No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Cory Booker on Trump going all in on his racist rhetoric

Episode Date: July 12, 2020

Trump has commuted the sentence of longtime adviser Roger Stone, but it’s even more dangerous than it seems. Brian talks with Senator Cory Booker about Trump leaning into his racist rhetoric, about abolishing the filibuster in the Senate, and his dad jokes.Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberMusic by WellsyRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to focus on Trump commuting Roger Stone's sentence and why it's even more dangerous than it seems in my interview with New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, where we talk about Trump leaning into his racist rhetoric, about abolishing the filibuster in the Senate, and yes, his dad jokes. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So what would a Friday night in the Trump era be without our weekly massacre on democracy? On this week's edition, Trump decided to commute the sentence of his longtime friend and advisor, Roger Stone. I want to talk about why this is so important, even though it might feel like just another one of Trump's daily scandals. It's actually way more dangerous than that because it wasn't just him throwing a lifeline to his buddy. It was actually Trump protecting himself and continuing to facilitate a cover-up of his own crimes. So real quick, consider why Stone was in prison.

Roger Stone was a key figure in the Trump campaign's attempts to cooperate with the Russians ahead of the 2016 election. He was the go-between for the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks had been chosen by Russian officials to dump information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton. And that includes emails hacked from the DNC and Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. All of that was done with the intent of helping Trump win. When questioned about it by Congress, Stone said he had no connections with WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange. He lied under oath. He had hundreds. He told Congress that he never discussed WikiLeaks with the Trump campaign. And again, lied under oath. He had extensive discussions with

this stuff over the course of months with Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Steve Bannon, even Trump. Trump himself knew that WikiLeaks had been coordinating with the Russians and was about to release information. How do we know? Because Trump's deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates testified under oath to this. So in other words, By refusing to disclose this information to investigators, Stone was covering up the Trump campaign's efforts to coordinate with WikiLeaks while WikiLeaks was part of a Russian cyber attack targeting our election, our democracy. Let me put it this way.

Roger Stone was colluding with the Russians on Trump's behalf, and Trump knew, and I seemed to remember, Russian collusion being kind of a big deal. So, of course, they had a vested interest in hiding it. Kind of hard to claim no collusion, if the guy responsible, for the collusion admits under oath that he did the colluding, right? So instead, Trump's long-time pal stayed silent, knowing that Trump would bail him out, and he did exactly that. And that wasn't lost on anyone. During Stone's trial, lead prosecutor Aaron Zelensky said, quote, the evidence in this case will show that Roger Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee

because the truth looked bad. The truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump, end quote. Even Stone himself basically acknowledged that he was let off because he had information that was damaging to Trump. This week, he told a journalist that Trump, quote, knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably, but I didn't. In other words, Stone is saying that he resisted pressure to turn on Trump, only you can't

turn on someone unless they did something. So he's acknowledging that crimes were committed here. Even the DOJ, which prosecuted Stone, believe that he deserved his sentence. The sentencing memo wrote that Stone, quote, committed serious offenses and deserves a sentence of incarceration that is sufficient but not greater than necessary. And speaking of the DOJ,

it's been reported from an administration official that Bill Barr had discussed clemency for Roger Stone with Trump and recommended against it, that he said the prosecution was righteous and his sentencing was fair. So the official said that the Justice Department had nothing to do with Trump's decision to commute Stone's sentence. and I just have to say

fuck Bill Barr because it's one thing to be a corrupt reprehensible piece of shit but it's entirely another thing to treat everyone else like their idiots while doing it. This is Bill Barr trying to come out looking righteous by issuing a statement that he didn't

support this decision. Give me a break. You want to know who Bill Barr is? Listen to this. So Roger Stone initially had a sentence of between seven and nine years. That sentence was recommended by prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office. that was followed by a Trump temper tantrum on Twitter. And so just hours later, hours after that temper tantrum,

suddenly the Justice Department reversed course and revised its sentencing recommendation and called for, quote, far less time behind bars. And in case you thought this was a big group effort, no. Because all four prosecutors involved quit the case. One guy even quit the government altogether. This was Bill Barr's unilateral decision, a decision made to kowtow to Trump's request.

