No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans pull disgusting stunt over train derailment

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

The Republicans and the media obfuscate the cause of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Brian interviews the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, about Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine, a snapshot of the Russia-Ukraine war at the one-year anniversary, and her response to Republicans who’ve adopted a pro-Putin stance. And the chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wikler, joins to discuss the state Supreme Court race and what it’ll mean for fair maps and abortion protections if the conservative nominee wins.Subscribe to Brian's Spanish YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohenespanolSupport Wisconsin Democrats: https://wisdems.org/Shop 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 the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the Republican and media's response to it. I interview U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Thomas Greenfield, about Biden's surprise visit to Ukraine, a snapshot of the Russia-Ukraine war at the one-year anniversary, and her response to Republicans who've adopted a pro-Pooten stance. And I'm joined by the chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wickler, to discuss the state Supreme Court race and what it will mean for fair maps and abortion protections if the conservative nominee wins. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Okay, so first, one bit of exciting news here. I've started a Spanish YouTube channel. Like, Democrats very clearly have a problem reaching Spanish-speaking audiences, and our vote share among Spanish speakers is actually going down.

I've spoken about how it's a problem, so now I'm kind of putting my money where my mouth is and translating all of my YouTube content into Spanish. So, if you have friends or family who don't speak English, but still want to keep up with this stuff, please send them a link to my channel to subscribe. That handle is at Brian Tyler Cohen, Espaniel, and I'll put a link in the show notes of this episode. Okay, so I want to talk about the situation in East Palestine, Ohio.

Obviously, a terrible situation where a train derailed likely because of some issue with its brakes, although we won't know for sure until the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, finishes its report. But we do know that the chemical spill that resulted from it has led to a bunch of really concerning consequences. There are worries about air pollutants and toxic chemicals, just a really tragic situation for everybody who lives there and who has to deal with this. And I'm going to go into the politics of this in a moment. But up front, I think it's really important to note why we are in a situation where this stuff can happen.

And that's because the railroads are led by wealthy owners who want no regulation to save money and the Republican Party's reason for being is to cut regulation. You're going to hear a lot of scapegoating surrounding East Palestine. But remember what happened when the GOP was in control. The Trump administration rolled back safety measures for railways like regular safety audits and an Obama-era rule that required faster breaks on trains carrying flammable materials to prevent derailments and explosions. He ended a pending rule that would have required freight chains to have at least two crew members. Republicans urged the Federal Railroad Administration to expand the use of automated track inspection

in the place of more effective visual human inspections. The Republican Study Committee proposed to cut government funding to address chemical spills. On the environmental front, Trump's EPA rolled back almost every single regulation it could get its hands on. It repealed regulations intended to prevent chemical accidents and industrial facilities, rolled back requirements for companies to regularly assess whether safer technologies have become available, withdrew requirements that companies have third-party audits to determine the root causes of accidents, implemented a purposefully inadequate toxic substances control act that was supposed to get the EPA to look at the risks of chemicals, but included fatal flaws in its analyses.

his EPA avoided studying the health risks of certain chemicals like asbestos, overruled scientists on health assessments for PFAS or forever chemicals that contaminate our water. Trump tried to shutter the chemical safety board. That's an agency that investigates accidents and industrial facilities. Trump's appointees were literally industry professionals whose only goal was to weaken regulations on the very industry that they were charged with overseeing. And it's not even like Trump tried to hide this stuff. Here he is bragging at a ceremony about all of the regulation that he was going to cut.

Together, let's cut the red tape. Let's set free our dreams. And yes, let's make America great again. And one of the ways we're going to do that is by getting rid of a lot of unnecessary regulation. Thank you very much. Thank you. He'd even tweet stuff like this. Quote, I'm continuing to get rid of costly and unnecessary regulations. Much work left to do, but effect will be great.

