No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson desperately peddle vax mandate lies

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

Republicans desperately claim that vaccine mandates are leading to worker shortages. Brian interviews the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, about the state of reconciliation negotiations and what holdouts like Kyrsten Sinema actually want. And former Senator Harry Reid’s deputy chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, joins to discuss the filibuster and the political upside and downside for defending it when it comes to Manchin and Sinema. 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 Republicans' desperation to claim that vaccine mandates are leading to worker shortages. I interview the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congresswoman Pramilla Jayapal, about the state of reconciliation negotiations and what holdouts like Kirsten Cinema actually want. And I'm joined by former Senator Harry Reid's Deputy Chief of Staff, Adam Gentleson, to discuss the filibuster and the political upside and downside for defending it when it comes to Mansion and Cinema.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Just to break down where we are right now, since the outset of this pandemic, Republicans have railed against masks, they've railed against stay-at-home orders, they've railed against shutting down mask gatherings, they've railed against vaccines. Every step of the way, Republicans who claim to hate this pandemic, have done everything in their power to ensure that this pandemic can spread uninhibited. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they're now railing against vaccine mandates, claiming that they're leading to worker shortages. You've got people like Ted Cruz, who took to Twitter amid the news that 3,000 Southwest flights were canceled to say, quote, Joe Biden's illegal vaccine mandate at work, suddenly we're short on pilots and air traffic controllers, hashtag thanks Joe. Republican Congressman Andy Biggs tweeted, I stand with Southwest Airlines employees who are fighting against these mandates. This isn't about a vaccine. This is about freedom.

Here's Tucker Carlson, who has the most watched show on the biggest conservative news outlet, claiming that anytime someone doesn't show up work now, that it's because of the vaccine mandate. We can tell you that the shutdown of Southwest Airlines over the weekend was a direct consequence. It was a reaction to Joe Biden's vaccine mandates. There were more cancellations at Southwest Airlines today. No doubt there will be more to come, and not just of airline flights. At least two Amtrak train routes in the Northeast were canceled over the weekend, and so was a regularly scheduled car ferry in Washington State out to the San Juan Islands. In all cases, the employees in question who have been

told to get the shot did not show up. Were these also protests against the Biden shot mandates? We can't say for certain. It certainly wouldn't surprise us. We can't say for certain, but it certainly wouldn't surprise us. What? What does Tucker Carlson think the point of news is? Isn't it to answer the batshit crazy questions, not raise them? If you're wondering how this guy can get away with saying any random conspiracy theory on air, it's because this whole, I'm just asking question stick is just a shield to be able to shove his propaganda down your throat, while insulating himself from any accountability for just lying. Now, despite this coordinated barrage suggesting that workers are leaving en masse because

freedom, that's not even close to the truth. A Southwest spokesperson confronting the vaccine mandate rumors said, quote, it's inaccurate. There's a lot of unfounded rumor and speculation circulating. The Southwest Pilots Association also said, quote, we can say with confidence that our pilots are not participating in any official or unofficial job actions. And, of course, aside from Southwest literally admitting that the shortage has nothing to do with the mandate, a couple more minor issues here. Like, for example, the fact that there is no vaccine mandate yet for Southwest,

considering it doesn't go into effect until December 8th. Second, the problems that Southwest is dealing with right now are a continuation of the same problems that they've faced for months. The airline lost nearly 28% of its workforce, 17,000 people, since it started offering buyouts to employees in June of 2020. And that snowballed into a major worker shortage today since travels picking back up. So, no, it's not the vaccine mandate

that doesn't even go into effect for two months, that's somehow responsible for delays that were put into motion over a year ago. And once the dust settled on the Southwest ally, Ted Cruz took to Twitter again to respond to a tweet about California hospitals facing critical staffing shortages, saying, quote, maybe firing doctors and nurses

during a pandemic because of an authoritarian vaccine mandate wasn't the best idea. Except, the tweet that he responded to included a link to an article that quite literally laid out the reasons. Quote, record patient volumes at the same time that many workers have been driven away from the bedside by burnout, early retirement, and the seemingly unending stress of the pandemic. Meaning this has nothing to do with vaccine mandates. If anything, it's the opposite. Healthcare workers are exhausted because of a never-ending pandemic that is only being

prolonged because of the unvaccinated. 99% of those being hospitalized and dying are the unvaccinated. Vaccine mandates aren't pushing people away. Vaccine mandates would solve this problem, precisely because it's unvaccinated people who are bombarding the hospitals in the first place. And studies are showing the same thing. According to one study of over 20,000 healthcare workers from e-clinical medicine,

