Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - The Future of Anti-Trump Republicans (feat. Charlie Dent)
Episode Date: May 16, 2025Jessica sits down with former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent—a lifelong conservative who broke with his party to back Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024. They talk about what pushed him to... cross the aisle, why he believes the GOP needs a reckoning, and what gives him hope for the future of American politics. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Welcome to Raging Moderates.
I'm Jessica Tarlov.
Today, I'm joined by former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent.
He is a lifelong conservative who broke with his party to support Joe Biden in 2020 and
then Kamala Harris in 2024,
making him one of the few Republicans willing to say enough to Donald Trump's
grip on the GOP. These days,
he's the executive director of the Aspen Institute's congressional program,
where he's focused on fostering real bipartisan dialogue in Congress.
He's been vocal about the need for a reckoning within his party and is working
to steer the conversation back to responsible governance, trust and civility.
Congressman Dent, welcome to the show.
Jessica, great to be with you.
Thank you.
Yeah, no, thank you for joining us.
I'm excited to talk to you.
You're brave soldiers, you never Trumpers, who actually come over and support the other
side.
And that's where I want to begin our conversation.
So you backed Biden in 2020, Kamala Harris in 2024.
What ultimately pushed you to cross the aisle
in both elections?
Was it Trump, how you redefined the Republican Party?
Can you talk us through your journey?
Yeah, I mean, for me, look, I feel,
you called me a conservative.
Some people call me center right,
or common sense conservative, moderate, pragmatic, choose
your favorite term.
But what drove me away was, I always said these elections with Donald Trump were not
about right or left from a policy perspective.
I always thought they're about right or wrong.
I often thought that what the MAGA movement represented in the form of Donald Trump was a particular type of protectionism, isolationism, nativism,
at times nihilism, and what I would call a dangerous populism.
And it really, it's not particularly ideological.
It's really about loyalty to a particular individual.
It's not about fidelity to any type of principles.
If you were to ask me what kind of person, I kind of view myself as an Edmund Burke type.
That if we're going to be Republicans, that we should be about incremental change.
We believe in evolutionary systems, not revolutionary systems.
We believe in measured statements, temperance.
We believe in discipline. That's
kind of where we've got stability and order. That's where I think a lot of sort of center-right
folks come from or center-right conservatives come from. I don't think that's where the party
is right now. It's taken on a form of radical positions like on tariffs that are completely
antithetical to free markets and certainly represent a type of
revolutionary change that should really appall people who would kind of embrace that center
right or conservative ideology. You're from Pennsylvania, represented there. You have someone
like a Chris D'Aluzio who talks a bit of a protectionist game, not nearly like what Trump
is talking about, but you have a Bernie Sanders as well.
Fetterman has dabbled in this too.
How do you feel like the difference
between the kind of positions that they're supporting
when you say we have to protect American manufacturing
and American workers versus how Trump is implementing
this tariff plan can be better explained
to the American people?
Well, Trump's tariff policy is essentially very similar to what the AFL-CIO would be
proposing. AFL-CIO Democrats, Sean Fain at the UAW is very supportive of many of these
tariffs apparently. And I guess what I find remarkable is that Democrats have not been
able to articulate a strong, forceful opposition to the Trump terrorists because many of them
agree with the basic policy. They might not like the way Trump is doing it, but for years,
you know, I've been in politics, I've heard plenty of Democrats from Bernie Sanders and others,
you know, who've embraced this idea of protectionism in a very naked form. And that's
what I guess disturbs me most about where my party is, is that,
and we were not that party.
We were the party that was embracing opening markets
for American producers.
We had a forward looking aspirational view of the world
that we could actually compete.
And many of those who were advocating
this type of protectionism and throwing up their hands
and said, boy, we're just not good enough anymore.
And look, I'm all for using tariffs and countervailing duties on a very targeted basis, but in response
to problems, illegal dumping or illegal subsidies, certainly countries that are using child labor
and other forms of what we would consider to be real trade abuses or in the case of
China where they coerce technology transfers,
which is a big problem, or steal intellectual property.
Okay, that's how you use them,
but we don't use these across the board tariffs
against friend and foe alike
and think that this is somehow going to grow our economy.
It'll just have the opposite effect.
It'll be very negative and it'll punish American consumers
as well as manufacturers and farmers. And it's pretty self-evident to me, and just look at how the markets have reacted, if we
need any further explanation.
