The Adam Friedland Show (Cumtown) - SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY Talks Loneliness Epidemic, Internet, Democratic Coalition

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg, am I correct in remembering this? She said she didn't want to retire because she wanted a female president to replace. I don't remember that. Maybe there were reports that she said that behind this. Yeah. How little was she? I mean, we don't hang out with the Supreme Court Justice. But you see her at the state of the union.

I mean, she's got, she seems like, but I wasn't like measure. She was like three five maybe, three six. I don't think she's three five. That's what it looked like. I hated those t-shirts though. Oh, they're still out there. The notorious RBG? Yeah.

What the hell are they talking about? She's just some blame. It is true, like a rapper. Hello and welcome to the Adam Friedland Show, guys. Adam Friedland here. Of course, I want to thank our members here on YouTube.com. This show may very well turn, be a profitable enterprise any day now. If you want to support the show, support what's happening on the show,

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My guest this week is United States Senator from Ketka, Connecticut, Chris Murphy. Murphy's made a name for himself in the Democratic Party as an outspoken advocate against Donald Trump during his second term. Now, I know what you're thinking. Connecticut, seriously? The 48th largest state?

Like, big whoop, you know? And folks, I'd be lying if I didn't have many of these prejudices in my own heart at various points in my life. I thought people from Connecticut were drunks, Neanderthals, criminals. We all know the saying, you know, watch your wallet, here comes a Connecticutucion. We've all heard the joke.

Should I say? I don't want to, okay, I'll say that. You know the joke. What do you call a man from Connecticut with a sheep under one arm and a goat under the other arm, a bisexual? It's not funny. But I implore you, dear viewer, not to look down on Senator Murphy just because of where he's from. My conversation with Senator Murphy taught me an important lesson about the power of dialogue. hopefully it does the same for you guys as well.

Connecticut holds an important place in history and culture. For instance, it was the site of the world's first helicopter and the world's first hamburger, and of course the world's first condom, which was made out of sheep intestine, and of course people not from Connecticut improved upon it by taking the intestine out of the sheep first. So guys, please enjoy my conversation with Chris Murphy,

this guy is from Connecticut might be the president one day it would be good for the show if you want to be the president come on the show ladies and gentlemen senator from the great state of Connecticut

okay state of Connecticut Chris Murphy everyone Hey everybody Hi yeah clap please everybody everybody I walked out I walked out a little early It's been constant disrespect since this guy came here

I wanted to know if it was like inspired by Dick Cavett or a direct reproduction. It's really, it's ridiculous that this is my job. But it's really awesome. Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean, it's kind of, does it feel demeaning for you? Do you feel like how far? This is a new part of the job.

This is a new part of the job. Yeah, you have to like show your personality and authenticity, right? Yeah, yeah. Like I gotta be a real, I gotta be a real person. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it used to be that like, you know, you could just do like two cable shows. Yeah. Maybe if you were a big deal, you'd show up on late night TV and now, you know,

Now you have to talk about... You used to do a show called Cumbtown. Right. Yeah. All right. So you used to be from the Red Onion Capital of America. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So we both have a checkered past.

Connecticut, I know it's your home state. I know you're going to... Listen, you love your state. Yeah. But it's a little bit bullshit. It's a little bit bullshit to me. Just because you sort of view it as being the obstacle between Boston and New York. The drive, the trap...

I've never not had traffic. Yeah, it's a popular. But it's a popular place. I mean, places that no one wants to be don't have traffic. I understand. It's not like a real fucking city over here in New York. No. I mean, first of all, it has the Jersey thing where it's like either New York or New England, Boston, right?

Yeah, like we're both tri-state and we're New England. Was the Red Onion place? Was that a New York zone or was that New England zone? New England zone. So like I grew up, Wethersfield, Connecticut is like Hartford area. So I grew up in the center of the state. So you, so you're Sox, Celtics? I'm Sox, Celtics, but New York Giants.

So why not Patriots? I respect that. Yeah, I rude for whoever my father rooted for when he was growing with Patriots didn't exist. So if you were like growing up in Central Connecticut, you were Boston fans, but for football, you were New York. So, yeah, I've got both New York and Boston. Wait, your colleague is, was from the New York side. the other senator from... The Klamathol?

Right. So do you guys kind of have like a... You guys cover a different size of the state? I mean, you don't really need... He covers the insider and training side of the state. The state's like that big. You don't really need some... You don't need to divvy it up in half.

So Blumenthal is like one of these relentless politicians who goes to everything, right? He works like Saturdays, Sundays. So he, in some ways, he does the job for both of us. Really? So you don't have to do crap? Well, I mean, you do your hot dog tour of Connecticut. I do my hot dog tour to Connecticut.

But that's personal. I was mean to you guys on that call. Can I apologize real quick? I mean, it was. They said, they told me that you weren't going to say that you were not impressed by the hot dog tour and you weren't going to bring it up. I said like, I was like, you know, like I've been doing a lot of research. I was like, does he play guitar?

Like, is there anything? And they're like, listen. He is a, he does a hot dog tour. And I think framing him as a hot dog aficionado might be good. It's super embarrassing that that was. like the go-to. And I'm like, I feel actively depressed after hearing back. Yeah, that's what makes me interesting. And listen, you guys are professionals. I don't, like, and I just want to, I want to take accountability for that, but that was one of the worst things I've

ever heard. It's not a reflection on them. It's a reflection on they have like very, no, they have like very little material to work with with their boss. Bruce Hornsby fan. Yes. Yeah, you took, you took your staff to Bruce Hornsby? I'm going to take them to Bruce Hornsby. He's playing in DC next week so none of them know who he is I know no nobody know and actually if you like I sort assume that everybody knows his signature song the way the way it is boys what were we listening to before but like no what were you listening to yeah yeah fewer people know even one of bruce norms me's songs they played the dead right yeah he played for the dead for like 10 years and he does like really kind of like interesting avant-garde stuff now he's I mean he tickles them damn

He does sickle the avaries. Yeah. Great pianist. I like, here's what I got on you. Hot dog aficionado, he likes walking around and Bruce Hornsby. It sounds like you... As a fact pattern, that's the BTK killer. You got, we got to do, like, I don't know, you got to get a tattoo, a snake.

I don't know. I walk across the state from one end to the other. I don't just enjoy walking around. Oh, they made it sound like you were some sort of hobo searching through trash, like a raccoon. There was a guy, and I don't remember when it was, but like 100 years ago. In Connecticut, no, called the Leather Man. And he dressed in full, complete leather, head to toe, and walked the state nonstop continuously. And so you would get really excited when you heard rumors of the Leather Man showing up to your town.

And people would rush down to see him. You know, in New York, they have a couple nightclubs for leather guys. It would be much more interesting. My walkwood across Connecticut would be much more interesting. So, like, growing up in the red onion, the red onion town, it's a mark of pride. I saw the mascot you guys have. Do we have a red onion mascot? Oh, my God.

You don't even know about your own place, dude. I mean, I grew up there. I haven't lived there for a long time. So you went to public high schools growing up? Yep. What was your vibe like growing up? Like, you were a cool guy? You got girlfriends?