61% of health care workers reported fear of exposure or transmission of COVID, 49% reported feelings of burnout, 43% suffered work overload, and 38% reported having anxiety or depression, all of which are effects exacerbated by a pandemic that has put enormous, unrelenting pressure on health care workers. In other words, it's not the vaccine mandates that are leading to worker shortages. It's the consequences of no vaccine mandates that are pushing workers out of their jobs. Now, with all of that said, not only is Southwest not suffering mass resignations as a result

of vaccine mandates, but virtually no company is. Here are the numbers from some companies that did impose a mandate. United Airlines imposed a vaccine mandate on its 67,000 employees, and in the end, they moved to terminate only 320 people, or 0.4%, meaning 99.6% of employees complied with the mandate. In New York, healthcare workers were facing a vaccine mandate with no option for weekly testing even. 92% of nursing home staff and 92% of hospital staff complied, and no interruptions to patient care were reported. In Houston Methodist Hospital, when 25,000 workers were required to get vaccinated,

a grand total of 153 people were fired for refusing to comply. That's 0.6%. Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is based in Tennessee, a state that ranks 44th out of 50 in vaccination rate, imposed a vaccine mandate, and of 900 employees 17 chose to leave. That's just over 1%. Henry Ford Health System in Detroit imposed the mandate on its 33,000 employees, 400 workers quit, or about 1% of the workforce.

These numbers are replicated over and over and over again in every sector, and they come in the face of a barrage of desperate Republicans wailing about how workers would walk off the job in record numbers rather than surrender their freedom. Only, it turns out, that workers are almost unanimously willing to get vaccinated rather than grandstand to score brownie points for their anti-vax Facebook group. And finally, one last point here about the claim that this vaccine, is illegal. Vaccine mandates are not only not illegal, but they have a long history of being

upheld in the courts. The Supreme Court upheld the state's authority to enforce compulsory vaccination laws in the 1905 case Jacobson versus Massachusetts and then reaffirm that decision in a 1922 case. Every single state plus DC currently requires school age kids to receive vaccines for school entry. And those are for government vaccine mandates. Private businesses have even more freedom to impose mandates, especially given OSHA's authority to issue emergency standards, Biden is on firmly solid legal ground by requiring companies to maintain safe workplaces through vaccinations. But still, that won't stop these Republicans from saying it anyway. And the reason is because they know that they can. And they operate in a closed media

ecosystem. So even the fact checks won't have any impact. And that's indicative of a larger problem. And it relates to the Build Back Better Act, too, that we're dealing with right now, which is that Republicans drive the messaging in this country. They just do. And so they'll pretend that there's a worker shortage, even though there isn't, the same way they pretended the ACA was all about death panels, or that healthcare.gov was all about the botched rollout, or now that the Build Back Better Act is a big government power grab, even though it includes programs that have 60, 70, 80% support

from Americans on both sides of the aisle. And because we don't have an equivalent to Fox News or OAN or Newsmax on the left, operating on a 24-hour-a-day schedule of gaslighting, even though Democrats have ideas that are more popular, those good ideas are worthless if people think that what we're selling is something altogether different because that's what they heard

from Tucker Carlson. On the left, we are at an inherent disadvantage and we always will be precisely because we don't have anything like Fox News. And by the way, we shouldn't. But we also need to be better about going on offense, as opposed to spending all of our time,

you know, waiting for Republicans to step up and then us defending ourselves from made up attacks about worker shortages from vaccine mandates, mandates that would actually reduce worker shortage. And so with that said, knowing how important it is to not only debunk disinformation but promote the truth about what our agenda does do, here's my interview with Congressman Jayapal, who's leading negotiations in the House on behalf of progressives for the Billback

Better Act. Today we've got the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congresswoman Primalogh Jayapal, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. It's so great to be with you. So what's the state of negotiations right now in terms of where the party is on the build back better plan, the reconciliation package. And when might we expect to see a final version of the bill ready to put on the floor? Well, I think the really good news is that both parts of the

build back better agenda, the president's agenda, that is the smaller infrastructure bill and the bigger build back better act, are now both back on track. There was a moment a couple of weeks ago when it looked like only the infrastructure bill was going to move forward. And that would have meant that 85% of the president's agenda would get left behind. And so now we are pushing both bills forward at the same time. The negotiations are continuing between senators mansion and cinema, who are the two that we're still waiting for in terms of full agreement around the package. Everyone else agrees. We have already drafted the bill in the house. And now we're just waiting for that final moment where we get every single vote. Because as you know, Brian,

The margins are slim in the House and the Senate, and while it's great to have 98%, it's not 100%. Right. Now, I know you've been mired in these negotiations, and I apologize if you're confronting this question on an endless loop and if it's ringing in your ears when you go to bed. But what does Kirsten Cinema want as far as the reconciliation package is concerned? And, you know, are you getting more from the inside than we're getting on the outside? No, not really. I don't know. You know, she is having conversations directly with the White House. What I can tell you is she is having those conversations. And we are moving, even though sometimes it looks like we're not, you know, that we're stuck in an eddy. We are moving. It's just a little

more slowly and it's probably a little more opaque than we would all like. So we don't know all the details of those negotiations. But what I will tell you is I think that the thing that gives me a lot of hope that we're going to get this done and we're going to get it done hopefully relatively quickly, is, Brian, people are so excited by what is in the Build Back Better Act. When they realize that we're fighting for 12 weeks of paid family leave for every single American, when they realize that we're fighting for universal childcare so that no family is going to pay more than 7% of their income on child care, when they realize that, yes, we are actually going to get real action on climate change, not just something that's superficial, but actually reduce carbon emissions.

