No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans oppose their own January 6 commission

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

Republicans block the January 6 commission even after their own demands were met during negotiations. Brian interviews Congressman Tim Ryan about his viral speech debating the creation of this commission, as well as his US Senate run for the open seat in Ohio. And Brian chats with FOX LA host Elex Michaelson about the benefits of a $15 minimum wage.Donate here to the "Don't Be a Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the January 6th Commission and why Republicans are blocking it even after their demands were met. I interview Congressman Tim Ryan about this very commission and his U.S. Senate run for the open seat in Ohio. And I chat with Fox L.A. host Alex Michelson about why the benefits of a $15 minimum wage far outweigh the arguments against it. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So we've now reached a point we're even just investigating, even just looking into an event connected with Republicans, is now facing opposition from the right. Legislation creating a January 6th commission did pass the House, but with only 35 Republicans voting for it and 175 voting against.

And those 35 who did vote for it did so in opposition to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who came out against the commission. And bear in mind, this legislation was crafted with Republicans. The Democrats went into negotiations in such a good faith manner that they made almost crippling concessions, like splitting commission members evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and making it so that both sides need to agree when issuing subpoenas. And beyond that, as if that wasn't far enough,

just remember that Democrats did this with the side that was responsible for the event that's being investigated. Just the fact that Republicans were included in these investigations, much less that their demands were met when it was the Republican Party itself that instigated the events of January 6th is almost beyond comprehension. But then the fact that they still balked is all the proof you need that they never had any intention of moving forward with it,

Just like the ACA, just like the Recovery Act, just like the American Rescue Plan, they will water it down and then withhold support anyway. Same strategy, different bill. And just so we're clear, a commission's going to happen either way. If there aren't 10 Republicans in the Senate who vote in favor of an independent commission, there will still be a select committee in the House, which is what Republicans put together to investigate the attacks in Benghazi. The difference being, well, there's a couple. First and foremost, that commission wasn't investigating an attempt to kill those very members of Congress doing the investigation. Probably important not to forget here that Republicans would be blocking an effort to bring accountability to the people responsible for trying to kill their own colleagues, their own vice president. But second, the Benghazi Commission was nakedly partisan.

And that's not just me, like claiming that it was partisan. Here's Kevin McCarthy, while he was making his case to be elected Speaker of the House during an interview with Hannity on Fox News, basically admitting that the point was to crater Hillary Clinton's poll numbers. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable.

But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not. And yet now, those same people are telling us that an investigation isn't necessary, that it's time to move on, that we shouldn't dwell on the past. Mitch McConnell said we already have ongoing investigations of the DOJ. The Benghazi Select Committee lasted more than two and a half years. There were 11 reports, seven or eight congressional investigations, 33 hearings. That probe wrapped up four years after the actual attack, all courtesy of the party that doesn't think an investigation into an insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, born out of the lie,

cooked up by Donald Trump and spread by his mouthpieces that the election was stolen, is worth looking into. Yeah, why would that possibly warrant an investigation? And by the way, that isn't lost on anyone. Here's Tim Ryan pointing out exactly that in a clip that's gone viral across social. media. I want to thank the gentleman from New York and the other Republicans who are supporting this and thank them for their bipartisanship to the other 90% of our friends on the other side of the aisle. Holy cow. Incoherence. No idea what you're talking about. Ben Ghazi, you guys

chased the former Secretary of State all over the country, spent millions of dollars. We have people scaling the Capitol, hitting the Capitol police with lead pipes across the head, and we can't get bipartisanship. What else has to happen in this country? Cops! This is a slap in the face to every rank-and-file cop in the United States. If we're going to take on China, if we're going to rebuild the country, if we're going to reverse climate change, we need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality, and you ain't one of them. I yield back the balance of my time. And Tim Ryan's joining us for an interview in the next segment, but his point here is a great one. we can't function when half the government isn't willing to live in reality.

If we can't even acknowledge that 2 plus 2 is 4, how do we solve anything? You think we're going to be China, which Republicans love to virtue signal about? You think we're going to be able to protect this country from foreign attacks? You think we're going to be able to solve climate change? We can't even get half the government to agree that the election results that were certified and then hand recounted in Georgia said what they said. Republicans won't even acknowledge that because they didn't like the results. We have cyber ninjas in Arizona looking for bamboo fibers and ballots.

