The Bulwark Podcast - Heidi Heitkamp: How Trump’s Trade Chaos Hurt Farmers

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

President Trump meets with Xi Jinping and agrees to an embarrassingly one-sided trade deal, as the “China Hawks” in the administration cower. Meantime, the government shutdown moves to a more painful phase, with funding for SNAP expiring on Nov. 1. Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp joins Tim to discuss how the chaos from Trump’s trade wars has already hurt farmers, how Democrats should play their next moves on the shutdown, and her surprising support for Mamdani/Platner style candidates. show notes: The One Country Project’s Hot Dish Podcast

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, one of my favorite former U.S. senators. She's from North Dakota and the chair of the board of the One Country Project. She also hosts the podcast Hot Dish with her brother Joel. It's Heidi Hyke Camp. What's going on, Heidi? It is a beautiful fall day in North Dakota and just glad to not be in the Beltway.

Where in North Dakota are you? Are you in Bismarck? I am in Mandan, which is a beautiful city across the river from Bismarck. Okay. How far is it from Buxton, which I got on my bean bag here? You know, I think it's so funny because they think you got that. I saw some rumors about where you got that bean sack. And I'm like, no, he got it from his husband. I know where he got. it. It is quite a waste. It is probably 200 miles from Buckston. Okay. I never been to Bucksman. It might as well be the same for me, but I'm repping it. I'm wrapping it. I'm reping it proudly. I want to start with you. It's one of the reasons we call it you. I'll bring you back. I'm going to start to talk to you about farm stuff because my husband does his best to brief me, but every once in a while I do make airs. Like I was talking about, well,

was I saying something about soybeans rotting or something? He's like, that's not what happens with soybeans. But anyway, I do my best as a suburbanite. But there's a lot of stuff happening in farm country. There's a New York Times story earlier this week about Iowa, but, you know, some similarities to your neck of the woods. I want to read just a little bit from this. The cost of tractors and fertilizers have shot up with tariffs. Labor has grown scarcer in agribusiness, manufacturers have laid off workers. Even the wind turbines that provide income from farmers are in the president's sites. During the first quarter of 2025, Iowa's gross domestic product contracted at a 1.2% annual rate, which is like a great recession level contraction. Things are a little. better North Dakota because oil and gas stuff. But what's your sense for how bad the economic straits are in rural America right now? You know, the one thing that we watch, the lagging indicator for farm economy is bankruptcies and farm bankers, people who, you know, kind of put the cash on the barrelhead before the planting, how they're feeling about the economy. And I think they're really nervous. We're hearing more and more stories about how they are not.

taking anything for collateral on operating loans besides land. And farmers since the 80s have been loath to somehow leverage their land, but that may be where it's at. And the sad thing is that the large producers right now, the more stress there is, the more stress there's going to be on smaller producers, which is going to lead to further consolidation. And so this is, this is a real challenge. And, you know, one of the not talked about issues is the issue of land ownership. And You saw that this week when the Secretary of Treasury tried to convince us all that he was a soybean farmer and, you know, how he was stressed to the max on what was happening. It was ridiculous. But it shows you that there are, I wouldn't call them vultures, but there's a lot of venture capital that is out there that is swarming around farmland as an investment.

And that is going to be a trend that's going to be very injurious, I think, to rural Americans, certainly production agriculture. Yeah, Scott Bessett was feeling the pain, he said. He understands the pain. His manicure was a little bit messed up, I think, not from farming, but just from other. And the thing, Tim, that no one talked about is he was required to divest himself at that farmland and hasn't done it yet. So. Yeah, well, we're not, the DOJ isn't really looking into, you know, corrupt public corruption anymore.

The rules there for the little people. They're for the little people. I want to get to specifically the soybean and cal rancher stuff, but just like broadly, You know, and the community, like, is your sense that, like, the squeeze is really on? Is it, well, it's lagging? Like, we'll see how it goes. Maybe this China deal will fix things. Like, what's the sense for, like, the economic? The sense is that even though a lot of injury is done, there's going to be a bailout. And, you know, it's going to be interesting because the question that always, when they say, oh, Trump hasn't hurt the economy, I say, good, good. Then you don't need that $40 billion.

He's talking about sending to rural America. And then it gets really quiet. It gets really quiet. And at some point, there's a tipping point. And I think one of the things that is misunderstood is that a lot of these farm subsidies and farm bail out are kind of cheered across the board in rural America. There's a lot of people struggling in rural America who aren't, who don't own farmland, who aren't, you know, 5,000 acre producers who are, you know, right now it used to be that they would buy their fuel oil in town,

they would buy their groceries in town, and now everything has gotten so consolidated. They ship in semis of fuel, you know, and so that's not helping the local economy. And I think that the rural economy is we can't just look at it through the lens of what's happening with the farm bill and with farmers. You've got to look at the entire rural economy. And certainly the largest employer in rural America is health care. And rural health care is really under a lot of challenges, in part because of the big beautiful bill, in part because it's been stressed for a long time because you don't have economies of scale, but you have reimbursements that act like you're actually, in fact, in the past, they would reimburse rural hospitals less than urban