No, I would be. I would, like, I'm who you would expect. I would be. I was president of the class, started a young Democrats club when I was. 16 years old. I know. I was like, listen, I was like the, I was a born organizer, right? So like I organized the, you know, touch football games in the neighborhood. And I, you know, organize the student protest against the dress code. So like, that's just who I was. Radical. It wasn't much of a dress code. It was just that we couldn't wear, we couldn't wear baseball.

Oh, yeah? And you took it to the van? Yeah, yeah. You fought all the way to the top? Yeah, yeah. It was, it was, it was, uh, justice. You like, were elected at 29 to the state senate? Is that correct? I was 20. I was 20. I was 20. I was 20. I was 25 when I was elected to this to the state legislature. So you just never have fun. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this since I was, yeah, since I'm an adult. It's a weird, yeah, it's definitely a strange life, right, to live like your entire life in elective politics. I mean, I wasn't really in the public eye when I was a state legislator, but yeah, it kind of,

it kind of fucks with you to do this job and only this, and only this job. It's kind of like a pejorative these days, right, career politician. Yeah. The Republicans like to, like, say that having experience. Like, that means you're bad. Yeah. No, and they, when I first ran for the Senate, I mean, that was the primary knock on me that I hadn't, you know, I was a lawyer and I practiced law against Linda McMahon. Yeah, yeah. Having experience and having talent should be something that's celebrated in, for a position, like in any, in any career field.

And these days, it's like, we need, like, private equity, evil business thing. And that makes you better than someone that's, like, knows how to do the job, you know? Yeah. And so it's just like, I think, do you feel like that mirrors like kind of like the kind of the decay of like trust in like our elected officials or institutions? Like it's a bad thing that you like do something for 30 years? Yeah, I mean, there's not a lot of evidence to people that a democracy is working writ large or that that experience does anything other than bind you to the status quo and to the powerful people in Washington. So there's a lot of evidence that the longer you stay. the more complicit you become in the project of just enriching the folks at the very top.

But I've always opposed term limits largely because I think it's kind of, you know, just this big act of surrender. Like you're giving up on democracy. You're basically saying democracy can't sort out who amongst those who have been there 10 years are good or bad. And so we're just going to be arbitrary about it. Why not instead fix the problems with democracy? Fix the rules.

So it's a lot easier for somebody to run. And we just don't elect telemarketers, which is kind of. I know what we're doing now, right? Like you are- Or someone that has a meltdown at CVS on Facebook Live about masks. You can be in the House of Representatives like six months later.

Right, so if you know how to sort of engage in clickbait politics or you know how to raise money or you're super wealthy, those are the three things that can qualify you for office right now and maybe we should kind of diagnose that and try to change it. You ever chill with Marjorie or not? No, I've never met her.

Yeah, yeah. The House and Center are like really cool. But if she's like, you're like, that shit's crazy, but like she's, honestly, she's kind of funny. Yeah, like, I mean, we all had like super crazy friends that we would not necessarily want to represent us in Congress, but we're, right, interesting to hang with. She's like that guy, yeah, that friend you have in seventh grade who's like pure, like has no attachment to morality, but that makes them like the funniest guy in the world. Yeah, like lots of my friends are totally unqualified to be in public service, but super awesome to get a beer with. Yeah, those guys always go into rehab at like 16. Right. They always like fall off. They're not phoning anymore. My friend David, this won't go in the episode.

Let's talk about David. David gave a presentation in class and he like whispered to me. He's like, I have a boner right now. And I'm like, he's an insane guy in eighth grade. And I'm like, you're a maniac. And then, yes, of course, the parents sent him to emotional problem school three years later. He really, I don't know where he is. You were elected the house. I saw a campaign ad from your You know which one I'm talking about? No, I don't. I don't know. You're your first run at the house. You'd be some old lady. Yeah, she's been there for Nancy Johnson.

Nancy Johnson. She's been there for 24 years, longest serving congressperson in the history of Connecticut. She freaking hated you, too. She did not like me. She didn't like you. Yeah, yeah. Did you see the ad where it's like, you're like, you're like, the fake me? Yeah, the fake you and you're like high-fiving a drug dealer?

Yes. Yeah, a white guy that's dressed like a black guy. Yeah, she hired an actor to portray me going door to door in which at the final tour I'm welcomed in by a bunch of drug dealers because I have voted in the state legislature to equalize the penalties for crack and cocaine, which meant that I guess I lowered the penalties for crack. She kind of made you look cool, maybe accidentally. Yeah, the actor, I think, was you only saw the back from him, but he sort of, he projected

his better looking than me. And you were dapping him, you're like, I'm good, like, yeah, people. He likes a guy, yeah, I looked a little dangerous, you know. Yeah, it's like when I was growing up. up I'd hear like a rapper say like my Jewish lawyer beat the case for me I'd be like that's that's right we got him off of he commit a crime made me feel great that yeah that 12 year old that didn't do well for for her yeah where she's passed probably no no no she's still I just yes Nancy Johnson where she at she's living in Connecticut I don't know with New

Britain West Hartford Connecticut we got to hit her I ran into her I saw her church service like a year and a half ago. You go to the same church? What's that? You go to the same church as Nancy? Well, I was like trying out churches, so I was trying to find like a new church. And I just happened to be at hers one Sunday morning. But she was like a true 1980s era moderate Republican.

She was pro-choice. She was pro-environment. She's a Connecticut Republican. And so, like, I don't want to speak for Nancy Johnson, but my impression is that she would be a classic kind of never-Trump. Republican. There's just like no home for her now in the party and even back then increasingly there was no home for her so who's your who's your first enemy in politics my first enemy who's the first guy that was like I'm gonna

fuck with Murphy and you're like ah you you know you know well I mean the the the first time I ran for the state legislature I ran against another guy who had been there for a very long time and I think he was equally pissed that at the time a 24 year old had beat him that he moved out of town I think think within about 12 months of the race. Whoa. It was like a wild west showdown. You drove him out?

Angelo Fusco. Oh, he's an Italian guy. Yeah, he's Italian. Maybe with the fishes. Maybe with the fishes. I'd never made peace with him. I never saw him again. But yeah, he didn't stay in town for very, for very long.

Was there an undercurrent of like kind of ethnic white tension? There was no ethnic undercurrent in that race. Was there like, yeah, lower east side? kind of Ellis Island zero yeah I was almost I was I'm supposed to be from Connecticut you know that how so my deep shit ancestor from Lithuania shuttle got literally on the wrong boat was supposed to go to Connecticut his eight brothers moved to New Haven and one brother was like just got off the boat is like where is this New Haven and they're like no it's Africa you're in Africa right

now and Cape Town South Africa right now and my parents are from Cape Town and he gave and he gave up he didn't make a second attempt to get to maybe what he can get another boat trip all that way. No, it must have been crazy, actually, for those, because they were very uneducated. They were, like, they didn't have color photography. They didn't, like, to like... I wonder when he realized.

Like, you think when he actually got off? I think he was like, yeah, like, Herschel or a Yankle or his brother was supposed to meet him at the place, and he's like, where the fuck is... So you could have been a Connecticutucion. You could have been a Connecticutucion. All right, so I first... I think you first came to like national prominence during Sandy Hook and I remember in 2013

you did a you did filibuster 2016 2016 sorry right after the pulse shooting right after the pulse shooting yeah and gun violence is like that's a shit fight like or a gun like trying to fucking it's you guys got one during Biden right you got one thing first yeah we got the first bill in 30 years where it's like 1,200 guys now can't or like have to get checked or something? What is the, what was the bill? Well, no, there's like, the bill is like a comprehensive bill. It put like $13 billion into mental health

and community safety, and then it made like five changes in gun laws. All of them small, but none of them insignificant. One of them closing the boyfriend loophole, so if you, your boyfriend can get gun? No, so if you beat up, it used to, the law used to be that if you beat up your wife, you couldn't get a gun.

