No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans BURY themselves with disastrous vote

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Republicans bury themselves with the most disastrous vote of Trump’s term. Brian interviews Raphael Warnock about Trump’s attacks against the Pope, Elizabeth Warren about Senate Republicans blocking the War Powers Resolution, and Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand about the race being moved into toss-up territorySupport Rob Sand: www.robsand.comShop 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.

Republicans bury themselves with the most disastrous vote of Trump's term. And I've got three interviews. Raphael Warnock discusses Trump's attacks against the Pope. Elizabeth Warren talks about Senate Republicans blocking the war powers resolution and Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob San talks about the race being moved to toss-up territory. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So we just hit attempt number four for senators to advance the warpower's resolution that would finally return the ability of Congress to declare war and curb Trump's power

to act unilaterally in Iran. and here's how that went. On this motion, the yeas are 47, the nays are 52. The motion is not agreed to. The resolution was blocked by a vote of 47 to 52 in Republicans' favor. Federman voted with the Republicans and Rand Paul voted with the Democrats, otherwise a completely party-line vote. And that vote means that Congress has opted not to retain its own authority

as it relates to this exceedingly unpopular war in Iran. So why is this important? because now this war continues yet again completely unabated. Trump gets to continue spending roughly a billion dollars per day dropping bombs in the Middle East in direct contravention to his campaign promise of no new forever wars in the Middle East. But here's the important part. Now it's not just Trump's responsibility. Remember, he can't do this alone, and he isn't doing this alone.

He is doing it with a huge green light from his own party that is actively and affirmatively giving him permission to squander our money on this war that nobody wants. Like, according to recent polling, only 29% of Americans think this war is worth the cost, and a staggering 74% of independence disapprove. Those are nightmarish figures for the Republican Party, a Republican Party that has just decided to douse themselves in the stink of this thing. So the question becomes, why saddle yourself with this insane amount of baggage, especially in an election year? And the answer is the same as it's always been, because these people do not serve you, they serve Trump. It is more important for them to avoid the ire of dear leader and the inevitable mean tweet that would follow. And so instead, they hug Trump and they hug his policies no matter how detrimental.

I don't know how much closer you can get to a cult than embracing policies that may lead to your own ouster from office simply because your only priority is protecting a man who would never protect you. And the simple reality that I think Republicans and independents and Democratic voters are all realizing now is that both Trump and his party have zero intention of delivering for you. which would be bad enough unto itself, but worse given the fact that if anybody understands the pain of high cost, it is the party that ran expressly on this issue. So they're well aware, and they were perfectly content to exploit that to gain power,

but when given the chance to do something about it, remember what they opted to do instead. They chose to make it worse. When prices were too high, they all blindly lined up behind Trump's trade war and watched prices rise even more. When health care was too expensive, they all stripped Medicaid away from 17 million Americans and raised ACA premiums on 24 million Americans.

When utility prices were too high, they engaged in policies that sent them soaring, including this war that sent the cost of gas to nearly its highest point ever. Like, these aren't accidents. They are conscious policy decisions at the hands of a party that ran on the pain of high prices to gain full control of government,

immediately made all of those issues even worse and then sought to change the rules of the game so that they would never lose power again. Like, they're rigging the system because they know that they can't run on their record. So instead, they've just decided, it to spend all of their time undermining democracy so that they can reward themselves with permanent rule. The only problem is that even their own voters are now defecting and voting for

Democrats. Turns out handing yourself tax cuts and green lighting new forever wars and defiance of your promises doesn't do wonders for your election prospects. Next up are my interviews with Raphael Warnock, Elizabeth Warren, and Rob Sand. No Lie is brought to you by Ethos. So unfortunately, I've dealt with some loss in my family recently, which unfortunately means I have to start thinking about some uncomfortable topics like life insurance. And obviously, if you don't know how to navigate this world, it's pretty daunting. But luckily, I was able to get life insurance through ethos. So here's the deal. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy, 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and get same-day coverage.

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Rates may vary. I'm joined now by the U.S. Senator from Georgia, Rafael Warnock. Thanks so much for joining me. Great to be with you again. So, Senator, we had some news this weekend about Donald Trump having not only attacked the Pope, but also presented himself on a true social post as Jesus Christ. So first and foremost, can I have your reaction to kind of this new tack that Trump is taking here, where he's taking an overtly antagonistic posture against evangelicals and Christians?

Let's be very clear, and this I've known for a long time, but this is just evidence. Donald Trump is not a man of faith. contrary to what some of the loudest and most well-financed Christian voices in our country would assert, he is not a person of faith. In fact, he has contempt for faith and for people of faith. It is language that he really does not understand. This idea that your life is centered around something other than yourself is a kind of foreign moral vocabulary to Donald Trump. And so not only do you see this image of him depicting himself as Jesus,

as king of kings, we shouldn't forget that just a couple weeks ago, on Easter Sunday morning, as I was preparing to deliver my sermon to my congregation, the ether was penetrated by the toxic and ugly words of Donald Trump literally dropping F-bombs and threatening to drop actual bombs on civilians, that he would bomb their utilities, their energy, their bridges, which is a war crime, which is deeply immoral. And then two days later, he said a whole civilization will die tonight because he's having a temper tantrum about a problem that he unnecessarily created. This is not a man of faith.

