No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Joe Manchin finally signals openness to For The People Act

Episode Date: June 20, 2021

There is finally some movement with Joe Manchin and the For the People Act. Brian interviews the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge about the infrastructure package and when the White House would consider passing it without Republican support. And Brian chats with the founder of Strike PAC, Rachel Bitecofer, about a new way for Democrats to go on offense against Republicans.Donate to the Don't Be A Mitch fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchSign up for Indivisible’s Truth Brigade: https://act.indivisible.org/signup/indivisible-truth-brigadeWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about there finally being some movement with Joe Manchin and the For the People Act. I interview the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Marsha Fudge, about the infrastructure package and when the White House would finally consider passing it without Republican support. And I chat with the founder of Strike Pack, Rachel Bitticoffer, about a new way for Democrats to finally go on offense against Republicans. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Okay, so we finally, finally have some movement on the For The People Act. after its prospect seemed all but dead after Joe Manchin released an op-ed last week, announcing his opposition to it. Mansions now come out with a list of policy demands as far as the election legislation goes,

basically outlining what provisions he supports and what provisions he opposes, meaning that some iteration of the For the People Act is still possible, even if it's a pared-down version. But the big news here is which provisions he supports, including, first and foremost, mandating independent congressional redistricting and banning partisan gerrymandering. And considering gerrymandering is the three. single most destructive problem we face today as far as anti-democratic measures go, the fact that Manchin supports banning partisan gerrymanders is huge.

Like, as it stands, we're basically sitting ducks while we wait for every Republican-led legislature to gerrymander Democratic districts out of existence, which would basically ensure that they'd win the House in 2022. This would serve as a major impediment to that and actually give Democrats a fighting shot at maintaining the majority. Mansion also supports making Election Day a public holiday, another major one, considering the working poor are so often disenfranchised by virtue of having to choose between keeping their jobs and exercising the rights to vote. He supports mandating at least 15 consecutive days of early

voting, including two weekends for federal elections, which is another major provision that Democrats have been pushing for. He supports automatic voter registration, supports requiring states to promote access to voter registration and voting for people with disabilities, supports prohibiting providing false information about elections to discourage voting, and increasing penalties for voter intimidation. Supports requiring states to send absentee mail ballots to eligible voters if a voter can't vote in person. Supports requiring states to notify

people no later than seven days before an election if their polling places have changed. Supports the Disclose Act, which provides faster public disclosure of campaign spending and combats the use of dark money in elections, and the Honest Ads Act, which would regulate campaign ads online by companies like Facebook and Google.

Even supports requiring presidents and vice presidents, and candidates for president and VP, to disclose individual tax returns and business tax returns. And these already constitute most of the For the People Act as it is. Now, there are some notable provisions that Manchin wants that Democrats don't universally support. For example, no election day registration.

He doesn't want no excuse absentee voting, no public financing of elections, no restoring voting rights to people with past felony convictions, and no preventing voter purges. Now, he also supports requiring voter ID nationally, which I want to focus on for a second. Now, the issue with voter ID as far as Democrats are concerned isn't that we don't want people to be identified at the voting booth. I know that Republicans like to pretend that that's the issue here, but it's not. The issue is that if IDs aren't free,

then those who can't afford them are faced with a monetary barrier to voting, which is basically a poll tax. That's the problem. Personally, I think that having voter ID is fine, and so the solution here is simple. Democrats should create a free national ID card for every American as an alternate form of ID. It's that easy.

