No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Pete Buttigieg on Biden's first address to Congress

Episode Date: May 2, 2021

Republicans get caught in the act of lying about some bogus scandals. Brian interviews Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about the best way to sell the American Jobs Plan to Republicans, his response to Ted Cruz falling asleep during Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress, and about how to reconcile his appearances on Fox with their ramped up efforts to spread disinformation. And Brian chats with longtime congressional and campaign adviser and founder of ODAction and @advocacy, Stuart Perelmuter, about the results of the census and about Biden’s congressional address. Written 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 Republicans getting caught in the act of lying about some made-up scandals. I interview Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about the best way to sell the American jobs plan to Republicans, his response to Ted Cruz falling asleep during Biden's address to a joint session of Congress, and how to reconcile his appearances on Fox with their ramped up efforts to spread disinformation. And finally, I chat with my friend and longtime congressional and campaign advisor Stu Perlmutter about the results of the census and about Biden's address. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Okay, before we dive in, I want to make mention of the fact that I'll have a big announcement next week, something I've been working on for months, and I'm really excited about it. So please make sure to set a notification for next week's episode. Okay, with that said, let's jump into it.

So a growing problem we've seen lately is just this explosion of straight up disinformation from the right. In just the last week alone, if you'd only consume right-wing media, You'd think that Joe Biden was limiting your red meat to four pounds a year. You'd think that Kamala Harris's children's book was being handed out to every migrant child at the border. You'd think that John Kerry leaked state secrets to Iran. And look, hearing lies from right-wing media isn't some huge revelation here, but the swings are clearly getting bigger. So I think we have a responsibility to kind of call these lies out right away before they metastasize.

Before we're left with a Hillary's email situation where some nothing Burger story suddenly becomes a months-long saga because the right wills it into existence and the rest of the news outlets are forced to pick it up. So first is this story that Biden's limiting red meat to four pounds a year or one burger a month. Here's how this started. Biden pledged at a virtual climate summit

that the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. And so the British rag, the Daily Mail, published a story titled, How Biden's climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a month. And the article says, quote, Americans may have to cut their red meat consumption by a whopping 90% and cut their consumption of other animal-based foods in half.

Gradually making those changes by 2030 could see diet-related greenhouse gas emissions reduced by 50%. According to a study by Michigan University Center for Sustainable Systems, to do that, it would require Americans to only consume about four pounds of red meat per year. It equates to consuming roughly one average-sized burger per month. So that's the article. And then Fox News, the most watched news network in the United States, decided that was enough due diligence for them, and they posted a graphic of exactly those same red meat stats.

Only one tiny problem that study from the University of Michigan has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It's an academic finding from the year before he was even elected president that simply studied the effect of Americans making a 50% cut to their consumption of animal-based foods and a 90% cut to their consumption of beef in particular. And they found that there would be a 51% reduction in diet-related U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. between 2016 and 2030, which, you know, is interesting and it's a helpful guide, but an academic paper is suggesting that greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced

if Americans hypothetically ate 90% less beef doesn't somehow mean that Joe Biden is forcing Americans to eat 90% less beef. It's someone's research paper, not a policy from the president of the United States. Of course, that didn't stop Republicans from treating it like it was. Lauren Bobert, of course, tweeted, Joe Biden's climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from our diets by 2030, they want to limit us to about four pounds a year. Why doesn't Joe stay out of my kitchen? Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted, not going to happen in Texas.

Idaho Governor Brad Little tweeted, Idahoans have beef with this agenda and for dinner. Here's Fox host Jesse Waters, also repeating this claim on Fox. Order to reduce emissions to hit Biden's target. That means you're only allowed to eat four pounds of red meat a year. That adds up to a burger a month. That's it. And even after this story was debunked, after it was debunked, Here's Kevin McCarthy still, days later, repeating the same claim.

He just continues. He wants control of your life. He's going to control how much meat you can eat. Can you imagine that? Because the point isn't the truth. The point is to whip their viewers and their base into a frenzy with BS claims, knowing full well that their retractions won't be seen by a fraction of the people who saw the original claims. And so they'll spread scary graphics with pictures of hamburgers and let it ride across

the entire internet because the story was only ever about one thing, saying whatever needs to be said to hurt Democrats. And then there's the Kamala Harris Children's Book situation. Basically, another right-wing rag in New York Post, they published an article that every migrant kid entering the U.S. was getting welcomed with a copy of her book. Only, it turns out that every migrant kid was not getting welcome with a copy of her book. One single copy of her book was donated to a shelter. And of course, the story was fact-checked. And that led to the writer of the story coming onto Twitter, saying that she was forced to write it despite it being inaccurate, and then she resigned.