And look, I know people who are not given to any particular faith tradition, but they are people of conscience. They are people of moral courage. That's not who he is. He's the opposite. And it's past time, way past time, for some of my Christian clergy colleagues

to stop caping for this man who has deep contempt for everything that our faith represents. You know, Senator, I'm glad that you said that he's showing nothing but contempt because, in fact, as a response to him having posted a picture depicting himself as Jesus, he doubled down and he decided to say that this was him being depicted as nothing other than a doctor. And so, you know, it would be bad enough if it was just the blasphemy, especially when he's pandering to a certain segment of the population for whom that is

or should be disqualifying. But then to just lie to those people's faces, what did that say to you that instead of, you know, seeking to remedy the situation or own up to it, own up to his own actions, he decided to just double down and lie even further by claiming that the picture, very clearly depicting him as Jesus, was just him as a doctor. Let me just say this to my MAGA, sisters and brothers. We have different politics, but I do mean this. Whatever you think of my politics, I mean it sincerely when I call you sister and brother, a child of God, because I believe all of us reflect the divine image.

Donald Trump is sending a clear message to his supporters. He thinks they're stupid. He thinks they're stupid. you know, to say, I thought I was depicting myself as a doctor. Come on, give me a break. We know that Donald Trump has not darkened the doors of a church much at all. But, I mean, you don't have to spend but a few minutes in any house of worship. You don't have to go to a house of worship to know depictions of Jesus when you see them.

Right. And so I think, you know, it's one thing to lie, but he has such contempt for the, for his supporters that he's too lazy to even offer up a respectable lie. They should be deeply offended and embarrassed. You know, Senator, we will see stuff like this happen. And, and I think that you can shine some light on this better than, you know, better than someone like me. And, you know, you and I have spoken many times in the past about this idea that, that I'm, that I'm, you know, as secular as it gets. But I have trouble understanding how he could cross what I've been told are red lines and still be able to garner support from people for whom their Christianity is a guiding principle.

And so can you help reconcile that idea where we see him commit, you know, these either contemptible behavior or outright crimes against women, where we'll see him disparage either the church or the Pope or the ideals of Christianity, and still there be, you know, perhaps slightly less support, but still overwhelming support. And so can you help reconcile those ideas for me? Well, what you are rightly pointing to is the deep chasm, the divide between faith claims and what people are willing to support if it, you know, serves their political purposes. And I would submit that the answer or the lens for understanding that is actually buried within the faith itself. There's a word for that. It's

idolatry. Everybody's pointing to the blasphemous part of this. But what I mean by that is, is those of us who are people of faith and my faith tradition, we're required not to put any God before God. Thou shalt have no other God before me. And I think that what, what are, what gets revealed sometimes over time is that people say they're committed to something, but there's always something else that's competing for that. And I, I think that the rise of Donald Trump and the support that he receives is indicative of a long and sad history in our country. where people are deeply committed to faith as cultural identity. They're deeply committed, there I say it, to white supremacy.

They're deeply committed to the politics and the theology of domination. And so the religion just becomes one more tool in that effort. And the thing that they have to ask themselves is, are you putting some other God before the God who is the true God? And because when you do that, this is what you get. And so here you have a man that folks have talked about as if he's somehow the God's messenger in this moment. Really? As he takes health care away from 15 million people, as he doubles the health care premium of 22 million people, as he makes of immigrant community,

something other than human beings, in the midst of the cruelty that he's unleashed in our streets, mass men jumping out of unmarked cars, creating terror, havoc, death, and destruction, both for citizens and non-citizens alike. Do you not have any critique of any of this? Jesus is a victim of identity theft. I don't know who this hateful, homophobic, xenophobic Jesus is,

who is okay with billionaires getting a tax cut while people in poor rural communities. All across my state in districts that didn't vote for me, and that's fine, because I'm going to keep showing up for those people. They snap, those snap cuts that they put forward in that one big ugly bill are hurting people in rural districts more than blue districts. Those are the places where hospitals are closed in a state like mine because our state leaders refuse to expand Medicaid because they cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid.

And somehow, I think we've got to put forward a version of the faith, which is what I try to do, that centers our humanity. You know, I pastor the church led by Martin Luther King Jr. There were people who claimed to be Christians. There were people who shared the same faith on the other side of the debate about segregation. Dr. King's biggest adversaries, his biggest critics were folks who went to church every Sunday. Some of them, members of the clergy. They clearly had a different view of the faith.

