No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans pull disastrous stunt in the House

Episode Date: January 29, 2023

House Republicans pass one of their first bills as they melt down over gas prices coming down. Brian interviews Congressman Ruben Gallego about his announcement that he’s running for Kyrsten Sinema’s seat in the US Senate, how to deal with a 3-way race that may hand the whole thing to Republicans, and the threat that someone like Kari Lake would pose if she takes the Republican nomination. And Democratic communications strategist and former senior advisor to Julián Castro, Sawyer Hackett, joins to discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene vying for Trump’s VP slot, his thoughts on DeSantis going all in on culture wars from a strategists’ perspective, and the GOP’s endgame with their threats to hold the debt ceiling hostage.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 one of the first major bills passed by the Republican House and their meltdown over gas prices coming down. I interview Congressman Ruben Gallego about his announcement that he's running for Kirsten Cinema seat in the U.S. Senate, had a deal with a three-way race that may hand the whole thing to Republicans, and the threat that someone like Carrie Lake would pose if she takes the Republican nomination. And I'm joined by Democratic Communication Strategist and former senior advisor to Julian Castro, Sawyer Hackett, to discuss Marjor Tiller Green vying for Trump's VP slot.

His thoughts on DeSantis going all in on culture wars from a strategist's perspective and the GOP's endgame with their threats to hold the debt ceiling hostage. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So after months of gas prices coming down almost two bucks nationwide, Republicans have been in a state of panic knowing that their most potent attack against Democrats is now going away. And so the House Republicans finally defied the odds and managed to come together, if only momentarily, to actually pass a piece of legislation. The bill, which passed 221 to 205,

would curb Biden's ability to tap into the nation's petroleum reserves because apparently Republicans are pissed off that after spending the entire midterm cycle wailing about high gas prices, Biden leveraged the strategic petroleum reserve to get gas prices down. And so now they want to take that tool away from him because they're mad that he did the thing that they said they wanted him to do. So here's Marjorie Taylor-Green trying to make this argument for Republicans. President Biden abused his power to sell our oil, reduce gas prices, so that the midterm elections would swing Democrats' way.

It's a shame to trick the American people just to win in an election. No president should be able to use their emergency powers for politics. Like, I feel like I'm on a different planet. Joe Biden shouldn't be able to use his powers to reduce the price of gas. What? You couldn't talk to a Republican for like six months leading into November without them talking about gas prices and then blaming it all on Joe Biden. But when Biden uses one of the only tools available to him to ease those prices, now he's like corrupt? I wonder if these people can hear themselves.

And just as a quick aside, high gas prices are not the fault of any president. Here's what made gas prices rise. There's a few reasons. During the pandemic, when demand plummeted, a bunch of refineries were shut down. And then when demand came back, refinery production didn't, which meant supply was constrained. Another reason is that Russia invaded Ukraine and much of the world didn't want to fund a genocidal war by buying Russian oil, and that lowered global supply and increased global prices. There's the fact that China is exporting oil at the lowest rate in decades, which further shrinks the global supply and increases prices.

And then, of course, there's the fact that Republicans have prevented us from transitioning to renewables years ago, and so we're stuck relying on fossil fuel prices that are dictated by petroval. states and dictators on the other side of the world, but that's a story for a different day. In any case, not much that Joe Biden could do, and Republicans knew that, which was why it was the perfect attack line by the right. They would hammer away at Biden for something that he was incapable of fixing, which is a dream come true for the GOP. But Biden was able to release reserves from the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and he did, about a million barrels per day. Since then, gas prices have dropped almost two bucks a gallon. They're coming back to

normal, and Republicans lost one of their most potent attacks. And so instead of being, um, happy that gas prices are coming down, one of their first bills was to prevent Biden from being able to do it again. Like, if you need any more proof that they didn't give half a shit about gas prices and care solely about leveraging your financial pain for their own political benefit, now you've got it. And I know I talk about this a lot, but I think it's worth repeating. This is what it looks like when the GOP wants to purposefully break government and then

point to the thing that they broke as evidence that government is never the solution like here we had a solution that worked gas prices came down and so the very first thing that Republicans try to do is to make sure that Biden can't use it again over and over we see that their sole priority is

taking some element of government that's functioning normally making it so that it can't and then saying look told you government can't work you need to elect more of us because we want to shrink government like they tried to sabotage the postal service because they want it privatized They want to sabotage Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid because they want them privatized.