Republicans are operating so far outside the realm of reality that we don't stand a chance of tackling any real problems if they're not even capable of acknowledging what day of the week it is. And by the way, that's by design. The reason for a January 6th commission isn't just to hold those responsible for the violence. It's to make sure that it doesn't happen again. And that is why Republicans don't want it, because that's their whole strategy.

The reason they're pushing the big lie with, renewed enthusiasm is because that's their only strategy to win in the future. That is their pretext to pass voter suppression laws, which they'll use to stop Democratic voters from casting ballots. That is how they'll try and turn Trump into a martyr and claim that the election was stolen from him because they want to protect his stock so that he can run again. That is how they'll cry victim and pretend they were the subjects of some fraud scheme

by the evil Democrats to gin up enthusiasm among the base. But by investigating January 6th, by having this commission, by shining a spotlight on why the lies that caused it were bullshit, well, then all of their work is threatened. Republicans need to protect the sanctity of the big lie because while it didn't work this time, they're banking on it working the next time. They don't have an agenda to run on.

The big lie is all they have. So I might sound like a broken record here, but this absolutely bears repeating, knowing that Republicans are banking on the strategy for the next election, knowing that they've gone all in on endorsing lies and violence and voter suppression, the choice here is this. Either you support HR1 to shore up our election

or you're making the conscious decision to allow Republican strategy to work. That's it. No middle ground. There's no compromise. Republicans have already broadcast their strategy in broad daylight. The bills are passed. It's done. So if those Democratic holdouts like Mansion and Cinema

don't get on board, they will have chosen to help Republicans relegate Democrats into the permanent minority. You'd be hard pressed to find someone with more patience for the Joe Manchins of the world than me, but at this point, You don't get credit if you're just siding with Republicans on the only issue that actually matters right now anyway. There's still some time to have this figured out, but that time is dwindling down.

And this whole issue of a January 6th Commission is proof of the danger of thinking that the right wants bipartisanship when what they're looking for is a clear runway to undermine democracy. Still coming up is my chat with Fox L.A. host Alex Michelson, where we touch on the January 6th Commission and dig into raising the minimum wage. But first, my interview with Congressman Tim Ryan. Today we've got the Democratic Congressman from Ohio's 13th Congressional District and a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2022. Tim Ryan, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. So you've made headlines all over the country this past week for an impassioned defense of the January 6th Commission. Now, the House ultimately voted in favor of it, but with only 35 Republicans supporting legislation. So do you feel like the House vote was a success because there were 35 defections, or is the fact that there were still 175 votes against it

more telling? Well, I think it was successful in the sense that we were able to reach out. We showed we were willing to work with the Republicans to assure them of certain things that, you know, the non-partisanship of the commission, those kind of things. I think that's really important. But it's also important for framing up the bigger argument that there were only 35. and now the heat's on Mitch McConnell, and he's got to make a decision as to whether or not he wants to take it. It sounds like he's already made the decision that he's going to filibuster this thing,

and that's going to let the American people know that they have no interest in getting to the bottom of January 6th. And I think that says it all. Well, so that brings me to this question, then, you know, that commission legislation, obviously going to the Senate, what's your message to those senators on the right as they prepare to vote on this commission and decide whether it's going to be a reality? I mean, they saw what happened. They were there. You know, I think, you know, we may not win the battle on this thing,

but I think we may, you know, win the war of public opinion on this because it is just so obvious that they're not living in reality anymore. They have members of Congress saying that this was just another tourist day. They have members of Congress saying they want to sweep it under the rub. So there's a real opportunity to just say, look, Do you want a party that's governing within reality in the context of where people are living and what's actually happening? Or do you want people that are living in La La Land?

And that will then over the next 18 months be the argument. Yeah. Well, Tucker Carlson had come on the air and he tried to mock your speech when you said that only one party is living in reality. And that prompted him to say this. But apparently, he made a compelling argument. 35 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for that commission yesterday. They joined what Tim Ryan described as the party that's living reality, the party that wears surgical masks outside, the party that thinks it's possible to change your biological sex, the reality party.

