No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - The secret to Democrats winning the future

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

Democrats can use this election loss to win the future. Brian interviews Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett to discuss whether Matt Gaetz withdrawing his Attorney General nomination means that Democrats can still have influence and where the party goes from here. Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries chats about how he’s going to reconcile the need to act as a bulwark against Trump’s worst impulses with the exhaustion felt by so many on the left. And Senator Amy Klobuchar joins to discuss whether there’s still an appetite for Congress to release the ethics report against Gaetz, and the state of judge confirmations in the Senate.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 how Democrats can use this loss to win in the future. And I have three interviews this week. Pod Save America's John Lovett joins me to discuss whether Matt Gates withdrawing his attorney general nomination means that Democrats can still have influence and where the party goes from here. I chat with the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, about how he's going to reconcile the need to act as a bulwark against Trump's worst impulses with the exhaustion felt by so many on the left. And I'm joined by Senator Amy Klobuchar to discuss whether there's still an appetite for Congress to release the ethics report. against Matt Gates and the state of judge confirmations in the Senate. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

So as we're nearing three weeks now since Trump was elected to lead the country for the next four years, I have noticed something about the Democratic Party's postmortem, that competing factions within the party are all pointing fingers, and they're using the election results as confirmation that their end of the ideological spectrum is what's right for the party moving forward. And no matter where somebody falls on that spectrum, there's plenty of evidence to reinforce their argument. Like, progressives can point to an overreliance by Kamala Harris on Liz Cheney and Camo hats and guns to explain why she lost, just as easily as moderates can point

to the fact that conservative Democrats, like Jared Golden and Marie Glucent-Camp-Perez, ran far ahead of Kamala Harris in their respective districts. So we can argue in circles forever about why our own personal ideology should win out, and if I know anything about Democrats, we will, but it's time to drop this idea that any one monolithic ideology is the correct ideology. Look, the Democrats' blessing and curse is that we are a big tent party that spans from Joe Mansion and Bernie Sanders. For those of us who value living in a pluralistic society, that's our strength. But with that comes a responsibility to recognize that we have to make concessions to people who under that big tent don't always see eye to eye. If that means that Joe

Mansion, for example, is only aligned with the majority of the party 70% of the time as a Democrat from West Virginia, so be it. Why? Because the alternative is a Republican from West Virginia, for whom agreement with the Democrats, even 10% of the time, would be nothing short of a small miracle. And so the point is that we have to stop imposing purity tests onto all Democrats to ensure that everybody aligns perfectly within whatever narrow worldview we've decided warrants membership in the party. I would rather have a Democrat, who is 50% with us, than a Republican, who is zero percent with us. And I'd venture to guess that most people can agree with that logic.

We cannot be blinded by our pursuit of perfection. The fact is that in our elected officials, we are not looking for a spouse, we're not looking for a partner, we're not looking for a spiritual leader. This isn't marriage or church, it is politics. The goal is to elect people who will be the most effective vehicles to get us closest to where we want to go. We are taking the bus to the nearest stop, not a car that delivers us right to our front door.

And so if that means that we've got a conservative Democrat who, for example, supports the Democratic agenda except on guns and fossil fuels, that person is still preferable to a Republican who supports none of the Democratic agenda. Is it ideal? Of course not. And look, this is all coming from me, a progressive who wants Medicare for all, the Green New Deal, zero fossil fuels. But even I recognize that all of that counts for nothing if we don't actually hold power. We cannot let perfect be the enemy of good.

Our pursuit of the moral high ground, while certainly noble, counts for nothing if it costs us a position of power where we can actually put those noble principles into practice. When ideological purity is ultimately hurting the very people that we're seeking to help, then we have to be agile enough to alter our strategy. So my advice here is to beware of people

who are exploiting this period of uncertainty by declaring victory for themselves, right? Regardless of where everybody on the last, left lies on the ideological spectrum. This isn't a moment to beat our chess and claim that one specific ideology is the correct one and that everybody else needs to adopt it if we want to move forward. Instead, this is a moment for humility. It is a moment to offer space to people who think differently, but who we need to form a governing majority in the future. This is a moment to drop expectations that everybody on the left accede to one narrow set of principles in order to be

a member in good standing of the Democratic Party. It's never going to happen nor should. should it. And as passionately as we all believe that we are the correct ones, and trust me, we all believe it, the message moving forward has to be that we are willing to drop our guard if it means we can actually win. So look, there are always states and districts where more conservative Democrats win and lose. There are always states and districts where more progressive Democrats win and lose. We can exhaust ourselves trying to prove which ideology applies to the entire party, or we can accept the reality that no single ideology applies to the entire party. And that's okay. That is the imperfect beauty of our big tent. But put

simply, I would rather be in a position to wield power with a party that I agree with 75% of the time than be relegated powerless to the minority with a party that I agree with 100% at the time. Next up are my interviews with John Lovett, Hakeem Jeffries, and Amy Klobuchar. I'm joining now, by John Lovett in the Crooked Studio, John. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me once again. Having you at your studio. Thanks for coming here to have me.

Yes, of course, of course. Okay, so let's jump into this. We are in the aftermath of Matt Gates having withdrawn his nomination for Attorney General because there was no path forward for him. Was this a backfire for Trump in the sense that it showed that actually from the minority Democrats could still have some influence over what Trump

and the Republicans are doing moving forward? I'd like to think so. I would say that it feels a little rose-colored to believe that, A, this is because of Democrats, or B, that Trump has faced any kind of setback because of it. I think Trump feels pretty emboldened right now to the point where do I think he would be pleased if a bunch of his cabinet picks went down. but he took a flyer on Matt Gates he I think probably from the jump was hearing that it may be tough to get through

he withdrew it and now he gets to go for someone like Pam Bondi who by comparison looks more palatable but as just as much of a Trump stooge so no and then

in terms of who's responsible for Gates going down there reports that Gates had basically heard that Collins, Murkowski, John Curtis, who is the Mitt Romney replacement, and one other might have been, oh, and McConnell, of course, were unmovable nose. And that's the four, and that's that, speaks to the importance of why it is so great that in a very difficult environment.

Here's where I would credit Democrats. Jackie Rosen won. Tammy Baldwin, won. that means that they just do not have that much flexibility in the Senate. In that group of four, I don't think it's the first or last time that we'll hear about them. Do you think that this is a situation now where, because they don't have to expend their political capital on trying to fight back against a Matt Gates nomination, now they can use that political capital, these Republicans, I mean, that group of four, at least, to push back against a Tulsi Gabbard, an RFK Jr., somebody like that, for example. I hope so. I hope so. Each one of these other people would be unacceptable and obviously someone who couldn't be confirmed.

