Pod Save America - “The John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Donald Trump’s 40-minute interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace is perfection, the Administration is sending unidentified paramilitary troops to crack down on protesters in Portland, and America says goodbye to Congressman John Lewis and CT Vivian, two giants of the Civil Rights Movement. Then Voto Latino’s María Teresa Kumar talks to Tommy about organizing the Latino community ahead of November.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Levitt. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, Tommy talks to Maria Teresa Kumar, the president and CEO of Voto Latino. Before that, we'll talk about Donald Trump's near-perfect interview with Chris Wallace. He just aced it. We'll also talk about the administration sending unidentified federal agents to crack down on protesters in Portland and the legacies of Congressman John Lewis and C.T. Vivian, civil rights heroes who passed away this weekend.

But first, Lovett, how was the show? Great, Lovett or leave it. Adam Schiff came by. We talked about ways we can hold Trump accountable after he leaves office, if that can happen. Is he going to impeach him again? We did not talk about a post-presidency impeachment, but we talked about how to resist the pressure of moving on when we know how important it is to make sure we understand what happened during the Trump administration. We had Zeynep Tufekci to talk about social media and the pandemic. Michaela Watkins played Betsy DeVos and Nagin Farsad joined for the monologue.

It was a great show. Cool. And Nagin Farsad joined for the monologue. It was a great show. Cool. Also, everyone, please subscribe to Crooked's YouTube channel where you can find video versions of all your favorite Crooked Media pods, fantastic original series like Dan Pfeiffer's Campaign Experts React, and live streams of major political, cultural, and news events.

Smash that subscribe button at YouTube.com. No. Slash Crooked Media. You caved. Smash it. Smash it. I love smashing that subscribe button at YouTube.com. No. Slash Crooked Media. You caved. Smash it. Smash it. I love smashing that subscribe button. Finally, a little bit of exciting news here.

One year ago this week, we started a fund to help flip the Senate called Get Mitch or Die Trying. It's a Vote Save America fund. Today, a year later, over 25,000 of you have raised $2 million for 14 Democratic Senate candidates. And we've already sent checks to the following candidates. Doug Jones in Alabama, John Hickenlooper in Colorado, John Ossoff in Georgia, Teresa Greenfield in Iowa, Amy McGrath in Kentucky, Sarah Gideon in Maine, Gary Peters in Michigan, Steve Bullock in Montana, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, Jamie Harrison in South Carolina, and MJ Hager in Texas. We'll also be sending money to the nominees in Arizona, Alaska, and Kansas when those primaries happen. But we will not be done until Mitch McConnell loses his job as majority leader. So keep donating at votesaveamerica.com slash get Mitch. I wanted to send a big giant publisher's clearinghouse check.

I did too. I don't know. We didn't come together. Me too. Why did that not happen? I know, the big Mitch turtle. Get those checks printed. Come on.

Where's our big check? Well, we also have the Unify or Die Fund. And when that is finished out and we give the Biden campaign their money, I think we should definitely give it to Joe Biden with a big publisher's clearinghouse. Listen, we know that, look, we're not in favor of quid pro quos here, but I do think it should be a kind of like, push over the money, you push over the candidate, all right? We'll push the money towards you, all right?

You don't bring anybody. You come alone, you push Joe Biden towards us, we'll interview him, then you get your money. All right, that's the deal. It's going to be more of a it's more of a ransom situation. All right. Let's get to the news. The bad stretch of polling for the Trump campaign continued into this weekend with ABC and The Washington Post finding that the president is losing to Biden among registered voters by 55 to 40 percent. Fox News has Trump trailing 49 to 41 percent. Both polls showed that voters are most concerned

about Trump's handling of the pandemic and race relations, as well as his dishonesty and incompetence. And so the White House thought, let's disabuse people of these silly views by having the president sit down with Chris Wallace of Fox News for a 40-minute interview that aired on Sunday morning. Here's what happened next. I'll be right eventually. I will be right eventually. You know, I said it's going to disappear.

I'll say it again. It's going to disappear. Does that discredit you? And I'll be right. I don't think so. Right. I don't think so. You know why it doesn't discredit me?

Because I've been right probably more than anybody else. Everybody was saying, don't wear a mask. All of a sudden, everybody's got to wear a mask. And as you know, masks cause problems too. With that being said, I'm a believer in masks. I think masks are good. But I leave it up to the governors. Many of the governors are changing. They're more mask into. They like the concept of masks, but some of them don't agree. Is the Confederate flag offensive? It depends on who you're talking about, when you're talking about.

When people proudly had their Confederate flags, they're not talking about racism. They love their flag. It represents the South. They like the South. People right now like the South. I say it's freedom of many things. Now they want to change. If 1492, Columbus discovered America. You know, we grew up, you grew

up, we all did. That's what we learned. Now they want to make it the 1619 project. Where did that come from? What does it represent? I don't even know. It's slavery. That's what they're saying, but they don't even know. Joe doesn't know he's alive, okay? He doesn't know he's alive. Let's take a test. Let's take a test right now. Let's go down. Joe and I will take a test. Let's take a test right now. Let's go down Joe and I will take a test let him take the same test that I took incidentally I took the test too when I heard that you passed it. Yeah, how did you know? Well, it's not the hardest task No, but the last picture and it's a lot and it's an element. No, no, no, you see that's all Misrepresentation that's what it was on the web. It's all misrepresentation Because yes, the first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't. They get very hard, the last five.

Well, one of them was count back from a hundred by seven. And let me tell you, you couldn't answer. You couldn't answer. All right. What's the question? Many of the questions. I'd get you the test. I'd like to give it, but I guarantee you that Joe Biden could not answer those questions. At first, it's easy. At first, it's easy. You take a triangle, you put it through a triangle shaped hole. But then next thing you know, you got a square. You got a square. The funny thing is that it's hard to hear is after Chris Wallace says,

one of the questions is count backwards from 100 by seven. And then Trump starts talking in the background. You just hear Wallace go 93. He spots him an answer. So I want to dig in more on the parts about the pandemic and racism specifically. But first, I just want to get your overall reactions to the interview itself. For me, it was a reminder that like Trump's pathological dishonesty is rarely challenged with sustained questioning from a real journalist. And when it does happen, he really falls apart. But Tommy, what did you think? What was your reaction? Yeah. I mean, I think that we just saw the danger of living in your own bubble of like a right-wing

reality and of surrounding yourselves with, with staffers who are offering, I think the political equivalent of palliative care, right? They're not really trying to treat the problem here. They're just making the pain go away. And so I'm sure he's probably read somewhere, was told by his staff that Biden wants to defund the police, but it is not true and he couldn't prove it. And it was a humiliating moment. I think that, I bet you that like he and Jared walk around the West Wing with little coterie of advisors and they talk about how unfair the coronavirus coverage is because they're just doing more testing. But like when you say that out loud, you sound deranged. If you have only white friends and advisors, your response to police brutality is to say, yeah, well, white people are getting shot, too, and not realize how tone deaf and broken it

is. And then, of course, he has his staff commissioning their own polls that show him winning everywhere because, you know, that makes him feel better. So, you know, I'm not saying this to be cocky or argue that the election is a done deal, like far from it. It's just you can tell how divorced he is from reality. And so the other takeaway for me was good for Chris Wallace for pushing back. The interview itself was surprising, not just because normally Fox News is propaganda. This was also a tougher interview than CBS's Catherine Herridge did last week or David Muir from ABC did recently. I don't get why every interview isn't like this.

