No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Jamie Raskin on calling Ginni Thomas to testify for January 6 Committee

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

The wildly different priorities between Democrats and Republicans are put on full display. And Brian interviews both Congressmen Jamie Raskin and Ro Khanna about the state of the progressive movement, and whether Ginni Thomas will be called to testify for the January 6 Committee.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 wildly different priorities at play this past week between Democrats and Republicans, and I interview both Congressman Jamie Raskin and Rokana about the state of the progressive movement and whether Ginny Thomas should be called to testify for the January 6th Committee. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So I was going over everything that happened this past week to try and figure out what to talk about in this episode, and the dichotomy of what happened on the right versus what happened on the left was just so insanely egregious that I think it's just worth it to talk about all

of it. So let's start off with the Democrats. This past week, House Democrats passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which decriminalizes marijuana at the federal level and expunges the records of those with cannabis convictions. The vote was 220 to 204, with 202 Republicans voting against the measure. And this is a measure that 91% of American support. Like, 91%. The bill will now move to the Senate. Senate where, you know, thanks to the filibuster, we will need at least 10 Republicans to vote in favor of this bill if it stands a chance at becoming law. Also this past week, every House Democrat voted for a bill capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for those who are insured.

193 House Republicans voted against it. I am legitimately not sure if it's because they want to make sure that more diabetics will suffer or if they're just that enthralled by the idea of depriving Joe Biden of even the most virtuous victory. But either way, if you know someone who's diabetic, you can thank House Republicans for trying their hardest to sink this bill. This will also now head to the Senate where, again, a bipartisan majority is needed,

so we'll see if Senate Republicans are as depraved as their counterparts in the House. This week, Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Linching Act into law, which means that lynching is now a federal hate crime in the United States. On gas prices, which is an issue that I've been talking about for weeks now, Biden announced that he will release

a million barrels of oil a day for six months from the strategic petroleum reserve, and that equals roughly 180 million barrels of oil. It's the largest reserve release in U.S. history. The Department of Energy is then going to use revenues from the sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to restock the reserve when prices are lower. Not to hoard profits, not to scratch shareholders' backs, not to get rich off the backs of American consumers, but to simply provide a service that is necessary and then resupply so that we're prepared for next time. How's that for a change from these oil companies? And just to

push back for a moment against this idea that, you know, any president would do this. We actually have the benefit of knowing who the last president was looking out for on this exact issue. When Donald Trump was in office, he helped negotiate a deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2020 to slash 9.7 million barrels of oil a day. That's 10% of the world's output because oil prices were falling. So he helped coordinate a deal to help those poor oil companies who are struggling with collapsing prices. And what happened? The very next day, oil prices skyrocketed 24% for the best day on record as a result of that agreement. So even though presidents can generally do very little to impact the prices of gas, they do have certain

tools at their disposal. The difference is whether they're going to use those tools to help regular people or the corporations who are screwing those regular people over. On the issue of COVID, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that fewer people are hospitalized with COVID in the U.S. now than at any other point in the pandemic. Only 2% of hospital beds in the U.S. are in use for COVID patients. That is some rare good news thanks to an administration that's been relentless in fighting this thing and in making sure that Americans have unlimited free tests and shots and boosters. It is making a difference. And finally, on jobs numbers, U.S. employers added 431,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate dropped from 3.8% to 3.6%. Just a reminder that Trump's

office with a 4.7% unemployment rate and got it down to 3.5% before ultimately watching it double to 6.3%. In just 14 months, Biden got it back down to almost the lowest point in spin in five decades. That's all this week. That's not to say that everything's been perfect on the left. You know, Democrats are still dealing with high inflation and high gas prices, but that's a pretty damn good week. Those priorities are pretty on point. And they serve as a stark contrast to what's happening on the right. So let's just take a look. First off, it was really, revealed that Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had been texting White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows,

urging him and others to steal the 2020 election. So while you have, you know, the Ted Cruz's and Josh Hawley's and Marsha Blackburns of the Republican Party busy trying to frame the most qualified Supreme Court nominee of our lifetimes, Katanji Brown Jackson, as being unqualified, you've got a current Supreme Court justice sitting at home with his wife who attended the insurrection rally and was peppering White House officials with Texas. supporting a coup. But sure, Judge Jackson's the unqualified one. Got it. In Florida, after Ron DeSantis signed the don't say gay bill into law, and Disney spoke out against that law, now DeSantis