So what's your response to Tucker? Well, look, I mean, I certainly don't want to engage Tucker Carlson because he's so far beneath any, you know, normal argument that needs to happen. He's trying to keep eyeballs on his program, and we know that's what he's doing. but they're saying that January 6th, you know, Trump didn't have anything to do with it, that, you know, it was just another tourist day. They did not act on it. They're talking about Dr. Seuss. They're talking about Mr. Potato Head while working people are just trying to work hard and try to get ahead and we're trying to figure this whole thing out. So I think the American, you know, I got from my speech, I got more texts and calls from Republicans who are saying, thank you because this party has left me. So they can keep going down that rapid. if they want. But I think it will be to their detriment. I hope it's to their detriment. So he can say all he wants. And do you think that it'll have any discernible impact? Because time and time again, we see these events where you would think that, okay, this is, this has got to be the last draw for Republicans denying the reality of a pandemic that would go on to kill 500,000 people.

And, you know, whatever it is, it always seems like the last straw. Do you think that this will have any, you know, discernible impact moving forward? The difference is now, I think, we are actually delivering for people. So this isn't any longer a theoretical discussion. Democrats, Republicans, gridlock since 2010. We weren't able to do everything we wanted. Trump got in. You know, that was the last 10 years have been nothing but gridlock.

We are actually delivering now on the child tax credit, on the pension bill that was in the rescue package, now coming with infrastructure, local governments are starting to decide what they're going to do with the money they got. So what they're saying is in contrast to our deliverable. So it's a much different argument to be made. And what are they going to say, like, we want to, you know, we don't want the roads to be paved. We don't want new bridges. It sounds like that's what they're saying. And they're not going to have any of their fingerprints on the transportation and infrastructure piece. So I think it's a much different dynamic that will play itself out over the next 18 months and to our benefit. Right. And which, by the way, is an unforced

error because Democrats are practically begging Republicans to get on board with the American Jobs Plan, just like they begged Republicans to get on board with the American Rescue Plan so that they would be able to take credit. Right. I mean, that's not stopping them from trying to take credit anyway, but in any case, switching gears a little bit here. Do you think Republicans will accept the results of the 2024 election if a Democrat wins? Hard to tell.

Hard to tell. What happens between now and then, you know, where's Trump at and all this? I feel like it's a shrinking minority of even Republican voters, maybe the majority in the Republican primaries, but I think it's becoming a smaller and smaller cult of personality. And so I think my hope is we have big wins in 22. And then in 24, this is largely past us, especially with the news cycles and the information age and all of that. I'm hoping that it finds its way into the dustbin of history. Well, speaking of 2022 kind of brings me to the obvious piece of legislation that is passing H.R. 1.

So obviously, the only way to pass that is by reforming the filibuster. What is your stance on filibuster reform? Well, I think we've got to take a hard look at it. You know, my preference always is to try to work with Republicans, but we are in uncharted waters right now. And they are continuing to show with the January 6th commission where they're probably going to filibuster this thing, that they have no interest even in basic governance, like investigating an insurrection on the Capitol. Right.

So I think we've got to take a hard look at it. I'm doing my homework now. I'm in the middle of the book, Kill Switch, which is a great book on the history of the filibuster. So we're going to look at it very, very closely. How would you say that the best way to get democratic holdouts to move on the issue of the filibuster so that we actually can pass this must pass legislation like HR1? Well, I think it's going to take.

maybe a little bit of time. And I know we're in an impatient society and there's a lot of urgency around what we need to do. But I think like watching McConnell on the filibuster the January 6th commission, I think is going to be a real eye opener. Like if you're not for the, this is so straightforward. It's not even funny. I mean, cops were beat up by the insurrectionists. Over a hundred were hurt. They're on workers' comp. I mean, suicides. A police force that guards the Capitol is really hurting right now, mental health issues, anxiety, trauma, all the rest. If you can't pass an investigation into that, how are you going to be a real honest broker around infrastructure and other things?

So I think letting that play out a little bit to sink in for some who maybe have taken a little bit of a harder stance on it to let them realize that and let the American people too come along for the ride too and see like, look, Biden keeps going, Biden keeps trying. He's like, out of the White House. we keep trying to engage them. They got nothing. They got nothing. So at some point, I think, especially around the election security, especially around the civil rights stuff, it hopefully will open people's eyes how important this.

