No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans caught scheming to cut Social Security

Episode Date: January 15, 2023

Republicans are gearing up to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--and using a pretty pathetic strategy to distract you from it. Brian interviews Senator Bernie Sanders about how to protect Social Security, his response to Republican fearmongering about the “army of 87,000 IRS agents,” and how to get the government to keep prescription drug prices down. And Congresswoman Katie Porter joins to discuss her decision to run for the US Senate, her response to calls for George Santos to resign, and whether there’s a way for a few Republicans to join with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Republican efforts to cut your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the pretty pathetic way they're trying to distract you from it. I interview Senator Bernie Sanders about how to protect Social Security, his response to Republican fearmongering about the army of 87,000 IRS agents, and how to get the government to keep prescription drug prices down. And I'm joined by Congresswoman Katie Porter to discuss her decision to run for the U.S. Senate, her response to calls for George Santos to resign, and whether there's a way for a few Republicans to join with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Man, who would I guess that Republicans spending a week just trying to get a speaker elected would be their high watermark? We're now like a week into the GOP majority in the House, and it turns out that Republicans are prepared to make good on their promises to hold raising the debt limit hostage until they're able to get cuts on earned benefits like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Now, first off, I just want to explain here what this would mean. Congress has to raise the debt limit to be able to pay our existing obligations.

Failing to raise the debt ceiling isn't some strategy to prevent new spending. It just prevents us from actually paying for what we already spent money on. If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we default. That will not only crater the U.S. economy, it'll crater the global economy, sink the U.S. dollar, and crash markets worldwide. So that's some background here. Like, that's the fire that Republicans are playing with. Now, the GOP has tried for years to cut what they're calling entitlement programs.

That's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Why? They say it's because they want. want small government, blah, blah, blah. The short answer is, because those programs help working people, and they don't care about working people. They're there to reward their donors who fund their campaigns so that they can stay in power and then reward more wealthy donors who fund their campaigns and keep them in power, and that cycle repeats itself over and over and over. But they know how popular those earned benefit programs are, and so they can't just come out

and say they want to cut them, and so instead they've landed on pretending that they're going to go away anyway. This past week, a few Republicans begun resurfacing the lie that Social security would soon be insolvent. That is absolutely on no planet true. In reality, Social Security will not be insolvent. One of the trust funds that helps pay benefits will. It's called the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund that helps pay the benefits for current retirees, and it's scheduled to be depleted by the mid-2030s. But that fund only accounts for about a quarter of Social Security benefits. The other three-quarters, about 75 percent, is paid for by the payroll taxes of current workers,

meaning so long as we've got other Americans who are working and paying taxes, which they're certainly doing with a 50-year low of 3.5% unemployment, then Social Security will still pay out benefits. But then you might ask, okay, well, what about that fund, the old age and Survivor's Insurance Trust Fund,

since that does still pay out a quarter of Social Security benefits. Here's the answer. Congress should pass legislation to fund it, the way Congress passes legislation to fund any of its priorities. When Republicans come out and complain that Social Security will be insolvent, that's like them complaining that the military won't be funded unless they funded. Like they never forget to fund the military.

That's always a given. But when it comes time to affording our nation's seniors, the bare minimum social security checks that, let's be honest, aren't even enough to live on as it is. Well, suddenly those Republicans have no agency and they have no idea how we could possibly make sure that it's fully solvent. When they are literally the ones who are in charge of keeping it solvent. Like, you've heard that budgets are a party's statement of values. When Republicans refuse to treat Social Security and other earned benefits as valid, they are telling you that the money you paid into those programs for your entire life doesn't matter, and that the dignity afforded to you by Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid doesn't matter.

If they cared about that stuff, they would pass legislation to make sure that it's shored up. But instead, they stand there and they lie about it being insolvent so they can use that as a pretense to privatize it and pretend, pretend that they have no agency, when they are quite literally the only ones who do have agency here. You know, I spoke in last week's episode about how Republicans break things because they're trying to prove that government can't work. And so if they break it themselves, they can use that as proof that government can't work. This right here is a prime example.

