No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Democrats get unexpected great news in Michigan

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

Democrats get some good news in Michigan ahead of midterms. Brian interviews Congressman Jamie Raskin about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago crimes, what we can expect with the next round of January 6 Committee hearings, and his message to Independents and Republicans ahead of November. And Alaska’s new Democratic congresswoman, Mary Peltola, joins to discuss how she plans on translating her special election win into a general election win and how she won in a traditionally red state.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee 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 talk about some good news for Democrats in Michigan ahead of midterms. I interview Congressman Jamie Raskin about Trump's Moralago crimes, what we can expect with the next round of January 6th committee hearings, and his message to independence and Republicans ahead of November. And I'm joined by Alaska's new Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola, where we discuss how she plans on translating her special election win into a general election win, and how she won in a traditionally red state. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. All right, so some good news this week in what's been already a really, really good summer for Democrats. And it comes in a swing state. So in Michigan last week, the Republican-led Board of Canvassers, which is responsible for determining what ballot measures make it onto the November ballot,

they'd rejected a referendum put forward by Democrats and abortion rights groups that would allow voters to add protections for abortion rights to the state constitution. Now, to be clear, there were hundreds of thousands more signatures that were required to get it on the ballot. but the Republican-led board decided that there were some spacing issues between some words, and so clearly the signers must have been confused, and so clearly this measure wouldn't qualify for the November ballot. So the Republican-led board voted against including it on the ballot for midterms. Pretty grim, pretty dark that the Republicans entrusted with executing these laws

are so shameless that they'll do whatever they can to actually ignore those laws for their own personal partisan benefit. But there's good news. The decision was appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which voted to overturn the decision of the state board and put the referendum on the ballot. The Chief Justice called the board's rejection attempts, quote, a sad marker of the times. She wrote in her opinion, quote, they would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders, not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad. Now, it's pretty obvious why Republicans tried to do this. Like, just look at Kansas.

This abortion question is devastating for the GOP. If two-thirds of voters in Kansas are going to come out in a red state like that to protect abortion rights, imagine what's going to look like in Michigan, a state that's already elected a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators. And with close races in Michigan's third, seventh, eighth, and 10th congressional districts, this is going to have pretty massive implications all the way up the ballot. Republicans know that, and so they figured they could take the air out of Democratic voters' sales. But in reality, here's what Michigan Republicans actually accomplished here.

First, they proved the stric-stand effect was real, because if you thought that people were going to show up before when this proposal wasn't super publicized, wasn't a national story, guess what people are going to do now? Guess how many more people know about this, including the people like listening to this show who didn't know before? Republicans tried to score some cheap win. Instead, they not only lost, but lit a fire under the asses

of every single person they were trying to disenfranchise. voters see that. They know when they're being screwed over. Remember, for example, in April of 2020, right after COVID hit, super dangerous, people were dying. There was no vaccine. And there was a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race. And Democrats wanted to postpone that race because people were dying. And maybe it wasn't the best idea to cram a bunch of people into a polling place five minutes after a global pandemic hit. Republicans went to court. They won. Forced that election to be held anyway. the number of polling places in Milwaukee, for example,

shrank from 180 down to five, meaning that a city of almost 600,000 people had to cram into five polling places in the heart of a pandemic, all because Republicans wanted to use that to their advantage. And guess what happened? People showed up, and the liberal justice, Joe Kirovsky, won by like 11 points in Wisconsin,

a state that Trump won by less than a point. The lesson being that people do not like to be fucked with when it comes to their rights. But here's another major point. It's not just Michigan where a referendum like this is going to appear on the ballot. Voters in Montana and Kentucky will vote on Republican measures to restrict abortion, and voters in California and Vermont will vote on measures to codify abortion rights. Think about the implications for the House.