But that wasn't before the article had already served its purpose, because nearly everyone in the right-wing ecosystem had already made sure to spread it to the farthest corners of their echo chamber. The RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, she tweeted, After learning officials or handing out Kamala Harris' book to migrants and facilities at the border, it's worth asking, was Harris paid for these books? Is she profiting from Biden's border crisis? Tom Cotton tweeted, the Biden administration's weakness caused a surge of illegal immigrants.

Now they're forcing taxpayers to buy Kamala Harris' book to give to those illegal immigrants? Lauren Bobert tweeted, why is the Biden regime using taxpayer dollars to provide illegal immigrants entering the U.S. with a copy of Kamala's children's book? Jim Jordan said, Vice President Harris refuses to visit the southern border, but some migrant children are given a copy of her book upon arrival to the USA. Nothing to see here.

So, you know, of course, every clown that you'd expect. But the point here is the same. it is to pump this crap out, even if it doesn't come close to passing the smell test, because it's not about reporting news or responding to any legitimate grievance. It's about painting Democrats in a bad light. Even if that means just straight up lying to do it. Like, we've long since passed this being some response to Democrats' actions. Now they're just operating in their own alternate plane of reality.

They're just inventing scandals out of thin air, pretending to get outraged, and then pumping it out to their viewers. Like, stand for something. Stand for some conservative values, whatever they are. are. But if all you believe in is just spreading lies and pretending Joe is coming for your hamburgers and Kamala's lining her pockets from migrants buying up her children's book, all you're doing is showing that today's Republican Party represents literally nothing other than lying to its own supporters and drumming up fake scandals because you know you can't win

in a way that's legitimate. And by the way, this isn't new. Like we've seen this before. Basically, the right knows that it can find any insignificant little story and exploit it. And so we heard about Hillary's private email server every day for a week, and then another week, and then the month, and then two months, and then they'll start to accuse the mainstream media of being biased in favor of the Democrats because they haven't dedicated any time to this bombshell story, and because the mainstream media wants nothing less than to be labeled the liberal media, they'll pick up these stories, too, to show you, uh, see, we cover both sides, even though the other side's stories are bogus. And so now you have all the media talking about these

bullshit stories because the right figured out how to game the refs. And before you know it, Hillary's emails become some international story that's taking up all the oxygen and the entire world is talking about how there's never been a greater political scandal than Hillary Clinton using a personal email address for government business. And then, on top of all of that, when Ivanka Trump gets caught having used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails in violation of federal records rules, which you would think would be a pretty big deal considering you couldn't go more than four minutes in the lead up to the 2016 election without hearing about it, that story disappeared like a fart

and a hurricane. And that should be all the proof you need that none of this was ever about emails, none of it was ever being done in good faith, and that it was only a strategy where the GOP got rewarded for drumming up fake outrage, and they realized how easy it was to get everybody else on board. And so when you see it happening again, whether because Biden's coming into your homes to take away your hamburgers, or the vice president's getting rich off of selling her children's book to migrant kids,

have a duty to call it out because one side has clearly recognized the benefit to just standing there and selling bald-faced lies to their people. And look at where it's gone from there. Like, you think Hillary's emails was bad? You think Benghazi was bad? The natural conclusion of that was the insurrection on January 6th. That was the direct result of a culture where outright lies were not only, like, unchallenged, but actually taken a sacred. And so you have the big lie started by Trump. And then in the two weeks after the election was called, Fox News cast doubt the election results nearly 800 times, 800 times. And while that insurrection failed in its immediate goal, which I guess was to stop the

certification of the election, now three and four Republicans don't even believe Joe Biden won the election. And that's despite Trump losing, what, 65 court cases and Bill Barr's DOJ and DHS's cybersecurity unit, both saying that it was a secure election and Republican governors and secretaries of state also agreeing over and over again, the GOP is getting positive reinforcement from telling these outright lies, and we on the left have to be able to learn from this. We have to be able to recognize that we can't just say, uh, LOL, this is so ridiculous. Because for the people who watch right-wing media, this is their truth. This is the information

they're getting. And so if we let these lies fester without rebutting them, without debunking them, we're going to find ourselves in the exact same position we found ourselves in with Hillary's emails and Benghazi and Obama's tan suit and the left canceling Dr. Seuss and Joe Biden taking your precious hamburgers away and Kamala Harris juicing book sales using migrant kids. And if that means that I have to use this entire monologue to call out the bullshit so that