See that one trust that feeds into Social Security benefits is running dry, and instead of shoring it up, which they have full power to do, they instead sit back and say, told you, it's going insolvent, you won't have any Social Security in 10 years. Better privatize it now because there's, There's no way back from this. This is like if a firefighter was called to a forest fire and just stood there telling everyone that eventually that fire will burn down the entire forest

instead of, oh, I don't know, putting out the fire. That's what Republicans are doing here, standing there and watching it burn instead of doing their jobs and making sure that it doesn't. We don't accept it in any other job, so why in the world do we do it here? And here's the craziest part. Because they need to distract from this issue, which is by far the most pressing issue facing the government right now because we're projected to hit our debt limit on January 19th. Instead, they're pretending that the real issue facing Americans right now is that Joe Biden

and his government goons are coming to break down your door and take your gas stoves. This because, you know, a government agency released a study that outlined how gas stoves emit high levels of nitrogen oxides, which could lead to respiratory issues like asthma in children. That's it. Joe Biden is not making your gas stove illegal, but that hasn't stopped the entire right from like coalescing around this issue like they are gearing up for the revolutionary war. All Republicans have is the same old playbook of cooking up some manufactured outrage and getting half the country whipped into a frenzy.

And if it's not your stoves, then it's Mr. Potato Head or M&Ms or Starbucks Christmas cups or Grey Poupon mustard or Obama's tan suit or whatever other tired old scandals waste their time on to distract from their actual policies. And I've thought about this part a lot because, you know, this is what drives me the most nuts because it is just like pure, unapologetic, shameless political theater. But the thing is, this stuff might work on a base

that already supports them, but it's showing the rest of America, and especially Gen Z, who very clearly doesn't fall for this shit the way that, you know, these Fox News viewers do, they're basically just ceding the future to the left, all because they have one playbook and the vast majority of this country can see through it, can see through the fact

that Joe Biden is not going to take your stove. So if they want to spend all of their political capital on another tired circus that's on them, but I think it puts on display pretty well the difference between the two parties. And, you know, if pretending that your stove is at risk is your top political issue, then Republicans are letting you know

that they're out there fighting for you. Next step is my interview with Senator Bernie Sanders. Now you've got the U.S. Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Thanks so much for coming back on. My pleasure, Brian. So like clockwork, House Republicans have come out and begun threatening to refuse to lift the debt ceiling unless they're able to leverage that increase

to also cut programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Judging by the temperature in Congress right now, do you think that Democrats are able to be able to find a few Republicans who are willing to play ball and not crater the global economy? Well, first of all, the last point you made has to be reiterated. When Republicans threaten not to pay our debts and default on our national debt, they are likely

plunging the entire world into a global depression. And that means millions of people lose their jobs, increased desperation all over this planet. So that is an incredibly, incredibly reckless and irresponsible thing to contemplate. I think what we have got to do starting right now is make it clear to the American people, is at stake in the contrast between the two ideologies. What these guys want to do and I've always wanted to do is cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Well, you've got millions of senior citizens right now who can't make it on $15,000 a year social security. Meanwhile, if you're a

multi-millionaire, you're paying the same amount into the Social Security fund as if you were making about $140,000 a year. So we can protect the solvency of Social Security. and expand benefits, not cut them. But that's the case we have to make to the American people. You know, their moderates are going to have to vote for cuts to program, to a program, like you said, that is not only huge, but monumentally popular. Do they not realize that they have agency here, like that they're the ones who are going to lose their seats in Congress and not the lunatics who are in safely red districts who thrive

off of that chaos? Well, Brian, our job is to create that that context. And that means you've got to educate the American people about those things. What politics is about, in my view, and not just on this issue, is educating the American people to stand up and fight for justice. And often, those are very popular approaches. And you put your opponents on the defensive.

So our job right now is to make you clear that the American people do not want touch and social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, while the Republicans are giving huge tax breaks, the billionaires and large corporations. That's not what the American people want. And if they want to go in that direction, fine, we'll take them on. But to answer your question, I think there are some sane people that say, hey, you know what, forget whether this is right or wrong for the country. I'm going to lose my seat if I do this.

I ain't going to do it. That's what we have to do. Now, Byron Donald's went on MSNBC a few days ago and said that the program, Social Security, that program, will be insolvent. by the mid-2030s. Now, that's not true. Just a small trust that feeds into Social Security benefits will be insolvent.

