No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Democrats score major unexpected win

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

Republicans pull some desperate stunts to distract from their agenda and some recent wins by the Democrats. Brian interviews Congressman Adam Schiff about Kevin McCarthy removing him from the House Intelligence Committee, whether he thinks George Santos can still serve his constituents effectively, and on his Senate run, why he chose to enter the race and whether he and Katie Porter would consider staying in Congress if one of them seemed to be running away with the race. Support Adam Schiff: https://www.adamschiff.com/Shop 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 desperate stunts Republicans are pulling to distract from their agenda and some recent wins by the Democrats. And I interview Congressman Adam Schiff about Kevin McCarthy removing him from the House Intelligence Committee, whether he thinks that George Santos can still serve his constituents effectively in Congress, and on his Senate run, why he chose to enter the race, and whether he and Katie Porter would consider staying in Congress if one of them seemed to be running away with that race. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So I thought for this week we'd try something a little different. I kind of want to highlight a snapshot of where the two parties are at in real time because we have the luck of being able to directly compare a Democratic administration

with a Republican majority in the House. So on the Republican side, we're contending with two threats right now. First and most importantly, Kevin McCarthy has decided to take his debt-sealing threats and double down saying this. When you, the White House said that the president, the president, president's open to a talking about the debt ceiling and a separate discussion about ways to control spending. I mean, do you, what do you think about when you hear that, that they kind of want to separate those two is what they say? Whichever way they want to talk about it, I'm very clear.

We will not pass a clean debt ceiling here without some form of spending reform. So they'll never be a clean one. I don't know how they want to say it. That's fine. But at the end of the day, we're going to get spending reforms. That he won't pass a clean debt ceiling bill, but instead we'll use it to exact concessions in the form of spending reform. So what is spending reform? Great question. Let's ask Kevin McCarthy. Where should those budget cuts come from right now?

Medicare and Social Security, the White House insists Republicans want to cut. What cuts? Well, let me be clear about that. And I've been clear many times. No, we're not talking about that. And to really be able to do this right, I'm not going to negotiate this in the press, right? I respect the conversation we had together and we will continue that. Okay, so I guess he won't be telling us what spending reform is, but we have some guesses here.

The most obvious is that spending reform is the shiny new nickname for entitlement reform, which Republicans have been trying to do for decades, where they try to eliminate your earned benefits of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Now, another option is that they try to tie this to the Fair Tax Act, and I've spoken about that before, that would eliminate personal income taxes, corporate taxes, payroll taxes, and the inheritance tax, and replace all of that with a 30% national sales tax. And so instead of the rich carrying the majority of the tax burden in this country, which would make sense considering they possess the bulk of the money in this country, the

tax burden would be transferred to the working poor. On average, about 40% of households don't even pay federal income tax because they don't make enough money. And so under this plan, you would take people who are already making too little money to even qualify for income tax payments and then slap a 30% premium onto literally everything. The only way to make this war on the poor more obvious is if they just called it a war on the poor.

Now, just to be clear here, the debt ceiling is the only opportunity for Republicans to pass any legislation this cycle. Nothing that they pass will make it through the Democratic-led Senate or withstand Biden's veto. And so this debt-sealing bill is it. This is their only chance to try an exact concessions from the Democrats, and they're going to go to the mat to do it, obviously. But with that said, it won't be popular, and so it's also incumbent on them to distract you. And, man, that is exactly what they're doing.

Here's just a light sampling from our dear friend Marjorie Telle Green on the distraction strategy. Can you tell me how much COVID cash went to CRT? CRT? Critical race theory in education. It's a racist curriculum used to teach children that somehow their white skin is not equal to black skin and other things in education. Yeah. No, I do not know that. But I do know that there's provisions that the federal funds generally are not used,

are supposed to be used for curriculum. Oh. That's a state. Oh, Mr. Didero, I have to tell you in Illinois, that they received $5.1 billion at an elementary school there that used it for equity and diversity. So it's being used for these things. Mr. Didero, can you tell me how much money was given to Drag Queen's Story Hour? I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

