No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump & Republicans swiftly abandon their OWN base

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

Trump and Republicans rapidly abandon their own base with an agenda that is engineered to lose them support. Brian interviews Pod Save America’s Tommy Vietor to discuss the immediate implications of Trump abandoning Ukraine and the broader implications of the US realigning to global world order; Texas state representative James Talarico about the rise of Christian nationalism and how we reverse the tide; and the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Brendan Boyle, about Republican’s budget proposal and what it’ll mean for working class Americans.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 Trump and Republicans rapidly abandoning their own base with an agenda that seems engineered to lose them support. And I have three interviews. I sit down with Potsave America's Tommy Vitor to discuss the immediate implications of Trump abandoning Ukraine and the broader implications of the U.S. realigning the global world order. I interview Texas State Representative James Telerico about the rise of Christian nationalism and how we reverse that tide. And I'm joined by the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Brendan Boyle,

to discuss the Republicans' budget proposal and what it will mean for working. class Americans. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So you've all seen the unhinged Oval Office fight this past week where Trump and J.D. Vance handed a gift to Vladimir Putin in the form of a shouting match with Ukrainian President Zelensky, ultimately culminating into Zelensky getting thrown out of the White House, peace talks called off, and a virtual assurance to Russia that American aid to Ukraine is no longer on the table. And the implications here are obviously massive. Not only could this end Ukraine's hopes of winning the war, which would obviously mean more death and destruction at the hands

of Putin's murderous regime. But without the United States, that may very well mean the end of NATO. NATO is responsible for the longest period of peace in modern world history. If the post-World War II alliance falters, we could enter into a new modern era of imperialism, where Russia seeks to rebuild the USSR, where China is emboldened to take over Taiwan, even where the United States tries to annex territory in Panama or Greenland or Mexico or Canada. And look, I know that sounds insane, but we should disabuse ourselves of the notion that something sounding insane somehow means that it won't happen. An insurrection sounded insane.

The U.S. siding with the world's autocrats and dictators sounded insane, and yet here we are. But the geopolitical and the humanitarian implications aside, I want to talk about the politics of this for a moment because despite Trump's insistence on barreling ahead with this move, the reality is that it is aggressively unpopular. Let's consider a poll that was done by a Republican firm called 1982 polling. This is a poll of Republican voters, a poll where among the respondents, 83% had a favorable opinion of Trump. So this isn't like some room full of MSNBC viewers, right? these are Republicans, more than 8 and 10 of whom like Donald Trump. In this poll, 69% said they agreed that Russia is the aggressor, 60% said they would support continued weapons assistance for Ukraine

under certain circumstances, and 71% said they're more likely to support aid for Ukraine when told Russia had kidnapped more than 19,000 Ukrainian children. And those are the Republicans. Obviously, the Democrats are much more sympathetic to Ukraine and hostile to Russia, meaning Trump has not only undermine the global world order to position the U.S. with autocrats and dictators like Putin and Xi and Erdogan and Kim Jong-un, but he's done so in stark opposition to even his own base, which raises the question, does it matter? I mean, Trump himself is a lame duck, at least until he tries to change the Constitution to run again. And so who cares if he does unpopular stuff? Well, I should remind you that Trump demands total fealty from his party,

Meaning it's not just him who's doing the unpopular stuff. He's forcing his party to get on board with the unpopular stuff, too. Meaning these people on the right who, to be clear, know full well what all of this means, they're left defending the indefensible. And the result of that is we get moments like this one. Here's Democratic Senator Mark Kelly questioning Trump's Deputy Secretary of Defense nominee, Stephen Feinberg. Mr. Feinberg, did Russia invade Ukraine? Well, going to my behind-closed-doors statement a second ago, I'll just say this.

They move tanks and troops and armored personnel carriers across the Ukrainian border. It's a pretty simple question. Yeah. Well, here's how, if I may I like to say. If you would ask the chairman of this committee, if Russia invaded Ukraine, I'm pretty sure the Republican chairman. I'm pretty sure I would know the answer. Like, we're at a point where no one in the GOP

is even allowed to acknowledge objective reality regarding the fact that Russia even just invaded Ukraine. This isn't partisan. It is a clear as day fact that on February 24th, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. I know because I interviewed President Biden the next day on February 25th, 2022. And while I was packing for that trip,

I was beyond certain. that the interview was going to get canceled because this was the first time that we'd seen a land war in Europe in like 70-something years. And somehow that interview didn't get canceled, which was great. But the fact that these Republicans can't bring themselves to acknowledge objective reality, no less real than saying 2 plus 2 is 4 is a testament to the fact that they are going to be saddled with the same baggage as Trump is, only unlike him, they are running for re-election. Meaning his insistence on total fealty from his conference means, that everybody gets to be covered with the same stink from his unpopular policies.