Most of Social Security is paid for by current payroll taxes. Exactly. Regardless, if Republicans are sounding the alarm about the solvency of Social Security, then why not have agency here as legislators and pass legislation to fund that trust better? Well, the answer is, as I think you know, is they're not staying up and I's worrying

about the solvency of Social Security. If they were, they would do exactly as supporting the legislation that I've introduced. And again, right now, you make $10 million a year. I make $140,000 a year. We both pay the same amount of money into Social Security because there's a cap on what can be paid. Lift that cap.

We can expand, we can protect the solvency of Social Security for 50 years and expand benefits, which is what I want to do. That's not their thing. Look, their thing is they are anti-government, They believe that corporate, large corporations should run the world. It's not just social security, Medicare, Medicaid, it's public education, it's transportation. You name the issue. They want to move toward privatization.

That is the agenda of many of them. Give power to large corporations. We can the ability of the American people to determine their own future. And that is, you know, that is the divide in government right now. and we have got to be aggressive and standing up for working families. No, I was reading about your bill with Senator Warren to expand Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year

and to fully fund it for the next 75 years, all without raising any taxes on 93% of Americans. The irony here is that Republicans demanded that the United States Postal Service prepay its health benefits for future retirees for 75 years because they wanted to sabotage that program. You're obviously not looking to sabotage the Social Security, program, but it's ironic that Republicans demanded funding for the USPS 75 years out, and yet

none of them are going to sign on to legislation to fund Social Security 75 years out when it's a legitimate effort to actually fund that program. Look, they don't believe in Social Security. They would rather have people make their investments on Wall Street, right, their retirement investments. They don't believe in Medicare. They would rather give more power to the insurance companies. They certainly don't believe in Medicaid.

They don't believe in major federal programs. And our job is to stand up and strengthen. And by the way, when it's up happening is when you defund these federal programs, people lose faith in them as well. So our job is making clear that Medicare is a very popular program. It's an efficient program. We've got to strengthen it.

I personally believe in Medicare for all. But that obviously is not where Republicans and some Democrats, by the way, are coming from. What do you say to people who say that the private market is more efficient and more effective? And so why not, you know, bring Social Security into the private market? Well, if you think that's the case, then take a look at what happened in 2008 when Wall Street crashed. Look, Social Security is not an investment opportunity. It is an insurance policy. You're not there to make huge amounts of money.

You're there to be sure, 100% sure, that when you get old, it will be there for you. You want to invest in the Wall Street, go for it. That's not what Social Security is about. And the truth is that Social Security, since its inception, we should be very proud of that. No matter whether the economy is terrible, whether it's good, never has an American received a letter from Social Security saying, sorry, you didn't get your payment this month with there's not enough money. We have paid every nickel owed to every eligible beneficiary. That is what Social Security is about. Perfectly put.

What's your response to these attacks by Republicans suggesting that the IRS's army of 87,000 agents, which is obviously not true? It's the same business. It's the same. Look, you talk to somebody who hates bureaucracy in general, so you want to make all of our government agencies cost-effective and efficient. But what we know right now is that you have very wealthy people, where all kinds of lawyers and accountants are avoiding paying their fair share of taxes

because you don't have folks at the IRS who can stand up to them. And over the years, ironically, the IRS has been doing a lot of auditing. You know who they're auditing? Poor people, not rich people. So what we want to do is to make sure that people start paying their fair share of taxes, even if you are rich. And when you do that, you bring in a lot more money than you are spending. our tax system right now is very unfair. It's very regressive, but it's made even more

regressive because we don't have the staff to demand that the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. And we're getting very tenuous attacks by Republicans who are coming out and saying, well, if we want to lower the deficit, how is spending $80 billion on the IRS? How could we possibly lower the deficit by spending $80 billion? And the answer is that you're going to raise more than you spend. The answer is we need a, look, we can argue about tax policy and tax rates. But if you owe money to the federal government, you owe taxes, you should pay those taxes. And right now, people on top who have all kinds of accountants and lawyers and sophisticated operations do not pay their fair share.