Yeah, man, I'd say that the effect is. is great. Finally found something that Trump didn't lie about. When you cut regulations, then, yeah, the effect is usually pretty noticeable. The deregulation during the Trump era was so wide-ranging and obvious that even Fox News's Steve Ducey acknowledged it on air. Speaking of the White House, apparently regulations regarding train safety were changed during the Trump administration. This particular railroad and others lobbied President Trump to dismantle an Obama-era rule that would have required railroads to up. their braking systems. And apparently the Obama administration had pushed forward to govern

transportation of hazardous materials after about half a million barrels of crude were dumped. But ultimately, the Trump administration undid that and said the costs exceeded the benefits. I mean, the very obvious fact here is that these railroad companies have been pushing against regulations for years. And Trump and Republicans supported them. And so while we won't know until the investigation is complete, whether any specific regulation being stripped away was responsible for this specific derailment, the entire right-wing stance toward deregulation is what landed us here. Imagine for a moment if, instead of spending years rolling back safety standards, Republicans bolstered them. Like, think about the ways that this could have been prevented

if we didn't constantly waste time re-implementing regulations only to watch Republicans strip them away. If you want to talk about who's responsible here, it is the people whose job it is to regulate dangerous industries and yet opted instead to just ignore that job because they were in bed with the executives who they were supposed to be regulating. And let's be clear, Republicans know this. They are not unaware of the fact that their entire governing philosophy has been to enable this exact type of behavior. And so to distract you from that, Republicans have seized on this narrative that, you know,

Joe Biden and the Democrats are yet again ignoring the forgotten people in the middle of the country. East Palestine is overwhelmingly white and it's politically conservative. More than 70% of the voters in the surrounding county supported Donald Trump in the last election. That shouldn't be relevant, but as you're about to hear, it very much is. Imagine if this had happened in, well, the favored cities of Philadelphia and Detroit. This affected the rich or the favored poor. It would be the lead of every news channel in the world. But it happened to the poor benighted town of East Palestine, Ohio, whose people are

forgotten and in the view of the people who lead this country, forgettable. That's the issue they're trying to push, that Democrats, per usual, are ignoring small white conservative forgotten towns. Not a word about the deregulation and the coddling of wealthy railroad companies that actually caused the accident. That's all totally fine. The real issue is that Secretary Pete should have shown up sooner,

that Biden should have gone to East Palestine. Should they have? Sure, that's a fair criticism. Although, I'd argue it's just about the farthest thing down the list in terms of what is important right now. I don't think that most people who can't drink the water are worried about Secretary Pete's travel schedule. They are worried about the fucking water.

They're worried about the air. And again, the reason that this stuff happens is because half of our government thinks that deregulating the railroad is the right thing to do. Like, it really is incredible to watch Republicans spend four full years bragging about cutting every environmental and safety regulation possible and then turn around and blame the Democratic administration for not fixing their mess fast enough. And by the way, let's not pretend that Biden did nothing here. He called Governor DeWine within hours of this happening. Here's here's DeWine literally admitting as much. Look, the president called me and said anything you need.

I have not called him back after that conversation. I will not hesitate to do that if we're seeing a problem or anything, but I'm not seeing it. But beyond that, just like on this issue of Pete going, him standing there in East Palestine after the disaster is not to blame for what happened in East Palestine. What's to blame is that we've got a railroad industry that wants no regulation despite record profits. and we've got a Republican Party whose reason for being is to cut regulations. It's amazing that Republicans have no problem with any of that, but they're worried about the optics of a political walkthrough?

Like, they're effectively saying, we don't care about the cause of this crash, but we care a lot about decorum, which is so transparently hackish. And look, none of this is to say that Pete's visit doesn't matter because it does, and it shows the people there that the government is there to help. But there is no planet on which the after-the-fact visit

is more important than stopping these things before they happen. Like, I would much rather Pete didn't have to go in the first place because there were proper regulations that were put in place to prevent these derailments and chemical spills. And yet, not a single Republican has looked at this and decided that it's worth changing anything at the policy level. Like, they'll scream until they're blue in the face about Pete. They can find the energy for that.

But support regulations to prevent this from happening again, introduce new regulations, support the re-implementation of those regulations that were rolled back by Trump, support fines for big railroad companies that avoid safety regulations, require those companies to invest some of their record profits into safety? No, they're not concerned with any of that.

It's all just theatrics and no substance. And the saddest part is that Republicans will get away with it. Because while they complain, despite their own policies leading to this stuff, the media is helping them, carrying water for them and doing exactly what you'd think they'd be doing. Here's a New York Time article from Jonathan Weissman. It's titled, In Fog of East Palestine's Crisis, Politicians write their own stories.