hospitals under the theory that cost of living was less and that, you know, recruitment of workforce is incredibly challenging. And so, you know, there's just a lot of things out there. And that's why, just to put a plug in for our project, I signed on along with Governor Sununu to chair a rural prosperity conference. We're going around the country looking at, what's happening in the rural economy and hopefully sometime in a couple years will issue some suggestions on how policy can change. To your point about how they're more consumers in this part of the country than they're producers, really, I guess, you know, there are a lot of people that are living there that aren't farmers. I've been confused by the cattle rancher, this whole

kind of debate. I was hoping you could educate me a little bit. So the cattle ranchers, I guess, are mad that Trump is wanting to bring in, to import more beef from Argentina and other places to help bring the cost of beef down. You know, as a free marketer myself, more than somebody who's concerned about ranch economics, I'm like, oh, there are a lot more beef eaters than there are beef consumers. So it makes sense. So we should be doing that. But obviously, the ranch is very upset.

A lot of senators are giving JD Vance the business on that. Can you just give me like a little bit of a 101 on like why we think? beef prices are so high, why the cattle ranchers are so upset about all this? Well, I think number one, concentration. Everybody kind of looks at the ranchers and says, oh, look at these beef prices. Their share of that pound of hamburger minuscule compared to what the processors. And we've been. So how does that, could you just explain?

Because I have no idea. How is that possible? So they're selling the cow to a pro. Well, a lot of the cattle that they sell are feeder cattle. Okay. And so they are not, they are not ready to be slaughtered and turned into hamburgers. they're ready to be sent to the feedlot. And so these farmers don't own the feedlots.

And so especially the ranchers that are, you know, out on the prairie in places like North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska. And so they bring their cattle or they consign their cattle to a feedlot. And the feedlot finishes them as what, you know, would be the term, finishes them and then sends them to the slaughter. The farmers share, the rancher's share of that chain has diminished over time. reason is concentration in both those other operations. And, you know, this is a bipartisan failure, both Democrats and Republicans, to basically make it possible so that they get a bigger share

that they actually get rewarded and paid for what they're doing. Now, cattle ranching has been pretty prosperous. I mean, my husband's family raised cattle. Cattle isn't something you're going to see a lot of on really good farmland, which is where I grew up in the Red River Valley, mainly farms that have a lot of pasture. And so they were doing pretty well. And when Trump announced this deal, what happened is the market, the futures market collapsed, basically hit the limit, which means that they shut it down because they don't want it overheated, hit the limit, I think, three days in a row and basically cost farmers over $200, $300 a head for cattle.

Seems like a bad deal then. Yeah, but just to push back on your. on your, you know, just let it all in. You know, our food supply is heavily regulated. We are very cautious and careful about the quality of the food, about the safety of the food. I was a big proponent of country of origin labeling, which is, okay, let it in, but tell people where it came from so that they can be educated. Canada pitched a fit, and so did Mexico, and we got a bad trade decision, and that that was

just something that all the Packers, you know, salvated. it over and jumped on it. And your husband helped me try and fight it, you know, to try and get some voluntary country of origin labeling. But that issue is raised is a consolidation, country of origin labeling. But if you want the herd to grow, if you want more beef and more production in this country, you know, I'm not somebody who is a protectionist, but I also believe that, you know, our food supply should be heavily regulated for safety. And I think we're some of the best ranchers and farmers in the world. And, you know, we've got to be able to produce enough food for ourselves and make it affordable. But when you're looking at that pound of hamburger, don't blame

my cattle ranchers. Blame somebody else. Okay. I'm not blaming anybody. I want the market to happen. Just from an America first prism, it seems like, you know, your suggestion of the country of origin labeling seems better than whatever it is that Donald Trump is doing, which is bailing out the Argentina farmers and also buying their currency and letting our farmers hold the bag. Oh, don't forget, don't forget that the day he announced that he was going to buy Argentinian bonds and got to, there's a scandal somewhere in there. One of Bessens pals was making money on that. They say, oh, it's just a bond swap.

Well, you know, have I got a deal for you? I've got some old Confederate bonds. Can I swap them for some U.S. securities right now? No. You know? And inflation is rampant. in Argentina. And so, you know, this whole idea that we're going to be made whole on this bond swap is ridiculous. But on the same day, what Argentina did is they lowered their export tax on soybeans

and sold a bunch of soybeans to China, which really added insult injury for the for the ranchers and farmers. Well, that's another L for our farmer treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, big farm. He's got a lot of cattle. He does a lot of farming out behind the Barbie house. There is an expression, all hat, no cattle. I said, you know, all talk and no soybeans, let me tell you. He's definitely doing a lot of detassling, a big, big pack around of detassling from Scott Bessent. You mentioned the soybean. So we have a deal, I guess, today.

