Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump Pretends He's Above the Law (feat. Leader Hakeem Jeffries)

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Live from the 92nd Street Y, Scott and Jessica sit down with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries for a candid, wide-ranging conversation. They cover Trump’s attacks on the rule of law, his latest trade grift, and dive into what it’ll really take to protect democracy, rebuild public trust, and give Democrats a fighting chance at the ballot box. 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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working. That's on channels wherever you hear your favorite pods. Soon enough, high schoolers will be donning those caps and gowns. But what comes next is less of a sure thing than it was a decade ago. Students are genuinely questioning if college is worth it and if college is really the right thing for them, knowing what they know about themselves. This week on Explain It to Me, a look at the new range of alternatives to college and how some high schools are setting up their graduates for success. New episodes on Sunday mornings, wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. Today we're bringing you a live taping of our conversation from Thursday's event at the legendary 92nd Street Y. Joining us was none other than House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It was a great conversation. You can bet Jess led this conversation, so it made some sense. The dog was unchained.

He was unchained. He was unchained. The dog's gotta howl. Yeah. All right. It's cool. All right. Very cool.

This is our bot and bar mitzvah that we never had. 100%, closest we're ever gonna get. This is so exciting. I bottom bar mitzvah that we never had. 100 percent closest we're ever going to get. So this is so exciting. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah, thrilled to be here. Yeah. Liberal Jewish girl from Tribeca's dream come true. This is very exciting.

But you seem a little subdued. No, like belly flashing, dancing. Well, you got to fit the moment. And this is a classy group of people at an esteemed institution. I just want to keep it kind of low-key, and I don't want this to be about me. Oh, come on. Unchain the dog.

Who wants to see me unchained? Okay. Thank you. All right, true story. This side of the audience was Jess's invitees, a little bit more progressive, a little bit more politically correct. These are the dog pound. These are the dog pound.

Okay? Tailoring my message to the audience, we assemble here tonight on the unceded land of the Lenape people. Can you get over how hot the chicks are in this city? Jesus Christ, model country safari. Hello, ladies! Who would have thought Harvard would actually command the space it occupies? Let's give it up for Harvou. Could this ass clown be any more stupid? What's worse than fighting with your allies, fighting without your allies?

I love the question that was posed by a Holocaust survivor to Warren Buffett and that was when he said, how do you judge who's your friend? And she said, well, I asked myself one simple question, would they hide me? Right? That's a very puncturing question. And you know who hit us? Fucking Canada. Canada hit us.

1979 hostage crisis, they hit six Americans, got them out safely, and then stayed behind. Largest undefended border in the world. This podcast will be in Canada. Who here believes that those of us that don't have our head up our ass are on Canada's side? Yeah. And you kept time. You were on a dog leash for that one. Harvard, question mark.

Harvard, question mark. Very pro-Harvard. Always have been. Never had a shot of getting in. But thrilled with it. It feels like the important American institutions, or at least some of them, Supreme Court, the markets, now Harvard, are pushing back, and they're finding their footing in what this Trump era looks like.

I don't want to minimize the anti-Semitism problem on these campuses and we've spoken a lot about this on the podcast and I think it was one of the foundational things that kind of linked us up or made us feel like we were simpatico, that we were not atheist Jews, but lapsed-ish Jews that were awakened by October 7th and then watching what happened on campuses. You as a professor as well, I was an ivory tower resident for a long time myself. It's just so disturbing to see what life was like for Jewish students on these campuses. But it's been pretty clear when you look at the list of demands from Harvard that this is not about anti-Semitism

This is about control. Yeah, and They really overplayed their hand there and you're looking at this with 2.2 billion dollars, right that they're threatening to take away from Harvard and Harvard is well defended by these two mega conservative lawyers which I think is an important piece of this. But you can't make a clearer case of an attack on the First Amendment, an attack on academic freedom, than the government saying, I want to control who gets in, what you're going to teach, who's going to teach it, what kind of research you're going to be doing, what kind of innovations are going to come out of your schools. And I don't think there's anything, you know, about cutting medical research

that's going to make any Jew safer on campus. Here, here, how do you think it plays out? I mean, what do you think happens in the court? Do you think that these funds actually get sequestered and cut? Well, there are already reports of it starting that there are labs, one in particular, $60 million grant to focus on tuberculosis research, which I think we can all agree that we want to keep going. So that's already been shut down. And when we're going to see more of it, like I mentioned, these super lawyers that are going to be defending Harvard, one Robert Herr, who was the special

counsel, the Joe Biden special counsel looking into the Corvette documents, if you remember that, who said I couldn't convict him of anything because he's a nice old man who doesn't remember. And then another guy named William Burke, who was in the George Bush administration and has also defended people like Steve Bannon during the Mueller probe.

So these are hardcore conservatives who understand the threat to democracy and academic freedom that the Trump administration poses. And I think that's a great place to be because they can't walk in and say it's a bunch of leftists. What do you think about what's going on? Well, just to steal a minute, I think we sort of invited this overreaction, not don't deserve

it, but invited it in the sense that, and we said this on the pod that if I had gone down to NYU's Plaza and started saying a fraction of the things that were said about Israel and Jews, if I'd said, lynch the blacks or burn the gays, there would have been no need for context. I would have been kicked out of academia that day. If at UCLA they had started passing out bans only to white people and non-whites weren't allowed to go to Royce Hall, this happened, they would have called in the national guard. So what a lot of these universities decided is that free speech is never freer unless it's hate speech against Jews.