It's very easy to fact check him. He's predictable. He says the same lies. The claims are demonstrably false, and he makes news when challenged. So good for Chris. Good for Fox for poking a hole in this bubble. I wish everybody would do it. Love it.

What'd you think? I watched the whole thing. You know, I know, I feel like I saw that you guys were watching it in real time because you're political cutters. But I waited till it was on YouTube so that I could watch it at 1.75 speed

because he's taken enough of my time. I did both. That's how sad I am. Oh, no. But so I would say all that's... Yeah, I had to find those clips. I watched it again last night. Yeah, now you're just a fan.

Brutal. You're just a Chris Wallace fan. You follow Chris Wallace around over the summer for all of his live events. But no, I would say all that's right. I would say, too, that I think I watch it and I tried to step back because I'd already seen so much reaction about how crazy it was. And I actually found that like for most of the interview, it was just sort of like

normal Trump deception. The the part about the cognitive test does take it into a new level of almost art. But the part that I do think is was, I think, chilling to me was obviously, I think, three parts. One, where he talks about that the Supreme Court's decision on DACA is going to give him the ability to do a bunch of things with executive action like that is worrying. I want to know what those are. What is that? They were about health care. They're about immigration. What are those going to look like to? Obviously, I think people are taking his usual we'll see, we'll see to make a news cycle about what will happen if he loses and not accepting results. But obviously, that's a terrifying prospect.

I think a lot of people get themselves spun up about it. But it is worth noting that he is saying now that he is not committed to accepting the results, obviously. And then the third thing is that final question where he's asked basically, what do you want your legacy to be or what are you going to say about your presidency in hindsight? And he says, I was treated very unfairly. That's like the biggest and most important thing that he can take away from it. And as we're about to enter a period of time in which he's going to be doing these coronavirus briefings again at a moment of incredible crisis, no matter what we do, it is clear that over the next few months, he is going to waste this period of time, fail to take the coronavirus seriously and put the

country in jeopardy. And it's extremely sad. It's extremely enraging. And those were my points. Yeah, I thought the same thing as you, Levitt, that the answer to the last question sums up the whole presidency and Donald Trump. And it's everything you need to know about him, which is everything is about himself and how he's treated. And he can't even muster some bullshit about a second term agenda or the American people or anything. And it also reminded me that like he is incapable of course correction, right? This is a point in a campaign where if you're down by this much against your opponent, you try some new things.

You try some new messages. You try some new strategies. Like try some new messages. You try some new strategies. Like, none of that's going to happen. He may win, but he will either win or lose on this message being this Donald Trump. Like, you know, they announced today that he's going to bring back the briefings. Like, what do we think? Do we think there's going to be a new Trump at the briefings? He's going to start taking the pandemic seriously.

He's going to start – no, none of that's going to happen. He's going to do this. And, like, maybe this is enough to have him win. I mean, it's not it's not so far, according to the polls. But this is who he is. This is what we're going to get till November. Wallace started the interview by challenging Trump on his pandemic response. And this is what happened when he fact checked Trump on his lie that the United States has the lowest covid mortality rate in the world. But when you talk about mortality rates, I think it's the opposite. I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world. Well, we're going to take a look. We had 900

deaths on a single day. We will take a look. This week. Ready? You can check it out. Could you please get me the mortality rate? Yeah. Kayleigh's right here. I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world. You have the numbers, please?. I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world. You have the numbers, please, because I heard we had the best mortality rate. Number one low mortality rate. I hope you show the scenario because it shows what fake news is all about. OK, I don't think I'm fake news. So it's really not. I mean, his message about the pandemic throughout the whole interview and in general is everything's fine. It's not that bad.

Media is making it out to be more than it is. Like, don't worry about it. But it's not just a message. You know, he also threatened in this interview to block funding for schools that don't open. Washington Post reports that the administration is threatening to block funding for testing, contact tracing and the CDC in the next pandemic relief bill. Like, I can't imagine Republicans who are up for reelection actually going along with this insanity. But, Tommy, what do you think? I mean, on the school's point, the latest Navigator poll shows that I think 32 percent of the country approves of his handling of the school reopening question.

And 67% of the country wants Trump to stay out of it and to let local communities make these decisions. So that position is already incredibly unpopular. And then he's confronted with the fact that the 8% to 10% of funding that comes from the federal government is for poor kids, kids who have special needs. I mean, Chris Wallace really, I think, spells out just how cruel this little ineffective punitive approach he's taking is in the first place. And so you're not going to find a lot of issues with like 67% agreement period in this country. I do suspect that blocking funding for testing for the coronavirus and for the CDC might beat it, might hit like 90%

in this environment. It's like nowhere in this interview do you see a strategy. There's a lot of like buck passing. He talks, he says it's one point like they got a lot wrong. Some of them said the virus would go away in the summer. You were the one who was pushing that line, buddy. That was your big thing. And so none of this is like accountability or owning the problem, which is why, like you, I'm not at all worried about the task force briefing starting again. I mean, yeah, it's a mess. There's no path forward here. Love it. What do you think I did see in the New York Times? There was the monthly story last night about how Republicans are starting to break from Trump. Yeah. This is it.

This is finally the time. It's that time of year again. Yeah, look, look, this is a good example of arguing with Donald Trump makes you dumber even when you're winning. Like, are we the more where are we in the mortality charts? None of that is about a process of fixing anything. None of that is about addressing the disease. That is purely about Donald Trump's ratings, right? That's purely about how is he

doing compared to other countries, like where we are in that chart, bickering with Chris Wallace over where we are in terms of like our line compared to other countries. It's irrelevant. A real president, a person of any kind of substance or character would say in that moment, look, the bottom line is, Chris, we can quibble over the numbers. The most important thing is we have to do everything in our power to protect our people, get this virus under control so we can open up our schools, right? There's a very clear, natural moment for leadership that never comes. Obviously, we've done this a million times. So yeah, and then as for Republicans breaking with Trump, a little bit late, you know, there have been reports that

he has, you know, Trump's got till Labor Day. If he doesn't get this fixed up by Labor Day, then we're really like, you're going to you're going to break with him. Circle it on the calendar. Yeah. The finish like three, three years and nine months into the administration, you draw the line. No, it's about your own political fortunes and trying to save what's left of your Senate majority. The conventional wisdom of no one pays attention to politics till after Labor Day seems to touch off when everyone's locked inside their homes and can do nothing but

watch the news in horror. But go on, pundits. Yeah, we're trapped. The other notable section of the interview was about police brutality and racism. First, Wallace challenged Trump on his lie that Joe Biden supports defunding the police. Let's take a listen. Liberal Democrats have been running cities in this country for decades. Poorly. Why is it so bad right now? They've run them poorly. It was always bad, but now it's gotten totally out of control. And it's really because they want to defund the police and Biden wants to defund the police. Sir, he does not.

Look, he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders. It says nothing about def defund the police. Sir, he does not. Look, he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders. It says nothing about defunding the police. Oh, really? It says abolish. It says defund. Let's go. All right. Give me the charter, please.

All right. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Give me the charter. Let's do this. Where did he get charter from? Charter.

What are they signing? I think he said chart. No, charter. Let's do this. Where did he get charter from? Chart. What are they signing? I think he said chart. No, charter. Wouldn't it be a chart of the stats? No, no. He's saying charter. No, it's charter. Because he's bigging up.