You're going to call it an art of a deal. And again, this is more than your wheelhouse than mine. So as an amateur, I'm looking at this. Essentially, Trump starts a trade war. And so our soybean farmers can't sell our soybean. their soybeans to their top customer, foreign customer, China. And so they're sitting on all these soybeans. So Trump goes to China and he says, okay, I got a deal for you.

If you start buying the soybeans again, we'll give you advanced AI chips. This seems like a pretty bad deal. Like, had we done nothing, they still would have been taking the soybeans. And so now we're giving them the advanced AI chips in exchange for the 25 million metric tons of beans. but like last year they bought 27 million metric tons of beans. This is a horrible deal. Well, you know, ranchers are saying, or farmers are saying, see, I told you he'd get it done and you want to say, you know, step back.

And I think the Chinese played Trump like a fiddle. I think Trump knew that there was huge challenges with critical minerals. And I don't call them rare earth because they're not rare. What's rare is the processing and the unwillingness of America to suffer. the, suffer the challenges of mining and processing in our country. And so we've, we have plenty of these minerals in our country if we could figure out a way to, to mine them and process them. Anyway, so then he says, I want Canada and I want Greenland. And that was just a play for minerals. That, you know, Canada has a lot of, a lot of really important natural resources. And so

he's thinking that that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get Canada and Greenland. And that didn't turn out so well for him. And then he steps back and says, well, I need to do a deal for TikTok because I know how important that was for my campaign. So he completely unravels congressional with their tacit approval because, you know, their chicken to say anything. And so you tell me where we have inflicted any pain on China. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the question that everybody needs to ask. And one thing I don't think the president understood is exports of Chinese goods to the United States is less than 3% at their GDP. And so they're like, hey, we can wait this out. Plus, we'll just manufacture in Vietnam. We'll manufacture someplace else and send it,

send it into the country from a different country of origin and do a bunch of workarounds. And so the Chinese, you know, you can say this president is all about the art of the deal. You know, he has been taken on a lot of these trade deals, I think. Because you mentioned the middle side, it's said, just so to be just for folks who are like are trying to follow all this, like the Luca Donchitz trade here is that they, the Chinese are getting these AI chips that Nvidia makes that we had trade controls on because they're powerful and we're in an AI war. And so they're now getting these chips. But remember, we're blackmailing Navidia in this deal tool.

Explain that. Well, I mean, the president basically said, I want X percent. I think it's 15 percent of your profit selling into China. So it's socialism, too. You know, sounds like state-sponsored socialism to me. So we're doing some socialism. We're sending them the chips. In exchange, we get one year of these minerals.

For one year, they're going to sell us these minerals. And they're going to buy the soybeans that they're already buying, but not as money. Like, that's the deal. Like, that was the deal that he cut after all this. The TikTok thing isn't finalized. There's no pain on China. We're not doing anything to advance our position vis-a-vis China. Where are the China Hawks in this administration?

Like, nobody's getting anything out of this deal except for the one year of minerals. Well, anytime you say, where are the deficit hawks, where are the China hawks, where are the people who care about these issues, they only care about one thing. Trump and themselves. Kissing the, you know what. Ass, we can say ass. The ring. Kissing the ring.

Kissing the ring. I say a lot grosser stuff than kissing the ring. And God forbid because he's not my favorite guy. Rand Paul is the only one left with any principles on that side. Yeah. And, you know, he's at least saying, hold. up his hand saying, excuse me, you know, this isn't the right thing to be doing. And, you know, you saw five, I think it was five, Mitch McConnell, Lisa and Susan. And maybe it was just four

votes to try and claw back some tariff authorities say this is an emergency. Yeah, tell us, did it tell us with the other one. Yeah, yeah. He was retiring. So really profile and courage. I want to get to Thune on this and his courage, but just a couple more. things on one more policy thing. Then I'll talk about the Democrats on Thune. So the SNAP is the other part of this. And this kind of ties into the shutdown debate now that's happening. Snap benefits are going to expire here, I guess, this weekend. And your fellow Redhead running for Senate in Michigan, Mallory McMorro had a good rant about this. And I want to play that. There are years worth of funding available for the SNAP program, our tax dollars that we have already paid

to the federal government to facilitate this program and the Trump administration deleted this language from the website this morning. They are hiding the fact that not only is there more than enough funding to pay these benefits that we have already paid our tax dollars into, but that there was contingency language to ensure that even in the event of a government shutdown, that SNAP would go uninterrupted. The Trump administration and the Republicans supporting him are using food as a political weapon. This is a choice. They chose to delete this language. They are choosing to force children to go hungry.