And by the way, and I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I think this is important. States could already do this. They could already have solved the whole voter ID problem by distributing free identification to residents. It's an obvious step that then begs the question, why not do it? And the answer is because as it stands,

this gives politicians an avenue to stop low-income people from voting because they recognize that they won't benefit from their votes. The issue here isn't Democrats abusing a system to vote illegally, it's that states are leveraging poverty to prevent certain factions of the electorate from voting at all. So anyway, if the obstacle here is Manchin supporting provisions like voter ID, if that's the price Democrats have to pay, then that's a trade we should accept. Because not only is the For the People Act beyond necessary,

but even the drawbacks of adding provisions like voter ID can be solved. Now, with all of that said, the obvious question becomes, even if Joe Manchin does support this pared-down version of the For the People Act, if he doesn't support filibuster reform, it's not going to matter. but I want to read you an excerpt from an article by CNN's Manu Raju. Manchin has long said that he believes any changes of this magnitude must also have the backing of Republicans. But on Wednesday, the West Virginia Democrat didn't go that far when asked if he be open to a revised bill that lacked the support of the GOP. And then the article quotes Manchin is saying,

we need a good bill that basically protects voters, protect states, and protect states' rights. A good voting bill has to be accessible, it has to be fair, it has to be secure. Meaning that as of right now, it doesn't look like we're getting the same hardline answer by Manchin. So look, at this point, we have one option, and that is to let this process play out. Now, as of now, Manchin still convinced this could get 60 votes. It won't. But if Republicans need to prove that to Joe Manchin, then let them vote against it and prove Manchin wrong.

And by the way, they're going to vote against it. McConnell just came out opposing Manchin's proposal, saying, quote, Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called compromise election takeover among themselves. In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise. It still subverts the First Amendment to supercharge cancel culture and the left's needs. name and shame campaign model. It takes redistricting away from state legislatures and hands it over to computers, and it still retains S-1's rotten core and assault on the fundamental idea that states, not

the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections. Okay, so first of all, McConnell calling this cancel culture is about as good an indication as you'll ever get that it doesn't actually mean anything. It's just a phrase that Republicans say to complain about anything. This is quite literally the opposite of cancel culture. It is uncancelling Republican efforts at suppressing votes. Now, second, he says that it takes redistricting away from the state legislatures and hands it over to computers.

Right, because the state legislatures are corrupt, and they've gerrymandered these congressional districts into oblivion, and so a solution is needed. If McConnell's party wasn't so shady, we wouldn't need to rely on computers, but here we are. And finally, McConnell complaining that the core of S-1 is rotten goes to show that there's no negotiating with people who think that a bill requiring independent redistricting committees

and taking dark money out of politics and automatically registering all voters and increasing penalties for voter intimidation is somehow, on some planet, a bad thing. Notice that he never attacks the actual components of the bill, just the idea that states should run their own elections. Even though, practically speaking, the states are employing every corrupt practice humanly possible

to rig those elections in broad daylight. McConnell pretending that doesn't exist isn't going to will his alternate reality into existence. So look, going back to Manchin, him not supporting filibuster reform right now doesn't mean that his position can't evolve. Just like writing that op-ed about why he opposes the For The People Act apparently didn't mean that the For The People Act was dead. Now Schumer has already filed cloture on the For The People Act,

and that sets up a Senate procedural vote this week. So let the Republicans prove Manchin wrong. Let them show him that they're not willing to seek bipartisanship. Let them disprove his theory that there are 10 good people on the other side. and that if mentioned needs to revise his rule because the Republicans couldn't hold up their end of the bargain, so be it. And trust me, I hope with every fiber of my being

that that's what happens. So at this point, right now, we have to let the process play out, but I do feel optimistic that there is some way to get this past. Next step is my interview with HUD's secretary, Marsha Fudge. Okay, today we've got the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Marsha Fudge. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me.

I've been looking forward to our conversation. today. Of course. Well, thank you. Okay, so off the bat, we know the infrastructure talks between the president and Senator Shelley More Capito have broken down. And then we moved on to another round of talks with the bipartisan group of senators. And there's been some frustration because even with that first round of talks, the president went down a trillion dollars, and yet Republicans only came up 150 billion. The bipartisan group of senators is already talking about skimping on raising taxes on corporations and on climate change, both of which should be absolute no-goes.