And as if that wasn't obvious enough on its own, Trump tweeted at Bill Barr thanking him. He wrote, quote, congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been broad. Dude wrote congratulations for reducing the sentencing recommendation for a felon who lied to Congress,

tampered with witnesses, and obstructed a congressional investigation. Yeah, congrats, man. That's who Bill Barr is, a shameless political operative, perfectly content to turn the DOJ into a political arm of the White House. So when he comes out and says that he recommended against it, sorry if my gut reaction is to think that the guy could not be more full of shit. If he was actually against this, he'd have some principles and resign in protest, just like those four prosecutors on the Stone case did. But he'll never do that because principles aren't even a distant thought here. So please, please do not buy Bill Barr's tired image rehab. The craziest part is that while this is all going on,

the right wants you to get pissed off about statues, about NASCAR and NFL, about Mount Rushmore, about Goya beans. The CEO of Goya had come out and said, we are all truly blessed to have a leader like President Trump. And there was obvious pushback by Latinos that the CEO of the most recognized Hispanic brand in the United States was pandering to a president who's called Mexicans rapists and locked immigrant kids in cages. And the right has fallen over itself to keep this in the news because they need these

cultural war wedge issues. They need them. And if you watch Fox News, that's all you see. You'll think the biggest issue in America right now is goya beans. The great goya bean scandal of 2020. This is what conservative media is whipping its viewers into a frenzy over. While their side's president and attorney general are conspiring it in these much, Mafia-esque schemes to defraud the justice system. And that's what it is. It is the wholesale undermining of the rule of law being carried out in broad daylight, brought to you by the Law and Order President himself.

I mean, Stone sat for a jury trial. A jury convicted him of seven felonies. He admitted that he kept quiet despite being able to flip on Trump, meaning that incriminating evidence exists. And then he got rewarded for his silence. Like, this administration is so egregiously corrupt. that it's now a wedge issue to suggest that a president

shouldn't be able to commute the sentence of a man's sentenced to prison for helping that president. That's where we're at. Keep in mind, too, that this is being done in the midst of unprecedented civil rights demonstrations around the country. There have been millions of Americans

who've taken to the streets demanding justice. And the fact that now, during these protests, is when Trump decides to completely shit on the rule of law, goes to show that he cannot be bothered to acknowledge what's happening in this country beyond his own personal interests.

The largest protests in American history over the fact that our policing system, our justice system is in so many ways corrupt and the president of the United States' response here is to free a guy from prison to reward his silence, to protect himself. You can't not meet this moment more than that. I don't know how we expect any reforms to justice

to come out of a White House where the president himself is surrounded by criminals. And that's not just me being like, hysterical. He literally surrounds himself with criminals. Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, all convicted. But because Trump's priority is himself and clearing his name and convincing his supporters that the whole thing is a democratic hoax, he'll stop at nothing to undermine this entire process that got those guys convicted in the first place. That's how committed to the bit he is. It's not enough to just lie and say

that the Mueller probe, for example, was a witch hunt. He's actually, actually trying to undo the legitimately found convictions that the Mueller probe brought. Between Trump and Bill Barr, look what happened. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. DOJ drops the case. Paul Manafort was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, gets released from prison early due to coronavirus concerns. And now Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison.

Trump commutes his sentence. There are no lengths that this guy won't go to in order to try and will into existence this idea that his own bullshit gas lighting is true. And look, in fairness, Trump is not the first president to use commutations or pardons to help out friends or political allies. Bush did it, Clinton did it, but no president has ever done it so systematically to protect himself. Of the 36 pardons or commutations that Trump's issued, 31 were to advance his political goals or to help someone that he is a personal connection with. 31 out of 36. To Trump, the presidency is just licensed to commit crimes and get away with them.

Here's the thing. The optics are terrible for Trump, and it's being condemned across the political spectrum. Pelosi has called it a staggering corruption, and she's promised to pursue legislation that would prevent the president from using his powers to protect those convicted of a cover-up on his own behalf, although I can't imagine that a Republican Senate or Trump himself would sign that into law. Mitt Romney has called it unprecedented historic corruption, and Trump did this before the election. This was Trump's pitch. to voters, him on his best behavior. So what I'm getting at is that there's a world in which you see this and the takeaway

becomes that Trump doesn't think he's going to get reelected. You don't do crimes on the campaign trail. I mean, you don't do crimes at all, but I think that bus has left the station. But if you're going to commit crimes, you might want to wait until after you don't have to face the voters. So the fact that he isn't may very well be a tacit acknowledgement that he's done. And so his only priority now is to save his own ass, which includes helping out his buddy Roger Stone so that he keeps him happy and quiet. He knows that if he can deprive the justice system of a key figure cooperating with them, that he'll be that much safer.