We will not stand for that choice, and I encourage a yes vote. Pretty good, familiar with more there. And the Snap stuff that ties into two issues. Obviously, this ties into the kind of the food and ag discussion that's all part of, you know, the same legislation, but also now into this how Democrats should handle the shutdown. I wonder what you make on both of those items. If I can just talk first about Snap, because she's, absolutely right. They deleted it from the website. If they can stop SNAP benefits from being

paid out, they can stop Social Security. Most programs you have an appropriation, you can't overspend that appropriation. When we talk about so-called entitlement programs, you know, SNAP fits in that category along with Social Security. Whatever the need is, whoever qualifies, there will be money for those qualifications and it will go uninterrupted. But it also goes with the threat that they've been saying, we're not going to pay employees who've been, been furloughed when they return. There's legislative language that prevents them from doing that. And so where we are right now is lawsuits about whether they have to pay it out. But they clearly are in this vein where they believe that this is a leverage point that they can use to basically

take away health care from a lot of people in this country and, you know, basically put leverage on the Democrats to basically do what they want them to do. without any negotiation. And so, you know, this is going to play out over the next couple days, but I'm anxiously waiting the results of the lawsuit. Yeah. So what do you think about your former colleagues and how to handle this? I mean, at this point, on the one hand, I think, you know, it is totally a defensible position

for the Democrats to say, you guys control everything. You're not a honest good faith negotiating partner. Like, you know, we've been passing budget, you know, passing funding for programs that you're just choosing not to fund through recisions. et cetera. And so we're not going to play ball with you unless you absolutely come to the table if you want to get our votes. On the other hand, real suffering is already happening for some people, but is really going to ramp up the longer this goes. How do you navigate that? You know, Tim, if I can just do it a little aside here, I think what's interesting is we're now

finding out who SNAP benefits, what that program benefits. And this idea that it's all surfer dudes who buy lobster, you know, which was the narrative that was there when I was there. or these are just lazy people who don't want to work. They're finding out. I think it was welfare queens with eight children was the narrative, actually, and the surfer dudes. You remember the surfer dude buying lobster? That guy, I hope he rots in hell because he was a real guy

and kind of created a narrative that was so minority, but yet caught on. Anyway, so typically what happens, and I've been saying this a lot, The shutdowns that I was part of, what was part of it in critical times was the debt limit. So it was you shut down government and then you're going to hit the debt limit. So you cannot not fund the debt. And so there was this a lot more pressure on economic pressure on getting the government open.

And what you're seeing now is this impasse. and because things are even more polarized than they were when I was there, an unwillingness of people to sneak around into the hideways and actually come up with 10 people who can fashion a deal. I remember, you know, the deal that we did in Susan Collins' office, 10 of us or 12 of us, I think it was in the end, became the deal that opened government up because we basically said, we're going to go to the floor and propose this and we'll see what happens. So at the end of the day, I don't think that leadership is where the impasse is going to get fixed. I think it's going to get fixed with people, you know, getting really tired of the kind of politics that we're seeing and sitting down and saying we need to step up. But a lot of people think, and I think it's fair, that this can't happen until the orange guy steps up and says, I want you to do a deal. because he's not only the president of the United States, he's the majority leader of the Senate,

and he's the Speaker of the House. Yeah, we don't really have a Congress, actually. We don't. So if you're a Democratic Senator right now, you're in, and we don't really have red state Democratic senators anymore, but which I want to get to next. You're a swing state Democratic Senator at this point. You're just saying this is their, this is up to them.

It's up to Trump. This is in Trump's hands right now? No, what I'm doing is I'm grabbing, you know, people that I know to be reasonable and saying, Let's get in a room and see if we can't. There are only like two of those left, though. It's kind of a problem. Yeah, that might be.

I mean, you saw five vote against the tariffs. And, you know, I think Mitch McConnell, he is loathe to pull the nuclear option on substantive legislation and on appropriations. Right. He is in his bones. He believes that the Senate is not the Senate without the opportunity for filibuster. And so, you know, if this gets pushed where they. say, we're going to use the nuclear option to reopen government, you know, he may be somebody who says, you know, I don't like what the Democrats are doing, but I don't want that that to be

the solution. And so, you know, I think there's going to be tremendous pressure on both Thune and on Chuck from their membership to get this resolved. And my understanding is they aren't really talking. So back to the kind of the Red State Democrat thing, you know, given the issues that you laid out, I mean, it's funny, you know, we talked about the economy of being bad, Trump making these terrible deals, but you say you go back to the farmers and they still say, see, he got it done. Like, what can Democrats do to start, like, reopening those conversations and start doing better? And the idea of winning North Dakota anymore is probably off the table for a while, but like doing well enough in rural America to start to put something. like Iowa back in play or, you know, Ohio. Like, what can Democrats do to regain some trust in rural America, would you say?