by half, that that is really important. Housing, which has been such a big issue for all of our cities across the country, you know, building affordable housing and helping people to be housed in the richest country in the world. And then, of course, lifting up our immigrant communities who have lifted us up for so long. And finally, health care, you know, being able to expand Medicare benefits to include dental vision and hearing for our seniors, being able to expand Medicaid, make sure that people haven't had access to Medicaid in certain states are able to get that access. Those are the things that are in the buildback better agenda. And it's why we're fighting so hard to make it, make sure that we don't leave anybody behind. I'm glad that you brought up everything

that's in the bill, basically, because what's happening here and what happens normally is that we're confronting a right-wing ecosystem that immediately consolidates to attack everything in the bill, you know, and just bad faith arguments and disingenuous arguments. What are Democrats doing to push back against, you know, the usual barrage of disinformation and misinformation that we're, you know, that we normally get and that we're getting right now with regard to this reconciliation package? I'm so glad you mentioned that because, of course, we're stuck in a position where we need every single Democrat to vote for it, which the counter to that is that not a single Republican is going to vote for this bill. And that is really, really unfortunate. It's just like

the American Rescue Plan where we cut child poverty in half and we got shots in arms and we got assistance to small businesses and state and local governments. Not a single Republican voted for that, even though over 70% of Americans wanted those things. So that's the same place where we're in today. We're trying to get people to understand and what you're doing is so important for people to understand what it is that's in the bill that we're fighting for because all All these ads from pharmaceutical companies who don't want us to negotiate prescription drug prices from Wall Street and the biggest, you know, individual donors and, you know, wealthiest individuals and wealthiest corporations that don't want to pay their fair share in taxes. That's another part of how we're paying for this that I forgot to mention. All of those interests are coming out to try to say, this is a bad thing.

It's not going to, you know, it's not going to help you when in fact what we know is these investments would be transformational. So the best thing we can do is talk about it, make sure people know what's, you know, what's in there, and then also get everybody out there to call your Congress member to say, you know, this is something we really want to see enacted. It will transform my life. That's, I think, very, very important for us to hear. Now, Nancy Pelosi had come out a few days ago in support of including fewer programs and doing it better. Now, what's your position on this? And is there anything to be said for including all of the programs for less time, like five years instead of 10 years to bring the price tag down? Yeah, Speaker Pelosi actually did say that, but then the very next day said, well, actually, we want to include all of the major programs that the Progressive Caucus has identified as the key transformational programs, the ones I mentioned, including pre-K, by the way.

When we talk about the care economy, it's child care, pre-K, and I, also home and community-based care. So she, when she was asked about the specific priorities I mentioned, she said what will likely happen is we'll shorten the number of years that those programs are funded for in order to bring down the total amount of money that's required. But there are other areas where, you know, perhaps we don't need to do them. So she really walked back those comments. And I think our position, a majority of our Progressive Caucus members, and frankly, I think also So the White House has been much more in favor of we can't pit child care against climate change. We can't put pre-K against housing.

You know, these are all really important transformational things. We can't pet young people against seniors. Like, each one has a different constituency and all of them are urgent. So our view as the Progressive Caucus is, let's do these five priorities. Let's make sure they're all in there. And if we need to shorten the time that they're funded to bring down the price, then we'll do that. And by the way, you know, if we do do less time, we can then try to extend them once people recognize and realize how good they are, just like what happened with the ACA.

Exactly. That's exactly right. I mean, once people understand that government's got my back, right, and that I can, I can wake up in the morning and I can now go to work because I have child care or my kids now have pre-K. Those kinds of things are things that make people feel differently about their lives. And that's what we need if we want to then preserve those programs into the future. A road and a bridge is great. We all need them for the infrastructure bill. I hope we pass it. But it doesn't change the way people feel if you can't even get on that road because you don't have care for your kids. Building on exactly what you're talking about, about feeling the impacts of this bill, one of the ideas that was floated was that the Medicare dental benefits

wouldn't kick in until 2028. Is there an acknowledgement now of the importance of touching people's lives right now, not only because they need the help, but because politically speaking, it's crazy to defer this until after this president's not even in office anymore, much less next year's midterms, which is when voters effectively grade Democrats. Totally. And that is actually how we came up with our priorities, is we said, what are the things that are, number one, transformational, number two, can deliver benefits immediately. We want people to feel the difference in the first six to 12 months. And then what are the things that are as universal as possible will touch as many families as possible?

And so that's how we came up with our things. The dental benefits not being able to be implemented until 2028, in my mind, doesn't make sense. We think they can be implemented much sooner. There's also the option of doing other kinds of things like perhaps a dental voucher for the first couple of years if it takes a while to get the dental benefits going. I will also say that I've been a big fan of pushing for lowering the Medicare eligibility age, which isn't totally off the table. But if we did that, we would bring 14 million people onto Medicare, allow people to retire at 62 and know that they were going to have health care

and help a lot of our nurses that have been on the front lines, our firefighters, you know, people whose bodies have really taken the toll, but they can't even think about stopping because they aren't going to have health care. So that's another one I think we should put back on the table. telling the White House that because, again, 14 million people would get benefit from that and it would happen immediately. And everybody loves their Medicare. You know, not that we can't improve it, we're trying to improve it, but it's such an important popular program because it really does provide comprehensive quality care. Yeah, including my parents, by the way, they fall into that