Montana's first congressional district is only slightly Republican. That could be flipped. In California, we've got a ton of toss-ups in close races. Ninth congressional district, 13, 22, 27, where Christy Smith, who I just said on last week is running the 41st, 45th, 47th, 49th. In fact, if you go to 538's website, if you have just two Democrats who are running in swing districts win, like, for example, Christy Smith and Pat Ryan,

who just won his special election in New York's 18th, if you mark those two as Democratic wins in this 2022 midterms, then Democrats are favored to win the House 53 to 47. So having a referendum like this on the ballot in a state like California, like Michigan, even in Montana, is massively important. Republicans know that, which is why they tried so hard to prevent it from happening. The ultimate irony, of course, is that this is all an issue of Republicans' own making. No one forced them to overturn Roe.

They did it themselves. If Republicans didn't want the blowback that comes from stripping women of the reproductive rights, then don't strip women of their reproductive rights. That's the thing. They're all scrambling for these 11th hour band-aids to quell the bleeding. But at the same time, they're touring the country explaining how women being raped should still seek healing through the birth of that child, explaining how incest victims

should have to give birth to their own brother or sister or cousin, explaining how they're so pro-life that they're banning abortion even when the life of the mother's at risk. That's how pro-life they are. So if Republicans are looking for someone to blame for the raft of abortion referendums in the states, they can start with the Republicans. In the meantime, our job stays the same.

It's to not get distracted by whatever desperate distraction attempts are being cooked up by the right. Remember, gas prices have gone down every day, for almost three months. Inflation already peaked and it's on its way down. Democrats have delivered in a massive way legislatively. The biggest climate bill in history, lower prescription drug costs,

IRS enforcement on tax cheats, a corporate minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations that paid nothing. Veteran health care funding, semi-conductor chip funding, student loan debt forgiveness for 43 million borrowers, infrastructure, the American Rescue Plan, a strength in NATO, the leader of Al-Qaeda was killed.

10 million jobs have been added, and we have a historically low unemployment rate. In the coming weeks, we should expect to see the Electoral Count Act passed. Compare that with the Republican's agenda of banning abortions, banning the mention of the existence of LGBT Americans, banning dropboxes, banning polling places, and threatening to strip away Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That's what's on the ballot.

It is as simple as that. So if you find yourself on one side of those issues, then make sure you have a plan to vote in fewer than 60 days. Make sure your friends, your family, your neighbors, your coworkers have a plan. Because what happens in November is going to change. change this country forever, so make sure that you have a say. Next up is my interview with Jamie Raskin. Now we've got one of my all-time favorites, Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Thanks so much for coming on. I'm delighted to be with you. So new this week is the development that among the stolen Mar-a-Lago documents, Trump had materials pertaining to a foreign nation's nuclear capabilities. Now, to what extent does that make Mar-a-Lago a target for, you know, foreign agents, for example, who would clearly benefit from having that information. Like, what are the national security risks of having the most sensitive information

on the face of the earth sitting, God knows how many feet away from the omelette station at Trump's Beach Resort? Well, Mar-a-Lago has been a target for foreign agents and assets for a long time. This is nothing new. It's an extremely porous and vulnerable environment with people coming in and out all the time,

big events, people wandering around. And it's certainly not the place for Pilford government documents to be lying around, much less top secret and classified documents. I'm no national security expert, but I would presume that classified documents folders don't come empty. The FBI found 48 empty classified documents folders in Mar-a-Lago. So in terms of what was in those, like we obviously haven't even scratched the surface, is it possible for the government to identify what's missing? And what are the implications of not just stolen documents now, but missing classified documents?

I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, it may be possible to reconstruct the missing contents of a particular folder if the folder designates what the contents are, you know, if there's some kind of sticker or identification, but that's obviously a profoundly troubling thing to have all of these empty folders laying around and top secret documents being mixed in with confidential documents and other classified documents with other junk all just tossed in together like a, you know, a college freshman's dorm room. Yeah.