But you're seeing it all across the country.
People are reacting.
Just the other day in the Allentown Morning Call, Mack Trucks said they're laying off
250 to 350 employees largely over the tariffs.
I mean, this is what we're dealing with.
So everything you just said is true. He has the lowest approval rating in 70 years,
underwater on every issue, still, you know, does well on border security, which kudos to you. He's
basically shut down the border, which is something that we desperately needed to happen. But it feels
like people can disapprove of him and it still doesn't transfer over to turning on him.
And this is not just the MAGA base. Like CNN did polling that showed if the election were held today,
who do you think would do a better job managing this? And he still edged out Kamala Harris.
And what do you think that is that doesn't allow people to transfer over to the other sides?
Is to say, actually, I don't think he could do this job.
First, look, Democratic approval ratings are in the tank as well.
I mean, their numbers are not very good.
Many people I saw a poll recently suggesting about 70% of voters thought they were out of touch with the American public.
But at the end of the day, what I do think motivates those voters who had proved decisive
in a presidential election, these are the voters who are not firmly in the Trump camp
or firmly in the Democratic or Kamala Harris camp.
These are people who are persuadable.
It's quite clear to me that many of them were motivated by economic issues.
And so to the extent that we are having this debate about the number trump said he was gonna lower prices on day one.
And here we are you know going into a trade war that is having real world impacts on people's for one case they're worried about their jobs you know a recession is seems probable at this point.
And i think economic issues will drive the day and of course you, what we're hearing, none of this policy is lowering prices.
So even though the president is, I think, largely in step with where the American people
are on border security, where they clearly want the border controlled, they might not
like the way Trump does things.
I think at the end of the day, these economic issues are going to motivate those other,
what I'll call, swing voters, what's
left of them.
And, you know, remember too, I also looked at some polling recently too, you know, on
this 100-day anniversary, there must have been a dozen polls and so I'm kind of pulled
out.
I try not to talk about polls too often, but they all came out and it showed the generic
congressional ballot, I think, was about minus seven for the Republicans.
So I mean, in other words, they were, the Democrats were doing better there.
And remember, midterm elections are usually not, the Democrats were doing better there. And remember midterm elections
are usually not about the party out of power,
even though Democrats are doing very unfavorably.
Luckily for them, the election is not gonna be about them.
It's gonna be about Donald Trump and the Republican party.
That's how midterms typically go.
Yeah, history will be on our side for that,
but you're still fearful, or I'm still fearful
and can't believe that we're only a, you know,
110 days in, whatever it is, at this point.
What do you say to Republicans who feel similarly to you but can't bring themselves to take
the box for a Democrat?
Well, what I tell them, you know, is vote your values.
And I said, here, you know, here's my values as a Republican,
I do think we should be about a strong national defense or peace through strength. And that
means you embrace your allies. You don't embrace autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong
Un. Why would we do this? Or, and so that's, that's one issue that we should embrace economic
freedom as a party. That we should be vigorously opposed to these types of indiscriminate across-the-board tariffs.
We should be for certain things and against certain things.
We need to articulate this.
We should be for the Constitution that we believe in the rule of law.
These are fundamentally Republican and conservative principles.
We should be about the union, trying to keep it together.
Our founder was Abraham Lincoln.
That's what he was about and why our party was born to maintain this union, as big and
diverse as it is and as challenging as it can be.
So these are just a few core principles that I think we need to continue to beat on.
And in fact, I'm part of an organization called Our Republican Legacy, where we have articulated
many of these principles, where we are trying to talk to Republicans about, you know, embracing
real principles, not about simply adopting whatever it is that the president wants.
Is the expectation that the Republican Party can go back to what it once was after Trump?
Because I mean, he did tell Kristen Walker that he's not thinking about a third term.
Steve Bannon has other ideas about that.
We're not here to kind of debate whether he's going to do that or not.
But it's a big open question what the party looks like post-Trump.
Yeah, I don't think with the party,
I don't believe the party goes back to where it was.
But at the same time, some of those principles
I just laid out are enduring principles.
They're the ones that have sustained the party
since Abraham Lincoln.
And so I think that we should focus
on those core principles once again.
Like I said, we should be talking about peace through strength.
We should be talking about embracing allies.
We should be talking about the constitution,
the union, economic freedom.
We should be talking about those things that I think
most Republicans still embrace,
even those who support Trump,
there are a lot of people who are Trump voters
who aren't real happy with everything he says and does
and may disagree with him.