They want no public schools because they want them privatized. Don't you get it? Republicans exist to crush the public sector because they don't think any enterprise is valid unless there's a rich CEO in charge lining his pockets while giving you the bare minimum. Like they look at our health care system, which is the most expensive in the world, even though we have worse health outcomes than other industrialized nations, has some prize jewel. That's what they want for everything, for you to pay more than everyone else and then some C-suite executives get to make off

like bandits. And then those people fund Republicans campaigns, and they all try to manipulate you into thinking that it's good. And it is good, but only if you're the CEO. But I think that if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that that whole philosophy of government being the problem really isn't resonating

with Americans. Like a functional government just got us an infrastructure package. The first gun safety bill in 50 years. Record climate spending. The ability for the government to negotiate lower drug prices, capped out of pocket health care costs for seniors, capped insulin costs for Medicare recipients, an explosion of renewable energy investment

thanks to the Chips Act, veteran health care, thanks to the PACT Act. This is what happens when government works, when it's not intentionally being sabotaged. It can make regular people's lives better. And meanwhile, the GOP is so desperate to distract you from that that they are falling over themselves to get you infuriated over what fucking pronouns M&Ms are using.

They're pretending that the Biden Gestapo is coming to take away your stoves. Like, just try to imagine how, brainwormed, Tucker Carlson viewers must sound to normal people when they try to explain that their biggest issue in politics today is that the M&Ms are too woke and that Biden wants to come take your stove. And this isn't new, right? Before M&Ms and gas stoves, it was Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss and Starbucks, Christmas

cups and gray-pupon mustard. And like, doesn't it get tired? Doesn't pretending to get outraged about nothing get tired for these Fox hosts and these Republican politicians. I just can't imagine being a grown-ass man and waking up in the morning and being like, today I'm going to pretend to be furious about M&Ms. I just can't wrap my head around having that little dignity. Like, I tend to, I tend to want to be okay looking at myself in the mirror, but I don't know, maybe I'm overestimating Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. So at this point, I think if anything is clear, it's that if your political priority is blocking measures

that have proven to be effective, and then spending the rest of your time whipping people into a panic over gay M&Ms, then the Republicans have made it pretty clear that they're out there working for you. Next up is my interview with Congressman Ruben Gallego. Now I've got Congressman from Arizona and now U.S. Senate candidate, Ruben Gallego.

Thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me. So I'm going to start with what I think is the most obvious question here, and that is, what happens if we find ourselves in a situation where Kiersen Cinema does decide run for the U.S. Senate as an independent and that, you know, even taking a few percentage points would make her a spoiler and basically hand that race to Republicans. What happens in that scenario? Well, that doesn't happen. What happens in any scenarios that I end up winning, whether

cinema is in this race or she's not out of this race, I end up being the senator. She is, you know, roundly unpopular. She has no base to work from the only people that do like are Republicans. So we do feel that that's where she's going to be pulling from. Obviously, we have to run a good campaign. We have to have the funds to do that. We're very lucky. We've had now had 27,000 individual donations in three days. People have gone to Gallego4Arizona.com and just kept on hitting the donate button,

and it's going to help us propel us to win this race. But is there a scenario where, you know, even if she does have a few percentage points from, you know, center-leaning Democrats that, that she can, you know, act as a spoiler in this race. I mean, that's that I'm sure that bears itself out, even to some small degree in polling that you've seen. No, our point doesn't show that. Again, you have to run a strong Democratic campaign

in order to win that. And the best way to do that is obviously to run and win. There's no scenario in which this comes out with Senator Cinema staying a senator. She can't win. She won't obviously can't win a primary. That's why she switched. She's always going to be in third place.

And so any other people suggesting that somehow we should just let her have a free pass is going to also ensure the fact that this still ends up will end up for sure in a Republican hands. A strong Democrat is our best approach to this. And at the other day, a strong Democrat with great connections to the community, that's Latino, that speak Spanish, that can really turn out younger voters, is going to be a sure shot versus whatever else people think would be a sure shot, I guess. Senator Gary Peters, who's the head of the DSCC, has been pretty non-committal about who the DSCC is going to support thus far. What's your message to the DSCC about deciding what to do in this race, given that we know that Kirsten Cinema is an independent and not a Democrat? Well, look, we're worried about Arizona's first. We know that we can win this. If we talk to Arizona, we consolidate our support in Arizona.

