been for the last eight years, all of their solutions are insane, but they have sort of like, you know, stolen the energy, right? And so how does the Democratic Party start talking about those things when, you know, start talking about like, uh, you know, fixing the healthcare system when RFK is in there now, right. Going to try to fix it in some insane way, but he is making the first step of the argument in a way that Democrats, you know, haven't yet. They've sort of beaten you to the punch to an extent.

Do you understand my question? You and I are on the same page. Our biggest failure as a, as a, as a party has been the unwillingness to criticize the status quo and to criticize our own party. The other side is able to say, we all messed up and our own party messed up. I mean, look at how many times Trump trashes his own party and then we kind of say, oh great, we'll get those Republicans on our side. What we should be saying is no, both parties messed up. And that's kind of say, oh, great, we'll get those Republicans on our side. What we should be saying is, no, both parties messed up. And that's kind of where Bernie and Warren came with a lot of strength.

And they were willing to question their own party and willing to question the status quo. And I think we've got to do that clearly. And then we've got to point out that the other side just has certain solutions that are stupid. Like, you know, we've had vaccines since 1790 or something since past drawer and you know, get the answer isn't that we don't mandate vaccines in schools. The answer is corporate power in terms of

influencing what we put in our food and making sure that we actually have Medicare for all. I mean, we can win on the policies. But the problem is that we have have Medicare for all. I mean, we can win on the policies. But the problem is that we have such a technocratic approach. It's such a reluctance to question the elected leaders of the past. And we're so gingerly, ginger, we're so on eggshells about doing that, that it doesn't resonate emotionally.

Because if you're not swinging at the past and getting people to first say, yeah, I get your shift, and they're not gonna listen to your solutions. Yeah, I agree with that. It just feels difficult to make that correction now, right? So how do you go about doing that while Trump is gonna be kicking down sandcastles and attacking the elites at the same time? Well, I think he makes it easier to do

because I think ultimately after eight years or 12 years of him being on the national stage, screaming and yelling, if there's not the substance, I do think people are going to say, well, you know, is my life really better? I mean, you know, he's given them a hope of their life being better. Let's see how it is four years from now. Did he really do anything to stop the companies from going offshore? Did he really do anything to get you more wages in your pocket? Did he really do anything to have your health care costs go down? And so that becomes easier.

But I think if we run after Trump or during Trump, we're just the same of let's get back to normalcy, we're gonna lose because change, even if it's bad change is right now more popular than the status quo. So I, I think we have to focus on a on a counter narrative that basically says that the change Americans want is a constructive change of building things, not a destructive change of burning everything down. And we have a different vision of change than Trump.

Yeah, but it's a vision that Trump wants to change things and tear things down. We wanna build things. Ours is an aspirational change like Hamilton, like Lincoln, like Roosevelt. We wanna have a change that's really going to build things in this country. Yes.

And I think giving people something to aspire to is incredibly important in politics and that Trump was able to do that and the Democrats were not. Um, so you're being very clear about where you'd like to see the party go in terms of having a more progressive populist message. At the same time though, there's going to be people inside the party who are pulling in the opposite direction. I've seen them talking already, they wanna do the Bill Clinton thing.

They wanna concede a bunch of points to the right and just sort of swing in that direction and be really even more centrist and boring. Right? And maybe go shake some hands with some machinists in Pennsylvania, but that's about it. They don't actually wanna take on corporate power and et cetera.

And so when you're trying to, you know, influence the direction that your, that your party takes again, in the absence of a big leader up top, right? Maybe you'll say Obama and Bernie will still be doing their best, you know, to pull in one direction or the other, but we don't have, you know, that number one leader. Uh, how do you, how do you do that? Is it, I mean, is it a struggle against members of your own party? First of all, Bernie and Bill Clinton and Obama were at one point at one or 2% maybe Obama was a little higher. So, you know, leaders emerge because not of just them, but because

they're saying the right things. The one thing I would say, I would tell my centrist parties, hopefully we can agree that the one thing that doesn't win in American politics is boring. Like, you can't be boring. You can't be Evan Vai. You can't be, okay, I'm gonna check all the boxes and be the guy or woman you don't have to fear and just be the person who's gonna, you know, get along. This is a time where people want something radically different. They've been trying to vote for that since I would argue Howard Dean and Obama. They want something that's gonna inspire them

to believe that life could be different. And you may disagree with me on Medicare for All and free public college and taxing wealth and having more financial investment in the state, but if you come up with some old worn out centrism, I just don't think you're gonna capture people's imagination. So at least come up with some original things if you're gonna be a centrist.

