No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Democrats pull out huge 11th hour surprise

Episode Date: July 31, 2022

Democrats make a surprise announcement on a reconciliation package—and Republicans, of course, retaliate. And Brian interviews US Senate candidate in Missouri, Lucas Kunce, about his reaction to Missouri’s Republican Senator Josh Hawley scurrying away from the mob on January 6, the impact that overturning Roe has had on voters in Missouri, and his reaction as a veteran to Republicans voting against funding for veterans suffering from illnesses related to burn pit exposures.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 the Democrats' surprise announcement on a reconciliation package in the perfect way that it went down, and what Republicans did to retaliate. And I interview U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri, Lucas Coontz, about his reaction to Missouri's Republican Senator, Josh Hawley, scurrying away from the mob on January 6th, the impact that overturning Roe has had on voters in Missouri, and his reaction as a veteran to Republicans voting against funding for veterans suffering from illnesses related to burn pit exposures. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So, holy shit, Democrats actually pulled a pretty baller move off this week.

Here's the quick rundown of what happened. Democrats were trying to get the Chips Act passed, which would offer funding for the semiconductor chip industry here in the United States. It's being sold as a way to make us competitive with China, and it's got bipartisan support. But Republicans said that the only way they would vote for it is if Democrats don't pass a reconciliation package. Democrats were like, sure, no problem. And I mean, let's be honest here, no one was holding out hope for a reconciliation package to pass anyway.

Like, we'd been screwed over by Joe Manchin more times than we can count. I don't think anyone was sitting here thinking, this time is going to be different. Like, we've all come to terms with the fact that Bill Back Better wasn't going to happen. So, fine, no reconciliation. Democrats introduced the Chips Act in the Senate. It passes 64 to 33. And then, like, minutes later, Joe Manchin released. is a statement about an agreement that was reached between him and Chuck Schumer about a $740 billion

dollar reconciliation package. Like, holy shit, an actual Mitch McConnell move, wait until the second they lose their leverage and then immediately introduce the bill. Maybe like the stealthiest move I've ever seen Democrats pull in the Senate. And I say this with every caveat in the world because we've been at the beginning of reconciliation talks before only to see them fail, but, you know, we can at least bask in this for a moment. So, okay, first off, what's in this bill called the Inflation Reduction Act? Vox has an excellent explainer that I would highly recommend reading, but here's some of the most important provisions.

First and foremost, it is the biggest effort to combat climate change in U.S. history. It would cut climate pollution by about 40% from peak levels in 2005. It offers tax credits and rebates for solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, heat pumps. It funds forest and coastal restoration, penalizes fossil fuel companies for extra. excess emissions, and by investing in clean energy and cutting climate pollution, it'll help ease inflation since high energy costs from fossil fuels are responsible for about a third of the inflation that we're currently seeing. Aside from the climate provisions, it would extend ACA subsidies that were supposed to sunset this year through the end of 2025, meaning millions

more people would qualify for free or subsidized health coverage. It would allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Those negotiations are going to focus on 10 drugs to begin with, and they'll eventually expand to cover 20 drugs, and those drugs will be determined based on a number of criteria, including how expensive they are. It'll also cap out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors at $2,000 a year and require companies to offer a rebate to Medicare if they have to raise the cost of their drugs at a rate higher than inflation.

It funds the IRS by another $80 billion, which is expected to raise over $200 billion in added collections by people who would have otherwise cheated the government out of tax dollars. It includes a 15% corporate minimum tax on corporations with profits over a billion dollars, and it closes the carried interest loophole, which currently allows you to treat part of earnings as capital gains, which gets taxed at 20% instead of income, which obviously gets taxed at a higher rate. Does this bill have everything? No, of course not.

It is a far cry from the original bill back better, but all of its provisions are good, and it includes climate, which we desperately needed. This is a good bill. Okay, back to the Senate. Republicans were so pissed off that Democrats introduced this bill that even though the Senate had just passed the Chips Act, the GOP was like, shit, now we have to stop the Chips Act. And so they immediately started whipping Republicans in the House to vote against the bill. They weren't successful, considering 24 Republicans still voted in favor of it. But they did manage to get 187 Republicans to vote against it.

Like, the party that wails about China on an endless loop voted against a bill that would make us more competitive for China. and they didn't stop there. They voted against the PACT Act. That was up for a vote as well. That's the bill that allocates funding to veterans suffering from illnesses related to burn pits. That had already passed the Senate with 84 votes. It just had to come up for a vote again for logistical reasons.