That's what this is about. Now, Senator Sanders, what's the HELP Committee and what will you be doing on it? Well, I'm very excited about it. Help stands for health, education, labor, and pensions. And as you can imagine, that's a lot of jurisdiction. We're covering a lot of territory that impacts working families. Let me just go through some of the areas that I hope to address. I happen to believe that our current health care system is dysfunction, period. We are spending twice as much per person on health care as people of any other country, and yet you have 85 million Americans uninsured or underinsured, half a million people go bankrupt

because of medically related debts, some 68,000 people a year die because they don't get to a doctor when they should. Our health care outcomes, our life expectancy, not as good as many other countries. How does that happen? We're spending twice as much, and the value that we're getting to that is fairly pathetic. And the answer is, of course, as you well know, what's the function of our health care system now? Is it? Make money. That's right. To the insurance company and the drug company. So what we have got to do is to create a health care system, not a radical idea, whose job is to create quality care to every man, woman, and child as a human right. Sound radical to you? Not exactly, no. I don't think so. All right. Meanwhile,

what you got is insurance companies, like tens of billions of dollars of year ripping us off. So moving toward that is a goal that we have. We ain't going to get there. You got no Republican support zero for that. You got a number of Democrats who aren't supporting that either. So I want to move at least for primary care, which is another crisis. I want to make sure that in this country, here's another radical idea. We don't have enough doctors. We don't have enough nurses.

We don't have enough dentists. We don't have enough mental health practitioners. Pretty amazing when you spend all this money. But I guess, you know, in this dysfunctional system, that's what happens. I also want to see us do a better job on disease prevention, obesity, major issue. God knows we're dealing with this terrible epidemic of drug overdoses. and all that stuff. So we'll be touching on those issues as well. That's the health part of them. We've got education in labor, too. Dicking into the health aspect of it for a moment,

you know, Moderna was in the news recently because they had reportedly been considering raising the price of the COVID vaccine to between $100 and $130. Now, this vaccine was funded in part thanks to taxpayers in this country, just from a layman's perspective here, because, you know, I don't have a ton of knowledge about this topic. How can drug companies benefit from public spending, but not be subjected to any oversight or rules when it comes to predatory pricing practices? And the answer is, because the pharmaceutical industry next to Wall Street is the most powerful lobby in Washington, D.C. And for decades now, they have told Congress what the rules will be,

not the other way around. So your point is absolutely well taken. Let me just give a little bit more detail here. The United States, the National Institute of Health, has been working on these type of vaccines for a long time. They worked in conjunction with Moderna to produce this very good vaccine. We put, in addition to having the NIH work with them, on top of that, federal government

with $1.9 billion into research for Moderna. On top of that, the government guaranteed a certain amount of sales, okay? What's happened is that in the last several years, Moderna has made many, many billions of dollars in profit. And you know what they did with that profit, by the way? They made their CEO some $5 or $6 billion richer, and other executives made billions of dollars.

So here you have this terrible pandemic facing this country, working people are dying, going to work, and this company using taxpayer dollars is making, billionaires out of a half a dozen of its chief executives. And then to add insult to injury when the government stockpile expires, and we're not going to provide free vaccines, as we should, we can't get Republican support for that. You know what? Madder proposes to do, quadruple the price that it's going to charge. So what does that mean if you are uninsured or underinsured and you want to get a vaccine? You can afford $130,000? Probably.

not. You know what may happen to you? You're going to get sick. Maybe you die. These guys make billions. It is an outrage. Now, is there any world or is there any legislation that could be introduced where, you know, if the U.S. taxpayers are going to act as an investor here that at a bare minimum, they get their money back. They get repaid as opposed to just dumping money into this process and then getting screwed over at the end of it. Brian, you're exactly right. And that's we're working on two things. I mean, we're working on legislation. The problem is Take a wild and crazy guess, all right? Ask you a question.

How many paid lobbyists does pharma, that's the pharmaceutical industry, have on Capitol Hill and Washington? You want me to guess? Yeah. Maybe like 500? 500. 500? You mean one lobbyist for every member of Congress? Is that what you're suggesting?

Yeah, probably. No, you're wrong. It's 1,500. Yeah. So you've got former leaders of the Democratic and Republican Party. their lobbying firms, 1,500 lobbyists for 535 members of Congress. So, to answer you a question, we've got to go forward in two directions. Number one, we need legislation across the board which says, hey, I'm talking to you 50 miles away from the Canadian border.