You know, it's not a place for these things to be, but it's not just a question of the confidential and top secret documents. All of these were government documents that were stolen that are the property of the people of the United States and not a former president. You may have noticed that the Constitution of the United States does not have a provision creating an office of former president. You know, there are constitutions to do that in other parts of the world where former presidents have certain kinds of rights and privileges that are special, but, you know, what do you call a former president in America? You call them a citizen, and that's what they are. You know, we spend so much time in this hellish dystopia that is our political ecosystem today comparing Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton because it's 2022 and Hillary's been out of politics for

the better part of a decade. So why wouldn't we be talking about her? But given this new information related to Moralago, what do you say to someone who tries to draw an equivalency between Trump and Clinton or still tries to contend that what she did was worse? Yeah, someone like Donald Trump, for example, who does that? Well, I mean, Donald Trump wanted to lock her up, as everybody remembers, for using that private email server where there were absolutely zero classified emails. in there. And that has been determined in investigation after investigation. There were just

no classified emails. And whereas with Donald Trump, of course, we know that there are more than a hundred classified documents that he purloined and pilfered from the U.S. government on his way out and all these other government documents as well. And Hillary, of course, was never accused of stealing anything, he was just accused of using that private email server, which, of course, lots of members of the Trump administration did as well. So there's no comparison between those two cases. I think at this point, a lot of people see the abject criminality here. They see stolen documents. They see stolen materials on nuclear capabilities, empty folders, Marlago is getting infiltrated by Russian-speaking foreign actors. It's such a shit show.

And the criminality is so obvious, and we all know that if it was anybody else, they'd be in prison so fast their head would spin. And I think that people just want to see some accountability. So this is a two-parter, but what's the punishment that we're looking at here? And what's the timeline that you would imagine it would take for something to be handed down? Well, I got to step back for a second and just remind you that I'm a member of the January 6th Select Committee. And we're not working on that stuff. We're working on a different set of crimes, which I think are historic crimes in the United States, a president who set out to overthrow a presidential election and help to incite

and unleash a violent insurrection against the government. We on the committee were all taken totally by surprise by this new scandal that's erupted. but Donald Trump is, of course, a one-man crime wave. And so every day we learn about new things that he's done. So, you know, I don't want to speculate about, you know, what the ultimate criminal prosecution and consequences may be. I do agree with you entirely that there's great frustration in the public that it seems as if Donald Trump, like a slippery mob boss,

is able to wiggle his way out of any particular situation with his money, his lawyers, his invocation of phony legal doctrines and so on. And I'm just betting that he's met his match in the January 6th Select Committee and Chairman Benny Thompson and our Vice Chair Liz Cheney and in the members of the committee because we're all determined to get to the bottom of this massive assault on the rule of law in American constitutional democracy. That's the perfect segue into the January 6th committee. So first off, can you give a quick overview of what's next to the J6 committee, like when do hearings begin? How long will they last?

You know, we've not made any formal announcements or decisions about those. My guess, as one member, is that we're talking about a small handful of hearings to come to complete the picture on different things that we, were left still guessing about at the end of the first round of hearings. You know, there is some mystery around all of these missing texts in the Secret Service and the Department of Defense. What have we been able to find out about that? What can we determine about how that happened. And, you know, there are some lingering details about what exactly the former president had in mind when he wanted to march into the Capitol with the violent mob that he had unleashed against Congress and against Vice President Pence. What exactly did he think was going to happen?

And it would be great if we could reconstruct his final intent with respect to completing the coup and the insurrection. So those are, you know, those are some loose ends that it would be nice to tie up. But look, there is overwhelming evidence and clarity about what happened. Donald Trump refused to take no for an answer from the American people. and he set about in a half a dozen different ways to try to overthrow the election result, always in violation of the rule of law. And he sent a mob which he knew to be armed and dangerous directly at the Capitol where he knew the vice president was

and where he knew members of Congress were. Nothing like that has ever happened in American history. You know, the January 6th committee itself kind of became the news when Trump began trying to tamper with witnesses who had yet to testify before the committee. Are we going to hear more information or do you suspect that we'll hear more information about those efforts when these hearings resume? I don't know the answer to that question. And I've not been, you know, I've not been intensely involved in that aspect of the investigation.

I think there may be other members who have really concentrated on that. that question. But in my opinion, Donald Trump believes there's no crime so big or so serious that he can't use another crime to try to get out of it. Yeah. What do you think was the single most effective moment from the first round of hearings? Well, you know, as I talk to different people, people have different responses to parts that created epiphanies and conceptual breakthroughs. For me, I found it electrifying when Cassidy Hutchinson's reported Donald Trump saying, take down the mags, take down the magnetometers, take down the metal detectors, let these people in. These are my people and they're not going to hurt me, effectively.