Right. In any previous administration, yeah. Right. Which is Gabbard worse, is RFK Jr., worse, is Pete Hegseth worse, which is the one that should draw our fire? I don't know. I think you have to be honest about all of them. They all should be withdrawn. all should be defeated. There should be enough Republicans. There are so many Senate Republicans whose names we do not remember because they have been hiding for the past couple of years, hoping nobody notices them that the Trump evil eye doesn't come for them, that they don't get ensnared in becoming an enemy of the base, but who are privately people that don't like Trump

and don't like the kinds of people he's putting forward. Will that matter? I don't know. I just think we don't yet know. But I think you have to in this moment, especially in this kind of time in which we are getting the nominees, which are giving us a sense of how bad the next four years will be, but Trump is not yet president. I think we have to know that there are times where we may lose fights we should be able to win or we would have won another era while still fighting them as if we can win. We should just simply not give Republicans the gift of assuming these people will get through. We should be fighting RFK Jr. Like, of course he should be withdrawn. Of course he should be defeated.

Same for Telsic Gabbard. Same for Pete Heggseth. Honestly, same for Linda fucking McMahon at the Department of Education, a person with no education experience. Lee Zeldon, whose only qualification seems to be someone Trump kind of likes and who denied the election. There was a time when the fact that, I mean, look, the putting a energy, a fracking executive in charge of the Department of Energy. Now, do I think that that's somebody we can stop? probably not, but is it a story we can tell about the actual, not just the, not just the, not just the drama and the insults and the chaos, but the actual impact of Trump's governing. I think that's a

story we can tell. And you fight these fights, you try to win some, you lose some, but you start telling the story of the actual impact of Donald Trump being president. Do you think that some of these unnamed Republican senators, these people who nobody knows, the not Josh Holley's and Ted Cruz's, all those people. Do you think that now that Donald Trump is entering what will be a lame duck presidency? He's not running for re-election again. Presumably, like, yeah, from our lips to God's ears, but that these people won't feel as encumbered by the prospect of another Trump term to be able to, I don't know, like, exhibit some power? Or do you think they're going to continue along this line of just contracting every ounce of their power over to him? Because when he says

jump, they say how high? I don't know. I mean, it's almost like a fool's errand to ask if Republicans are going to finally stand up to Trump. We are almost a decade into this experiment, and thus far, they haven't shown any willingness to do that. No, for sure. But I think we have also learned over the last couple of years that there's like a backbone spectrum, right?

There was a moment after the insurrection January 6th where they all seemed to have genuine backbone quite briefly. Mitch McConnell included, Ted Cruz included, right? these people told the truth about what happened in the wake of the insurrection. But for a mere fleeting moments. And what a day it was. Yeah. Yeah. But for example, Tulsi Gabbard, do I think there are a lot of senators who do not want to assent to somebody as toxic as Tulsi Gabbard?

Yes. Are they saying it publicly right now? Mostly, no. But what are they doing privately, right? Are they trying to do anything privately? Now, that's pathetic. right but that's i think what we're going to see the other problem right is it's not just about trump so just i think mere hours before the gates nomination is withdrawn you have marjorie taylor green saying anybody that opposes matt gates we're going to release all our files on you she actually said something that was um shockingly well written for her she said if we're going to dance let's dance in the sunlight yeah marjory Martin, Marjorie threatening us with a good time here.

But, and then you had a Trump advisor saying to, I believe, John Carl at ABC, it's pretty simple. I'm paraphrasing, it's pretty simple. If you oppose Gates, you'll get a primary. Elon will fund it. Yeah. Just brazen corruption. Right. We got a billionaire.

That billionaire will level you if you don't do what we ask. That is a threat that exists, even if Donald Trump is a lame duck. These are people that are now worried about the version of the Republican Party that Donald Trump is both a symptom of and a cause of. And so he, whatever happens with him, that radicalized base and the people around him that view it as a tool to their ends is going to continue. Now, does that mean they're going to go along with everything? No, I think we've seen, you know, like we're starting to see the shape of what it looks like, right? Gates not going to be attorney general. That's good. I think that's good. What's going to happen with RFK Jr.? I don't know. What's going to happen with Pete Heggseth? What's going to happen with Tulsi Gabbard? We will learn what kind of Republican Senate we will have by the conduct of the Republican Senate. What does Mike Johnson do with an extremely narrow House majority when Donald Trump says, I want you to call the House into recess so that when the Senate doesn't, I can declare them both in recess and stick my people in the cabinet without.

Senate approval. Does Mike Johnson want to go along with that? Does he have the votes to do that? Can he claim he doesn't have the votes? We don't know yet. But like these are the tests. It's not a, it's not an either, it's not a simple binary. Like, we're going to start to see what Republicans do and how much, how much, even as they all publicly kind of genuflect and demonstrate fealty to Trump, hold the line, if not facing forward, kind of from the back. So I want to talk about the Democratic Party more broadly as we kind of, as we kind of are in this post-mortem period of the election. And I know that there's something for everybody to kind of confirm their own position. And so you'll have progresses, for example, who say the Kamala ran too far to the right, embrace the Liz Cheney's and Dick Cheney's of the world, the camo hats, the, you know, if you entered my house, I'm going to shoot you that whole thing.

And for conservatives, they can, to the same token, be able to say, look, it was, you know, Jared Golden ran well ahead of Kamala Harris in his district. Marie Glucent-Camp-Prez ran well ahead of Kamala Harris in her district. And so there's something for everybody. Everybody can walk out of this and say, we're right and you have to adopt our position. Democratic Party has to get more, you know, skew a little bit more to the center, or Democratic Party has to stop pussyfooting, you know, dancing with, flirting with conservatives. start and just go all out progressive. And so I'm curious where you stand on this because I feel like there is a moment right here where there is some introspection and we do have to kind of figure out some movements that

we're not just doing the exact same thing, right? But which way we go kind of still remains up in the air and it's just a cause for concern right now. Yeah, I have sort of these two competing instincts, one of which is to be deeply suspicious of all of the people who are saying, I know. what democrats did wrong it's the thing i've always said right bernie who i have great respect and admiration for puts out a statement saying democrats abandoned the working class well hold on a second bernie joe biden is the most progressive president in our lifetimes he to his great credit brought elizabeth

warren in and and bernie in and progressives in he put lina khan at the f tc one one just one small example of not just fighting for the middle class and the working class, but fighting for poor people. Right now, Republicans are talking about how they're going to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Right now, that's what they're talking about. Yeah. One proposal, just one little proposal. It's not going to get a lot of headlines. It's not fun. It's not trans prisoners becoming fabulous. It's Joe Biden, because of a bill Congress passed in a bipartisan way, he used his new authority to increase food stamps. Republicans were mad about this. They actually didn't realize that they had given him this authority. They felt he had kind of misused his authority. But Joe Biden put in place the

biggest increase, two food stamps in the history of the program, the biggest permanent increase. Do you know how much the increase was? How much? It was $36 per person per month, about $432 per person per year. Not a lot of money. A lot of money if you are running out each month to try to buy nutritious food because your child has a disability or you have a disability and you can't work and you're trying to provide for your kids. Republicans want to stop the president for being able to do that, to pay for an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy. Joe Biden did not abandon the working class.

You can say that we have a problem of too much money on the Democratic side in politics. You can say we have a brand problem. I'll agree, but I'm sorry, but it's just harder than that. It's just more nuance than that. He did a lot of what progressives wanted him to do. Why did it matter?

It's more difficult question to answer, but no, you can't just go to your gut of the same critique you've had for a long time. By the way, same for the centrist who every time we have an election result, that is a big fucking loss. They're like, well, it's identity politics, or it's because of AOC, or it's because of the left.