And this should be a gimmy, by the way, for Republicans. This is a party that has branded itself, you know, the back of the blue party. If you can't move forward with legislation creating a commission to investigate this, you've really proven that your entire branding has just been a farce since the beginning. It's all political. And I think the American people are starting to see that around it. You know, we're for defunding the police. But when we funded police, that local government money we sent out can be used for first responders in hazard pay and support local government.

So police and fire don't get laid off. It doesn't mean you don't want to get bad cops out. Of course, we, you know, want to take out any cancer that's in those local departments. But then you turn around and say, these cops, we watched on TV. the whole world watched them get hit with lead pipes and sprayed with pepper spray. And you do nothing, I think that becomes apparent of most voters. So you represent a district and a state in the heart of the Rust Belt. That's a region that's been hit especially hard by a loss of manufacturing jobs that had defined it, basically.

So what's the response been to pending legislation like the American Jobs Plan? And even despite the way that Ohio has been trending redder, has there been any blowback that you've seen to Republicans, that oppose it. And I mean that honestly, because, you know, we see Republicans opposing stuff all the time that has 60, 70, 80 percent support, and yet somehow they don't seem to face a ton of consequences for it. It's starting to sink in. I was at a teamster rally yesterday up in Toledo, and the pension bill reform that was in the original rescue bill, 40,000 Teamsters in Ohio were made whole through their pension. Not a lot of Trump, not a lot of Democratic voters in the rank and follow the teamsters. And they were saying, man, this is the first time the government's

ever done anything for us. And they know who did it. That's going to sink in the child tax credit, which is going to hit in July 300 bucks a month for all these work. These are working families. We want people to work hard, play by the rules, do the right thing. Instead of, you know, beyond the public dole, that's what we hear from the other side, right? Here's working people, getting a little boost to lift their kids up, that's going to start hitting. So as these start to hit, I think the narrative begins to change. I don't think Ohio went red. I think Ohio went Trump.

And I look at these other candidates in the Senate race and other congressional races. They can't cast the spell like Trump did on so many voters. That's a good segue into the 2022 race coming up. So you're running for the U.S. Senate. What's your pitch to voters? If I'm a moderate Republican or even a non-voter, how do you get my vote? Ohioans been working harder than ever before doing everything right and they still can't get ahead. And they need a senator who's going to fight like hell to cut them in on the deal and work with business too.

I mean, this is not just cut workers in. It's about working with businesses to help them become more competitive because when you look at what China is doing, you look at what foreign countries are doing, they are trying to displace us economically. And we have to make sure that we are able to compete. And I will just say, you know, we have the agenda around like building electric vehicles, batteries, charging stations to actually make things again in the United States and grow the economy, grow businesses and cut workers in on the deal. They want, we need a senator who's going to do that, not a senator that's going to talk about, you know, Dr. Seuss and all this other garbage. Yeah. Well, more broadly, you look at Ohio. at Iowa, you look at Indiana, those were states that Obama won a decade ago. And now,

you know, you tell someone that a Democrat's trying to win in Indiana, you get laughed out of the room. Where are Democrats falling short in these states? Is it our messaging? Is it just that the culture war bullshit issues that air nonstop on Fox News are just too potent? What do we change here? I think the culture wars, we lose. But we lose it because we don't have a robust enough economic message. And if it's culture war versus culture war, we lose. If we have a robust economic message and they're doing culture war, we win because we are living in the reality that the working families are living in. And they'll vote for the people who are going to fight like hell for them because we understand what they're going through. So keeping that robust economic

message living in their reality with them, understanding their reality with them, and sharing their values, that the root cause of all of these problems in our society that we see on TV, in my estimation, get back to the economic issues that we have. Because if people don't have time on their hands to spend with their family, to go to church, to volunteer at the local Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or organizations, the civil structures, our institutions are frayed across the board government is obviously one of them why because people don't have time to do stuff anymore like you know the old old timers used to do because they would work and my grandfather he was a treasure he was a steel worker he was a treasurer in his union he was the lead usher at

our lady of mount carmel catholic church he ran the beer tent for the festival at the church right he had a good job that paid the bills and he didn't have to work seven days a week so he was able to do all of these other things to build the community up. And so that's why we've got to focus on the economy, not just for the economic purposes, but also for building out the broader society. That's a great point, especially, you know, we're going up against the party whose priority here is entrenching tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and corporations. So we should just keep moving forward with that message. I want to finish up here. You know, as it stands, Ohio is a pretty deeply gerrymandered state. But that matters.