I'm curious about how all of this is gonna play out for you as an actual member of Congress. The Republicans right now have a very, very slim majority. They're gonna try to get a bunch done. Right. And I think we all too often don't think about Congress as being like a literal workplace where like you're in an office, right. And there you have colleagues and like you actually need to go to the floor and do shit. Right. And so I mean, how much are the, you know, Democrats going to be, you know, trying to stop up the gears or whatever? Like what does it look for you on the ground? Your day to day life? It's actually true. I'll give you an example. Nancy Mason and I have done a lot of builds together on cybersecurity, on childcare.

I was at a forum with her at Georgetown just three days ago and we had a great working relationship and there's a trans activist and the trans activist starts to protest because of MacMase's comments about Representative McBride. And Nancy Mace just goes off on it and says, well, I don't want a penis in my death room and I don't want this person anywhere near me and my safety is being threatened. And I say, even though the forum is on sort of the future of the internet, you know, Nancy, I just have to say I have a profound disagreement with your views on trans issues. And I believe we need to treat Representative McBride

with dignity and respect. And this is bullying and cruelty. And she said, Roe, you're on the wrong side of history. You don't understand anything and is livid. And then post the exchange on social media. And we haven't, it's just Kurt. When I say have a good Thanksgiving. So it's harder now.

That's how you guys go nuclear. She's a little Kurt. When you say have a good Thanksgiving, you still say have a good Thanksgiving after she blows you up on social media and says a bunch of bigoted shit. I get it. It's collegiality.

I get it. She hadn't, she hadn't blown me up yet, but look, I'm a polite guy, but I'm not going to sit there and not stand up for trans rights and, uh, and watch her insult one of my colleagues. But I, I still am trying to be civilized to come from that tradition. I'm a grandfather, uh, I said, was influenced by Gandhi and Satya. You're trying to see the best in people. You try to, uh, to get people to come to your point of view

through persuasion. That's my fundamental temperament. But the challenge now becomes is, well, how do you work with folks and where, when there are just deep divisions on values? And what I've said, look, I tweeted back and forth with Elon today about you want to cut the five primes at defense contracting and finally get more competition and cut a bloated defense budget, I'll work with you. I'll work with people if they're doing things that I think are going to help the country.

But it's getting it's hard when you have a lot of these issues, what I consider cultural issues be dominant for them and when they're looking to score political points. Yeah, and I want to talk about those issues again. Let's talk about identity a little bit, because again, the Democratic Party used to sort of be the party that stood up for everybody who was a little bit different in America, but still lived here and had a claim to the country, right?

Again, people of color, LGBT people, immigrants, et cetera. We have seen since 2016 a big shift to the right, a lot of these issues. I mean, the North Carolina bathroom ban was like what, less than a decade ago where you had entire companies pulling out of North Carolina because they were banning trans people from using the appropriate bathroom.

And now you've got a Republican Congresswoman making herself famous by bringing the same bathroom ban, literally to the Congress in Washington, D.C. And you have Democrats saying, oh, we went too far on these identity issues, we should back off on them. And this overall discussion over is the party to behold into

you know, quote, the groups which, you know, the various advocacy groups that, you know, support black people or Latino people, etc. Which I've heard people comment is like, sounds like a lot like you're just saying, let's throw all those people under the bus, right? So

I'm curious like, what do you think the path is forward for the Democratic Party for representing all of these different constituencies at a time when a lot of Democrats seem to be running away from it? First of all, we're the party of live and let live, right? I mean, you can be free to be who you are in America, whether you wanna be LGBT, whether you wanna be trans,

whether you wanna be straight, whether you want to be trans, whether you want to be straight, whether you want to people from different faiths, from different backgrounds. That's what makes us so extraordinary. That's what makes us innovative. That's what makes us more dynamic than other homogenous societies. And that's fundamentally the essence of freedom. And we're also a nation that's ultimately a faith that believes in the dignity and worth of every human being and treating them with compassion and kindness. So I don't think we have to run away from being the party that is where everyone is on the wagon, which is paraphrasing sort of Mario Cuomo's famous 1984 speech where, you know, we're the party where you're welcome, whether you're an immigrant, whether you're gay, whether you're

women or whatever the marginalized group you belong in our party because we have an inclusive vision of America. But we say that because that's what makes America strong. That's what makes America exceptional. That's what makes America this incredible place. And I think what Obama did, which I think we have not been able to do, is he stole the vision of multiculturalism, of multiracial America as an embodiment of America's hopes and dreams and America's greatness ultimately. And I think we have to say, it's not just that we're standing up for trans people, it's not just that we're standing up for trans people. It's not just that we're standing up for the African American community. It's that we're standing up for something utterly unique to be the first truly

cohesive multiracial democracy in the world. And that what an achievement, what an achievement for it's a civilization defining achievement. I mean, if it happens, right? But you know, again, that's what we tried to do during the Obama era. That was sort of part of the essence of the Obama era. And we are living in a backlash so massive. The backlash is now longer than the Obama era, right? Because we're gonna have lived through,

I mean, it practically felt like Trump was president during the Biden administration, right? He was so omnipresent. So by the end of this, we'll have had 12 years of Trump and eight years of Obama. And so do you ever question, hey, are we really that multiracial society that I think that we are?