Your guns were actually taken away from you, but if you abused your girlfriend, you could keep your guns, so we closed that loophole. We said if you're under 21, you have to have a waiting period before you buy an assault weapon. We should just not sell assault weapons to 18-year-olds, but at least now we've got a 10-day waiting period. But it's not a coincidence that since we passed that bill, gun violence has come way down in the country. So we kind of prove that if you change the laws of the country and you're a little bit more careful about who gets guns, you actually can save lives. Duh, yeah, I mean, it's just like...

It's not rocket science. I looked up the length you did it was 15 hours you did your filibuster was 15 hours right okay and that you're you're you know what ranking you are I mean I'm going down in the rankings right so I assume in my outside of the top 10 now I think you're 10 yeah how's that feel top 10 it hurts yeah but I'm top 10 double digits well so here's what happened with the filibuster is that we got what we asked for so I I had to stop the filibuster because we had a demand and normally filibusters are truly performative what are the rules

Yeah, well, like, you can't pee? You can't, well, you can't sit down or leave your desk. There are rumors that when Strom Thurman... Was in a wheelchair? Well, there were rumors that when he did his filibuster, first of there were no cameras, so who knew what the fuck you were doing in your filibuster? There were rumors that he was leaving regularly

to go to the bathroom and coming back. To go to the bathroom and come back. But no, for mine, I had to stand at the desk for 15 hours. Do you pee your pants? I did not pee my pants. How you had to hold it? Yeah, you got to hold it. It's like your adrenaline is running and like your body is telling you, don't pee your pants.

What shoes do you wear? Regular black shoes. It wasn't that. Like a, like, dressed shoes. You're doing like running shoes? Yeah, Booker when he did his, he wore, he wore sneakers. You think that's pussy? Just kind of cheating.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of cheating. John Thurman in a wheelchair. That's bullshit. In a wheelchair at the time. I don't think he was in a wheelchair at the time of his cellabuster. Later in life. He wasn't.

Because when I saw that he did 24 hours, if it's a wheelchair, it shouldn't be, like, it's an asterisk. No, I agree with that, but I don't think that's actually, but I don't think that's an accurate. Yeah, I don't think it's an accurate historical representation. Okay, so I'm sorry, I disrespected the racist filibuster of Strom Thuron. I think, I think, thank you for your honor of your, as a member of the Club of 100, you've done the honorable thing. It was very moving to be on the floor for Corey's to have him stop the, oh, I thought you're No, no, when he broke, when he broke, when he broke the record. And so, so, Booker was on the floor for my entire 15 hours.

And so when Corey did his 20-something hour filibuster, I stayed on the floor with him for the whole thing. Do the Republicans try to, like, distract, like, laser pointer maybe? No. No. They're like, boo. What have you been scared? It's such a stupid thing that you're describing? Yeah.

Standing and talking. You can't sit. It's literally like you're like something from survivor where you're trying to get immunity. Yeah, but they like it's the rules of the government. Yeah, but when, but so mine again had it, mine was not just performative because what I was saying is that I'm not going to sit down and let you move on to any other business until you schedule votes on gun measures and the idea was we weren't going to win them, but at least we'd sort of show the country that Republicans were against common sense things. One of the things we were demanding was saying that if you're on the terror watch list, like if we're, we think you might be a terrorist, you should not be able to buy a gun. And so we got Republicans to vote against that,

which is part of what helped unelect at least one of them in the next election. So that's why I had to stop, was that the Republican majority said, okay, we'll give you your votes on what you want. You had to take a shit. No, I got what I wanted. Just be real, dude. I got what I wanted. Paul Pierce, too. We all know.

In the finals, when he went in the wheelchair, we all know what that was. He had to go take a crap. He pooped his pants. No, he was serious. serious injury. Have you, what, how many times have you met our, our, our president, our number 45 and 47? I met him a handful of times in the first term. I have not talked to him in the second term. Is he just Trump? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did just like on camera, off camera, it's, he's just Trump. Just Trump. So I did a 45 minute phone call with him after one of the horrible mass shootings during

his first term because he was at that time pretending like he was going to, you know, do a bill that changed the gun laws. Oh, good on that. And for that 45 minutes. minute call all he talked about was Rosie O'Donnell no was what the name of the bill was going to be all he wanted to talk about was the name of the bill didn't didn't want to talk about the substance of the bill how it was going to be passed all he wanted to talk about 45 minutes was the name of the bill the name in the name of the name he's trump I don't even remember what we came up with so you were like word shopping names with Trump shopping names of the Trump's gun control bill and we never went any further we never went any

further than that. Did he have any good ones? Do you remember, like, Mr. President, that's all right? I don't remember. I do remember he didn't want gun control to be in the title, which was kind of patently obvious to anybody on the call that you're probably not going to put that in the title. But I don't, I think he liked, oh, I do remember, I think he liked, he did like the term gun safety. That, yeah, Trump shot, you know, that's not bad. Yeah. But that was it. Like, that was the sum total of our, yeah. Yeah, that was it, just the name. Why does the first term, from my perspective, it feels different. It felt different than this. I remember during the first term that the terms, fascism, you know, Nazi were bandied

about and, you know, the Steele dossier and the Mueller report, like, and we were like waiting on like the smoking gun and like, you know, Rachel Maddow, like, convinced my dad that Vladimir Putin was trying to kill him and like, you know, like, but like, uh, it seemed like he was more interested in just going to Buckingham Palace and like going to dinner doing the sword dance in Saudi Arabia he just wanted to like go

be treated like he's the best guy when COVID broke out my assumption was like if he wants to enact fascism he could a global health crisis he could just declare martial law to assume absolute power and I'm like I think he's too lazy for fascism yes right so what is

in your estimation I know there's a Supreme Court decision that has equipped them with the ability to liquidate the civil service. The guys he had the first time are different than the guys he had the second time. What's the difference here? Why does this feel different? Yeah, so I think that's part of the answer, but you're sort of short-hand, but this is right. I mean, he just was not ready to do, I think, what was in his gut in the first term,

which is to try to seize a whole bunch of power for the executive branch, but he was not surrounded by people who knew how to do that and he hadn't thought at all about how to to do that. So in the four-year interim, the Republican Party kind of becomes dominated by two underlying dangerous ideas. One is that democracy is kind of outdated and antiquated. That becomes kind of a mainstream Republican idea. You can't keep up with China or Russia

with the inefficiency of democracy. So we need something more nimble, like a CEO style. And then the second idea that becomes mainstream in the Republican Party is that the left, Democrats, are like an existential threat to the country, that America is really a white Christian country and that Democrats who believe that multicultural journalism is our strength are a threat

and they need to be disposed with at any cost. So even if we have to get rid of democracy, which may be what we need to do to keep with the China anyway, it's justified if it's what eliminates Democrats in the sort of mainstream left from our politics. So when he becomes president, you just have a whole bunch of believers that are ready to populate the administration

who are actually enthusiastic about the project of destroying democracy for a host of different reasons. And they put together a plan to do it and from day one they start operationalizing it. Is that Project 2025? Yeah, I think, listen, I think Project 2025 is part of it, but I think a lot of their plans, you know, were so insidious that they weren't dumb enough

to actually write them into Project 225. I think they have always envisioned using the DOJ in order to try to hunt and silence their political enemies. They didn't write that into Project 2025, but that clearly has been part of their plan. I think because of the Russiagate stuff, my assumption when Project 2025 was coming up during the election, and we were told that this is the most important election ever, and then we saw that debate performance, and we're like, if it's the most important, then the Democrats don't seem to think, be taking it very seriously. And so when I heard Project