It's like, well, hold on a second. You know, yeah, they used Kamala's words from 2020 against her, but she did campaign with Liz Cheney. She isn't out there saying Latinx. They're talking about they're exploiting a ridiculous, tiny issue to paint all Democrats as being radicals. That exists no matter what we say. that exists no matter what we do and so I'm suspicious where I get to as I'm

suspicious but at the same time I also want to start from the press that maybe they're right they're all right right maybe we do we do have a problem right like they ran a hundred million dollars or of ads and I think Pennsylvania alone with you know Kamala's for they them Donald Trump is for you now there are people that want to make that issue about trans people I think it's more just about Democrats are weird they chose this one example but Democrats are weird. And so like I, sorry, I'm just rambling about all this because I think there's so many things swirling around. But where I land on all of this right now is I just

start by saying, okay, I see kind of three big problems. One is there was a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of the economy, with inflation, with people not seeing the benefits of Joe Biden's policies or not believing that those policies were in place at all. Just fundamental frustration. That's specific to this election environment. Then I see a problem of just the information environment and reaching millions upon millions of people who are extremely distrustful of politicians and who just don't get that much political information. And then the third is I do think there is a Democratic brand problem. Just a big problem, right? Why is it cool for Donald Trump to go on Rogan and to go on Theo Vaughn and to do these podcasts? Whereas on our side, people

feel like, oh, I, you know, Kamala is political. Democrats are political. Like, there is a establishment quality we have that they don't. But do you think that's just Democrat? Do you think that's just Donald Trump? Like, if it wasn't Trump, if it's like Tom Cotton, he's not going to have the same appeal, right? Is this just a situation where Trump is able to, to kind of play by different rules than the rest of his party? Or do you think that this is a Republican thing that they're all able to kind of fly above it and they'll be viewed as cool, culturally speaking, whereas as Democrats just aren't. That's interesting.

I don't know. I think some of it, yes, is unique to Trump, but I do think there's been some of like coattails with him, kind of like, you know, J.D. Vance was able to do some of these shows, too. And it's funny because, like, Trump is obviously a more natural fit in the sense that, like, he doesn't sound like a politician. He doesn't really know very much about politics. So he fits really well in these environments.

But, you know, I think sometimes on the left we kind of have the wrong impression of what does well in those spaces because I think there's just like if people go and like, oh, like someone like Fetterman, right? Somebody in cargo shorts. Like someone, basically someone who doesn't seem like. Just like a very like a very shallow interpretation of what would work. But like if you listen to any kind of these shows, like they'll have like intellectuals on. They'll have nerd types. You know, it's not like just like a kind of like, I don't know, like kind of anti-intellectual bent.

But there is something specific about like Marie Glouscamp Perez had this interview in the time. She's also just on Ponce America talking to John. And she said, I don't know what the kind of person that appeals where I'm from looks like exactly. But I know they're probably not a lawyer. Yeah. And I think there's something to that. There's something about like Democrats. we're, I've said this for it, but like, we're very front of the classroom.

And we are, we're just like front of the classroom kids. I'm a front of the classroom kid, but like, we need more back of the classroom energy. And Donald Trump, back of the classroom energy. Barack Obama, back of the classroom energy, like Al Gore, John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, front of the classroom. George W. Bush, back of the classroom. It's just like, like, we need front of the classroom policy and minds and chops with back of the classroom. and we're just missing that right now and I sometimes feel like I don't even hear it right because like I think about the candidates that inspire me and they know everything yeah they're right

they just I am I am like I think like I need to think about it too so anyway that's a long-winded answer but I just think we need to question our priors be suspicious of anyone whose answer is the same, anyone who didn't really learn anything from the election, and while also just being open to the fact that, whether it's Bernie, Seth Moulton, whoever it may be, like, I'm going to listen. You said something interesting there, and that was that you brought up the issue of Republicans exploiting to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars Kamala Harris's comments in 2019. And so, you know, we know that in this campaign cycle, she didn't have a stance on gender reassignment surgeries among trans inmates in prison.

And yet, if you asked anybody who consumed content out there in the broader, you know, media sphere, that would be the one thing that they said, you know, there was even polling that showed that among swing voters, the number one reason that people swung to Trump was because they thought she was more concerned with trans issues. Now, she didn't bring those up in this campaign, but I'm curious, in a media environment like we're in, where it doesn't even have to be something that exists in reality for them to exploit. How do you move forward where truth doesn't even matter? It's not even a basis for something that they're going to predicate the entire campaign on. Well, like she might have, the next candidate might have said something 10 years ago that might become the basis for what our 2028 nominee is going to have that campaign run based on. Yeah. It's a real problem. I will say, let's like flip it around for a second, right?

Why did that same set of, why did that issue not apply to Trump in the same way? Which is Trump had an extreme position on abortion. His justices led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. He has a record because he was so uninterested in the topic generally. He has a record of saying the kinds of. things that pro-life activists know not to say, like there must be some form of punishment for the woman, but Donald Trump made a point of trying to signal moderation. He did. He called himself the father of IVF, obviously a stupid and ridiculous thing to say, but he came out and

he did, I'm going to pay for IVF, right? He saw he had a problem because of what happened in Alabama. He's like, I'm going to pay for IVF. So you're saying that he also says, I'm going to leave it up to the states anyone who says otherwise i'm going to leave it up to the states doesn't take a position avoids kind of avoids you fucks it up when he's asked about florida but over and over again i'm going to leave it up to states i'm going to leave it he tries to to he just signals a different position Kamala gets this dumb ACLU questionnaire uh focused on this very specific edge case as if uh uh do we think that trans people in this country have it too good we got to focus on this Okay, but so that's what the ACLU is doing, very helpful.

Their campaign answers it, not sure why, but decides they have to answer it. She gets asked about it. It's in her own voice. She gives an answer that then becomes the basis of these ads. How did she deal with it when she was asked about it? And I understand this, by the way. Like, you're in a 107-day campaign. You're trying to fight on all of these different fronts.

You're seeing this ad being dropped on your head. It's not clear whether the best thing to do is to respond to it, address it, create a story around it, fight on another front. How do you push back? How do you deal with it? You know, by the way, that while a lot of people are seeing it, you hope and expect, and this is maybe probably, I don't know. We don't know exactly how we need to see more data, but like maybe not that impactful, right? We're all talking about this without all the information. Yeah.

But she's asked about it and like she distances herself rhetorically. It was Donald Trump's position, but she doesn't signal that she has an actual different view. When she's asked about the positions she took in 2020, she says, my values haven't changed, which is a kind of, oh, and it's not really taking head on. Yeah, just parsing a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It's, well, just political. It's just political.

And by the way, like, I understand why the impulse was to do that. And after a campaign, every decision that a campaign losing campaign makes is wrong. And every decision of winning campaign makes right. That may not have been the wrong thing to do. Right. But so I really am like trying to not I'm not being a Monday morning morning quarterback. I understand why that was how to address that and try to move on without creating a story around it. But I do think that like yeah, Republicans are going to take things out of context. They're going to paint all Democrats with the worst version of what a college professor somewhere said. That's a huge problem. But like that doesn't. But we have to help ourselves, too. Yeah, we have to help ourselves. We have agency, too.