I think you have to get away from identity politics and back to economic politics and what works and what doesn't work and where the investments are. And, you know, people say, well, you're never going to win rural America. No one says we need to win rural America, but we can't lose at 80-20. If we can win back about 10, 15 percent of rural America, I think. and continue to have a conversation with groups that were lost, young people. And I think young people are probably, you know, in spite of what you see with Turning Point and with college campuses, I think young people have soured on politics because the end result

is they're graduating into a really uncertain economy, whether it's driven by AI or whether it is driven by autonomous cars, driven by stagnant wages at that high school, graduate level. The problem is we're self-sorting. Like the young people that Democrats can get are moving to Chicago and Minneapolis for jobs and moving into blue states than the ones that stay are tougher to get. Right. Right. I mean, I get that, but I think that there's a lot of outreach effort that, and that, if I can plug one country, I mean, that really, when I left in 18, I saw this trend beginning in 12. I actually saw it. People want to say it's about Donald Trump, but you know Donald Trump at as hard as an opportunist, right? He's not an ideologue, really. I mean,

He's turned more ideological as of late, but that's more vengeance driven. The Tea Party movement, really, the Democrats' ineffective response to the Tea Party movement, I think, was the beginning of a separation from traditional, like small farmers, small business people, young people, working class people felt like the Democrats left them behind. And then there was the whole fallout from NAFTA. And so I think, you know, a populist message is a message that, can still win, a more left-leaning populist message. And, you know, America First is a great slogan.

I always wanted to ask the Biden administration what the difference was between American First and Buy American, because we have our own version of America First, our own version. I mean, we are the party of protectionists. I mean, I was an outlier because I supported TPA trade promotion authority, me and some colleagues from the West Coast. And so it is a matter of actually understanding. And David Axelrod, my dear friend, says it best when he says Democrats approach rural America like missionaries and not friends.

You know, look what we've done for you. You should appreciate us and vote for us. And you want to say, you know, and the people ask me all the time, why do they vote against their interests? I said, no one votes against their interest. You just don't understand what their interest is. Yeah. And you can't understand that unless you get out and you actually visit.

But I think there is a growing uncertainty about this economy among working class people who see, you know, these kinds of layoffs that you saw at Amazon, the kinds of layoffs that you saw a target, the kinds of, I mean, really, I mean, look at UPS. I mean, there's not good news. And you see it reflected in the index of consumer sentiment. Democrats need to understand those insecurities and talk about what they can do. One, give me issue, why are credit card companies charging 28% interest on credit cards? There's no way of a family with $10,000 of credit card debt is going to, and they're putting more and more of their need to have needs, not wants on credit cards and carrying those balances, and they're not ever going to be able to dig out from underneath them. Somebody should be talking about that. Somebody should be talking about this credit crisis for low-income Americans. Specifically thinking about just Red America and that kind of message that you're laying out. Like, do you see anybody in the Democratic Party doing it well right now in general, kind of open-ended?

But also specifically, I'm wondering what you think about the Oyster Man up in Maine and Graham Platner and that model. This is going to get me in trouble. But I don't think that we can win back any kind of credibility by offering the same thing that we've always offered. Yeah, that's not getting you in trouble here. So I'm good. Keep going. Let's hear more. Yeah, well, no. But my point is that I think there is always this rush to go to what they consider the safe candidate. Oh, they've won before. They've done this or they've done that. It's time to really look at younger, different, more vibrant, you know, kind of a much more non-traditional kind of candidate. I love the oyster. And I get, you know, bad tattoo and maybe said some things. You know what? Donald Trump did some really horrible. horrible things and got himself elected president. This whole idea, this whole idea that there is now some kind of litmus tests that will take you out. That's why the Democratic Party's failing

because they're so adverse to taking a risk. They want safe. And that's not what the public wants. The public wants different. And so I'm for non-Deltway candidates. You know what it would be different that I've been calling for, Heidi. I think we can have a big, I'm imagining that we're going to have a really hearty agreement about this, but let me throw this out there. It's funny hearing you as, you know, really a traditional kind of old school center-left, you know, red state Democrat saying that you're interested in the kind of populace-left, Aberney-ish-type candidate in Maine. I feel like that there is a potential like populist left, center-left alignment, you know, on candidates. If you find somebody who's doing left,

economic populist, but also, you know, maybe on energy is more open to natural grass or on guns is maybe a little bit more moderate. And somebody goes with some moderate issues on some of these other type of topics. And to me, that feels like something that could potentially, it would be at least worth a try in these red states. And that would kind of bridge the online fight that you see between like the Bernie crowd and the centrist. And I don't know. I feel like there could be a merger, maybe. I think there has to be a merger. It's interesting because, because the candidate for mayor in New York, people were like, oh, how do you feel about this?

Because they know I'm a moderate. And I said, yeah, Mamdami. Mondami. I said, I don't know. I mean, I don't have to agree with him. Just because he's a Democrat doesn't mean that, that, you know, I'm like Lincoln arms. I said, you know, he can do him. Good on him, you know, go do him.