and Republicans are suggesting that Disney should be stripped of their special privileges in the state, which basically allow the company to self-govern their operations. Because if you don't cout to the every whim of an authoritarian GOP, then you'll be punished. Like, here's Laura Ingraham proving exactly that. And when Republicans they get back into power, Apple and Disney need to understand one thing. Everything will be on the table, your copyright and trademark protection, your special status within certain states, and even your corporate structure itself. The antitrust division at Justice needs to begin the process of considering which American companies need to be broken up once and for all, for competition's sake, and ultimately for the good of the consumers who pay the bills. Yeah, this coming from the Free Speech Party, so long as that free speech is perfectly aligned with Ron DeSantis and the rest of those fringe Republicans.

In Oklahoma, the State House passed a near total ban on abortions with the only exception being if a pregnant person's life is in danger. It would be the single most restrictive abortion ban in the United States if is passed into law, and it looks like it will be passed into law. This might also be a good time for a reminder that most Americans support the right to a safe and legal abortion in the United States. but, of course, that's not going to stop Republicans from ensuring that no one will be able to get them if they have their way. And finally, I'm sure you've heard Republican Madison Cawthorne go on a podcast to complain that he's getting invited

to orgies among his Republican colleagues. But if you haven't, here's that treat. Being kind of a young guy in Washington, but the average age is probably 60 or 70, and I look at all these people, a lot of them that I've looked up to through my life, I've always paid attention to politics, guys, then all of a sudden you get invited to, like, well, hey, we're going to have kind of,

a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come. And I'm like, what did you just ask me to come to? And then you realize they're asking you to come to an orgy. Or the fact that, you know, there's some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove, you know, addiction in our country. And then you watch them do, you know, a key bump of cocaine right in front of you. And despite all the bullshit that went on the Republican Party this past week, this, the orgy thing, is what made Kevin McCarthy the most angry.

He reportedly held a closed-door meeting with Cawthorn and said that the freshman congressman had lost his his trust. And it just goes to show that Kevin McCarthy is capable of recognizing shitty behavior and doing something about it. But the only time he actually exercises that judgment is when his own members are impacted. That's it. Not when LGBT kids are attacked, not when the bat-shit crazy wife of a conservative Supreme Court justice is texting the White House chief of staff to stage a coup, not when his caucus votes against legal weed or low-cost insulin. All of those are acceptable. McCarthy only draws the line, and he draws that line immediately when his

precious colleagues are maligned. This is a caucus of self-important narcissists whose worlds begin and end with their own power. And whenever anything threatens that power is the only time that we'll see some kind of a response. So look, the point of all of this is to show where each party's priorities lie. It's not to suggest the Democrats are perfect because they're not, and God knows I've spent the better part of the last year lamenting our missed opportunities. But that doesn't change the fact that right now, with what slim majority we do have, we're trying to bring the cost of insulin down. We're trying to decriminalize marijuana. We're trying to keep people safe from COVID. We're getting people back into jobs. And meanwhile, the Republicans

are attacking gay kids and fighting about coke-fueled orgies. When I say both parties are not the same, this is proof of that. This is them broadcasting that point. And I know I made this point last week, but I think it bears repeating here. If this is what Republicans do with what limited power they have now? Just imagine if they take the House, if they take the Senate. These attacks on abortion rights, on LGBT rights, on democracy itself will be validated, and they'll happen everywhere. Democrats being in power isn't only about what Democrats are able to accomplish with their razor-thin majority, which, you know, again, I wish it was more. It's about what they're able to stop Republicans from doing if they were in power, because we're getting a taste of it

in the States and what we're seeing should alarm everyone. Next up is my interview with Jamie Raskin and Rokana. Okay, today we have two guests, two of my favorites, Jamie Raskin and Rokana. Thank you guys both for coming back on. Thanks for having us. It's great to be on. So now you both are progressives. I think you've been especially instructive in showing that progressives aren't some fringe group in the Democratic Party in the same way that, you know, the freedom caucus is a fringe group on the right.