Drag Queen Storytime, where men dress up as women and read confusing books to children. First, I thought you said dry clean. I'm sorry. No, I don't know. The answer to either one of those two. We need to look into this, and I urge you to do that. Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Pennsylvania received $16,000 for drag queen story time. from COVID cash. I think this is an issue that needs to be looked into. A lot of this money went to things that should have never gone to. And I thank you so much, and I yield back the remainder of my time. So that poor guy was the controller general,

and I think he's a pretty good encapsulation of what the 90% of Americans who don't mainline Fox News would say when confronted with any of the bananas talking points that these people spew on a daily basis. It's just been a barrage of critical race theory and drag queens and gay M&Ms and pronouns and Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato, just endless culture war bullshit. But it's on purpose. There is a reason that the right has to focus on this stuff, and it's because their legislative agenda is currently deciding whether they'll try to take away your Social Security,

Medicare, Medicaid, or whether they'll try to impose a 30% tax on everyone. Like, tell you what, if that was my agenda, I'd probably be throwing a bunch of drag queen spaghetti at the wall to distract you, too. Now, all the while, on the left, just to give a snapshot of an issue that actually impacts Americans. The January jobs report was just released, and instead of the 188,000 jobs that were predicted that month, the economy added 517,000 jobs, bringing the total jobs added in Biden's presidency to 12.1 million. Not only the most jobs ever added in the first two years of a presidential term, but more jobs than have been added even in a four-year term. Manufacturing jobs are up to

800,000, thanks in large parts of the Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which led to an explosion of jobs and renewables and fiber and chips. The unemployment rate is down to 3,000. 3.4%. That's the lowest in 54 years, down 45% since Biden took office. Black and Hispanic unemployment is also near record lows at 5.4% and 4.5% respectively. We've had the strongest two years for small business applications on record with 10.5 million new businesses created. Real wages are higher than they were seven months ago, up 4.4% on the past year. Even on the inflation and gas price front, inflation's down for the six straight month with headline CPI at negative 0.1% and gas prices are down $1.50 from their peak.

Again, the difference when you invest in the economy from the bottom up versus the top down could not be more apparent. Like, if you needed any more proof that Republicans' 40-year failed experiment on trickle-down economics doesn't work, this is it. This administration invested in jobs for regular people,

policies for regular people, gave bailout funds to regular people who needed them, expended the child tax credit for regular people, and the result is that the U.S. had the fastest recovery from COVID of any G7 country. I know you'll be shocked. to hear that it's possible to bail out people who aren't millionaires and billionaires, but it is. And it turns out that strategy works a lot better. And so it shouldn't be a

surprise that the GOP wants to distract you, whether it's their own dangerous economic policies or the successful one by the Democrats. The fact is that what they are selling isn't going to be very attractive to Americans. So get ready for God knows how many more months or years of culture wars about candy not being attractive enough or imaginary college graduate level courses being taught in elementary schools and an endless barrage of pretending that children are an imminent danger from things that don't exist like litter boxes. But just know that if they had anything worthwhile to run on, they wouldn't need to scare you with things that don't exist.

Next step is my interview with Adam Schiff. Okay, now we've got my congressman and now candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. Adam Schiff, thanks so much for joining today. It's great to be with you. Now, Kevin McCarthy has refused to seat you on the House and Intelligence Committee, he said, quote, the misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congresses are severely undermined by its primary national security and oversight missions. Now, first of all, I'm not sure how that nebulous claim applies to you, but what's your response

to McCarthy on the topic of taking you off of this committee? Well, the reason he's taking me off the committee is because our investigations in the Intelligence Committee uncovered the fact that Donald Trump was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars from Ukraine, our allies. in order to try to extort Ukraine into helping him cheat in the election. He doesn't like that. Donald Trump doesn't like that. And to him, bowing to what Donald Trump wants is his reason for being. But it's a unprecedented move.

No speaker has ever tried to decide who the minority party can have as the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. And I think his actions will undermine confidence in the committee. And that may result in the intelligence community, you know, unwilling to share certain information if they think the committee is going to be abused that way. Is there any recourse here? Like, given McCarthy's objections, is there any way to actually get onto this committee? Any appeal process for this?

There really isn't. It's a select committee, unlike the standing committees in the House, the Speaker, has the last word. But I think the voters in California will have an opportunity for redress. It adds additional, I think, powerful argument to our Senate campaign, make Adam Schiff Keb McCarthy's home state senator. I think for those who are as appalled as my colleagues with what McCarthy has done, there is an opportunity to divine redress. Now, a big part of this is the tit for tat because Democrats removed Marjorie

Tully Green and Paul Gosar, both of whom had advocated for violence against Democrats. That was Nancy Pelosi and AOC, meaning that he's equating like Paul Gossar fantasizing about going online and AOC being killed with you impeaching Donald Trump. Can you speak on that false equivalency here? Yes. And you're exactly right. This is a step by McCarthy to appease the most extreme elements of his conference. There is no equivalence here.