There were folks who supported slavery, and they used the Bible. and they lifted up certain texts to justify their support of slavery. It just so happens that I have been shaped and nurtured in a countervailing tradition that was literally born fighting for freedom, literally born saying slavery is wrong. It was a voice against segregation. And I think in that spirit, in this moment in which we're seeing the rise of this nationalist Christianity that is mean-spirited, that narrows the view even of what it means to be an American, let alone a child of God. I think there are those of us who are called in this

moment, whatever our faith tradition, or whether we claim no particular faith tradition at all, to point to our common humanity and to sender to people who are most vulnerable in a time like this. Senator, do you think that whether it's the idolatry, whether it's the blasphemy, whether it's the examples that you gave, which are using funds that could go toward people's health care, people's food assistance, making their everyday lives more affordable, childcare, you name it, instead being sent to fund, you know, wars overseas, which bad enough unto itself, but even worse, given the fact that this administration actually came into power, are promising not to do that, have all of these things, either one or the other, created a vacuum

that you have found is being filled by folks like you? What I mean by that question is, in your conversations with voters out there, people who believe that this Republican Party or that Donald Trump was going to be a good shepherd of Christian values, have you seen a switch given what we've seen during this administration thus far? I think we're definitely seeing buyer's remorse. Donald Trump's poll numbers are in the dumps right now. And every day they seem to be getting lower and lower. I guess that's why he's trying to pass the Save Act.

The Save Act is certainly not about saving people's voices. It's not about saving our democracy. It's not about saving the country. It's about saving his power and his enablers in Congress. And so they're trying to change the rules. trying to pretend that this is some basic voter ID law. It is a law that they want to pass that will make it very difficult for people to register to vote.

They are afraid of hearing from the voters come November, and they should be. They should be afraid of hearing from the American people come November because he ran saying he was going to lower people's prices, focus on their needs, and not get us into any new wars. And instead, he's taking us into an illegal war of choice in the Middle East on the heels of years of what felt like endless war in this country.

And everyday gas prices are going up every day. And he's telling people not to believe their lying eyes, even as they're seeing the price of gas and what it takes to fill their tanks and take their children to school. We intend to hold him accountable. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure the Save Act does not see the light of day. They don't have 60 votes for it in the Senate.

Donald Trump is so desperate that he's leaning hard on a Republican and trying to get them to kill the filibuster in order to save his political life. We're going to do everything we can to hold the line. We're going to keep centering the American people and giving them the power they need to hold Donald Trump's congressional enablers accountable come November. How do you reconcile those, what may seem on the outside like conflicting ideals, this idea of mercy versus accountability?

Because, you know, from my vantage, having seen what happened during the Biden administration where you have Merrick Arlen's DOJ that opted not to act aggressively enough, has kind of given rise to a feeling of lawlessness among Republicans. But at the same time, you know, there are critics of that approach, the approach that I would agree with that say, you know, this is just going to continue to be a race to the bottom where both sides will attack the other. And so how do you think about that as we look toward, you know, a next iteration of the government, 2028 and beyond if Democrats are lucky enough to take power once again. Well, you know, Donald Trump often says that he's the best and everything. You know, this is Trump talk. No one knows more about, you know, you named a topic than me. No one's better at this

to me. Let me tell you the thing, the singular thing that Donald Trump really is better at than any politician in my lifetime, anybody I can think of. He is the master at dividing us. he really has a knack for that. I mean, look at the fact that even as we make our way towards this November, a midterm election, what does Donald Trump done? He called into the state of Texas. He said, I need a few more seats. And so we're going to do mid-decade redistricting.

And so you talk about the race to the bottom. We're in the midst of that right now because we can't afford to unilaterally disarm. Right? So, so, so I, I am a vocal, vocal critic of partisan and racial gerrymandering. And I've been a chief sponsor of bills in Congress to get us past this. But right now, we're in a moment where we have no choice, but to respond in kind to the redistricting war that Donald Trump began mid-decade. because he's trying to rig the outcome of the elections. But I do hope that we will get past this,

get to a place where there will be a reckoning to be sure. If you commit crimes, you ought to be held accountable. But we will get to a place where we recognize not the ways in which we did prior to Donald Trump, because if the way we were was so great, we wouldn't be here. It set the context in many ways for where we are. Too many people were left behind prior to Donald Trump coming to power. And so we've got to paint a picture, pave a path for a new America that embraces all of our children.

That's what I work on and that's what I pray about and I fight for every single day. Senator, last question here. You know, you had begun your previous answer by saying that Trump presents himself as somebody who's always competent, who's always the best at something. And he does. But there's one thing that he kind of offers some concession on, and that is this idea that he's going, that he's not going to heaven. And I always found that so curious because there's nothing that he will say that he can't do, right?

He's the smartest guy in the room. He always gets the highest grades on every dementia test that he's given. He can build better than everybody else. He can govern better than everybody else. He can market and sell, whatever it is. He's always the best. But he curiously concedes that he's not going to heaven. And so I'm curious from your vantage what you attribute that to.

I don't know. I can't get in Donald Trump's head. I tell you as a preacher, I preach redemption every Sunday. So obviously, I believe that there's a path for redemption. available to every human being. I don't have a heaven or hell to put Donald Trump in, and so I'm not going to engage in that kind of eschatological guessing, even if he does.

I'm more concerned about the hell that he's creating here on Earth, the hell that he's literally putting people through as 15 million people have lost their health care, 22 million people have seen their health care premiums double. The hell that he's creating. in whole communities where because of his his version of an extreme and radicalized ice, their whole communities in Georgia, in Minnesota,

all across our country where children are in terror, afraid to go to school, and their parents are afraid to go to work, whether they are citizens or not. He's creating health for a whole lot of people right here on Earth, and I'm going to do everything I can to save us from that. Well, Senator, I appreciate the time. And I think I've mentioned this to you

just about every time I've spoken to you. But there is at some point in my life I feel like I need to just sit in a church and listen to you because, you know, secularity, notwithstanding, it is always, you know, an honor to listen to the poetry that is hearing you speak.