Because his vocabulary is down to like 500 words. And he's trying to big up the plans. He doesn't want to say they have a plan. Oh, the Bernie thing. Because it's an agreement with Bernie. He's basically, it's a charter to hand over the government to Antifa. That's what he's building towards. Right. That's what it is. I said that. Well, so so so the the Post reported over the weekend that Trump's central message about Biden now is that he'll allow the radical left to usher in a new dystopia. I don't know. It seems like there's a hole in that strategy. But what do you think is Joe? Is that is that a smart message that Joe Biden's going to usher in a new dystopia. I don't know. It seems like there's a hole in that strategy. But

what do you think? Is that a smart message that Joe Biden's going to usher in a new dystopia? There's a real logical problem in all these arguments, which is all of their ads are like, if Joe Biden becomes president, what's happening now is going to happen. That's right. What? You're president. You're president now. It's you. Joe Biden, he's been in Washington forever and he's going to he's going to usher in. He's going to be with the radical left. It's like Joe Biden, more of the same radical change. Yeah. Like I'm like, you can't be both. One of the first days I worked for Barack Obama,

I remember Robert Gibbs telling me like the first rule of spin is it has to be believable and maybe a hundred million dollars worth of attack ads could prove me wrong. But it seems like there are other messages that Joe Biden is senile and can't do the job. So I think what they're expecting us to believe is that Joe Biden is so senile that during the day AOC will sneak into the Oval Office and start writing executive orders. And that's how things are going to go south. Like this, the whole thing is ridiculous i i don't it's just i'm so burned by 2016 and scared of making predictions but this doesn't seem like it's working in any way shape or form yeah the squad is going to weekend at bernie's joe biden that's the that's what they want the way, yeah, it's just like, what are you trying to drive turnout? No.

Yeah. OK. So in another exchange, the president said that he doesn't care if the military and a bipartisan majority in Congress want to rename bases that are named after Confederate leaders. And then he said this. I don't care what the military says. I do. I'm supposed to make the decision. Fort Bragg is a big deal.

We won two world wars. Nobody even knows General Bragg. We won two world wars. Go to that community where Fort Bragg is in a great state. I love that state. Go to go to the community. Say how do you like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg? And then what are we going to name it?

You're going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton. what are we going to name it? You're going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton? What are you going to name it, Chris? Tell me what you're going to name it. Subtle, subtle, subtle stuff. I mean, that comment about Al Sharpton really tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump and his particular brand of racism, which is like a very,

you know, living through the 80s. It's a New York Post. It's New York Post. It's a New York Post. New York Post. It's the wood of the New York Post in 1984. That is who is president. The wood, as they used to say, I guess, you know, back in the day. It's just amazing to me that he, we all know he's he's racist, but that he is going to run to the right on race, like the right of the Mississippi state legislature that took down the Confederate flag. You got the military wanting to rename the bases. You got Republicans in Congress. And he still has staked out this position. I don't understand. Yeah. I mean, Sharpton being what he blurts out is incredibly telling. I mean, you know,

a name he didn't know is Army Sergeant William H. Carney, the first African-American to win the Medal of Honor for his bravery in the Civil fucking War. How about that guy is what Fort Bragg is renamed after because, you know, there have been 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients. Only 88 of them have been black. That in and of itself is a scandal. But all of those people would do more honor to the military if they had bases named after them than like Confederate traitors. Yeah, he sort of gives away the game, too, in that aside when he's like, no one even knows who Brad is. So who cares? He doesn't know.

Well, then he doesn't. What the fuck's your problem? Why? Why? Then why do you why you want to keep the name so badly? As if like Donald Trump from Queens has this great connection to the Confederacy from his days of doing reenactments. He's full, it's just, he's again,

well, we know what this is. We've been doing this a long time. He's talking to a sliver of the country who will either help him stay president or help him turn OAN into Trump TV. And either way is a fine option for him. All right, let's talk about what's going on in Portland, where hundreds of protesters have been on the streets for more than 50 days now, many of them protesting police brutality and systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

Most of the protesters have been peaceful. But to deal with those who are not, Donald Trump has deployed unidentified federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, who so far have used tear gas and rubber bullets, fractured a person's skull with a, quote, nonlethal weapon, and pulled people into unmarked vans where they've been detained without a warrant. So state and local officials in Oregon have explicitly asked these federal agents to leave. But the Trump administration claims they have the authority to be there because the president signed an executive order to protect monuments, statues and federal property. Tommy, are they right? How unusual and alarming

is this? I think this is pretty alarming. It's a scary precedent. It's a big deal. So the administration says that under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the DHS secretary has the power to deputize other federal agents to assist in this agency called the Federal Protective Service that protects federal property, like the courthouse in Portland, like a bunch of monuments that we're all now really worried about apparently. And so the administration has deployed 2000 officials from like CBP, ICE, TSA, the Coast Guard in support of this agency to protect federal properties ostensibly. But what you're seeing in practice is, you know, guys jumping out of unmarked vans who are don't have clear markings of what agency they're from. And by the way, who would expect to be detained by CBP in Portland?

We're not very close to the border at the moment. And so the ACLU says, you know, usually when you see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street, we call it kidnapping. I think that's a pretty good point. The Oregon Department of Justice is going to sue them for civil rights abuses to these federal agencies. The U.S. senators from Oregon are introducing an amendment to stop the deployment of these paramilitary squads. It looks like they're trying to deploy 150 of these, I don't know what we call them, paramilitary DHS people to Chicago there. So to me, this feels like a very purposeful effort to increase conflict, to create scenes of chaos on the streets. Every time protests have gone badly in the last four or five months, it's when the cops overreach,

it's when there's police brutality, it's when protesters are beaten and the violence escalates. And sometimes you have to wonder if that's not the strategy because those images are what they want on Fox News. It does seem like a purposeful strategy. Love it. And also, you know, by all accounts, it seems like the protests were dying down until Trump sent in these agents. And now they're bigger than ever. It seems like he is trying to provoke these people. Yeah, I think that's I think that's right. You know, there was an interview in The Times. Charlie Wurzel interviewed Robert Evans, who has been covering this on the ground in Portland

for the last 50 days and just sort of get a feeling of what's been happening. And what that reporter describes is basically there's been a ton of overreach by the Portland PD, right? That what the federal agents are doing, basically acting like a secret police are doing is in line with what we've seen in Portland. But the difference is there's a kind of randomness to it and an unpredictability to it when there's been a rhythm to these exchanges, which has made, I think, a lot of the protesters incredibly wary. And yes, it does seem as though they're looking for a confrontation. I mean, this has been a problem in Portland now for 50 days, but it doesn't seem like

anyone on the law enforcement side is interested in de-escalation, right? If we had de-escalation that was effective, these protests would have died down. Instead, the federal agents doing this has only brought out more protests, has only caused more unrest, has only caused a greater response. And there has to be a greater response because you can't just allow, you know, unidentified people in fatigues to go around grabbing people. There's a whole bunch. Obviously, it's dangerous in a ton of ways. Why should we presume that these are from the government? You know, if somebody is just pulled and grabbed off the street, you know, the reason police need to identify themselves, the reason

that there are procedures, the reason that this kind of thing is not allowed is because you have a right to defend yourself. You have a right to know who's picking you up, who's pulling you off the street. You have a right to know that this is this is legal and not extra legal, which is what's happening now. Yeah, I mean, one of the protesters said that when he was pulled into a van, he didn't know if they were federal officials or like a right-wing paramilitary group right because they've been out in these protests as well and how would you how would you know the difference uh when you're just like thrown into a van no it's great i mean it's incredibly dangerous it's incredibly scary i also think it's in it's it's fairly stupid as a political strategy anyway