And I want to be clear, it's not just on the Ukraine-Russia issue. Trump has empowered Elon, for example, to run roughshod over the government and fire thousands of employees at the NIH and the EPA and USAID in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other agencies. He's empowered Elon to allow his band of rogue teenagers unfettered access to our most sensitive private data. He's empowered Elon to shut down or cripple. entire agencies, like, this stuff is not popular. By a two to one ratio, Americans disapprove

of Elon's actions. A CNN poll found that 54% of Americans said that giving Elon Musk a prominent role in the administration was a bad thing, while only 28% said it was good thing. And according to Pew, only 11% of Americans have a very favorable view of Musk. But regardless, the Republicans are forced to defend it and defend him and defend what he's doing, because if Trump and Elon are going down, obviously the entire party is forced to go down with them. And so even though, again, Trump is a lame duck and no one else in the conference is, that doesn't matter as far as Trump's concerned. An anchor around his neck is an anchor around all of their necks. Even this budget resolution that was just passed, it'll mean that Medicaid gets cut, it'll mean that food stamps

gets cut, it'll mean the deficit explodes and adds trillions to the debt, also that millionaires and billionaires can get a tax cut. 71% of Trump voters oppose cuts to Medicaid. that is 71% of Trump's own voters. Protecting earned benefits and especially protecting health care is one of the most popular political positions. Trump is against it, which means that Republicans, of course, all had to throw their weight behind this thing, too. And every single one of them in the House, except for Thomas Massey, put their name on this thing. And now they have to go back to their districts and get utterly destroyed by their constituents, even in heavily, heavily Republican areas in town hall after town hall.

But you know the rule. Trump, the lame duck, issues his clarion call and his very much not lame duck colleagues have to throw their weight behind this stuff because they've contracted their power out to him and that's how it goes. So look, we obviously have a long road ahead. We're just over a month into this administration.

But Republicans are right now doing Democrats' work for them. They are lining up behind the least popular policies you could possibly imagine. And far from Trump trying to set his own party up for success in the future, he is instead dragging them down into the depths of the ocean by forcing them on board for policies that Americans despise. They clearly feel unaccountable to anyone right now, but Americans are paying attention.

And it's not just Democrats. Republican voters, too, are recognizing the dangers of this extreme of a Republican party. Our job, then, is to make sure that those voters are reminded of it as much as humanly possible. Next up are my interviews with Tommy Vitor, James Tallerico, and Brendan Boyle. No Lie is brought to you by Aura Frames. So gifts are tough for me. I'm not a great gift giver, but I very quickly come to realize that gifts that mean something

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you to show to show. Terms and conditions apply. I'm joined now by the co-host of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World. Tommy, thanks for joining me. Brian, what a day. Good to see you, buddy. Jay. You too. Okay, so we've obviously just witnessed a complete disaster in the Oval Office between Trump, J.D. Vance, and Zelensky, which culminated into Zelensky effectively being thrown out of the White House. And of course, peace talks are, you know, out the window at this point. So for the immediate future right now, as far as Ukraine is concerned and its effort to cast aside this Russian onslaught, what does this mean for Ukraine? Yeah, I mean, Vladimir Putin's having a good day. Ben Rhodes and I just recorded an episode for YouTube, for the POTSafe the World YouTube, and we were debating whether this was the worst meeting we've ever seen or heard of in, like, American history. I mean, there's probably been some awful conversations that happened in the Oval Office behind closed doors, but I can never remember the President of the United States and a foreign leader going at it like this in front of the cameras.

It was just a disaster for Zelensky and a disaster for the people of Ukraine. So the U.S. and Ukraine were supposed to sign some sort of agreement today about working together to get rare earth minerals out of Ukraine. That's obviously off the table. But the bigger picture goal for Zelensky in this visit was to get some sort of reassurance from the United States that we have their back still. And it's hard to watch Trump's behavior in that meeting, his mocking of Zelensky when he talked about not wanting a ceasefire with Putin because Putin was going to break it. the screaming from J.D. Vance. I mean, Zelensky must walk out of that, out of the Oval today, feeling like he's just lost his most important ally,

and I'm not sure he knows how to get them back. Was there any world in which this didn't end this way? And I asked that because it feels like this is what they had intended on doing regardless. I mean, it's not like this just devolves into this just because that's how events unfold. I mean, this was clearly, at least in my opinion, premeditated. things can't devolve that quickly unless you had intended on them devolving that quickly.

Yeah, I mean, I had the same impression you did, Brian. I think that Trump and J.D. Vance wanted to put on a show for the cameras and for a domestic political audience. J.D. Vance kind of gave up the game. I don't know if you noticed when he started complaining about Zelensky going to Pennsylvania in October and he accused him of making a partisan campaign stop for the opposition. So it's pretty clear that was what,

80 Vance was mad about. I will say, I do think Zelensky is in an impossible situation. This man has been through hell. He is exhausted. He is fried. He is trying to save his country. But I do think he made a strategic error getting in that back and forth with J.D. Vance, challenging Vance and spinning up Trump like that. We know how Donald Trump is. He's a bully. He demands that you bow down before him and kiss the ring. And Zelensky just wasn't in the mood to do it. Tommy, are we in a world where even your usual republic, insofar as we even have moderate Republicans anymore, but where now already we've seen these Republicans that have that

tweeted earlier today, including Roger Wicker, delete tweets that cast Zelensky in a good light? Are we in a world where not just the elected officials are going to completely abandon any any adherence to like democracy, but also the Republican base. I'm curious what you think about both of those factions, both elected officials, even those who maybe, you know, as early as this morning, as late as this morning might have been pro-democracy, pro-Ukraine are now going to just kowt to Trump because he sent the clarion call out and what you think about the base more broadly.

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, it's been a slow but steady evolution towards just completely politicizing this whole issue. I mean, in the early days of this war, it was crystal clear to everyone that Russia was the ingressor, that they invaded a sovereign nation, that they tried to take out Zelensky a whole number of times. They tried to roll tanks into Kiev. Like, this was black and white. There was an aggressor and someone who was invader. Like, it was crystal clear. Over time, this issue has become partisan.