Marjorie Taylor Green and Paul Gossar were removed from their committees with a bipartisan vote last session because they were encouraging violence against other members of Congress. And as someone on the receiving end of a lot of death threats over the last several years, you know, I take my security seriously. My colleagues do or they should. So they will remove for good reason. And in a bipartisan way, there's nothing equivalent here. Is there any way to find out what concessions Kevin McCarthy promised to the hostage takers on his side in exchange for their speaker votes? Is there any effort to do that right now? know, I think a lot of it is, you know, pretty much out of the open now.

Restoring Marjorie Taylor Green and Gosar to their committees and to important committees is part of the deal. But also, Marjorie Taylor Green now is one of McCarthy's closest confidants. This was her price that she wanted that kind of influence. He put a lot of those, you know, right-wing rebels on the Rules Committee to decide the rules for the House. He is bound to their will when he is threatening to default on the nation's debt in order to cut Social Security of Medicare. So sadly, we see out in the open a lot of the results of that terrible bargain he struck so that, you know, his door would have the nameplayed speaker. But he will be the weakest speaker the House has ever had. Well, speaking of one of McCarthy's closest confidants,

Marjorie Seller Green, this past week peppered the controller general with questions about critical race theory and drag queen story hour. Didaro actually channeled the entire country by being as visibly confused as the rest of us. Do you think that this is the agenda that they're gonna squander their majority with, you know, foe outrage about critical race theory and drag queen story hour and M&Ms and on and on?

Yes, I think that's exactly what they're gonna do. They're not interested in legislating. They're not interested in governing. They're only interested in tearing down and sensationalism. And so, you know, sadly, people look at Marjorie Taylor Green in the Republican Conference and they're like, okay, this is nobody of a Congresswoman

has now this big following could raise a lot of money. Maybe that's where the power and glory is in the GOP. So she has many imitators. And this is what's brought, you know, the kind of Tea Party movement to the present. This extreme element is now in the center of the Republican Conference. And because they have no legislative agenda,

because they have no ideas, because they're no interest in governing. You can expect a lot more circus-like tactics like you saw on that hearing. Another beacon of integrity on the right is George Santos. Do you feel that he's able to effectively serve his constituents in this Congress?

No, absolutely not. He's a joke. And sadly, it was a joke that is going have a dark consequence for his constituents who were defrauded. And, you know, but I do well, say this, we should see Santos for what he really is, and that is he is the living, walking, breathing embodiment of a Republican party that four years ago, six years ago, with the election

of Donald Trump decided it had no interest in the truth anymore. You know, Donald Trump lied in office thousands and thousands of times. And so what's more natural than to come out of that party than someone who is a complete fraud himself like George Santos. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. And I've said before, Republicans aren't mad, in my opinion, that George Santos lied. They're mad because he makes it so easy for the rest of us to see exactly who that party is by putting somebody front and center who is so blatantly a liar, a thief, somebody willing to just completely compromise any shred of integrity. So with that said, let's move on to your U.S. Senate run. Why, Ron? What are you trying to?

to bring to the Senate? Really, a couple things. The first is that our democracy is deeply at risk. It has been for several years. This extreme MAG movement isn't over. Donald Trump is still the leader of that party. And after working on the impeachment after being part of the January 6th committee and bringing out the evidence before the country as we did, I hope that it impressed upon the country

just how fragile our democracy is. And I think a big part of the reason why we are so vulnerable is a democracy. And this gets to the second issue, which is really at the heart of my agenda, and that is the economy has not been working for millions of people, who have worked harder than ever and seeing their quality of lives slip away, see the future for their kids in doubt. And it's left all too many Americans receptive to a demagogue who comes along and says that he alone can fix it.

And these two problems, the structural problem with our economy, We just saw Facebook and other companies lay off massive numbers of people while, you know, paying, doing stock buybacks and dividends for shareholders. You know, as long as the economy isn't working for millions of people, our democracy is at risk. And, of course, it's just fundamentally unfair and unjust and bad economics. So those two issues to me are paramount and urgent. And the third that I've always been very outspoken on is our planet and climate. If we don't attack climate change with even greater urgency, then these other issues aren't going to matter in the long run.