So I appreciate you taking the time today. Thanks for the work you're doing. Bless your dear brother. Take care. No lie is brought to you by ShipStation. When your company is growing fast, order of fulfillment can make or break your success. Ship Station's intelligence-driven platform brings order management, rate shopping, inventory and returns, warehouse systems, and comprehensive analytics all in one place, saving customers 15 hours per week on fulfillment. With Ship Station, everything you need to manage getting orders to customers is in one place. Connect to over 200 sales channels. Instead of five to seven disconnected tools, you've got.

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Senator, thanks for joining me. Oh, it's good to be with you. So we have some big news from the Senate where you all just voted on a war powers resolution to rein in Donald Trump's basically free pass to continue these military, I would say incursions, but apparently they're excursions in Iran. That effort failed.

And so can you explain why that failed, especially in light of the fact that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of this war? Right. It failed for exactly one reason. Republicans, virtually all of the Democrats are lined up and say, look, we've read the Constitution. We get it. You have got to reel back in on bombing in Iran and starting your own war. But the Republicans, once again, have just blocked it. They're just, fine with Donald Trump spending a billion dollars a day to blow up stuff halfway around the world, even while people here at home are paying more for groceries now, paying more for gasoline. They're going to be paying more for anything that gets transported in a truck. And on top of that, because of his other policies, his tariff policies, his energy policies, they're paying more for housing. This is the man who said he would lower costs on day one and he would not start foreign wars.

And he has gone back on exactly both of those. Well, you know, the Republicans are all pretty aligned in coming forward and saying, we have to do this because, you know, Iran has been a threat for 47 years. And the only thing worse than this would be the impending nuclear attack that would happen at the hands of a nuclear-armed Iran. And so what would be your response to those folks? You know, look, if the real problem was Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and I want to be clear, I do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Barack Obama's team had negotiated a deal with Iran. There were inspectors on the ground. It had limits on what Iran could do. Donald Trump comes

in and he tears the deal up quite dramatically. But here's the thing. really gets to me. He tears it up. And do you know what he gets in return for turning Iran loose from these constrictions on getting a nuclear weapon? Nothing. Zero. Not a thing. So he tears the deal up just because it had been negotiated by Barack Obama. Right. And so then Iran starts developing more nuclear capacity and spinning out nuclear materials and so on. And so Donald Trump tells us, when was it six months ago that U.S. bombers had completely obliterated Iran's capacity to develop a nuclear weapon. Okay, so Trump puts back in motion their ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Then he says they completely obliterated it. And now that's the excuse for having bombed in Iran, starting 46 days ago, is that somehow Iran was on the threshold of developing a nuclear weapon.

nuclear weapon. Look, Brian, in a sense, you're dignifying these ideas that they keep throwing out. Oh, this is a reason. Well, if that didn't work, maybe this is a reason. Well, how about this other thing is a reason? This is not only pretextual. It's just totally upside down in terms of how it fits with reality. Yeah. Well, also, I mean, this has been a longstanding pattern where you, you know, you have these neocon war mongers who conjure up some you know some some counterfactual that's impossible to to prove otherwise and they say well if we don't do this thing that i've decided i want to do you know and this goes back to the the weapons of mass destruction in iraq i mean if if you don't do this then we're going to be in imminent danger and of course it's impossible to disprove because

you know you there's no way because because because it's just a threat a promise from these people And there's always going to be some rationale like that where, you know, if you listen to these neocon war mongers, there's always going to be some impending risk. And, you know, again, that they can say, they can kind of put you in the bucket of, okay, if you don't agree blindly with heaping money onto some military interventionism or adventurism in the Middle East, then you're going to be responsible if and when everybody dies as the result of our inaction. Yep. You know, the Republicans have been able to do two things in this century. And this is when Bush is president and when Trump is president. And that is they cut taxes for rich people and they start wars in the Middle East. And that doesn't make America better off. It doesn't make the world better off. So on that point of this not making America better off, you had mentioned that this is costing a billion dollars per day. I'm curious from the folks that you've spoken with, your Republican colleagues in the Senate, I mean, I mean, these people are not ignorant to what's happening in the political zeitgeist right now. They're not ignorant to how unpopular this war is. They're not ignorant to how much everything costs.

They're not ignorant to the fact that this administration's failure to deliver on its America first promises is kind of wreaking havoc at the ballot box on all of their colleagues and all of their Republican candidates. Is there no, I mean, I'm not asking you to get in the heads of these people because that would be, you know, I think. increasingly difficult. But is there no ability for these people to reconcile watching what's happening to these Republican candidates who hug Trump and the increasingly unpopular MAGA agenda while also enabling that very agenda by virtue of votes like these? Yeah. You know, you put your finger on it, but it's the question we've been asking for a year and four months now. Is there no place that these Republicans in Congress will draw the line? You know, Brian, the whole U.S. Constitution is set up.