And what you see or what you've seen play out. And also, just to be honest, you give, you have any organization billions of dollars. They might have asks. It's, it sucks to be a grownup. I just don't think that's that shocking. The question is if a lot of people are criticizing Columbia, because they clinical capitulated,

Columbia was trying to say, okay, with 400 or 500 million dollars, we're going to do a lot of good. So if we have to give into some of these demands and we haven't exactly draped ourself in glory, then so be it. And then as soon as they came to what they felt that there was an agreement, there was additional crazy ass.

And so now it's pretty clear that the administration are not being good actors. And Harvard was actually trying to come to some sort of agreement. They had said, we're going to broaden the definition of anti-Semitism. They fired two heads of Middle East studies groups. They put on pause this cooperation with the university or Palestinian university. So they were trying and then came the sort of thought police that no, we want a litmus test for ideology across all your faculty.

We want information on your international students. And essentially what they figured out pretty quickly is the administration is trying to rebrand an attack on progressive ideology as civil rights. It's just not true. This has nothing to do with antisemitism. Antisemitism is being used as a false flag for trying to attack progressive ideals. And I've been reading a lot about, I always go to World War II, this guy, Martin,

I think it's Neimuller, and he has this great quote. He has this fantastic quote, you know, you know, when they come for you. He says he was a Lutheran pastor in Germany in the thirties, ended up spending most of his time, was actually very pro-fascist and pro-Hitler policies and got very disturbed and started speaking out against Hitler and spent eight years of his life in prisons and concentration camps and survived.

And he has this wonderful quote, he said, they came for the socialists, but I wasn't a socialist, so I didn't speak up. They came for the trade unions, but I wasn't in the trade union, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Jews and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up. And then when they came for me, there, but I wasn't in the trade unions, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up.

And then when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me. And the question now is, is our organizations really speaking up? And this is why I'm wearing a Harvard shirt today, which I never thought I would do. President Garber is showing that organizations need to speak up. We're not that far from this organization, which is tax exempt, not being able to have us saying, oh, no, you can only have Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson.

We laugh. We're not that far from that. We're not that far. We're rounding up people. Whenever they start rounding up people, there always is a good reason at the time. It felt like there was a good reason to round up Japanese families, some of whom had young men, sons

serving the European theater. And so it's just so incredibly disappointing that more organizations and more leaders aren't saying, well, what happens when they come from me? So, and I always like to end with an opportunity. I think there's an enormous opportunity to establish real credibility as a leader and also quite frankly, shareholder value. I think the first company that stands up and says, this tariff shit is nonsense and them rounding out people, we are just,

we are an American company. We do not tolerate this. We do not endorse it. We are going to speak up. We're not giving money. We're not bending a knee. We're an tolerate this. We do not endorse it. We are going to speak up. We're not giving money. We're not bending a knee. We're an American company. The first company that does that is in my opinion, going to enjoy a tsunami of

goodwill and actual purchases. The first person in the democratic party who stands up and says, you know, I'm not going to run for president because I'm not down with this slow grade melt to fascism. This is how many Fortune 500 CEOs. I know many of them, about 495 of them every morning wake up, look in the mirror and go, hello, Mr. President. Most of them think they could be president. This is a list of everyone that's spoken up. And that's the opportunity. There is a void of leadership here. People are being rounded up.

Organizations are subject to the thought police, right? When do they come for us? That's a real question. Yeah, we want to welcome the leader out, but I just wanted to say to your point, you can see the effect of Harvard holding their ground and leaders out there like AOC and Bernie and their rallies

and the mass donations that are flowing in. So Harvard, since that letter was released, 3,800 unique donations, a million dollars. They have 53 billion. I don't know if they really needed the million. But people wanna be part of something. And they wanna also be in a group. So yes, the first company,

but the first group of companies that band together and say, you know, we're standing up for free markets, democracy, whatever it is. But let's welcome our fantastic guests. Let's bring out our kind of our local man, if you will, representative from Brooklyn, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies. This is so cool. Thank you for joining us. Great to be here. Yeah. I was shocked when you accepted our invitation. So, um, I told Scott...

Are you going to a downtown club after this? He's much cooler than us. Seriously. I'll be meeting up with Eric Adams at the club. Yeah. All right. Nice. Just joking.

I presume you don't want to endorse him in the race. No, I'm staying in the race. Yeah, okay. Um, I'm staying. Yeah, OK. I wanted to start with, I guess there are so many huge stories that are going on right now, but with the Kilmer Obrego Garcia case. And you've been very vocal about this. This is the El Salvadorian man who came to the US.

16 years old. He has protected legal status from 2019. He was accused of being an MS-13 member. It was a double hearsay testimony and a cop who ended up getting indicted a couple of weeks later that said it. But the administration has rounded him up and sent him to CICOT the prison camp in El Salvador that they like to send people to. And the Supreme Court ruled nine zerozero that he had to be returned, they had to facilitate his return.

And just today, the appeals court for the Fourth Circuit, Judge Wilinson, who I should note is a Reagan appointee, writing, the government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear." Everyone feels like this is bleak. They're not paying attention to the Supreme Court. They're not paying attention to lower courts.

What are we going to do about this? So I thought it was a powerful decision that was written by the Fourth Circuit building upon the original Supreme Court decision, which in some ways was shocking that it was 9-0 because I never expected to be able to actually count on Thomas and Alito for a somewhat enlightened decision. But it was nine zero. Now there's some vagaries attached to the word facilitate that may need to be strongly clarified if this goes back up to the Supreme Court.