i mean you know you looked at that was that Washington Post ABC poll and Trump is trying really hard for sort of crime and law and disorder to be like a top issue on people's minds. It's not in all these polls. It's not the coronaviruses, the economy is and crime is way down there. But even on the issue of crime, Trump is behind Joe Biden by nine points on who would do better handling crime and handling law and order. So the idea that Trump is now going to, you know, gain in the polls by sending paramilitary groups to liberal cities across America to crack down on protesters in disgusting ways is just, you know, it's one of those things where it will not it will both not help him

politically, but also sort of push us to a much scarier place as a country. I just want to say one more thing, too, which is that, you know, I've seen people try to, you know, look at where the kind of responsibility for this lies. And I think there's people that are talking about how, you know, the abolish ICE movement, you know, was predicting or at least sort of pointing out some of the dangers of having this kind of an unaccountable police force in this country. I think that's, I think that's fair. But in a broader sense, what we're seeing is, like, you know, Tommy pointed out that there's this debate about the legality, you know, one of the big goals after Trump is gone has to be not just to make sure we figure out what crimes were committed, not just to make sure that the president is accountable,

and that there's, you know, anti-corruption efforts to make sure the president can abuse the Department of Justice as he's done. There also needs to be a real look at some of the laws that were passed in the wake of 9-11, at some of the other powers that have been granted to the federal government and to the president in particular. And those powers need to be devolved back to Congress, devolved back to the states, because right now this guy, you know, Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, he's making these incredibly broad statement about what his prerogatives are as the head of Homeland Security. And I think even the I think we are we end up trapped in these kind of legalistic debates about what's allowed. And it's all very murky and it's all very foggy.

And it has to be the job of Congress in the beginning of the next administration to really lay down some new barriers to abuse of power in this way. That's all. It does seem like the Department of Homeland Security has some fairly broad, extraordinary powers to do some of this. Yeah, absolutely. In part because of those powers. I mean, I think you have people even within some of these agencies worrying that they're becoming this unaccountable, paramilitary sort of pseudo intelligence community force that seems to only respond to Donald Trump and to nobody else. I mean, the U.S. senators from the state can't get answers about who these guys are chucking people into vans and detaining them in their

own state. That's not a well-functioning democracy. That's not a well-functioning police force or national security infrastructure. So, yeah, we got to really fix this shit. Yeah, and I think, I mean, Congress is demanding answers. They probably have to act as well, whether it's investigations or whether it's holding up funding in whatever way they can, because I don't think just asking Donald Trump for answers is going to get you. No, and I think the Oregon senators, to John's point, I think they're trying to put an amendment onto the NDAA, the Defense Department Funding Act, that would prevent the deployment of these individuals to their state and hopefully to other states if they're actually planning on sending these guys to Chicago, because that is not going to go well.

So there was also some sad news over the weekend. We lost two giants of the civil rights movement. C.T. Vivian, a Baptist minister and a key leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who was described as one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s field generals, passed away on Friday at 95. And on the same day, we also lost Congressman John Lewis, who was 80 years old. Lewis was known as the conscience of the Congress where he was first elected to in 1986. Before that, he was one of the younger leaders of the civil rights movement.

Most famously, he led the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. He was deeply involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was the last living leader to have spoken at the March on Washington, which he did when he was just 23 years old. Here's some of what he said that day. You're talking about slow down and stop. We will not stop. All of the forces of Eastland, Barnett, Wallace, and Thurman will not stop this revolution. We do not get meaningful legislation out of this Congress. The time will come when we will not confine our march into Washington. We will march through the South, through the streets of Jackson,

through the streets of Danville, through the streets of Cambridge, through the streets of Birmingham. But we will march with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today. By the forces of our demand, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. We must say, wake up, America, wake up, for we cannot stop and we will not and cannot be patient. Tommy, your reflections on John Lewis?

It is truly astonishing how young those civil rights leaders were when they were changing the course of history. It is remarkable. I mean, look, I think that John Lewis is one of the greatest human beings this country has ever produced in that I suspect that our kids will be taught about him in school in the same way that we were taught about George Washington. And it starts with the incredible bravery he showed as a civil rights leader in the 50s and 60s. And we talk about nonviolent protests a lot, but I think it's a bit of a misnomer because the response to the nonviolent protests was so unbelievably violent. We've all seen the iconic photo of Lewis being

clogged by an Alabama State Trooper on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But before that, he was nearly beaten to death for trying to use a whites-only bathroom in Mississippi. But before that, he was nearly beaten to death for trying to use a whites-only bathroom in Mississippi. One obit I read talked about how Lewis and a friend were staging a sit-in in a restaurant and the owner locked them in, started fumigating the place, and nearly killed them with pesticide. So the courage they showed was superhuman. And the visual image of violence from white thugs is what changed the hearts and minds of people

across the country. And I think allowed for so much change with the civil rights act. The other thing that's so awe inspiring about John Lewis is that the guy stayed in the fight for decades, right? I mean, he came out in support of gay marriage in the early two thousands long before many others. He let us sit in on the floor of the house in 2016 to support gun violence. So he's just a towering human being. He was also as kind and humble and decent a human being as I think anyone new in Washington. And it made me very sad. I went on a John Lewis related book, Buying Spree, starting with these great ones, these March animated books. I just got those too. Yeah.

So anyway, I just, you know, very, very sad day. It's incredibly sad when there's a generation of people who were part of something so monumental like the civil rights generation or Holocaust survivors. Right. When you sort of lose that living history of these moments, it's incredibly sad. And I think it's even more incumbent upon us to learn about and understand and pass along that story and what happened so we can all learn from it. Love it. Yeah. There was a piece in the Times by Bernard Lafayette about what it was like to fight to desegregate the buses. And there were two points that that piece made that I think were striking.

One was the fear when they split up, when John Lewis got off the bus and Bernard Lafayette was still on the bus, and they didn't know where it was safe. They didn't know what would happen when the bus got to its final destination, because it was dangerous. And they were beaten. They were arrested. And what the piece talks about is what it was like to sort of look into the eyes of that bus driver and know that it wasn't safe, to know that this was somebody that wasn't on their side. At a time in which the law, the government was on the side of segregation, on the side of inflicting pain on black people throughout the South and throughout the country.

and inflicting pain on black people throughout the South and throughout the country. And to Tommy's point, you know, the experience of John Lewis, the experience of people like Bernard Lafayette, the experience of people like C.T. Vivian, of looking into the eyes of white people enforcing legal racism, how acceptable it was, how taken for granted it was, I do think is something we're losing as this generation passes on in the same way, as Tommy pointed out, that we're seeing the last of the World War II generation. And the other part of the piece that was striking too is talking about what it was like to be arrested before there was a national conversation around nonviolent protests, before it was accepted, right? We've all talked about the fact that the polling around the civil rights movement was, you know, now it is part of legend.

Now there's bipartisan statements when someone like John Lewis passes away. At the time, it was extremely divisive in the sense that white people were against it and it took a long time for white people to come on board. And so, you know, we're talking about people who were arrested and beaten before they were legends, before it was law, before it was clear what would happen, before they would be revered, when they were just taking great personal risk of their reputation, of their livelihoods, of their safety to do this. Yeah, I remember the first major speech I ever worked on with Obama was a tribute to John Lewis in Atlanta on his 65th birthday. It was in the winter of 2005. And to prepare for it, because that's not one that you

want to screw up, I remember reading his memoir about his time in the civil rights movement, Walking with the Wind, over a weekend. And I have been in awe of the man ever since. And one thing that Obama always went back to on Lewis was the discipline required to sort of live a nonviolent philosophy in the movement. And, you know, Tommy, you were saying this, that like, it's not, it's sometimes a misnomer, because nonviolence is not about shying away from violence. It's certainly not about perpetrating violence, but it's actually, it's about like putting yourself in harm's way. And in many instances, knowing that violence will be committed against you. And that is actually part of the strategy.