So why wait until November when he could just do it now? And I'm not saying that that's definitely what's happening and it may very well be wishful thinking on my part, but I just don't see a planet on which committing impeachable offenses four months out from the election is a big selling point for the campaign. So how do we deal with this now? I guess there are two options. One is we could again call for Trump's impeachment because the fact remains that that's the tool at our disposal when the president commits an impeachable offense. He's commuting stone sentence in exchange for stone not rolling on him.

His commuting stone sentence in exchange for stone not rolling on him is a quid pro quo. It's a bribe. Bribery is literally defined in the Constitution as an impeachable offense. And yes, he's been impeached, but if you get arrested, for murder once, you don't have carte blanche to commit more murders, right? Like, you get arrested each time. Same theory applies with Trump. And yet, at the same time, it's July of an election year. So let's be realistic. The House isn't going to open up an impeachment inquiry. It's not a political winner. We have a pandemic to focus on. And even if he did get impeached, the Senate's not going to

remove him. And for those saying, well, that's the law. Look, I get it. But our first, second, and third priority has to be getting this guy out of office. So if an impeachment doesn't lend itself to our goal, then we have to be able to acknowledge that. We have to be able to see the forest through the trees, right? So what's the right answer? Look, if you're angry,

if you're worried about the state of our democracy, then our recourse right now, not to sound trite, is to vote. It's to make sure your whole family is registered. Even your little sister who, when you tell her you interviewed Adam Schiff, thought that was a Supreme Court justice. Even the people who do not follow politics, you engage them.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, the organizing can't just be left to the organizers. You have so much more influence over the people in your lives than some kid phone banking from 1,000 miles away. If everyone took care of their circles, their families, their friends, then that is flawless organization, foolproof organization. And there's no reason why we can't, but it's up to you. Even if you find one person who,

wouldn't have otherwise voted, then you've done your job. As Barack Obama says, don't boo, vote. Next up is my interview with New Jersey Senator and former presidential candidate Cory Booker. And with the issue of race underscoring so much of our politics right now, between Trump's rhetoric and the civil rights demonstrations across the country, there really was no one in a better position to be able to speak on this. Thanks to New Jersey Senator Cory Booker for joining. I really appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you for having me on. I should mention, too, I grew up in New Jersey. and you're the senator from my family who still lives there.

So in a lot of ways, I feel like you actually represent me as well. So let's jump in. You're from Newark, New Jersey. If anyone in the U.S. Senate is able to speak about racism in this country, it's you. So Trump is taken to defending Confederate statues, which, to be clear, that the Confederacy existed to protect slavery, period. So when Trump defends the Confederate flag and statues, do you perceive that as anything other than a racist dog whistle?

Is there any other way to look at this? I think that what we need to do is look at it in a larger historical context besides the sort of banality, demeaning, degrading, bigotry that our president has sort of evidenced at so many periods of his career. But I do think we cannot lose this fact that so many of our high elected leaders over the years have resorted towards rank racist demagoguery to try to instill fear and a kind of. momentum to their own political course. And so from Willie Horton to Wallace, to, I can go through the leaders that we've known that have used this kind of tactic. And I just think it's important that we see that in the historical context to know that so much of where our country is had deep streams of this kind of politics that is so affected our country and still has manifestations today. What do you think has been greater during the Trump era? The emboldened

of racist because of him, or the fight for equality that came about as a backlash to him? That story has to be told still, I guess. I learned from this incredible woman on the fifth floor of the projects in Newark right up the street from where I'm sitting now, who just seemed to really give me a full, a new definition of what hope meant. And it's not this sort of polyanish, just believe whole things are going to get better somehow. No, it's like, this is a woman whose son was murdered in the lobby of the building I would eventually move into, who saw the wretchedness and viciousness that this country could wield on people. And yet she still chose hope. And she taught me that to sort of hope is this active conviction that despair won't have the last

word. And so I'm just hoping that this is a time where people understand that we have to be instruments of the creation of a new America, that we have to play a role in this country achieving itself. I think it's still in search of itself. And Trump doesn't define us. He's not the last word, so to speak. And we have to be. I'm really worried, frankly, that this is going to be a period where people think that it's just about getting rid of Donald Trump. And then, you know, our work is done. And that would be tragic, in my opinion, because I don't want to go back to the days before Donald Trump. I mean, there are millions of children that still drank water with led in it before Donald Trump. There were people in my community still getting shot before Donald