even one person who didn't know might now know the truth, then it's worth it. Because this kind of stuff might have worked for Republicans before, but our job is to make sure that it doesn't work again. Still coming up is my chat with longtime congressional and campaign advisors, Stu Perlmutter. But first,

here's my interview with Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. Okay, today we have the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. Thanks for coming back on. Thanks for having me. Good to see you. You too. So I want to start with the American Jobs Plan because, you know, this fight is already

coming to a head. So how does the White House reconcile seeking bipartisanship on the American Jobs Plan with the fact that Democrats have been burned in the past by making compromises only to see Republicans jump ship? Like we saw that with the ACA. We saw that with the American Recovery Act, both during the Obama era. I think it's safe to say we've learned from experience through the years. And it's also still truly the case that this can be a bipartisan priority. So the president has made clear that he wants to hear other ideas. We welcome the fact that Republicans have come to the table with a counterproposal. It's a starting point from their perspective. But also that we have to get this done. And time is of the essence. Doing nothing is not an option. And while the president is interested in ideas, he's also going to lead as he's been doing from day one. Ultimately, it's not bipartisanship for

its own sake, but bipartisanship is the way we prefer to get this done. And we're inviting Republicans into a good faith dialogue to do just that. So what's the practical advantage to bipartisanship? Like, is the thinking that they'll be more likely to play ball on other bills if they feel like their voices are being taken into account on this one? For me, it's a little less political and it's more about the policies. It's simply easier to set up the policies and the authorities that we need in the Department of Transportation when you can go through regular order, through the process of working with the committees to put together the bills. And I imagine that's true for the other departments too. So I'm not thinking about it as much in terms of the political maneuvers as I am in

terms of the fact that it's best if we can have some bipartisan agreement on good public policy. But again, the bottom line at the end of the day is we've got to get something done. Our infrastructure has fallen to 13th place. It's headed in the wrong direction. Frankly, it doesn't take a lot of persuading for me to talk to Americans about the fact that our infrastructure needs work. Because if you look at our roads and bridges or our ports and airports or the condition of our rail and transit resources, we know we could be doing better. And this is our chance to actually make it happen. Right.

I think it's an especially easy sell because this is something that Americans, are confronted with on a daily basis. Now, there's talk of splitting the American Jobs Plan into two packages, one that would have a more narrow focus on roads and bridges and that kind of stuff with the hope of getting Republicans on board, and another that has the other elements of the plan that would pass through reconciliation, presumably. So is there a worry that giving Republicans what they want with a narrow bill is only going to concentrate the opposition to the other stuff. So kind of like we extend the olive branch and it might hurt us in the end. Well, again, these are the kinds of procedural things that, don't get me wrong, of course

they're important. But I think the most important thing is that we get a good policy through in whatever way actually gets it done. I don't think most people sitting at home or most times somebody hits a hole in the road. They're too worried about the mechanics of reconciliation versus reauthorization or whether it moves in one bill or two bill or ten bills, right? The important thing is it's got to happen. And the machinations in Washington are, I think the main thing that most Americans recognize about that is just that they're not helping. So we're trying to focus on, and I thought the president did a great job of this in the address to Congress, just focus on what it would mean in our lives if we did have the best roads and bridges and airports and ports in the

world, what it means to get everybody broadband, how American lives get better if child care is affordable for everybody and we're doing more around elder care. And we have a tax code that actually rewards work rather than wealth. And I think when you're standing on really solid ground with the policy, when the American people generally agree with us, including a lot of Republicans, by the way, that this is the right thing to do, then that makes it a lot easier to push it through whatever twist and turns has got to go through here in Washington to actually turn it into a bill, get it passed, and sign it. Well, building on that, I mean, I guess that would suggest that Republicans are responsive to public pressure. And we saw so much public pressure with the American Rescue Plan.