In some cases, we pay 10 times more for the same drug as they do. We've got to put an end to that. We should not be paying more than what other countries are paying. Number two, your point is exactly right. When the federal government goes into partnership with a private entity, we've got to get reasonable pricing. We pay for the development of the drug. You're not going to rip us off.

So those are the two areas that we're working in the direction we're working in. The other element of that is that the Inflation Reduction Act allowed the government to negotiate lower drug prices. Now, that legislation was limited to a small number of drugs per year. But are there going to be ways to expand that number? Good. And how are those drugs going to be chosen? Excellent question.

You're right all the money. today. Right questions. The problem with that, it's a step-cote. Because, you know, getting back to not ripping off the American people, Medicare spent zillions of dollars, of course they should negotiate the price. That provision in the inflation reduction act doesn't go into effect until four years. It starts off with 10 drugs, and then it will expand. I want to accelerate that. Bottom line is, again, when the federal government is spending huge amounts of money, of course it should sit down with the pharmaceutical industry. You want to hear the great irony, how crazy the situation is? Yeah. Guess what do you think the Veterans Administration does right now,

today? Does it? It negotiates prices. And the VA pays half of what Medicare currently pays. How crazy is that? See, the United States government, VA pays the lowest. You've got Medicaid, next and then you got Medicare paying and outrageous on the money. It is beyond, you know, it's totally incomprehensible. Now, given how popular, just as a quick aside on the inflation reduction act, given how popular just that issue of allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices is, is there any way that legislation could be introduced in this Congress and forced Republicans, not not to vote on some, on a bill with a nebulous name where it can be, where it can be easily

distorted, but just a narrow bill that just based basically says to accelerate the process of allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices for a vast number of drugs in this country, that's it. The short answer to your question is absolutely, and I intend to do that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's, look, you're quite right. Here's a, I saw, I got access to a poll recently last month.

It was a poll of Republicans, of Republicans. Guess what the top issue for Republicans were, high cost of prescription drugs. Yeah. Yeah. So it is enormously popular. And we have got to say, the issue here is the pharmaceutical industry makes huge amounts of campaign contributions, has all kinds of lobbyists, very powerful. Got to stand up to them.

Let's finish off with this, Senator Sanders. What is the agenda that the Senate needs to work on now that the House is in Republican control? I think, you know, getting back to the, you know, first question that you asked me, I think what we have got to do, and prescription drugs is a perfect example of it. You've got to pass legislation that the people want. that makes sense to them and that will impact their lives. So we talked about prescription drugs. Expanding healthcare is enormously important.

There are, you know, about a quarter of this country lives in areas you can't find the doctor. Here in Burlington, Vermont, you wanna call for a doctor? You can wait months sometimes. And we do better than other parts of the country. So expanding healthcare into underserved areas, getting more doctors, dental care, huge crisis. All of this country, people can't.

afford dentists. I think we should expand Medicare to cover hearing, vision, and dental care so, enormously popular. Education. We have a child care system, which is horrific. You got a kid, of course, you're $15,000 or $20,000 a year if you can find a slot. Does that make any sense? Going to college, you know, leave school, $30,000 or $40,000 a debt. Biden took a good step forward. We'll see what the Supreme Court does on that issue. But we've got to fight to cancel student debt in this country. Got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Seven and a quarter now?

Really? You know anybody who can live on seven and a quarter now? I don't. All right. So those are just some of the issues I've got to deal with. We'll leave it there. Senator Sanders, thank you so much,

as always, for taking the time. Appreciate it. Thank you very much, friend. Now we have Congresswoman Katie Porter. Thanks so much for taking the time. Absolutely. I'm excited to be talking with you again. Thanks.

So you just announced your candidacy for the U.S. Senate, what would be your primary focus as senator? Why run for the U.S. Senate as opposed to where you are now in the House? Well, I think Washington has never been more beholden to special interests. And everyday Americans' concerns about Washington not working for them have just been growing. And so I think it's really important that we have leaders in the House and in the Senate who lead by example and being willing to stand up to corruption. I've never taken corporate PAC money, and I never will. And I'm one of a handful, but a half dozen of members in either body that doesn't take federal lobbyist contributions.

I think I have a track record of oversight and of being willing to call out inept government officials and corrupt CEOs to fight for the American people. And I think given the stakes for our planet, for our democracy in Washington, we need to send our best warrior, especially from a place like California. Now, there's a concern that, you know, you eeked out a win in a House district that's historically been a red district. And I think a lot of people acknowledge that you're one of the few politicians who can win in a district like that.