is going to be redrawn this year, and there's a bipartisan redistricting commission. So obviously there's major implications for the House, which is going to be an uphill battle in 2022. Do you expect that the maps that come out of that commission will be truly fair? Probably not. Probably not. They'll probably be slanted to the Republicans. But that doesn't mean we can't win them. We've had them slanted before in Ohio. We've not controlled redistricting for 40 years. But in 2006 and eight, we were able to get the next. nine to nine in the state because of the economics, the war in Iraq, other things. So I think the pandemic, where the Republican Party is going now, how Biden's doing,

the economy will all dictate whether or not we can win those seats. So yet to be determined. So how can my viewers and listeners support you? Tim for Ohio, please sign up. We volunteer if you're in Ohio. Send us five bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks. We love to have your help. We've got so much support this past week.

after the speech. But we're going to flip this seat. We got a huge Republican primary, not a Democratic primary, and, you know, we're going to win the seat. We got the right message at the right time, and I believe I'm the right candidate. And if they could send us a couple of bucks, we'd appreciate it. Congressman, best of luck on the Senate run, and thanks for taking the time to talk. Awesome.

Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Tim Ryan. Now we've got my friend Alex Michelson host of Fox LA's The Issue is. Alex, how you doing? Brian, I'm doing well. I hope to emulate the energy of Tim Ryan. That guy has caffeine, it seems like, straight to his veins. And so I appreciate that as a broadcaster, somebody that brings the energy like that.

So I'll give you a good opportunity to do exactly that. So let's talk about the January 6th commission. At what point does naked partisanship become counterproductive? Like, we're talking about a commission investigating an insurrection. A mob was coming to kill members of. both parties. Police officers were bludgeoned. A cop was killed. You know, attendees of the insurrection were killed. So I get like on its face how Republicans might not want to shine a spotlight on this. But doesn't there come a point where it's like, you know, we're talking about a riot at the

U.S. Capitol. Isn't something worthy of investigation? Wouldn't it be this? Well, you started with, at what point does naked partisanship become counterproductive? And that's been that way for a very long time. But yes, I mean, traditionally in American politics, there have been at least some things that were usually thought to be bipartisan, areas of agreement, areas where we can work together. You think back about the 9-11 commission, something that was an attack on the entire country, attack on Republicans and Democrats, and it was something where there was a model of how to investigate something like that in a bipartisan manner. And the chairs of the 9-11 Commission, both Republican and Democrat,

endorsed this idea of a January 6th commission. It's something that was negotiated by a Republican who was leading the way on this. Republicans were a part of this process, and yet still, this was turned into a partisan issue. And so

what seems to be forgotten is that a lot of those rioters on January 6th, their main targets weren't Democrats. They were Republicans. These rioters were chanting hang Mike Pence, the Republican vice president, who has as good a conservative track record in terms of voting as anybody in the House or the Senate.

And yet they were going after him. Mitt Romney, we saw him fleeing. I mean, that mob would have been after him. And so these people who were themselves, the targets, themselves, the victim of the attack, have sort of amnesia to think that this was an attack on Democrats. It was an attack on the institution itself. It was an attack on democracy. It was an attack on fact.

And so this is not a right or left thing. It is a right and wrong thing. And so for this to be turned into some sort of partisan exercise is yet another example of how we are losing grip on reality. And that is really, really sad. And I guess you alluded to this while you were speaking about. it, but it's not exactly the same as the 9-11 commission because the people responsible for the attack, for the insurrection on January 6th, were the Republicans?

Like, this was all born out of the big lie, and that was pushed on right-wing media. It was pushed by these Republican politicians. It was pushed by Donald Trump, whom none of these Republican lawmakers and senators would dare, you know, push back against, except for, you know, the occasional Adam Kinsinger and Mitt Romney and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, but like, you know, in a party of hundreds of people, that's barely enough to even make a blip. And so the 9-11 commission was kind of an easy win for them because we're all united in fighting back against something evil. But when the evil entity in and of itself are the very people who inhabit half of the government,