I mean, that was a bill that had over 75% support from Americans, and yet we still couldn't get a single Republican on board. So how do we differentiate this process from that one? Because we have another wildly popular bill in the American Jobs Plan. So how do we, you know, what do we change from that first process to this one to see a difference in how the Republicans respond. One of the strange things that the rescue plan showed us is that a policy can be, as you said, wildly popular around the country on a bipartisan basis, have support from both sides of the aisle, coast to coast, and yet somehow not on Capitol Hill. Will history repeat itself? I hope not, because one of the things I notice as we talk about transportation infrastructure is that

everyone I talk to, every Republican and Democrat I talk to from the House, from the Senate, they're from somewhere, and they have in their mind very specific visual images and very specific constituents calling them up about the things that need work in their district that we have been disinvesting in for pretty much as long as I've been alive. And so I think there's a real desire to be able to go home and say, okay, we work together across the aisle with the president, with the other party, and that's why this bridge is getting fixed. That's why this airport's going to be improved. that's why this piece of broadband infrastructure is going to serve your community. I'm not naive. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. I am saying that if there's ever been an area of domestic policy where we could still do something on that basis, I've got to believe it's what we're working on right now.

I don't think the Republicans would be opposed to Democrats, offering them the ability to go back to their districts and say, because of my vote, we were able to fix this bridge. We were able to fix this road. We were able to get you broadband. Okay, so moving on, you know, we're hearing from the right that the American Jobs Plan is less than 10% about roads and bridges, but it includes stuff like the care economy, for example. So what do you say to Republicans who don't think that care economy elements should be in this package? Well, we believe it goes together because we think of infrastructure as the foundation of the things that make it possible for you to thrive. So, you know, you can't hold a job or succeed in going about a purposeful life if you have, you have. no way to get to where you need to be. That's why transit's important. But it's also true that

you can't enter the labor market and succeed there if you can't afford elder care for a loved one. And that's keeping you at home even when you want to be able to contribute in society. So we think all of those things fit together. But I guess my message, to get to your question, my message to the Republicans who don't is fine. We'll call it infrastructure. You call it whatever you like. But it's a good public policy. You ought to vote for it anyway. By the way, this isn't called the American infrastructure package. It's the American jobs plan. That's right. You know, investing in the care economy frees up parents who are taking care of young children

or children taking care of their elderly parents so that they are able to participate in the jobs market and stimulate the economy. This really is a question of jobs at the end of the day. Yeah, I mean, one way you might think of it is infrastructure is the theme of this plan, but jobs is the point of this plan. This plan is about making sure we have a strong economy. And by the way, it's not stimulus. You know, the rescue plan was really about bringing us back from the brink in terms of,

of the pandemic. But this isn't about getting us through this business cycle or this quarter or this year. This is about making sure the 2020s and 30s and 40s are an era in which Americans can thrive. And if we get it right, we're also going to be more equitable. And what's crucially important, we can't hit our climate goals unless we're making these big investments too. That's why you see things like electric vehicles in there. It's not so-called traditional infrastructure by the definitions that would have mattered 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. But to us, we think it's absolutely essential infrastructure, partly because it has to do with how Americans get around, partly because it's going to create jobs building these EVs in the country, but also partly because

transportation is the biggest contributor of greenhouse gases in the economy. And if we don't do something quick, we will be paying that price with very specific, very real pain and the destruction of lives and livelihoods within our lifetime. That's perfectly put. There's a lot in this package, obviously. But what aspect of it are you most excited about? What's the one part that will be legacy building for this administration if you had to, if you had to choose one? And the electric vehicles are really exciting. I mean, the idea that we're moving toward a world where you could go anywhere in the country, not just around one of our biggest cities, but through a rural area, or on a cross-country road trip in an electric vehicle that produces

zero missions, built by union workers on American soil and an American company, and know that you're you're part of that solution, but also know that you're saving money at the gas pump. To me, that's pretty exciting. The other thing I think is incredibly exciting. And oddly, it's not getting talked about much, although the president made a point of this in his address to Congress, is the research and development work we're talking about. You know, there's an amazing tradition of American investments, market-creating investments in the basic research that then enables the private sector to pick up and do what it does best. If you think about a smart phone. There's no way a great smartphone could have been invented and developed by the federal

government. That's something companies are good at doing and making and producing. But the federal government literally invented the internet through a research organization called ARPA. And without the internet, smartphones wouldn't be smart. So you've got to have both. And kickstarting the public sector research stuff that may not pay off for a few years, may not even pay off for a generation, but when it does, it yields trillion-dollar ideas and opportunities. I think that's incredibly exciting, even if it's not quite as concrete or tangible, not something you can go up and physically, you know, kick like a bridge or a road. Right.

Well, I think there's plenty of that tangible stuff in this bill anyway. So I think that, you know, we're not hurting for any of that stuff as it is. So I don't know if this was intentional, but you've kind of been anointed the guy who can define the Democratic agenda in a way that's palatable for Republicans or, maybe it's just that you're the only one who goes on Fox News and doesn't let them steamroll you. So how do you sell the American Jobs Plan? What's the most effective way that you found in terms of selling the American Jobs Plan in a way that Republicans can best appreciate?