The progressive caucus is pragmatic and effective and functional. Now, you both served as go-betweens for the White House and the Congressional Progressive Caucus during infrastructure negotiations and build back better negotiations, and now you're working to help the Congressional Progressive Caucus push its newly released executive action agenda. Can you speak on what that entails? I could start. I remember Jamie in one of the progressive movement meetings at the critical moment saying, you know, we're progressives, but we're also Democrats. And the threat. is authoritarianism. We have to recognize what we're up against. And so I think both of us and many progressives believe that we're there to get things done, to build a vision. You know, on the other side, where you're talking to the Freedom Caucus, it's to tear things down explicitly. I mean, their vision is no government. We want actually much more of a role of government helping people. Now, our vision, ideally, perhaps goes beyond in certain cases what currently is

happening. But that doesn't mean that we don't take the wins where we can get them. And I was really proud of the role the Progressive Caucus played in shaping the president's commitment on climate, on child care, on bills to raise the wage, and, of course, the wins we got in the infrastructure bill. Yeah. I like what Roe just said about the difference between us and the Freedom Caucus, I mean, they're reactionaries. They want to go backwards, and the heart of the word progressive is progress. We want to make progress. And so you look at what happens at hearings or markup sessions in Congress. You have the Democrats, I think, fueled by a lot of progressive ideas and energy, sitting down, trying to address problems in the country. And then what we get from the right is just a bunch of diatribes and polemics. where they're just screaming about something. They've picked on something to be their talking point of the day, but there's no attempt to identify and solve the problems of the country.

So I'm proud of the role that we played in delivering on infrastructure, a $1.9 trillion plant to invest in the bridges and the roads and the highways and the rail and the ports and the airports and broadband and so on. But we, of course, have a lot more to do, We're fighting for the build back better program and all of the components in it, the investment in universal pre-K, so the three-year-olds and four-year-olds at that critical moment in cognitive development get the investment they need, trying to lower prescription drug prices by giving the government the power to negotiate with big pharma for lower prescription drug prices,

which is a power we've got in Medicaid and we got it in VA. don't have it in the Medicare program because Billy Towson, when he was chair of the committee, slipped in a rider and then went off the next year and became president of a big farmer. Yeah. Now, what is the Congressional Progressive Caucus doing with regard to the executive action agenda?

Is that related to what Joe Biden will have to do? Yeah, so the executive action agenda is saying, all right, we were stymied in terms of being able to pass the complete buildback better package that the Democratic caucus wanted and that we were fighting for on the House side. So let's see what can be done

through executive action on a whole host of things from declaring a climate emergency and realigning a lot of government action to try to promote renewable energy and to develop far more effective executive action on climate, to things that could be done on that. immigration front since again we are just kind of landlocked there by virtue of the filibuster

and what's going on with the Senate. And you can understand our frustration because the House continues to act on all of the important questions of our time. I mean, take the for the people act where we would have gotten rid of partisan gerrymandering, moved all of the redistricting to independent panels. We would have protected early voting. We would have protected weekend voting, we would have protected mail-in balloting. And we get it through the House. And then it just collapses over on the Senate side because of the filibuster, which has turned the world's greatest deliberative body into the world's least deliberative body. Yeah. Now, do you have any indication as to whether Congress would move to cancel any student debt? For example, I know Congress in the White

House has been tossing this back like a hot potato. Sure. I mean, look, the president can do take action unilaterally. And here's how you know. he can do that. If you can suspend the payments, then certainly you can cancel some of the payments, and he ought to do it. Even if it's $10,000, I know Senator Warren and Senator Schumer have sat up to $50,000, he ought to take that measure, especially as you have young people struggling with higher rent, higher costs of buying a home, higher costs for daily life with gas and food prices. This is the time to act. The challenge in Congress doing, we can do it. But as you know, and as Jamie has just pointed out, I mean, you have to the filibuster in the