And we'll worry about the DSCC later. It's still early in the game. We feel pretty confident. that once everything shakes out, people look at who's running the best race, who's more likely to win that will end up getting support of all organizations. What are you going to do to appeal to those cinema voters out there who may be more inclined to vote for an independent? Like, how do you reach those people whose political identity is expressly the fact that they are

against, you know, the traditional party structure? Well, I think it's important for them to understand this isn't about party. This is about service, right? Who is Kirsten's cinema working for? Independents aren't going to be very happy when they know that she watered down our prescription drug bill, that seniors have to pay more for prescription drugs because she went to advocate and lobby for pharmaceuticals instead of for seniors. They're not going to be happy when they find out that she allowed a tax cut, cut out, I should say, for hedge fund managers and private

equity managers to be kept in the code because they encouraged her and support her, you know, monetarily they're just not going to be happy when they understand that the voining rights act is stop being you know is it did not go in effect because she you know went and backed up the filibusters so time and time again you know whether it's watering down the infrastructure bill uh you know they're not going to be very happy about it so in in she may be independent in name but she certainly has not been independent in action is there a constituency for what she's doing because i mean that that's the only thing that i can land on in terms of in terms of why she's doing what she's doing. But is there any like, I mean, you know, I live in California. There's

lots of Democrats around the country who probably live in bluer states than Arizona and just kind of maybe can chalk it up to like maybe there's some constituency where she lives for for what she's actually doing. But, you know, it doesn't strike me as that's the, as that would be the case. I think what's important is like, you know, there's a constituency for everything to begin with. But is there a constituency that helps you actually put a coalition together to win? There is not. It doesn't exist. There's no mythological, huge black. of independents that are just raring to go for Kirsten, set them up. Because, again, independents aren't happy with the fact that she continuously, you know,

sells out. And not only that is nearly non-existent in Arizona. She doesn't have public meetings. She doesn't meet with, you know, citizens. She doesn't have town halls. She has very scripted events where it's very tight about who can even ask questions. And she rarely even speaks to the press. So we don't know what the cinema, you know, squad looks like, but it's going to be pretty small. Now, that's her. What about you? What are you running on?

Why run for the U.S. Senate? Well, I want to run for the U.S. Senate because I want to help people like me when I was in some dire straits, whether it was dealing with PTSD, whether it was being, you know, poor at 14 and trying to, you know, live the American dream. There's hundreds of thousands of Arizona's right now that want to live the American dream, but every day I feel. financial pressure, you know, just to make ends meet. And you need to have a senator who actually cares about that, you know, not care about who you're, who's sitting in front of you in Davos, but who's sitting in front of you in Arizona. And she's more likely and she feels more at home in Davos than with our town hall, as soon as they go to town hall in Arizona. That's what we need right now. We actually need somebody that cares about them. That's going to try to get the child tax

credit back so that way people can live, you know, a little more comfortably. So, you know, parents aren't as stressed about raising their kids. Someone's going to really fight to bring pharmaceuticals down and not, you know, stand up for the pharmaceutical companies. These are the little simple things that she should be doing and it's not doing. And even worse, she doesn't answer to anybody. You know, all of us should be accountable to voters. And she feels like she's above that. You know, she doesn't talk to them, you know, really treats them in a dismissive manner. and now, you know, she will have to see what happens with the elections. There was one moment where, I think, a reporter finally got, you know,

finally found her in the halls of Congress one day. And they're like, the voters want to know where you are. And she was like, well, what do you mean? I'm right here in the elevator. And I was like, this is just the most disingenuous thing I could possibly imagine a politician saying. Yep. What do you believe in terms of, you know, obviously the filibuster is going to be an important issue as we move forward? What are your thoughts on the filibuster just so that we're on record?

on that issue. Look, at a minimum, we should be reforming the filibuster. It is being used as a tool of obstruction. It's used by a minority to really hold power. At some point, you have to realize that it's not being done, and it's not even done in an altruistic manner by the opposition. So I'll give you a good example. A couple years ago, the filibuster would be rare to to, you know, unused. And now you have it being used, for example, to stop reform after Sandy Hook, right? Where 21 kids, you know, kindergartners were killed by a madman. And even then, we had to, the Democrats and Republican, you know, introduce a watered down gun right bill that still died because of the filibuster. And then soon after, again, not soon after, but

but way too soon anyway, in Yuvalde, again, we tried to pass some, you know, comprehensive gun legislation. And because of the filibuster, we ended up passing even a further water done bill than what we had passed after a sandy hook, right? And that's because we had to hit this artificial number of 60, which is not even the Constitution, when we could have had a very strong bill that probably could save a lot more lives, but, cinema decided to stay with the filibuster for really no good reason except for so so she could say to a republican friend that she's with them yeah and the irony about that is that all of the republican priorities which are judges and tax cuts they've already created car bouts in the filibuster