What I don't agree with what he's talking about. I'll say I don't agree. You know, this idea that, that, oh, my God, we've got to have some purging and unity, that's a huge, huge problem in the Democratic Party that they think that, you know, there's only one path and there's many paths to success. And Tim, I want to remind you, and Democrats didn't learn this lesson when Hillary was being challenged by Bernie and Bernie was filling up auditoriums, basically, you know, speaking to the real. concerns of real people, you know, being that kind of man on the ground, not the, not the institutional candidate. And I'm not knocking Hillary. I'm just saying, you know, it's the difference and don't take this personally between Jeb Bush and Donald Trump. Not take it. Right? The results speak for themselves. Yeah. So it's the same thing. And when they

interviewed the Bernie people who were leaving and Bernie lost, they said, well, now we're going to vote for Donald Trump. And you're like, that made perfect sense to me because basically they were addressing the same basic concerns that people felt, the same basic insecurities that people felt. And, you know, I think going forward, the Democratic Party needs to come back to some of their populist roots and talk about what those challenges are and how we can do better. and they need to abandon the, oh, he said this once upon a time, and now it's fatal. It's like, you know, run the ad, see what happens.

You know, don't be institutionalists. I mean, be creative, be inventive, bring new ideas to the table. I talked yesterday, the turning point was in Mississippi and there was some counter programming. And I talked there and, you know, they're all. At Ole Miss in Oxford? Yeah, yeah. And any, I mean, I didn't go there. I just zoomed in and yak, yacked, you know how that is nowadays.

Oxford is a beautiful town. I've been there. Some of the people talking at the, some of the people questioning, asking questions to JD gave me some concerns about the future. But it's still a nice place to visit. Square Books is nice. But the young woman who really challenged him. I mean, students are always going to be, you know, the, listen to what they ask and listen

to what they say. But, you know, I said, stop. about what they're doing. Start worrying about what you're doing. What's your message? I mean, I think the Democratic Party for three presidential cycles has run against Donald Trump without any real ideas of their own. And people are like, I don't know what you stand for. I know you don't like Donald Trump. I don't like them much either. But, you know, I don't know if I should take a chance with you. You said at the beginning of this, you thought this might get you into trouble. I'm still trying to figure out who you might be in trouble with. So I'm going to make it a little harder.

on this point you have Chuck Schumer's maybe somebody you might be getting in trouble with in that Senate race in Maine they're essentially endorsing Janet Mills the governor and I think her behind the oppo hits on Graham Platner which is fine by the way it's better for this stuff to come out in a primary than in a general but they're doing fundraising and stuff for Mills so doing the same thing in Michigan strangely for Haley Stevens who is a congresswoman who might be okay but she's not exactly light in the room on fire for me when there are two other candidates in the race, Mallory McMorra, who I played earlier, and Al-Sahed, who are running. What is happening? Like, why are they doing that? I think, you know, when I was in the Senate and

Elizabeth Warren would take out after me, I'd say, and people say, oh, oh, that's terrible. And I, like, just bring it on. Yeah. You think that Chuck Schumer's endorsement is going to really play well with Democrats in Michigan or Maine? Right now, the attitude among the Democratic Party is we need change. And the more he steps into this to put his fingers on the scale, the more I think he hurts the candidates that he's putting the fingers on the scale. And, you know, I have one name for you, John Tester. John Tester, I mean, they endorsed and funded John Tester's primary opponent, but yet he came out of it, you know, because he was the authentic. Originally? Who was the, who did he? I forget. It was some, like, self-funder, some, you know, kind of, I always say,

they like to go to the candidate candidate. Remember Redford? Yeah, sure. You know, straight out of central casting. They like to go to the central casting instead of looking at the authenticity and the genuineness of the message and the person. And so I think, and this is the other thing that maybe is interesting to your listeners. Everybody talks about money.

If money bought you an election these days, I'd still be a United States senator. and Kamala Harris would be president of the United States. Money has become less significant. Or maybe Jeb. I guess we would have been done with our eight years by now. Jeb would not be president anymore. But, you know, I would be, I'd be cashing out as a former communications. You have your own show on box, man.

Money bought elections. I don't think that's in your future. Boy, that's a scary alternate universe. But you know what I'm saying. I'm saying, you know, money. Everybody exaggerates. And when you say, oh, look, they're doing this. doing that, you want to say, look, the Democratic Party is hungry for authenticity. It's hungry for new

ideas. It's hungry for new faces. And by the Democratic Party, I mean the rank and file. I've been out there. I've talked to them. The frustration, even among what you would consider the elite donors, they are tired of what they see as blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and not, you know, where's the authentic message? Where's the message that's going to carry us forward? Guy's name was John Morrison, was an auditor, lost to history, running against John Tesser, lost that primary in Montana in 2006. Isn't Google a wonderful thing? Yeah, it's great. I should know that. That's a little trivia political from my era. I should want to pull that. Well, just want to think on this, what about the Nebraska model, having an independent run, Dan Osborne? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think at the end, people kind of see through that and they know that this is in opposition. But I think in elections where people still really distrust the Democratic Party, you have to be very authentically independent. And I think a lot of people think, well, I'm a Democrat, but I'm going to switch over and be an independent. Voters will smell that change. Rob Sand is doing this well in Iowa. We should shout him out. He did an interview with Andrew Edgar on our YouTube. He's running for governor in Iowa.