But foundationally, as was said in that Fourth Circuit decision, liberty is in the DNA of the United States of America. And what's also in the DNA is the notion that here in this country, we don't have a king, we don't have a monarch, we don't have a dictator, we have a democracy. And a democracy where there are checks and balances, and that's the Congress, and many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, of course, aren't adhering to that notion that we work for the American people, not any president. But the courts also as a critically important, you know, check and balance. And so I do think that the administration is trying to push the envelope in terms of a

confrontation, which is why I've urged the courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, which this is likely to go back up to them, to enforce their order using the tools that are available, which are contempt, civil contempt or criminal contempt directed at any of the individuals, the cabinet secretaries or other administration officials who are actually refusing to comply or carrying out unjust or unconstitutional actions. I remain skeptical that any of this is actually going to happen. And I want to kind of broaden this conversation into one larger about immigration, specifically illegal immigration.

Because while the American public thinks that if you've been here over 10 years, you shouldn't be deported, that everyone deserves due process, even if you're here undocumented, the Republicans are lapping us when it comes to immigration. So just today, a new CNBC poll up 12 on managing the Southern border, up seven on deporting illegals. And I think one of the main reasons

that we lost the 2024 election was that we let hundreds of that millions of people stream across the border. So what is the democratic plan to show people that were serious about this problem? Well, we definitely have to be clear that we believe that we should have a secure border. That's first and foremost. And I think we've repeatedly endeavored to make that clear throughout this Congress. We have a broken immigration system and it's got to be fixed. But it should be fixed in a bipartisan and comprehensive way. And we're open to having that discussion in good faith With people on the other side of the aisle when they're ready to have that discussion in good faith. That's not this moment While at the same period of time we're going to defend our values, which means we're going to defend dreamers

We're going to defend farm workers. We're going to defend law abiding immigrant families Because this is a country that is both anchored in the rule of law but also a nation of immigrants. And we can hold those two things as true at the same period of time. But you're correct in your assessment that I think what hurt us in the last election, first and foremost issues connected to the cost of living related to the economy which I'm sure we'll get into but secondarily that we were slow to act as an administration and as a party on the southern border crisis and it hurt us not simply with traditional Republican voters or swing voters but in some

segments of our own base communities and in communities of color, including right here in New York. Absolutely. So something I've struggled with, Leader, is the difference between being right and being effective and the illegal seizure of constitutional power, tariffs that seem to be hurting everyone everywhere all at once. And we're all outraged. And yet Trump's at 41%, the Democratic party is at 25%. It feels as if America is saying I'd rather have toxic, illegal, and

illegal versus ineffective. It feels like the Democratic party is weak and neutered right now. Insom, what's your plan to change that? Well, it's interesting because I think that was certainly a popular narrative that was being communicated during the early stages of the Trump administration, you know, his first week or so. There was a morning consult poll that came out a few days ago that was fascinating. One, it had Trump and his numbers continuing to crater as it relates to public approval

generally and specifically on his mismanagement of the economy. But in that morning consult poll, it actually had the American confidence in Democrats higher than congressional Republicans in terms of managing the economy. That was the first time in four years that Democrats actually surpassed Republicans in terms of managing the economy. That was the first time in four years that Democrats actually surpassed Republicans in this particular poll in terms of management of the economy. And that Congressional Democrats were favorable,

I think it was plus one or plus two, I'll take it. And Congressional Republicans minus 10. And so I think we are starting to see the trajectory change. Of course, there was a lot of disappointment upon losing in November, but there are clear differences right now. We've got the Republicans on the run on the economy, on healthcare, on social security,

all of the things that are inconsistent with what they promised to do, which was to drive down the high cost of living. But costs aren't going down, they're going up. And Donald Trump and Republicans are actually cratering the economy, crashing the economy in real time, and they are driving us toward a Republican recession. And the American people are starting to see that and it's having an impact.

But it feels as if it needs to be more than we're just not him and how bad he is. That we have to paint. Yeah. Yeah. Did I tell you this is my bar mitzvah? Yeah. You've mentioned it like a thousand times.

It feels like we need to paint a vision and of the future and it has to be more of a vision than let's go back to the way things were. Correct. So can you give us just a taste of what that vision might be? Is it prosperity? Is it, I mean, what is the message

that's gonna get people excited and the moderates who quite frankly are basically gonna just vote around the economy or who seems to be more compelling at the moment? Because right now it doesn't feel like the Democratic Party is crystallized around a leader. It feels quite frankly we're a little bit leaderless and absolutely void of any compelling message

other than we're not him. Well, I definitely think it goes beyond we're not him, right? You know, on the one hand, we are involved, at least at the congressional level, in stopping bad things from happening. And so we're in active legislative combat. They want to enact the largest Medicaid cut in American history.

That is going to hurt families, hurt children, hurt seniors, hurt people with disabilities, hurt everyday Americans, close hospitals, hurt seniors, hurt people with disabilities, hurt everyday Americans, close hospitals, close nursing homes. Communities across the country will be hurt. And we have a moral obligation to draw a clear contrast between what we're fighting for, health care for the American people, and the fact that Republicans are actively trying to take it away. And that's going to be critical. And we're going to need the American people with us.

And we believe the American people are with us on this fight. And we will protect Medicaid. We will protect the health care of the American people. That's critical. That's critical. So we have to draw that contrast. We have to draw a contrast between us and the Republicans in terms of this assault on Social Security.

And it's all connected to a Republican plan, which is often set in motion, which is demonize, downsize, privatize. So they've demonized Social Security, made stuff up about the fraud that doesn't exist. Elon Musk has said the quiet part out loud. He said Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. No, Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. The Trump administration is a Ponzi scheme right now. Because they promised to lower the high cost of living.