so they don't even they don't even you know act as if the filibuster applies to them on their priorities but you know we impose the filibuster by virtue of having people like hirston cinema and joe mansion we impose that burden on to ourselves for our own priorities what do you say to people, though, who promote the usual argument of like, well, you say that until you realize the damage that Republicans can do by eliminating the filibuster? Look, your idea should be able to survive the test of time. We've seen time and time again that Republicans have tried to get rid of, for example, the formal health correct, and we're not able to do that. I think at the end of the day, you know, the reason why Democrats lose

is a lot of times because we get into office and we do nothing. I think we're going to that it's been a very productive session because of Biden's leadership and Pelosi leadership and Schumer's leadership. But, you know, there's time and time again where we should have been producing and having some victories. Comprehensive immigration reform is a really good example, something that we've been talking about forever and have not been able to pass because of the filibuster. Protecting women's right to choose. We should have codified Roe v. Wade. You know, Kirsten talks about being pro-choice and then refuses to break the filibuster. for us to codify Roe v. Wade, but then has the audacity, mind you, to send out emails asking

for support because of her support for Roe v. Wade. This is the type of opportunities that we're missing because of, you know, people like Kirsten Sinai. Now, you brought up comprehensive immigration reform. Obviously, Democrats have struggled to keep their margins up among the Latino community. I know that you're not responsible for what other Democrats do, but what are you going to do to garner support among Latinos in Arizona? Well, look, it's not what I've just done. I've actually just led the most successful year for Bold Pack, which I've got to spend a caucus pack.

We now have the largest amount of members in Congress. And we not only won in Democratic areas, we won in some right-leaning areas with, you know, Democratic candidates. And we kept all of our incumbents. And so what I'm going to do is what I did this year, really understand the Latino community, understand how to turn them out,

really work within, with our grassroots organizations, to turn out the vote and, you know, do it early and go on to win. I've done this before, even in my own race. I always overperform every Democrat statewide because Latinos will trust me and will vote for me and the same time they will vote for a Donald Trump or they will vote for another Republican. And, you know, that's something that now I'm going to take statewide. On the other side of the aisle, you know, we still have a long way to go, but Republicans are already clamoring for this nomination on that side. And one of those is possibly Kerry Lake.

What threat does someone like Kerry Lake pose to that state? Well, to the state, it's very dangerous. She would be a laughing stock. She would probably jump in into a lot of the conspiracy theory caucus that exists within the Senate and try to pass legislation to disenfranchise a lot of voters. Carrie Lake's never going to be a U.S. senator. If she jumps in, I guarantee you, I will be winning that race. from day one. But, you know, it's always good to run this campaign. We've got to make sure you get

out the vote. Got to make sure you spend the money to get out the vote. And, you know, the water's warm if she wants to jump in or if any Republican wants to jump in. Now, on the House side, you know, we've seen Kevin McCarthy start to embrace someone like Marjorie Taylor Green. Green had her hand way deep into the events of January 6th. We have that video that she posted on her own social media explaining that she was attending a planning meeting for the events of that day. How you reacted to the events of that day has been really widely publicized. I mean, you have some pretty strong quotes from, you know, how you reacted to the insurrectionist and what you were willing to do to protect yourself and your colleagues.

What's your response to Kevin McCarthy empowering someone like Marjorie Taylor Green in this 118th Congress, given the fact that she basically put you and your colleagues' lives at risk that day? Well, look, you could expect that from Marjorie Taylor Green. I mean, it's the fact, you know, she's, you know, there's not much you can say. I mean, she's a trashy person and she, you know, was very, I would say on that day, acting like a traitor too and still is. McCarley's got no excuse. You know, he is just such an empty vessel that he'll do anything just to fill it.

And that includes, you know, selling himself and selling the institution of speakership for him to become, to become, to become. speaker. But, you know, at some point, they, you know, you mess, you mess with monsters, they eventually will turn on you. And it's going to happen, you know, but Kevin McCarthy's not smart enough to survive this. He doesn't have enough integrity to survive this. They will eat him alive to the point where he'll probably be a biggest embarrassment to, to the speaker in quite a while. Yeah. He's already coming into into his position as the weakest speaker, probably in modern American history. How can we help your campaign? Look, again, we are going to have to run a very strong grassroots campaign where we are hitting those doors.

There's going to be a lot of money being thrown at us or a lot of negative ads thrown at us by a lot of very strong moneyed interest because they want to keep their favorite lobbyists as a senator in Kierston Cinema. So please donate to Gallego4Arizona.com. and you know every every little bit counts i would really appreciate it great we'll put that link here on the screen and in the post description i would highly recommend that anybody watching uh definitely donate if you can congressman thank you so much for taking the time and good luck in this campaign adios thank you now we've got democratic communication strategist who served as a senior advisor to 2020 presidential candidate secretary julian castro soyer hackett Sawyer, thanks for joining, man.