So at what point will the White House say, you know, okay, that's enough. We try time to get moving on this. Well, I can't really speak for when that's going to happen, but I will say that there has been some progress. I mean, from the Senator Capito's group to this new group, the resource, I know that the offering has already come up. It's probably nowhere near where we want it to be right now. But until the president says it's time to pull the plug on bipartisanship, I'm in it

all the way. Are there worries the GOP is using bipartisanship as a stalling tactic just to run out the clock here? You know, I really can't speak to what the Republicans or the Democrats are thinking. You know, my position is one that is neutral. But I would suggest that for both sides, we are running out of time to do some of the things that I know must get done. And I think that this president's jobs plan, or as what some call the infrastructure plan, is something that is long overdue. It is something the American people want to have. It is something the American people want to happen now. And it is, we've got to move it as quickly

as we possibly can. Well, with that said, I mean, when would the reconciliation process need to begin if a bipartisan compromise isn't reached? Like, what's the red line here? Is there a specific date? The only red line that the president has said is that the only red line is in action altogether. But I would certainly hope that we would have some clear direction before the the end of July. I think that that kind of becomes the time frame in which we have to move legislation by the end of the year. So I don't know what the president is thinking, and I'm not speaking on his behalf at this point. I'm just saying to you that I think that it does need to occur fairly soon. Okay. And now what are Americans poised to gain, you know, if the proposed infrastructure

legislation does become law? If this legislation becomes law, Brian, I can't tell you how strongly the American people are going to benefit. Just in housing, just in my own area alone, we're going to put more than $300 billion towards housing. We're talking about making properties that exist today more weatherproof, more resilient. We're talking about the intersection between public housing and climate. We are going to put more than $40 billion towards repair, upkeep, and resiliency of existing housing, build 2 million more new housing units over the next five years, put hundreds of thousands of people back to work. It is huge.

The effects on this country are going to be so significant. I don't know that we will see anything like it in the past or in the future. This is the time that we have to make a real difference in how people live in this country. Well, building on that, you know, obviously if you've taken a look at the housing market lately, you'd be pretty surprised with the meteoric rise of prices. I think most people wouldn't be too happy to see them unless you're selling your house, in which case you'd be very happy to see those prices. But what does the American Jobs Plan do to help the average American be able to afford a home?

There are a number of things, Brian, that we are going to do to help with homeownership. We know that today, especially as it relates to minorities, that the gap in home ownership between blacks and whites is as big as it was in 1968. Part of the problem is that in most community, I don't think of any community right now that has what we're calling low-income and moderate-income housing. As you say, the prices have gone up 15%, 16%. They have become so expensive that the average person can no longer afford to buy a home. So what we are doing at HUD is going to assist people.

with homeowner down payment assistance. We are going to assist them with education. We're going to take a stronger look at how we address creditworthiness in this country, how we address some of the things that we know have been impediments. Because what we do know is that homeownership is the first step towards creating generational wealth, and we want to help people do it. It's just a shame, Brian, that there's no place in this country where a person making minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment.

nowhere in the entire United States. We don't have enough housing at the level that the average person can buy it. So that is what the jobs plan is going to do. It's going to create that niche for that moderate and low-income housing. Yeah. And I think what's ironic about all of this, too, is that, you know, you have the Republicans who are opposing the American jobs plan right now are opposing efforts to ultimately, you know, by virtue of building that generation of wealth to bring people into the economy so that they can continue to stimulate the economy to help everybody make money. You know, at the end of the day, this is only going to help everybody. Everybody. You're absolutely right. We have so many people who have been locked out for so long that this is our opportunity.

And I'm just really so pleased that the president has taken this kind of a courageous and bold and visionary look at where we are. Because you think about the numbers of homeless people, Brian, not only do we have a problem with not having, enough housing for people who can afford housing. Think about the fact that we have on any given day, we know for sure in 2019, more than 580,000 people in this country were homeless. We have a huge housing problem in this country. Now, we've seen a number of climate disasters ravaged homes and communities. Can you explain how this concept of resilient housing is going to help people stay safe? Well, there is a requirement that the president has given us now, and I say requirement, not a request, that any housing that we build must take into consideration resiliency. The current