Republicans blocked that bill too. They blocked a bill to help our own veterans suffering with illnesses and dying of cancer to punish the Democrats. And look, I don't have to explain why opposing bills funding both. veteran health care and the domestic semiconductor chip industry is a really, really stupid move by Republicans. Now they get to wear those political losers around their necks like

albatrosses until midterms. But also, here's the craziest part. This whole temper tension by Republicans was over a reconciliation package that would lower prescription drug prices and combat climate change and reduce inflation. I mean, just on inflation alone, Republicans have spent God knows how many days whaling about that issue. And then, And when finally presented with a bill to combat exactly that, they're like, if you try to pass this bill, we will attempt to sink the entire domestic semiconductor chip ministry and deny health care to our own veterans. In other words, they don't actually want inflation reduced.

They want inflation to stay so that they have something to whine about. They would rather have a talking point for midterms than deliver even an ounce of relief to the American people. Remember that the next time they run one of their daily segments on Fox News, having fainting spells over just how difficult life is for Americans right now. Like, I'm sorry, but you don't get to walk around for months on end and blame Biden for inflation, which, by the way, is an issue plaguing the entire world, and then throw a massive temper tantrum at a bill that's intended to literally reduce inflation and then expect anyone to take you seriously. All this does is prove that

Republicans don't want solutions they want problems to campaign on. So the next time you hear Republicans clutching their pearls over inflation or high prices or whatever the issue of the day is, Just ask what they're doing to fix it. Guaranteed you won't get that answer. Next step is my interview with Lucas Coons. All right, now we've got the candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri, Lucas Coons. Lucas, thanks for coming back on. Yeah, absolutely, Brian.

It's always fun. Good to see you again, man. You too. So let's start with the last January 6th committee hearing. We saw that Josh Hawley, and he's a Republican senator in your state, although not the one whose seat you're running for. He, of course, raised his fist in solidarity with the insurrectionist back on January 6th. But then we saw another clip of him sprinting away once those very insurrectionists, who he incited actually made it into the Capitol.

I got to ask here, what's your reaction to seeing Holly scurry away? I mean, this is just, this is perfect, right? Like, you know, seeing him skitter off is exactly the type of guy he is. And it's just, you know, these guys are so fake. They're so fake. That's what we're finally seeing come out, right? I mean, Josh Holly, he spends half his time talking about how American men aren't masculine enough, right? He says, oh, they play video games.

They're a bunch of weenies. I tell you what, man, all the Marines that I deployed with to Iraq and Afghanistan who, you know, played video games, they wouldn't have been running away from danger like that guy did. It's just, it's this sort of fake masculinity that they all have right now where they're trying to, you know, peacock around. And it's just embarrassing. It's just embarrassing. And that's what we're running against, right? Like, he shows us that Missouri is the front line in the fight for democracy.

He really does. Like, this is where the fakeness has been winning and where we have to push back against it. And it's exactly what I'm doing running this race. Do people see that? I mean, do people see the lack of authenticity with something like that where, you know, he was, he was so quick to fashion himself as one of those people, one of those aggrieved, you know, mob members and only to then, you know, turn around and, and like you said, skitter off as soon as it becomes personally inconvenient for him?

Do people see that lack of authenticity? Ooh, they sir see it right now. Yeah, I mean, that clip was just absolute gold for exposing him. And so what we need is we need more exposure to this stuff, right? I mean, that's what my entire campaign is about, is going after these guys. You know, one of the guys on the other side

in the Republican primaries is a felon to Eric Gritens. He's our former governor. He was forced to resign to avoid impeachment and indictment for assaulting someone and stealing from his veterans charity. And it's like, again, like, he put out this, maybe some of your listeners or viewers have seen it, he put out this rhino hunting ad where he, like, storms a house.

He's going to kill a bunch of people, right? Well, I'm tired of people saying, oh, just ignore that stuff. Just look the other way, right? Like, it'll just don't bring attention to it. It's like, I'm telling you, right here in Missouri, where it's the front line for the fight for democracy, we have to go after that. We have to be aggressive. We have to attack it.

It's exactly what I did on Gritens. It's exactly what I did on Holly. And that's how we fight back against this fake. that's really gotten more traction than it deserves. In general, on the January 6th Committee, do you find that these hearings have either keyed people in to what happened, you know, people who otherwise weren't aware because maybe they just consume right-wing media, or further, that they've actually changed some minds about the gravity of what actually happened?