Here's an excerpt. To Republicans, East Palestine is a symbol of something far larger and more emotional, a forgotten town in a conservative state, like so many others in Middle America, struggling for survival against an uncaring megacorporation and an unseen government whose concerns have never included the likes of a town of 4,718 souls. Like, dude, Republicans run this town and the entire state of Ohio. They have a Republican mayor, a Republican governor, a Republican legislature, and a Republican congressional delegation.

If this is a forgotten town, then the people who forgot them are literally the Republican Party. Like, I've lost the ability to tell whether the New York Times and the rest of the media are doing satire or not. You could parody both sides of them, and it would literally be this take. Someone should tell the press in this country that Republicans have autonomy. They are allowed to fix things too. They're allowed to govern. If they're in charge, it doesn't have to be the Democrats' fault when something goes wrong. Like, these stories are just incredible.

When something goes wrong in a blue city or a blue state, it's the Democrats' fault. But when something goes wrong in a red state, well, that state is just forgotten by this nameless, faceless, nebulous entity, which is totally, definitely not the Republican Party. It's heads-eye win tells you lose. The fact is that this will not be the last derailment. This will not be the last chemical spill. It will not be the last environmental disaster. But the reason that these things will continue to happen is because nothing is happening to prevent them from happening. Republicans aren't interested in fixing anything, but they will absolutely jump at the chance

to exploit a tragedy for some cheap political points. So the next time that a Republican tries to take a cheap shot at some Democrats because they want their five-minute cable hit on Fox, ask yourself where they stand on the issues that actually landed us here in the first place, and then ask yourself what substantive solutions they are willing to propose to prevent it from happening again the next time, because you and I know the answer to both of those questions, even if they're too ashamed to admit it. Next step is my interview with Ambassador Thomas Greenfield. Now we've got the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Thomas Greenfield.

Thanks so much for joining. Thank you, Brian. I'm delighted to be here with you. So this past week, President Biden traveled to Ukraine. How unprecedented in modern times was this move for a president to basically enter a war zone? And what message is the White House trying to send here? Well, it was unprecedented, but it was also extraordinary. to have the president of the United States go to Ukraine. And the message was clear.

The message to the Ukrainian people is that the United States stands strongly with you. We support you. And we support you so much that the president of the United States is here standing next to your president in Ukraine. I was there in November. It was extraordinary for me when I went in November. but watching the president move off that train and into Kiev, I think, sent a very strong message to the Ukrainian people. It sent a strong message to the world. And it sent a strong message to Russia that we stand strongly with Ukraine. With that exact point being said, you know,

all of this is happening at the same time that some Republicans have adopted an overt pro-Putin position, both politicians and conservative media members, what's your response to those people in light of what's happening in Ukraine? What I've seen is strong bipartisan support for what is happening in Ukraine. There are some voices out there, but I also saw strong voices from the Republican side in support of Ukraine. There is a Ukrainian American representative from Indiana who has talked about the strong support. I've heard various senators. and I've met with them myself, and I'm hearing still strong bipartisan support for Ukraine. I think what the world will continue to hear is that our support is strong.

We're committed, and the support is unified for the people of Ukraine. Ukraine is on the front lines of a war for our values, a war for democracy, a war that supports the UN charter. They're standing up to a world bully on our behalf. We're not sending American troops on the ground. We're giving them moral support, and we're giving them equipment and funding so that they can be on the forefront of this fight. The Ukraine-Russia war has been going on for about a year now. Can you give a snapshot of where that war stands as of right now? It'll be exactly a year on Friday, the 24th of February.

and the war continues because Putin continues to fight. And I don't think President Putin thought that he would be still fighting this war a year from now. He thought he was going to go in in two weeks, bring the Ukrainians to their knees, break up the unity of Europe, break up the unity of NATO, and then it would be over and Ukraine would be no more. He failed at that because the Ukrainians have shown. their own resolve to defend their democracy, to defend their country. And so where it stands right now is Russia has a choice. They can end this war right now by walking out of Ukraine and going back to the negotiating table. But until that happens, we will remain unified behind Ukraine. Realistically speaking, what do you think the likelihood of something like that

of happening is. I mean, a lot of, a lot of what we're seeing right now from Putin is just based solely on, on his own ego and not looking like he made a disastrous mistake, which is what he did. But because of that, you know, it does seem, at least from a layman's perspective, like there's very little likelihood of him just basically, you know, surrendering. Yeah, I can't speak for him, but I can say what we're seeing and we are seeing that he is, He's still continuing his effort to attack the Ukrainian people, to attack their infrastructure, to use winter as a weapon of war. So his intentions are clear, but we've also made clear our intentions to stand with Ukraine,

to remain unified here in New York, and to continue to isolate Russia, not just here in New York, but around the world. And there's been some evidence of waning interest in the war spurred on by general apathy. I mean, we are living in the TikTok era right now. We have a very short attention span. We're not known for a long attention span right now. What's the worry when it comes to waning interest in the war? You know, you say that, but it's not waning here in New York.