Because sometimes, you know, it's easy to say, oh, the movement is stronger than the backlash, but at the moment it doesn't feel that way. Well, look, I mean, when I was growing up, I'm Indian American of Hindu faith. If you had told me in the backlash, but at the moment, it doesn't feel that way. Well, look, I mean, when I was growing up, I'm Indian American of Hindu faith. If you had told me in the 1980s that there was gonna be an African American Indian American woman who would be the Democratic nominee

and get 48% in Pennsylvania, I would have said, you're crazy. And sometimes I think America is making progress in spite of ourselves. And this idea that we would magically, because of Obama's genius, that he would transform us into a cohesive multiracial democracy when it's never been done in the history of humanity. You know, Australia sitting there at 80-some percent white, Britain 80-some percent white, Canada 80-some white, we're 60 percent white, non-Hispanic. We're trying to do something unprecedented.

We've got people from every freedom struggle and language and history in the world here. I think of course it's gonna be a fight to get there. Of course it's gonna be hard. I just hope we get there without much more violence. I mean, but it's a daunting task. And what should motivate us is that the sacrifices of the past are people like John Lewis and King and Douglas

is so much deeper. They're odd, so much more challenging than what we face. I think we're at the sort of last leg of the relay and we've got to do our part to bring it home. Does it concern you at all that, you know, Trump had large movements towards him from, you know, Latinos, from black voters, from basically every demographic. But that, you know, the Democratic Party that stands for the ideals that you're talking about is getting less votes from those people. And why do you think that

is? It does concern me. But I think that's because our economic message isn't sharp enough. And a lot of those folks say, well, tell me how you're going to help me build wealth. Tell me how you're going to help me buy a car and a house. And I do think that that's why I think that the the answer is sort of Obama's aspirational vision of a multiracial democracy with Bernie's economics. I mean, if we don't tackle the economics of the inequality continues to grow, then it's harder to build this, this multiracial

democracy. But I think that the economics is why we were losing some of those groups. And so imagine you are advising the next Democratic nominee. I mean, maybe you'll run yourself, but don't postulate yourself as the nominee for now. Imagine you're able to shape the- I'm postulating you, Adam, with the comedy. I'm postulating you Adam with the comedy.

I mean, you know, at this point I seem as qualified as anybody else, I suppose. You know, if you can win twice. Some journalists asked me, you know, journalists that oh, you know, last time I house member one or something is 1880 or something, you know, how do you see if you ever were to run? Wouldn't that be a huge disadvantage? And I was, I started to answer. He said, you know, what I really meant is isn run? Wouldn't that be a huge disadvantage? And I started to answer, he said,

you know what I really meant is, isn't it a disadvantage to be any elected official? I mean, it seems like the best way to become president is not to be elected to anything. So that's my encouragement. It does kind of seem like that. Okay, well, let's pick our liberal celebrity who will run. It's Mark Ruffalo, okay?

Mark Ruffalo is- I love Mark. I love Mark Ruffalo. He's very politically active. And you know, if you make him mad, he turns into the Hulk and he can go kick Putin's ass by himself. So Mark Ruffalo's running. You're in charge of the entire platform. Right?

What is the message that you run on in four years that you think defeats the incipient right wing, the entrenched right wing. We run on the economic and political system as the broken has failed you for 50 years. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to increase minimum wages the day we get there. We're going to make sure we have Medicare for all, health care for everyone so you aren't getting this huge premium cost. We're going to make sure that we have a sweeping economic development and renaissance

of new factories, new industry, new apprenticeships in every part of the country. We're gonna tax wealth because there's more wealth in some of these places that people know what to do with, and we're gonna invest that wealth in getting people education and childcare. We're gonna build this America where we're gonna be the most productive,

the manufacturing tower again. We're going to have vitality in every part of America and lead the world with everyone participating. I love that message, or at least I think it can work. It certainly would be a breath of fresh air. That is a lot like Bernie's message in 2016. There are a lot of rhymes there and in 2020. And Bernie, you know, didn't win. And, you know, you can say, ah, well, he was defeated

by dirty tricks from the, you know, the rest of the party, which some people argue, but at the same time, you know, you gotta win the battle inside the party and you gotta win the battle in the primary, right? So in the event that, you know, again, there is internal Democratic Party resistance to that message, right? If it becomes that kind of battle again. It's heavily influenced by Bernie for sure, but there are two places where I think it adds to Bernie.