Good to be with you, Brian. So let's jump right into the circus of it all. Marjorie Taylor Green, we have reporting that Marjorie Taylor Green is vying for Trump's vice presidential slot. So I just want to game this out for a moment because I know from a general perspective this just continues to like plummet us down the bottomless descent that we're already heading down. But from a political perspective, is there a world in which this is actually a good thing

for Democrats? Yeah, I mean, a lot of a lot of people, when this report came out. A lot of people were suggesting that this is just Steve Bannon, you know, throwing crap out there to get printed. But I think it's worth consideration. I mean, frankly, Marjor Taylor Green is the present and the future of the Republican Party. She's one of the top fundraisers. She now sits on two really powerful committees. And she seems to have Kevin McCarthy right in her pocket. You know, he wouldn't be speaker without her. I think you saw a quote from a couple days ago where he said, I would never leave that woman. I just,

she's been mainstreamed, I think, within the Republican Party, and that's not to say she's mainstream within the electorate, of course, you know, she's a Q&N supporter, she's a 9-11 truther, she's the champion of the insurrectionists, but I think there needs to be someone who picks up the mantle of Trumpism within the caucus, and I think she represents that. And so, yeah, I mean, I think it would be a good thing for Democrats, of course, having Trump and her on a ticket, I think, you know, benefits Democrats up and down the ballot, but it's not to say that she's some sort of outlier within the party anymore. She's pretty mainstream.

It is pretty crazy how we've seen the Overton window shift to the point where Marjor Tilly Green, who was like universally viewed as this totally insane person, the Republican Party, is now like best buds with Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House, and like a major fundraiser on that side. I mean, it really is wild, and it kind of shows the extent to which the crazy has been embraced and normalized on the right. But we saw a little bit of this gambling during midterms, where Democrats elevated, you know, crazy maggot candidates in House races, and it was sourced

for a lot of concern prior to the midterms, but it actually worked out quite well. But, you know, it still did put us in a situation where we were close to getting a bunch of crazy, far-right maggot candidates elected to Congress. Is there any worry about that gamble, you know, elevating Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, as Trump's VP pick, with something as important as the presidency? Like, I know just for these House races, it's, one out of 435, but like, if Democrats do shine a spotlight on this and do kind of push him to make this decision just by virtue of giving it all that press, is there any worry about what it could do that putting Marjor Tilley Green on the ticket with somebody who did win the presidency

before it could do? Yeah, I mean, I have mixed feelings about this because, of course, as a, you know, as a Democrat, as somebody who works in Democratic politics, I want to win, right? And I want to put our best foot forward and I want to have our best candidate to take on their worst candidates. That's just the nature of politics, right? And, you know, this has gone on for decades, right? The Democratic Party and the Republican Party have been doing this to each other for decades. But I think on something as serious as the future of our democracy, it's a little dangerous to play this game, especially when you're putting money behind his efforts.

You know, it's one thing to lift up Republican candidates to are saying crazy shit. You know, we want to put that out there right at the forefront, but I think you're right that it does represent a little bit of a calculation by Democrats that the voters will pick the right side of history here. And, you know, history has shown that that's not always the case. So I think it's a little dangerous. But on the other hand, you know, voters are going to have their chance to make a choice between a Trump type and, you know, maybe a Ron DeSantis type.

But ultimately, when they choose Trump, they know what they're going to get. And so if Trump decides to name someone like Marjorie Taylor Green as his VP pick, I think that's right along the brand of Trumpism that voters who were supporting him would expect. And so I don't think it's, I don't think it's harmful for Democrats to be lifting up those comments and pointing out how extreme she is within, you know, just the American electorate, not necessarily within her party. Yeah, especially, like, given the fact that the main issue here is that while these people may be primed for a victory in the Republican primary, they're just making it all the more difficult

to win in a general election. Like, that's been their issue all along. The issue isn't getting support from the primary voters on the right. It never has been. The issue is translating that primary win into a general election win. And we saw that in 2020, it's not working for him. We saw that even more pronounced in 2022 when we had the MAGA candidates who were losing, but the regular Republican candidates, if you can call them that, were actually winning.