Senate. And I think people are tired of just the House passing something. Look at all the things the House has passed. And then in not passing in the Senate and actually not making a difference in people's lives. So I hope he'll take that action. Now, one major item for progressives is the push to transition renewables. And we're in an interesting moment here because we can see that our alliance on fossil fuels is betraying its weaknesses in every way from the way that oil companies have screwed over American consumers to the way that fossil fuels are funding petro-states and dictators like Vladimir Putin, to the way that it's destroying the planet. It was 70 degrees above normal in Antarctica last week. How are you approaching this issue in the House,

and should we expect to see any movement on this issue of transitioning renewables? Well, for one thing, Brian, I mean, I don't even consider it an issue. I consider climate change an emergency, and it's the prism through which we've got to view everything we're doing, whether it's transportation or housing or foreign policy or whatever. I mean, we are in an emergency. Like the house is on fire, except the house is the planet, you know. And that was a remarkable day when you have both, you know, the North Pole and the South Pole. essentially like the beach in Fort Lauderdale, you know.

But we're dealing with repeated weather cataclysms all over the world, all over our country. We've got forest fires out of control in the west. We've got record drought through the Midwest. We've got record flooding in the east. We've got severe hurricanes of escalating velocity. hitting the coastal regions. And so, you know, if our brains work better,

we would be working full time on this right now and mobilizing every aspect of government and public policy to be addressing the climate emergency that we're in. So we're going to continue to fight for everything that was part of Bill Beck better. And we will try to make that happen on a standalone basis or through executive action. and keep pushing forward.

I mean, I think we need to totally disengage from the carbon kings and the carbon barons and stop subsidizing big oil and big gas and big coal and instead invest in the renewable energies that are going to be our salvation. That was exactly my next question, is that U.S. taxpayers do give $20 billion in fossil fuel subsidies to these companies. How do we end those subsidies? And doesn't Congress have some say in how these subsidies are allocated? We did an early hearing, Brian, where we had credit Toonberg call for the ending of these subsidies.

And we made a big push, Jamie, the Progressive Caucus were behind it to have the highest priority of ending subsidies. Basically saying, let's have a level playing field. I mean, at the very least, don't give a handout to big oil. Don't give them an advantage in the marketplace. And we're continuing to push on that. I think we have two unique opportunities at this moment, and that is that a renewable energy agenda in taking on big oil now are both national security issues and economic issues. On a national security case, it's obvious that if you care about having petro-states like Russia,

like Iran, like Venezuela, like Saudi Arabia, having less influence, the best way to do that is to have a new source of energy. If we just had more drilling here in the long term, that's not going to diminish the value of Russian oil or Venezuelan oil. The way to diminish the value of those states is to have a moonshot on renewable energy. I think people get that and they understand long term we have to do that. The same thing is people are appalled and what's going on. While they're paying six bucks in California at the pump, you know, Exxon, Chavron,

they look and they're making billions of dollars. They have $44 billion that they're giving back to shareholders or dividends. It's not that they're putting this money in for more drilling. Wall Street is telling him don't do that. And so they're making all these profits while people are paying the price at the pump. That's just not fair. And that's why I've pushed for, and many are supporting this windfall profit tax, tax 50% of their profits and send a check back to the American people. Yeah.

Now, we've got an election coming up in November. The obituaries have pretty much been written for the Democratic Party, in part due to Joe Biden's approval rating, in part due to a lot of the progressive agenda, not. passing. So how do you reconcile this issue where you acknowledge people's frustration at the Democrats while pressing the fact that the alternative is a party that, you know, only days ago floated the idea that the court case legalizing interracial marriage was wrongly decided? This is a party that wants gay marriage and abortion and contraception on the chopping block. How do you approach this issue? Well, you know, in democracy in America, Tocqueville said that democracy and voting

rights in America are either always shrinking and contracting or they're expanding and moving forward. And we obviously need to get on the growth path. We're fighting for statehood for 713,000 disenfranchised people in the capital city in Washington, D.C. We're fight in the House passed statehood for D.C. The Senate didn't take it out. But we're fighting for statehood for D.C. We're fighting for statehood for Puerto Rico. We're fighting for universal voting rights, a constitutional amendment, guaranteeing their right to vote. We want to move democracy forward, and they want to take it back. They want to dismantle democracy.