We all talk about the separation of powers, but there's an unspoken part to it, and that is that the president will protect the powers of the administration. The courts will protect the powers of the courts, and Congress will jealously guard the powers of Congress. And the moment we find ourselves in now is that the Republicans in Congress know exactly one action. And that is bow down to Donald Trump. Yeah. No matter what Donald Trump says, no matter how counterfactual it is, no matter how much damage it is doing to the people of the United States, no matter how much it's driving up costs,

no matter how much it breaks the law, no matter, no matter, if Donald Trump says it, the Republicans in the Senate and the House bow down and say yes, master. What could we do domestically? And I feel like I'm going to ask you a question that Donald Trump himself in 2024 could have best answered here. But what could we be doing with the more than a billion dollars per day that Republicans are currently spending dropping bombs in the Middle East? Well, for openers, we could make sure that all the people who got pushed off their health care because of that one big beautiful bill. You remember, you and I talked about that. Big tax cuts. the billionaires and pushed 15 million people off their health insurance, we could actually make sure people have health care and health insurance that they can actually afford. We could be making those investments right now here at home. We could be making the investments in child care. So mamas and daddies can go to work and know that their kids are in safe, bright, cheerful places

and their child care workers are being paid a few. fair wage. We could be making investments in helping people deal with student loan debt. We could be making investments in making college and technical training after high school more affordable for people. We could be making investments in us in the people of the United States and instead, literally blowing that money up a billion dollars a day halfway around the world. Wow. That is not America first. I want to talk to you about a different topic, and that is the new Live Nation Ticketmaster ruling. So can you give an update on what that ruling just was and what you expect to see now moving forward?

That ruling was watching a little street justice in action. You know, this is the case. Remember, Live Nation, there's the whole ticket master. I assume many of the folks here have had. experiences with Ticketmaster. And the big problem is how this company has just grown and bigger and musselier and musselier and musselier and how they've used that position to drive up prices,

to drive down services and not to innovate. And it appears, this came out during the trial, the antitrust trial here, it appears that their business model was rob, your customers blind. I mean, this literally came out in their emails back and forth. And so the Trump administration, Justice Department, they settled out, a little slap on the wrist and said, you boys, go ahead and do whatever you want to do. But I want to give a big shout out to some of the state attorneys general. They were also in the lawsuit, and everybody thought they just

cave in. Instead, they stepped up in short order and said, we'll continue this trial. So it ended up in the hands of a jury. And by golly, that jury listened to the facts and said, yep, that one is a monopoly and they're using their monopoly power in a way to take advantage of American consumers. So this is a big deal. I mean, this is like boom, right? But the best part is what comes next. And that is, what's the remedy going to be? Because what I'm looking for here is in antitrust law is not just like make them pay money. It you can actually break these companies up. Yeah.

And you could make 10 companies where there used to be one. You could make three companies where there used to be one. And the importance of that is then there's competition. So, you know, they're competing to be the one that sell you the tickets. They're competing to be the ones that book the acts and the venues and where it all goes. And that is supposed to be the magic of our economic system. As you get competition, and that's how you get, lower prices and a lot more innovation and a lot more focus on the consumer and making the consumer happy.

So, you know, this is a good day on the antitrust front. you know, we have so few instances of good news on the antitrust front. And admittedly, it's not the sexiest topic in the world. I think when, you know, people's eyes tend to glaze over when you talk about antitrust. But it's something that impacts people probably more than anything. I mean, as you have fewer and fewer companies that are delivering goods and services as the Amazon's of the world and the apples of the world and, you know, whatever it may be, continue to consolidate. That's why we're contending with higher prices, which is. is the principal issue in all of these campaigns that we're seeing right now from 2024 right up to today. And so I guess the question is, did even the Biden administration go far enough in their pursuit of enforcing antitrust law? And what do you hope to see in the next Democratic administration as far as enforcing antitrust law is concerned? So I love the question, because with the Biden administration, we always have to put this in context for basically 40 years before that. There was almost no enforcement of antitrust law, not zero, but pretty damn close.

And the consequence is the big just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And Lena Kahn came in as the head of the FTC, Jonathan Cantor, headed up the antitrust division over the Department of Justice. and they took the United States basically from zero enforcement to 50. And God bless, because, boy, that is the hard part. They got the rock rolling, right? Trump administration comes in and, whoa, if you're friends of the Trump administration, now it's headed back down. But here's the thing.

The genie is out of the bottle. And on many of these antitrust laws, people have begun to discover, wait a minute, the state attorneys general also have the legal right to intervene and be part of this. That's what's happened just now in the Life Nation case. So now you got more enforcers. You got enforcers, Rob Bonta out in California, go. You know, you've got enforcers around the country, including there have been a couple of Republicans jump in on this.