So, like, Donald Trump had this issue that was going to be a major, a major albatross around his neck. And at a bare minimum, he made an effort to, as bad faith as it may be, as disingenuous as it may have been, that he's the father of IVF. At least he pushed forward and tried to push back on it, whereas we got politics speak from Kamala Harris on the issue of gender reassignment surgeries in prison. And so that didn't give any out, that didn't give people any reason to doubt what they were being told about her. Right. I think that's right. And now was that impactful? Did that matter? Is that what people are going to because they're more interested in it and it is more fun to talk about than just there was an inflation environment? There was a lot of misinformation about what Trump would actually do. There wasn't a lot of good information about why common policies were much better. The massive ad campaign could reach everyone except the group of voters we needed the most right at the end. And by the way, also, this is a race that was swung in the three, in what? in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, by what, between less than a, between,

there's about a hundred, one hundred and thirty, fifty thousand people. Right, between point eight percent and two percent or less, one point seven percent. So we're talking about a tiny fraction shifting. And so, so all, that's all my kind of caveats on that, but I do think, like, anyway, that's what I'm thinking about. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think there's some good lessons out of that. I think one, to not, to not give too much relevance or weight to that specific issue, because we may very well have been in an economic environment where the best candidate on God's green earth for the Democrats wouldn't have won. Because, you know, we've seen that in the global environment this year where no incumbents gain seats or won their races.

Right. Well, it's also like, you know, Kamala started out way behind because Joe Biden was going to get fucking obliterated. And she fights back to basically a tie in the the three most critical states she loses that's a shame wish we'd have won but like that campaign had a big effect where people were exposed to Kamala and trump the most yeah Kamala did better that speaks to the fact that what she was doing was was working and Donald Trump was a fucking mess out there right like it's like so so in order for Democrats I mean this speaks to I think to the larger problem where this is why it's like let's just everybody's so confident or they have all these opinions. It's like, hold on a second. Donald Trump manifestly unfit. Part of the reason I

allowed myself, even though for months I was so convinced it was tied and that we were underdogs, I believed, of course, that when Joe Biden was going to be the nominee, that's why I was one of the people who was so agitated for having the debate about making the change. But I believed we were underdogs because of this international environment that was so hard for incumbents, but I allowed myself to believe we were going to win right at the very end, or at least that I felt like I'd rather be us than them. I never was sure, of course.

Because Donald Trump was fucking it up. He was, the Madison Square Garden was a missed opportunity. I don't know now in hindsight if that one joke mattered as much as people wanted to hope it did, but he was a mess. He was rambling. His events were bad. There were people were disrespected inside of

the Trump organization, and Kamala was doing everything that she could to win. She was fighting to win. She was listening to the best advice. She was on message where she had to be on message. And then we look back and it's like, well, she fucked up on the view. So, oops. And so Republicans can blunder across the country and ramble for hours on end, but Democrats have to get every single thing, right? What does that say about us? What does that say? It shouldn't be this hard. How is our brand so tarnished that Democrats have to get every single thing right to win? But Trump can be a mess for months.

And now he's going to be the president putting a bunch of fucking goons and maniacs in the cabinet. Like that to me is like the question. And like Donald Trump, he's willing to go to New York and claim I'm going to win New York. Now that's stupid. Yeah. Right. But at least he can imagine building a bigger majority. Democrats should be thinking about why are we in a 50-50 country?

We believe our policies are better. We believe the vast majority of people will be better served by democratic policies, especially at the national level. what does a 55-45-45 country look like? What does a 60-40 country look like? How do we go out and get it? And just does that, so like, yes, we're talking about one or two points and all of a sudden Kamala's campaign is the greatest thing to ever happen. We did everything correct, yeah.

Right. But in this moment, I still think it's worth saying, okay, without grand sweeping conclusions or confirming our priors, let's use this as a moment to reimagine our politics in such a way that we can see ourselves winning not just in New York and California and in 10% of counties that are more cosmopolitan and urban, but winning everywhere with the people who deserve leaders that don't just like perform working class the actress but actually are advocating for them every day. You'd mentioned the ACLU questionnaire and that's that's a situation where you have these edge cases that these Democratic politicians go on record for to basically show that

they're going to succeed in whatever purity test is imposed by the group that represents a certain special interest group, right, faction of people. Do you think that there is some acknowledgement that perhaps that's not helpful? And in fact, by putting yourself on record in these edge case scenarios, that if those become a liability, you're actually doing those same groups that you purport to want to help more harm than good by virtue of giving the other side ammo to attack you on? So I think groups, and people say group, I think nonprofit organizations that have a view about how to build a better world should fight for that world as hard as they can

with Republicans and Democrats. They should be advocating for what they believe are the best policies. Do I think politics should impact how they do that, of course? But I have less of an issue. I mean, I have some issue with the ACLU making that part of their questionnaire. I think it speaks to like, hold on a second, dude, like, what's your mission here exactly? Like, it's confusing. But that's a very kind of easy one.

Everyone enjoys talking about that one, which tells us there's a problem, right? Why are we focusing on this? Myself included. Like, it's an easy one to kind of be like, hey, wait a second. There's harder politics. Yeah. I do think it's more about where do Democrats push back and where do they not. I think that there was a moment in 2020 where Democrats weren't willing to push back or they had become enamored of certain notions that were not based in either the best policy or the best politics.

I think that's more true on immigration. I think that there was a, frankly, like, pretty kind of inherently racist idea that the way you appeal to Latino American citizens is by embracing less. stringent order policies. I don't know what that was based on. It certainly wasn't based on polling. It was based on what a few advocates were suggesting was better policy. Yeah. But all in all, I think it's more about, like,

look at someone like Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has over decades of being in politics built up so much trust, right? just, even Joe Rogan, right, when Joe Rogan endorsed him in whatever primary that was, he said, this is a guy that's been saying the same thing for decades. Yeah. And so what does that, that consistency, that ideology, that brand gets you? It gives you the space to be a full-throated backer of Joe Biden. It gives you the space to have harder conversations about when the politics aren't on your side

and why you have to fight for one thing and not. another and i think one of the problems we have is there there aren't enough leading democrats who have that kind of space and trust when brock obama was talking about immigration in in 2008 2012 when he was governing he was able to say we are a nation of laws and we are a nation of immigrants we need to have generous policies to for people that have been in this country but we also have to enforce our laws and if you came in here uh illegally, you got to go to the back of the line, you got to pay taxes, whatever it was, whatever the exact language was. But he felt like he had the political space to do that.