They're voting for Trump because they so much dislike
where the Democrats are on many policy issues.
So I think that's really where we need leadership
in the party to present a counter narrative.
Quite often, you hear the MAGA narrative and where i've been critical some my former congressional republicans colleagues is they been too quiet.
That you cannot counter that not magna narrative with silence.
Silence is silence if there's nothing near to do a counter bag a magna's argument when magna's to win every single time. But I think because of this
trade war, there's a tremendous opening for a lot of Republicans to counter. And remember too,
Donald Trump's not ever going to be on the ballot again, at least not legally or constitutionally.
He's not going to be on the ballot again. And so he's a lame duck president and Republicans
will be up in 2026. and many of them are going to
need separation from Donald Trump and now is the time to start making
arguments about you know how they are different than the president particularly
those who are in those marginal and swing districts who hope to survive you
know they're not gonna be able to run simply embracing Donald Trump who's
approval rating is what now 40 now the low 40s that's not a way you're gonna
win an election. So
I think there's an opportunity now for Republicans to start speaking up.
Yeah. When you look at what the reconciliation bill will have in it and those huge cuts to Medicaid,
and you mentioned Swing District, Republicans who, in most cases, have hundreds of thousands of more
people in their districts on Medicaid than the margins that they won, you think this is going to be an obvious one. But time and again, something that Trump does or Trump
allies do scares people to the point that they feel like they can't even represent
their constituents.
Well, you remember what happened during Trump won on let's take the Medicaid issue. And
you know, at that point, reconciliation was being used to repeal and replace Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act
and I was one of the folks who you know rang the bell on the Medicaid issue at the time because
that you remember what the debate was then many states like mine had expanded Medicaid
and that it was basically we would have ended up dumping you know all sorts of millions of people
back onto the market with an insufficient tax credit they would have ended up dumping, you know, all sorts of millions of people back onto the market
with an insufficient tax credit.
They would have lost coverage.
And I just said, this is not acceptable.
And I was making arguments on behalf
of various Republican governors,
four of whom asked me to present Donald Trump
with a letter about this issue, which I did directly.
And-
What was that like?
Well, I had two meetings with him, actually.
One in the Oval Office, where I gave him the letter.
He was respectful.
He listened, and I told him my concerns with the bill, and that meeting ended fine.
That was on Tuesday.
Thursday, I got invited back, and it was a SmackDown meeting.
Why basically in front of a whole bunch of people, I told him I wouldn't vote for the
bill, and I was against it.
He took it well the first time.
It was the second and third time.
He went crazy and told me I was going to destroy the Republican Party, I'm blaming you, Charlie, it's your
fault.
I might as well just go to parades, I'll go cut ribbons, I'm blaming you, taxes are
done, it's all over, you're being very selfish.
He's going off on me.
That's a pretty good imitation.
It got really interesting.
He says to me, he's berating me.
I'm not voting for the bill and I told him why, because he basically had me back in on a Thursday.
And I there were 17 members of Congress around the table in the cabinet room.
And he said to me, I was the second one he called on.
And that's how I was voting.
And I said, I'm against the bill.
I'm going to vote yes.
And then, you know, then he said, well, why?
And I said, well, for the same reasons I told you on Tuesday,
you know, it's Thursday and nothing's really changed.
And so the bottom line is after you got done,
trying to berate me or trying to bully me,
I said, Mr. President, can I ask you a question?
He said, yeah.
I said, are you telling me?
Because he kept saying, taxes are done, taxes are done.
You remember at that time,
they were trying to do tax reform.
And I said, are you telling me, Mr. President,
that if we don't pass this healthcare bill
in this particular form,
we won't be able to do tax reform
because the tax baseline is not gonna be low enough.
That's exactly right.
And when you lose, you lose.
He goes off again, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Same stuff repeating himself.
It kind of got nasty.
And then after about a long time of this,
we're going back and forth a little bit
and finally it ends.
And this was all picked up in one of the tell-all books,
a team of vipers for about three pages.
I didn't know that until the book was written.
Didn't even know anybody was taking notes or recording it.
Someone is always taking notes.
Someone is there.
Cliff Sims, who worked for me, wrote the book.
So basically it all breaks.
So he gets done with his tirade.
I had asked him my questions,
and then we just sat there staring at each other.
A real awkward silence that I forgot about,
but they recounted in the book.