25, it sounded conspiratorial and it didn't sound like a real thing. And it took me a while to actually like realize, and it very shortly before the actual election that, oh, this is actually like substantive because it's coming from the Heritage Foundation. And effectively, the American conservative project has been, I don't know, is this right, but like since Reagan to liquidate elements of the federal government and kind of sell them off. to the private sector. Correct. And then whatever is left, turn it into essentially mechanisms for enrichment of the corporate

crowd and the economic elite crowd. So you might not liquidate all the regulatory agencies, but they just get turned into places that continue to flow money and resources to the very powerful. My assumption was always like, we can get through whoever is the president because we have a robust civil service. So there are enough, like, little old ladies that go to the Department of Health and Human Services. And, like, running the vaccine program to make sure that our kids don't die.

And that's why planes don't crash into each other. And that's why, like, America can kind of function if, you know, if Bush is the president or Obama's the president or Trump's the president of the first time. What is Doge now after Elon's gone? Have there been more liquidations of, you know, like, departments in the executive branch? I mean, I remember hearing that they were going to give it to Palantir. Is that what happened? We don't hear about that anymore.

Yeah, I think you're right. You don't hear about it as much because you don't have a celebrity running the process of terminating public employees, but they are still laying people off at HHS, for instance, and at NAAH, there continue to be mass layoffs. A lot of it stopped because the courts stepped in and said they couldn't do much of it. So the courts have slowed down the process of mass firings, but they're certainly not hiring anybody new, and some of these agencies are effectively gutted and ceasing to exist in functional form.

Yeah, it's just funny. It's like, I feel like there are things that happen that are in the public eye, and then they disappear so fast, right? And we're like appalled by the thing. When Los Angeles happened, right? When we saw human beings being taken from their families, Like, just, you know, and in the abstract, I understood that due process had been suspended and that we, people that are the most vulnerable members of society are being taken from

their families and put in, effectively, cages. You guys are up against so much right now. And, like, how do you, how do you, there's like 18,000 different things that you have to, like, fix. Correct. Yeah, so, listen, I think this is. the biggest struggle for all of us is to understand, you know, what is real and a persistent threat? What is Trump just trying to change the news cycle? And so I think we're starting to figure out

where our power is. But it does affect how I spend my time. So I spend a lot of my time these days just trying to help stand up mobilization all around the country. So I, for instance, like stopped raising money for my own political campaign. And I only raise money. And I only raise money right now. I only raise money for protest groups all around the country. And I've given out probably close to a million dollars to protest groups, just trying to help people organize around things like Jimmy Kimmel being taken down off the air so that we can give people some hope that if we mobilize around, for instance, a boycott of Disney, that we can actually start to save some of our constitutional rights. Yeah. I want to try something, but I need my cell phone

for this. I have an idea. Okay. I left my cell phone over there. Okay, so I'm sorry about this as unprofessional to me. Props. Okay, so, we're going to try something. All right. Okay, so let's... You're making me nervous? No, no, no, no, I'm not, it's fine, dude.

Don't worry, dude. fucking don't worry okay okay let's I'm a from a foreign country okay okay and I'm also stupid okay yeah this is in this hypothetical situation not because I'm from a foreign country just because I happen to be a stupid guy just to be clear got it okay could you please explain to me I just arrived in America could you please explain to me what is the Democratic Party So, you ready? Yeah.

Right. So the Democratic Party stands for the idea that everybody in this country should have the opportunity to succeed and that the economy today is rigged to favor billionaires and corporations over everybody else. The Democratic Party also believes that our democracy is rigged right now to support the powerful and not the powerless. What we stand for is giving more power to workers and making sure that the people are in charge of democracy, not the economic elites. Thank you. How long was that? It's good.

Let's play it. Can you play it? No, pause. Sorry, I thought this was going to be really funny. Thomas, no, now they want me to translate it. Just, okay. How do I, how do I make it play? Are you using what happened?

What are you using? Google Translate. Yeah. Thomas, it's going to be a hilarious bit. How do I make it play? My language. Dude, this is so embarrassing. This is just so fucking embarrassing right now.

This is what editing is for, right? This is the biggest opportunity in my life. It's a member of the club of 100. Your friend, you know, you know Lindsey Grant, dude. You're like fucking, you're... Royalty? This is so embarrassing. I told him I'm a tech officianto when I booked him.

I got a heart out. What time's your heart out? I don't know. Where do you have to go? The island? Come on. I'm sorry, dude. I'm nervous and I deflected.

Do it again. What do you mean do it again? It's mean to do it, but he's... Oh, but I've got to do it again. Okay. Allow AXA. Yeah, so what's the Democratic Party? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

No, you put it in Greek, dude. I want it Chinese. Okay, and also it's Greek, oh shit, dude. Thomas, he's speaking English, I'm speaking. This is so embarrassing, dude. This is one of the biggest moments of my career. What's supposed to happen here? This guy knows, he knows John Thune.

This guy, he knows a, comma. So what's the Democratic Party? I'm doing it again. What? All right, the Democratic Party stands for. Okay. What is the Democratic Party? Just let's see.

Okay. It's going to be hilarious, guys. Okay. The Democratic Party stands for the idea that everyone in this nation should have an opportunity to succeed, not just billionaires and millionaires. This is good. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty good. And now play. Hey. I got it. Thanks a lot.

Guys, let's give it up for that bit. How funny was it? I see that there are like a lot. that there are like a lot of like when you look at the popular sentiment of your voting base you see 8% of Democrats support what's happening in Gaza you see that like you know ice has a 13% favorability amongst you guys and then like then we can link that to like child separation policies were happening under Biden and like Obama did take a small DHS program and and expanded dramatically.

And beyond all that, like, it kind of seems to me the Democrats' voting base is not reflected in the actions of the party more often than not. Yeah, I mean, I think there's two things going on right now. One is that people are just pissed off that we haven't been more effective in stopping Trump's authoritarian takeover. So you've got our approval ratings in the toilet,

in part because our own folks want us to be fighting harder. But second, I think to your point, You know, we over time became a technocratic party that advertised we could just run government well and we could make some adjustments to the market to make your life better. Instead of being a moral party, right, which talked about the economy and the world in moral terms. And that means that we have looked illegitimate in the eyes of many when our solution to a fundamentally morally broken health care system was to just send more money to the insurance companies and that we looked like we didn't understand what was happening in Gaza

when we talked about trying to manage behind the scenes the number of Gazans who were being killed on any single one day instead of just saying no for the time being the United States cannot continue to sell weapons to Israel until this carnage stops Why hasn't the party? What we're seeing is in terms of favorability ratings Trump has a higher favorability than the Democratic Party even with everything happening right now with you know act like a rise in political violence like a just a him stoking the flames you know and say like you know blaming it on the other side instead of saying calm down everyone like it seems like there's to me like there's a grappling and like you guys are fucking fighting each other like in the party to define what the message is and it's um they're really good at falling in line you know

they're like okay we're magin now except for like Mitt Romney and and you know Cheney's daughter Yeah, you basically get kicked out of the party anyway. Yeah. Yeah, they're a cult of personality right now, and so, of course, they're going to have more sort of solidarity in terms of how popular the party is. Listen, people want to see us fighting, and they have not seen us draw that moral line in the sand

about what Trump has done. We've had opportunities to do it. Back in the spring, we could have chosen not to fund the government unless there was some commitment that there was going to be a little bit less totalitarianism. We maybe shouldn't have all showed up to the State of the Union speech to have provided a nice bipartisan backdrop for, you know, to hurt his feelings.