In fact, said that costs were going to go down on day one. Costs aren't going down, they're going up. Instead, they are actively going after things like Social Security, which they promised to protect. That's the Ponzi scheme. And so they've demonized social security. We've got to point that out to the American people why they're doing it.

Now they're downsizing the social security administration, closing offices, increasing wait times, making it harder for people to access their hard earned benefits. That's part of the downsizing that is underway ultimately, so they can try to make the case that Social Security should be privatized, which is what they've wanted to do for decades.

So these are important legislative battles, and we have to draw a clear contrast. But at the same period of time, I agree, Scott, that an affirmative vision is necessary, connected to what many of us believe is the core problem in America, which is that for far too long, far too many people struggling to live paycheck to paycheck, can't access the American dream in ways that should be core to who we are, particularly at a time where we remain the wealthiest country in

the history of the world. And that core American dream, I think, right, you work hard, you play by the rules, you should be able to provide a comfortable living for yourself and for your family. Purchase a home, educate your children, have access to high quality healthcare, go on vacation every now and then, and then one day retire with grace and dignity, which means protecting Social Security and Medicare. And the American people are frustrated, understandably, because for far too many, they've got no access to that.

And that was a core American promise. And that was a core American promise. And it was a core American promise that when you do these things, when you work hard, when you play by the rules, you can create a better future for your children or for your grandchildren. And many people believe that that's not possible. So I think it starts with a recognition of, here's the problem that is affecting so many people across

the country. We hear you, we see you, and we're committed to making life better for you. So just to follow up on that, I think everyone's down with that. I think there's even a lot of Republicans who are down with that. The most prosperous nation in the world, we shouldn't have 40% of households with medical debt. That people under the age of 40 should be able to fall in love, have kids, and have a reasonable semblance of a life and not worry about anxious, depressed kids because they can't crawl their way

out of debt. I think everyone's on board, but I think what people are looking for is two or three specific programs that might actually make that a reality instead of kind of the incredible oratory flourish that Democrats are good at and then shit doesn't get done. Yeah. Well, I would say where I would take issue is that I do think that actually during the first two years of the Biden administration, you did see real progress, legislatively, not rhetorically. Infrastructure Act, yep.

Toward making a concrete difference in the American people. So we can't just say it was rhetorical, right? The American. But we didn't brand it. That's the problem. That's marketing, right. But that's really the central issue here. Like working in conservative media,

I see every day how good they are at packaging proverbial turds into the most genius policy, or I'm going to show up to this ribbon cutting and you're going to think I had anything to do with it and Biden would troll them and it was cute. But by the time the election rolled around, obviously he was not in good shape to be able to be talking about these accomplishments. And no tax on tips, which is a completely corrupt policy

that he's trying to implement, is a branding miracle. Everyone's walking around, all the low wage workers saying, well, Donald Trump's gonna let me keep my money. And we don't have anything like that. Well, I'm not disagreeing with you, but you know, I just wanted to make sure that I address the point that Scott raised. So I'll disagree with Scott and then I'll agree with you. But I got that a lot. I got that a lot. It's part of your charm. But I just want to make sure it's clear, right? Because during those first two years, we actually, whether it was the American Rescue Plan,

rescued the economy from a once-in-a-century pandemic, saved the pensions of millions of people, enacted the Child Tax Credit, which actually cut child poverty in half in six months in the United States of America. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. You know, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, millions of good paying jobs, fixing our crumbling bridges and roads and tunnels, our airports, our sewer and water systems, our mass transit systems, trying to set in motion high speed internet access in every community, including in rural America. Gun safety legislation for the first time in 30 years. We know more needs to be done,

but we were able to start that process standing up for our veterans, providing them health care, veterans who actually were exposed to burn pits and Agent Orange and toxic substances and were literally suffering, suffering without access to health care and we changed that through the PACDAAC. And of course the Chips and Science Act, which was designed to bring our jobs back home to America. Trump talks about it. We set in motion a process to doing it.

And then of course, lowering the costs of prescription drugs, we still need to do more, but we got that process started through the Inflation Reduction Act and the largest investment in combating the climate crisis in the history of the world. We didn't just talk about things, we actually did things. But of course, I think the big challenge that we confronted is that notwithstanding all

of those accomplishments, notwithstanding the way in which the economy, from where it was to where it ended up, in terms of lower unemployment, tens of millions of jobs created, actually wages beginning to go up, the inflation reality hit everyday Americans hard. And we were late to addressing that with the urgency, even if it was just rhetorically that we feel the pain

that you are under and we're committed to doing something about it. And so that I think was a challenge. Trump sees that, but he over-promised and now he's under-delivering, of course, in fact, worse than that Affirmatively crashing the economy, which is why we see his numbers cratering in terms of public sentiment there's also and you mentioned corruption a few times and wealth inequality is

The most salient issue and worldwide but certainly in America. Can you talk a little bit about? Your backing of Congress people not being able to trade stocks? You know, we saw this week, you know, Trump was, you know, by the dip. Essentially, Marjorie Taylor Greene is being investigated for potentially knowing something a little bit early. But is there any way that we can make Congress more accountable so that people could not look up to these people and say, like, why are you getting ahead on insider information? Like, we can't stop Trump. He has a, you know, his bank account is open to whoever through the crypto scream. But, you know, what are you guys doing about it? And why do you feel so passionately about it? Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, you have some crooks, liars, and frauds who are in Washington,

D.C., some of whom are serving in Congress, and Exhibit A is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Right? And so in many ways, the fact that she engaged in this in such a blatant way, I think is going to give a boost to our efforts to ban stock trading by sitting members of Congress. It should not happen. And we believe we have some bipartisan support for it. This is going to be an issue that will have to be driven by House Democrats. And it's not ideological. Progressives and New Dems and Blue Dogs were all in alignment that this needs to happen.