well, then, you know, it's not exactly the same. And it's probably easier to sort of try to investigate Muslims from another country than Christian whites from this country. I mean, really, I mean, I think there's part of that too. But what else is striking is how the tone has changed so much in the Republican Party since January 6th. You know, remember on that day, just how it looked like many of even the Republicans had PTSD after that experience, yet some of them still voted for the big, lie afterwards, but there were Republicans at the time, including Kevin McCarthy, who was visibly

really irritated and outraged by the president's behavior and their own conversations that day, who were willing to call out the president that day, Lindsay Graham, saying, I'm done with this. And yet many of those same people, many Republicans who called for the creation of a January 6 commission, including some of the members from here in California, then voted against it. So the story is the evolution in the Republican thinking about January 6th. It has gone from an attack on America that must be condemned by both parties to any mention of it is just an excuse to talk about Donald Trump and we can't talk about Donald Trump. So let's move on and pretend like it didn't happen.

look maybe maybe i'm cynical in all of this but yes yeah yeah that's moving on uh no maybe maybe i'm cynical about all of this but like from a 30,000 foot view when you see people like kevin mccarthy when you see people like lindsay graham who were so worked up over this you know immediately after january 6th at this point it really just looks like they were they were acting that way not because they were actually pissed off about it, not because they were actually upset at what they'd seen. But I would just say it's because it looked like the writing on the wall was that Trump is cooked. He's done. And so, you know, jump on board. The easy thing to do is just to throw the blame on Trump. Everybody else is doing it. He's done anyway. The whole country's

going to, you know, abandon him. And when they realized over the course of the next few weeks and months that, in fact, Trump wasn't going away, he's still going to play Kingmaker in the GOP, then the writing on the wall becomes something different and so now they have to change their tune and so at no point in this process I think the second part of what you're saying is true but the first part of it may not be

I think that Kevin McCarthy from every indication and all the reporters that talk to them and everybody that I know that's in that world was genuinely really really pissed off on January 6th and really really angry with President Trump and felt like the way that he was acting when Kevin McCarthy's

own life was in danger and the lives of his members was outrageous and I think he was shocked and appalled and I don't think that was political grandstanding I think that was a genuine moment of a real divide between the two of them yeah which which which almost makes it it almost makes it even worse than. Because if this was a moment of actual, you know, he was truly upset. He was truly torn up about this. Then for him to turn around and completely absolved Donald Trump makes it all the more cynical, all the more shameless, you know, all the more partisan hackish. But if you're a Republican operative, you know, and you're trying to become this, or they're trying to become the Speaker of the House, you're trying to fundraise for Republicans, which is what

Kevin McCarthy is singularly focused on, what incentive do you have for there to be a January 6th commission? What good is there for you to be talking about that ever again if you're trying to be the Speaker of the House and you're trying to do so with the support of President Trump? I mean, from a raw, naked, cynical, political perspective, it makes total sense why Kevin McCarthy would do what he's doing. But from the flip side of that same coin, you are then on record opposing a commission into an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. And that brings with it some disadvantages also. But if you notice, though, the way that they did this, he allowed his members in the most close toss-up elections to vote for it. So you look at a guy in California, for example, David Valdeo,

who is a Congress member for up in Central California. His district is actually plus 16 Democrat. So it is a Democratic district, which he was in two years ago, lost, and then just one back. He voted in favor of the January 6th Commission. He also voted in favor of the impeachment of Donald Trump. And from what I hear, McCarthy allowed these members to do what they had to do in order to not have an ad running in David Valdeo's district come, you know, the fall, that says that he voted against the January 6th commission. So he's trying to have it both ways, you know, allow the Republicans in the most hardcore pro-Trump districts to vote against this, which is, by the way, most seats since the Congress has been so gerrymandered. But in the super close districts, a lot of those members did vote for it. I don't know if that will make so much of a difference because of the way that elections are nationalized these days.

I think that you have people like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell who stand up and are opposed to this commission. I don't know that people are necessarily going to say, oh, well, at least this congressman in this swing district voted for it. And so, in fact, Republicans are seeking some type of bipartisanship. I think ultimately. Yeah. I think that's generally true. But it's possible that this House election is so close. I mean, look at the margins now in both the House and the Senate are so close that one or two seats could make the difference.