And then he said, yeah, yeah well Trump realized at that
moment that wasn't budging. So then Trump goes around the whole room, asks
everybody how they're voting, yes, lean yes. That took a while. And then, and then
what guys, and I know a couple of them lied to him, but that's it, but that's what
we expected. And so after it's all over, after 45 minutes of all this going around the room
and you know chit-chatting about other things, he turns back at me and he says, you still a hard no?
I said, yeah, I'm still a no, Mr. President. With that, he goes off again. Now, I was really getting
annoyed at this point. I waited like five or 10 seconds. I said, oh, come on, Mr. President.
He said, oh, I'm done talking to you. I don't want to hear it. Tell them. He turns away like that and
looks in the other direction.
The meeting breaks up. I just look at Mike Pence and say,
Mike, this isn't helping anything. And then one of the young aides
came up to me and I know he'd worked in the House
and he said, hey, Mr. Dent, Mr. Dent, why don't you go up to the president
privately now as the meeting's breaking up. Just tell him to vote for the bill.
And I know what his motivation was. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan at that particular moment weren't for the bill. And I know what his motivation was. He marked Meadows and Jim Jordan at that particular moment
weren't for the bill either.
I think he wanted Trump to blame Meadows and Jordan.
But I said, hey, I said to this young guy,
hey, you know what, I came here and no,
I'm an F no now, okay?
And so I'm gonna spend the next 24 hours
finding another four or five Republicans
to vote against this piece of crap of a bill.
And so the next day they had to pull the bill off the floor. We got a couple of guys to vote against it. And so that was in March
of 2017. So the point I'm making is Medicaid was a tough issue then. It's a tougher issue
now. Because so many more Republicans now recognize that much of their base is on Medicaid.
And so I think, you know, if we couldn't reform Medicaid the way they wanted to then, why do we think we'll be able to do it now? I mean, it's, I mean, they might try to stick a work
requirement in there. Beyond that, I'm not seeing how they're going to do too many significant
changes, particularly in the US Senate. The House might pass something, but the Senate,
I think, is going to be a bit more squeamish. They have a lower threshold for paying. They feel
that, you know, the House has a higher threshold. They'll pass bills that are going to go nowhere,
even though they're very politically damaging, which was the case back in 2017 on the
repeal-replace. The bill that the House passed, I warned colleagues, the policy's bad, the politics
are worse. The bill would never be adopted by the Senate, never in a million years. And of course,
nothing close to the House bill was even considered in the Senate.
Yeah. And you are right. I talked to a lot of Congress people and say,
well, we passed all of these bills.
Yeah, but that's obviously not going anywhere.
When you even have Josh Hawley saying that he's not going to sign it.
So yeah, and then Rand Paul, I think, has said he's against it.
Oh, Rand Paul is now my Democratic hero.
I've been listening to him give floor speeches
about the Boston Tea Party and tariffing.
I'm all for Rand Paul right now.
He's absolutely right on tariffs.
He's gonna be against reconciliation,
not because of the Medicaid changes,
because he's got other reasons,
but he's certainly right about the tariffs.
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Donald Trump's been back in office long enough to shock or surprise just about anyone who voted for him at this point.
Be it the signal scandal, or the tariff turnarounds, the Jeanine Pirro of it all, the way he talks about Ozempic.
And he takes the fat, the fat shot drug.
So rude.
I'm in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.
I said it's not working.
On Today Explained, we're asking if any of his voters are experiencing voters' remorse.
Especially those ones who are newer to his winning coalition.
Younger voters, black voters, Latin voters.
We're heading to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to ask them if regrets?
Do they have a few?
And just by way of spoiler to get this out of the way,
the answer is yes, they do.
And he takes the fat, the fat shot drug.
In 2017, you told the New Yorker
that the Republican party needs a reckoning.
I would imagine that you still feel that that's the case,
going into whatever 2028 will hold.
There are a lot of conservatives or center-right people,
moderates, whatever you want to self-identify as,
who feel like the Republican project just needs to be left behind,
and that there is no point in trying
to resuscitate something that, for all of the values
that you just extolled in the last 15 minutes,
you don't see any of that being represented even by the folks
that you would imagine would, like Marco Rubio, who
has had a full conversion to Trumpism.
What do you say to those types who are at the bulwark now, for instance,
and seem like they're just all in for the Democrats?