And that was a critical moment that demonstrated his understanding that the mob was armed and dangerous and likely to be violent. And he didn't care about that because he knew that they were not targeting their wrath at him. And even after he was aware of the chance of hang Mike Pence, and even after he was aware that the mob had entered the capital and that public officials were in danger, he continued to incite them. So these things are enormously revealing and telling. And it's only when you enter the hall of mirrors of Donald Trump's mind that you can think of anything that would possibly rehabilitate or exonerate him. And I hope that people are restoring their basic sense of reality in the Biden administration

so they can see how outlandish and outrageous all of these things are. I remember being especially struck by hearing from Seamus and Lady Ruby because, you know, as bad as it is, we kind of expect this kind of vitrile in the political space. But these are just regular people who weren't prepared for what came to them. And I remember there was one moment in particular where I believe it was Seamus. had just downloaded Facebook Messenger for the first time. And what she saw waiting for her on Facebook Messenger was just a barrage of threatening racist, sexist texts

and messages. And just to like kind of be hit with that like an avalanche. You know, it's not just that it happened. It's that now it's going to be that much more difficult to recruit other people to do the right thing, to do what these people were doing, which was just their civic duty. And showing up and being elections workers,

something that we desperately need to do. and then it creates this vacuum that's then filled by bad actors. And so that was... Well, I mean, Shea Moss is an extraordinary representative of American electoral democracy and action. I mean, we don't have a democracy if we don't have Shea Moss and people like her who are willing to wake up early and get down to the polling place and check people in and, you know, make sure that people. people are getting their absentee ballots and explaining how the system works. I mean, she is the face of how American democracy works, like Donald Trump, is the face of how American plutocracy and autocracy and kleptocracy and theocracy work, you know, through all of his

evil design. So that was a remarkable moment, too. I agree with you. Another similar to that was Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger. This guy's a lifelong Republican who's a poured his heart and soul and money into the Donald Trump campaign, and they're willing to throw him under the bus and to unleash the wrath of the mob against him. Anybody who does not follow the cult leader to a T will get their just rewards from Donald Trump. Yeah. You know, something I've been struck by this past week was that the media seems to be falling back on the same both sides as them that was so prevalent leading up to the 2016 election. You know, On one side, we've got Trump who stole classified documents.

We've got nuclear secrets floating around. He's pushing the big lie. His accolites are denying election results. But at the same time, Joe Biden uttered the word semi-fascist. And so there's clearly an optics issue on both sides. What's your take on this? And what's the media's responsibility in all this? And are we expecting too much from what is, in effect, just another for-profit entity?

Well, I think it's important for us to talk about what are the characteristics of a fascist political movement and a fascist political party. One of them is an authoritarian cult of personality where one person dictates to everyone else what the party line is and everybody follows it like a lemmings. Another is a refusal to accept election results that go against the fascist movement. And another is an embrace of political violence

as an instrument of securing state power. So let people form their own conclusions about that. We don't have to call names. By the way, I never heard the expression a semi-fascist before. I've never heard of anybody being called a semi-fascist. So that might indeed cloud the picture a little bit, but I'm very happy to talk to people about fascist movements and fascist parties. And everybody should check out the late Secretary of State Madeline Albright's book

where she said it's a mistake to think that all fascist movements have the exact same ideological content. There are certain thematic currents that appear and reappear in different guises, racism and anti-Semitism and authoritarianism and sexism and misogyny and immigrant bashing and so on. But she said what fascism really is is a strategy for taking power and using whatever ideological ammunition is needed to achieve. That's a clarifying analysis. So let's finish off with this. It's recently come out in an NBC poll that threats to democracy is the number one issue among voters right now in the U.S.

What's your message, particularly to independents and Republicans who may otherwise bristle at the idea of voting for a Democrat, but at the same time who recognize that what's happening right now isn't tenable? Well, I'll address both independents and Republicans. I mean, for independents, come to a political party that is very big, that is heterogeneous, that has a diversity of viewpoints, where critical thinking is welcomed and encouraged, and where we need your intellectual and moral independence. I'm all for that. We're not a perfect party. We've had flaws historically.