And I'm not sure exactly why. I mean, there's sort of the weirdness of the Trump called a Zelensky leading to an impeachment inquiry. Clearly, that's something Trump is still pissed off about. Then there's the fact that, you know, the war in Ukraine happened on, or the full-scale invasion, happened on Joe Biden's watch. And Joe Biden made it really a feature of his messaging. And, you know, he believes it to be one of his biggest accomplishments. And, of course, Donald Trump is going to attack that. But you're right. I mean, now this is just completely politicized.

People like Marco Rubio, who are big supporters of Ukraine, are now sitting on that couch, you know, shrinking into his seat, looking like his soul has left his body as he watches J.D. Vance shout down this democratically elected leader who just a couple days ago, Donald Trump, called the dictator. And not only that, then had the audacity to come out and tweet, thank you, POTUS, for standing up for America in a way that no president ever has had the courage to do before. Thank you for putting America first. America is with you. I mean, like, talk about, talk about a lack of spine. Tommy, what does Trump get out of this? Like, what does the U.S. get out of this? And the only thing that I can think of offhand is that, look, this guy wants to, A, there is the political aspect of this in the sense that Joe Biden supported Ukraine. And so inherently within that, Donald Trump has to be hostile to Ukraine. I mean, clearly Trump wants to be part of the autocrat club. And, and, and. Putin's in the autocrite club. And so we've just kind of relinquished our defense of democracies around the world. But is that really what he gets out of this? What's the, what does he,

how does he stand to benefit from this? I don't know. I mean, look, there is a very sort of dark fact that I think we all just have to face up to, which is that our president looks at Vladimir Putin, looks at Xi Jinping, and thinks, I like those guys. I like their systems. I share their values. I have more in common with them than I do with a lot of leaders in Europe. or democratically elected Europe. And that is just a very weird, scary thing. And I think, you know, the part of this is a campaign pledge. I do think that Donald Trump energized a lot of people who were fed up with the post-9-11 wars,

the invasion of Iraq, the fact that we were, you know, misled and lied into war, and ran on this kind of isolationist America first, promised to end the war between Ukraine and Russia on one day. he had this Hail Mary attempt at the end to try to get some money out of the deal and extort some rare earth minerals from the Ukrainians. But to your bigger question, I mean, what does he get out of this? It is hard to see. But, you know, all the places my mind goes are pretty dark. Well, there is also the fact that we have seen that Russia is clearly willing and able to

interfere in elections on our behalf, whether they're doing it on social media or if there are other more nefarious avenues that they can do that. And so maybe this is just Trump giving his end to the quid pro quo. Like he knows what he got from Vladimir Putin. And now and now he's giving Putin back what he needs, which is, which is for the U.S. to stop funding Ukraine, which is for the U.S. to stop backing the prospect of Ukraine's access into NATO. And so this is this is really just kind of a handshake agreement between Putin and Trump, where Trump knows that insofar as Putin can still be. helpful to him or Republicans moving forward, whether it's, you know, with these social media campaigns, with these bot farms, with whatever interference efforts they can conjure up, he'll keep

doing that. And in exchange for that, you know, Trump will give him what he wants on the international stage. Yeah. Look, it really is hard for me not to let my mind go back to sort of 2017, kind of Mueller probe era where you just wonder. I know. And I say that, I say that going full well, like the resistance Twitter like aura that we bring but but alas it is just it is hard to understand but what people need to understand is big picture the united states was the architect of all these institutions that were set up after world war two to try to keep the peace things like the united nations and nato uh that have been incredibly successful and if allied us with you know allies in europe democratically elected allies and now trump is just definitively turning away from

them. And it started a bit in his first term, but I think there were people around Trump, like General Jim Mattis and other people on his national security team that would offer reassurances to the Europeans into parts of NATO and say, look, of course we're going to support you if there's a war. Of course we still believe in Article 5. And now in the second Trump term, you know, if you have Trump sending J.D. Vance over to Munich to the Munich Security Summit to lecture them, to condescend to them, to boost the far-right, you know, Some would say neo-Nazi party in Germany. So it is just a very new political landscape and a very scary one.

This is a big question here. But 30,000-foot view, what does this mean more broadly for like the global world order? I mean, really what we're seeing right now is a disintegration of or dismantling of the post-World War II order that's led to the longest period of prosperity, I think, in world history. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Kier-Starmur, the British Prime Minister, was in the Oval Office earlier this week. In the conversation he had with Trump and their pool spray, Trump once again seemed to back away or show sort of half-hearted support for Article 5, which is the part of the NATO Charter that says an attack upon one is an attack upon all. And without Article 5, NATO is nothing. It's just sort of like a loose alliance. And I think what you're starting to see like big picture is leaders in Europe like Friedrich Mertz, who is just recent, who will almost certainly be the next chancellor of Germany saying, we need to plan a future without the United States.