Trump. There was African Americans relegated still in our nation in dramatic ways to lower funded schools than white children before Donald Trump. I mean, I can go through black women dying in childbirth almost four times that of white women before Donald Trump. And so this is really a moment where I hope it expands to something larger than a reaction to a racist president, but a larger commitment to the cause of our country in the face of persistent and institutional racial bias. And I think that's exactly what we're seeing, right? You know, like, especially with the, you know, the House's Justice and Policing Act, which you co-authored for the, for the Senate, and we'll get to that shortly, but a lot of this legislation is going to live on beyond Donald Trump.

So at least, you know, the silver lining for what has amounted to, you know, a really vile presidency with regard to race, a lot of this is being codified and reformed in the form of legislation. So I think that, you know, that is a silver lining that we're seeing out of all this. It's a legislative manifestation of a spirit of a nation, right? I've seen in a very short period of time, just I think to what you're saying, that our country is beginning to sort of have a racial reckoning, but we're still at the top of it. I mean, I watched this. A lot of people sort of became aware of the Greenwood massacre, the bombing of Wall Street. Well, there were massacres from Greenwood to Colfax, Louisiana.

I mean, there are so many slaughtering of African Americans, prosperous African Americans that African Americans are asserting their freedoms and their liberties in this country that we don't talk about, that we're in my great-grandparents generation and my grandmother's generation. And so there's a lot more work that we have to do. in this country. I think that legislation is often the tail end of a movement, right? There was a whole bunch of awareness happening around labor issues. There was books being written that are woken of people up like the jungle about meatpacking industry. There was the

Shirtwaste, Triangle Shirtwaste Factory Fire, tragic deaths of women who drew themselves. There was a whole bunch of this building up and then the legislation came. It was circles of empathy being expanded, response to the tragic. circumstances, awareness of the tragic circumstances that led to historical change. Well, I can tell you right now, I can give you policies that are right within our grasp that could eviscerate black poverty in the United States, that could eliminate the racial wealth gap for teens starting out in life. All these things are very possible. And it's, by the way, not radical policies. These are policies that reflect, frankly, the policies we've been doing to use our tax code

to shift wealth up, remember, things like the mortgage interest deduction is overwhelmingly used by people making over six figures in our country. It's a shifting of wealth. Well, there's things that we could do actually to create more equitable ends to a lot of these racial biases and schisms in our country. But I think that there's still more consciousness that has to happen where we're aware of this in order to produce the kind of change that we need. And I think a little bit of the onus also is on Democrats to make sure that Republicans can't, you know, hijack the conversation and the talking points here because, like you said, I mean, a lot of, you know, what we use, when it's used for, you know, the wealthiest people in this country, then it's

completely acceptable. But as soon as, you know, Democrats try to try to make sure that it's used, you know, to benefit lower income folks, well, then all of a sudden it's extremist. It's radical, right? And I think if we allow the right to dictate the terms of the conversation, then those are the traps we're going to fall into. I mean, absolutely. And I cannot tell you enough that the moments of backlash in this country have been real for African Americans when rights are beginning to be gained. I mean, the 13th, 14, 15th amendments, for example, led to massive backlashes throughout the South that sent African Americans who took a few steps forward way, way back. And so I think that this is a moment where I'm hoping there can't be backlashes because it's not seen as us versus them or black versus white, et cetera, et cetera, that we begin to understand how invested we are in each other and where people start seeing that wait a minute, this denial of African American dignity and humanity is hurting us all. mass incarceration costs us billions and billions of wasted dollars every year.

The criminal justice system, I go across the street from time to time and sit in the Integrity House which is this incredible drug treatment facility. And you just see many of the men in the circles who've been arrested multiple times before they had an opportunity to get treatment. And it's just a waste of our own dollars and treasure. We really belong to each other in this country. And so you're talking about Republican talking points. And in the back of my head, I'm sort of thinking, like, we will succeed when we get beyond seeing this as us versus them, left versus right, black versus white, and begin to have an understanding that right now, you and I are sitting here in a pandemic where America is exceptional in the wrong way, where we're an outlier, we politicize literally wearing a mask.