Yeah, right. And now we are, you know, two weeks away from another moment where the party could say, we have no moral obligation to pay the bills for the destruction of our democracy. And so if you want our votes for this budget, then you've got to build some protections into this budget so that there's less of a chance that we lose our constitutional rights. What are the discussions like within your caucus? Because it seems like, you know, like why here in New York City, the biggest city in America, like why haven't we seen party leaders endorse the Democratic nominee for mayor?

Yeah, I mean, I can't speak for them, but it's sort of the same feeling that the party has historically had about Bernie, right? That Bernie's politics are fringe, they're dangerous, when in fact Bernie's politics and, In Mamdami's politics, to an extent, are the pathway to a crossover into Trump's base, right? Legitimate populists, people that are actually talking about plans to take power from the corporatists and give it to regular people. That's the only way that you're going to reach into Trump's base and steal some of his voters who are coming to the conclusion that he's not a legitimate populist.

So I just have always drawn an issue with this idea that populism, hostility to market fundamentalism, is a danger inside the party. I think that's our corporate crowd selling us a lie. And I think the only way that we're ever going to be competitive again in a place like Missouri or Ohio is being a true populist party that attacks corporate power. And that's the sort of route and the path

that both Bernie and Zoran are showing us. Two things. One is, to one extent is it his political message and versus him being a, you know, young, charismatic talent that threatens entrenched powers that be. And the second thing is, like, what do you do about the corporatist side of the party? Like, how does one, how do you, like, within your caucus, you have a tremendous amount of people that are opposed to that vision of path forward?

How do you coalesce behind that? Like, you, Chris Murphy is trying to, like, trying to enact this. Like, how do you convince Chuck Schumer, like, you know? Yeah, well, I think, you know, part of it is taking. taking a look at, you know, candidates who are running in swing states as populists and show that they can win. Part of it is to show that Zorn can get a very big majority in this upcoming election to show that these are actually candidates who can win in general elections.

I know New York City is not the same, you know, as Minnesota, but I think that's part of the test. Are they threatened by young talent? I think they're threatened by the idea that people don't pay their dues, right? I think the whole system is, you know, generally built on this idea that you sort of of wait your time until you run. I didn't do that. I ran when I was 25. But yes, I think that folks who have waited their time, moved through the ladder, don't like the fact that somebody can just show up at 24, 25, 30 years old run and win. That is a recipe for disaster for our

party if we don't welcome new young candidates in. But yeah, I think that's sort of a, I think, you know, you would feel that way if you were middle management at a corporation. You wouldn't love the young hot shot coming in and sitting at the desk next to you, and that happens in politics, too. But what if he's like, he could, like, beat Trump or, like, he's, like, good? Yeah. I mean, is it more important that, like, he's not threatening to, like, Diane Feinstein or, like, whoever, like, people that have been there for, I know she's, she's not there anymore. She's not there anymore. She's not there anymore.

She's not around it. I'm not defending. I'm not defending, and I'm just trying to, like, plug it. I'm just trying to, like, put it in context. It is not a unfamiliar human emotion, right? to be envious of somebody that is younger and perhaps smarter than you and perhaps being openly or subconsciously hostile. That doesn't mean that it's right and that means you've got to build a party apparatus that actually welcomes in young people, which is why, you know, what David

Hogg has been doing is really, really important, like directly confronting this idea that we are hostile often as a party to young people, more hostile, I would argue, than the Republican Party has been. I guess, like, do you get that treatment as like you're a young, young bull you're like 52 year old senator yeah you know you're sprightly young man right they're like what is this what is this freaking millennial coming through with his cell phones and his tic talks i mean like i think by the by the i'm still a young half i think i'm in the yeah i still think i'm in the younger half of the you know states senate guys fall is here beers are colder footballs back in the fits are getting layered if you're still rocking the old

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com with code t a f s now back to the show you're um you're recently separated from your wife the last couple years yep last year jesus like last year yeah like like this dealing with this right now and like dealing also with i would imagine like that marriage yeah like how the fuck do you yeah it's got like that's gotta fucking suck yeah it does yeah i mean it's a weird it's a weird job I mean, the fact that you have to send out a, you know, public statement about your... You have to just stop the end of the world. Marriage breaking down, and then you have to be in the middle of trying to save democracy at the same time. You're a real freak, though.

You got your build different? It's a lot. Yeah, but I have two kids, you know, who are teenagers, and they are going to inherit one world or another world, depending on what happens in the next, you know, two years. And so I feel an obligation, you know, not just as a human being, but as a father to stay. in this stay in this fight and I mean I I had for a lot of my career I think I said this to you on the phone I had a lot of sort of gray I could sort of see both arguments in terms of like what the strategic correction should be for the party

I don't have that great any longer like I see this guy as a present threat and I believe that if we don't draw a moral line in the sand right now we're screwed as a nation I see our party screwed if we continue to march down this neoliberal market fundamentalist path. We have to be an aggressively populist party that talks about breaking up concentrated corporate power. So I also feel blessed that for one of the first times in my career, I don't have any question. Yeah, I know I don't, I'm not, I'm not arguing with myself about the direction the country needs to go in or the direction the party needs to go in. And so, you know, no matter what's happening in my personal life, I'm definitely not

walking away at this moment of peril and in a moment where I feel like I have something to say. I mean, I remember last time I went through a breakup, I had like most of my friends, I realized most of my friends had girlfriends or wives, so I had to start hanging out with my single friend. Do you start chilling more with the single senators? You and Lindsay going out to get some tail? I have not gone out with, I've not gone out with Lindsay Graham. Before or after. That was just right there. It was tempting. Is he chill? He's got. He's got. gotta be a real yeah he's not he's not he's chill chill would not be not be the word he's got chops he's intense he's got chops that guy yeah you mean he's a talented

politician frank underwood he's like got like he can make moves mary garland i want to talk about because you guys what wasn't you could have gone nuclear is it that right no we you know we had no we had no power to stop what they were doing they were in the majority at the time and the majority controls the floor of the Senate and they just chose not to bring a vote on Merrick Garland. We have no ability or powers the minority to force a vote on the Senate floor. So was there also some sort of like hubris that like Hillary's about to beat Trump and we'll just get it next time? I mean I think in retrospect like we did not fight hard enough. We didn't sort of bring that case to the American people.