We're on this every single day, and we've got 193 countries here. So we're engaged on Ukraine all the time. There is no waning interest here, but I don't think there's a waning interest anywhere in the world. Europe remains unified, and we hear it every single day. NATO is stronger. Putin said he was concerned about NATO, and what he's ended up getting is a stronger NATO than he had previously.

So while everyone wants to see peace, The Ukrainian, we want the suffering of the Ukrainian people to end as soon as possible, but the only person that has that in their hands is Putin. And until he makes that choice, we're going to continue to give Ukraine what it needs to defend itself, and we're going to continue to condemn Russia and to isolate Russia every opportunity we have. You've spoken about these efforts to isolate Russia. Can you expand on that a little bit?

and what efforts have been taken to kind of isolate them within the international community as the result of this war? You know, first and foremost, in March of last year, a month after the war started, we had a vote in the general assembly that roundly condemn Russia. We got 141 countries to support us on that. We worked in April to get Russia kicked off of the or suspended from the, Human Rights Council. And then later in the year, we had another resolution condemning Russia's annexations or attempted annexations of Ukrainian territory. And we got 143 countries to support that

effort as well. And those efforts continue here. Now, on that point, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity this past week. Is that effectively the world saying that there will be no negotiation as far as the rewriting of Ukraine's borders are concerned? Look, the issue of negotiations, this is going to be a decision for the Ukrainians to make for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine to make, whether they are ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the Russians. But the Russians have heard the voice of the world, that we are condemning their actions.

and we want to put Ukraine in a place where in a stronger place so that when they go to the negotiating table, they go to the negotiating table from a position of strength. And we will continue, as the president has said, over and over, to stand with Ukraine as long as they need. When they themselves decide that they are ready to go to the negotiating table, we will support them. On a related note, are there any worries at the UN about an impending intent? by China to do to Taiwan, what Russia is doing to Ukraine.

And have you spoken to your Chinese counterpart about that? This is why we're standing so solid in support of the UN Charter so that countries understand that they can't just toss the charter aside in their ambitions to overtake other territory without feeling the wrath of the international community. So we have engaged with the Chinese on Taiwan. Our policy is clear. It has not changed. We have a one China policy, and we don't support any effort by either side to change the status quo of Taiwan.

And we've been clear that we are prepared at any point to have discussions with the Chinese, but they need to understand that we will not be deterred from our ability to move around the South China seas. Now, global food insecurity has been a major byproduct of this war. How do you convince the Russians to compartmentalize food security as a separate issue from the war effort? And I ask that because they're doing this at a time where, you know, they're launching attacks against innocent civilians in Ukraine.

And so how do you kind of convince them to care about the issue of people eating at the same time that they don't seem to care about the issue of people surviving? Yeah, that's the dilemma that we all face here. But we have been able to impress upon the world, first of all, that one of the major impacts of this war is on food insecurity. The Secretary General has started an initiative that includes the Russians that allows food that was trapped in the Black Sea forts to get out to the rest of the world. And just to be honest about this, it's in Russia's interest as well because they export food and they want to be able to sell their food. but it also allows Ukrainian wheat, Ukrainian food oil, to also be exported to the rest of the world. So it is a contradiction here is a dilemma, but it's one that we have been able to have some success through the Black Sea grain initiative to get both Russian grain as well as Ukrainian grain to the market. Can you also speak on, you know, the issue of Russia selling energy to the world and how that

effort's going? Because a lot of, a lot of the profits that they were able to make just by virtue of selling oil, for example, has funded that war effort. Can you give a kind of a snapshot of where we are right now just on that whole issue? Russian oil is sanctioned. But what they are doing is selling it below market value. And there are some countries who have purchased that oil. But I want to be clear, it is sanctioned, the companies that are engaged on export of oil, it's sanctioned. And we're looking at ways to help countries, both in Africa as well as in Europe, to find alternative sources for oil, so that they're not dependent on Russia. Okay, so I want to go in a little different direction

here. At the UN, you're with people from every country. People are obviously so different around the world. Do cultures ever clash there? Does anything ever go down just by virtue of how different all of the people and all the cultures are? You know, people, countries really send their best and brightest to New York. I am always amazed at the level of expertise among all the missions, even smaller countries, where they've sent people here over and over again, so they're very experienced. They know how the UN system works. And there can be cultural discussions and differences to be sure.