It's like we politicize science, which is not political, it's fact. And this kind of tearing each other apart is going to be to our own demise. And in this case, it's been the demise of tens of thousands of people. That's what I worry about, that we've got to get to a political culture where there is more of a common investment in the success of us all. Because right now, we are so hurting from this type of politics. We're so hurting from the, as I think a great deologian Martin Buber talked about, creating the other in a time when really there is one American destiny.

We've got to understand that. And once large sections of our country from immigrants to Latinos to blacks cannot be categorically so systematically denied equal opportunity, equal justice, equal housing, equal education without hurting the whole. Building off of that, in terms of the unification of these, you know, at least our parties, are you hearing from Republican colleagues that Trump's strategies here are a bad idea that attack. Jacking George Wallace and NASCAR and the NFL and basically any other entity where black people are involved is not a good strategy for their party? Look, I don't understand it. I watched him over the Fourth of July weekend perplexed because a defending the Confederate flag is just not a winning strategy in 2020.

It's just not. And so I don't see that. I haven't had the kind of conversations with my Republican friends, I have friends on the other side of the aisle. that, subsequent to that, those weekend speeches, I just don't get it right now. I think that this is a losing strategy for a presidential reelect. And he's constantly putting Republicans in his own administration and in the Senate and House in the position they have to defend the indefensible. Right.

And that's, that's really hurtful. And right now, we are, if the elections were held today, according to the polling, at least, we would take back the Senate. And he's, he's become. coming an albatross. And I was recently listening to some of Lindsey Graham's predictions about Donald Trump when they were competing against each other for the presidency. And Lincoln Graham said very pointedly that this guy is going to be the end of the Republican Party. Pretty prescient, huh? Yeah, very much so.

So what's the Republican defense against your bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol? I guess what I'm asking is, how do you reconcile being the party of patriots with the fact that the people they're defending are literally traitors? This is the outrage right now is I see Mississippi for crying out loud, changing its flag. The liberal bastion of Mississippi. Yes, the liberal bastion of the United States military, saying that we should change the names of a military basis. So when the United States military, which is not the most known to be a liberal organization or the state of Mississippi, is ahead of you, you should really want. that you are standing on a sort of racist relics.

It's just not the place you want, not the ground you want to stand on. I mean, this has sort of been my life of the last couple months, which is just like, I can't believe I have to stand on the Senate floor to try to get folks to pass an anti-lynching bill. I mean, it's 2020. The public is with us.

Republicans are with us. I can't believe that a traitorous regime that caused the bloodiest regime that caused the bloodiest, war in American history to defend the enslavement of God's children of your brothers and sisters that lasted four years, that there are states that think that these are the best representatives of their state. That is 100% not true. It is anti-democratic and it is so painfully unjust. And I'm just tired. It's just like, come on, I'm tired. Why are we stopping to fight these battles in the United States Senate.

When everybody knows they're on the wrong side of history on this issue. And so I'm going to keep pressing this. I'm going to keep fighting, even though I'm weary. I just think this party will die if it doesn't.

And their own, what was this? The Republicans, what do they call it? They did a self-examination right before Trump about what they had to do as a party and they talked about how do they have to start reaching out to minorities and for diversity. And they're literally right now engaged in the exact opposite that is so injurious, not just to their party, but to the soul of America.

So I can't be a political pundit for you, but I can't tell you as one senator, and I know I reflected by lots of Americans, it's just I'm tired of this. I'm just tired of this. These are battle, my energy, our energy should be focused on more urgent fights than this, than this fight, which should have been, there should be no fight. it should have been something done before my generation in America. Well, let me ask you. I mean, I think, you know, your feelings about this are obviously, you know, mirrored in

how millions and millions and millions of Americans feel about this, too. Do you think this is on purpose? Do you think that, you know, because we have a failed response to a pandemic that, you know, he's basically saying, like, okay, well, what can I do to piss the most people off with something easy, just some red meat to my base that can easily distract everybody and get them worked up over an issue that clearly they're passionate about. Well, again, I don't, I will never try to understand the mind of Donald Trump. It's not my ideal to be his psychoanalyst to figure out his motivations. My job is to fight him when he's trying to hurt people, is to resist him

when he's trying to do damage and harm to the country. And this is a presidency that I do not let myself that's distracted even by his rhetoric because the things he's doing, the rules he's making, the things he's failing to do from his Department of Education, not defending the rights and dignity of LGBTQ kids or black kids who are subject to different disciplinary practices, his Department of Justice that's failing to do any actions on pattern and practice investigations in police departments. I mean, this is a guy right now that is causing so much harm, and I haven't even started on the international things that he's doing that are so outrageous. So, look, there's 100 plus days until this guy's before the election.