And this move might put that district at risk for what is otherwise a safe blue Senate seat. So what would be your response to that? Well, I want to challenge a couple of things there. First off, my victories were powered by the team and the community and the grassroots volunteers that won these races. My name was on the ballot, but there were volunteers and staffers and donors and people who made phone calls and postcarded that made it possible. And I have every confidence that that community of support will be there for whoever chooses to run in this 47th congressional district. So I am absolutely going to lend my strong support and do the work. here at Orange County to making sure that we hold that seat.

The second thing is I want to remind everybody, Orange County has changed and is changing. We now have more registered Democrats than Republicans. And a big part of the challenge in this last election was that we had 70% new voters. So we just didn't have the full two-year period to get to know those people, to earn their trust. It's an accelerated timeline caused by redistricting.

So the last thing I want to say is, look, We need to win not just this seat in the 47th district, but we need to pick up every House seat we can and every Senate seat we can. And I think one of the things I bring to this race is I am a strong competitive campaigner. I know how to win in every part and pocket of this country and every part in pocket of California. And California, well, for this cycle and long term, needs to be doing its part. Having a senator that can go out and help in places like Montana or Ohio, having a senator who can raise money to make sure that every candidate has the resources they need.

So for me, I love campaigning. A big part of this is being able to do that political work cycle after cycle to help us win up and down the ballot in Orange County, but also other places. So I want to switch gears here to current news in the House. One of your current House colleagues, that's George Santos, is under pressure to resign after having been caught lying about everything. do you think that he should resign? And also, were you impressed to learn that he scaled Mount Everest six times? I think this is another example of why people don't believe that Washington is working. So this is a terrible conduct. Being dishonest, and it weakens what people think of their elected officials. So I do think there need to be consequences. I would like to

see the Republican caucus be leaders here and stand up and take action. But I think people deserve to know who's representing them, what their qualifications are. And if he's been dishonest with his voters, I think there should be action taken against him. And just specifically speaking, I guess, what would you recommend, what would you recommend on the George Santos front? Well, I think that he's going to have to answer to his voters. And I think that there's going to be a public outcry from them to want to have someone who's elected who has represented things honestly. So I think it's appropriate that he be asked to resign because he didn't win the election fair and swear. He won the by making a series of serious misrepresentations.

But ultimately, this is going to be about, this is it going to be a really pivotal moment, I think, to see. Are we going to see Republicans kind of come into leadership in terms of making sure that they're holding their own members accountable? Or are we going to have to continue to kind of be the moral leaders of Congress? So I, you know, it's been interesting to me. He has my former house office. I moved one floor up.

And so that office has definitely, been in a lot of videos lately as people have gone to protest his conduct. Yeah. Now, during the circus that was Kevin McCarthy's speaker election vote, you were photographed reading a book titled The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Was that a commentary on what was happening that day, or was it just the world's most entertaining coincidence? So I actually read a lot, and I've talked about this in the past on Twitter, about what I like to read and highlighting authors.

And so I actually had brought three books with me, for the week. One was on my iPad and two were hard print books and I'd finished them all because we'd had, as you know, 15 votes. So by the time I went to walk to the Capitol on that last night, I was, I had no more books. And the prior couple days earlier, I had picked up that book at a little free library. Washington, my neighborhood is full of little free libraries. So I picked up that book. It was the last one I had left. And I'm about 90 pages into it. You know, it's not without controversy, the author and his thoughts, but I think I read to hear different perspectives. And, you know, so it was, it was kept me busy and kept me entertained and

kept me learning during the speaker vote. Were you surprised to see the side by side of you reading that book and like completely like relaxed and just the mayhem that was happening on the republic. I mean, we had that picture of one lawmaker, one Republican lawmaker pulling back the mouth of another Republican lawmaker while he was trying to lunge at Matt Gates, were you surprised to see that side by side? Well, I certainly was surprised to see that kind of conduct on the House floor. And I think it was important reminder that during, you know, we need to be modeling kind of calm conduct.