Well, I think this is where I kind of maybe just differ. I mean, if we want to
change the party, we have to still kind of stay within it. I do feel strongly
about that. And frankly, the Democrats have tremendous opportunities, but they're very much tied to their, you know, organized labor
base and on an issue like tariffs, they just can't make the argument because many of them
agree with the policy, the basic policy. They don't like the way Trump's doing it. And I
think the Democrats have that challenge. And also, you know, I think we've also seen too,
where the Democrats have struggled, particularly on the border,
it was clear that the American people were appalled
by the mayhem at the border during the Biden administration
and they were just too lackadaisical about it
for at least the first three years of their administration
and didn't get serious.
And it was a very important issue.
People do believe in the nation's sovereignty
and that there should be an orderly system
of entrance and exit
and the Democrats just weren't able to speak to it. even the nation's sovereignty and that there should be an orderly system of entrance and exit
and the Democrats just weren't able to speak to it. And I think also too,
I think where the Democrats also get in the trouble, which I think keeping a lot of Republicans away,
is on some of these issues where a lot of Republicans feel like the Democrats might be a little too condescending for them. They speak down to them.
For example, I'm for transgender rights.
I think a person should be able to transition
and we should respect that.
But when that situation happened at the University
of Pennsylvania where the swimmer transitioned
from male to female and broke all the records,
blew away everybody at the NCAAs,
a lot of people said no that's unfair and then they're called transphobic.
And they said well no i'm not transphobic i just have a pair of eyes and ears and you know i think that's unfair and then i think there is too many on the left to you just didn't know how to respond appropriately to people who saw things that were.
didn't know how to respond appropriately to people who saw things that they questioned and without being ridiculed or told that they're a hateful person.
I think this is where the Democrats have to stop listening to this fringe base of theirs
and start talking like normal people to folks.
I think that's keeping a lot of Republicans away because I think Democrats
have some opportunities like Republicans for years. I was one of the last pro-choice Republican in
the House when I left. There might be a couple now since Dobbs, but who actually voted against
the 20-week abortion ban. And I voted to fund Planned Parenthood. I was the only one there for
a while. And I found that Republicans were not
on the right side of issues like that.
That came into stark relief during their post-Obs.
Monroe was overturned, and boy oh boy,
then all of a sudden the politics of that issue changed,
and Republicans realized that they were on the wrong side
of that issue, so the Democrats had an opportunity.
But that was not the only issue they had.
They just haven't been able to speak to the economic anxieties of people to the extent
they needed to.
Like I said, during the Biden administration, there were two Democrats just did not take
inflation seriously enough early on.
Oh, they said it was transitory when Larry Summers is out there, beating the drum, telling
him it's an enormous problem.
They just didn't do it.
And then, I was one of the folks too,
when during the previous race,
when it was gonna appear that Biden was gonna run
and Trump was gonna run, and I was saying at the time,
close to 70% of the voters think one candidate is too old
and the other too dangerous.
What part of this aren't the party's hearing?
Especially the Democrats who-
Were they listening to you?
It feels as if you should have been an incredibly important voice.
No, they didn't listen to me.
I was encouraging no labels at the time to try to put together a fusion ticket.
And it was frankly, it was the Democrats, or at least people aligned with the Democrats
who went apoplectic.
They said they're going to destroy whoever runs.
And I would say to them, well, I think that one group called Third Way was one of the groups
leading this.
I said, well, you ought to call it Two Way because they only wanted two candidates.
I said, you can't on the one hand argue that democracy is at risk, that we're going to
lose it, and then do everything you can to undermine candidates from getting on the ballot.
We need less democracy in order to save democracy.
They said if there was a third party candidate,
an independent candidate, that that would have elected Trump.
And I said, well, one, we don't know that.
And two, you got a problem with your candidate.
And what bones you see in this?
And they didn't want to hear it until, of course,
that debate where Biden faltered badly.
And then everybody erected, not immediately, I wrote an op-ed the morning after said that Biden needstered badly. And then everybody rekted, not immediately,
but I wrote an op-ed the morning after said that,
you know, Biden needs to go.
And I got a lot of hate from a lot of Democrats.
So we don't need to hear this, that.
And then, you know, three weeks later he was gone.
And everybody kind of came to that position.
It was a rough three weeks.
If we had more time, I would like to talk to you further
about the no labels issue, because it was pretty clear
from the states where a third party candidate would have had the most effect that it would have
swung it towards Trump and you even see the impact of RFK Jr. moving over to the Trump side and Tulsi
Gabbard that it shifted you know mid-level partisans in that direction but I want to ask you about 2028.