United States. We need to come together and build our own something, whatever that might be. And that is just, you know, a dramatic change, not just of a few years of foreign policy from Joe Biden, but like 75 years of U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War. And what does that mean for NATO? Is NATO able to exist if the U.S. isn't really a member in good standing of the organization? Like the whole point of NATO is to, I guess, is to be there to preserve this post-World War II organization. Without the U.S., is it going to still be effective at preventing expansion from Russia? I mean, if the U.S. fully pulls out of NATO, absolutely not. NATO is incredibly reliant on the U.S., on U.S. military hardware, on infrastructure,

on sort of like enabling functions, on missile defense systems. We spend more than any other country on defense. Trump is not wrong when he criticize his countries in Europe for, failing to meet their targets that they're supposed to hit in terms of the percentage of GDP they're supposed to invest in their own defenses. And so what might happen as a result of this is those countries start spending way, way, way more on their own domestic defense industries. And you know, it doesn't take a historian to know that like a re-militarized Germany is not necessarily a good thing for the world. But yeah, I mean, it seems like they're just going to plot a course without us.

Okay. So if we're in a situation where NATO is no longer a bulwark against Russian expansionism or Chinese expansionism, isn't that more likely to incentivize those countries to try and get back to this imperialist posture? Wouldn't that be more likely to bring about the prospect of World War III as opposed to what Trump is saying that Zelensky is somehow ushering in World War III? Isn't what Trump is doing right now the exact thing that he's claiming to want to fight against? A lot of people think so. I mean, look, the point of NATO was to serve as a deterrent to say to the Russians, if you invade a NATO country, you will face a response from every single part of NATO. And it will be overwhelming and you cannot possibly defeat it. But if all these little countries that were part of the Soviet empire are suddenly on their own, you can imagine a scenario where, you know, Trump is, I'm sorry, you can imagine. imagine a scenario where Putin is making incursions into the Baltic states or taking a look at Poland or going back into Ukraine to take more territory there. So yeah, I think a weakened NATO is very

scary for eastern Ukraine in particular. But that's the World War III that we should actually be concerned about, not the prospect of Ukraine defending its territory. Like if Russia's, I mean, I knew Adam Kinsinger came forward and said this, but But if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine, the war would be over. Right. That's it. It's as simple as that. And so the notion that Ukraine is doing anything hostile by virtue of just defending

its own territory or worse, that they're ushering in World War III is completely backwards. It's absurd. And this is what's so frustrating about this. I mean, Donald Trump never talks about the reality, which is that Russia is the aggressor, that Russia is attacking Ukrainian troops on Ukrainian territory as we speak. and has been for three years now. I think, you know, sort of the prospect of World War III that Trump would constantly conjure up was more, I think, the potential of a direct U.S.-Russia confrontation

or Russian use of a nuclear weapon. And I think those are real things to worry about. But I think most kind of military experts would say that looking weak in the face of that kind of aggression from Russia is more likely to incentivize Putin to do more and to do worse than, and unity and strength from NATO countries, especially the United States. Even with all this stuff going on, everybody kind of gets the, you know, we adapt to the situation we're in. The Overton window shifts as bad as it is, but we adapt to this kind of stuff. It does, to a degree, become normalized. I have had more people text me and say that they're just embarrassed to be an American today after what we saw than ever before, even with all the

normalization that happens in politics. So really just a horrendous event that we just saw right now. For anybody watching right now, please, I would highly recommend that you check out Pod Save the World to get a more in-depth look at what's happening for not just what we saw today between Trump, J.D. Vance, and Zelensky, but just any international affairs more broadly. So I'll put the link to Pod Save the World right here on the screen. Tommy, thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks, buddy. Great talking to you. No Lie is brought to you by Armour Colostrum. Before I worked in politics, I was actually a certified personal trainer and a big part of my life still, to this day, is taking care of my health,

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Representative James Talarico, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. So you're one of the few Democrats who's been able to lead with Christianity in a way that I think most Democrats, maybe except for like Raphael Warnock, aren't able to do. And I want to talk about that in the context of what national Republicans are trying to do right now. Obviously, House Republicans just advanced a budget blueprint that would seek to cut Medicaid and food stamps. And of course, these are programs that benefit the disabled and the sick and the elderly and children. And so in light of the fact that, you know, again, you're one of the few people who really is able to discuss this from the perspective of Christianity. Can you speak on the hypocrisy

of today's GOP where they will use Christianity as a shield, more broadly speaking? But then on the specific issues where they can really kind of put their money where their mouth is and back up their words with actions, they're perfectly content to do things that really stand and start contrast to the very religion that they hide behind? Yeah, there are so many self-proclaimed Christians serving in Congress. They're supposed to be feeding the hungry, but they're cutting food stamps. They're supposed to be healing the sick, but they're eliminating Medicaid. They're supposed to be serving the poor, but they're cutting taxes for billionaires.

It's because they're not following Jesus. They're worshiping Donald Trump. So this is not just a political problem. This is a theological problem. This is a problem in the church, the church that I'm a part of, the church that I love. And so that's why I try to spend as much time in churches as I spend in town halls or in settings like this, because we have to go to the root of the problem. And that is the heresy of Christian nationalism that is taking over my religion. And so how do you extricate Christian nationalism from Christian? And I know this is. is like not a problem we're going to figure out in this podcast here. It's obviously a much broader problem. But what do you see as the solution, even if it's a long-term solution? Because I guess the encroachment of Christian nationalism has been there for a long time. It's obviously really pervasive and it doesn't seem like it's retreating anytime soon. Yeah, this is something I

think a lot about and spend a lot of my time working on. You know, first I think we should take a look in the mirror. And by we, I mean, you and I and the people on this, on this show, your listeners, we have ceded religion, we've ceded faith, we've ceded spirituality to the right wing. That started in the late 70s after Jimmy Carter was defeated into Ronald Reagan's presidency. And there was this marriage, this unholy alliance of the far right and Christian nationalists. We didn't necessarily have that term back then, but that's exactly what they were. We called it the religious right. But it is essentially people in power using religion to accumulate wealth and power for themselves. It's really nothing new. We've seen it throughout history,

but in its current form, it really started in the late 70s. And that's partially on us as progressives because we allowed that to happen. We ceded the field to our opponents and it's had disastrous consequences. I bet there are a lot of listeners to your show that love Jesus, that believe in the teachings of Jesus, and yet they have walked away from the church. They've walked away from religion. And they have allowed the other side to have a monopoly on faith. And so we've got to stop doing that.