I'm sure we've got flaws today. But we are a pro-democracy party, and we're the only pro-democracy party left. So I'm thrilled to learn that two-thirds of independence are coming our way, and I think more than that will come our way. As for Republicans, Abraham Lincoln created your party, and Abraham Lincoln created your party as an anti-slavery party, as an anti-racist party as that was understood at the time, and as a party opposed to bashing immigrants. I mean, the Republican Party was determined to beat the no-nothings, a party that Lincoln hated, and he hated the idea that there was a party that instead of trying to encourage people to come to America and to create businesses and to enjoy religious freedom and political freedom and to be part of society instead insisted on harassing and terrorizing and demonizing immigrants. So the great political party that Lincoln founded as a third party has been turned into an authoritarian cult of personality by Donald Trump. So I say more power to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsiger and Mitt Romney and those who are trying to stay and fight to reclaim and rebuild Lincoln's party. But if they give up, I'm fighting for a Democratic Party and a Democratic movement.

that will be big enough to absorb these people. One of the things we learn from history is that the liberal and progressive parties rarely defeat fascist movements and racist movements and authoritarian coups on their own. It's always a coalition between the center left and the center right that make sure the center will hold for constitutional democracy. So we need these people, too, standing. up for democracy. But at the same time, I look forward to the day when I can disagree with them

again in public without being afraid of undermining them. Because, look, democracy is not really a static, stationary object. It's always a moving thing. And we've got millions of disenfranchised people in the country. We got 713,000 residents of the nation's capital who are the only residents of a national capital on earth who are disenfranchised in their own legislature. In Parliament, we need D.C. statehood. We need Puerto Rican statehood. Tocqueville said that democracy is either shrinking and shriveling away with voting rights or it's growing and it's expanding. And we've got to get American political democracy back on the growth track. Perfectly put. We'll leave it there. Jamie Raskin, thank you so much

for taking the time. Always a pleasure to be with you. Okay, now we have Mary Peltola, the first woman to represent Alaska in the House, the first Native American to represent Alaska in the House, and the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the House in 50 years. Congratulations. Thank you, Brian. So the first question on everyone's mind, how do you translate a special election win into a general election win, since Republicans are obviously going to have some time to retool? Well, I think the first thing to do is to make sure that everyone understands I'm not here to represent. a small subsect of Alaska, whether that's Alaska natives or rural people or women or Democrats. This seat really belongs to every Alaskan, and I just really need to overtly be letting people know that I recognize that. Another piece of it is looking carefully at the

election results from August 16th and looking at where I have deficiencies, where I wasn't as effective meeting people face to face and sharing my message of collaboration and working together to effectively represent Alaska and address our challenges and capitalize on our opportunities. Now, heading into November, I know Sarah Palin's going to be running in the general election. Do you expect that Nick Begich will stay in the race as well? And are midterms going to be ranked choice again, meaning like it's possible we could see an exact repeat of this special election? It is a lineup of myself, Sarah Palin, Nick Begich, and Chris Bai, who is a libertarian candidate. We are the four ranked choice options on the November 8th ballot.

And it will be another ranked choice opportunity. And it will be largely the same candidates just with the addition of Chris By. Now, I know there's a lot of talk about Sarah Palin's unpopularity, but you ran a race centered on Alaskans. Can you talk a little bit about the race that you ran? Sure. The 10 years that I served in the state legislature, it became obvious to me very quickly that you have to operate with a mentality of having 59 best friends. There's 60 members of the legislature, 40 in the House and 20 in the Senate. And you've got to have positive working relationships if you're going to accomplish anything. And that also includes to the third floor, to the governor's administration. So that experience, you can't unlearn. And so I've really taken that mindset to every other job that I've had. And I think that it is the only way to be successful is if you have constructive, positive working relationships with people where they know that you're not attacking them, they know that you're not there to make