I've definitely changed some minds. I think that what sort of the hearings are running up against is in a place like Missouri, I mean, we don't have it very good right now. Like it's hard here. There's not a lot of opportunity. And so I would say sort of on, I don't know how the best to describe this, but like the hierarchy of needs. Totally. Like people right now are trying to figure out how they're going to pay their bills, how they're going to afford a house. You know, you got all these private equity firms coming in, buying up all our housing stocks, sending the price through the roofs so people can't afford homes. They're trying to figure out how to deal with their student loan debt. I think that if we want things like January 6th to pop, then we need to do things like take care of student loan debt, make housing more affordable, and things. like that so that they actually have just the breathing space to worry about democracy, because right now a lot of people are just in survival mode. And so I think that's all of our job. It's the administration's job. It's Congress's job. You know, to get people out of this point

where they're just struggling and to a point where they can focus on the fact that our democracy is on the line. On that exact point, we've just seen the release of the new Schumer Mansion version of the reconciliation package. Obviously, this isn't the time to start popping any any bottles of champagne yet, and we've been here before. But what's your immediate reaction to this bill that I think focuses a lot more on these specific issues that are not so, you know, nebulous as the January 6th committee? So I've been campaigning really hard this week. I haven't gotten to read that bill, but it sounds like, like if it is actually investment in America, then I think it's about damn time, right? I mean, I watched you. I was a Marine, like we mentioned.

I spent 13 years in the Marine Corps. I deployed to Iraq once. I deployed to Afghanistan. and twice, these people never had any problem voting for $6.4 trillion of so-called nation building over there, right? I mean, $6.4 trillion. That is crazy, dude. I was there. We weren't building anything real and lasting. Everybody knows that now because it all collapsed. And it's like, if we don't invest here, democracy is on the line in our own country. We have to do that. So I hope it's making those sorts of investments. You know, I'd love to see investment in the next generation of energy technology right here in the Midwest. I mean, we've got a great union workforce.

We have a lot of people who are hurting. We need that sort of investment in the Midwest in order to lift people up so that they can, you know, they can live a better life and really focus on things that would improve all of our lives. In retaliation for this reconciliation bill, having been introduced, now Republicans are starting to vote against a slew of measures that have already been advanced by Democrats. One of them was this bill to offer health care. to veterans who've been impacted by burn pits.

I saw that. I saw that. As a veteran, what's your reaction to these Republicans who've decided to, you know, retaliate against Democrats by, you know, not treating our own veterans who are suffering from cancer and other illnesses? Yeah, I mean, it shows exactly what they think about us. It shows how much they care about us, right? We're just political pawns for their little games.

And again, like, they never had any problem spending more and more money, sending us over there to fight for oil. Like in Iraq, we're fighting for oil for, you know, $4 trillion in Iraq spent fighting for oil. Always money for that to hook up their Exxon bros and the people that they're pals with, right? And now there's never enough, you know, now there's not enough money to take care of people who were exposed. It's going to be like the Agent Orange was for Vietnam veterans. I'm on the burn pit exposure list. Like I lived right next to a burn pit in Iraq.

It was not good. People are hurting from it. And the fact that they won't take care of the people who they sent to go fight their war for oil and who they were always willing to spend money for nation building somewhere else for. It's just unbelievable. It shows their true colors. And I think we need to highlight this everywhere. I talk about it where I go.

Have you had any adverse health impacts because of your exposure to these burn pits? It's hard to tell. You know, that's the whole thing. That's why there needs to be a presumptive case on this because it's really hard to tell. You know, I never had, I never had nose and throat problems before I was exposed. I have had some sense. Do I know if it's related? I don't know, right?

I know, I can't tell if it's causal. I know that it correlates. It happened afterwards, right? Is it because of that or did something else happen? I don't know. But I know a lot of people who have had similar situations, and that's why this bill was proposed. It's why there's a burn pit registry.

You know, there are higher cases of cancer and other sort of illnesses and conditions related to it. Okay, so I want to switch gears now to another major issue that's kind of consuming everyone's attention. Based on polling, which I realize we should take with a grain of assault, what was once a pretty brutal environment for Democrats has seen something of a reversal owed largely to what Republicans have been pushing for lately, namely abortion bans, interstate travel bans, contraception bans,

the overturning of same-sex marriage. How is that stuff presented itself for you on the campaign trail in a state like Missouri? Oh, it comes up all the time. I mean, so Missouri, you know, we had the first trigger law going to effect in Missouri that says you can't get an abortion even in the case of rape or incest, right? Like, boom. And our attorney general was so happy to sign it into law. And it's like, you know, this is it.