We have to start reclaiming this. So if you have viewers and listeners who consider themselves faithful, whether they're Christian or whether they belong to another tradition, and maybe they haven't been as active, I would encourage them to start showing up at your local church, start to reclaim these institutions and start redirecting them toward their original goal, which was loving our neighbors. And that's something that we can all support. And so that would be my first step is for us to start fighting back because nothing is going to change until we do that. As you've been making your case, and I know that you have been making this case really effectively, and you're again, one of the only people who can speak on this with some authority because part of having, it does feel like even Democrats have seated this ground largely to the right, even if I believe from an outsider's perspective that they largely have no basis to really claim Christianity.

given what they're trying to do more broadly. But in your efforts to kind of, to kind of, you know, make headway here, what have you found is the most effective approach? I mean, I know calling out a lot of the hypocrisy, I feel like oftentimes we're in a post-hypocracy world and that even being able to say, like, hiding behind the shield of Christianity while at the same time trying to strip health care away from the sick

and food away from the hungry, in a normal world, that would be enough. to really like break through in terms of what we're trying to do, but we're not really in a normal world anymore. So I guess given the post-hypocrical post-shame world that we live in, that kind of presents another obstacle. And so have you thought about how to overcome that in politics in 2025 where the same factors that would seem to matter five, 10, 15 years ago don't really exist today? Well, you know, I think starting to speak about this is the first step because we've been so silent for so long.

And some of the members of our coalition on the progressive side have been hesitant, have been afraid to use religious language or moral language in general to advocate and argue for our positions. That has to stop. And it can't just be me and Raphael Warnock. We've got to have a lot more people doing that. And this doesn't, you know, I'm sure you've got folks watching. who are not religious. This doesn't have to be limited to people who are formally religious.

Most of us are spiritual in some way, especially those of us who are doing political work. We do this for moral reasons. We need to use that moral vocabulary to connect with people, right? I mean, Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States. And so this gives us an opportunity to connect with people who aren't in our coalition and bring them over to our side because we are using their same language. That is a way to connect with people who aren't already with us. So we've got to start doing this. And it's got to be more than just a few people in the Democratic Party.

We've all got to start reaching for that moral language and that religious language to be able to connect with people. Because I'll tell you, Brian, there are a lot of Americans, there are a lot of Texans who think that the Democratic Party is hostile to religion. And so we've got to get around that. We've got to dispel that myth and we've got to start actively reaching out to people of faith and let them know that they have a place in our coalition, that they are welcome in our coalition because there are people of faith, there are Christians, there are evangelicals who are seeing

what Trump's doing and they feel uncomfortable, but they don't feel that they have a place in our coalition. And that's got to change if we're going to turn this thing around. Have you been successful in persuading folks? I mean, again, I know I've repeated this a number of times, but you are one of the only people who is able to actually make a persuasive argument on this front. And so in doing so, in your work, have you been persuasive at kind of giving folks a permission structure to recognize that their only option isn't a Republican Party that, yes, espouses Christianity, but really abuses it? That's right. You know, I think the results in my elections speak for themselves. You know, I flipped a Trump district when I got

elected to the Texas legislature. It was a district that voted for Donald Trump in 2016. I won it in 2018 and I held on to that district. After redistricting, things got a little messed up around here. But, you know, I was able to build a coalition that wasn't just Democrats and included independence and it included some Republicans. And I did that by using this moral language to build a connection with people. Politics is about addition and not subtraction. and Democrats and progressives in general have forgotten the art of persuasion. We've convinced ourselves that everyone agrees with us. We just got to turn them out to vote.

I hear this in my state all the time. There's this line that Texas is not a red state. It's a non-voting state. And that may feel comforting, but it is a dangerous way to think as a political party because it gives us an excuse not to persuade people, not to make the argument and win the argument. This is something that the right wing has been doing successfully since Donald Trump first got elected. They are making the argument constantly in the public square, and they're winning the argument oftentimes. I believe that we have right on our side.

I believe that the American people's moral intuitions are aligned with our positions, but we can't take that for granted like we've been doing in the Trump era. We have got to aggressively and clearly and confidently make the argument, win the debate, and be able to bring people over to our side because if we just keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep losing and we can't afford to lose anymore. Well, winning the debate is actually a great segue into the next topic that I want to cover, and that is this feud that's kind of erupted between you and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, where you have been pushing back against a billionaire class in Texas that's looking to take, basically dismantle public education in the state so they can put it toward

this private school voucher program. Greg Abbott tweeted back at you while you went after you posted onto Twitter and made your case. And he said, the only minority destroying America are the Democrats. They are smaller a number, but still destructive. Their policies and candidates were crushed in the last election. The more they double down on ideas hostile to voters, the more Republicans will win. Thanks in advance. And so you wrote back, Governor keep tweeting me. I already offered to debate vouchers in person on your terms. You're trying to make this partisan, but you know Republicans and Democrats both oppose your voucher scam. If you truly think this is right for Texas, put down your phone and debate. Do you anticipate that you're going to get