category of, you know, if you lowered the Medicare age, both of them are health care workers and they would both benefit from that. And they would thank you for that as well. Exactly. That is so, actually, just on that for a second, first of all, tell them thank you because we're working hard to get that done. Secondly, this is something that the Progressive Caucus prioritized early on, but it went far beyond progressives. We actually got 15 of the most vulnerable Democrats and the, you know, the toughest districts across the country to endorse this and push for this with us because, and 70% of the Democratic Caucus, because it is so transformational. People understand it immediately. like your parents. You know, they know what Medicare is. They feel like they, they deserve it. It's not like getting a handout from the government. As some people think about some programs, it's really something that they've earned and they're ready to have at 62, just like Social Security. Yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned these Democrats in vulnerable districts. Now, you've got moderates and centrists who we feel like hold all the cards here,

but why don't progressives play just as much hardball knowing that at the end of the day, the representative Jaya Pauls are in safe districts. You know, the Elizabeth Warrens are in safe Senate seats. But it's those very moderates from swing districts who will have to explain to their constituents why they should be reelected despite nothing passing if they're the ones who, you know, block this bill. Well, the amazing thing about this is it was kind of framed

in the media as progressives versus moderates. But actually, almost everyone in the Democratic Party agreed. It was not, I mean, I have a lot of people of those friends that are in those most vulnerable districts who wanted the Bill Beck Better Act as it was written in the House to pass. They were perfectly fine with it. They wanted to pass both. But there were a small handful that didn't feel that way. And so that's sort of what blocked us. We thought we had an agreement out of the Senate. Clearly, we don't. So now we have to go back. But one of my friends, who's in one of the toughest districts in the country, was talking to me last night. And she said,

you know, it's fine. We want the bipartisan bill. Of course we do, the infrastructure bill. But what my constituents really want are these other things. And we have no hope of being reelected. If we promise that we would get these things when we campaign, it's the president's agenda, it's the Democratic agenda. And then if we don't deliver on those things and all we deliver is the Roads and Bridges bill, that is not going to help us politically down the road. We really need to deliver the entirety of the agenda. In addition to it being the right thing to do for our constituents, it is also politically the best thing to do. Right. I mean, you're looking at, you know, allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices is polling it like 83%. You can get that consensus

on the day of the week, you know, in that body. Almost every single thing in this package, Brian, is like that, you know. And then if you add the tax piece on, which is let's make the tax system fair so that this ends up being a zero dollar bill because it's completely paid for by just making the wealthy pay their fair share, the numbers go even higher. People are like, yeah, they should pay their fair share. I pay my fair share. You should pay your fair share too. The fact that the way to pay for this thing is even more popular than the provisions itself is a, you know, a testament to how well this was how well this was crafted and how important it is to pass. Moving over to voting rights, while while the build back better bill is being negotiated, we're also running out of time.

with regard to other top legislative priorities. Now, Senator Schumer announced that he'd be putting the Freedom to Vote Act on the floor for a vote. Of course, what's going to happen is that Republicans will filibuster it, and that's where it'll end. So I know that you're in the House, and this is mostly, you know, Senate territory, but could you give us some insight into what it's like behind the scenes? Because, you know, out here, it's hard to understand how there's this seemingly inability to confront the fact that Republicans are literally legislating Democrats, out of government and a refusal to stop it is just, you know, so aggressively self-defeating.

Yes. And this is, I mean, what you're bringing up, I think is the most important thing we're confronting today. We think that we voters think that voting is critically important, right? Everybody deserves the right to vote, should have the right to vote. And that once you've elected people, that the majority should rule. So in other words, if you deliver the House, the Senate, and the White House, Democrats, then Democrats should be able to get everything done. That is theoretically how it should work. However, what is happening now is that Republicans have decided that since they can't win elections in the traditional way by actually winning elections, they are going to either

buy into the big lie, as in Joe Biden didn't win the election and Donald Trump did, or, and I shouldn't say or, and they're going to try and suppress the vote as much as they possibly can, which is why we've had hundreds of these voter suppression bills across the country. So for us to move a bill, we've already passed the For the People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, through the House. It works just on a simple majority. If there are 51% of Democrats, we pass a bill. In the Senate, because of this racist Jim Crow legacy called the filibuster, it means that the tyranny of the minority, 40 senators can block a bill from even being voted on.

I'm not talking about the final vote. I'm just talking about bringing the bill to the floor for a vote. And that is called the filibuster. You need 60 votes to move a bill to the floor. And so they've been able to block everything. So now, if, you know, in my mind, what we have to do is we have to reform or eliminate the filibuster. It's a relic of Jim Crow. It was used by Southern segregationists to stop, you know, any kind of progress on civil

rights legislation. And now that's the way it's continuing to be used. And it's blocking everything, voting rights, immigration reform, LGBTQ equality, you name it. We can gun safety. We can go down the list. So the way to do that is Democrats can do what Mitch McConnell and Republicans already did on taxes, on taxes for this, you know, a GOP tax scam that they did, two trillion dollar tax scam. And they said, we only need 50 votes, 50 plus one. That's called the budget reconciliation process. Well, we could do the same thing for civil rights and voting rights. And we could say, we're going to reform the filibuster so that you cannot have the minority block this.