I think part of it's making clear that this is about how we live our lives every day. This isn't an ideological project. It's a deeply practical project. It's progressive, too, but in a way that I think a lot of conservatives can understand and get on board with. And again, our starting point is that this is already. pretty popular among the American people, just not here in Washington. I'd rather that than the other way around. I think we've got to meet people where they are, too,

and we do need to talk about these things in a way that's accessible. For example, all the jobs that we're going to create here, and independent analysts suggest it's millions of jobs. Most of them are blue-collar jobs. Most of them don't require a college degree. I'm not sure you would pick up on that if you saw the way the debate has unfolded over the last few years. You would think of these kind of mysterious, exotic, green jobs that sound very future,

and it's not clear if you're working in industry today, whether that even applies to you. So we need to make it a little bit clearer what we're talking about. We're talking about electricians. We're talking about plumbers and pipe fitters and carpenters retrofitting buildings. We're talking about the people who've built skills working in the current energy industry, applying those same skills working in the future of the energy industry. These are not mysterious, newfangled industries. A lot of them are things that exist now.

We just got a supercharge and before it's too late. So I want to switch gears here to Biden's address to a joint session of Congress. Something that struck me from the speech was that no Republicans stood when Biden said that the American Rescue Plan cut child poverty in half. That was a really, you know, striking point for me. Is there a point where Americans who identify as Republicans across the country see that and say, like, come on, you can at least stand up to applaud having child poverty? or, you know, is that just the crippling polarization that we're dealing with? I was surprised by that, too.

And I think it may be that they feel like they're painted a little bit into a corner because they voted against it. But how could anybody be against, even if you're against the bill for whatever partisan reason you had, how can anybody be against the virtue of cutting child poverty and a half? And again, you know, that speaks to values that I know resonate in rural America, which is where a lot of kids do live in poverty. I know it speaks to values that are very important to people of faith, where, you know, certainly in the Christian tradition that I belong to and really every faith tradition I've ever seen,

there is an emphasis on looking after the most vulnerable, which includes the poor, it includes children, and when you're talking about poor children, we're talking about those who ought to be of the most concern to anybody in any moral system, frankly, religious or not. And so these are themes that I think, really do resonate across the country. And it shows you it's another exhibit

in how strange things have become in our political system, that things that resonate like that don't always resonate within the walls of that chamber. But that's part of what we're trying to break open here. It's part of why I'm going to places that are considered liberal and places that are considered conservative. And it's why the president, I think, even as he's laying forth what our, let's own it,

very big, very part, old and very ambitious ideas, is also doing it in a way that's deeply rooted in an American tradition, in an American moral vocabulary, and in a deep belief in the American people that I hope and believe can reach people if they pause and listen, no matter how they're used to voting and no matter where they live. Another moment that stood out to me was Ted Cruz was caught on camera dozing off during Biden's address, which, look, not everything. is, you know, a Mexican vacation, you know. But then Cruz went on TV later and said that it was

quote, boring but radical. So what would be your response to Ted Cruz? Because, you know, for people that watch these right-wing networks, he's going to be the one that they see. He's going to be the one that they take their cues from. I just hope people take a chance to watch the speech instead of the reviews of the speech because, you know, the president stood there and made the case for something that most Americans believe in. Look, by definition, I don't think something can be radical if the mainstream, the center gravity of our population supports it. I also didn't think it was boring.

I thought it was stirring. Now, it might be boring compared to this kind of whiplash of the news cycle that we had with the last president, where, you know, every day or every hour you're wondering what just happened on Twitter or who's yelling at you or who called who what name. But that's the kind of excitement. I think most of us believe we could do without right now. And I think a lot of Americans are relieved to be able to see good ideas that are big and ambitious and meaningful and have their blood pressure go down a little bit at the same time.

Yeah, perfectly put. So I do want to switch gears again now and talk about this idea of misinformation that's kind of bloomed up lately. And we've seen an increase in this from Fox News, other right-wing media outlets. Just this past week, you know, we had the fake story that the Vice President's book was being distributed to every migrant child when in reality one single book was donated. There was the fake story that the president's climate plan required every American to limit their red meat to four pounds a year, which ended up being part of just some academic paper on one way to cut

greenhouse emissions, but it wasn't a policy dictate by the president. So you've been one of, if not the most effective surrogates for the White House when it comes to talking on right-wing media outlets and combating this type of misinformation. So how do you reconcile what could be considered as validating these outlets by going on with the fact that they're actively spreading fake information. Yeah. So what I try to do is find places to go where I know that there will be some fair shot of getting my message out and getting the administration's message out and the truth out, but not go into an environment that's just set up in total bad faith. Because then even if you show up and say your piece, there's the risk that it can be twisted.