Just to be clear, did Marjorie Taylor Greene do anything that Speaker Emerita Pelosi hasn't done numerous times? Yeah. I don't think Speaker Pelosi has ever traded on insider information. It's an open question as to whether Marjorie Taylor Greene had insight from the Trump administration as to the fact that he unleashed these tariffs on the American people and on the world. Market crashes, says he's not going to reverse himself, and then a few days later reverses himself. And in that interim, you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene buying the dip.

Well, Speaker, to be fair, Speaker Pelosi bought call options in Tempus AI and has access to massive expenditure inside information. She bought call options. And when it was announced that she had disclosed the stock surge and she made millions of dollars. I mean, I almost appreciate that Trump has decided if I'm gonna be corrupt, I'm gonna do it for billions.

Whereas we as Democrats decide when we're corrupt, we're gonna do it for millions. But I think we can agree that we should probably just get rid of any stock trading by all elected representatives. It's got to be banned. Right. Got to be banned. So DEI has been a big, obviously a hot topic and a hot issue. And 60 years ago, there were 12 black people at Harvard, Princeton, Yale combined. That was a problem. And we did something about it. We came together. This year, 60% of Harvard's freshman class identifies as non-white. And the gap, the

academic gap between black and white was double what it was between rich and poor. And now it's flipped. And it's double between rich and poor than it is between black and white, which is a collective victory. And I've said on our pod that, and I think this is an amazing thing that there's a lot of data showing in today's economy, you'd rather be born non-white or gay than poor. So my question is the following, and I don't mean to be aggressive here, should your children have advantage or should DEI be reconfigured to address the real issue? And that is the biggest indicator, unfortunately, in our nation of your success is how rich your parents are, not your ethnicity, not your sexual orientation, not your gender.

Does DEI affirmative action need a reconfiguration? Well, to be clear, African Americans are still disproportionately- There'd be a huge overlap. If we went to- Disproportionately poor as it relates to any other segment of society. So, I know statistics are important here and that's the reality. But if you went to economically based affirmative action,

there'd be a 70%, 70% of the people currently getting affirmative action still be subject to it because of the economical part. Well, I do think that you got affirmative action, right? As it was initially conceived and then it was modified by the, I think it was the Blake decision in 1979, which basically said that diversity can be a factor, not the only factor.

And now the Supreme Court has entirely gotten rid of it. It doesn't even exist. So I think what you're seeing is this notion of this attack on diversity, equity and inclusion being used as a proxy for the reality that many in this administration aren't really interested in merit. We believe in merit. Merit should be based on what you know, not who you know.

And when the person leading the charge in terms of attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion is the so-called defense secretary. Give me a break. This is the most unqualified secretary of defense in American history, who by the way should be fired. But you know, I do think that what the right has successfully done is to weaponize the letters DEI, is to weaponize the letters D-E-I to stand for grievances that people have

throughout society and in some ways, based on the reality that yes, as we talked about, that American dream is further and further out of reach for poor whites, for working class whites, and of course for people in communities of color all across America. And I think when you look at diversity, equity, and inclusion, right, to me these are American values, right? These are American values. The creed of this country, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. That's diversity.

Right, perhaps the most important constitutional amendment, part of the 14th Amendment, is equal protection under the law. Right, that's what's guaranteed here in this country. Core part of the Constitution, equal protection under the law. That's equity. And when we go to the floor to open up the house

and we pledge allegiance to the flag and we recite it, and we conclude by talking about one nation under God, indivisibleible with liberty and justice for all. A-L-L, for all. That is equity. So let's be clear, diversity, equity, and inclusion are American values. We shouldn't be running away from it.

We should be embracing it. Do you think, not to harp on the branding issue, but do you think we could rebrand it into something that people can't attack as easily because I find you know some folks that I know and work with didn't know for instance that veterans are actually part of an you know, an inclusion protected class they thought it was only about black people or trans people or whoever they want to argue are undeserving of their jobs. So how can we better make the case that you just made to the broader public and kind of divorce ourselves from some of the extremism? And we went a little haywire, I think, during the COVID era.

It just had to just pile onto them. Yeah. Don't pile on. Pile on COVID era. It just said, just to pile onto them. Yeah, yeah. Don't pile on. Pile on, sorry, I can't help it. It's nice he came to hang out with us. He is, look how, I wanna roll with this guy, my God. Anyways, at the Democratic National Convention, I felt like it was a parade of special interest groups.

And at the dnc.org website, it says who we serve and it lists everyone from the disabled, veterans, Asian Pacific Islanders. I added it up, it's 74% of the population. And when the DNC actively says on their website that we're actively explicitly advocating for 74% of the population, they're not advocating for 74%, they're discriminating against 26. And what I saw on stage was an acknowledgement of the struggles that a lot of special interest groups still face with no acknowledgement of the special interest group that is

struggling the most and that is young men. And you're out of central casting for someone who's done incredibly well with some wins in your face. You have sons. What are your thoughts about struggling young men in our nation and can you give me? Specifically one or two policy ideas just spitballing that would help arrest the decline of the group that has fallen further Faster yeah than any group in America and that's young man. Yeah, you know, I think that we have to Higher education is important and I think all of us were beneficiaries of,

higher education as an opportunity. I grew up in a very working class household, union household, central Brooklyn, in the middle of the crack cocaine epidemic. Life was very dangerous at the time. My parents made very modest livings. My dad was a substance abuse social worker, my mom worked for the Human Resources Administration. And my grandmother, I think maybe had a year or two of a college