And my view, Brian, is that this is the single most important thing we have to do. If we don't do this, then we are never, ever going to have a functioning democracy because the vote is going to be suppressed in all kinds of ways across the country. to ensure that Democrats don't win. It's a broken system and it needs to be fixed and it's incredibly frustrating. You mentioned all of the other legislation that's being hindered by the filibuster. You know, obviously we have gun reforms, the Equality Act, the George Floyd, Justice and Policing Act. One of the other pieces of legislation that's languishing is the Women's Health Protection Act. Now, I know that you have your own story on this. Why is it important

for you for this to get voted on and passed? Well, I testified about this in the House oversight committee a couple of weeks ago, I am one of the one in four women across the country that has had an abortion. And the reality is that the vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should be accessible and safe and affordable. And now the same thing that is happening with voting rights is happening with abortion, where we are seeing state legislatures come forward with these incredibly restrictive laws to prevent pregnant people from having abortions, from making choices about their own bodies. And I told my story because these are such personal nuanced decisions. And they only affect the person that's carrying the, that is pregnant, plus, you know,

whoever that person chooses to bring in. And the idea that somebody would tell me that I can't have an abortion or that I have to carry a pregnancy that is dangerous, that endangers my life, that endangers the life of the baby, or simply for economic reasons. not able to have a child in that particular moment is really about other people trying to assert control and largely men trying to assert control over pregnant people's choices. And that is absolutely untenable. So we have been pushing to codify Roe v. Wade because the Supreme Court, of course, said it was constitutional. But with Donald Trump's nominations to the Supreme Court, we're not sure that they're going to continue to uphold that constitutional right. And if that

happens, Brian, we would go back to the days of dark alley abortions and it would be poor women and people of color that would be most disproportionately affected because they would not be able to access those choices and make those choices for themselves. Yeah. And, you know, I guess this all begs the question. And I'm not sure if you'd have insight into this, but if for nothing else, then my own to calm me down, what are your thoughts on ultimately seeing some type of a reform or elimination of the filibuster? Well, I'm hopeful, but, you know, I'm an optimist. I'm an organizer.

I've always believed that we can make these things happen and that courage comes out of crisis. And if there's ever been a time when we've been in crisis, it's right now. I was in the gallery, Brian, on January 6th. I was trapped there as insurrectionists were pounding on the door and trying to find Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence to kill them and trying to kill us as members of Congress. And I saw how incredibly close and fragile we were to losing our democracy. And if we don't reform the filibuster and pass voting rights and ensure that all of the civil rights protections and

voting rights protections that we have to be able to put in place for us to really say this as a democracy and truth, then we're going to lose it. So I believe that there is real hope that we can do this. And the reason I believe that is because Senator Manchin redrafted the for the People Act in a way that he felt was sensible. It has the majority of the things in there, but not everything, but the majority of things. And he believes he can find 10 Republicans. More power to him. I hope he finds 10 Republicans.

But if he doesn't, I think then even his faith could be shaken in the need to preserve the filibuster. And perhaps we could, at a minimum, get a carve out for voting rights and civil rights so that we could move these bills forward. Anybody who says that the filibuster preserves bipartisanship, I would actually argue the opposite, Brian, that the filibuster makes it so that even if you had two or three or four Republicans who supported something like voting rights,

which you would have thought would have been a no-brainer, they're not going to come on board because you need 10. And so why would they put themselves out there if the thing isn't going to go anywhere anyway? So I would argue that by having just a simple majority, actually in a divided Senate allow for more bipartisanship and not less. And I hope that senators mansion and cinema see that and are willing to, at a minimum, have this kind of a carve-out to reform the filibuster. And I think it's a safe argument that protecting voting rights is a lot

more important for a carve-out in the filibuster than it was when Republicans did the exact same thing for both tax breaks and to confirm judges. That's right. Exactly. Thank you so much for the work you're doing to keep this bill as broad as possible so that it could touch as many people's lives as possible. And I appreciate you coming on. Well, thank you so much for everything you're doing to educate people about what's going on. We really appreciate you breaking it down. Thanks again to Congresswoman Jayapal. Now we have the author of Kill Switch, The Rise of the Modern Senate and the former Deputy Chief of Staff for Senator Harry Reid. Adam Gentilson, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Brian. It's great to be here. So Harry Reid served as both

Senate Minority Leader and Senate Majority Leader. So you're definitely in a good position to talk about the state of the Senate right now. As far as the filibuster's concerned, moderates are paying deference to this thing. Like, it's the last thread holding the Senate together. Can you speak to the accuracy of that notion? Yeah, I can. So I think one thing that's important to know about the filibuster is that we take it for granted as a feature of the Senate today, but it's actually not something that existed in the Senate at its creation, or really for the first almost 200 years of its existence in the way that it does now, where it imposes a supermajority threshold on everything that passes the Senate. So I say all that to say that, you know, what moderates

are sort of celebrating as this fundamental feature of our democracy just isn't. It isn't that. And I think what's also important to know is that the framers actually oppose anything resembling the filibuster when they created the Senate. The reason that they did that was that, you know, they were writing the Constitution as basically, you know, American government version 2.0. Version 1.0 was the Articles of Confederation, which had a supermajority threshold in Congress for most categories of major legislation. And they put a supermajority threshold in place because for all the reasons that people argue and defend it today, which is that they thought that would promote consensus and compromise and all these good things.