And even then, I still have a lot of work to do when we see how COVID is so devastating black and Latino communities disproportionately in this country. And we've got legislation that we still have to work out. So I'm not getting in this guy's head. I don't know his politics and his political agenda. I know that I'm determined to defeat him and relegate him to the ignominious corners of our history as the most unsuccessful, the most failed presidency of modern era. And I am so confident that so much information is going to come out

that he's been blocking the release of, report after report up, that he will, when it's all laid bare, history will look down on this as the most shameful period. And all those who were complicit and enablers, King said it so eloquently. It's not the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, it's the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. if everybody who was offended by him,

and this is Republicans and Democrats are offended by so much as a rhetoric, just engaged and activated themselves in this upcoming election, he would get trounce. Mitch McConnell would be in the minority, if not out of the Senate, and we would actually start being able to do

significant policies that can unify this nation, heal this nation, and advance this country, because go through the countries right now that are opening their economies that have virtually ended the coronavirus, and we are still, showing it, 5% of the global population, 25% of its cases.

But I can go deeper than that. I mean, we are on a global battle right now. Most people don't see it this way, but on the Foreign Relations Committee, I see it between authoritarian governments and free democracies. And the authoritarian governments, by the way, the scoreboard from Hungary to Turkey, you see many countries lurching back towards authoritarianism, the democratic principles and values we hail are under assault. and the battles going on from the continent of Africa to South America.

And I'll tell you, when I have to argue with people that, you know, China builds 18,000 miles of high-speed rail, and the busiest rail corridor in America goes from Boston to Washington, D.C., through our native state, and it runs half an hour slower than it did in the 1950s. Because we have such a broken political system right now. And so we have work to do. This globe needs America. It needs us to deal with our own distraught present. It needs us to deal with our own unexamined history.

It needs us to heal. It needs us to come together. It needs us to grow. It needs us to believe the beloved country that everybody from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King believe we could be. If we can achieve that and be the multicultural nation of love, put more indivisible into this one.

nation under God. There's nothing America can't do and achieve. And then we'll leave humanity again in ways that are substantive and important. But right now, we're in a tumult. We are in a struggle. And I think a lot of it's going to play out over this next 365 days to see how we emerge out of this. And so right now is not a time to get distracted by those who want to distract us. They want to be the center of conversation. Now's the time to do the work that makes a democracy function, which is to organize and to get people out to vote and to get people disturbed who are comfortable, get them out of their seats, get them onto the field. Because this ain't a democracy is not a spectator sport. We've got to participate. We've got to engage. We've got to fight.

Well said. So let's talk about some of those reforms that we want to see moving forward. The House's Justice and Policing Act, which again, you co-sponsored in the Senate. It ended no knock warrants. It banned chokeholds. It ended in qualified immunity. The Senate's Justice Act didn't. I believe that the GOP's entire participation here was in bad faith. So is there anything that you would change if the Democrats end up taking the White House and both chambers of Congress in the bill to make it more robust, you know, that you might have moderated so that it would pass this Senate? So let's be clear. The bill that passed the House is the bill that I help offer. We all came together, me and Kamala and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus,

Karen Bass, head of the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Natalie. all of us just met and crafted out a bill that was merrily tailored to stop black lives from being killed in the immediacy. So all those things you said, chokeholds, chronic holds, Eric Gardner would be alive. No knock warrants and drug cases, Brianna Taylor would be alive to hold police accountable so that the guy who put his knee on the neck and killed, tortured and killed George Floyd, that the family of George Floyd would be able to sue him in federal court, for civil rights damages. These are the kind of things that are not in the Senate Republican bill,

but that are in the bill that I co-authored with Kamala Harris and others. I want this to be done because it would create transparency on policing around America like we've never seen historically so that activists, leaders, others can have a full understanding

of the patterns and practices, are they the traffic stops or pedestrian stop? What's the race breakdown? this would be laid bare for the public to see, which is really important. Sun China is the best disinfectant. Number two is it would set standards or ban those practices, you and I have already mentioned. And three, it would create consequences when you break our common standards, which is holding people accountable in federal courts. But that's immediate, and that will help save lives.