I mean, if you want to see the Republicans' vision for the future, look at January 6th, because they have no platform. 2020 was a remarkable year for a lot of reasons. One of them was that it was the first time in modern political history when one of the political parties didn't pass a platform, and they went to their convention, they came back and they threw up their hands, and they said, we don't have a platform, which tells you what? Their platform is whatever Donald Trump tells them it is.

Meantime, what we get is constant voter suppression, which is their real agenda, and actual attempts to overthrow our constitutional processes and negate the result of a popular election. So, you know, I understand people are frustrated by the filibuster. I'm frustrated by the filibuster. Rose frustrated by the filibuster. But come on, we've got to defend democracy such as it is in order to move. move democracy forward. I want to focus on that issue, the issue of January 6th, just for a moment and then go back.

I have a bunch more questions about the state of the Progressive Party. But Jamie, you sit on the January 6th committee. Do you believe that Clarence Thomas should be recusing himself from cases involving January 6th, given his wife's participation, given what we now know from her text messages? Well, first, we've got a structural problem that we have been trying to get Congress to address for a couple of years now and to try to get the courts to address, which is that the Supreme Court justices

are the only jurists in the land that have no system for defining whether or not they have a conflict of interest. It's totally up to them. So let's say it were to come out hypothetically that Ginny Thomas and Clarence Thomas were talking about overthrowing the election. It would present a clear conflict of interest.

It would be up to Clarence Thomas to decide whether or not to recuse himself from January 6th related litigation, which cuts against the cardinal principle of American law that James Madison identified in the Federalist papers where he said, no man may be a judge in his own case. I mean, that is just so fundamental, you know. So the structural problem is we've got to figure out a real system that the Supreme Court will adopt

and require them to adopt a system for dealing with conflicts of interest, which is more than everybody do whatever they want. That's not how it works in the executive branch. That's not how it works in the House or the Senate. It's not how it works in any of the states. It shouldn't work like that in the Supreme Court. Then as to the specifics of this case,

assuming that that system's not in place, should he recuse himself? Well, right now we've got a very strong appearance of a conflict of interest. We don't know if they've been in touch, of course, about all these issues. But Ginny Thomas said in that, that's been quoted. I haven't seen that text, by the way, but assuming that's correct,

if she's saying that, you know, she's in touch with her best friend about it, and that refers to her husband, and we know that they have referred to them to each other as their best friend in the past, then that's a real problem. If they have some kind of Chinese wall in their marriage where her insurrectionary and coup plotting activities have nothing to do with him and he doesn't talk to her about it and she doesn't talk to him about it. Okay, then he wouldn't have to recuse himself. But I, you know, that's a question of fact and we don't have enough facts now to know. On that point, do you think that she'll be called to testify for the committee? I can't say. All I will say is we've had more than 750 interviews and we're interested

in hearing from everybody who has information related to what happened on January 6 and the overwhelming majority of people we've contacted have spoken to us in an interview or a deposition, voluntarily. It's just the closer you get to Donald Trump, there are a dozen to two dozen people who are refusing to speak, but hundreds and hundreds of other people with information or speaking. And just think how scandalous, that is, that you have people who have served at high levels in government who will not speak to the Congress of the United States when we're asking for information about an attempted overthrow of our constitutional system. Now, one more question on this, and that is, you know, you having served as an impeachment

manager, you understand the, and appreciate the need for accountability for everyone all the way up to the top, including Donald Trump. We're now only a few months away from midterms. Are you optimistic that that accountability for him is something that we will see? You know, what do you say to your constituents, for example, who are eager to see some accountability and frustrated that we haven't thus far? Well, there are different kinds of accountability, right? So Donald Trump's been impeached twice, and he was impeached by the House for inciting violent insurrection against the Union, and he also was found by 57 senators to 43 to be guilty of that.