any response from Greg Abbott other than just him hiding behind a computer screen and doing the whole keyboard warrior stick? Well, I'm anxiously awaiting a phone call from the governor. You're going to want to keep your phone line clear. for a while now. Yeah, you know, I don't like getting in Twitter feuds with people. We leave that to the, to folks who are online, but I think elected officials need to be a little curious. I'll take care of that part. Exactly. Exactly. You know, I think these platforms are a helpful way to get our message out to people and to communicate with our constituents. But if elected officials who are not just observers, but are actively making policy, if we can't defend those

policy positions in public, in a debate setting, then maybe we shouldn't be passing those policies into law. And so, you know, I've made this offer to the governor. It's a serious offer. I've told him that he can pick the time, the place, the format, the moderator. He can stack the room with all his supporters, whatever he wants to do to make him comfortable. I'm all willing. I just, I feel strongly about my position in this debate. And I think it's the right one. This may sound like it's only limited to Texas, but it's actually happening in states across the country. And Donald Trump just made private school vouchers one of his top educational priorities for the country. So everyone needs to wake up to what's happening here in Texas. Essentially, they are trying to

defund and privatize public schools and give that money to wealthy people who are already sending their kids to private school. That's why I call them a scam because it sounds good when you hear slogans like school choice and educational savings accounts. Those all sound positive. But once you read the fine print, once you read the terms and conditions, you realize it's a rip-off. It's a scam.

And if it passes in Texas, if it passes across the country, it'll be a historic transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. And so I as a Christian can't support this. I as a former educator, am going to do everything I can to stop this from passing in the next few months. And I hope the rest of the country wakes up to this attack on our public schools and stands up to these billionaires who are trying to hurt our communities all over the nation. Oftentimes, we're in a position where we have the opportunity to fix something, like is the

case right now. But we don't take those opportunities because it's not exactly clear what the natural conclusion of all of this stuff is going to be. What would the natural conclusion of this Texas private school voucher program look like 10, 20, 30 years down the line if Greg Abbott and Republicans are successful at doing the thing that they're trying to do right now? We don't even have to consider a hypothetical. We can look at Arizona. They passed a voucher scam just a few years ago, not even a decade ago, and it is already bankrupting their public education budget. You know, I had so many folks reaching out from from Arizona, from Florida, from Indiana, who have already

tried these voucher scans, and it's already destroying their public education system. You know, the forces behind these voucher scams, the big billionaires like Betsy DeVos, like Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes, the billionaire pastors here in Texas, their ultimate goal is to dismantle public education and replace it with private religious schooling for every child in America. They're trying to build a theocracy. Until we are clear-eyed about that, we're not going to summon the energy and the courage to fight back against this effort to destroy public education. This is serious. And a lot of people, you know, there's a public school in every neighborhood. A lot of us, like me, grew up in public schools. And so we take it for

granted. But we've seen just over the last few years that rights that we took for granted can disappear. And the same is true of public education. It is a, this idea that every child, regardless of their skin color, regardless of their zip code, is entitled to a free quality public education. That is a revolutionary idea in human history. And it's not that old. It's only about a hundred years old. And it is a very fragile idea. And it can disappear if we don't fight for it. And so I hope that people wake up to what's happening nationally. Elon Musk is going after the Department of Education and wake up to what's happening in the states, including in the second largest state in the country here in Texas.

And finally, let's finish off with this. And I want to build off of what you're talking about right now. But taking education for granted is obviously a theme right now. But it's the broader theme. That's a microcosm of a broader theme of really taking so much for granted in this country that we may stand to lose in the next few months or years. And that includes a health care system that's functioning now at the health. hands of an anti-vaxxer, of democracy more broadly, which, of course, we've taken for granted

for hundreds of years now to the point where we have a Republican Party that's more deferential to an abutting autocrat than, you know, the Constitution that bounds him. And so what is, what is your reaction to watching a lot of what we have come to expect in this country really fraying at the fringes here in this moment where Republicans, have full control and they're exercising it in a way that we haven't seen before? It's a wake-up call. And the ball is now in our court. You know, we can complain about Donald Trump all we want. We can complain about his administration all we want. But this is on us. We have to fight back if we're going to save this country, if we're going to save states like Texas.

And that is entirely within our control. There is a, I think, a feeling of hopelessness among progresses across the country. And I want to be honest, I'm tempted by hopelessness too. I don't think you can turn on the TV or open your newspaper or scroll social media without starting to feel that hopelessness. But we have to resist it with everything we have. We started this conversation talking about faith. In my faith tradition, Jesus says, blessed are those who weep, which is a strange thing to say, right? Why would someone who weeps be blessed? But I think he's trying to say that sometimes you can see the world most clearly through your tears, meaning that it's a, it's something that awakens a reality that we weren't in touch with before. So I know people are feeling depressed. I know people are

feeling down. They're starting to feel hopeless. But that is a sign that your heart still works, that you still are a human being. And that's not nothing. That is something to build off of. And so I want people to embrace this time in the political wilderness because you can learn a lot out in the wilderness. And that's when new ideas and new leaders and new movements come forward. And so I guess my message to you and to your viewers is we've got to get in the game. And if we're going to save this country, it's got to start with us. And so the time for licking our wounds is over. And it's time to get in the fight.