And he kind of does this. He's basically, I register as an independent, but I understand it's a two-party system. And I, you know, so I'm a Democrat, but I'm independently minded. That just feels honest, you know. Yeah, no. And, you know, people used to say when I was running in 12, Obama was losing the state by 22 points. And so the whole message against me is she's voting for Obama. She's voting for Obama.

And you remember a lot of Senate candidates wouldn't say whether they were going to vote for Obama. I'm like, and I always tell people, I walked around. I had a poster because I knew I had to answer that. that question, which is why you don't agree with Obama on a lot of these issues. You say you're not going to walk, lock step with him, but you know, you're a Democrat. And why are you voting for Obama? And so I had the Ryan budget, and you might remember the Ryan budget cut Medicare, it cut Medicaid, it cut, you know, social, it had draconian cuts to the farm program. And I would carry that with me and I would put it up and I would say, see this budget? I said, this is the blueprint of the other

side and this is really bad for North Dakota. This is what they're going to do. And I think she tried that with Project 25, but Trump deflected it when you knew all along. Project 25 was going to be the blueprint. And I think a lot of people don't like Project 25. We always used to say for Republicans, they were spenders and spenders, not tax and spend because they don't want to pay for their spending. And I think we're going to see that again with the big beautiful bill. We're going to see it again with Trump, you know, basically bailing out farmers. You know, he's not a fiscal conservative. I'm just still trying to wrap my head around this.

Heidi Highcamp is, you know, some nice words for Zoron, Momdadi, and Graham Platner on this show. Not so nice words for some of your Democratic establishment friends. It's a new day. You know what, Tim? What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing you've always done expecting a different result. Let's shake it up. Amen.

Let's shake it up. I got such a big laugh this morning in Playbook. They wrote this. Andrew Cuomo this week picked up endorsements from Mike Bloomberg, Tom Swazzi, and even Republican Mike Lawler. Meanwhile, Mom Donnie got the backing of unlikely bedfellows, Bill Crystal, my colleague, and the United Bodegas of America and maybe Idy. So, you know, we're just shaking up the globe a little bit. I think that we need different voices. You know, when people say, well, you're stuck with them then.

Guess what? I'm not stuck with them. I mean, I said New York can do what New York does. It's not going to hurt me. I've got an opinion about what I need to do. New York Democrats don't define my brand of party identification. I mean, people just are too afraid. They're too afraid.

And it's like they haven't learned the lessons of Donald Trump. Yeah. Amen. You know, Donald Trump, he's a phoenix. It just rises from the ashes because the things that Democrats want to attack them on, people don't give a shit about it. I was going back. I was kind of Googling what you've been talking about lately. And this was an old one that popped up in my feed. It was from right after the election. You said that the Senate confirmations would be a litmus test for your neighbor, John Thune. I'm wondering how you'd grade John Thune and how the witness test has been for him. Well, I remember that Donald Trump wanted him to do recessed appointments. Yeah, which is what I was responding to that. If he caved, which I think Speaker.

Johnson would have caved and done recessed appointments and not put people through. I think Thune said, no, I'm not doing that. They did package all the appointments for some of these lower things. Right. Now he has. But each one of those cabinet folks had a confirmation hearing, albeit abbreviated, you know, kind of controlled by chairman that weren't fair in how they conducted the hearings. But they went through the hearings.

They were not recessed appointments. And so I think you've got to give Thune some credit. I think Thune has more backbone than Mike Johnson. Well, I mean, Mike Johnson is an amphibian. Mike Johnson does. My Johnson has a backbone. It's actually so Trump had some of like Barron's backbone taken out of his back and put a Trump bone into Mike Johnson's body.

And so I think that Thune's been protective. Okay. How about, well, I don't have to hand it to him. I'm maybe a little, as a former Republican, it's always, you know, you're most hurt by the people that were the narcissism of small differences. Like, Thune was like a regular free trading establishment Republican. And I look at him and I'm like, what, what? And he's totally abdicated the power of the first of Trump.

He's done nothing on the tariffs. He has confirmed two far left Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard and RFK and an idiot to run the FBI. I don't know. I don't have to hand it to him really. I think it's crazy kind of how much he's going along with. I think when you're in leadership in the Senate, you're not necessarily. a leader. You're a compromiser. He didn't have to be, though. He came in not with the majority of the caucus either. He could have been an LBJ or he could have just stayed a senator from South Dakota

have been like, hey, you know, why don't want you, why don't you let one of these clowns take this job? And so, so then the president calls up Rick Scott and says, I want you to challenge him and I'll get you enough votes so you win. Great. Yeah. I would love that. I would love for exoskeleton Rick Scott to be the majority leader. That would be an easier person to run against. Let's see it for, let's see it. Let's see it. Mr. Rip off the Medicare program and then, yeah, the Medicaid program and, you know, kind of think that you're going to be the fiscal conservative. I think that when you look at the Senate, it's a really difficult body to lead. And why I say that is because, you know, at least half of his caucus gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror, and sees a future president of the United States. And so their interest is not in legislating. It is in advancing. their own kind of personal agenda. Yeah. Well, John is never going to be the president of the United States.