And he also talks about the fact that, you know, you have to look into the eye of someone who just put a cigarette out in the back of your throat and think that that person is just as much of a victim of a larger system as you are, which is sort of like a, just a view that is so hard to grasp. And, you know, and nonviolence was not easy, both because he was beaten to within an inch of his life multiple times, but also, you know, later in the movement, in the late 60s, you know, he leaves the student nonviolence coordinating committee because Stokely Carmichael and others thought that, you know, maybe violence was a tactic that we needed.

And, you know, he was seen as too close to LBJ and then Martin Luther King at that time. And so to sort of to balance this and to have the discipline that he did throughout his life, he was almost sort of the perfect example of the activist politician, someone who starts in the movement and organizes and then becomes an elected official, even as while he's an elected official, continues to protest. He was arrested at least, I think, five times while he was a member of Congress. There's that sort of iconic picture of him marching with the Parkland students after gun violence. So he was right up until the end, he was still part of social movements all across the country. So it is a giant loss. So, you know, as you mentioned, Lovett, you know, tributes sort of to Lewis poured in from just about everyone, including elected officials in both parties. Many of these tributes sort of to Lewis poured in from just about everyone, including elected officials in

both parties. Many of these tributes were quite moving. Some rang a bit hollow. Mitch McConnell and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp praised Lewis as a giant and a hero, despite spending most of their careers fighting against the voting rights that he risked his life for. Margaret Rubio's first attempt at a John Lewis tribute featured a picture of Rubio and Elijah Cummings, which, believe it or not, is a mistake that Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan also made. Lovett, what do you think about all these new John Lewis fans? It's very easy to praise someone when they're dead because they're no longer working against you. That is about right i just you know well well it's no the the serious point is only that like um it is it is a positive you know i talked about you know whatever changing polls like it is

a positive when uh people like john lewis become revered in our national consciousness because um it's a it's a it's a model of leadership of human virtue and values to elevate, of course. But the danger is in the elevation, in the making of a legend, you divorce it from the actual hard substance of what they fought for, even parts of that agenda that are either political or partisan or what have you. And just making sure that as we elevate someone like John Lewis, it's not denuded of the actual radicalism that he fought for for huge parts of his career and for the continued relevance of some of the things he fought for all the way back in the late 50s and 60s is really, really important because, you know, we're in the midst of a fight over whether or not people are going to be able to vote. And Mitch McConnell right now is sitting on restoration

of the Voting Rights Act. Yeah, I know there's a lot of commentary on Twitter about like, why hasn't Donald Trump done a statement yet? Like, I almost prefer Trump's relative silence to like just naked hypocrisy from Republicans. Who wants what are you going to do with a John? John, what are you gonna do with a John Lewis statement from Donald Trump? Who needs that? What are you gonna do with that? What will you do? I don't know. I think it's a it's a threshold amount of decency to show respect for like one of the greatest human beings in our country. And so the fact that he, you know, put out one with a typo from the golf course does speak to how little he cares about the

black community in this country and people like John Lewis. I mean, look, it's fun to dunk on Marco Rubio for being dumb enough to post a photo of the wrong person. But so many of these Republicans were just gaslighting and releasing these statements. I mean, Mitch McConnell, like Lovett mentioned, has actively fought legislation that would end voter suppression for decades. And his statement really pissed me off. The one that might have been the worst was from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who stole the election from Stacey Abrams and has done more to disenfranchise Black voters in Georgia maybe than anyone else alive at this moment. So it was pretty disgusting cynicism. They are clinging to the legacy of a heroic man, despite doing whatever they can to unpack and undo that

legacy. And we need to call them out for it. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's worth talking about sort of the best way to honor John Lewis's legacy. You know, there's a bit of a movement on Twitter to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge after Lewis, though, you know, Lewis himself said in 2015, that's a decision that should be made by the people of Selma. More substantively, a lot of progressives and Democrats have proposed restoring the Voting Rights Act. Lovett, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think take the names of horrific racists off of bridges, replace them with the names of heroes. I think that that's a good thing to do. That seems like an easy one. I do think if there's a way in which connecting the restoration of the Voting Rights

Act to John Lewis's legacy is a really important and positive step that we can take, I think we should do it. I'm also thinking about right now how we're in the midst of a fight in Florida where, despite the fact that voters in Florida voted to restore the rights of former felons in that state, there's now been an effort to kind of, you know, get around that by making sure people can't vote if they have to pay fines. This is the culmination of a racist effort to disenfranchise black people in Florida. Those kinds of efforts, we need to fight all across the country and are sort of making sure we tie what's going on right now in Florida to John Lewis's life, I think is really important.

But yeah, I mean, one of the first things Congress should do is, if we are able to keep the House and win the Senate and win the White House, is restore the Voting Rights Act in a way that lives up to John Roberts's dumb opinion that stripped it back and has caused a lot of these problems. Tommy? I think that John Lewis in that generation, but him in particular, showed us the power of combining protest and direct action with an inside legislative game that was designed to pass legislation. And I talk about this in the interview today, but what's I think exciting and inspiring is that we have seen these record historic protests led by Black Lives Matter. And then in the wake of those protests have seen registration

bumps among young voters of color all across the country. So people are clearly following that path. The other thing I think that you take away from someone like John Lewis is the grace and the willingness to redeem others. I mean, the decency, the moral certitude it takes to tell someone like George Wallace that you forgive them for what they did to you. It's such a staggering amount of grace that it's almost incomprehensible to me. It's sorely lacking in the political conversation. It's sorely lacking in the way I talk about politics. And I think that's just something to emulate. And then lastly, I know you guys both hit on this, but when I think about month one or two of the Obama administration, I wish more than almost anything else that we had just jammed through some massive

pro-democracy bill. And John, you were tweeting about this over the weekend, like, you know, automatic voter registration, vote by mail, just generally making it easier to register to vote, making it easier to get to the polls on days that aren't election day or make it a national holiday. There's a million things we can and should do that will ultimately protect our democracy from another monster like Donald Trump. But we need to get to work on that on day one of the Biden administration if he wins. And he can't sit and wait to negotiate with Mitch McConnell over things like the filibuster or waste any time. I think we got to really move on this. Yeah, no, I think we should go really big on this. I completely agree with everyone who's called for, you know, introducing legislation to

restore the gutted provisions of the Voting Rights Act. I think Joe Biden's first bill that he introduces if he's president should be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2021. And I think it should go beyond restoring the Voting Rights Act. I think it should expand voting rights and basically have two guarantees in there, a guarantee for the right to vote and to the right to equal representation. And under the right to vote, I think you do, like Tommy said, automatic voter registration, including those who've been incarcerated. It means making sure everyone is mailed a ballot, making sure everyone has the opportunity to cast that ballot through universal early voting, making Election Day a national holiday, fully funding polling locations.

And then I think you have a second part that's the right to equal representation. And that bill should offer the choice of statehood to the Senate by eliminating the filibuster, and more equal representation in the presidential elections by ratifying the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which essentially gets rid of the Electoral College. So I think we do, I think, you know, Biden is going to confront, if he is president, obviously the pandemic, the recession, racial justice, climate. I think his ability and the ability of future democratic presidents and congresses to deal with any of that is going to be constrained by the reality of a system that gives disproportionate power to mostly white and rural citizens and so there's going to be a lot

of jockeying i'm like what's his first bill but like you know the good news is the democrats when they took over the house when they passed hr, that was a bill that includes some of these reforms. Joe Biden and a lot of the other candidates when they were running in the primary said that this would be one of their first priorities. I think you got to do it soon because you only get a couple pieces of big legislation before the midterms come around. And once we hit 22, 2024, 2026, like it is going to be harder to get progressive electoral victories and legislative victories when you don't have a historically unpopular Republican president in the middle of a pandemic. And the map's going to get harder for us. And if we this could be our last chance to institute pro-democracy reforms that make it easier for everyone to vote and sort of change some of the anti-majoritarian institutions that we have right now. So I think it's pretty important to do.