And that should bring us to, when you talk about what I'd like to see, a more robust legislation, yeah, there are things we know in America that make police and prisons unnecessary. We know that, and this might surprise you, but like expanding Medicaid actually lowers crime. Expanding the earned income tax credit, making people more economically secure, lowers crime. There are so many things that we don't do as a society that would elevate human well-being and human flourishing, lower the need for police, lower the need for prisons, and get us out from being the incarceration nation and begin to get us to a nation of freedom, liberty, and good well-being. And so that's the kind of stuff that we, from drug treatment to mental health care, that we need to start having

us as a society as opposed to locking us in this really expensive golden handcuffs that is the American criminal justice system that we've got to stop paying for. We're paying for it with treasure. We're paying for it with lives. And we're paying for it, unfortunately, with with the potential of so many people that are robbed of their potential when they get wrapped up in the criminal justice system. So if Democrats take the White House and the Senate, none of our agenda items get passed with the filibuster intact. And just days ago for the first time, we've heard more moderate members of the Senate, Democrats like Chris Coons and Joe Manchin signal an openness

to doing so. What's it like behind the scenes with regard to talk about ending the filibuster among Democrats? So first of all, these levels to our change that we need to make. If Donald Trump is gone and Mitch McConnell is in the minority, or gets beaten in Kentucky, we have a lot we can do right away. Remember, the toxic Trump tax plan was passed through a process called reconciliation. 51 votes. Yeah, exactly. And they got 54 votes for it.

And that tax bill shifted trillions of dollars of wealth out of the pockets of many Americans here in New Jersey. I can tell you all the ways from losing our state and local tax money to not just the wealthiest, but the corporations who then use it for stock buybacks, a third of our stock market. is owned by people outside of our country. So it enriched many people outside of America and blew massive holes in our deficit. So I'm telling you right now,

before we even get to the filibuster, and I'm going to answer my thoughts on the filibuster, but I just want you to know that just through the tax bill, we can cut poverty in America in half, expand the child tax credit, expand the earned income tax credit. That is a radical reshaping of America's society.

We can go further than cutting it. half by doing other things. We can take public education and create a whole new tax bracket. We can get rid of carrying interest for the wealthiest tax exclusion, but we can create, hey, if you're working in a public school, we're going to give you a different tax bracket. So you, in effect, teachers, school psychologists, councils will all get a pay raise. There are so many creative things that you can do through the tax code. Because the tax code should reflect our priorities. Right now, I do not think the average priority of Americans is the kind of corporate tax incentives, transfers of wealth that we see going to the wealthiest amongst

us. So I just want you to know it's not all for loss. I don't want to engage in that cynicism that says it won't change without the filibuster. We can't do major, major strides. But yes, when you start talking about environmental policy, while I can do some things by stopping all these tax breaks for oil companies and doing them more for renewables, there are other things that I'd like to see in immigration law, in environmental law, and others. And so how do you do those without, if you only have 51 votes in the United States Senate? And so I think it's right that you see moderates in the Senate that are not willing to take it off the table to really have a conversation at that point.

And I've actually, you asked me the question, which I maybe smiled, because I actually did in the, they aren't quite a cloak room, have a conversation with some other senators about the filibuster. So those conversations actually are had, and I think it's really, really constructive. And I think that we're going to have to have a larger national dialogue about that as well that should start, hopefully, the day after the election in November. So what was your most memorable day from the campaign trail while you were running for president? You know, I've been getting very touched now because we've done sort of reunion calls with people I met on the campaign and just seeing these.