But look, there are a lot of places where people tune in, in good faith, who might have a different partisan background or different ideological background, but are ready to hear what you have to say. So I try to stay out of the spaces where I know that, you know, whatever we say is going to be twisted. But you can't just be talking to people who already agree with you all the time. Otherwise, you know, it's not persuasion. It's just echo. And I think it's really important to get good information. out there. It is alarming to me just, I mean, as you said, the last few days alone provides so many examples of this. I mean, the cheeseburger, come on. But the fact that some people don't know

that's ridiculous means we really have a work cut out for us in a very fragmented information environment. Yeah, exactly. In an interview with Medi Hassan, Chuck Schumer had set an August deadline for HR1 to pass. Now, in response to that, Chief of Staff Ron Klain said, quote, that's a very strong goal, and when we would join him in pursuing, that's a high priority for us. Now, August is pretty soon. I think we can safely say that if there's one bill that's not passing with bipartisan support, it's probably H.R. 1, which brings me to the topic that I talk about almost on a daily basis, and rightfully so, because I think it's the single most important issue facing us right now, and that's the filibuster. So it's May. There's a soft August deadline

for HR1, which begs the question, what's happening regarding the filibuster? And do you feel confident that whatever needs to happen to get HR1 passed will happen? So obviously, there are a lot of dynamics within the Senate that will ultimately decide how those Senate procedures unfold. But what we know, once again, is that the American people are ready for legislation that makes it easier for legitimate voters to vote, legislation that make sure that things like dark money stay out of politics and other measures that really reaffirmed the integrity of our system and the fairness of our system, which has been under so much strain. So look, there are a lot of different pathways to get there. But what I know is that

we have majorities for a reason right now. We have majorities in the House, the Senate, and the White House, a president who is so focused on reaching across the aisle, but also has repeatedly demonstrated that he's ready to lead and ready to take the country to where we need to go because we can't sit in our hands, whether we're talking about infrastructure or any other policy area, there's a cost to sitting still, especially at a time when, you know, other countries and other models are competing, investing, growing. And I think that's one of the reasons why in the address to Congress, you heard the president speak about the importance of vindicating democracy itself at a moment when some are calling it into question. It's, it's

not just a belief in America. It's not just about our team. It's about what we stand for. And that is at stake in HR1 and a lot of these other debates. Okay. So I want to end with this. What's the what's the Pizza Hut story? Yeah. So I wanted to get a bike. D.C. is actually a pretty great city for biking. I'm not a super avid cyclist, but I like to bike to work and I like to bike on trails. So Chaston's especially good at navigating Facebook marketplace and getting a deal. and saw somebody who was selling a bike, and it was pretty early in my time here. And so the office, the security detail was a little puzzled why I sent him this address to go to, which turned out to be a Pizza Hut parking lot, but it was just where the guy was available to meet.

And I had a chance to test the bike. I think he was more surprised than anything when a bunch of SUV showed up, and I popped out. But, yeah, got a good deal on a good bike, and I'd ride it to work most days now. Have there been any road rage incidents since you've been biking? No, not really. A couple of beeps. You know, it's funny when you were mayor, you're used to people beeping, you know, to say hello and wave. And now I've realized sometimes when somebody's honking their horn around here, it's not a friendly note that they're happy to see you.

They just want to keep getting on their way. Yeah. All right. Well, Secretary Pete, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Thanks. Good being with you. Thanks again to Pete Buttigieg.

So now we have a good friend of mine, a longtime congressional and campaign advisor and the founder of OD Action and Advocacy, Stuart Perlmutter. Thanks, Steve, for coming on. Hey, thanks for having me, Brian. So I want to talk about the census a little bit. I know this was the big news at the beginning of last week. So top line, census, good or bad for Democrats? Definitely not as bad as we thought it was going to be. Republicans had been talking about just the change in state populations was going to be.