One is this view on economic development and production and building things. Maybe Biden had some of it, but I do think it can't just be we're going to give health care and we're going to give childcare and make sure we have free college apprenticeships. It's got to be, we're going to mobilize these places with business leaders and unions and the government to rebuild these towns. So I think it's a production economic development message combined with Bernie's focus on what we need to do to give people a basic education, healthcare, childcare. And then I think all of that also has to be taken and borrowed from Obama, that it can't just be economics for its own sake. Economics is

foundational, but ultimately it's foundational because this is what's gonna help repair the breach. This is what's gonna bring us together as a people. This is what's gonna give us common purpose again. This is what's gonna help repair the breach. This is what's gonna bring us together as a people. This is what's gonna give us common purpose again. This is what's gonna take us to becoming a cohesive multiracial democracy. I don't think we should run away from talking about race and gender,

and ultimately the higher things in life. People don't want just economic security. They wanna see America with a purpose. Trump is saying, make America great in the past. I think what we want to say is we're going to work towards building this beautiful vision that Frederick Douglass talked about, a composite nation, a nation of all nations

that Obama gave voice to in a modern way. But to get there, we've got to do this economic stuff. That's what's going to bring us together. Well, and that's a great addition to that message. There are still folks in the Democratic Party who are, you know, they don't want that economic vision, right? And so just tell me a little bit about how you hope to prosecute that ideological battle

over the next couple of years. And why will it win this time where it didn't in 2016 or 2020? Well, I started the show with saying that Bernie was younger. I think he'd win in 2020. And I wasn't that sure in 2016 or 2020 because there's never been more of a moment when he's been accepted, right?

When you've got people like David Brooks and others saying, we got to listen to Bernie Sanders, it's kind of, it's this irony. And it's like the prophet who may not get to listen to Bernie Sanders. It's kind of this irony, you know, it's like the prophet who may not get to the promised land himself, but I think he has been vindicated in many ways. And I think that there's a new generation in Congress, right? It's the Maxwell Frosts and Deliah Ramirez and Jasmine Crockett and AOCs and Jamal Bowman, even though he's not in Congress, still has a lot of influence.

But there's a whole new group of people that are gonna help shape this party in that direction. But it will be a fight. I'd still put the money on, if Mark was running on this platform, on the conventional governor, you know, whether it's Gavin Newsom or News, Sir Mercer, or Whitmer, I'm not despairing any of them.

I respect all of them in different ways, but you know, they'll be the conventional lane and that will be the favorite. And a progressive is always gonna be an underdog, but an underdog can win in this time. Obama was an underdog, it'll be similar. It's not, it won't be like Bernie, where the whole thing, the whole world is stacked against you. It'll be as running an underdog. It'll be similar. It won't be like Bernie where the whole thing, the whole world is stacked against you.

It'll be as running an underdog race. Especially where, you know, in 2020, you know, Obama and the rest of the establishment put their finger on the scales that, okay, we can't have Bernie win because he's gonna lose to Trump. We gotta pick the establishment guy. They got Biden and, you know,

Biden, all he did was held off Trump for an extra four years, but ultimately the war was still lost. And I feel that there's the, got Biden and you know, Biden, all he did was held off Trump for an extra four years. But ultimately the war was still lost. And I feel that there's that maybe there's a little bit of a realignment that's going to have happened in the party where that argument isn't going to work another time. Do you think that's the case? I agree. And I think that the competition now is in Donald Trump. It's going to be JD Vance. And one of the things to beat JD Vance, I mean, assuming he emerges, is going to be

someone who has a real worldview of because JD Vance has a worldview. It's a bad one, but it's a worldview of immigrants are taking your jobs and this is why the working class is not doing well. And I grew up in Appalachia and I overcame all of this and I know what you're going through. So we're going to need something with a sweeping vision on the other side. But look, I say the establishment is one in three. They lost with Hillary Clinton. Uh, they won with Biden and they lost with Biden. He was knocked down and they lost with Harris.

So it's time for it for something new. Yeah. And JD Vance has all that family stuff that he does. He's got all that weird born again, Catholic stuff in there. There's a lot of newness and the Democrats seem like they need a lot of newness too. So I'm look I'm very grateful for you spending a whole hour with us. I know you got a busy schedule in Washington. Oh, I enjoyed it You playing any good video games anything new I don't know I Am not a video game yet first I did fly growing up My my time was like Nintendo or something.

I'm sure it's like. Oh great, well let's just end there. What was your favorite NES game, Ro? What do you remember? I played Mario, the Mario Brothers, and then of course Madden. Every kid played Madden growing up in Philadelphia. I was too much of a nerd to play video games.

I didn't, to play Madden, I played everything but sports games. Ro, Kana, it's been so wonderful having you here, Congressman. Thank you, thanks for having me. Enjoyed it. Thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you once again to Congressman Kana for coming on the show.

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