So, I mean, it was as direct a repudiation as you could ask for. But with that said, like, I'm not going to stand in the way of them dooming themselves. Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, I think you're seeing that sort of dynamic play out right now with Trump coming back on, you know, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. I think, you know, they made some sort of. of announcement that he's going to make this reappearance back on these social media platforms. But I think it's, it Democrats are somewhat excited about that prospect because it means that

voters will once again get to see how insane and crazy he can be, whereas that's kind of been hidden in the background for so long. That benefits him in the primary. And I think, you know, that's the same dynamic you're talking about is they just always want to appeal to their base, always want to appeal to primary voters, but it's going to doom them in the general election. And so I think it's a good thing, just, you know, the American people, I think the, what's the saying about, like, the best thing, sunlight is the best disinfectant on these folks. So I'm all for seeing more of their craziness on these platforms if it means Democrats do better.

Well, on that note, the other potential 2024 Republican nominee is Ron DeSantis, who just this past week banned the AP African American Studies course. Now, the guy is clearly trying to position himself to win the Republican nominee. nomination for president at some point, whether it's 2024 or beyond remains to be seen. But as a strategist, what do you think the play here is? Because the crazy cultural war stuff is clearly only offering up diminishing marginal returns. And in fact, the candidates who went all in on culture war is actually lost in 2022. That election was a referendum on partisan extremism. So what are his and his strategists thinking here? I mean, I think this is a playbook that is decades old in the making. It's using these racist dog whistles to divide Americans, especially

working class Americans and make people feel like it's an us versus them dynamic. But I think their miscalculation. And again, this is all about Republicans appealing to their base, right? DeSantis is doing this because he might enter into a primary with Trump. And so he has to appeal to that far right base that, you know, can get him elected. But I think they make a miscalculation because eventually these things turn around, right? Like, attacking wokeness, attacking critical race theory, you know, before it was Black Lives Matter. They do this because they can't explicitly say we don't like black people telling us what to do. And so they invent this boogeyman, whether it's AP courses or, you know, teachers teaching critical race theory in the classroom.

And they just try and lump up everything in it. But eventually those things turn around, right? Like critical race theory becomes them trying to ban books in classrooms, extremely unpopular. You know, wokeness means trying to end these AP courses on African American studies, extremely unpopular. You know, going after immigrants and the border becomes deporting people to Martha's Vineyard, extremely unpopular. And so they make a miscalculation and they steer into the skid as far as they can. And yes, it might help them juice a little bit of support from, you know, the far right in these base primaries. But voters will remember when it comes general election and they start to see these things back on ads when they're running against Democrats.

And, you know, this party just they, they've, I think they've completely miscalculated how much they still need to appeal to, to people who have may have voted for Biden and voted for Trump before or may have voted for Obama and then voted for Trump. You know, these things do, there is a swath of the electorate out there that will make those choices. And they're turned off by these kinds of things, banning courses in classrooms. Not to mention, it's completely illegal. It's immoral, it's cynical, but it's illegal, too, against the Florida Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. So I think the fight, you know, taking the fight to them on this, not being afraid to push back is how Democrats need to approach these dog whistle politics. Because if we just let them, if we just continue to seed ground to them, they'll just keep taking it. Yeah. I think like an important point to remember here is that not to shy away on the left, not to shy away from these cultural wars, but to win them. Because on issue after issue after issue, Democrats are actually on the more popular footing here. So it just seems crazy to like avoid these cultural wars.

war fights when these cultural war fights are completely winnable and in fact actually hurt Republicans. It's just that we have this idea that avoiding the Sean Hadiddy, Laura Ingram, War on Christmas stuff is just like this third rail, but it's not. And people are tired of that stuff of, you know, the war on Christmas and Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss and what are we up to now? Eminems and Eminems, yeah, the gay Eminemms. No, I mean, I think, and I think An issue that keeps working families up at night is Eminem's more pronouns they use. Yeah, and I think, you know, there's an element of like taking these things very seriously and pushing back on them in a serious way. And I think when it comes to like canceling courses

and classes, of course we have to fight back in a serious way. But there's also, I think, an element of like poking fun at these people. And I think like you, you do a fantastic job of this on Twitter. It's just like, you know, these Republicans, they cried when we started taking down Confederate monuments in states and cities. And now they're literally, they said we were canceling history. And now they're literally trying to cancel classes about history. You know, they decry canceling culture, but now they're literally canceling culture in classrooms. We have to be able to make that case that's, it's both like a moral fight that we have to take on, but also these people are clowns. And we have to point that out with some, with some humor and some levity. Perfectly put.