enough for them to win back the House next year. And not only were we not seeing that, but in the places that we did see a shift, it actually could benefit Democrats. People look at the census and they say, wow, after 2010, Democrats really got screwed. And they did. In 2012, Democrats got a million and a half almost more votes than Republicans and had a 33-seat minority in the House, whereas as last year, we won by 5.5 million and had a five-seat majority. So because of what happened in 2010 and 2011, Democrats are at a huge disadvantage, but it's not because of the way that the census shook out. It's because of the way midterm elections shook out in 2010 that allowed Republicans to just gerrymander the heck out of every state in their control. And so the setting

is a little bit better. And because of where the losses happen, New York, California, Michigan, Illinois, states that are pretty blue, those states could actually lose a red vote, or a red seat, rather, which would go to Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Montana, where they're not only picking up seats, but are planning to gerrymander states, but they're already gerrymandered. Sure, we lose three net, which is a bummer for the presidential, but it's not too frequently that the presidential election comes down to three electoral votes. It has happened in our lifetimes.

But, yeah, I'm actually feeling decent about the way things are. I mean, it would be great if we'd picked up more state legislative seats last year and we could fix some of the damage that Republicans did. But at the very least, it shouldn't be worse. Right. And you look at some states how it shook out in terms of Texas, gaining two instead of three, Florida, gaining one instead of two. So ultimately, like you said, it could have been worse.

New York was supposed to lose two. Delaware was supposed to lose one. It could have been much worse. The map could end up being possibly better. I think, too, a big part of this is going to be what happens in these state legislatures. Like, if you look at North Carolina, for example, I think the Republicans have come out and said, where something was leaked, that Republicans were planning to pass a 10-4 gerrymander in a 50-50 state. Back in 2016, they admitted the mapmaker for the Republicans admitted that he drew a 10-3 map,

but it was ruled illegal. and he said he drew a 10-3 map because anything worse wasn't feasible. He quite literally couldn't make a more gerrymandered map than that. So a big part of this, like, yes, Republicans will probably net advantage from what we've seen in terms of the census data. But a big part of this is going to not be so much because of that data in and of itself. It'll be really what happens in redistricting. That's right.

The same goes for Democratic states as well. Like, we can see what happens when California redraws the map. I mean, they can just as easily eliminate a Republican seat as they can in Florida. So I think it's likely that a state like California and New York, if they're each losing one, if they were losing two, you'd probably see a loss of a Republican and a loss of a Democratic seat. But if a state that's as heavily blue as these states is going to lose one seat, a state that has only trended blue in the last. last decade, then you're fairly likely to see them lose a red seat.

Okay, so that begs the question then. Should Democrats be looking to gerrymander blue states or states where they're in charge of, you know, the legislatures and they hold the governorship? You know, I'm a big fan of you play by the rules. Nobody wins basketball games by objecting the three-pointer and refusing to take it or defend it. If Democrats want to make things fair, we need to win elections. and winning elections means having seats that we can win.

However, it's not that simple when it comes to Democrats doing what Republicans do. And basically, it's because Democrats are interested in fair representational government and therefore in the states that are bluer or even fairly purple, the legislature does not control redistricting. So in California and New York and Illinois, big Democratic strongholds, It's done by a nonpartisan commission. If Democrats do want to do gerrymandering, do we change the law to something that we disagree with in order to then take advantage and nullify the Republicans' advantage?

I don't think that that's something that Democrats are willing to do. Yeah, I mean, what that really does is just underscore the importance of getting H.R.1 passed. I mean, Democrats, by virtue of pushing for good governance have been. basically adopted the reforms that we want to see, right? Like, we're living the example that we're trying to set at this point. I mean, you know, you look at the cinemas and the mansions of the Senate who are the ones holding the key to filibuster reform, which is the only thing standing in the way of HR1, the For the People Act.

Right. Because we've set rules in place that basically disallow us from gerrymandering, but Republican states are still well within their, well within their rights to gerryminding. their states, really the only thing that's going to save us is to have some national protections that would be afforded to us in the For the People Act. So, you know, we'll see these changes and all eyes are going to continue to stay on on Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema and any other Democrats who are basically standing in the way of our own party being able to have any semblance of power in these states. So cinema is the one that I just don't get. I mean,

she is bad policing, bad politicsing her way out of a job. Yeah. Her constituents don't like what she's doing. Democrats don't like her in Arizona. Republicans don't like her. And it's because she won't champion or stand with Democrats on these very basic fundamentals of democracy. I think you're right.

Like the foundation of our democracy really does depend on passing HR1 and guaranteeing people the right to vote and guaranteeing equal representation. So I want to switch gears here and talk about Biden's first address to a joint session of Congress. Topline reaction to the address. Did it exceed expectations? Was it underwhelming? What did you think? This was the night that Joe Biden became president.