What they found in practice with the Articles of Confederation was that the supermajority threshold imposed gridlock. And so when they went to write the new form of government and the constitution we have today, they were very clear that the majority should rule in the Senate, in the House, and in every other major decision point in our system of government. So, you know, moderates celebrate it as this, you know, tool of compromise or tool of bipartisanship, but it isn't that. It never was that. It never has been that. And the framers opposed it because they specifically foresaw that rather than creating bipartisanship, the supermajority threshold would create gridlock. And I also will say that it's something that's really come into more common use in recent years. Up through the 1960s, it was almost never used. The threat of it existed, but it was almost never invoked except against civil rights bills where it was always invoked. That was the one category of legislation where the super majority threshold was always invoked and was used to kill civil rights.

bills for almost 100 years between the end of Reconstruction and 1964 in the first major civil rights bill passed. And, you know, up through the 1980s, 1990s, the filibuster was used relatively rarely. It's only come into common use in recent years, and particularly under Senator Mitch McConnell when he became Senate leader under Barack Obama. So, you know, I think there's not much truth to the fact that it's any sort of historical feature. and, in fact, the very reasons that moderates advocate for it and defended, the idea

that it promotes bipartisanship and compromise, is, you know, wrong, it's not true. And the framers specifically said that this thing that you would think would promote bipartisan compromise actually promotes gridlock, and I think we're seeing that today. Now, what's the actual danger for Democrats to eliminating or reforming the filibuster that they're so afraid of? Well, the danger for Democrats, and Senator Sinema talks about this a lot, and that's one of her main defenses for why she supports the filibuster. The danger for Democrats is that if you, you know, get rid of it and you allow things to

pass the Senate on a simple majority that once Republicans are back in power, as they surely will be one day, it's just the nature of our system, they'll be able to pass things on a simple majority threshold. And, you know, there's certainly truth to that. I mean, the simple fact is that if you Democrats get rid of the filibuster, then Republicans will be able to pass things on a majority threshold. There's really, it's not like Republicans going to reimpose, you know, a supermajority threshold on themselves and they're in power. The counter argument to that, though, is sort of

twofold. One is Republicans can get most of what they want as it is right now by working around the filibuster, because what they mostly want are to confirm conservative judges and to pass tax cuts. Which, by the way, they've already eliminated the filibuster for those two elements anyway. Exactly, exactly. They, Mr. Conlon got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court justices in 2017, which allowed him to confirm First Gorsuch and then Kavanaugh and then Barrett. you know, and tax cuts you can pass through reconciliation, which doesn't, which takes you around the filibuster and is a simple majority threshold all the way through. So they can basically already get most of what they want. The same is not true for, for Democrats. The filibuster

distributes power asymmetrically to conservatives. And it blocks much of what progressives want to pass. It blocks major action on climate change. It blocks civil rights. It blocks gun control. It blocks immigration. It blocks the pro act. So it's not a fair fight here. It blocks much more of what we want than what Republicans want. And, you know, the other fact, as you sort of alluded to, is that even if we left it in place, Mitch McConnell could just get rid of it as soon as he wanted. There's nothing we can do to force Republicans to keep it when they're in power. They can simply decide to get rid of it whenever they want, as Mitch McConnell did in 2017. So I think, you know, that's sort of the worst case scenario is that we leave the filibuster in place in order

to preserve this defensive tool for ourselves when we're back in the minority. And in order to preserve that tool, we don't pass many very, very important things like voting rights bills, immigration reform, the pro act. And then, despite the fact that we sort of sacrifice these major priorities to keep this defensive tool in place, Republicans get back in power. And then with a flick at a wrist, they immediately get rid of this defensive tool. So the worst case scenario is that we fail to pass the big things in order to preserve the filibuster and then Republicans just get rid of it when they're in power. And that's why fear where cinema's stance will take us. Beyond that, just you know, by virtue of not eliminating the filibuster anyway, we're basically seeding control

to the Republicans as it is because, you know, they're looking to pass these voter suppression bills across the country. They're legislating Democrats out of government across the country through gerrymandering. By virtue of us protecting the filibuster, we're giving them the opportunity to then take power for God knows how long and also eliminate the filibuster when they see fit. 100%. I mean, the only, you know, Democrats' best hope of maintaining control of the Senate is to pass voting rights bills to do their best to combat gerrymandering in the House and things like that. So we are making it easier for Republicans. We're giving them, first of all, we're giving them veto power over our agenda while we are in power. Then we are making it easier for Republicans

to get back in power by failing to combat the kind of voter suppression that we're seeing in states. And then we're doing all that just to preserve this thing that they can easily get rid of themselves when they're back in power. So suffice to say, you know, I try to be objective and analyze these questions, but I just simply think that even from sort of a risk-averse perspective, it's not the right thing to defend the filibuster because Republicans can just get rid of it, and that is the worst-case scenario. Now, the people protecting it are Mansion and Cinema. Now, politically speaking, is there an upside to doing this for either one of them?