And, you know, let Mitch McConnell try to filibuster the John Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2021. And that would be such a perfect opportunity to finally end the filibuster on that. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Like, I do think like, it's worth thinking through, like, I think sometimes the filibuster is taken as this abstraction, like, do you support the filibuster? And it's it shouldn't be thought that way. There's going to be a moment where there's going to be a piece of historic legislation versus the filibuster. And I think it's worth thinking through pure politics, like what is the best message bill to be the bill? You break the filibuster.

It might be this. It could be climate. It could be immigration. It could be healthcare. There's a host of big, like even thinking about this, it's like the, the staggering, there were some, there were people talking about what an inauguration might be like, and we should not count our chickens, but I don't who, whatever happens like January 2021, even if Trump is gone, is not going to be a moment of celebration is going to be a moment of chaos and and grief in the country.

And anyway, that's all. Yeah, no, I look, I totally agree. And there's going to be a moment early on where that's why, like, you know, seeing a lot of people say, oh, we shouldn't reintroduce the bill to restore the Voting Rights Act now. Yeah, absolutely. But nothing's going to happen until we have a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. And then when we get that opportunity, think big, go big, because like this is a, this will be, if we get it, a very rare chance to do something big and meaningful. And so you gotta, you gotta take it. Okay. when we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with Maria Teresa Kumar,

president and CEO of Voto Latino. Maria Teresa Kumar is the founding president of Voto Latino, a grassroots political organization focused on educating and empowering a new generation of Latinx voters. Thank you so much for doing the show. It's great to talk with you. Thanks for having me on, Tommy.

So I feel like I've been watching your work and following it for a long time. Can you tell us a little bit, just to start, about Voto Latino, the work you guys do, and then how has that work been impacted by the coronavirus? Yeah, so Voto Latino, the work you guys do, and then how has that work been impacted by the coronavirus? Yeah, so Voto Latino, we started 15 years ago, and it's going to sound counterintuitive, but it's like we were made for this moment. Our focus is young Latinos because we recognize that they play an outside influence on their families. They are oftentimes first generation, navigating America, telling their parents what car to buy to what neighborhood to live in. And we said, well, why don't we use the exact same influencer and talk to them about democracy?

And we use it through, I always say we speak their language, meaning no, not Spanish. We speak to them in English. We use technology, we use the internets and really do mobilization online. And so when COVID hit, Tommy, most people were devastated that they weren't able to continue their work on voter registration. And if anything, we were just able to scale. In the month of June, to give you an idea, because of the George Floyd protest,

Voto Latino knew that, you know, from experience that young people were leading it, that young Latinos were allied in the African-American experience when it comes to police brutality. And so we started serving up ads specifically tying protest to voting, basically selling democracy.

And by June 3rd, we had exhausted our voter registration and budget. We expected to have registered like 21,000. By the whole month of June, we had registered over 98,000. That's incredible. In the states that matter, right? That's where we make our investments.

Young people are attuned. I don't have to tell them that it's important. For us, we're trying to close the last mile. Young people care about the environment. They know that it's none of your business who you love. And they know that women have a right to choose. They care about gun control and they care about honest immigration. It's that cultural shift that oftentimes is harder for older voters, not for young people. But our job is to say, now let's get you to vote so that you could actually make that change. Yeah. Well, look, it makes sense that you were able to adapt. I've heard you talk about, you know, starting the organization, going to debt on credit cards, working out of Starbucks. So it's no surprise that you were scrappy.

Yeah. This is good. And now I'm really going to like age myself because it had high speed connection at the time. Yeah, of course, free Wi-Fi. You buy a coffee, you refill it 700 times. Look, I was deeply unemployed for a long time. I've spent some time at Starbucks. So, you know, it's incredible that you've had this success in the midst of the coronavirus. It's really an affirming thing to hear that people understand that you protest and then

you vote and it's all a piece of a puzzle. But, you know, the coronavirus hasn't just changed the way we're doing voter contact. It is disproportionately impacted communities of color. Has that changed the conversations themselves that you're having? Are people more focused on the pandemic? What's the difference? Huge. I mean, the challenge is sadly that the Latino community and the African American community are at the forefront of who the essential workers are. Oftentimes our communities don't have the choice of sheltering in place, but we are the economic engine for the rest of the country. And the biggest challenge though, is that we're also sadly the leading causes of death under COVID. For a long time in San Francisco General Hospital, while Latinos are roughly 30% of the population, they were over 81% of the COVID cases at the general hospital.

And 20% of the Latino workforce has been left out of the CARES Act passed by Congress because Trump doesn't want to provide benefits to people, to American citizens who may have relatives that are undocumented living in their own households, let alone undocumented individuals, even though we know that undocumented pay $27 billion a year in federal taxes. And that doesn't even include what they pay for Social Security. So the way we've harnessed that is we realized that we at Voto Latino, yes, we do voter registration, but we're a civic media organization. So we reach roughly about six and a half million people a month before COVID. In the month of June, we reached 92 million. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, no, I mean, but that was because we started providing people

with the information they needed, right? Like we started learning that a lot of young women were really concerned that they couldn't access reproductive health and abortion care. So we brought in Alexis McGill, the president of Planned Parenthood, and had a frank conversation of what that looks like. What did the young women needed to know so that they could actually get the health they needed? We've had conversations with Ruben Gallegos

and Julian Castro around how do you access PPP loans if you're part of a small business? Really providing people with relevant information and obviously then sneaking in that voting message that needs to happen. Yeah. Well, I'd love to talk more about the Trump administration, some of these policy questions in a little bit, but allow me to start with political tactics because that's where my brain is these days. There is, I think, understandable concern about Joe Biden's level of support in polling among Latino voters. I saw an article that mentioned

how a great polling firm, Latino Decisions, did a survey of six battleground states. They found that Latinos, especially younger Latinos, had a lower intensity or enthusiasm about 2020 than they did at this point in 2016. And I always cringe a little bit when I hear broad descriptions of Latino voters, because I suspect if you and I were making those calls for the poll, we'd hear about different issues from Cuban Americans and Venezuelan Americans than maybe here in Los Angeles. But what is your sense of Joe Biden's enthusiasm level? And if there's a deficit, what might be driving that? So we actually worked with the Void of Participation

Center, and we actually helped craft that survey that you mentioned. And it was the first one that we actually crafted because we know that the house is on fire. And we were able to, one of the things that we have been seeing is that in the Latino youth community, after Bernie Sanders dropped out, there was a softness in participation. And so for the first time, Voto Latino, we endorsed a political candidate. We endorsed Joe Biden after we requested real serious policy changes from him. And now we have the receipt, so to speak. But the reason we did that is because we recognize that there is a huge gap. And we wanted to know what was that level. 30% of registered Latino youth actually will vote for Joe Biden right now at a soft.

That is a code red for us because we recognize that unlike in black and white households where the parents tell the kids to go register and vote, it's the opposite in the Latino community. It's the young person who are first generation Americans that are receiving voting messages. They influence their parents. You know, everybody was like, what did Bernie Sanders do that got all these folks in Nevada to vote? They targeted young people. They used the vote Latino strategy.