the degree of kindness and grace that I experienced from supporters and those were not supporters. It was the most difficult sort of grueling, time-intensive year of my life, but it was also the most rewarding and improving, personally improving year. And it gave me just a deeper faith in America. My girlfriend had a T-shirt on that was given me by a woman named Nancy Bobo, because in my campaign, one of the stories I would always tell was the last words of one of my great mentors on his deathbed, who, when I was told he couldn't speak, but when I came in and announced myself, I'd say, hey, Frank, it's Corey. And he said, I see you. He forced the words out. And then I sat with him for a while, just telling him how much you met with me. And I was getting ready to leave him. And I kissed him on the forehead and held him tight and said, I love you, Frank. And then all he could get out was, I love you. And those words, I see you, I love you. you, I see you, became such a spiritual mantra of our campaign in this country, so many people, do we see them, the person is struggling with mental health, do you see them, the person who is considering suicide, do you see them, the mother works two jobs, but still can barely afford

rent, and just this idea of being seen and being loved and what does love mean, really, in the public space, it means justice, quality, opportunity. And so it was touching to my girlfriend that they had a shirt on that this woman, incredible woman in Iowa, made for her. They just said those words. And I think that this campaign really made me love and see my country so much deeper than I had before and just taught me that you can run a campaign not on anger. Anger is a constructive emotion, but really run it with a call to love and a call to empathy and a call to seeing the dignity and the humanity and everybody and find traction with that

in a time when we all are often triggered and reacting to Donald Trump to be able to make a narrative that it's not about him, it's about us. It's not a referendum on who he is. It's a referendum on who we are. That we can't fight that darkness with darkness. We've got to bring light.

I mean, that experience of being able to speak to that every single day was fortifying to me as it found residents and other people who had the same yearning that I had for a more beloved country. And so this was a gift to me that, not the T-shirt, but this whole spirit was a gift to me in a way that I'll never forget. And I think, you know, I'm guilty of it too. You can, it's so easy to get sucked into, you know, the darkness around Donald Trump. And I think, you know, especially on this campaign trail, your voice was singularly, you know, stood out in that way. And it was so important to this campaign. And I don't think that was lost on anyone. So let's switch gears here. We're both from New Jersey.

I want to do a New Jersey lightning round. But here's the thing. There is a right and a wrong answer to every question here. I'm afraid. And I'm up for your election right now. You're about to put me in jeopardy. This might seal the deal for you. You never know, right? Go ahead. I'm really afraid. Is it pork roll or Taylor ham? See, I literally was going to anticipate this question because I am a vegan now. It is neither. You know what? Just because you're a vegan, that is the correct answer.

Just because you're a vegan, that's the correct answer. Have you ever really experienced joy if you've never eaten at Wawa? No, you have not. Correct. Does anyone from New Jersey actually call it Joy Z? I have not met a Jersey person who said Jozy ever. That's correct as well. Should they have allowed to show Jersey Shore to destroy the reputation of our once great state?

Hell, no. That's the correct answer. I have a chip on my shoulder. I'm called to love every. We are all called to love everybody, but I have a problem with Snooky and the situation to this day. That's the correct answer. Is there a central jersey? Wow.

So this is a hot political question. And I have been converted on this to now say, yes, there is a central jersey. Absolutely the correct answer. All right. What's a word that New Jersey has taught you to say incorrectly? I'm embarrassed about, I'm about to admit this. But as a kid, I thought idea was spelled with an R. I really, it's crazy, but I did as a little kid.

That speaks to me on such a deep level. I went to California for college, so I was teased mercilessly about my Jersey accent out there. It's the weirdest thing. We add R's to words that, like, end in A. And words that end in R, we end them with A's. It's the weirdest thing. I called it a sock draw until I went to college. I was like, you know, I just channeling my, you know, my Jewish grandmother here. And I just like, but you keep it in the sock drawer. I keep it in the closet. And finally, you became known for for dad jokes on the campaign trail. What was your best? dad joke. Your best dad joke lay it on me. I think my best dad joke is always the last

dad joke. And so I'll give you the one I love right now that I've been telling too much people's pain and maybe to put in jeopardy my reelection to the Senate. But what should you call a guy who tells dad jokes who has no children? What? A faux pa. I guess I didn't take into account that I would have to react to your dad joke when I asked you. You literally, I saw a look of pain and exhaustion by your face that could not be faked. It's been a long four years, you know. Yeah, well, you know, as hard as it's made it for us, there's a lot of love for New Jersey. We've done all right in our life.

We have. We made Jersey a little more proud of both of us. And at the very least, if nothing else, at least we have, you know, Bruce and Bon Jovi. So there's always that. Thank God. Yes. All right, Senator Cory Booker. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

Thank you very much. Thanks again to Senator Booker. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode,

please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.