Well, you know, I don't think so, and that's what's sort of confounding about it. You know, Joe Manchin used to support filibuster reforms back in 2011 when I was working in the Senate, he came out in support for some, you know, pretty significant reforms to the filibuster, things like returning to the talking filibuster and getting real of the filibuster on the front end of bills. Right now, you can impose a super majority threshold. I won't get too far in the weeds, but, you know, coming and going. You can impose it before a bill starts being debated, and you can pose it after.

So he wanted to get rid of it on the front end, which would be significant. You know, polls consistently show that it's not a big, that defending the filibuster isn't any big winner in West Virginia, and certainly, you know, people overwhelmingly support passing things like voting rights more than they defend, more than they support defending the filibuster, even in West Virginia. So it's hard to see where the political benefit is for him. That's even more true in the case of cinema. Arizona is not a blue state, but it's certainly a purple state and certainly more democratic

than West Virginia, which voted for Trump by 40 points in 2020. So, you know, Arizonans strongly support getting rid of the filibuster. They strongly support passing voting rights. And you've seen a lot of these polls recently that have cinema performing really astoundingly badly back in Arizona. And I think that that is why. She's simply not representing Arizonans. And there is no political benefit for her in this.

And to the contrary, there's actually a lot of political cost, which she is incurring for herself right now. Now, building on exactly that, you know, data for progress just released that polling that 70% of primary voters in Arizona disapprove of her. Like, she's losing in head to heads against every single potential challenger failing to notch anything above 26% against another Democrat. Now, I'm sure in the back of our heads, we tend to think like, okay, well, there must be a reason that she's doing this.

Clearly, there's some internal polling or whatever that she's seeing, but is there anything that you can see regarding cinema that would validate this strategy? You know, where now we're seeing that she's losing by net. Fifty points? No, I mean, you know, Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is often the truest one. I think that she's just doing bad at politics right now. I think that this is, she may have a strategy, but I don't think it's a good one. And if I had to venture what that strategy is, I think she might be planning to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent.

There are a lot of reports that she's sort of obsessed with the idea of being the next John McCain, which obviously is a great brand in Arizona. But she's going about it in a very confusing and I think bad way, which is that, you know, John McCain was known as a maverick, and he picked his spots very carefully. He, you know, defied his, he defied the Republican Party on issues that were popular. You know, he was a champion of campaign finance reform, which his party opposed, and that was an extremely popular issue. Cinema is opposing her party on issues where her party's stance is extremely popular. The best example is giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.

This policy pulls like upwards of 80% support. It has majority support from Democrats, Republicans, and independents. it's strongly supported by seniors who are a critically important voting block, especially in Arizona. You know, some polling came out recently where I think they said, you know, we didn't poll Apple Pie and Mom, but I'm not sure that they would pull any higher than lowering prescription drug prices. Yet Cinema, that is one of the major issues where cinema is breaking from her party and opposing policies that would lower prescription drug prices. So I don't really see how you chart a successful course, even if your goal is to leave the Democratic Party and run as an when you are putting yourself on the opposite side, on the unpopular side of extremely

important, extremely popular issues. That just, that seems like sort of being contrary and being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian and thinking that will give you a reputation as an independent, rather than, you know, looking at what people actually care about and realizing that, you know, they might think you're independent, but I think you're an independent voice for the pharmaceutical companies, not for, not for the interest of Arizonans. And I think that's, that's a bad strategy. Just running on a platform of chaos.

That seems to be the only thread here. So that was cinema. Now when we look over to Mansion, you know, he said that we should protect the filibuster because there would be 10 good people on the other side who want bipartisanship. So it's been a year now that we've had a 50-50 Senate. For any of the legislation that we thought would be blocked, you know, by Republicans, it's still going to be blocked by Republicans. There's been no movement in this realm here.

So is the onus not on Mansion now to change his position since they didn't hold up their end of that bargain, like since 10 of them didn't meet him halfway? Yeah, I think that's right. You know, I think Manchin, everybody who's involved in the voting rights negotiations that I talked to on the Hill all basically believe that Manchin is engaged here in good faith, that he is really, you know, making substantive contributions, you know, what he's said he supports in terms of voting rights legislation is really pretty good and is acceptable broadly to, you know, the parts of the party that are zeroed in and very focused on this issue. So, you know, he's not necessarily.