Now, another dumb Republican move is the GOP's decision to try and hold the debt ceiling hostage for what may be the least popular agenda items in America, basically to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and then impose a 30% national sales tax. Obviously, that is a huge giveaway to the ultra wealthy. There are low-income folks who don't pay any income tax who would now incur a 30% premium on everything, from clothes to food, down to toilet paper. Is there a constituency for this that isn't the top 1%? Like, at some point, Republicans have to run on the agenda that they try to impose on people. So how do they square those two things? Yeah, I mean, I think this is both of these chapters, both on the debt ceiling and this, you know, fair tax act that they're trying to push right now

are just, we're learning more and more every single day about the concessions that Kevin McCarthy had to make to get his speakership. And I think both of these, both of these episodes, whether it's the debt ceiling, going to Matt on the debt ceiling, which is extremely unpopular again. And so is slashing Social Security and Medicare. But also putting together a tax plan where, everyone's paying 30% on everything, groceries, healthcare, purchasing houses. I mean, like, this is a handout, like you said, to corporations, the ultra wealthy. And Kevin McCarthy didn't want to do it. Kevin McCarthy, as much as, you know, he's just this craven politician, he's still somewhat pragmatic within that caucus. He didn't want to vote on this because he knows that

every Republican in that caucus is going to have this hung around their neck come midterms. because it's extremely unpopular to impose a 30% tax on working class and low-income Americans while handing out these massive tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. At the same time, they're decrying government spending and debt and deficits. This tax bill would balloon the deficit to like billions, trillions. And so it's just ironic and hypocritical, but it's just, I think, a part of Kevin McCarthy's, you know, being in the pocket of this insurrection caucus that he had to he had to bow in front of

to get that speakership. And so I think on both fronts, Democrats need to stand strong. Let's have that vote on that tax bill because I think that that's going to be incredibly unpopular. And I would love to see that happen. On the debt ceiling, I think we need a more, we need to be united and we need to speak with one voice and we need to say, no, we're not going to negotiate with these hostage takers, with people who are trying to hold the economy hostage. There's no negotiation. And I think Brian Schatz from Hawaii had a great quote where something about, like, you don't get a cookie for not destroying the U.S. economy. I talked about it on the show last week. He said, like, you don't get a cookie. You don't get to pretend like you're the second coming of LBJ just for doing their bare minimum and not blowing up the economy for this issue. So, you know, Democrats have been pretty aligned, actually completely aligned in saying that they won't negotiate on the debt ceiling to your point.

Republicans, though, are looking at this as their only way to exact consensus. because they're not going to have any legislative agenda without the Senate and the White House. So this is it. The debt ceiling is their only way to take hostages. So how do you think this ends? It's a good question. I mean, we're sort of like careening towards this crisis where we don't even really know the fault lines. I mean, we don't really know what Kevin McCarthy promised, the Insurrection Caucus. We don't know which issues or funding streams he's put on the table to cut. You know, yesterday, Manchin was meeting with, Joe Manchin was meeting with Kevin McCarthy. And he told, told reporters that McCarthy won't cut Social Security and Medicare. I don't really take Joe Manchin at his word. But if they're not, yeah, I mean, but if they're not touching, if they're not touching big

social programs like Medicare and Social Security, they won't touch defense spending. So what can they possibly be advocating to cut? What are the fault lines here? We don't even know. I mean, I think there's been some, there's been an approach by some Democrats, which is like, okay, you want to like make these cuts to spending, put forward a plan. I don't even necessarily think that that's, the approach we should take. I think we should just say, absolutely not. We're not playing politics with the debt ceiling. I think the Biden administration has been a really good job at keeping that messaging straightforward and honest. I think the whole caucus needs to get behind it, including Joe Manchin, including Josh Gottheimer, who are suggesting that we make a deal with them.

You don't make, you know, Republicans love this little metaphor about the child with the credit card. Oh, like, they got this credit card bill. What do you do? Well, you have to tell the kid to stop spending on all these things. Well, it's like, you wouldn't hand a child a credit card without a budget. You set a budget. That's where you make cuts to your spending. Well, it's, it's important to note, too, that what the debt ceiling does is allow us to just pay the bills that we've already incurred. So this is not about new spending. If you want to have, if you want to have that argument or that debate over what we're spending in the future, then we have a budget that comes out. But this is just to pay our obligations. Like this is, this is to not crater the U.S.

economy and pay for what we've already promised to pay for. So this is not going to slow down spending. it's just going to crater the U.S. economy and global markets, and that's it and, you know, hurt the full faith and credit of the United States. So these two things are completely separate. And in fact, if they're worried about about like the U.S. economy, this is the perfect way to absolutely sink it. So. Right. It's less about like taking the child's credit card and more just saying you're not going to pay the credit card bill that they already sent you for the spending. It's like, okay, well, let's just destroy our children's credit for, because they did something wrong. As opposed to like taking the child's credit. It's like setting fire to the restaurant that he won't pay the bill in. So I want to switch gears here a little bit. And I know that you're not a New York guy, but I'm curious what you would like to see happen in New York after the pretty abysmal performance there during midterms. You know, Democrats completely underperformed. And yet Jay Jacobs, the Democratic, the New York Democratic Party chair, still is still in his position.