That's right. He didn't insult anybody. He didn't tweet in the middle of it. I think one thing that's funny is like last time you would see all these Republicans before Biden even showed his face anywhere. Republicans would be like, I'll be surprised if he can stand up. I'll be surprised if he can leave his house. If he could find his way into the auditor. They set the bar so low that all Joe Biden had to do was like not fall down and faint.

And he would have exceeded expectations. And so I think they finally smartened up and figured out that that's probably not the best that Republicans are out of the game of lowering the bar for Joe Biden. Last night was an extension of everything that we've seen in the first 100 days of Joe Biden's presidency. He exceeded expectations by showing that he. really cares. And I don't know if it's by virtue of he knows that he's got this job that it's near the end of his life and he's more worried about his legacy than other presidents have been and just having a good impact. Or if after four years of just unspeakable Washington Hellscape,

the gloves have just come off, it just seems that everything that he's doing is for the right reason, exceeding expectations, casting off this democratic cloak of, oh, we don't want to get, let government be too big or let people know that we think the government has a role in people's lives. He and his team and most of the Democratic Congress are saying, we want to help people, we have the ability to help people, and we're going to do it. And I think Republicans had a tough time responding to that. I generally gauge how well Democrats do by the three phases of Republicans' response. So, like, when we talk about defunding the police

and they talk about defunding the police, we know we've done something wrong because they don't feel compelled to lie. Not specifically the platform, but the verbiage, if they're using the same words that we're using, we need to find better words for it. If they lie about everything we're doing, then we know we're doing something pretty well.

Are you suggesting that Joe Biden is not taking away our hamburgers, Are you suggesting that Kamala Harris is not handing out her children's book to every migrant at the border? Is that what you're suggesting right now? I am saying that I would like to see more information before I take that a phase of a little bit. Let me take a long sip of my plant-based beer. That's right. Good. Chuck Schumer would be proud.

Two things that stuck out to me were this. It was Biden spoke about cutting child poverty in half. And the camera showed all of the Democrats there standing up in a plunge. and it panned over to the Republican side, and it showed not a single Republican standing in applauding. It was disgraceful. For having child poverty. There was also another moment where Biden said...

It is a bold position. Give them points for courage. That's right. If anything. ...starving children. Pro-starving children is a tough political position to take. The other one was Biden said something nice to Mitch McConnell. He thanked him for...

And this was Adelip. He thanked him for naming the... the cancer bill after his late son, Bo, who died of cancer. He said that to Mitch McConnell, who will then go on to obstruct his entire agenda. So is this a charm offensive? Is he trying to, you know, is he, is this strategy? Or is Joe Biden just that guy? I just think it's Joe.

I don't think there was anything behind that other than sincerity. I mean, look at him as vice president. What were his big gaffs? Well, he blurted out that Barack Obama was now for, gay marriage and built momentum from that gaffe to marriage equality becoming a reality in this country. He couldn't help but talk about what a big effing deal giving health care to 20 million Americans was on a hot mic. He did it a few times last night where he would add lib just to say, you know, this is a big deal. This is going to help people's lives. And in that moment, I think

he was just talking about something that genuinely touched him. And I think it's one of his more charming characteristics. I think that's why Republicans are having such a difficult time pinning anything on him because, you know, that is the, that is the reputation that he's built over all these years. And so I think, you know, them having to take these wild swings and do the hamburger thing, do the children's book thing, do the Dr. Seuss thing, whatever it is. I mean, I think that's ultimately just a testament to the fact that they found a pretty difficult person to villainize in Joe Biden. Right. Well, and at the end of the day, they couldn't even come up with lies.

I mean, they're just calling it a liberal wish list. Well, great. Keep doing that. Keep calling child care and pre-K and free college, a liberal wish list, the things that people want. I mean, it's a conservative wish list, too. If you ask any of these conservatives, what they would want. to take out, would they want to take out, you know, would they, would they want to have taken out the, the stimulus checks, would they want to have taken out money to their own states and localities, vaccine funding, money for roads and bridges, you know, broadband for rural Americans, VA hospital funding? Like, this is just as much a conservative wish list as it is a liberal wish list. That's right. They're declawing their own buzzwords, uh, because they can't, they,

They just cannot find the target on his back right now. Well, Stu, it's been great chatting. Appreciate you taking the time. Hey, thanks, Brian. It's been nice talking to you. Thanks again to Stu. That's it for this episode. Don't forget to tune in next week for a big announcement.

Talk to you then. 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. in 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.