But they never get to the point, at least in the two years that I've been here, they've never gotten to a point where they have kept us from moving forward on finding solutions. I will give you Afghanistan as an example. The Taliban vicious and really horrible decision to stop women from going to school. And their argument is it's cultural. But if you talk to any Muslim country here, none of them agree that this is this is cultural

or that it even reflects what is in Islam. The Indonesian government has taken a strong position, have taken the lead on engaging with the Taliban on this. UAE has, they've engaged regularly with the Taliban on this issue. So while there are cultural differences for sure, I think in the end we all believe in the charter and we try to work in a way that support, human rights for people across the world, regardless of our cultural differences.

Let's finish off with this. You've coined the term gumbo diplomacy. Can you explain what that is? Well, it's a cultural thing as well. For me, it's about using my culture. I'm from Louisiana. And most people from Louisiana are very, we're very proud of our cuisine. And I have used that cuisine. to help me promote relationships, to develop relationships across the board. And what it's about is sitting at the table, having a good meal, but having that meal open up opportunities for us to have broader discussions. And so I coined it gumbo diplomacy because it really is a tool of diplomacy to sit around the table. And other countries do the same things with different cuisines that they have.

And I've learned this over 35 years of being in the Foreign Service that there's no better place to come to a meeting of the minds than over a hot bowl of gumbo or good food from anywhere in the world. Yeah. So the key is not to have lunch before you go to the UN General Assembly meetings. Exactly. Thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Brian. It was great speaking with you.

Now we've got the chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wickler. Ben, thanks for coming back on. Great to be back with you, Brian. So we just had a big primary election in the state of Wisconsin for the state Supreme Court. This has been called the biggest race that nobody's ever heard about. Can you explain why? So nobody's ever heard about it because it is a state Supreme Court race in April of an off year, supposedly, 2023. Normally, this kind of stuff is a total snooze best. But it's the best. biggest election, because this race could tip, will tip the balance of power in the highest court in the state that tips the balance of power in the U.S. Electoral College, potentially

in the House, potentially in the Senate. Wisconsin is the must-win state. It's the closest most closely divided state in the U.S. And the Supreme Court makes decisions on questions like gerrymandering, questions around voting rights, and especially for Wisconsinites, this is a huge deal, the question of whether abortion should be criminally banned or not. And this race will determine all of those things. So that's why it's the biggest race, because everything's on the line. And now, folks watching this have heard about it. Thank goodness. Can you speak a little bit about Dan Kelly, the conservative in this race? He's almost a cartoon villain. He is, so Dan Kelly is the Republican, or it's officially nonpartisan. When I say he's a Republican, I mean, he literally

worked for the Republican Party of Wisconsin as their paid advisor. quote unquote election integrity and helped talk to them about the fake elector scheme that Donald Trump put through. He is like the definition of ultra mega. He is backed by Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society supervillain who bankrolled and engineered the right wing takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Dan Kelly is his guy. He is now also getting tons of support from the biggest Republican donors in the country, Richard and Liz U-line, who were the biggest funders of Stop the Steel. They are, they're like the Koch brothers, but worse.

So that's who Dan Kelly's friends are. And he is running basically to ensure that the Republican Party of Wisconsin, the Trump team, the far, far right, has a hammerlock on deciding what the law should be in our state. One thing that is particularly, I don't know if you want to say ironic or amusing, is that he's accusing his opponent of prejudging cases because she's. talks about what her values are, his whole thing is that he is a right-wing foot soldier, Federalist Society goon. And we know exactly how he'd rule on everything because he's been talking