I think that was why no I think that was why. I think we we did have hubris that that we thought there's no way Trump was going to win. And so ultimately, we were going to solve this through an election. We did not raise that issue at the crisis level we should have because we were overconfident about the elections. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, am I correct in remembering this? She said she didn't want to retire

because she wanted a female president to replace. I don't remember that. Maybe there were reports that she said that behind the scenes. Obama should have yelled her. But I don't remember. She certainly wouldn't have said that on the record. But yeah. How little was she?

I mean, we don't hang out with the super. Supreme Court justice so you see her at the state of the union I mean she's got she's like but I wasn't like measure I wasn't like she was like three five maybe three six that's what it looked like he's taller on TV maybe yeah this is a big personality a big personality which yeah she used to like work like lift weights like like remember that I hated those t-shirts though they're still out the notorious RBG yeah what the hell are they talking about she's just some blame it is true like a rapper if

If you remember, I mean, at the beginning of that campaign, none of the sort of mainstream media people even covered Trump as a presidential candidate. I mean, they covered him those debates. Those are box office. They were. No, and that's in part why he's getting away with this corruption at scale because he's doing it in front of everybody for people to see it. And I hate to say it, but there does seem to be an element of the country that is more forgiving of the corruption as long as they're watching it. which is wild to me, but I even think my party sometimes feels that way, because if this was uncovered, you know, the crypto scheme that he was doing it

behind the scenes, shake coin, yeah. Yeah, we would, we would be talking about it every day, but because it's happening in front of everybody, because he's admitting to the corruption, just like he was admitting to giving to both sides, everybody seems to wave it away, which we shouldn't. Or he could lie and his guys are like, of course he's lying, but he's our guy, he's lying for us. That's like, that's why the media, every time they'd be like, excuse me, fact check, like it never worked because they're like, his fans were like, yeah, we like, he's lying for us. It's a liar. And again, it comes back to this thing that the right wing

believes, not everybody, but a lot of them, that the left is this existential threat to the nation. And so we need to do whatever is necessary in order to defeat him, including electing somebody that we know is likely a fraud, who we know is lying. But if he's the guy that is going to rid us of the Democratic Party, then we're on board. I think he was more like just a virus that they couldn't control. Because I remember Reins, when we were saying everyone had one week, Ryan's would just throw another one out there. Because at first it was Jeb, and then he'd be like, just try.

And then they get smacked down in a debate. But like what it was was like the structure of the RNC was like kind of crumbling. Like the kind of Ryan's previous as the leader of their party, whatever. What is the DNC, like what is the DNC at this point? Well, but the other thing that was happening was that he was onto this message that the Republican Party couldn't understand the power of, which was this anti-China, anti-outourcing message, right? So he actually, it wasn't just that he had a brand. He actually did figure out that the sort of big middle of the country wanted somebody who was going to aggressively attack the old rules that allowed for the outsourcing. and no other Republican was willing to do that.

And the Democratic Party, frankly, wasn't willing to do it at the level that we should have. I saw, you've talked a lot about how you've gone to, like, the middle of the country, you've got in Missouri, you've kind of spoken to people that are Republican voters, and it's kind of like kind of clarified your, you know, populist economic vision for the party moving forward. I saw, real quick, I saw you on Hassan Minhaj.

He did this game that really pissed me off with you. Oh, yeah. The island thing. And you were about to be like, can I, like, not do it? Well, you were like, can I, like, critique the premise of this? Right. But, like, he was saying, like, well, you know, would you allow people that don't take the vaccine into the tent if they, like, support your economic populist message? It kind of, to me, represented kind of how Democrats talk about electoral politics.

Really, instead of you saying, I'm going to lay out, this is my case. You vote for me. I'm sure, like, a racist has voted for you before, right? You don't, what are you going to do about it? He thought you were the better candidate, right? Like, every time there's a post-mortem of an election, it feels like the Democrats treat the electorate as, like, treat themselves like victims of the electorate.

Like, we, this last time with Kamala, she was, she was like, we were screwed over by Latino men. And it's just like, there's a vision. of electoral politics as like you owe me and not like we owe you. Is that right or am I missing something? Because that's what it looks like to me. Yeah, listen, I just think we need to be in the business of winning elections rather than being super particular

about who votes for us. And so that's why my argument is that the party simplifies its message, that we become a party that stands for unrigging the economy so that it works for regular people, not corporations, and unringing the democracy. And then we're not as particular about who comes in and joins our coalition if you believe in those two things. And guess what? Like 75% of the country would sign up for those two projects. But because we've applied all these litmus tests as a party, I mean on issues that I really care about, like guns, we have forced a lot of people out who otherwise, based on their belief in a fairer economy and a better government, would sign up for our project.

But because, you know, they aren't with us on choice or they aren't with us on climate or they aren't with us on guns, they vote for a fraud for a Charleston. Is that the, I feel like it's a little backwards. I think it's like, to me, it feels like you guys only have that, right? You guys only have like, let's be nice to gay people because there's no substantive like a transactional offer. Like, like you can go to the hospital. Like if you're sick, you can go to the doctor. Yeah, there's got to be this. You're talking about a moral core.

There's got to be a moral. core to the party. Of course, we should be nice to gay people, right? But like, it feels like papering over like a lack of substance. So it's like, no, like what we didn't, like our, like, what was our position on prescription drugs for a decade? We had this plan where we were going to put the Medicare in charge of renegotiating prices with the drug companies on the top 10 drugs to try to get a better bulk price. Like, you lost people, right? Shut up. Cap the cost of all drugs in this country. Cap the amount of profit. that any drug company can make.

Simple, big ideas that transfer power from corporations to regular families. You could go to the doctor. It's, I mean, it's like just, it works. Yes, that nobody should get sick or die in this country because you are poor. Yeah, right? People like, people lose their life savings because they have cancer. I mean, it's just like it's fucked up. Yes.

And listen, I actually would argue that if you create that bigger tent party, that for instance, brings people in that don't, with us on transgender rights, that at least they're like in the tent now, and like they have a commonality with us in economics, and now we have an opportunity to talk to them about why transgender kids or gay kids aren't a threat to them personally. But when they just sit in this Fox News closed ecosystem and we don't make any effort to bring them in, you know, we're just continuing to sort of put up the walls. Yeah.

You've investigated a lot of, like, online conservative culture as well, and you talk a lot about loneliness and the loneliness epidemic, and I want to get into that. You've read, you've read conservative writers like Yarvin and Danine. Yeah, Curtis Yarvin, who's kind of more radical conservative. He's like a monarchist. He's a monarchist, yeah. Patrick Deneen is, you know, is an author who sort of just critiques liberalism more broadly from a, from a Catholic conservative perspective. And you've listened to a couple of conservative podcasts.

Red Scare. What is, I've heard a lot about that. Do you heard about Red Scare? Yeah, what is it? What's it about? Red Scare. Yeah, what is it? I've heard people talk about it all the time.

What? You talk a lot about loneliness. It's been like a topic that you've been highlighting. And I saw somewhere that you wanted to have a minister of loneliness. I don't want to have a minister. I saw that, which is, but first of all, that's English. It might have been, that might have been characterized as a minister of those. No, I wanted, I have proposed that you should have an office at the White House and the federal government that thinks about how policies make it easier or harder for people to connect to other human beings.