And I think what we've had, especially in the primaries, are Democrats who didn't have the either political judgment or political space to do that. And that's a huge problem because I think you see this all over the place, right? I think this is like kind of core to what we're talking about here, right? Like so you have this specific anti-establishment moment around inflation and the economy, fine. But there's a connection between why Democrats don't feel welcome or comfortable in some of these less political spaces and the democratic brand being kind of political and establishment. Yeah. And I am less interested in how we fight on any one of,

or two of these issues and more with where is the person who can build up a reservoir of trust with a broad range of Democratic voters in order to have difficult conversations? I think that it's good to have like, look, the one thing that I will say to the broader party, well, most of the broader party's credit is that there does seem to be a moment of introspection where people are open. You know, you have a few people who are saying I was right all along, but I think generally people recognize that there's a problem. Look, even if this election may very well have been a referendum on the economic environment. And if we put, you know, someone with Barack Obama's charm and Elizabeth Warren's policy chops and Pete Buttigieg's ability to, like, combat Republicans, like, even if we had scientifically engineered the best candidate on Earth, we may very well have lost.

But I don't think there's any, any shame or weakness in figuring out what we can do in this moment where it doesn't really matter right now if we have some introspection and try and figure out a better way to move forward, even if, even if, again, everything we did was correct. and it was just a referendum on the economic environment more broadly. So, Lovett, where can we see more from you? Everybody, go to Potsave America, go to Love or Leave it. Subscribe on the YouTube, please, please. It's important right now, especially in terms of like building out this left of center, this progressive media ecosystem. So I'll put the links right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video.

Love it. Thanks for taking the time today. Good to see you, too. Now we've got the leader of the Democratic Party in the House. Hakeem Jeffries, thanks so much for taking the time. Great to be with you. So we are entering yet another era where Democrats are relegated to the minority, as Donald Trump now has full control of government starting in January. But I do think that people are unlikely to approach this in the same exact way that we all did in 2017.

So I'm curious how you and the Democratic caucus are approaching this moment to both resist the worst impulses of the Trump administration. while also taking into account the exhaustion that so many people are feeling right now on the left. Yeah, I think my view on this, in this very trying moment, a very turbulent moment as a result of the election and what we're heading into in the next Congress and upon the transition from a president, Biden to the incoming president, is that we've got to do two things. One, as House Democrats, certainly our view is that we will work hard. to find bipartisan common ground with the incoming administration on any issue whenever and

wherever possible, particularly as it relates to trying to lower costs and deal with the high cost of living that has impacted so many everyday Americans all across the country. And we will do that in a common sense, bipartisan fashion, and see what's possible to solve a challenge that clearly the American people have said loudly and clearly they want to see addressed, lower housing prices, lower food prices, lower gas prices. At the same period of time, we have to be prepared to push back against far right extremism whenever necessary and do so boldly and aggressively to defend our values, defend our institutions, defend the American way of life, and not let the clock be turned backward. What hills to that point? What hills do you think are worth dying on, knowing that

there may not be an appetite for the full, you know, 2017-style resistance? Like, what issues are you primarily focused on as we head into this moment coming up? We have to protect social security, protect Medicare. Those two things are anchored in sort of the American vision of a strong social safety net for folks so people can retire with grace and dignity, and we cannot allow Social Security and Medicare to be assaulted because people on the right want to jam massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected down our throats, and have everybody else pay for it. We've got to protect the Affordable Care Act if they take another run at the effort to ensure that the broadest number of people in the United States of America have access.

to high quality and affordable health care, and we will fight tooth and nail if they attempt to repeal and displace millions of Americans who are currently on the Affordable Care Act. We've got to protect the right to vote fundamentally because we cannot allow extreme MAGRA Republicans and people on the far right to further erode the capacity of the American people to determine your destiny

and the destiny of your families and your children, your grandchildren, your communities. And of course, we're going to draw a line in the sand as it relates to a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. And we will push back aggressively against any effort to impose a nationwide ban on abortion care. Just today, there was a headline in the Washington Post as we're recording this. Trump's economic advisors and congressional Republicans have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts next year. And as we know,

those tax cuts conferred about 83% of the benefits to millionaires and billionaires. In other words, Medicare and food stamps are on the chopping block as a way to fund tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. Can I have your response to this? And beyond that, is there any way that with majorities in both, or simple majorities in both the House and the Senate, that Republicans will have any success in being able to push through these programs? Well, public sentiment is everything, as Abraham Lincoln once said, with it, nothing can fail without it, nothing can succeed. And so at the end of the day, if they go down this aggressive path of trying to jam tax cuts

down the throats of the American people, consistent with what happened in 2017, related to the GOP tax scam, where, as you pointed out, Brian, 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1% in America to subsidize the lifestyles of the most wealthiest amongst us. That's unacceptable. And by the way, that's totally inconsistent with what was promised on the campaign trail, which is to deal with issues related to everyday Americans

who are struggling to live paycheck, paycheck. Now, as Republicans enter into the new Congress, they will have simple majorities in both the House and the Senate, and they're going to try to use a process called budget reconciliation to try to be able to get their tax cuts over the finish line. And we've got to make sure that the pressure is on Republicans who are in districts that are very competitive, who promised their constituents a very different set of priorities that they would work on and have to be held accountable if, in fact, they come to Congress and the first thing they do is try to enact tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires and wealthy corporations.

We will keep the pressure on those who promised their constituents something very different. In terms of their success at being able to put earn benefit programs, for example, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security on the chopping block, will the arbiter of whether those things are allowed to be in reconciliation be the parliamentarian? Is there any, do you have any indication of whether they'll be successful at actually putting those programs on the chopping block? Yeah, that's a great question. Ultimately, in terms of the Senate in particular, the Congress is at the whims of what the parliamentarian ultimately decides. can be put into a budget reconciliation package and what necessarily may fall out of it. When Democrats were working on build back better legislation and that ultimately became the Inflation Reduction Act, we wanted to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour so that it would

be a living wage in most parts of the country. But it was the Senate parliamentarian who ruled that we were incapable of doing that. that became the final word as a result of what could take place in the United States Senate. So that will continue to help shape part of what needs to happen here or what ultimately will happen. I think it's also important to point out that when Donald Trump was sworn in as president in 2017, he had a massive majority in the United States House of Representatives. There were 241 Republicans and only 194 Democrats. This time around, there will be a very different dynamic that he confronts.

The House is basically evenly divided. Republicans will be up by just a handful of seats. And at most, we'll have 221 members. And at minimum, we'll have 214 Democrats will be strong, will be unified. We'll be willing to find the common ground necessary, but we are not going to allow the far-right extremists to try to take this country in a different direction on the backs of working families, middle-class folks,

and those who aspire to be part of the middle class. I think we're all clear-eyed about the threats of the incoming Trump administration and the importance of continuing to cover what they do, continuing to confront what they do and deliver for the middle and working class, in this country. But I also think it is worth having something of, you know, a discussion about what the left can do better moving forward because, you know, obviously what happened in this

past election was a referendum, not just on Trump, but also on Democrats. And so what is the principal lesson that you think the left should take out of this election moving forward? Well, I think we all have to do a better job. Centrist, left of center Democrats, the left, collectively in making sure that the American people, everyday Americans, who we are fighting for and who we are committed to addressing the challenges that they faced first and foremost economically because the deck has been stacked against everyday Americans, not simply for years, but for decades. And we all have to do a better job of making it clear to working class people all across the country that we are fighting for you, that we hear you, that we see you, and that we