I mean, full disclosure, our male guy for nine years was one of the guys inside the Bernie campaign. And it was just like, vote Latino almost on steroids, Tommy. That's what a vote Latino fully funded campaign would look like, quite frankly. But just to underscore your point, I mean, Bernie Sanders won 53 percent of the Latino

vote in Nevada, 49 percent in California, 39 percent in Texas. You know, you talked about, you know, he literally had an ace in the hole here with your strategist in the campaign. But I mean, do you think that strength was Bernie overperforming with young voters generally? Was there sustained outreach? Was it all of the above? Like what should Joe Biden steal from that primary? Yeah, I think so.

It's interesting. So Bernie wasn't going bananas like he did among young people like he did in 2016. Right. There was actually a dampening. But in the Latino community, he the focus on the young Latino influencers. So I will give a I'll completely anecdotal. I'll tell you that when I started voting in my household,

I would literally, my aunt would arrange a call with my mother and we would go down the list of who they should be voting for and then they would call my relatives, right? That wasn't just me. That was,

that's how it happens. You know, we have our own little mafia of sorts of who's going to vote for, right? But nobody has time, but young person has time, right? And so that is, that is emblematic of what happens in millions of households in the Latino community

and in immigrant communities. I'd say the South Asian communities, the Pan-Asian communities are very similar. And so for Joe Biden, I would encourage him to identify who are those influencers that can make those changes. And it's not, we use a lot of Hollywood celebrities to amplify our message,

but we partner them oftentimes with validators, with people who are credentials, with people, you know, if we want to talk about healthcare, for example, we would partner Rosario Dawson with a medical professional and so that she can have that conversation. Because I do believe that we are of a generation where we don't want the glitz and the glam, we want solutions. I do believe that we are of a generation where we don't want the glitz and the glam. We want solutions. And we'll use Rosario's base to ask really smart questions, but for amplification of what the facts are, if that makes sense. That's the strategy he needs to deploy, among others.

And one of the things you always hear about the Democratic Party, especially when it comes to outreach to Latino communities and the African-American community, is that it's too little too late. Is that the primary mistake that campaigns make in your mind? Are there mistakes you see over and over again when it comes to outreach that drive you crazy that you just want to shout at people right now to stop doing? Yes. Diversify your team, right? At Voto Latino, all we do every day is wake up and figure out how are we going to register another voter? How are we going to get another volunteer? How are we going to make a voter contact?

Because Latino community, we have skin in the game. It has not gone well for us under this presidency. And this is not just under COVID, but the caging of children. Trump has created a denaturalization task force to denaturalize citizens. I mean, the outrage should be marching in the street just on these basic pieces of policy that he's done. And what I find in oftentimes in campaigns is that the center of gravity of the person who has the ear of the candidate does not reflect the community that they want to serve. It does not reflect the voting population. So it's been since 1963, I think it is, that it was the last time that

the majority of white men voted for a Democratic candidate. So who's voting for them and getting them into office? It is a very diverse population that happens to be young. Oftentimes, it happens to be women, and it has to be people of color. So that campaign strategy should include people that look of, I would say, a whole bunch of smart young people, a whole bunch of women that have, you know, that are particularly our mothers because we actually have different issues that we care about and people of color. And that's not the way it usually happens. No, it's, you know, look, it's a lot of people that look like me when the reality is that white male voters

are the root of a lot of our problems. No, but I would say it's not even that they look like you. It's because he needs youth in there. Yeah. If I could call you youths. I'll take it. No, I mean, that's, I mean, what Obama did brilliantly is that he had

whip-smart young people of all ethnicities in his ear crafting strategy. And that were curious. And it was not just the field organizers. It was up and down the campaign. And they transformed how we communicated because he was a digital organizing president at the same time, right? So he opened it up. because he was a digital organizing president at the same time, right? So he opened it up. And what I see oftentimes in these last couple of campaigns,

not just with Biden, but with many of them, is that they become very insular. And that insular nature actually gives you blind spots to what is happening on the ground to be reactive. Yeah. And I think that is the challenge. I think what my concern is that everybody right now wants to create almost like these tribal pieces. No, no, there is a generation that is the challenge. I think what my concern is that everybody right now wants to create almost like these tribal pieces.

Like, no, no, there is a generation that is that is incredibly diverse, that actually has a vision for what the future looks like. And it's going to take all of us. And that should be reflected in the campaign. Yeah, totally agree. Yeah. Look, the strength Obama had was one, you know, he was an organizer by trade. And two, he was he was was still, he and the first lady were still normal people at that point. Like they had just paid off their loans. They, you know, their first condo was, you know, small, too tight for their kids. They were human beings. They could relate on a different level too. You know, you mentioned the administration. I mean, this White House is full of people like Stephen Miller, who seems to wake up every day and think

like, how can we punish immigrants? How can we punish people from Mexico or Central or South America in particular? The family separation policy is, I think, one of the cruelest chapters in our country's recent history. I think the conventional wisdom, or at least Washington would be like, that should, that people thought this is going to turn off Latino voters forever. But, you know, when you see estimates like I saw something in The Atlantic that said Trump seems on track to capture 25 to 30 percent of Latino voters. What do you think the disconnect is between that conventional wisdom and the reality of

what the math may be? Yeah, I actually I don't think that I think that they always project folks project high oftentimes because where they find a lot of these Latino voters and even African American voters is they, we become a subsample of places like Westchester, Connecticut, right? If you're in Westchester, Connecticut and a person of color, you're okay, right? Like you're, you don't have the same issues and they don't reflect the population at large. What I do though, think that is part of the challenge and the campaign has an opportunity to demystify is that even when I speak to the community in, you know, my,

again, anecdotal nucleus that is Sonoma, California, when I talk, when I phone back home, they're basically saying, well, you know, the neighbors are saying that Trump gave me a $1,200 check from the CARES Act. Like, well, that's actually not from him, right? So there might be some sense that he's giving them some sort of leg up under this pandemic when we know that that is not the case. So it's a long-winded way of saying is that everybody as a voter doesn't really turn on to a campaign until after Labor Day. And at that moment, we have to demystify and tell the truth of what has happened under this administration. People are dying needlessly because

they haven't been able to get their act together. When we started the pandemic, we started at the same time as South Korea. Italy was at an all-time high, and they're recovered, right? They are recovering. Like they actually have COVID under control. They have systems in place and we have an administration that, you know, people say that it is incompetence. I actually say it's malpractice. Because we have a president who was encouraging people to take Lysol as a way to combat the virus. That is encouraging someone to harm themselves with potential death, right?

So we're not playing around with him anymore. I think a lot of times people were trying to figure out how bad was he going to be. I remember Newt Gingrich saying, well, let him be an apprentice president. And from the beginning, I was always like, he told us who he was. Yeah, yeah.