This is how these country club Republicans are, right? They're cool with these laws that are so draconian because they know it's never going to affect them. Like man or woman, if they want to get an abortion or they know someone in their family who needs one, they're just going to pay the money to leave the state. They're going to go do it. It's never going to affect them. And so they're okay. Sacrifice in everyone else's rights, just like they're okay.

sacrifice and veterans for a political point, right? It's crazy. The people it's going to hurt are people who grew up in my old neighborhood who don't have enough means to overcome the barriers they put into place. You know, I grew up in a paycheck to paycheck neighborhood. We went bankrupt for medical bills as a kid. Everybody scrapped and took care of each other. And those folks right now, that's who it's going to hurt. And I can tell that for a fact, because just the other day, someone from that old neighborhood called me up. You were asking about how this comes up on the campaign trail. Someone called me up from that neighborhood and was like, hey, I don't know if you're getting a lot of flack for your for your positions on you know reproductive rights on access to

abortion but she said i just want to tell you i'm with you and a lot more people are with you than you realize and she said you know this job's decision is madness first of all and second of all she had a personal story and she said you know she works for an evangelical church she went to she was on birth control pills for a long time she said she was having severe side effects from them they weren't working for her she went into her doctor asked what they could do and they said, well, we can give you an IUD, and that'll solve most of your issues. She said, great, that's what I want to do. Two weeks later, she finds out her insurance won't cover it because her evangelical employer

has decided that that counts as an abortion, right? And that he can't, he fundamentally can't do that. She's like, who is he to tell me and my husband what type of birth control we can use? And again, this is where you see where it doesn't affect them because the out-of-pocket price for that was $2,000, right? $2,000 is a real deal for people who grew up in my old neighborhood. But for these country club Republicans, again, who are putting these restrictions on people, doesn't matter to them, right?

They're just going to pay the cash. And so what I'm seeing people in Missouri upset about is this big brother government, giving them, you know, making it so that there's two sets of rights, basically. You know, if you got wealth, power, and access, you got one set. And if you don't, you don't. And, I mean, you've seen this play out before in Missouri, right? In 2012, when Claire McCaskill was running for Senate against the guy named Todd Aiken, she was leading or he was leading in the polls.

and then he came out and said there shouldn't be an exception for rape because in the case of if a quote legitimate rape, the woman's body would reject the sperm so she couldn't get pregnant, right? Well, I tell you right now, Missouri voters aren't cool, no exceptions for rape or incest. He ended up losing by double digits. And so we see that all, I see that all the time on the campaign trail. The day after Dobbs, I was in rural Missouri, people were very upset about it because they just felt like what we're doing in Missouri goes too far, right? It goes too far. It's the first time they've ever seen a right taken away, and I think it's going to make a real difference. How do these people reconcile the fact that for my entire lifetime, your entire lifetime,

these Republicans have run on this idea of limited government, only to then turn around the absolute second that they have enough control to enact any changes and start, you know, mandating these sweeping edicts, like banning abortion, trying to ban interstate travel, trying to ban same-sex marriage, trying to ban contra. I mean, these are not even in the ballpark of limited government. I mean, this is such sweeping, like, overbearing government that if you saw it happen in another country, it would just kind of, it would blow your mind. And it's what you would imagine these Republicans would attack here in America.

Yeah, people here are upset about it. I mean, they don't like the idea of a big brother, big brother government getting into their lives, right? And they want to, and I think the thing people most dislike about the government is that, you know, it's run by these massive donors who buy people off and have them literally strip our communities for parts. And they know that. They see it over and over again. And I would say, you know, another one, you talk about big government taking over Republicans exercising the power of big government, right? And so one of the places you see that the most in Missouri

is actually on big agriculture. And so our government, a Republican run, has supported big ag very heavily. And that's destroyed much of Missouri, it's small towns, things like that, right? Because local farmers, they would buy their feed locally. They'd buy their equipment locally. They had local supply chains. So all of like the wealth from our land stayed in Missouri, right? Because they bought all that stuff locally, supported small businesses, small towns thrived. Well, these big ad companies come in. They violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. They violate the Packers and Stockyard Act. Corporate judges don't care. State government doesn't stand up to it. They destroy all these Missouri farmers. And now there's just like there's this great big vacuum

cleaner over our state, just sucking the wealth out and overseas. And in one of the things we've seen is, you know, the state legislature changing the law in Missouri quietly so that foreign companies can own agricultural land in Missouri, which upsets a lot of people, right? The wealth from our land leaving the entire country, that's tough for them to bear. That was a big brother government move. But even more so, all these counties used to have local health ordinances that kept concentrated animal feed operations in check, right? So these are these big ag, dense populations of livestock that are heavy polluters, they ruin, they ruin sort of property values, they make it so you can't even live in an area.