So now you're starting to see more. Plus, I'm just just a little bit, private enforcement. If you're one of the competitors or potential competitors who got knocked down, you're one of the customers who got cheated, you also have a right under some of these laws to be able to come in and to push on them. So I think of this as a moment that the fire kind of blazed up during the Biden administration. We got it started. Zero to 50. Now, we need to get to 100. It's gone back down at the federal level, but boy, there's more out there, more talk about it. You talk about it, I talk about it, and I like to remind everybody. The things that really make you grind your teeth, when you're left

on hold forever, when Life Nation, when they charge you a fee for this and then a fee for that, and then while you're checking out, you have a fee for the fee, right? All of those kinds of things, It's when your cable bill just keeps going up and up. Almost always. Lift up the curtain and look just a little bit. And what you see behind it is usually a violation of antitrust laws. It's one or two big companies that own the whole thing. And I think we're in that moment now, maybe a little like the Wizard of Oz.

The curtain is starting to come back. More people are engaging on this issue and not willing to just say whatever some giant company wants to do whatever Amazon wants to do. Thank you, Amazon. But instead to say, what the hell? And start getting some pushback. So this is a moment. As you say, we don't get a lot of good news. It's good news today. But overall, I'm feeling better about how things are looking in this area. Right. And I think to your point that you made before, I mean, this isn't even necessarily a right versus left issue. This is a top versus bottom issue. And that's going to be especially important in building up a coalition to fight against this stuff. So with that said, Senator Warren,

thank you so much, as always, for staying on top of these issues and for taking the time today. Thank you for staying in this fight. No lie is brought to you by Incogni. Ever wonder how random companies get your cell number? It's not a coincidence. It is data brokers selling your life behind your back. It's invasive, exhausting, and frankly, a total nightmare to manage alone. You have the right to opt out, but they make the process just a bureaucratic maze. That's why I use Incogny. They act as your personal privacy advocate, automatically handling the takedown request so that you don't have to.

The best part, they don't just do it once. Incogni continuously monitors those sites to keep your info off the market. For the ultimate protection, their custom data removals feature in the unlimited plan allows you to flag specific links for their team to manually remove. Especially for those of us who comment online about politics, it has never been more important to keep information as private as possible. That's why I started using Incogny the moment I heard about it, and it's why I will continue to do so. Take your personal data back with Incogni. It's even independently verified by Deloitte,

so you know they're the real deal. Go to incogni.com slash BTC and use code BTC to get 60% off an annual plan. That's code BTC at incogny.com slash BTC for 60% off. Plus, try it risk-free for 30 days with their money-back guarantee. I'm joined now by the Democratic nominee for governor of Iowa, Rob Sand. Rob, thanks for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. So we have some really big news in an unlikely state, the state of Iowa, and that is a major ratings change just took place by the Cook Political Report. Can you explain a little bit about what that update was? Yeah, they moved it from Lean Republican to a toss-up, which is the second time they moved it in this race. They actually had it ranked as solid Republican.

and the day that I announced that I was earning for governor, they moved it through likely Republican all the way to lean, which is a pretty unusual move on their part. But, you know, I've already been elected twice statewide as state auditor. Prior to that, chief public corruption prosecutor in the state, I uncovered the largest lottery rigging scheme in American history. So when I got into the race, I was already bringing, you know, a body of work that a lot of Iowans knew and had seen and more familiar with

and were supportive of. And the truth is that I feel like they're kind of late to the game and moving it to a toss-up. Can I say that? I just did. Like I think most people in Iowa are looking at this race and saying that we've got all the momentum. And I think that that's right. We absolutely have a winnable race here. So, Rob, what do you attribute that move from?

I mean, again, to go from solid Republican all the way to a true toss-up in a state that Democrats have been chasing for quite a long? If I'm not mistaken, was Obama the last one to win Iowa in 2008? He won it in 12, so he won it twice. Okay, yeah. So it's been, but it's been a minute. So what do you attribute this trajectory to? So a few different things. Like I said, it helps to have already won statewide twice.

So I'm the state auditor, chief public corruption prosecutor prior to that. I think that makes a lot of a big difference that a lot of people don't necessarily appreciate, but I have been going to all 100 county seats in Iowa. every year, I tell people before I come to town that I'm actually going to show up. And so if they want to, you know, throw a tomato at me, they get a chance to do it. Whatever it is, I give them an opportunity. And I think that matters for a lot of people. I think the other thing that a lot of folks don't appreciate is how much is happening in Iowa right now,

where the leadership, the same people have been in charge for so long that they have totally lost touch with what Iowans want to be focused on. The easiest way to understand that is we are over the last three years, 48th for personal income growth. We are number one for cancer growth, and they're spending their time in the capital building, figuring out how to make it harder for the state auditor to find misspent tax money. We uncovered a record amount of tax money misspent in my first year or my first term, and they changed the law after that to make it harder for us to do it. They now state agencies can hide misspent money and hide documents from the auditor's office. this is wrong. And the average Iowan, you can like see their face twist and disgust when they talk about it.

They're upset by that. They're upset by a school vouchers program that has no accountability. They're upset by the idea of the use of eminent domain for a carbon capture pipeline. There's just a lot of stuff where, you know, people feel oftentimes, I think in both parties, voters feel trapped into voting for one party that they're not particularly excited about. and they've been ticking them off enough up there by doing things that don't help ordinary islands that I think they've had enough. And then they look across the aisle at me and they're like, he seems reasonable. Yeah.