them look bad or feel bad, that you really are looking at the task at hand and doing the best job you can to get the job done. Now, what was the platform that your campaign was centered on and will you be able to bring that to the general election in November? So we had four planks to this campaign. I'm pro jobs, pro family, pro fish and pro choice. And I do plan on using those same four planks going forward because I think that each of those is unifying in its own way. And each of them appeal maybe to different Alaskans from different portions. We have six regions within our state, and they're all so unique. And, you know, I mean, we really have completely different ecosystems aside from economic systems and logistics footprint areas. But each of these things, I think,

resonates with people in each of the six regions. Can you expand a little bit upon the pro-choice element of this? Because obviously, that's been a major issue since the Dobbs ruling was handed down. You look at a state like Alaska, just as we look at states like Kansas, for example, and voters are turning out in droves supporting reproductive rights. Can you just talk a little bit about what that's been like in what we've known to be a red state like Alaska? Absolutely. Alaskans have had legal abortion since before Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. Alaskans, I think very appropriately, we are covetous of our liberties. We're covetous of our privacy, and that certainly includes a women's reproductive rights. And where I come from

on this issue, and I don't think this is broadly known, and I don't talk about this to exacerbate divisiveness, but one of the elements of the history of Alaska natives and lower 48 American Indians is this history of being sterilized without knowing or consenting to that sterilization. And, you know, in our history, there has been a concerted effort to have us assimilate and then erase us. And so part of that erasure movement was prohibiting families from growing. And that is a reproductive, you know, that's, in my opinion, that's part of a woman's reproductive right. How and when she grows her family is just such a sacred part of a person's life and the development of families and communities. And I don't think that's anyone's business,

but that woman and her family. Now, on that exact note, and this might include the issue of abortion, but was there a message or an issue that resonated with Republicans and independence as you were out there on the campaign trail? Because obviously in a state like Alaska, you're not going to be to win a statewide election without the support of those people? I think that it was important for Republicans and independents to know that I'm pro jobs and that I am going to fight hard for Alaskan families to have jobs that provide livable wages that ensure that we can find appropriate housing for our families. I talked about the importance of having quality schools for our kids to go to, the importance of having appropriate infrastructure roads and

airports and logistics supply chain. I've talked about inflation. But one of the things that has really struck me is how many people, regardless of party affiliation, regardless of where you are, is the preservation of democracy as a very top-of-mind concern. for Alaskans. And after seeing what happened on January 6th, we've seen where the divisive rhetoric and how powerful words are. And it can spur people into action in a very negative way. And in talking with Alaskans, there is recognition that we've got to be overt about bringing people together, about collaborating. You know, one of the things that I've said throughout the campaign is we now have very formidable

international enemies. We've seen foreign aggression in terms of China. We've seen foreign aggression in terms of Russia. And these are pretty close neighbors of ours. And it is not in our best interest to be fighting so hard against each other. we're really tearing each other apart. And I just think it's important to articulate anywhere I can. No American is an enemy of mine. I will never say, I will never call any American my enemy because we're not enemies. We're in this together. And I think on that note, Alaskans are very concerned about having a society where we're not able to engage in civil discourse. Civility and respectfulness are oftentimes a distant memory. And in the age that I grew up in, I mean, I remember watching presidential debates where the worst thing a candidate said was, oh, there he goes again. And that's

just, you know, I long for those times. And I long for the times when the two parties could fight on the floor and then go out to dinner and their wives were friends and their kids all went to the same school and recognizing we're all in this together. I think that we've got to every single one of us be working on watching how we say, watching the words that we use, and getting back to civility. I think what's interesting to is, you know, you mentioned the threats to democracy being a major issue among those on the right. That actually comports with the latest NBC news poll that said that found that the most important issue facing the country right now, a plurality of registered voters, is threats to democracy. So, you know, it's comforting to hear that from a state like Alaska that we

would, you know, that we could just cast off as a red state. It's, it's comforting to know that that there's like a degree of concern about exactly that issue. You know, something I've never understood is that so much of Alaska's identity is, is its natural beauty, right? It's, its environment. And all of that is at risk due to climate change. There's only one party who even believes that climate change is real, much less a threat. So where's the disconnect here in the political parties because I'd imagine that Alaskans, the majority of whom are Republicans, but I'd imagine that they would be the first ones to recognize the importance of preserving our climate and protecting our ice shelves and on and on. And so I guess what I don't understand is