about it and writing about it and doing it for every year he's been a lawyer. Yeah. And we do also have some some samplings of rulings that he has passed down. None of them stray in any way far from, you know, Republican dogma here. So one of the issues that's most important for me is just the issue of fair maps and election integrity, but in the actual sense, not the perverted Republican sense. But what would it mean for maps in Wisconsin if Dan Kelly is elected? So Wisconsin is currently in a doom loop. And what I mean is Republicans in the state legislature have drawn gerrymandered maps

to ensure that they'll be reelected. Every 10 years, there's a redistricting process, and what's supposed to happen is that the legislature proposes maps, the governor can accept or veto them. if they're vetoed, then you go to a court, and the court is supposed to kind of choose something that's a fair compromise. But in Wisconsin, unlike every other state, after Republicans in the legislature proposed their gerrymandered rigged maps and our Democratic governor, Tony Evers, vetoed those maps, the state Supreme Court just chose the Republicans' maps. So there's

no way that voters could ever throw the bastards out. As the saying goes, there's no path for voters to say, hey, the Republicans have been screwing it up. Let's like Democrats for a change because the maps are so rigged that even in a year like 2022 when Democrats won the governor's race by 3.4 percentage points, Republicans came within a hair's breadth of supermajorities, two-thirds of all the seats in the state legislature. And by the way, that's a foundational issue because then not having representative maps affects every other issue that we care about. And one of those issues is abortion. Can you talk about the implications of abortion in the state of Wisconsin if Dan Kelly were to win?

So when Roe versus Wade was overturned, a lot of Wisconsinites suddenly found out that in the year 1849, the state legislature, before women had the right to vote, before the invention of modern medicine, the state legislature had banned abortion in almost all cases, no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. The abortion ban strikes at zero weeks. And the question is, is that law now in effect? And that question will come to the state Supreme Court. And if Dan Kelly's reelected, he will say, absolutely that should be in effect. And we know that because all the people who are backing that ban have endorsed him in this race. There's zero question whatsoever. So if you want doctors thrown in jail for providing abortion care in Wisconsin, Dan Kelly is your guy. If you don't, we have to defeat him. We've spoken, you know, about maps, about abortion, about democracy. What's the message that's resonating most with Wisconsin voters so far? Like I know that we all talk about what's important to us, like our priorities, but what about there in that state?

Like, what should we focus on based on what the people in your state are actually concerned with? The issue that means the most of people across the state, and this is true across generation or geography, rural areas, suburbs, these alike, it's the issue of abortion. It's this question of whether a almost total abortion ban passed in the year, 1840, should be enforceable today, or whether we should live in the 21st century and have a Wisconsin where women aren't second-class citizens, where if you can get pregnant, you know that you'll be able to make the decisions instead of having to get a permission slip from Republican politicians. Anyone who's had kids or thought about having kids, anyone who loves someone who's had kids, knows that when you get pregnant can be a really scary experience. And Wisconsin has an abortion man that has no exception for the health of the mother. When people are having kids now, they go to their prenatal appointment to find out if the baby is doing okay, and they have a sense of dread.

Because if something's going wrong, if the mother's health is in danger, if the baby's in danger, they don't know what the persons are going to be. They think about their elders. I know volunteers knocking on doors every single weekend whose grandmother died because the illegal abortion and once his old abortion man was enforceable. That issue more than anything else is moving people to vote who wouldn't normally vote or to vote against Republicans,

even if they are generally Republicans themselves. The GOP candidates are in bed with the furthest right part of the anti-abortion forced birth kind of moot that is totally out of step with what the vast majority of Wisconsin I think. That is, I think, the number one issue for voters. And does that still have the same, like, resonating force as it did before? I know that right after Roe v. Wade happened was overturned, there was this whole wave of people that really looked at this stuff, and it was such a driving force.

Even people that wouldn't have normally come out in, you know, a midterm election were suddenly coming out and pushing the numbers past even general election numbers. Is that still a motivating force like it was when it first happened? because we're not exactly known for longevity in terms of our focus on the issues here. The intensity of reaction to it in other parts of the country might have receded after June of 2022 and faded from the headlines.