education. And her view was that for myself for my younger brother, the pathway to success was higher education, and that was typical in a lot of African American households. And so in fact, she would say to myself and my younger brother, look, you and Hassan, that's my younger brother, you're gonna go to elementary school, and then you're gonna go to middle school and graduate, then you're gonna go

to high school and graduate, then you're gonna go to college and graduate, then you're going to go to middle school and graduate, then you're going to go to high school and graduate, then you're going to go to college and graduate, then you're going to go to either law school, get a PhD or become a doctor, or get a business degree. And we're like, grandma, we're going to be in school our whole lives. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, she believes in it so much that she,

and this is a woman of very modest means, she believes in it so much that she, and this is a woman of very modest means, every time we graduated starting in elementary school, she gave myself or my younger brother $500 in cash. Still not sure where she got the money from. And by the way, I made the mistake of telling this story in front of my sons. They said, Dad, you've been shortchanging us our whole lives. Your sons are here?

They're not here. I've told it before them in the past. And but that's how much she believed in higher education as a pathway. But when I got in the public service, what was startling for me, having had that life experience, was very early on in the Congress, and I realized that something like 67 and a half percent of adults aged 24 or older in America don't have a full year college degree.

And so that means that for decades, the path into the American dream, the path into a middle-class lifestyle, actually didn't run through college alone. And part of the reason that there's a lot of frustration now is that for many young people, young men, we've kind of abandoned that. And that's the jobs going overseas and the plants closing and the factories closing and the de-emphasis from an education standpoint on career and

technical education, which is why I think actually we should lean in to both if you want to go to college, go to college, but career and technical education, particularly, you know, with the advanced jobs that are available, not with a college degree, but, you know, even if it was coding or AI or what the case may be, and auto mechanic, the construction trades, these all can provide really good lifestyles. And that had traditionally been available

to a lot of young men in our country who could then provide for their families. And there is a frustration that it seems as if from a policy standpoint, we've walked away from leaning into that. And that's the majority of the American people. And I think that's certainly an area where shouldn't be a democratic policy, Republican policy,

it's the right thing to do for America. So vocational program, what do you think of mandatory national service or raising minimum wage of 25 bucks an hour? I definitely think raising the minimum wage. My first minimum wage job, I was a messenger going from office to office to office here in Manhattan in my sophomore year of high school. And I made $3.35 an hour. I thought I was doing I made $3.35 an hour.

I thought I was doing well at $3.35 an hour and that was in the mid 80s. But the fact that that was in the mid 80s and now it's still $7.25, that's corrupt in terms of being there for the American people. We just introduced legislation That was set in motion is called the raise the wage act That would set in motion an increase of the floor to $17 per hour mandatory national service mandatory national service. I'm all in on Yeah as an alternative right to I mean there's military service and that's a path right, in four people experience sensory sensitivities, making everyday

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That's not going to stop. If certainly we continue on this tariff agenda or whatever else he has planned for the economy. But, you know, how do you feel about our prospects heading into the midterms? And then in 2028, we got to find a charismatic leader. Maybe it's you. I don't know. Maybe it's Scott.

He would prefer that. Yeah. A chicken in every pot, a sialis in every cupboard. Galloway 2028. It's the motto for the podcast. Make America a... Never mind. It's my bar mitzvah.

You've mentioned that. How are you feeling about our chances? Well, you know, legislatively, it's all hands on deck, because this is an unprecedented, unnormal attack on the American way of life, on the economy, on health care, on social security, on democracy, on the rule of law. And so it's going to require a level of intensity every hour, every day, every week, right? Every month, this year, next year, get to the midterm elections, work as hard as we

can to take back control of the House, cut his presidency in half legislatively, and then lay the foundation to move forward in a more enlightened direction in terms of 2028. I think it's clear to me, as was just evidenced in Wisconsin, right, that if the election were held today, Democrats will take back control of the House of Representatives. That's the reality. Unfortunately, it's not today. And so there's still a lot of work to be done

between now and then. I do think foundationally, we have to convince the American people and those who we lost that we hear you, right? We hear you and we see you, we feel you, and we're committed to making life better for you. And as Democrats, it actually is the case, it actually is the case that we wake up every morning

and at our core, we want to make life better for the American people. Now we have to do a better job of convincing the American people that that in fact is what drives us, but it actually does. Every single member of Congress that I serve with, from the most progressive to the most centrist and at all points in between, are driven by making life better for the American people.

In fact, that's the modern day Democratic Party, right? Who's given the country social security and rural electrification and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act, and Medicare, and Medicaid, and Head Start, and the Affordable Care Act, and the American Rescue Plan, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the PAC Act, right, and the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, all brought to you by your friendly neighborhood democratic parties. Like we actually care about public service being a vehicle to make life better for the American people.

Our challenge often has been that we have not always been as effective in communicating that sentiment. And I'm convinced that part of the reason is that generally look, you know, you govern in fine print, but you message in headlines. And we, because we are committed to governing, right? And we, because we are committed to governing, right, we have mastered the fine print.

Unless you master the fine print, you can't accomplish all of the things that I just laid out, and those were the highlights. But far too often, instead of communicating in headlines, you persuade in headlines, we lapsed into fine print. And now when we've done it right, Barack Obama, right, who governed in fine print, Affordable Care Act, groundbreaking, but communicated in headlines on his way into office, six words,

yes we can hope and change, that we all can remember to this very day. Absolutely. What do they say, if you're explaining you're losing and we're always explaining, my whole life is explaining. Well, if you consider this tiny point and then I've lost, I wanna make sure that I get,

you know, our end of interview question that we ask everyone, what's one issue that makes you rage and one issue that you think we should all calm down about? So in terms of the issue that makes me rage, I just think it's the cruelty of it all that we're seeing coming from Donald Trump and the Republicans. Mm-hmm. from Donald Trump and the Republic. It's cruel to fire thousands of veterans who served this country. It's cruel.