Well, it's worth asking here, you know, while we're on the topic of policies that don't work for Iowans, can you talk about how the Iran war and especially the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has kind of hit your state particularly hard? Yeah, absolutely. It's been brutal. I mean, we're in planning season right now. Farmers need fertilizer, and a huge chunk of the world's fertilizer goes through the straight. And so the fact that it's all tied up in knots there means that they're not getting access to it.

It means that prices have skyrocketed. And prices were bad to begin with. There's really only, there's less than a handful of sellers of fertilizer. It's a heavily concentrated near-monopoly market, and that's already bad enough for growers and producers in the state of Iowa. And I think the big difference is, you know, I think a lot of these folks, they're sick of having somebody piss on their leg and someone else tell them it's raining, you know? They know that these tariffs are terrible for Iowa, but Republican elected officials are so blinded by their party allegiance that they're not willing to say the obvious truth of what's happening to Iowans. And what they do instead is they try to pitch Iowans on the idea that, oh, there's this golden age right around the corner. When we are seeing, Brian, a raise in bankruptcies and suicides among farmers, it's kind of offensive,

honestly, the unwillingness of elected officials who were supposed to represent this state, instead just doing anything that their party leader tells them to. Well, I mean, that's the elected officials. Is there a recognition by voters and citizens in Iowa who, you know, despite the fact that these elected officials are going to, you know, blindly defer to Trump and the administration? administration and, you know, take his side on all of this. Are the voters recognizing the reality of what's happening? Yeah, yeah, they are. I mean, we actually just had an announcement that an additional 15,000 jobs had been lost in Iowa. We just put out a release on that today. And I think that

Iowaans across the border hurting, you know, there's, we've gotten affordability crisis in this country, but it's worse in states where personal income growth has been so slow. And that's where, where Iowa is. At the end of the day, affordability is a two-part equation. It's number one, you know, how much money do you have? And number two, what's it cost? And if you don't have a lot of money because your personal income growth is one of the laggards in America, then it's worse here. And I think Iowaans see that and they know that. And when people try to tell them something else and try to tell them it's a sunny day out there, then they know two things. Number one, it doesn't change what they're going through financially. Number two,

and someone's lying to them about it, too. Right. Well, You know, look, running in a state like Iowa, as is the case with where Democrats are trying to be competitive in other red states, is going to require support from independents and Republicans. And so on that front, how has it been for you? How has it been on the donor front? How has it been, you know, anecdotally speaking with voters who may have cast their ballot three times for Trump or Joni Ernst or any of these other Republican officials statewide? I can give you anecdotes and I can give you a number too. I'll start with a number. This blows my mind, and I'm genuinely curious if this has ever happened anywhere before.

We have more registered Republican donors to our campaign than any of the five Republicans have who are running for governor on the other side of this race. Yeah. Like that, we didn't, and we didn't, we never set out, like we weren't targeting them. It just happened. And I think that that's an indicator of just how frustrated people are. But honestly, Brian, like, a. big piece of this campaign is also, it's acknowledging, I think what we all know, which is that

our democracies run by two private clubs, neither of which are particularly good at solving our problems. And the fact that we say that out loud, I think a lot of people can find themselves a home right there, where they're sick of Democrats and Republicans, but when you acknowledge, as I do, as a candidate, that, I don't know why we only have two options. I think that resonates for a lot of people. But another really fun story is I met a guy recently who he he had some tough, some tough stories to tell about his parents' political views. And when I had to cheat, I had a chance to meet him after that, you know, I was like, oh, I'm running for governor in Iowa. And I'd be curious to hear, you know, if they've, if they're familiar with our campaign

at all, because we tend to get a lot of supporters from across the aisle. Because our message inherently is, well, shoot, I mean, our campaign slogan is not redder or bluer, but better and truer. And the guy's like, there's no way, like, they never support you. You got a deep behind your name. I'm sure that you're dead to them. Yeah. And I get a text message from him, like, maybe two days later. I talked to my dad.

He knew who you were. He even donated to your campaign last year. Yeah. So we're bringing people together. You know, we're making Thanksgiving fun again. That's another slogan that we like to throw around. Rob, you had mentioned something at the top that I, that kind of caught my attention. And that was that you were responsible for taking down the, the lotto rigging scheme, the largest

lotto rigging scheme that we'd seen in this country. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. In fact, if you, sitting underneath my laptop, one of the books is actually the book that I wrote about it, the winning ticket. If you like true crime stories, I'd recommend reading it. I know you would expect me to say that you. you should read it. But the Washington Independent Review of Books actually said it was a favorite

read of the year, the year it came out, which was 2022. So, I mean, bottom line on this thing is this was something that happened. I was an assistant attorney general as a prosecutor. There was kind of this mystery of this unclaimed lottery ticket for 16 million bucks. And then it kind of got claimed at the last minute. They didn't pay it out. And lots of questions about who was connected to it and why. And my boss retired. And one of the last things he did was, hand me the case as he walked out the door, which I was not happy about. But he said, like, well, you're the youngest one in the office. So, you know, all the, all the unpleasant stuff goes to the people with the least experience. You get saddled with the, the lottery. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. But, you know, look, I did my job. I worked at it. I had some great helpers in the form of some law enforcement officials, Don Smith and Matt Anderson. And we ended up uncovering. this case, we had a trial in the Polk County Courthouse when we only knew about the Iowa ticket. National media, the day that we picked a jury said that they thought that the defendant would get acquitted because they didn't think I had the goods. We got two guilty verdicts and the case grew from there. Oh, and my goodness, I have to mention, there are Bigfoot hunters involved in the case, like people who go out into the woods to look for Bigfoot. So if you're not a true crime fan, maybe that'll make you want to do. Yeah, I was going to say that's got like all the, all the, all the,