are committed to making life better for you. And we need to be able to deliver on those promises that we will continue to make in terms of improving their lives, particularly when we have the opportunity to govern in the majority, in the House, and then the Senate under the leadership of the next Democratic president when that presents itself in just about four years. But I think that what we have seen from the incoming president and people connected to him is an ability to channel the fears, the anxieties, the concerns that everyday Americans have, and to present themselves as the ones most committed. to changing their lives. The reality is as Democrats, we wake up each and every day trying to figure

out how we can make life better for working families, for the middle class, for those who aspire to be part of the middle class, for the poor, the sick, the afflicted, the least, the loss, the left behind for our children, for our seniors, for our veterans, for our dreamers. This is what we're focused on. But clearly there was a disconnect in terms of that being felt in a meaningful way by at least the majority of Americans who went in a different direction. Well, yeah. I mean, a lot of Democrats would listen to that. And people who've paid attention to politics these last few years and said, look, it was, you know, the Trump administration that used all of its political capital for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. That was

that 2017 tax cut that he's going to look to extend when he comes into office this year. Meanwhile, you've got Democrats who pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, the Pact Act, the Chips Act, the Gun Safety. package, the infrastructure package, added 16 million jobs, kept the unemployment rate to a 50 year low. So they have all of these things. They can point to ways that Democrats have proven that they are out there looking out for the vast majority of Americans. You know, $35 insulin, $35 inhalers, capping health care costs at $2,000 bucks, automatic refunds for airline cancellations, elimination of junk fees at banks. So the disparity between the two parties

was so great just in terms of what they were able to deliver. And so where does that disconnect come from then, in your opinion, that Trump, with so little to show for his populist schick, was still able to convince people, even despite what the Democrats have actually delivered, that he's going to be the one to look out for the middle and working class. It's a great question. And I think at least my perspective at this moment is that the reality of post-pandemic inflation, which hits everyday Americans in their pockets. incredibly hard, whether that's food prices, groceries, certainly gas prices, and the continuing problem as it relates to housing prices, whether that's rent or the cost of home

ownership, which for far too many people is out of reach, that those challenges became difficult to overcome in that the party out of power was able to weaponize the reality of post-pandemic inflation that everyday Americans were confronting. And when folks in the neighborhoods that I represent back home in Brooklyn or all across America, whether that's an urban America or the heartland of America, small town America, Appalachia, rural America, wherever that may be, when they think about the economy, they, of course, think about what am I paying for the price of eggs, the price of milk, the price of bread, for chicken, or beef? What am I paying when I'm trying to get to work or get to school or visit family

in terms of gasoline prices? And can I afford a safe and comfortable home? So we've got to get back to basics, I think, and lean into the things that everyday Americans have clearly said coming out of this election that they want us to deal with. Notwithstanding, as you've indicated, Brian, all of the progress that we've made, which should demonstrate that we actually are committed to making life better for the American people. And we've repeatedly done it. And that is the track record of the Democratic Party, going all the way back to FDR, from Social Security to rural electrification to Medicare and Medicaid,

head start, the minimum wage, civil rights, Act, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Affordable Care Act, and all of the things that were accomplished under President Joe Biden, all brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Democratic Party. Yeah. So clearly, we have a track record to point to, but the elections tend to be about the future, not the past, and I think collectively we have to do a better job of speaking to the anxieties of the American people as it relates to the future. that they would like to see, notwithstanding everything that we've actually been able to do

to help them get through the past. What do you think Trump's cabinet picks thus far? Tulsi Gabbard is DNI, Matt Gates, as Attorney General, Pete Heggseth as Secretary of Defense, RFK Jr. at Health and Human Services. What do you think they say about the way that Donald Trump will govern? And what is your thoughts in terms of the likelihood of some of the more extreme picks actually getting confirmed? First question that we all have to ask,

is this the best that the incoming administration can do? Is this the best that America can do? Is this the best that America has to offer RFK Jr? Or some of these other picks that have been anchored in conspiracy theories and not being anchored in factual reality, pushing back aggressively, things that should be as clear as day in spaces like the health and the well-being of the

American people or our national security or the justice system. Now, the incoming president promised that America would have the best economy, the best border security, and the best administration. This is not the best that we can do. And it suggests to me, perhaps out of the gate that they're not necessarily focused on the things that matter to the American people, on solving the problems that the American people indicated they want to solve, like the high cost of living. Because none of these picks have anything to do with making life better for everyday Americans in terms of their quality of life, not a single thing. And this suggests that there may be some overreach already beginning to take place. Whether they ultimately see the

light of day, I think in part is going to depend on, are Senate Republicans willing to step up and actually conduct themselves like they are part of a separate and co-equal branch of government? That's our responsibility. Checks and balances isn't simply some phrase from a bygone era. It was actually the foundation for how the Congress versus the executive branch were constructed. that in America, they didn't want a king. They didn't want a monarch. They didn't want an autocracy.

It's a democracy where there are checks and balances and where there's a capacity to make sure that no one overreaches. The Congress doesn't overreach. The House doesn't overreach. The Senate doesn't overreach. And certainly the president doesn't overreach. And so Senate Republicans, if they follow through on the skepticism that has been expressed

about many of these nominations, whether that's the Matt Gates nomination, the Tulsi nomination, the RFK nomination, then I think at the end of the day, many of them will likely be withdrawn or will fail on the Senate floor. If you had to guess what's going to happen between, you know, these people actually bringing forward, you know, this talk of concern, you know, the very, the Susan Collins-esque worry about things to come and reconcile that with the fact that at the end of the day, a lot of people will maybe express concern, but, you know, Trump says, jump, these people say how high. I mean, Troy Nels himself literally said those words, that that's what he and his party should be willing to do. Would you presume that they would be more likely to actually stand up to him

and preserve the power that's afforded to them by the Constitution, by our system of checks and balances? Or do you think that they will, again, contract their power out to him by either handing him recess appointments or giving him carte blanche to name even the most extreme members of his cabinet. My hope that they will not become wholly own subsidiaries of the Trump administration. That is not the role of either the House or the Senate. Now, I think we've got to evaluate this on a case-by-case basis. Some of these nominations may be a bridge too far for senators even beyond Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

I think those two senators are likely to be nose on several of these, you know, more extreme nominations. But can you find two other senators, which it appears that's what will be required to stand up and oppose some of these nominations? I think that's going to happen on a case-by-case basis. But I think what has to occur is that Democrats in the Senate, in the House, across the country, have to just be willing to speak truth to power in the context. of, you know, going too far. You know, the incoming administration should have the ability to

nominate people who the incoming president think are going to best serve the administration's goals and objectives coming out of this election. But at the same period of time, we have to have some norms, we have to have some values, we have to have some consistency in terms of the American journey, not people who are going into the federal government, to potentially blow up the federal government because the people who will be hurt when the federal government is blown up are the everyday Americans

that you are supposedly elected to serve. Right, perfectly put. Switching gears here, in 2023, after Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House, you delivered a speech offering the principles of the Democratic Party from A to Z. Here's a quick clip. House Democrats will always put American values

over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over extremism, working families over the well-connected, xenial over xenophobia, yes we can over you can't do it, and zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation. we will always do the right thing by the American people. So that speech has now become the subject of a new book that you wrote, The ABCs of Democracy. But before we get into that book, I got to ask,

was that from memory? Did you have a teleprompter? And if not, what was the process for learning the whole thing? Yeah, well, you know, we have no teleprompters in the House of Representatives outside of the one day when the president is able to, deliver the state of the union address. So that was a speech consistent with the speeches that I generally deliver, which is have an outline, note the direction that I want to go in and just go on the house floor and try to do my thing as best that I can. And I knew that in the context of

the torch being passed from Speaker Emerita, Nancy Delisandra Pelosi, an extraordinary speaker to a new generation of House Democratic leaders, myself included, that it was going to be important in the first speech that I was going to deliver holding this position to lay out the vision for how we were going to approach the Congress. And, you know, make it clear that, as always, we're willing to work together to solve problems for hardworking American taxpayers, deliver real results. That's why we are in Congress to get things done. But to also be very clear that there are values that have been an important part of the United States of America that we are going to defend and we're going to push back against any effort to undermine it.