And is it just one guy sitting there? No, not one guy. It was going to be a, it was going to be a committee. I'm not saying it was going to solve the problem. I just think that you should have some place where you talk about the fact that the thing that matters most to us when it comes to our happiness is not our job or our career, how much money we make, but our relationships. And it's a little weird to me that we spend no time in government talking about how our policies increasingly make it hard for people to find companionship. So yeah, there was like a headline that was like, Chris Murphy wants

the government to help you make friends. Okay, that sounds like a bullshit. That sounds like a bullshit use of government power, but I'm a great guy. It is true that we should probably think more about the way in which government is making it harder for people to connect to. To connect with it. each other. Did you ever think about who you would make the minister of lollum? There's no minister of lollions. I was thinking, uh, extantation, but he's dead. Jeb Bush would be good. Jeff, he seems like a nice, he seems like a nice guy. Apparently I was looking up, I was looking up good ideas for minister of loneliness. Apparently Dwayne the Rock Johnson has been very open about his struggles with depression. Yeah, I'm

open for applications for this position that doesn't actually exist and I haven't opposed I could do it yeah you could do a you could dual hat I'll do that and Ambassador Brazil and do the show and the show Jewish YouTube talk show ambassador of Brazil loneliest man in America but when I when I when I the first time I ever wrote anything about loneliness was like this short little article called the politics of loneliness basically saying the government should pay attention how lonely people are today I had more feedback to that article than maybe anything else I had written because like in their daily lives

especially parents are seeing how catastrophic it is that we spend in some instances 50% less time with friends than we did just 30 years ago and that has consequences for our health for our politics a lot of those folks who showed up on january 6 were pretty lonely lonely people they didn't have any friends that means some of them i imagine come on dude some of them i imagine had some some struggles some struggles some struggles socially you're saying i'm saying that loneliness that when you feel lonely, when you feel lonely, you feel sad, but then you feel angry and you're looking for an outlet. Well, I think beyond loneliness to me, I think it's a seminal issue of our time, genuinely. But I think that it needs to be viewed as a symptom, perhaps. Data will tell you that people have been retreating from companionship since another seminal event, which is the invention of a smartphone. I mean, I think it was trending that way, and I think it fell off the cliff when people were at home for two years.

No, 100%. I mean, so I experienced it as, you know, a human being and as a parent, and I saw the damage did to my kids and their friends. So when we wrote the sort of COVID rescue bill right after Biden was sworn in, I really spent all my political capital pushing for one thing, and it was a fund for summer camps just to put as many kids as we could that summer of 2021 into summer camp especially as many poor kids as we could who had really been home alone and their families were dying and their families were they were sick or their parents

were essential workers so they you know the kids were home alone right so that's all i was focused on was like get kids into summer camp so it's a and i remember talking right after the pandemic to these kindergarten of first grade teachers who are getting kids back from the pandemic and they were were just like, we will never be able to make up for the lost time that like a three, four, five-year-old lost a third of your life. Socialism, right? They basically showed up at school without basic socialization skills, which meant they couldn't learn and they were just behind without really the ability to catch up their entire career.

And that's the reality for millions of kids in this country. Yeah. So I think like the way we discuss a lot of these problems is like we're trimming leaves and that there's something at the trunk. And I think, like, when we talk about in-cells or, like, when we talk about basement dwellers, or we're talking about people that are kind of squeezed out of the economy.

You know, the economy can absorb labor at the same rate that it used to. And we're talking about people that have kind of been squeezed out society by various circumstances. And, like, I think it's, like, a little bit, like, we're just addressing the, you know, the result, and we're not addressing, like,

in a kind of human way, like a, you know, moral way, you know, like what people have, what has led people here, you know? But don't you think it goes even deeper than that? I mean, I do think that there's this transition that happens from the middle of the century to later in the century where, you know, we cared much more about our neighbors and the community and the common good. And we eventually got taught that really the only thing that mattered was profit and efficiency and our personal achievement and we started to sort of separate as a as a as a culture as we became obsessed with our own individual achievement this is not helped by kind of like the self-help revolution

where we're told that if you're feeling bad what you need to do is just retreat into yourself instead of joining with others and we just over time become a culture that is that is really self-obsessive and and we don't see as much health personal health in socialization and so I think And then you layer smartphones and the pandemic on top of that, that cultural shift that happens. And we're screwed. We need China to take Twitter away. I don't know that China. I think Xi.

So just say it to him right now. When he's watching, Xi just come over and take the phone away. We'd be much better if it went away, but it will be replaced by something else. So the only solution here ultimately is for, I hate to say it, but for government to come in and say, here are the rules, right? I mean, here's who can be on social media. Here's how kids can interact with it. what it can deliver to kids, give at least young people a fighting shots so that they're not addicted when they become 18.

You've been in Congress 20 years, the legislative branch 20 years, right? And the perception of that as an institution is that it's decayed or crumbled in that period. Does it feel that way for you as someone that goes to the office there? Like, does it feel like it's, you know? Sure. Yeah, we very rarely pass legislation. Much more of my life now is about critiqued. the other side and sitting down and actually passing things that make people's lives back.

How does it feel like as a guy, like to be part of like something like that? Yeah, it's not what I signed up for. You feel like we suck? Well, I mean, I, a couple years ago, I mean, I really deliberately decided to bend over backwards to try to get in those rare rooms where the deals get cut. And I did that for a handful of years and I got good at it. And for that period of time, whether it was on the gun build. Oh, the cigar place, you go to the cigar, those things? Those things?

Backroom? They're not, yeah, there are legitimate still back rooms in that place. And you do cigars? No cigars. But there's booze. Booze? Yeah. And you and McConnell are like, this is...

McConnell was not in any of the rooms that I was in. But, no, there are still places. They're much more rare where deals get cut. And I decided to very deliberately try to get in those rooms for a period of time. And then Trump got elected. And those rooms completely disappeared. And it felt like the job was just to try to protect democracy. But, yeah, I made the decision to be more purposeful about that work because the job was feeling pretty empty.

Do you feel like it's the hardest era? You know, like in the NBA, they're saying, like, there's a lot of debate between the eras, like Jordan versus LeBron? No, there was an era. Do you feel like you're playing in the hardest era? There was an era where, like, senators were getting caned over the head, right? Was that, yeah. I would imagine, I would argue that they... Have two senators ever hooked up or, like, congressman or anything?

Sure. Really? There were two congresspeople. that were married. They got married. They met at Congress? I think this is right. I think didn't, son, right? Who? Sunny, Sonny Bono and Mary Bono. Oh, right? Oh, and he died in the skiing accident. Um, I got you, babe. I want to kind of get into some, what, like the bigger kind of existential questions. Like, it's breaking. Yeah. Right. Do you think, can you, can it, can you fix it? it really you I know you're you're gonna say yes but like actually like yes you must be

impossible you can actually fix it right so what is the first structural thing that you would that you would like change about okay so you're not talking about how do you defeat the sort of slide to totalitarianism we're talking about how do you fix the actual there's there's shit that project of democracy there are a ton of things in the rules that it that are implemented that fuck shit working in the legislative branch or the executive branch now so there are some things that you can do internally right so i i am a believer that the senate should be a majoritarian institution ultimately a place where 50 votes passes a piece of legislation so you can't blame should the senate even exist yeah it seems kind of bullshit yeah i think the senate

should probably still why is Wyoming gets as much as california that's not fair we we decided right the founders decided to make it really hard to pass legislation in this country. So free the design. The design was likely to make it hard to free the slaves. But the design was also because they believed that a faction could very easily corrupt a single parliamentary system and transition democracy into autocracy. So by setting up a really complicated system of government with two houses and a president, they thought it was actually protective of democracy, and I think 250 years into the experiment,

you have to come to the conclusion that they were right, no matter how inefficient having a House on the Senate and a presidential signature is. But haven't we seen, especially during the McConnell reign, like it kind of be a bottleneck? Yes, which is why ultimately you should get rid of the filibuster and allow for 50 votes in the Senate to be able to pass something. But really, the foundational reform is the way the campaigns are financed.