Like, we haven't seen any movement, you know, it kind of, there's the, there's the, the saying that insanity is seeing the same thing happen over and over again and not changing anything. So curious what your thoughts on the New York situation are. Yeah, I really don't think that there's been enough of a postmortem on just how bad everything went in New York. I mean, I think if we had gotten things right in New York, we would probably be controlling the house right now, or at least the margin would be even slimmer than it already is. And that is a huge failure on the part of the New York Democratic Party. I think it's also a fault, you know, just frankly, a party institution at the national level. The fact that we let this opposition

research go on George Santos, it's just a huge failure and missed opportunity. And, you know, it's ironic that we ended up with a speaker from New York, from New York politics. I think I've heard him make some comments about it. He was pretty frustrated as well. Totally fair. I think the party needs to come together to figure out. I don't think that this is necessarily a messaging issue. I think it's more of an institutional problem. I think it's more of a structural issue within the party. But, you know, we also need to find the right candidates who are inspiring some voter turnout, who are campaigning down ballot, who are getting people out to the polls because it seems like we just kind of, the New York Democratic Party, it's just kind of on a glide path and they're just

in, you know, going through the motions for the most part, assuming that they're going to win, not making the investments in turnout, not making the investments in grassroots. And I think there's some Democrats within the New York Democratic Party. I think of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have highlighted these dynamics, who have talked about the need for inspiring some enthusiasm within New York voters. That's the kind of investment we need to make. That's the kind of people we need to be pushing out there, getting in front of voters to inspire people. Yeah, it's kind of interesting, too, how when you have these states that are not battleground states,

but are what we consider safe blue states like California and New York, those situations are actually, you know, have the potential to harm us because we don't have that energy the way that we do in a place like Wisconsin and a place like Michigan and a place like Arizona or Nevada where we have to get these people to turn out and where the whole nation's eyes are on them. Instead, you know, it's kind of this given and we've seen those places kind of come back to bite us. And so it'll be interesting to see what happens moving forward. I hope that this is the wake-up call that we need to kind of light a fire under the asses of New York voters and California voters, of which I'm one.

But it is interesting to see the difference in how a swing state, what we consider a swing state like Michigan, can turn out and perform so well. And then, you know, the safe blue bastions of New York and California kind of come back to hurt us in these midterms. But hopefully, hopefully, you know, we see that issue present itself now and then turn around and correct it as we head into. 24. So let's finish off with this. Another impending intra-party issue is going to be the issue of Arizona. So Ruben Gallego just announced that he's running for the U.S. Senate. Obviously, Kirsten Cinema is now an independent. We're not sure yet if she's going to run. That's my question for you. Do you think that she's going to end up running in this next election? I think that there's definitely a non-zero chance that she doesn't run. I mean, if I'm her and I'm looking at some of the polling that's already been out

there showing that she's pulling just 14% in a three-way race. I look at her approval rating amongst Arizona voters. I look at the money that she's going to be able to raise. I mean, besides from huge donors, but from grassroots donors, there's just nothing. She doesn't have the support of Arizona Democrats. She doesn't have the support of Arizona Independent. She definitely doesn't have the support of Arizona Republicans. So there's zero constituency for her left in that state. And I think, you know, there's been some folks in the party who have said no, like she caucuses with Democrats. We should keep her there. That's a, that's a tough seat. We need to win that. But, you know, the Democratic Party needs to run Democrats. We're not going to run independence for seats. And this is no longer, this is not Gallego primaring Kirsten Cinema. This is Gallego entering into the Democratic primary. And cinema is now as an independence. She would be the spoiler in this race, if anything. And I think she needs to take a hard look at her fundraising, her support, you know, and decide whether she wants to continue to be a voice for corporations and, you know, dark special interest

groups in the Senate or whether she just wants to cash out and go work for one of them. I think we would all be happy to say farewell and go make some money and live your life in the private sector because we've had enough. Well, from your lips to God's ears, sorry, where can we hear more from you? I'm on Twitter at Sawyer Hackett, also on Instagram, but I have a podcast called Our America with Secretary Julian Castro, my former boss, on Lemonada Media, and you can check that out. Awesome. Soyer, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been great talking to you. Thanks, Brian. Great talking to you, too.

Thanks again to Sawyer. 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.