James, as always, beautifully put, you know, I mean, like, left speechless, basically. So I appreciate the words of optimism and the inspiration. I know the audience does too. And I appreciate you taking the time today. Thank you, Brian. Now you've got the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Brendan Boyle. Thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, great to be back with you.

So we are obviously in the immediate aftermath of Republicans voting to advance their budget blueprint that would seek to ultimately cut Medicaid, cut food stamps. And the way that they're that they're framing this right now in order to give themselves plausible deniability is that, in fact, they're not seeking to cut any of these programs because the budget itself just seems, just seeks to cut committee budgets. So can you explain the bait and switch that they're pulling right here? Republicans are making an unbelievably dishonest and disingenuous argument. Steve Scalise, for example, and others were making it just yesterday. They were saying, look through the document. You won't even find the word Medicaid. Democrats are lying.

It is total BS, and here's why. In their document, some 58 pages, people can easily go online and read it, it has directions to each committee of jurisdiction, again, either to increase spending or, for most of them, decrease spending. The direction to the Energy and Commerce Committee is cut spending by $880 billion. Now, what does energy and commerce have control over? Medicaid. Medicaid.

And it has control over a few other things, but here's the thing. If you really didn't want to cut Medicaid and you instead wanted to cut 100% of everything else energy and commerce as jurisdiction over, guess what? That doesn't come anywhere close to $880 billion. In fact, it only gets you about halfway there. So even if, and they're not going to do this, but even if they eliminated, everything that energy and commerce has control over except for Medicaid, by definition, they would have to still cut Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars. So make no mistake about it. They are cutting Medicaid. And remember, the $880 billion figure that's in their budget resolution, it says a minimum of $880 billion.

That's a floor, not a ceiling. So it could go well north of a trillion dollars. But even if it doesn't, make no mistake about it, these are the biggest cuts to Medicaid in American history. In other words, it is a mathematical impossibility to be able to cut this funding to these committees if they are not seeking to fund Medicaid. It is a mathematical impossibility if you're looking to cut $230 billion from Ag, from Agriculture Committee, if you're not looking to cut food stamps, for example. But they, again, they gave themselves this plausible deniability because now these members can come out, like Nicole Malia Takas came out today and posted all.

It doesn't say anything about Medicaid and the bill. Well, of course it doesn't say anything about the Medicaid and the bill. It says something about the Energy and Commerce Committee being cut, and the only thing that they're able to cut to reach those numbers are Medicaid. Yeah. More broadly, though. It shows you just how unbelievably disingenuous their argument is. The good news, though, is the very next step in the process.

They actually do have to add in the programs that they will be cutting. So while I think, you know, any reasonable person who looks at this realizes the sleight of hand they're attempting to pull, the reality is that argument for them will really only last a couple weeks because in the next step in the process, they actually do have to add the word Medicaid. Right. All of this happens amid these promises of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse so that we can restore some sense of fiscal responsibility into our government and finally balance the budget. And yet that's not what this budget even seeks to do. So even despite the fact that we're cutting these things on the pretense of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, still will be in a deficit in the aftermath of all of this because all of this still doesn't come close to offsetting what Republicans are looking to do in terms of making the tax cut.

from 2017 permanent? That's right. Republicans have a math problem. What they want to do is extend and even make permanent, but at least extend for eight or nine years the 2017 original Trump tax cuts. That costs about $4.5 trillion. They also want to spend more on the border and on defense. So that actually makes the total price tag of their bill north of $5 trillion.

just a behemoth of a bill. So you take the 880 billion that has to come from Medicaid, you take the cuts to school lunches, you take the cuts to Head Start, you take the cuts to student loan programs, Pallow Grants, and some other things. All told, that adds up to $1.5 trillion. But remember, the total price tag is $5 trillion. So what do they do for the missing $3.5 trillion? They increase the debt.

Right. The same crowd that anytime there's a Democrat in the White House says we can't possibly spend any more because, oh my goodness, I care so deeply about the national debt. It exposes again what frauds they are because here they are in their very first bill and they're increasing the national debt by trillions of dollars. And so what do you say to members like Victoria Sparts, for example, who had come forward prior to this vote, and made clear, she posted on Twitter even, making clear how much this would explode the deficit and therefore heap money onto an already untenable national debt, who would

then just go ahead and vote for the thing anyway. I mean, the only member of the House who defected from the Republican Party is Thomas Massey. But how do you explain all of these other Republicans who've stood up so many times explaining what's going to happen if we don't rein in our debt, get our debt under control, who now, went ahead and voted for a budget blueprint that would explode the debt to levels that we have never seen before in this country's history. Yeah, it's very simple. They folded. They have spines of jelly. And when they were confronted with the pressure from Donald Trump, as well as Republican leadership, one by one, they folded. And by the way, while we're on this topic, can we please

in the media retire the term Republican moderate? There are no moderates in the House Republicans. conference. They have never held out for anything. They have always just fallen directly in line with whatever Republican leadership or whatever a Trump White House wants of them. Every single one of the so-called moderates voted for the biggest cuts to Medicaid in American history and to add trillions of dollars more to our national debt. And so what does this mean in practical terms for folks who are watching right now, and maybe one of the 85 million Americans who rely on Medicaid, maybe one of the more than 40 million Americans who rely on food stamps. There are a number of programs that are now on the chopping block.