housing that we have must be retrofitted and upgraded so that we can deal with the climate. Just think about it this way. If you live in a home, an existing home, and you don't have the kind of weatherproofing in your home that you need, your utility bills become something instances more than your mortgage. And so what happens is that people who can barely get into a home, if their home does not have the kinds of safeguards that we want in terms of weatherization and meeting the climate situation, it's going to cost them so much they can't stay in their home. By the way, we see this constant, you know, this should be a given, right? Like we see this constant fatal short-termism pushed by Republicans. You remember when Trump was trying to push people away from getting

light bulbs that lasted four, five, six times the amount of time as an old school light bulb. And it was just like, you know, you have to stop pushing for this fatal short termism just because it's something that we already have. And God forbid, we have progress in any instance. But the other thing we have to do is stop living in the past. We have to start. We know things now that we didn't know 10 years ago about sustainability. We know things now about how to build more energy-efficient homes. We know how to do it. We have the technology. We have the know-how. We have the people who can do it. We should stop living in the past and start looking toward the future of this country, not just for the next year or two, but the country that we're going to

leave our children and our grandchildren. And if we don't start to look at that now, we may be too late in the long run to make a significant change in the way we live and work every day. Yeah, well said. Now, I want to switch gears a little bit here. the White House lobbying Democratic holdouts like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema on the filibuster, given that H.R. 1 or even the Voting Rights Act won't pass with any Republican votes? I don't know that I would consider it being lobbying, but I do understand that there are conversations with members of the Senate, those who are for and those who we aren't sure where they stand. So, I mean, I think they're talking to everybody on the Senate side, as well as people

on the House side. I mean, it's kind of like all hands on deck, you know? Right. You know, I believe that Chuck Schumer. has has placed an August deadline on trying to pass HR1. So, you know, this is a, it's a five alarm fire and we're getting even closer to it every day. Well, I do know that he is determined to put it on the House floor. He has said that publicly. And so I hope that he will, he will follow through with what he's saying. I think it's important. Now, a major talking point that we hear on the right is that there's inflation. And look, the cost of a banana could go up three cents and Fox News would be crying inflation for two months straight. So I'm definitely not trying to

legitimize or validate these talking points, but I think that taking the opportunity to counter this disinformation is important. So what's your response to warnings about inflation? I'm not in the least bit worried about inflation, and I don't think most economists are either. I think that that is just a diversion, a distraction. And I don't know who's saying it, but I don't know of any economists who are especially worried. We may, in fact, have some inflation, but it will not be significant enough for us to not do the things that this administration is doing. We have to continue to move forward, Brian. And so as you look at us opening up our society right now, that is what our goal is, is to get people back to as close

as we could to normal, to make people's lives better, to deal with the poverty and to deal with the joblessness that we see in this country. So if we can turn things around, we're not really that concerned about a small amount of inflation if, in fact, it even happens. There is nothing definitive to say to us that it's going to be a problem. Especially, you know, a lot of these attacks are amid the American jobs plan where the benefits of that plan so far outweighed any potential disadvantages or any potential or any warnings that were brought forward by Republicans. You look at the number of Americans who've been pulled out of poverty, who've been able, you know, escaped hunger. It's been incredible. Well, I would just say this to you, Brian.

I, when I was a member of Congress, the Congress of the United States passed a $2 trillion cut in taxes for the wealthiest people in this country. I certainly do believe that we need to give the same kind of consideration to helping the people who are most in need in this country. Perfectly put. Well, Secretary Fudge, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed speaking with you today. Thanks again to Secretary Fudge. Now we've got political scientist Rachel Bidicoffer. Thanks for coming on to chat. Yeah, I'm happy to be here today. Thanks. So you co-founded StrikePack. So what is that and why did you create it? Yeah, it's really important to kind of start there at the base of it.

Because what Strike Pack, I mean, it is in form a super PAC, although it is a citizen initiated. super PAC, not a billionaire one, from the very foundation of our, on the left side of the spectrums, electioneering system, we make a critical assumption flaw that we're talking to an informed, engaged electorate, okay? And we, if you're listening to this podcast, you know, we are informed and engaged, but we are also a like 15% part of the population, okay? Meanwhile, the GOP, they talk to voters where they are, low information, low interest. So it's all about juicing them up emotively, making them convince that there's a lot of stakes to their participation. So what I'm arguing and what Strikepack is about is about dealing with this root cause problem.