Now, I had to make a decision when it first came to mind that perhaps I could use the lens of the alphabet to lay out what America's been about, what are the values that we're going to defend and the contrast that with things that the ugly, underbelly will try to bring to the forefront. And I just went with instinct after a few days of being on the House floor, as you remember, what was going on that first week were the Republicans couldn't get their act together. Right. So it took 15 different votes before we even got to a speaker. And before the speaker presents himself on the floor for the first time, it's the tradition that the minority leader speaks to the Congress.

And, you know, that Friday, I just made the decision that I was going to lay it all out. I was going to use the alphabet and have a teleprompter. I was concerned, Brian, that if I made a mistake and inverted some letters, you know, in some ways, you know, did, you know, F before D or N before M or. I skipped a letter that the right-wing media would have been all over it and said, New House Democratic leader doesn't even know the alphabet. It would have been a disaster out of the gate. Thankfully, I got through it.

Yeah. Well, you know, again, that served as the basis for this book. So what are you hoping to do with this book? Well, you know, it's an illustrated book, the ABCs of Democracy, for people of all ages. Certainly, I'm hopeful that for younger Americans and for those. who are struggling to deal with this moment, it will reset the fact that we've been on a journey for now 248 years, the greatest democracy that the world has ever seen. There have been moments of trial and tribulation of turbulence. This is certainly one of those moments that many of us,

millions of people across the country, are grappling with. But we are bigger than any one election or any one electoral moment. And what has allowed us to continue this march toward a more perfect union have been these American values and these principles that I think we need to continue to lean into. I talk about economic opportunity over extremism.

That's exactly what this moment calls for. Right. I talk about working families over the well-connected. Our view is that that's what we should be focused on in this new Congress, not massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected, notwithstanding all of the promises about standing up for the everyday American that were made on the campaign trail.

Now, I should note for viewers in Los Angeles, Leader Jeffries and I will be at the Ebell Theater in Los Angeles on Monday, December 2nd for a live conversation sponsored by Writers' Block, which is an amazing series that's organized discussions with Jen Saki, Katanji Brown-Jackson, Nancy Pelosi, Stacey Abrams, and now Hakeem Jeffreys, which I'm honored to be a part of. Tickets are still available. So if you're in L.A. and you want to join us live, click the link right here on the screen. If you're watching on YouTube and in the post description of this video,

if you're listening on podcast, it's in the show notes of this episode. And we'd very much like to see you there to join us in person. Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for taking the time for the work that you're going to be doing moving forward and also for appearing today and supporting independent progressive media here. Thank you so much.

Thank you for all that you do. And I look forward to seeing you in L.A. Sounds good. Thanks again. Now we've got Senator Amy Klobuchar. Thanks so much for joining me again today. Well, thank you, Brian. Great to see you again. Now, Matt Gates has withdrawn from consideration for Attorney General.

He's clearly unwilling to subject himself to the vetting process here. So what is the appetite in the Senate to see the ethics report released? And is anything being done to see to it that that happens? I think there's still an appetite because the public has a right to know. And we have had numerous cases where people have left in the Congress on the Senate and the House side. And then the ethics report is released. Otherwise, it's just hidden from public view and the subject of all kinds of, as you know, leaks and people and interviews. I do want to say one thing about this.

So there's a reason that we have the Constitution of the United States and that the Senate has a role of advice and consent and that we are not a country of a king or a dictator. It was this very system, the existence of review from the U.S. Senate, and this is really important with what's about to happen with some of these nominees, that actually got him to withdraw his name because of this fact that the Senate was pounding at the door. We were demanding the report, some Republicans, not just Democrats. And we were going to have to recreate the report sadly because of the views of some of, the House Republicans at tax raise expense, they wouldn't give us a report. So we're literally going to have to start interviewing people ourselves. It would have happened, and it still may happen

with the release. But this man should never have been nominated for the highest law enforcement job in the United States of America. And by the way, we may not be certain that his political career is over anyway. What if he wants to run for governor? What if he wants to run for the House again, even though he's resigned this time? The fact that he's not in Congress right now, not in front of us right now doesn't mean this information won't still be pertinent in the future, especially for someone who has effectively made himself a career politician thus far. Now, you had alluded to this just previously, but Gates supporters will say that, okay, the House lost this jurisdiction over him the moment that he resigned. Is there precedent for the Ethics Committee to release

findings of a report, even if a member is no longer in office? There he is. It happened with regard to a congressman once it happened with a u.s. senator in just the last few decades like it happens and there's numerous examples of that and why do they do it well they feel like they can't hide stuff from the public for the very reason that you mentioned uh they feel like it was the public uh that process that created this report it wasn't like a private investigator working for a company that looked into something. This is a public report done through publicly elected representatives. So of course it should be released. But I think for us right now, I just think it's really important at a point in time where we have a president-elect who's been just throwing

out names and putting out forward anyone that helped him on his campaign. And by the way, often loyalty is a standard for any precedent. I am not dissing that as a reason you might want to put someone in. It just has to be accompanied by two other things. Competency and the ability to do the job and also a sense of fulfilling the mission of that job and not undermining it. So those are the things I'm going to look at as we look at these future nominees. Can you take us behind the scenes a little bit. What was the sentiment among your Republican colleagues that this is what they were spending their political capital on in what should have been their honeymoon period, right? Not good. Not good. A lot of people behind the scenes, some of them are more out there.