He beat the constitutional spread, as I like to say, we didn't get to two-thirds, and yet we have concurrent, robust, bipartisan, bicameral majorities establishing as a parliamentary fact that he engaged in violent insurrection against the government. the question of the individual criminal capability for him or anybody else who was involved is obviously up to the department of justice and one of the things we want to rebuild is respect for the independence of the law enforcement function so unlike donald trump we're not going to try to dictate and the president of states is not going to try to dictate to the department of justice where their investigation goes i'm pleased to see that more than 750 cases have been initiated and indictments brought and it looks to me like they're working their way up in like a typical mob prosecution as they work their way up from the lesser crimes like criminal trespass, assaulting an officer all the way up to seditious conspiracy, which means conspiracy to overthrow the government. But there's another kind of accountability to take care, which is constitutional accountability. And, you know, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says that anybody who is sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States,

who violates the oath by engaging in the insurrection or rebellion against the union can never serve again in state or federal office. So I think that there is some burden on our committee, the January 6th Select Committee, to examine that provision and to make recommendations about what to do with that with respect to Donald Trump or anybody else who swore an oath of office and is now, you know, in this constitutional gray zone defined by the radical Republicans in the 19th century. You can't serve again if you've engaged in insurrection or rebellion. The question is, how is it determined whether or not you've engaged in insurrection or rebellion? And then the other kind of accountability is just the macro political accountability that comes from congressional fact finding.

We're going to give a report to America based on hearings that America can watch about what happened. And ultimately, in a democracy, the strongest form of accountability is the truth. Now, you both especially have been able to work across the aisle to get legislation passed. And yet, you know, the Republicans that you work with are the ones who are overwhelmingly stymying your agenda, which is screwed progressives first and foremost. You know, it's not like the moderates are the ones primarily getting screwed here. it's you and us. How do you reconcile working together and almost rewarding the people who obstruct you? Like, especially given the stakes, I mean, climate change, voting rights, Ukraine aid. These are life and death issues. These are existential issues. And I think the thing that's difficult for

someone like me on the outside to reconcile is that we're mad. We're angry out here. And is it, is it not difficult to reconcile working together with the people who are causing that anger? I understand the anger. I mean, people have been voting for change in this country probably since 2004, since Howard Dean. And that part of the problem is, and the reason that the Democrats are in a tough situation is that many people realize that the past 30, 40 years has not worked. Jobs have gone offshore, offshore manufacturing has bled. The wealth is piling up in places like my district in Silicon Valley. And the working class has been hurt. And so they keep trying a new combination saying, well, our life isn't improving. And that has led. And sometimes with the Democrats are in private, they say, well, let's just try something else. The problem is that the Republicans have actually done nothing to help those people who have been left out. And their entire platform, as Jamie pointed out, I mean, one of the things, if you look at every Republican speech, half of them start when we're fighting for the American way of life. You know,

that is exactly a quote from Strom Thurmond in 1948. He said, I'm fighting for the American way of life. The reason that they are conveniently okay with democracy having being right and roughshod over it is that they think, in my view, that the preservation of American culture as they know it is more important than if they do damage here and there to democratic institution. And so the stakes are really, do you believe America should become a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy or not? That is really the fight. Beyond that, then we ought to be honest and say, look, we understand we haven't fully delivered in making up for the last 30, 40 years of job flight and then the stagnation of the middle class and working class. Here's what we've done. Here's what we need to do. But by the way, we need more Democrats to do it, more progressive Democrats to do it, putting in Republicans who are going to,

going to be opposed to America becoming a multiracial, multi-economic democracy is not going to achieve that. Right. And the final point on working together, you know, one of things we work together on is the president's competes that. That is going to put $20 billion in Ohio. Intel is, the president recognized this at the state of the union. That is more than Donald Trump did in four years for the, quote, quote, forgotten Americans or fly

over country of the Midwest, Biden is delivering, $20 billion, bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. Well, if we have to work with Republicans to get votes on that in a 60 Senate filibuster, then I think we have to do that. I'm not going to not help do things that are going to bring manufacturing back. They're going to raise wages because it means working with Republicans. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. Now, I know that you both have done a ton of media. Roe, I know you especially seek out media that's not only non-traditional, but oftentimes non-democratic too. What is the biggest misconception that people have about progressives? And what have you found is the most effective way to bridge both, you know, moderate Democrats

and Republicans with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party? The biggest misperception is that either A, that the ideas are somehow radical, or B, that they are obstructionists. Let's talk about the radical part first. You know, Medicare for all, single-payer health care, is something Ted Kennedy. champion. It's something Jimmy Carter ran about on. It's something Harry Truman was for. This has sort of been the dream of universal health care is a core democratic principle. It is the most democratic idea. And it's an idea that is mainstream, having a livable wage. This is a core democratic principle. Having organizing and giving workers a fair shot in an economy,