We need to be drawing a contrast between the mayhem that the Republicans are bringing to this moment and the very unified, consistent, I think powerful message we sent, voting over and over again for Hakeem Jeffries. Okay. So on to some more serious stuff, we've got a battle looming in the House where in Republicans will make lifting the debt ceiling conditional upon cuts to certain programs that include, you know, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Do you think that you'll have enough Republicans who recognize the danger in that move that would then vote for a clean debt ceiling bill that Democrats could introduce using a discharge petition? For all Americans,

regardless of their ideology, I certainly hope so, because the consequences to our economy would devastating if we were to fail to act like responsible adults with regard to the debt ceiling. And I'll tell you, whether you're a Republican or an independent or Democrat, young, old, rural, urban, suburban, all Americans benefit from a strong and stable economy. And so I certainly hope that we can early, not at the last minute, not in the middle of a crisis, not after it does a lot of damage to the United States economic position. I hope we can early on see Republicans work with Democrats to agree to raise the debt ceiling. And I have to be clear, putting Social Security, these earned benefits on the chopping block is not how to address this problem.

That is yet another action to weaken our economy. And it's to revoke basically promises that we've made to Americans who've worked hard their whole lives. Is there any appetite among Republicans that you've spoken with? I mean, you only need a small handful of Republicans. We already heard from some, or at least one, at least, you know, who came forward and said that he'd be willing to vote with Democrats, if Republicans couldn't get their act together. So is there a small group of Republicans who've expressed interest in doing something like this? I think we'll see conversations really accelerate, particularly with the release of the letter from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, giving us a concrete timeframe, naming that date January 19th, which is coming up really quickly. I think those conversations are really, really going to accelerate.

week in the House, we were very busy trying to stand up for some of our fundamental rights, including, you know, the right to abortion was under attack, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve there was a lot of posturing there. And so I certainly hope that with that letter, those conversations start. And I would certainly want to talk to any Republican about why it's so important that we act with a unified front with regard to the U.S.'s global standing in terms of our economy. Do you have any hopes for bipartisan legislation that could realistically make it out of this Republican-led House? Or do you think that their priority is expressly not working with Democrats?

Well, I certainly think there are going to be opportunities to work across the aisle. I think that what we've seen before is you have to go issue by issue, member by member, trying to find someone who's willing to step up and work with you on something. I've had bills on things like protecting seniors from getting scammed, where my partner was Dan Cren. I have a bill to make sure that mothers and nursing parents are able to travel and without having their breast milk contaminated Republican Maria Salazar is my co-sponsor on that. And so I think we have to look for those issues. I think we have to be proactive in trying to continue to do our legislative work and trying to offer good ideas and trying to search for the right Republican that will support it.

It's not about compromising our values. It's about being willing to have conversations. Okay, let's finish off with this. If you could pass one piece of legislation, that's not the obvious stuff. It's not voting rights legislation or codifying row, but something kind of like left of center out of the norm, what would that be? Well, I think the obvious answer, barring the Supreme Court, I'm blocked by the Supreme Court.

And that is to deal with corporate PAC money and deal with the influence of special interests in Congress. And, of course, the Citizens United decision, excuse me, is a huge problem. for this, which is why we need to end it. I think the more straightforward one is to ban congressional stock trading. Over and over and over again, we hear from Americans that they believe that their elected leaders are working to enrich themselves rather than to deliver a just society and a strong economy. And so I was proud to join with colleagues who've already begun to introduce legislation on this, this Congress, and I was a real leader impressing for it in the past. So I think we have to

tackle the lack of trust in Washington, because without that trust in us makes it all the more difficult for us to have conversations amongst us as Democrats, as progressives, but also across the aisle. I should also ask, how can we help your campaign? You can go to my Senate website, katie porter.com. You can learn more about this campaign, about how we're going to run it, what our key priority issues are, and reach out and let us know. Send it, if you're a Californian and you'd like to have me come visit or engage with your group, please invite me. but Katie Porter.com remains my website. There's a lot more information on there for people,

and I think we're looking forward to being able to really connect with Californians, listen to communities. I've taken a lot of pride in being able to be a strong kind of retail campaigner in a congressional district, and you have to put in a lot of work to do that in a big state like California, and that's what I'm ready to get doing. Awesome. We'll leave it there. Congressman Porter, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you.

Thanks again to Katie Porter. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode,

please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.