You know, Senator Kramer of North Dakota, who is a conservative, said it was a long shot. That was the first day. Senator Murkowski of Alaska, who has a very strong independent streak, voice concerns. You had Senator Cornyn, a very well-respected member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking to see the ethics report. Then you had this series of interviews in the Strom Thurmond room in the U.S. Senate that was, where the Republican senators, I wasn't invited, so I didn't see it. But they were brought in by Vice President-elect Gates, Vice President-elect Vance to meet with Matt Gates. And then I did hear some of that, where it seems like it didn't exactly persuade people. As they were doing these meetings, at the very same time, all of these reports

were leaking out, and information was coming out, right blatantly, not even leaking from lawyers of the women involved in many of these incidences of sex for money or other things that had happened. So Marjorie Taylor Green had threatened her own party that she would release a raft of damaging information on them about taxpayer-funded payoffs and among other things if those people didn't get on board with Matt Gates. So obviously the Matt Gates thing fell by the wayside and yet she still left standing with these claims that all of a sudden there was again taxpayer-funded payoffs and there was a lot of like sexual misconduct going on. So is that to say that it's some poorly kept secret in Washington that House and Senate Republicans have been

engaging in this kind of behavior and that there's more to be uncovered? I don't know. Let's just face it, a lot of what she says does not meet the truth test. That's a very nice Minnesota way of saying it. So I think the bigger issue here is that the Republicans have a small margin in the House. They have a margin big enough to confirm nominees in the Senate. We know that. they are going to have to make their own decisions about this. This isn't to say, you know, Democrats are right now busy despite some of our members losing where they are night after night after night confirming judges and doing our jobs. And now they're going to have a job to do.

They're going to have to decide, are they just going to do everything Donald Trump wants and confirm the likes of Matt Gates, who eventually had to withdraw his name, despite some of them and many of them saying they supported him? Are they going to be able to do the job for the American people? Remember what this is really about. We can talk all this inside Washington is about getting things done to improve people's lives. It means bringing down the costs of prescription drugs and doing something when it comes to housing and child care. All these things that a number of them talked about in their campaigns.

And the way I look at this, even the nicest analysis of this is that they are being just distracted and pulled aside. by this clown car of things that are happening. And Donald Trump likes to run things with disruption, right? It's kind of catnip for people. And that's what he does. And he did it with Matt Gates. He's probably going to do it. We know he's doing it in the future with some of these nominees.

And my hope and our job is just to get things done. We're doing this right now while we still control the U.S. Senate. To the very last day, Senator Schumer and the rest of us are committed to get getting things done. That includes a budget at the end of the year, getting some of these pieces, legislation, bipartisan legislation passed. We're just going to keep doing our jobs. Next year, same thing. And we're going to have to pick our fights because I think some of these people, as you saw from Matt Gates, we made our views clear. We weren't shy. We weren't hiding. But in the end, they are going to have to decide whether or not they want to have people like

Matt Gates even be nominated. And or are they going to be going to. to spend their time running after that, spend the day after day meeting with Matt Gates, are they going to actually do the job and work with us on very clear things that need to happen in this country when it comes to economics? That's what the voters want. I know. I just want an election. I know where they are. And they don't want to spend their time swirling around trying to figure out whether or not an ethics report will be released. Let's put some competent people in these jobs. I'm curious what other nominees now seem especially imperiled since Gates is off the table. Like, I'm sure that was sucking up a lot of the oxygen, but who is particularly disturbing now

as far as cabinet nominees are concerns? Now that all of that attention doesn't have to be on Gates. Well, I think you know that Kennedy, who's been nominated for health and human services, I cannot tell you, just as the Attorney General's office was the leading law enforcement office with 100 15,000 employees. This job involves people's health. It involves their Medicare. It involves Medicaid. It involves whether or not their grandmas are going to be able to stay in nursing homes, whether or not they're going to be able to afford their insulin. We have a major bill we just passed that was my legislation on negotiating prices under Medicare. And we've had great progress with blockbuster drugs, the first 10 drugs alone are going to save 9 million people, 1.5 billion

and out-of-pocket costs in just one year. We better put someone highly competent in charge of that agency. The fact that he doesn't believe in vaccines, even pediatric vaccines, put aside COVID vaccines. We know they save lives. But look at for kids, I just, you know, I think this is going to be concerning. But it is all why we have advise and consent in the constitution. It's why the Senate has these hearings and he's been trying to avoid them by claiming, let's do appointments when no one is here. They're called recess appointments. That's a horrible idea. I think we have a number of Republicans standing up against that as well. But it'll be nominee by nominee by nominee. Some of them will not, like Gates, make it to the hearing because a few Republicans will

most likely stand up and say not on my watch. Some of them will have the hearings and then things come out and their support, their support wanes and it's done. And then some of them will get to the Senate floor and then we'll see where they are. I want to stress that I have always been someone who looks for the good. Maybe some of these people won't be my first choice, but I'm sure vote for some of them if I think that they meet my standards of are they qualified for the job and do they respect the mission? I may not agree with them on every single thing they have done or they will do. That's our job. And so we look at each nominee very carefully. Yeah. And by the way, even from the media perspective, I think it's important to choose our battles here and to figure out

which hills are worth dying on and some some just simply aren't. Look, if everything is a five alarm fire, then nothing is a five alarm fire. So I do think it's important. even to preserve the fact that our messaging can be effective moving forward, that we figure out where it's most important to focus our energy and our ire on. And it's really clear when we're going to have these tax reform discussions, and you're looking at some of these tax cuts for billionaires, and then you look at regular people, should be able to keep money that they earn

and should be able to afford child care and housing. That's going to be a major, major battle between the two parties. a 10% tariff across the board. What is that going to do? There are so many major fights that we're going to have that are going to affect people in their everyday lives. Obviously, these nominees do. And so, but I just want to make the point to those that follow you,

and you have many, that we need to pick the battles, yeah, but in the end, the Republicans are going to have responsibility for this. Yeah. Let's finish off with this. I want to talk about a rare glimmer of good news here and that is the judge confirmation process. So what is that looking like right now, especially given Trump's demands

that there be no other judges confirmed in this period? You know, he, believe it or not, can't control what's going on in the Senate because of the fact that the Democrats were on the Senate right now. And I cannot tell you the respect to have for my colleagues, people like Sherrod Brown and John Tester, who are, by the way,

some of my best friends, I sit in the back row. We've sat there together by choice. And of course, when you sit in the back row with Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, John Tester, and Chris Coons, we never talk about the other senators as we look down at them. However, those are my buddies. And it was a really tough election year. But to see them come back night after night, the people who didn't win their races, just to do the job of America, they could just be home. They could say, I lost.

I'm not going to be here in January. I'll come in. I'll work during the day. but I'm not staying till midnight, as we did the other night. I'm not staying until 2 in the morning. And believe it or not, it's some of the Republicans that haven't been showing up. And Donald Trump shamed his own future vice president, Jady Vance, as well as the number of other Republicans, for not showing up in a tweet.

So this is going to be interesting. It kind of looks like they already need couples counseling. But that is what's going on. And we have stood up for these judges, because if you want to talk about check. and balances, Brian, advice and consent, and that's a check and balance when it comes to nominees for cabinet positions. But another one is the judges, our judiciary. Even during the first Trump administration, it was judges, some of whom had been appointed by conservative Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan, some of whom had been appointed by Donald Trump himself,

who were actually a check on some of the really bad things that were going to. going on back then. So I just think the judiciary is really important, and that's why we're prioritizing that. We have confirmed now over 220 judges of high integrity, the vast majority of whom have bipartisan support in the Senate, and we're just going to continue on. We have over a dozen more to do. Well, we appreciate the work you're doing, and thank you for taking the time today. I appreciate that. Okay. Thanks. It was great to be on, Brian. Thank you. Thanks again to Love It, Leader Jeffries, and Senator Klobuchar. 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, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels,

or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more. Thank you.