What do you say to those folks who are in a limbo right now as they watch the Republican Party barrel ahead with the prospect of cutting these programs very much on the table? Yeah, you know, I wish I had better news for them. I mean, roughly one in three Americans rely on Medicaid, for example. There's another 20 million more who are on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, who also would be looking at taking deep cuts. It would be appropriate that they would be deeply concerned, even alarmed right now. Because the idea that what Republicans are selling,

I mean, first, they're attempting to pretend like there won't be any Medicaid cuts at all, and we've shown the math why that's completely false. But then I think, and you, if anyone watch the hours and hours of debate on C-SPAN yesterday on the House floor, and I was proud to lead the Democratic side in opposition to this budget resolution. But during that debate, a couple of House Republicans let slip the next argument they're going to be made once you do see the Medicaid cuts in black and white. And that was they kept saying, well, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud in Medicaid. One of them made up a figure of $500 billion of fraud. I mean, it was...

Why stop there? Why not? If we're pulling numbers out of our ass, why stop there? Why not $100 trillion of fraud in Medicaid? They'll say, you know, just completely made up things like that. That's where they're going next. They will pretend that, oh, no legitimate person on Medicaid, no person who is genuinely getting the services they deserve, they won't feel.

any pain, it's all of this mysterious fraud that they can't actually point their fingers to. Millions of purported imaginary people between the ages of 100, 350 who are just receiving full benefits out there. And so what are the practical, I mean, at some point the robber is going to have to hit the road, right? And if and when these cuts go through, it's not going to be a situation where it's just these imaginary people who stop getting Medicare because, you know, there is no evidence of this

massive widespread fraud. If you're taking $880 billion out of Medicaid, people are going to feel it. And so what does that look like, practically speaking? Does that mean certain people get kicked out of the program? Does that mean everybody would continue getting benefits, but to a lesser degree? Would the threshold to be able to qualify be diminished? So that part- I'm just trying to get some instance of, some inclination of what we're actually looking at practically speaking. Yeah, that part of the equation has yet to be determined by them. exactly they're going to carry out these cuts. Will it be CMS, which by the way is run by Dr. Oz, that crank who is always selling, you know, every sort of made up product and snake oil.

He is the head of CMS now. So some of this would be on him. But also, you know, it might be stated out in the legislation exactly how they would go about administering these cuts. That remains yet to be seen. But I hope before we get to that point, enough Americans will wake up to what's going on and be so alarmed that they will speak out and actually have an impact on some of these House Republicans. Some House Republicans, by the way, are incentivized. They're in close enough districts. They're incentivized to actually listen to people in their district who could cost them their reelection. Because my belief is that this bill will be one of the most unpopular. popular final pieces of legislation in American history.

I've already seen one poll this morning, Brian, that showed 82% of the American people opposed cuts to Medicaid. And then when the American people find out the reason why these cuts to Medicaid are happening or are proposed to happen in order to pay for tax cuts that mostly go to billionaires, I think that you've already seen some town halls getting raucous and rambunctious. I think we're at the very beginning of this. And so to that point, I'm sure that you remember the 2018 midterm cycle where Republicans engaged in very much the same kind of activity where they decided to stake all of their political

capital on trying to strip health care away from Americans. They did it with the ACA back then. That led to Democrats winning the House by the big. largest margin in modern American history were able to flip 41 seats from red to blue. And so in advance of, you know, the 2026 election cycle, what's your message to your Republican colleagues out there in light of what we've already seen happen just a few years ago when they were kind of poking the same bear? Yeah, so it's funny. You and I haven't spoken about this, but we both go to exactly the same analogy. This really reminds me of 27, the moment we're in

right now in 2025 reminds me of 2017. So you might remember at that moment, say February March of 2017, everyone was predicting the Affordable Care Act was going to be a done away with. You had a Republican House, Republican Senate, Republican in the White House. Trump had campaigned on getting rid of the Affordable Care Act and bashed Obamacare. For eight years, Republicans in that decade have been trying to, quote, repeal and replace. Obamacare, except enough of the American people spoke out. Enough of the American people realized that Republicans wanted to do the repeal part, but had no plan for the replace.

Well, sure enough, by the time you got to the summer of 2017, it had become so unpopular that enough Senate Republicans, including and especially John McCain, voted thumbs down, and the ACA repeal was actually defeated. So I don't hold out hope that we can defeat this. I mean, I'm not going to quit now and I'm not going to stop trying, even though I know the numbers are against us. Just because I saw the way people speaking out and citizens getting involved and activists getting involved in organizing events, that was able to have a real impact and save the Affordable Care Act. But even though Republicans failed to repeal the ACA in 2017, the whole effort proved to be so unpopular, it was the number one.

reason why Democrats the following year in 2018 were able to win back the House. And as an aside, you know, even during 2017, during 18, the popularity of the Affordable Care Act was somewhere in the mid-50s. Medicaid is over 80%. Right. So I think that history is going to repeat itself. I hope it repeats itself in terms of us being able to stop this bill the same way the ACA repeal was stopped in 2017, but whether it is or it isn't, I think this is so unpopular that it

will be the number one issue in the 2026 midterm elections. And I would warn any Republican from a seat that is even somewhat competitive in a general election, I would warn them to think long and hard about their vote on this because there were a lot of Republicans in 2018 who lost their seats primarily because of their attempt to take away Obamacare. Perfectly put. We'll leave it there. Congressman, appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks again to Tommy, James, and Representative Boyle. 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 in 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.