the way the campaigns are financed. And you've got to pass a constitutional amendment to do that. And I think the only way the Democrats are going to be able to interest people in this country in saving democracy is to be really specific about what we're going to change. And I think that requires either a constitutional amendment or a constitutional convention to essentially allow the legislature to ban private money, corporate money, lobbyist money, anonymous money from politics. I think if you did that, that's probably the most sort of significant balm.

on the system. I agree with you. It seems to be the first order of business, but like it seems like, you know, could you even convince the Democratic Party as a whole, like your caucus and Congress? Because I think a lot of Democrats are kind of entrenched in that system. There's still a ton of billionaires who fund our party. There's still a ton of Democrats who take and rely on corporate contributions. I mean, I'm lucky, and so it's easy for me to sort of talk about getting rid of corporate and pack money because I, I'm

one of these candidates now who has, you know, thousands of people who give me three, five dollars at a time. But what I found was that when I swore off PAC money, more people, regular people, were willing to give me money because they wanted to reward me for not taking PAC money. They can trust you, too. Yeah, they trust me. They trust me more, and they want to get behind somebody who's going to say, I'm not taking pack money.

And I think that would be the case for other candidates who did it. But yes, yes, our party has become reliant on that sort of corporate. pack and billionaire trough and it's what makes us a little sclerotic when we try to rally around efforts to change the campaign finance system that's just the truth what is it like just walk me through like you're when you're trying to fundraise like a you're talking to a billionaire like what what what's the vibe like yeah I mean when like I'm give I'm gonna give you this change just cuz well so so I'm talking to so I don't have to do that but like I don't

have to do that anymore but I said I used to do a lot of it right I used to sit in a cubicle in the Democratic National Committee when I was a House member for three, four hours of time just, right, calling people for money. Who are you calling? You're not calling people who are making $30,000. Of course. You're calling somebody who's making $3 million. The monopoly, man. Yeah.

Now, you're calling Democratic donors by and large, so they're, you know, they're not, they're not racist and they do believe in a progressive tax code. but not that progress but not that they're not no they're not yes they are but maybe not that progressive yeah and maybe these donors are not super well they waited about labor unions getting a lot stronger right and maybe they don't want everybody to have health care through a single-payer system because they make a lot of money from their investments in the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry it's transactional therefore it's it's it's it's not like you think it's transactional it isn't like house of cards in the sense that a donor says I'm only going to donate to you if you support this policy it's not it's a lot like

but it's not as much as you think it's pretty much exactly but different um but it is and i will have the power but it is just corrupting to be on the phone with um billionaires and millionaires instead of being on the phone with you know janitors and you know teachers you talk to a lot more janitors now that you don't take take well I mean I didn't I didn't start like so you were joking about before I walk but I you know I do this thing where I you know walk across the state every how long does it take takes a week a week you know I don't know that I had I don't know that I had the time to do that back when I was spent all my time raising money dude I bet you that lady that you beat your first run at Congress what's her name Nancy Johnson

she could beat that I bet you Nancy could get it do it in less than a five days It's been less than a week. No, that's, I mean, like, I think that... I don't want to, like, make it more than it is, but it's just... I think in this job, what I realize is that you have to, like, actually make efforts to get out of the bubble and to, like, not just think of the people who call your office or the people who donate money to your campaign are the voices that matter. So I know, like, the walk across the state looks to a lot of people, like, a gimmicky thing,

but it is actually useful to me to, like, make sure... I'll tell you, like, you were talking about this before. The summer that the Mueller investigation was like everything that MSNBC was talking about I walked across the state right at the height of that Mueller fervor and I probably talked to a couple hundred people on that walk one person brought up Mueller to me one like nobody bought it nobody was plugged into it when he was actively using the office to make himself richer which is like clearly like out in out the open well and it was clearly and also against the law they had to make it about James Bond shit it just it just it just it just it just

distracted us from actually being connected into the stuff that people really were talking about and caring about. I'm not saying it wasn't important because I actually do think that there's a pretty awful story there, whether or not there was like daily coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians. The Russians clearly had an impact on the election, but the fact that we obsessed over that instead of actually learning our lessons as a party as to why we lost to this guy was, you know, is a big part of the reason why we're here today. I mean like I really appreciate sitting down with you and like it makes sense why you have this vision for you know economic policy because the most popular person in the party right now is burning basically right and this is like it reflects popular sentiment how can you get the rest of the Democratic Party to fall in line yeah I don't I don't know that I'm winning this argument right now again that sort of that legacy of connection to the party to that corporate crowd is really You have Chuck's number? Let's hit him up. Well, I mean, I think we should. I don't know why we don't pay attention to the fact that the only people that can command 50,000 people are Bernie Sanders and AOC.

And I just think it's there for the taking that there are these Republican voters today, people who support Trump, who are seeing him for who he really is, but are waiting for the Democratic Party to offer them something meaty. So I guess I don't have the secret sauce in terms of how to make. make this argument. I do think it will be important for us to nominate a handful of those candidates. You show Bernie? Again, like, again, he's not, he doesn't, he doesn't hang. Do you think, have you got to laugh from him? Yeah. Really? What did you say? No, I know you're going to ask me what I said. What did you say? I don't remember what I, I don't remember what I said. I think I've, Bernie, Bernie laughs. Bernie, so you talk about like, what is, um, uh, what are these

people like, like, behind, like, he's Bernie. He's Bernie. He's Bernie. Like, he's burning. Yes, that's why it works because he's super authentic everywhere. And Trump is Trump behind the scenes. So people can smell insincerity a lot more, a lot better than they could. So yeah, you're doing authenticity right now. How do you feel about authenticity? I mean, you have to talk to this fool? But this, I mean, this job does, this job does mess with you, right? Because especially if you started before Trump when you were taught that you're not supposed to be authentic. It's a different game. You're supposed to be practiced.

Yeah. And so if you're kind of, if you're kind of my generation or generation before me. West Wing. It's a hard pivot like from, you know, don't say anything unless it's been vetted by 16 communications professionals to say whatever the hell you want, even if it's not popular or not PC because people want to see the real you. So just say it. Bruce Hornsby is the best musician of all time.

I do say it. I do say it. I do say it. I'm not going to apologize for it. You should be ashamed. You should be a shame. by your staffers. He didn't stop making music in the 1980s like most people think he did. He's got a just killer catalog of music that continues to this day. And that's why I am bringing

my entire staff of mostly 20-year-olds to go hear Bruce Hornsby in D.C. next week because if they hear him, they are going to be opened up to the genius that is Bruce Hornsby. And I'm going to meet him. What do you mean? Because you're in the Congress? I know. I got his manager's info and I asked if I could meet him. His manager. He's manager. Thank you.