My quick view on that though was but they weren't they weren't looking at states like Texas and
Kansas and others where the third party candidate might have harmed Donald Trump significantly. By quick view on that though was, but they weren't looking at states like Texas and Kansas
and others where the third party candidate might have harmed Donald Trump significantly.
They're only looking at battlegrounds.
Well, battlegrounds decided though.
We lost all of those.
So anyway, what are you thinking about 2028 on the Democratic side?
Do you see anyone that can satisfy the purple America lane?
You know, I'm sure they have candidates out there.
You know, you're hearing about Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer.
Certainly Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania would be quite formidable.
I know Josh well, you know, good man.
They think that those three are certainly probably top of list.
You're hearing Wes Moore, of course, in Maryland.
They have an interesting group of candidates.
I'm not so sure Newsom would be the right one. A California progressive now, he's trying to center himself a bit.
You know, Whitmer, I think, has an interesting profile, though.
I know she's gotten dinged up a little bit over that White House meeting.
It'll be fine by then, I think.
I think so, too. But, you know, I think between Whitmer and Shapiro and Westmore,
those are probably the three that jump out at me.
There may be some others, but those are the three that are just kind of striking me as
a who could be inside lane.
Of course, now you have to watch that progressive wing.
What does AOC do?
Does she decide to jump in?
She would be a very formal primary candidate, probably a disastrous general election candidate,
but a formidable primary candidate.
Yeah, that's a tough one.
I mean, there'll definitely be a heated progressive lane and then a heated moderate lane, though
that language feels counterintuitive, heated and moderate.
But it'll be interesting to see a lot of governors get out there because they've actually done
the managerial job and have accomplishments to talk about, not just huge floor speeches,
even though I love my senators.
We have a question at the end that we ask all of our guests. accomplishments to talk about, not just huge floor speeches, even though I love my senators.
We have a question at the end that we ask all of our guests. What's one issue that makes
you rage and what's one issue that you think we should all calm down about?
What issue makes me rage? Well, I guess if there are any issues making me rage right
now, it is this American disengagement, which takes the form of a few issues. It's the tariffs. Tariffs are a
form of disengagement. We are walling ourselves off. What also makes me rage as part of this
disengagement is this total rejection of our friends and allies, the treatment of Zelensky
in the Oval Office and abandoning Ukraine by the president in favor of Russia. Now they'll deny that, but it sure feels that way.
That makes me rage that we've also just unilaterally just eliminated much of our soft power arsenal
in this country.
Again, another form of disengagement.
That kind of makes me rage.
I feel like that people, this is all happening and when we were pretending that they're not going to be any geopolitical or economic implications for us.
And there will be this is so self-inflicted and so unnecessary where the United States of America is the greatest, strongest, most powerful nation on earth.
And we're not acting like it.
We're acting like we are somehow this this aggrieved victim that has suffered all these past 80 years since the Second
World War. My view has always been we've done pretty damn well over the years, particularly
since the Second World War. We created an international order. We led it. And now we're
walking away from it, trying to blow it up. And many of the very friends and allies who benefit
from it are now trying to figure out a way to restore it as best they can because it's meant so much.
It makes me rage that we've decided that Canada is now a threat and that now there's
a serious talk of annexation.
I mean, this is radical.
I mean, when Donald Trump ran, he didn't talk about annexing Canada.
I mean, I didn't hear any of this stuff.
I mean, I just think this is very extreme and it makes me rage.
And what was the other, what makes me,
what do you think we need to calm down about?
I think we all need to calm, you know,
we all talk about our losing our republic.
And I've, look, I know there are threats
to the constitutional order, I get it.
But I still have faith in many institutions
and that, you know, we do have a lot of folks, we have
strong civil society groups and the courts that I think will do what they need to do
at a time like this. Does that mean they're under threat? Yeah, we're still under threat.
But I think we just need to take a deep breath and recognize that we are a lot stronger institutionally
than we've given ourselves credit for.
That's hopeful. We need a lot of Mike Pence's and I'm not someone who was a fan of Mike Pence
until January 6th basically.
But I appreciate it and thank you just generally for joining us.
I'm sure our listeners are going to love hearing from you and thanks for your time, Congressman.
Thank you, Jessica. Great to be with you.