But in Wisconsin, right now, there's this law that's 174 years old that was passed before the Civil War, and it's not clear whether that ban is enforceable or not. Doctors can't get insurance to provide even standard care, cases of apoptic pregnancy that could not lead to live birth. It is the dystopian really nightmare situation. There are OBG-O-A in practices that are closing right now. And what young

OGI would think about practicing medicine in Wisconsin right now when the legal situation could lead to them getting thrown in prison for putting basic care to their patients. So this is very present for people. It's not academic. It's not political. It goes really to these questions that are normally things that people just think about in the context of their family, their most intimate personal life decisions, it is an intolerable state of affairs. And when people go to vote on April 4, more than any question of whether this most personal, most basic, most fundamental decisions should be left up to the actual direct people involved, or whether it should be something that legislators, almost 200 years ago, decided before they knew anything about how life would be

in the 21st century. That question would be first and foremost for voters. Now, if this race goes in conservatives' favor, when is the next time that we would have a show? shot at retaking the majority on this court? This is a grim question. So the short answer, which is misleadingly optimistic, is that the soonest chance we'd get would be in the spring of 26. That's the next time a conservative justice is up for re-election. But the reality is that when someone's elected to the state Supreme Court as opposed to appointed, they almost never lose re-election. There are three justices in the last 70 years who have lost an election for state Supreme Court while being on the bench, but all three of them were appointed. In other words,

When you have an open seat like this, whoever wins this election is probably on until they retire. And there are no other Republican justices who are giving any signal that they plan to retire anytime soon. This might be our only chance for the foreseeable future to flip the balance on the state Supreme Court. And this is the only path to end the doom loop of total Republican control over laws in the state of Wisconsin. Yeah. By the way, I will be stealing the word doom loop. I think that is the perfect encapsulation of what we're in right now. Ben, Ron Johnson won his Senate seat in 2022, there's obviously a contingent of Wisconsin voters who can turn out to elect a Republican. How do you plan on making sure that that electorate doesn't show up to elect

Dan Kelly? The thing about Supreme Court races in Wisconsin is the turnout is vastly, vastly lower in the spring elections than it is in the fall. What that means is that even if turnout is high by historic standards, it'll still be like half of what we saw in the fall of 2022. And that means there are hundreds of thousands of Democrats who share progressive values, who do not want a total abortion ban, who think we should be a democracy, who probably won't vote unless someone calls them or knocks on their door and make sure they know the stakes in this election. And that is the core of our strategy. It's to out message and out-organize the other side to make sure that people know the stakes and the issues and know that they've got to stop

Dan Kelly and vote for Janet Protisewitz for Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Just as a quick aside, why do we have elections in April of an off year? Does this have, you know, a lot, you hear a lot about these elections in Georgia and whatnot, where they have racist histories behind them? Is that why we have this random election, like, so far off the beaten path of when we would normally have elections? And as a follow-up to that, if so, if this was an effort, you know, by conservatives, like a long-standing effort by conservatives to win these races, if they lose, is there any hope that we can then consolidate them into fall elections when there's a normal?

turnout. So the origin of spring elections, nonpartisan local elections in Wisconsin is back in 1910. There's a bill passed in 1912, I should say, where the Democrats and the Republicans got worried that the socialists were doing really well. And they didn't want socialist to be able to win elections. They thought that the socialist party had this advantage that people thought it was great. So they got together and they decided to move the local elections for offices like mayor for judicial elections, for city council, school boards to the spring instead of the fall. The other way of reading that history is that they said they didn't want big city partisan machines to control what would happen in these local elections. It seemed like it was a plot

against the socialists. And that's been the tradition ever since. So this goes back for more than a century. And it does mean that a smaller number of people makes the decisions over the government that is closest to the people, local governments and these incredibly powerful judicial roles. We've got to treat this, though, like it's the presidential election of the century because the stakes are vast. So can you speak a little bit on Janet Protisaywitch? Why should people turn out to vote for her? The two candidates in this race, Dan Kelly on the right and Janet Proto Seowitz on the,

I guess, middle left, pretty much everywhere common sense prevails. She is a lifelong public servant. She is not a partisan operative the way that Dan Kelly is. Dan Kelly became semi-famous in Wisconsin because he, He's the guy who defended Scott Walker's gerrymandered maps in court in 2011. That's how he made his bones and got appointed to the state Supreme Court by Scott Walker in 2016. During that time, Janet Protasewitz was first an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee prosecuting serious crimes and then a circuit court judge.