And I think we need someone in the Senate who will champion those issues who's been at the center of these fights, and that's why I'm running for the Senate. Is there any legislation that you would sponsor or introduce that's kind of like off the beaten path? That's not the usual stuff that we would expect. But is there some like pet project or some left to center thing that you would, you know, be interested in introducing? You know, there are many things. Some are quite to be expected because I've been at the center of them and others are probably a surprise to some of your listeners and viewers. I introduced and carried and we passed in the House and protecting our Democracy Act. That may be one of the most significant bills so that I've carried.

It's our whole package of our own post-watergate reforms to strengthen the institutions of our democracy. It puts into law a lot of the norms that we thought were inviolate until Donald Trump violated each and every one of them. I've been working now for almost 20 years to double the size of the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area. We've gotten that passed in the House. We've gotten that passed in the Senate Resources Committee, but we need to start over now that we're in a new session and get at the final distance. But, you know, I would say I've been working hard also to combat the scourge of homelessness with the legislation that incentivizes more affordable housing. That is a deep priority of mine. I've been proud to bring back millions and millions of dollars to my district and look forward to doing far more for the entire state to address just how many people are homeless.

And, you know, these issues are interrelated because the economy is not working the way it should, you know, almost half the people who are homeless in my hometown in our region in Los Angeles are working full time. And it's not enough to keep a roof over their head. And so these are my priorities and things I've been working on, but not always things that got the same attention as I was championing our democracy. Now, Katie Porter also announced to run for the U.S. Senate in the last couple of weeks. I think a lot of people would look at both of you, the two most prominent declared candidates and feel like functionally there wouldn't be a huge difference.

How would you differentiate yourself from her? Well, you know, we're rivals under the same flag. And I don't want to say anything negative about my colleague. I would say with respect to my own record that I've been at the center of L. every major fight to protect our democracy and to make sure we have an economy that works for everyone, doing the investigation of former President Trump's Russian misconduct, then doing the investigation of Ukraine misconduct, then leading the first impeachment trial, securing the first bipartisan vote to remove a president in U.S. history, then participating in the January 6th committee.

So I've been at the very center of these fights. I think California is used to, you know, the expectation that their Senator is going to be a leader, not on the sidelines, but in the middle of the fight. But I've also been able to deliver for California to bring back resources to attack the problems we have in California. And this is a big part of the reason why Speaker Pelosi today endorsed me under the assumption that Senator Feinstein doesn't run again. And 14 or 15 of my current California delegation members have also endorsed me. That's an extraordinary thing. Members generally hate to choose among their colleagues. But what they are choosing is someone with a proven track record

of delivering for our state. And that's what I'll do. Just to game this out a little bit, you know, if this goes toward the end, then it's you and Katie Porter, one of you will win and one of you will lose. Is there any strategy here to avoid losing both of you, like from Congress? Is that, is that something that you've spoken about or would consider speaking about? And as a follow-up, is there even a way to, if it becomes clear that one is the clear favorite, that somebody could drop out and continue to actually run for Congress? Is that even possible? You know, that is certainly possible, but I, you know, I think Californians, I shouldn't be surprised that an estate is as big, as important with as deep as bench that we have,

that you're going to have multiple people running, multiple people that, you know, Californians like. Yeah. You know, I will say this, that I'm fortunate that I will be leaving a House seat that will remain in Democratic hands. The seat in Orange County is a very difficult seat, and there are concerns about that, that we could lose that seat. Now, I'm going to do everything, presumably possible, to help hold on to that seat. But that is another potential cost of one of my colleagues' candidates' seat. Let's finish off with this. How can we help your campaign?

Adamshift.com. I'd love to have your viewers, your listeners, join our campaign. We have an incredible grassroots effort with the support of folks up and down the state. When we launched our campaign, we received support from every single county in California. So people can donate at Adamshift.com or they can sign up to volunteer. And I would absolutely love to have their help. Great. We'll put that link in the post description and in the show notes.

Congressman Schiff, thank you so much for taking the time and best of luck in the campaign trail. Thank you. Wonderful to be with you. Thanks again to Congressman Schiff. 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.