forcing Democrats to water this down, what he supports is good on substance. But he has been unable to find 10 Republicans who would get us to the 60 votes who would need to overcome the filibuster. And I do think that is where, you know, you have to evolve. You know, sort of somewhat unfortunately, they were able to find, you know, by partisan support on the infrastructure bill. And I say unfortunate in the sense that, you know, I think what's in that infrastructure bill was going to pass one way or the other. And the fact that, you know, look, Roads and Bridges has always been the lowest hanging fruit in Congress. You know, and so getting 10 Republicans to support building roads and bridges in their

own states and districts is not some, like, massive bipartisan accomplishment. It's sort of the exception that proves the rule in a way, you know, that that's all you can get bipartisan support for. But it did sort of validate Manson's point of view that he had the power to persuade Republicans to come over and support Democratic priorities. But I think that what you're seeing on all these other issues is that that's just simply not the case. Republicans see voter suppression as their only path to political success in a country that is becoming more diverse and, frankly, more liberal. And so they are never going to come to the

table on voting rights because this is a matter of political survival for them. So I think that if Manchin truly cares about this issue, it really is incumbent on him to evolve, to recognize that he'd made a good faith effort to find Republican support, but it's Republicans' fault for not coming to the table, and we can't let their cravenness on this issue prevent us from passing was extremely necessary. I would also just point out that many of the greatest innovations in expansion of voting rights throughout American history have been passed on partisan party lines. The 14th and 15th Amendment were passed on narrow party line votes.

Sometimes you simply have to do that, and you have to prioritize what's right for the country over the fact that the other party simply has decided not. to come to the table yeah that's a great point also you know i just want to point out the fact that to their credit to republicans credit they realize that this is an existential issue for them and so that's why they're blocking uh filibuster reforms because they know that they need to block those voting voting rights legislation democrats should also recognize that this is the other side of the same coin and that it's existential for us and the same reason that it's existential for them and so by virtue of republicans entrenching their power that would prevent democrats from being

to assume any power in the future. And it's just, you know, it's a shame that Republicans can look at this and realize, you know, and see the writing on the wall and that Democrats can't, even though it's the exact same issue that affects both of us inversely. That's right. And look, you know, Manchin has said he's going to run for re-election in 2024. West Virginia does not have a large black population, but it's about 5 percent. That's not insignificant. And, you know, if Manchin's going to win, he's going to win by a small margin. He won by less than three points in his last reelection. And so this could make the difference for him, too. You know, I think, I think it is, it is an existential crisis. The reason, the reason to do it is not just because it helps Democrats

win, but, but we are the only party right now that is actually dedicated to sustaining and, and growing and protecting our democracy and expanding the right to vote and making sure all Americans have equal access to the ballot. And it is critical, uh, that we maintain power so that we can pass these things because we have the one of the two major parties in this country is sliding quickly towards authoritarianism, has allowed Donald Trump to maintain control, even though he lost. And so it really is up to us to kind of stand up for our democracy here. And I think Manchin needs to realize that. Now, obviously, on the other side of the filibuster problem is Mitch McConnell. Now, we constantly see this strategy where Democrats are falling over themselves to

shame him, you know, to say, look how much of a hypocrite he is. But, you know, this doesn't work. The guy literally made up an aggressively arbitrary rule about no Supreme Court nominations in election year, only to then ran through a Supreme Court nominee with like a week and a half left to go before an election. You know, he came out about how important it was to raise the debt ceiling when Republicans are in power, yet he made it almost impossible to do when Democrats were trying to do it. So like, the list goes on forever. That's right.

You can't shame Mitch McConnell into doing anything. I learned this the hard way when I was working in the Senate in 2016 when we tried to shame him into dropping his blockade of Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court. Look, this is what he's been like his whole career. This isn't a new thing. This is a guy who collects editorial cartoons bashing him, frames them, and puts them on the wall of his office, and he'll be happy to show them to you if you come by. You know, this is what he did.

This is actually how he rose in power through the ranks of Republican leadership was by taking unpopular stances, stances that were unpopular of the public, but that his part, but that favored his party. In the 80s and 90s, Mitch McConnell led the fight against campaign finance reform, which was extremely popular, even though John McCain was supporting it and was running for president at the time. And he relished the public scorn that came down on him for his opposition to campaign finance reform. But it was that was what sort of, you know, it was things that other Republicans didn't want to say out loud, but were happy he was taking that stance. And this allowed him to sort of gain power and rise in the ranks and become leader. he literally fed off of the public's opposition to his stance, and that's what he's doing now.

And one last question, in your opinion here, do you think that we will see some type of reform or elimination of the filibuster? I do. I'm still optimistic because I think that, you know, eventually it's going to become crystal clear that nothing on voting rights is going to pass, that this is an existential issue for the nation and for Democrats, and it's simply not a tenable position to have. have 48 senators support it, even though some whisper that they are not super excited about this. I think if the vote were held today, you would have 48 senators vote in support of

at least a narrow carve-out of the filibuster that would allow civil rights to pass. So I just, I don't think it's tenable long term for two senators to hold out against that tide, especially because we're going to see more and more examples of gerrymandering. Now that the census data is out, we're going to see more and more examples of voter suppression at the state level as we approach 2022. I just don't think it's tenable. I think Manchin needed some time to try to find Republican support. We're going to have a vote next week that will show that he failed to do that, unfortunately. And I think, you know, we're sort of working through the necessary steps in the process here. It's taking a long time, but this is also, you know, relatively quick in Senate time.

So I think we will get there eventually sometime before 2022. From your lips to Joe Manchin and Kirsten's years. So Adam Jenselson, he's the author of Killswitch, The Rise of the Modern Senate. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Brian. Thanks again to Adam. 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. Thank you.