Instead of spending millions and millions of dollars tinkering up in the limbs, we're taking the whole tree and the soil, dumping it out, laying new soil, and launching what we call. a brand, like a brand offensive against the GOP. And so what are basically, what are you going to focus on within the realm of this rebranding? We've never played offense. We've never been a party that attacks the GOP on issues and makes them defend it, right? Right. It's always, we're not socialist. We're not, you know, we're not going to take away your guns.

We promise we can handle the economy. Yes, it's all bouch. It's all wimpy bullshit, right? So, like, a central tenant is the best defense is a, good offense, right? And when you're going on the attack, like say you're one of these moderate frontrunner, frontlining districts like Katie Porter's district, when you go out there and you say, hey, let's talk about the economy because in fact, the Republican performance on the economy has completely decimated the American middle class, right? Like even their golden goose of jobs,

if you look at the last 30 years, almost my entire lifetime, we've never had a Republican president create more jobs than a Democratic president. The last two recessions that we've had, both were coming out of Republican administrations with Bush and Trump 10 out of 11, actually, because we made an ad about that. We literally have an ad that, like, says, hey, voters out there in America, you know, this concept of good for the economy. Well, we're the ones that are good for the economy. The stock market does better under us. Job creation does better under us. You know, economic growth is more robust with us. My goal is to shit so hard on the GOP's handling of the economy. that I am breaking like the softer party alliances and that, you know, if I hammer it maybe for

five years, I can actually move public opinion away. It is more difficult because we're not operating with the same infrastructure that Republicans are. I mean, they have an entire media infrastructure, an entire media ecosystem that, you know, here's the bullshit that's served up from these Republicans that will just turn it right back out with no accountability. They're not vetting any of this information. and then there's that whole feedback loop.

Then Republican politicians hear this stuff served up on right wing media and they repeat it. Yeah, but you know what? That's not an accident. That is a product of training and strategy and pre-planning. And I have always suspected that we didn't do that on this side, but the last two years has taught me, no, actually, they don't do that at all. Like there is no strategic brain trust that directs our short and long-term strategy, right? So like to say to you, okay, you know, we'll never be able to prolifer.

an alt media ecosystem and judging by what it did to the GOP because it was kind of a Frankenstein effect and eventually ate them, right? You know, you really don't want that, right? But like, you know, in lieu of that, what you have to do is develop an infrastructure. It's so robust and has so much resource that it can attack multiple fronts at the same time, right? So that's why I'm like, I am passionate about getting this project to fly because in their minds, people who run these campaigns. They think, oh, all we got to do is show Amy McGrath with her, you know, her airplane or the chick down in Texas that ran, who was a fighter pilot or whatever, right? And Val Dennings on her Harley and, you know, oh, she doesn't want to defund the police because she was a cop. Like, that is not going to cut it, guys, okay? Because that's what I said, full circle about our assumption, about an informed, engaged electorate who can be reasoned, who can be shown information in a wonky brain-oriented way and persuaded, you know, that's bullshit, right? You're never going to win that fight if one side is assaulting you at a brand level

in a marketing campaign and you're trying to have a wonky discourse about policies that average Americans can't understand and have no interest in, right? It really does go to show the importance of like countering all of this pervasive disinformation and that is why we are losing elections in a lot of these places. So it's not so much about changing the policy because we're already on the right side of the policy. It's about changing the messaging apparatus that people actually receive. If people are getting the wrong information, then it doesn't matter what we stand for. We can stand for giving everybody a million bucks, but if they don't know it at the end of the day, then it's not going to matter.