She's somebody who has been just trying to serve the public and make our system of justice work for folks. You can't, you know, she's somebody who will look at the law, look at the Constitution, and rule fairly and impartially. And what that means is things could change a lot because we haven't had that kind of majority on our state Supreme Court for a long time. You know, you could call her progressive. Her values are certainly very progressive. But what she brings to the bench is a focus on the Constitution and the rule of law rather than carrying water for right-wing megabillionaire's intent on destroying freedom

and democracy in our country. Ben, what do you think the biggest obstacle is going to be in terms of winning this race? the thing that I'm most concerned about is the wall of special interest Republican money that will come flooding into our state. We already know their playbook because it's the playbook that used against Mandela Barnes. It's a playbook that they've used in other Supreme Court races that they've won like 2019. It's what they're already doing with ads that they're running right now as you're watching this. It is to incite fear. It is to cherry pick cases and put up images usually of black people who are convicted of serious crimes and talk

about how the progressive candidate let them off too easy. It is trying to use racialized fear to polarize an electorate in a state that is overwhelmingly composed of white voters. So the way to punch back against that is to make sure that we can out-communicate them and make sure, you know, both defend Janet Poticewitz's record, but also to make sure that people know that all of this is a smokescreen for an agenda to criminally ban abortion and to destroy democracy so that the people who are paying for those ads can make more money and never be held accountable. That's what's going on in our state. And it's going to take people chipping in five bucks, 500 bucks, whatever people can chip in, tons of people chipping in to be able to

out-communicate the other side. And then we need people to volunteer to make phone calls and knock on doors wherever you are in the country. You can put in your time and effort to make sure that Democrats get out and actually cast their ballots. That's how we win. And we know, by the way, that their playbook is to act early and often. And they did that in the Mandela Barnes race by trying to define him before he was able to define himself. They're doing the exact same thing right now. Ben, where can people go? How can they donate? How can they volunteer? People that are looking to help. What can they do? Go to whistems.org. W-I-S-D-E-M-S dot org. That's the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's website. We are 100-3-10, 300 percent focused on making sure that

Dana Proto-Saywitz beats Dan Kelly on April 4th. So if you go to Wisdoms.org, you can click and donate. You can sign up to volunteer. We will put you to work. We will put your dollars to work. We will stretch every penny because these elections can come down to a hair's breadth. I want to make sure I mention this. The last time we had a race like this was in 2019.

It was a state Supreme Court race where the internal polling on both sides suggested that the more progressive candidate was probably going to win. but a flood of Republican dark money came in at the end, and they wound up winning that election. The Republican candidate won that election by 5,962 votes. That's less than half of one percentage point, less than one precinct, less than one vote per precinct across the state of Wisconsin. That is a microscopic margin. We cannot let that happen again. So we have to treat this race, no matter how good things might look, as though we're 100 votes behind. And if we put in that extra ounce of energy, we might be able to cross the finish line first.

And I would just also echo that sentiment and just say, you know, we have the luxury here. For anybody watching, we have the luxury here of being able to consolidate all of our attention and focus and energy on this one race. We did it in 2022 with races all across the country in the Senate and the House. We did in 2020 with the presidency and all these state legislatures. Right now, we get to focus all of our energy on this one race. Wisconsin is the tipping point state. It is always the most important state.

So please, you know, if you're able to donate or volunteer, if you're able to spread Ben's message to your friends and family, this race matters. This is the whole ball game here. Wisconsin is a state that we can absolutely win. So Ben, thank you so much for taking the time. And best of luck in these last few weeks here until this election. Thank you so much, Brian.

I really appreciate it. What you were just saying, it reminds me of the Georgia runoff after the 2020 presidential election. Do you remember we had 48 Senate votes? If we won the two Georgia runoff seats, we would get to 50 and we'd stop Republicans from being able to control the U.S. Senate. Everything that has happened since then happened all the inflation reduction act, the biggest climate change legislation ever, the infrastructure bill, bill after bill, the confirmation

of the first black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, all of that was possible because as a whole country, we focused on Georgia winning the Georgia runoffs when nothing else was happening on the political calendar. This is the same thing, except this time. It is not about the U.S. Senate. It is about the Electoral College in 2024. If we win this thing, Republicans cannot steal the 2024 election in Wisconsin, the state that determines the winner. So let's put it all on the line.

Thanks again to Ben. And again, for anybody listening, if you've got friends or family who speak Spanish, please send them over to my new YouTube channel. The handle is at Brian Tyler Cohen, Españo, and I'll put the link in my show notes. Okay, 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 Briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.

Thank you.