And nothing that he's done, if anything, he's crueler than he's already promised us he would be. And we can point to Steve Miller, but Stephen Miller has power only because the president allows him to. He is right lockstep and center with whatever Stephen Miller proposes. And sadly, I can share with you that he starts with the undocumented community, but it's also part of who he considers American. And I say this because, you know, the administration wanted to include a citizenship question in the census. And they were like, we just want to know who our population is. Well, the Supreme Court struck the census question

because they were able to find on the GOP operatives email, an email that literally said that they wanted a census question because they wanted to create white, non-Hispanic, Republican districts. At that point, they don't even want Republicans. They just want a very specific, they have a very specific worldview. And so when people say, well, it's just rhetoric, it's like, oh, it's just policies. We actually have, during the pandemic, he wanted to cut SNAP, which is a food program for mostly for women and children, because it was going to disproportionately be for brown people, right? Like that's cruelty when we know he and then you say, well, what's your how do you translate it to the general population? He's actively trying to cut health care, the ACA, while we have an all time high

of health crisis. I mean, none of it makes sense. Yeah, no, you're right. It's cruelty is the policy and it's not just Stephen Miller. It's, it's the ill-fitting man in the ill-fitting suit at the top. Apologies for jumping around a little bit, but you know, we've been, we just went through and are still going through in some places, this extraordinary protest movement after the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. Has that protest movement and the success of it and the power of it changed the way your organization, the people you work with, think about ways to create change or how they want to conduct themselves now until the election? Absolutely. So we were part of President Obama's 21st Century Policing Task Force because we recognize that while the African-American population, sadly, is the most targeted, the Latino community is not far behind. One of the biggest challenges in the Latino community is that we know that we suffer police brutality.

But because most precincts, Tommy, only record race based on black or white, There's no Asian and there's no Latino, depending on what shade scale you fall in, that's how they record it. But we know that it's a problem. And so when the George Floyd protests started happening, we started specifically talking not just about voter registration and participation, but we also had kind of a come to Jesus moment because 24% of Latinos identify as black. And that is because Latinos come from different parts of the Americas. My family, my grandmother, she is Afro-Colombiana. She's, you know, she is, that is her heritage of where she comes from. And so it was an opportunity for us to have a very blunt discussion of what was happening in the Latino community, even based

not just on policing, but allyship about race, conversations that we need to have with our parents to unpack it. And it provided, I think, also an opportunity to just speak truth and to figure out how do we move the needle on policing itself. In the survey that you mentioned with Latino decisions, one of the questions we asked was specifically that. And one of the things that we learned was the top three issues for Latinos. First it was healthcare. The second was jobs. The third one was social and racial justice for blacks and Latinos. That was huge revelation. I mean, we, we knew it instinctually,

but for older Latinos to be part of that, it speaks to how much awareness that innocent created for us to actually give voice. Yeah, no, that's, those are, those are very hopeful answers too, by the way, with the things people care about. You know, so like a lot of people listen to this show, are activists in their own life. They make phone calls and they text on the weekends. And I think sometimes when people think about voter contact and persuasion, you imagine this scene where you come to a door and you knock on it and you talk to a Trump voter and by the end, they've changed their mind. And that's not really how a lot of field works, right? A lot of it is

like, how do you turn a non-voter into a voter? Are there best practices that you've learned over years of doing this that you think are broadly applicable that people can steal from you? This is the wildest thing. So in the last two election cycles, 49% of registered Latinos never received a voter contact. Wow. That's terrible. From a political party or from a candidate. It's absolutely terrible because they already registered. Right. Right. No. Right. And so the biggest thing you can do is actually talk. And the reason being is because young voters and Latinos specifically as well, don't have a voting history. And so reason being is because young voters and Latinos specifically as well, don't have a voting history. And so the way candidates like to work is like, well,

these folks are sure bets. Well, some of the sure bets have no, are no longer part of our party. Like they went to the Republican side. So your voter contact by default becomes for the other side. I would encourage you to look, you know, your listeners to look for organizations that deal specifically with young voters and that talk to communities of color. And, you know, your listeners to look for organizations that deal specifically with young voters, and that talk to communities of color. And, you know, when you talk to Doug Jones, what he did, he's like, you know, thank you to the African American community, the Latino community, and the Jewish and Happy Hanukkah. That was his like, his like, thank you message. But you said, what did you do? He's like, I contacted every voter. Yeah. And every voter is on our side,

you know, and for relational organizing, if people want to volunteer with us, you know, text volunteer to 73179 and we will put you to work to text every voter because the numbers are on our side, Tommy. Our job is to ask. And one of the things that we know, at least from best practice, is that when you ask a Latino to register and ask them to vote, they turn out. 79% of the people we register vote. Wow.

It's because, but no one's asking them. Because again, if we're not even asking people who are registered, let alone the opportunity. It's so basic. We make it so hard sometimes. It's so basic. Yeah, no, no. It's like, everybody's like, well, you know, it's so funny. People are like, well, what should we do? I'm like, just register and talk to them. Because we actually have, for the very first time, we're going to have 12 million more young voters than baby boomers. That's a huge opportunity because for the first time in the midterm election, generation X,

Y, and Z outvoted older voters. And we brought in the most diverse Congress. And when people say, well, so what I'm like, look at, we have 400 pieces of legislation that speaks to our values as a result of

this diverse Congress that was ushered in by a new generation of voters. All of that is exciting. We need to finish the job. Yeah. I saw an incredible statistic that was said in a news article by you, which was that of the 32 million Latinos eligible to cast a ballot in 2020, 4 million of them turned 18 after the 2016 election, which just speaks to how young and how powerful this emerging crop of voters is. That's a huge number. Yeah. So when we started 15 years ago,

there was 30,000 Latinos turning 18 every single month. Now it's a million every single year. And that tsunami of Latino voters won't crest for 10 years. It's on our, I mean, it's also why they decided to get the Voting Rights Act and to create all these voting barriers because they saw a huge new young, you know, group of not just Latinos, but literally a new generation of voters. The millennial generation is larger than baby boomers. Generation Z is our largest generation. And they are coming into power. And what's deeply beautiful about this generation is that they are clear eyed. They don't platitudes, but they want solutions and they're rolling up

their arm. They're there. I can't even. So this is where my ESL comes in. You know, I love to say these idioms and I always fail at them. Sleeves. Thank you. I was like bootstraps. I'm like, that's not right. I like that too. I think that's actually better. I know, but they, they want to get people who will work on their rehab. Yeah, that's good. It is good. Last question for you. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening who, who hear about Voto Latino. They want to get involved. They want to, or, or maybe, you know,

they want to work with you or maybe they just want to support you directly. Where can they go? What, what should they do? Yeah. If they go to votol maybe, you know, they want to work with you or maybe they just want to support you directly. Where can they go? What should they do? Yeah. If they go to votolatino.org, they can register to vote and they, or they can donate 20 bucks and pay it forward. We're really good at registering voters. We're registering them roughly at $12. And with the extra $3, we basically get them out to the polls.

So that's amazing. Yeah. And then finally, please volunteer. So if they text volunteer to 73179, they're, we'll put you to work. That's not a problem. And then finally, please volunteer. So if they text volunteer to 73179, they will put you to work. That's not a problem. I love it. Well, we have a lot of listeners

who are scared to death. And so I imagine you'll get some texts from this. Maria, thank you so much for doing the show. Thanks for all your work you're doing with Voto Latino. And, you know, I guess we all just work so our anxiety goes away until November. That's the deal now. Yeah. Well, I think that there's, you know, people guess we all just work so our anxiety goes away until November. That's the deal now. Yeah. Well, I think that there's, you know, people are paying attention and that's good.

I mean, the fact that we saw such a surge in voter registration is that people are fed up. Yeah. And our job is to close that gap and folks flood the zone. There are 123 million of us sat it out last time, flood the zone. And that way we send a clear message, not just to this president, but also to the Senate, that they have to get their act together, that we're paying attention. Amen, Senate and Joe Biden. Get rid of the filibuster. We're not messing around this time. Maria, thank you again. Great talking with you. It's a pleasure. Be well. Thank you. it's a pleasure be well thank you thanks to Maria Teresa Kumar for joining us today

and we'll talk to you guys later bye everybody Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production the executive producer is Michael Martinez our assistant producer is Jordan Waller it's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston Thank you.