And you know what the real advantage is, too, is that we don't have to lie like them, okay? Because our policies are popular. But I want to tell you this. It's like the consultant class thinks the big change that Democrats need is just do more credit claiming. Tell people what you're doing for them. I am here to tell you that that is not going to cut it. Do I want candidates credit claiming and running towards their own party and their own brand and not from it, which is what happens every time someone on the left says, I'm a fiscal conservative, right? All it does is say to the voters, you know, there's something inherently wrong

with my party, right? So you never want to do that. But where credit claiming will be most powerful and what strike pack will do with it is it will say, the Democratic party have broughteth this and the Republicans are coming to take it from you, right? And by the way, if you have any doubts as to the effectiveness of that, just consider the fact that Republicans have employed that exact strategy for the last few decades. And look how well it's worked. I mean, they're 40 years into a campaign of rebuilding their entire infrastructure from the ground up. I mean, they run most state legislatures. They run, you know, most state houses. And that is the exact strategy that they employ, except they employ it with lies, vilifying all of these people who don't deserve to be

vilified, immigrants and poor people. And the fact is that the people that they're protecting are the actual people who are coming to take away prosperity. I mean, you know, not like protecting the ultra-rich and billionaires and corporations. Those are the people who are keeping all of, you know, middle class and low-income folks down. No doubt. And you can't just talk about elites and 99% and 1% and shit like that. You have to make it resonate to people. So it has to be personal. Like we like to make everything we framed, right? Oh, you have to do this because, you know, this nameless, faceless person you're not related to is going to get hurt, right?

And I'm not saying that that's not important, okay? But it's only important to the 15% of us with liberal ideologies. Okay. The rest of the world is things. thinking about them as their center of the universe, right? So if you can talk about climate, you can talk about guns, you can talk about immigration, but you have to flip that frame and make the person feel personally affronted or personally, you know, risking stuff or what have you, right? So it's so important for me to stress, right? Republicans have been winning these elections everywhere. There's a competitive election, except for in the red states that are moving to the left, like Georgia, Texas. And the rest of them, generally speaking, there are less

Republican voters in that district, in that House, state house, state senate district, in the state. Yet they do so good at motivating them to show up, to see the importance of every election, to tie it all together to this national theme of threat, that they outvote us. So you're absolutely right. Having made my academic career an anthropologic study of the strategies, techniques, and tactics deployed by these two parties and showing and teaching students how they were so different and the Republicans were so much more effective, I'm now taking their weapon arsenal. I'm adapting it for our side and I'm being a little bit more cautious, right? Because we don't want to drive people nuts, but damn it, we need to drive them to the polls.

Right. Well, I think that's really well put. So with that said, Rachel, how can we help you and where can we find StrikePack? Yeah, I'm so glad you're asking. As I've said, this is the People's Pack. We've got a great core team now altogether. We've got ads that we've launched four ads. They can see them on our YouTube page. I can see them on my Twitter or the StrikePack Twitter. But ultimately, we really need people to click that Donate tab and give what they can. If it's a small amount, great. It's a large amount. Great. As important as that donation, though, is that next step, which is to tell your friends and family, especially people who you think can help us at a greater level, because we just don't have a rolodex. We don't come from the political world, which is why I'm able to build something from scratch, which I say is basically SpaceX to NASA, right? We're all trying to get to space, but the Democratic Party is going to do it the way they've always done it. And we need a different system. that can wing me on them. Rachel, thank you again for what you're doing and keep hammering away. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on. Thanks again to Rachel.

Finally, just an update on the Don't Be a Mitch Fund. We've raised over $325,000 so far. And that money is going to voter outreach and voter registration groups in some of the closest states ahead of 2022. And those include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and as of last week, Texas.

So as always, if you're going, to donate during the 2022 cycle anyway, I would highly recommend donating now when your money can go the furthest. What these organizations are doing is laying the foundation that we need to expand our razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate. And I don't have to explain what it can mean if we no longer have to request permission from the most conservative members of the party to get anything done. But, of course, it takes money to reach new voters in these states. So if you're able to donate, it is definitely appreciated. I'm also selling merch on my website, Brian Tyler Cohen.com and the profits also go to the Don't Be a Mitch Fund.

So if you're looking for, you know, a shirt or a bag or a phone case, check out my site. Okay, 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. Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.