Yeah. And we've seen in certain areas that there are people like David Valade. who won, despite, you know, trends going the other ways, like a Susan Collins winning in Maine, even though that state voted for President Trump, that if a member does have a really good relationship with his or her district, that sometimes they can overcome some of those national trends. And if this really comes down to one, two, three seats, something like that could end up mattering. That's a good point. So I do want to switch gears here and talk about an issue that's kind of been bubbling up for weeks now, kind of always, you know, remaining just under the

surface here. And that's this issue of raising the minimum wage to $15. And I guess starting with, you know, your experience out in California, what's your take on this issue in terms of whether it would be a good idea to raise the minimum wage and whether it benefits Republicans to push back against it? In terms of California, we're already there. You know, we, We years ago, when Jerry Brown was the governor here, established a phased process where every year the minimum wage would raise a little bit so that it wasn't too much for businesses at any time. They could plan for it years out and we're about to finally hit that $15 an hour minimum wage here. And you notice that this is a widely popular thing. Even in Florida we saw in the last election a state that voted for President Trump, a state that's elected Ron

DeSantis and tried to do everything possible to become the conservative capital of the country fighting Texas, you know, every step of the way to try to take that title. They voted for $15 an hour minimum wage. This is one of those issues that actually does have large bipartisan support and is something that a lot of Republicans that make less money, you know, especially in the middle of the country, are in favor of. One of the complicating issues, though, if you really talk about it and say you talk to somebody like Joe Manchin, the senator from West Virginia, about a $15 minimum wage,

something that he does not support. What he would talk about is, look, the price of living is very different in different parts of the country. So whereas $15 an hour in Santa Monica gets you one thing, $15 an hour in West Virginia is a very different situation because the price of housing, the price of goods, everything else is different as well. So that makes it more complicated. That's where somebody like Mansfield.

would say, look, you can do this on a local level if it makes sense. There's nothing stopping you from doing anything, but for other areas, it makes sense to have it be lower. The counter to that, of course, is I know what you think, Brian, which is, you know, it's part of the cost of doing business, right? Like buying supplies or doing anything else is paying people. That's exactly right. I think, like, if you can't afford anything else, right, like vehicles or office space

or whatever, if you can't afford them, you don't get them. That's it. So why should human beings, your human capital, why should they be what you get to skimp on? Why are your employees okay to exploit even though anything else, if you can't exploit it, you just have to make due? But people, you should be able to exploit, even if it means that they won't be able to feed themselves or pay their rent or mortgage or keep their heat on in the winter. Like my stance basically is, you know, if you can't afford to pay your employees what it costs to keep human beings alive in this country, then your business isn't viable. That's on you to figure out as a business owner. It's not on the employee to accept shit wages because you haven't figured that out.

And I know that sounds brutish and anti-business, but it's not. It's just that it's not okay that we've come to accept this as okay. Like, this is institutionalized poverty. Who can live on $7.25 an hour? That's $15,000 a year. I just want to see one opponent. of this thing, volunteer to live on $15,000 a year. Well, some of the arguments that they make, and again, I'm not advocating for it. I'm just going to push back on you on what they would say. The point of the minimum wage originally was not necessarily to be a living wage. It was supposed to be to incentivize like a summer job in McDonald's or something else like

that that's not necessarily supposed to be a career to get you some money, but maybe you aren't feeding a family of four on that wage. They would also say that if you do something like that, it could lead to hiring less people because you can't afford it or passing on the cost of all of that to customers and then goods and everything else costs more because the labor costs more. Those are the points that they would make in opposing what you just said. You know, we've had minimum wage increases in the past. Like the minimum wage isn't still 50 cents an hour and we've always survived. then yes, prices always go up anyway, but, you know, if we were just to kind of not do something, not allow people to have some dignity in their lives because we're afraid that something

like price increases, which are happening anyway, is going to happen, then, you know, that wouldn't really make sense, especially something else that's a little bit different from how it used to be, so to speak, is that a lot of the businesses that people work for these days are the results of so much consolidation in that world. And so there's a degree of price fixing. And if you come to a point where if you want to work for X, Y, and Z company, and they're all offering $7.25 because they've all basically fixed the price industry-wide, you know, whether it's fast food restaurants or, you know, if you're working for Amazon or, you know, McDonald's

or some of the biggest employers in the United States, they've all basically figured out a way to keep their prices as low as possible. So it's not like you have that many options. And so, you know, it is a form of price fixing, in my opinion. But the last point I want to make. is if you do raise the wage and if prices do go up, think about all of the people that you bring into the economy, meaning that you infuse all of that cash back into the economy. Rich people aren't getting paid and spending all that money.