how you can have an entire state whose entire identity is its natural beauty. And yet we see so much support for a party with such little regard for it. Well, one of the things that I'm working on doing is when I talk about global climate change, talking about I believe the science behind global climate change. I believe the data and the way that scientists have interpreted this data. And yes, climate change has been part of Earth's history. It will continue to be part of Earth going forward, but not at this accelerated level. In my lifetime, I, I have seen, with my own eyes, I've witnessed it, these very long growing seasons where Alder and Willow are just, it's just amazing to see how prolific Alder and Willow are because

our springs start so early and our fall start so, and so late. I've witnessed five winters where we haven't had adequate snow cover and so we've lost tarmigan and rabbits because tarmigan actually sleep in the snow they burrow in the snow and they turn white for camouflage so when they have nowhere to sleep and and be protected and they're exposed to the owls and hawks and foxes who eat them this has real consequences understanding that with ocean temperatures rising and ocean acidification we are losing the food source for Chinook salmon. It's zooplankton. And zooplankton is primarily cartilage, and it can't calcify with the acidity levels that we're seeing now. And our fish are literally starving. And those are real things. They're backed by science. You can see them with your

own eyes. So I just think that we need to make it less of a debate. It's not a debate. The science is proof. And I believe in Western science. So I'm not sure that it's even worth anybody's time to discuss it. It's just a fact. And so do you think that that issue is starting to resonate with people there, regardless of political identity? Because you're right in the sense that it's not worth debating because it's not debatable. I mean, it's a settled issue, but there is only one party, and that is the Republican Party who continues to deny its existence. So do you find that Like within your state where all of those issues are so prevalent and so important that it's that that's becoming more of a litmus test issue for people who might have otherwise identified

as Republicans in the past, but now who rely on these fisheries, who rely on so much of agriculture and the actual terrain of Alaska? You know, the folks that I tend to talk to, and unfortunately that the reality of America is we're all so comfortable in our echo chamber and in our bubble and in our circle. And both of my opponents, at least Nick Begich himself has said he doesn't believe that there is global climate change. He doesn't think that it's accelerated because of humans. He says that this is just the natural trend. So I don't know.

I really can't speak for them, but the Alaskans that I talk to, regardless of their party, can see with their own eyes what's going on. And Republicans believe in science as well. So it's not something. And when I talk to people, I tend not to want to engage in the areas where we disagree. I tend to want to talk about the things that we both agree on. Yeah. Well, you're clearly doing something right because you'll be sworn into Congress very soon. So with that said, Congresswoman elect, thank you so much for taking the time.

And also, one last thing, how can we help as you continue to work to hold this seat past November? Well, I think we need to get more people registered to vote. It's surprising how many people are not even registered. And I think that there's this belief that if you get a dividend, you're automatically registered to vote. I'm not sure that that's true. I actually don't know if that's true, but clearly not everybody is registered or knows they are registered. We've got to folks like you, young people who are very, aware and engaged. I think you might even be surprised at how many people in your social network are not registered to vote and believe that their vote doesn't count or doesn't matter or it's not worth their time or maybe they think of it as like a homework assignment. But we just have to make sure that young people like yourself are encouraging other young people. And I'm very encouraged by how many young people are aware and engaged and active. I see them all at every event. And I hear from so many young people who are very invested and very active.

So I just, I'm hopeful and want to see more of that. And this race, this special seat, was only one by 5,000 votes. It really is proof that every single vote matters. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for taking the time. And, you know, so much of what I've read before speaking to you was how kind you were. And that all proved true. So, you know, when you're in Congress, don't let the Marjorie Teller Greens of the world rub off on you too much.

So thanks again for taking the time. I appreciate it. Well, she's another one I'm looking forward to becoming best friends with. Well, we'll see how that goes. Mary Feltolo, thanks again. Thank you, Brian. Thanks again to Mary. 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, interviews, caption. and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera 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 briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.