The counties here used to be able to protect themselves against that. And then the state comes in once it was controlled by the big ag republicans, and they pass a law making it so that you can't have local control anymore. Counties can't have local health ordinances anymore. And that's when you saw a lot of very Republican, like 80% Republican counties, just have an absolute revolt and saying why is this big brother, you know, this big brother state government coming in, telling us we can't defend ourselves against these predatory big ag companies ruining our lives. And, you know, you've seen a lot of very, very conservative

counties have lawsuits against the state on that and really push back. And so a big thing we're focusing on in our campaign is fundamentally changing U.S. power in this country and going against things like that because, you know, I know I sort of told a long story there, but like this is where you're seeing big brother government in position really hit people. And then when they see it in all these other areas, like on abortion access and other things, they're like, it's starting to finally click that these guys don't have our best interests at heart. They're selling out, and they're using big government for all of the wrong reasons. I think we have a real opportunity to go against that. Well, I guess the question becomes, in those instances, do these people see

the Democratic Party or someone like you, I guess, more specifically, as an alternative to, you know, to these overbearing big government Republicans? So they don't see the Democratic Party is the alternative. My job is to make it so they see me and the party as the vehicle for that. That's my job. It's my entire job. That's why I'm not taking money from corporate PACs, no federal lobbyists, no big farm executives, no big fossil fuel executives.

It's why I say that members of Congress shouldn't own stocks, period, and neither should their spouses. Like, we have to be the vehicle for change. And if we do that, if the Democratic Party, like, rebuilds trust and actually does things, like a real stock band, like an actual stock band, not just some blind trust where people know what it is. Like we can rebuild the trust and we can be the vehicle for what they want to do. We just have to make that decision to do that because when you look at Missouri, it's a very popular state where people have been trying to claw back power. I mean, by ballot initiative, you know, we passed a minimum wage, $5 over the federal level. We expanded Medicaid over the

state legislature. We passed medical marijuana over the state legislature. People say Virginia's like a blue state, you know, like Virginia is a right to work state and anti-union right to work state. In Missouri, by ballot initiative, we overturned right to work, only state to do that and we did it 68% to 32%, right? Like huge margins. And so Missourians are trying to claw back power. It's my, like I said, it's my job to make it seem like me and the party are the vehicle for doing that. And once we can do that and build some proof points back, we're going to do very well. We just, you know, we got to make people see it. Let's finish with this. What would your message to the Democratic Party B to make your life easier on the campaign trail right now?

We have to focus on making things in America again. We have to focus on investing in our communities again. We can't keep bailing out Wall Street. Every time, every time the party gets behind bailing out Wall Street, like, let's face it, Republicans are not going to be held accountable for that because they already say that that's who's the most important. Like, they already are there, right? Like, so that's already baked in. And when Democrats bail out Wall Street, it just, it undermines the trust that we can be warriors for working people, right? And, you know, we did it in 2009.

In the recent pandemic, we helped print $120 billion a month and give it to Wall Street. And I'm telling you, like, people know that that happens. They feel it every day because these private equity companies who ended up with that money, they're coming into our state, they're buying our housing stock and making it so people can't afford housing anymore. They know what happened. And until we can really break from that, I think that's the number one thing we've got to do. We've got to break for that.

We've got to show real investment in communities. I'm hoping that this bill, obviously, I haven't seen it yet, does some of that because real investment in communities, things that help people day to day, that's going to be what does it. It really is. That's what we've got to do. And I really, really hope that they can do that. And, yeah, that would be huge for the party in states like Missouri. Lucas, how can we help?

Well, you can go to Lucascoons.com. K-U-N-C-E, so I spell my name. You can check out what we stand for. You can donate. You know, if you know anybody in Missouri, you can tell them about our campaign and tell them to support. We are running a real one here. We're on the front line for the fight for democracy.

We need exposure. I'm not a billionaire. I have no personal wealth. Like the only way we get the message out is when people help us, whether it's with money, spreading the word, anything else. Anybody in the media who wants to talk would be great. We can win here. We can win here again.

We just need to put the focus on the right things. Awesome. We'll leave it there. Lucas Coons, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, Brian. It's always great. Thanks again to Lucas.

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 captured 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.