buzzwords you need for like uh for a very 2020 you know post 2020 uh uh story you know i think i think this is resonant because um you know in large part this republican party came into power on on this pretense that they would be the ones focusing on you know fraud or waste or abuse and in fact we've we've we've seen the opposite i mean we've you know there there are these announcements every day where somebody gets rich because they've bought you know positions five minutes before the those announcements come out. I mean, this is just a recurring theme, the rampant corruption that we're seeing right now to the point where it almost feels like crime is legal. And so have you heard from folks that you've spoken with in Iowa where there is a disillusionment over that point

in particular? And I mean, that's a role that you can fill in a way that nobody else can, given your past. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good point to make. And I do think that that's right. I haven't heard many people other than Democrats make the point that you made. But I think it's out there in the ether. And I think the thing that we all need to keep in mind is that right now we are at a point where people are so divided that sticking your neck out to suggest that there might be something wrong with someone that you voted for is just going to get your head chopped off. It's either going to be by the people who voted for that same person and call you a traitor,

or it's going to be by the other people who say, Well, you voted for this because there's so much scorn in our politics right now. It's really hard for people to do that because we haven't been willing to give each other any grace, which it's there in the ether. And that's part of the reason that one of the first things that we've done, our first plank actually for our platform that we just rolled out last week is accountability for all. And it has to do with doing things like banning stock trading for elected officials, mandatory prison time for people who steal from taxpayers.

Yes, age limits. Yes, cognitive tests. People who are in positions of trust and power, we should be making sure that they deserve that trust in power. But there's a couple of things that we're doing that are bigger than that too. And I think, Brian, these are some of the reasons why our campaign is on fire. We are actually creating opportunities for people to feel welcome to have a real political conversation. At 100 public town halls last year, we had people actually applaud for the attendees of the opposite political party.

After we acknowledged that we disagreed, the people in the room, together we sang the first verse of America the Beautiful. And then this year we've been doing events that we're calling democracy revivals, where we sort of pre-select. We have people sign up in advance. And so we try to make sure we have an even distribution of Democrats, independents, and Republicans so that we can have balanced conversations. And it's not me in the room being a candidate, it, but it's the attendees leading conversations where part of what you're going to be asked to do is you introduce yourself to some people who are in the opposite political party and you're going to have to say something that you like about their party or something that frustrates you about your own. And by doing that, we give people just this little bit of space where they can meet in the middle and say, all right, maybe the problem isn't my neighbors. Maybe it's this two-choice political system that wants us to hate each other because then we're easier to control.

Rob, I want to finish off with this. you know, there are going to be people who take a look here and recognize, okay, we've, you know, we've got limited resources. We've got to focus our attention on where we have the highest likelihood of winning. And the reality is that in Iowa, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. And so what do you say to those people who write off any hope or desire to win Iowa as just wishcasting? Yeah, yeah. you know, and kind of cast aside the ratings changes or polls or whatever it may be. Yeah.

I mean, number one, like, yes, the Republicans are the larger political party in Iowa. But when you combine independence and Democrats, the Republicans are dwarfed. And so there's a lot of people in this state who haven't affiliated with either political party who are ready for change. The other thing is that I think that there's a lot of people in this state who are registered either as Democrats or as Republicans who want to participate in primaries because we have closed primaries. We tell independent voters in the state wrongly that they are less equal, that their vote doesn't count, right? And so you'll find people who are signed up with a party

who that doesn't mean that they live and die by that party. They've done it because they want to be enfranchised. But the other piece of this that I think I just, because you do hear this in Iowa and I really want to push back in this way. Your party affiliation is not your destiny. And the idea that you can't vote across party lines is just bizarre, right? Laura Kelly was elected and reelected as the governor of Kansas when Kansas went for President Trump by substantially larger margins than Iowa did. Andy Bashir was elected and reelected as the governor of Kentucky. When Kentucky went for President Trump by sometimes three times the amount that Iowa did. And there's a tremendous number of people in this state who are frustrated with the status quo

and who are ready for change. And when they find someone who genuinely wants to bring people together and look past disagreement to places where we can't agree, they're willing to cross the aisle to do that. Rob, for folks who are watching and listening right now, how can they help your campaign? Ah, yes. Thank you. Rob's hand.com.

R-O-B-S-A-N-D.com. Awesome. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description for folks who are listening on the podcast. I'm going to put it in the show notes. Rob, your campaign has been stellar.

It's super exciting to watch. Really grateful for you taking the time today and best luck in the campaign trail. Thanks, Brian. Thanks again to Raphael Warnock, Elizabeth Warren, and Rob Sand. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels,

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