It's cruel to try to snatch away Social Security, right? I mean, it's cruel to impose the largest Medicaid cut in American history. The cruelty of it all, I can go on and on, the mean-spirited nature of it all, you're gonna crash the economy, drive us toward a recession, and then say, well, what's a little pain to be experienced by the American people? And this is not America, we are better than this. And I think that is, you know, that is probably

above all else, what enrages me in terms of the moment that we find ourselves in. Yeah, and calm down or nothing? Well, yeah, I would say in terms of Calming down this whole notion of Trump's third term Right. That's the Q&A question that I have for you We're killing two with one. I'll ask an emotionally manipulative question. Yeah, you get Your terminator moment. You have a time machine You can go back in time and see someone who's gone now

and you got 15 seconds. Who would it be and what would you say to them? Harriet Tubman. And I would just ask about, you know, how does she summon the courage, the conviction and the character to do what she did. She freed herself, crossed the Mason-Dixon line, and then went back down south at least a dozen times, freeing at least 100 if not 200 or more black slaves, putting herself in jeopardy. This is a Harriet Tubman

moment that we're in, in terms of the sacrifice, the courage, the character, the conviction that's going to be required. And I think that will be a conversation that we all could benefit from and certainly that those of us in Congress could benefit from. That's a great answer. And it also connects to another Q&A question that I have from the live stream about courage. What is your opinion of your former firm, Paul Weiss and its capitulation to Trump?

It's the perfect crowd for this. Yeah. Well, you know, I was, I had the opportunity to work at Paul Weiss for several years and I was drawn to Paul Weiss at the time. A. Leon Higginbotham had left Third Circuit, prominent African American lawyer who turned into a jurist. He was a chief justice of the Third Circuit.

Firm had a great history. Judge Rifkin, who really viewed sort of the role of the lawyer as a public citizen. And then great lawyers like Arthur Lyman and Marty London. And I got great training from there, I knew I would. And it also embraced pro bono and public service. And so, I haven't had the opportunity to talk to Brad about the decision that was made.

I think he probably made that decision, believing it was the right decision for the firm. But it's an open question as to whether that's the same decision that Arthur Lyman or Judge Rifkin or Aaliyah Higginbotham would have advised. I do think to zoom it out, this is a moment where we are gonna have to stand up to the bully. And that means that, you know, universities like Harvard standing up to the bully, law firms,

corporations, of course those of us as members of Congress, and to do it with an intensity, unlike anything that we have been called upon to do up until this point and to rise to the occasion, just like so many others have risen to the occasion in the past upon whose shoulders we now stand. So I have a question from the audience for Joss. I think that's my favorite in the live stream. My parents are Fox News addicts

and I see how bad the propaganda can be. My question is you are a fresh voice that has facts. Was this written by a doctor? In your arguments, how do you push back respectfully on your colleagues and maintain your sanity? Um, I guess the open question on how sane I am, um, but I really believe in what I'm saying and I think that that separates a lot of people that are out there communicating today from those who might be able to make real connections.

And I think the facts are very much on our side. You know, I mean- By the way, isn't she just fucking outstanding on that show? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It isn't, Sid?

It isn't. It isn't. It isn't. It isn't. It isn't. Now it's my bat mitzvah too. It's your bat mitzvah. No, I think that there is such an exciting opportunity in having conversations with people

that you disagree with. And we spent way too long hiding out in comfortable media environments and not engaging people who the majority of whom actually have come to the way that they think about their world in an honest way, that they grew up in a household that felt a certain way, their parents were a certain way. They subscribe to ex-religion, and that's why they feel this way about an issue that's really important to me, like abortion, for instance.

I didn't know growing up here in Manhattan that many veterans. I didn't know that many gun owners. I thought guns were for cops and bad guys, right? I knew nothing of the conservation world. And I think that when you can treat people with respect and dignity and hear out their point of view and then be able to come back with the facts and the logic and the humanity first and foremost, because that's how you win people over if you're going to represent them.

And that's how you win people over if you're going to message to them and at least kind of open their eyes a bit to the fact over if you're going to represent them. And that's how you win people over if you're going to message to them and at least kind of open their eyes a bit to the fact that the Democrats aren't what Donald Trump says we are, that we're people like you are saying that actually care about your everyday lives and are on the side of people. So that's how I go into every debate. And I think the five also works because people are having a good time and people want to see folks doing that. So that's, yeah, that's what I think about that question.

All right. I've got one for you now. What advice would you give adult men who want to help cure the pain and loneliness that young boys seem to be suffering from? It's from Josh. It's a generous question. If you were to reverse engineer, if you were to reverse engineer the point of failure, when a boy comes off the tracks, it's when he loses a male role model. You couldn't even say that five years ago without triggering people and saying,

well, what, moms can't raise boys. I was raised by a single immigrant mother, lived and died as secretary a lot of my life. But there's pretty significant research showing that in single family homes, of which we have the most in the world, what's interesting, girls have the same outcomes, same level of high school attendance, same levels of self-harm, same income, whereas boys become much more likely to be incarcerated, much more likely to engage in self-harm when they lose a male role model. It ends up that while being physically stronger, boys are

emotionally and mentally much weaker than girls. So the fix is that as a society, we have to move immediately when we see a boy or finding boys and they're everywhere, especially those being raised by single mothers that have no male involvement. And the really sad part is men aren't stepping up. In New York, there's three times as many women applying to be big sisters as there are men applying to be big brothers. And there's a bit of a social taboo.