it's a core democratic principle. Having public education be free, you know, that was a movement to have high school free, in a modern economy, we want to make sure that you can have vocational education or a college. That's a core democratic principle. These are not ideas that are outside either the core democratic message, nor are they outside what most Americans want, and they're popular. And so what is a fair critique? The fair critique of progressives as well, things that are popular, things that are poor democratic constituents, it's just too hard right now because of all the special interest money because of all the lobbyists because of all these arcane roles and you're it's it's not practical uh well that we've seen now the progressives not only a revolt

but we're willing to compromise to get something over nothing and that's another misconception what what legislation i ask you has not passed the house that the president wanted because of progressives there isn't a single legislation that hasn't has it passed and then there's the criticism on the left saying, well, you guys aren't standing up enough. But if you really have the view that we should just stand up for what is popular and what is ideal and not get the progress on the way, I just think that's not fair to the constituents who need whatever help we can have at this point. Let's finish off with this. You know, we have a president in Joe Biden who, you know, although he has been, I think, a great and open partner for progressives, at his

core, I do believe that he is a mainstream Democrat. A lot of progressive agenda items, you know, are so popular from a $15 minimum wage to lower drug prices, to taxing the rich, to combating climate change. And yet there's still this disconnect between the candidates who espouse those ideas and the ideas themselves. How do progressives bridge that gap and become as popular as their agenda items are? Well, I think you've put your finger, Brian, on what a progress. is. I mean, the progressive positions historically advanced in the Democratic Party have become mainstream, whether it's Social Security, it's Medicare, it's Medicaid, it's pro-choice, it's pro-marriage equality. These are things that we're seen as just unthinkably radical

an extreme when first advanced. Progressives are just, progressive Democrats are just like other Democrats, except they get their first in terms of where we need to move as a society. So, you know, $15 minimum wage. I remember when that was a really radical position, it's just not a radical position anymore, but it was the progressives who were the ones who got there first

and were advancing it. So I don't think of progressive in linear terms, like off to one side or the other. I think of it in sort of forward terms, like the people who step forward first. I remember on marriage equality, when I first announced I was running for the state senate, which was the first thing I was running for,

I announced everything I wanted to do on my announcement day. We wanted to abolish the death penalty in Maryland. We wanted to pass marriage equality. We wanted to decriminalize marijuana. We wanted tough anti-drunk driving laws. We wanted the toughest gun safety law in America. Anyway, I ran through everything. This woman came up to me.

She goes, Jamie, great speech. I love your speech. But take out everything in there you've got about gay marriage. Because this is in 2006. She said, it's not going to happen. It's never going to happen. Even the gay candidates don't talk about it. And it makes you sound like you're really extreme, like you're not in the political center.

And I said, you know, thank you for telling me that because it makes me realize it's not my ambition to be in the political center, which blows around with the wind and the polls. It's my ambition to be in the moral center. It's our job as progressives to find what's right the best that we can and then bring the political center to us. And that's all that a progressive is. I mean, I don't think we can assert access to any superior knowledge or wisdom or virtue to anybody else. But when we start paying attention to things, we see where things have to go. And that's where universal health care is. I mean, it's just unfathomable to me that 50 years from now we won't have national

health care in the country. And even the Republicans will grudgingly accept it the way they grudgingly accept Social Security or Medicare today, you know, and say stupid things like government, keep your hands off my Medicare, you know. So all of which is to say, you know, we are progress. Because we believe in progress. We are liberals because we believe in liberty. And these days, when you look at what's going on the Republican Party, we're also the true conservatives because we want to conserve the land, the air, the water, the climate system, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Social Security, Medicare, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. I mean, they just want to tear everything down. That's nihilism. That's not conservatism. So at this point, we've got one party of democracy. We represent all of the philosophical traditions. Perfectly put, as always. Jamie and Roe, thank you guys both so much for taking the time to talk with me today. I appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Thanks again to Jamie and Roe. That's it for this episode. And please tune in next week because it's going to be my 100th episode. So help me celebrate that arbitrary milestone. All right. Thanks again for listening. 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.