Like, let's be real. They're investing their money. They're saving. That money is going into their 401ks. But you give an entire subset of the population income, disposable income. They're going to spend it. That's what we want. We have almost half the country locked out of the economy.

right now. We have 40% of Americans who can't afford a $400 emergency. You know, income inequality is hurting everybody, including those small business owners who are worried about paying $15 an hour. So you infuse all of that cash back into the economy, and you know what's going to make up that $15 difference for those employers who are worried, giving tens of millions of Americans disposable income. Yeah. I mean, one of the other sort of crisis is that we need to think about going forward, certainly in our generation. And I know that we you have so many young listeners as well, is the automation crisis that's coming. You talk about minimum wage and, you know, pricing people out of work and everything else,

but, you know, so many jobs are going to be changing or potentially just going away as things become more and more automated. You know, you look at the possibility of having self-driving cars, which clearly we have a ways to go before we get there, but is something that's seriously being looked at. And you look at like the number one job for white working men in our country. The number one job, and something I've talked about with Bernie Sanders in the past, is truck drivers. So if all of a sudden, you know, trucks don't have drivers anymore, all those people are going to be out of work. And then, you know, there's issues in terms of having too many people with not enough of them having ability to make money,

which is leading to, you know, these arguments and discussions about, you know, universal. basic income or guaranteed basic income, but all of it kind of goes together, this idea of minimum wage and guaranteed basic income and how, as we grapple as a society, what are we going to do as our population increases and in a lot of ways the job numbers decrease? And it's going to be a huge issue for, you know, the president 15, 20, 30 years down the road. That's why I think it's so important too that we start focusing on and trying to win in the sectors of renewables, for example. You know, like all of that time spent by Donald Trump and Republicans trying to entrench the dying industries of coal and fossil fuels is time wasted that we should have been, you know,

putting people to work and making solar panels and wind turbines and actually looking toward the future so that 15 years from now, we're not, we're not just, you know, we find ourselves completely out of work and, you know, behind countries like China who did move forward and did see the writing on the wall with regard to renewables. Or behind robots. Yeah. Yeah. We're really running things.

I mean, we saw in this country that, you know, our investments in highways in the 1950s with President Eisenhower are still paying off in the 2020s. Yeah. And so will this generation choose now to invest in these in these things that we're all can benefit from going forward. And there has been some Republican support for that. That is a very, very popular position if you look at the polling with both parties. And the question now is, will the two parties be able to work out a deal?

And if they don't, you know, do Democrats have the votes on their own to pass it? And then it'll be really interesting looking forward. But hopefully we can put aside this fatal short-termism, you know, and finally start to invest in the country. because it'll have some major implications moving forward. So with that said, Alex, where can my listeners hear the Pete interview and whatever else you got coming up? Okay.

So for those of you that live in Los Angeles, I anchor the Fox 11 News at 5, 6, 7, and 10 o'clock every night. I also host a statewide show called The Issue Is, which you can find at the Issue Is Show.com. You can find all my content at YouTube.com slash Elex Michelson. Follow me in social media at Elex Michelson. that's Alex with an E. And the issue is is also put out as a podcast.

So just search for The Issue Is. And you can hear that episode and a lot more as well. So is that enough plugs? Am I paying for plug? I mean, No, we'll give you this one. It's all included in the price. It's all included in the price.

In my fee of free. Yeah, that's it. All right, Alex. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you. Keep up the good work, Brian. Thanks again to Alex.

Two quick housekeeping. notes here. First, I'm still running the Don't Be a Mitch Fund, where I'm raising money for eight voter outreach and voter registration organizations in the eight states with the closest Senate races in 2022. I'm doing this now because this is the strategy that worked for Stacey Abrams in Georgia. We have to invest now, get people registered now, do our voter outreach now, so that we're not scrambling in October of an election year. So check out the episode notes for the link to the Don't Be a Mitch Fund. And if you can give anything, your money will be well spent. We've already raised $30,000 in the last two weeks. So thank you.

you to those of you who have donated. And finally, next week is officially the one-year anniversary of this podcast. So thank you to everyone who's listened this past year and tune in next week because I'll try to make it a good one. Okay, with that said, 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.