I think there's a lot of men in their thirties and maybe don't have kids of their own who have a lot of fraternal and paternal love to give, but are afraid about what their community might think of them if they express an interest in getting involved in a 15 year old boy's life. And there's, and also they're intimidated. You don't have to be a baller. You don't have to have a degree in adolescent psychiatry.

I coach a lot of young men and it's striking how easy it is to add value. I mean, they're just making a series of really bad decisions every day. So in sum, we need family core. We need moms. We need communities to recognize we need family court, we need moms, we need communities to recognize, we need male involvement. There's a lot of communities where young men, their first male role model is a prison guard.

There's just no men. So a long-winded way of saying, you know, I think of, I'm writing a book on masculinity, I think in concentric circles, take care of yourself, right? You're in great shape, you look good, you take care of your family, you're taking care of your community, you're a civic leader. I think the ultimate expression of masculinity is to get involved in the life of the child that isn't yours.

So just to summarize, if we want better men, we've got to be better men. We have to step up. I'm going to cheat and give you the same question because I want to hear you talk about how men can lead. Well I definitely, you know, having come up in the community that as I mentioned in the middle of the crack cocaine epidemic, you know, it was interesting because all of my boys who I was closest with, you know, all growing up in very tough neighborhoods across central Brooklyn at the time. It was interesting to me that every single one of them who had both a mom and a dad

in their household wound up going to college and or getting a good paying job and was on a really strong trajectory. And then there were others who were raised in a single parent household, several of whom went on to live productive lives. But others who didn't have that clear male role model in that household, who are my own children, who are my own children, who are my own parents, who are my own clear male role model in that household, who in my own anecdotal experience fell into trouble. And as a matter of fact, have had a life of trouble, in some cases in and out of jail.

And I do think it is important and this is what the My Brother's Keeper initiative from a few administrations ago was all about. But all of us, I do think, I agree with you, Scott, have to step into the lives of others to provide, you know, some guidance and some perspective and also to make it clear to young people that, and young men that look, everything is not always gonna be successful in life. And often you see people who are successful, and you see the glory without seeing the story.

And one of the things that I think is gonna be important is for all of us to be more vulnerable, right, in communicating with folks. Like I ran twice for a seat in the New York State Assembly and lost twice before I was successful. And, you know, I was knocked down on the ground twice. It was tough. And you run for public office and you lose, and it's a real public thing, you can't hide. Yeah. The fact that you just got knocked down. It's public failure.

It's public failure. And I found, as I've talked to young men and young women, but particularly in having the conversation of just sharing my own journey, not wherever I may have wound up, but some of the adversity that I have confronted. You know, and I've pointed out Churchill, I think once made the observation, success is not final, failure is not fatal.

All that matters at the end of the day is the courage to continue. But where did you get that code? Was it from your parents? Was it from your church? Like what is your code that you think has given you that type of resilience, that type of grit? Well, I think definitely to some degree, you know,

my father who dealt with a lot of adversity throughout his life and, you know, powered through it, served in the military before he went off to college, served in Germany in the Air Force during the Cold War at Rwandan, went off to college and met, you know, my mom and you know also powered through a lot of dynamics because he was a substance abuse social worker, right? And he's dealing with folks who are battling addiction in the 70s, the heroin explosion, and then the 80s into the early 90s, the crack cocaine epidemic. But it was me sort of confronting the adversity in a public way, not once, but twice, you know, and then stumbling upon that

Churchill quote as I was grappling with it all, and then I ultimately came to the conclusion that, you know what, a knockdown is different than a knockout. That's the Hakeem Jeffries Churchill remix, y'all. Yeah. And, you know, success is not final, failure is not fatal. All that matters is the courage to continue.

I think saying that without context is not as powerful as actually making that clear, but then sharing your own personal journey and the adversity that you yourself have had to overcome. And the more we can be vulnerable in that regard, authentically vulnerable to young men, the better it may be for them in their journey to power through their turbulence.

We're out of time and we so appreciate your time and all of you. Well, hold on. We just have one quick question for leader Jeffries. If we were a household, we're making $50,000 a year, we're spending $70,000, and we have debt of $370,000, which our children are going to have to inherit. We're backed into a corner with that.

Can you specifically say, do we either need to raise taxes, lower spending, or both and establish some fiscal sanity? That was my question. Well, listen, I do think that we are going to have to have a real conversation in the Congress when the moment presents itself to right size our fiscal situation that right is going to involve both how do we promote economic growth. That's not what's happening right now with this administration.

Actually investments frozen, hiring frozen. And that's part of the reason why we're on the brink of a potential recession because of the erratic nature. The uncertainty of Trump's policies, even if some would agree with some of the things that he's done, I strongly disagree with it all. But the uncertainty is a problem. So okay, we've got to figure out how do we create, whether it's a Democratic administration or Republican administration, the type of climate

that allows for economic growth and activity. And then we have to look at our spending, and we have to look at our revenues and be willing authentically to do that. I mean, part of the problem though, is that every time there's a Republican administration, literally, they inherit a better financial and fiscal situation, economic situation, and then blow it because of tax cuts for the wealthy and the well-off.

Great point. Sorry, Justin, I need to. Democrats rule. There you go. 50 million jobs under Democrats the last 40 years, 1 million under Republican administrations. Messaging and slogans. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you guys for coming. Thank you, leader. Thank you. Thank you, Shawna.