So I hope you enjoyed it. That is a funny story, though. He's getting his tan. Have you ever heard the John McCain story? Refresh my memory. It's not coming to mine. Okay. So John McCain is in the well of the Senate.

And it was after his, you know, his loss to Obama and, you know, still thinking about it. And good friend of mine is actually James Langford. We did a lot of great work together. And James Langford has the most amazing voice. like it is James Earl Jones' voice. And John Thune, you know, comes kind of looking like out of central casting. And so McCain goes, yeah, if I look like Thune and could talk like Langford, I'd be president of the United States. I don't think that's true, actually, but it's a good thought.

It's a good thought. I don't think it was going to happen for us in 2008. Obama a pretty underrated talent. Well, you know, it was closer until the markets crashed. Yeah, that's true. Still, people are done. There's no amount of difference McCain could have gotten away from him. Final thing. I'm curious how you think that the Democrats should handle immigration. There are two things. One, should they be going after the mast and the agents the way they're handling it?

But also, I'm trying to learn a lesson from the 24 campaign. I want to play this video of J.D. Vance was talking to Miranda Devine yesterday, and he's still on the cat eating stuff. And then what happens is 20 people move into a three-bedroom house, 20 people from a totally different culture, totally different ways of interacting. Again, we can respect their dignity while also being angry at the Biden administration for letting that situation happening and recognizing that their next door neighbors are going to say, well, wait a second, what is going on here? I don't know these people. They don't speak the same language that I do.

And because there are 20 in the house next door, it's a little bit rowdy. than it was when there was just a family of four, a family of five. It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next door neighbors and say, I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. You blink your eyes in Springfield, Ohio, and you wake up and literally a third of the population of your town is now Haitian immigrants. And eating cats and dogs. Eating cats and dogs. We can treat them with dignity and also call them cat eaters. That doesn't really work for me. But, um, How do you deal with that?

Well, I think, you know, Mike DeWine, who is a functionally really decent human being, he and his wife have, you know, true Christian values, and they reflected those when they were dealing with the whole Haitian immigration thing. And you want to say, you know, they're there because they have an opportunity to work. And they're legal, by the way. Right. I mean, you know, you know, we have always struggled in this country with an influx of a new culture, you know, no Irish or dogs allowed. No, Germans were discriminated against. And so with

each wave of immigration, we see more and more kind of historic uncomfortableness with the realignment. So it's going to take communities to basically build those bridges and build the social trust. That is essential to growing our workforce. And so let's talk about the economics. Right now, we are, the first year in a long, long time that we have net out migration. We have fewer people coming into the country than are leaving. A lot of other really successful countries have that. You know, Syria, Venezuela, you know, Sudan. Look at Japan.

Japan, you know, highly monolithic in terms of what they want their country to look like. And it's not going well for them. They have zero population growth. and a real challenge with taking care of elderly. So I think, you know, what has made America dynamic and prosperous has been a willingness to have people come to our country, come to this country, who have new ideas, who are ambitious, who care about, you know, their families, and all of those things. And I think it's interesting because there's just a lot of speculation right now,

about AI and can the worker be replaced by AI and, you know, even must talking about, you know, mandatory income payments to compensate for technology changes. But my theory is in 20 years, the single most important commodity will be people. You know, we look at critical minerals. We look at natural resources. All across the world, population is declining. And why would we stop people from, people who want to be productive from coming to our country. And we will figure out a way in our social fabric to incorporate new ideas, new behaviors. And, you know, the second or third generation, you know, integration is there and, and we move on. I mean, you think that the maggots would have learned that. I've assimilated too well. That second

generation immigrants moved huge for Trump this last time. Yeah. Well, not only that, but, you know, he married to. And J.D. I was listening to J.D. I was like, the 20 people in the house? I was like, I've seen the, I've seen the, I've seen the, Diwali pictures of your family. Like, what do they think when you're talking about all of that? That seems like a pretty crowded house that Ushah lives in?

I like to think he knows better. He's just throwing the raw meat out. And he's basically affirming, he's got kids, affirming. He's basically, you know, affirming what people are thinking. it's an age-old political. You don't want to have the responsibility of leading to a different idea. What you want to do is you want to hear

what people are saying and just repeat it. I always said that Donald Trump was brilliant because he had the biggest focus groups. He didn't pay for a focus group. He had his rallies. He would do call and response and the things that hit. That's the thing that he talked about.

Luckily, I think the one good thing we've got going for us is that that wouldn't work for JD because nothing hits. for him, you know. Yeah. This idea that he is the heir apparent to the MAGA movement, I don't see it because he's too intellectual.

And he's not funny. Donald Trump has this kind of twinkle in his eye when he knows he's saying something completely ridiculous. And people go, yeah, you didn't believe it either, but it's fun to say. Yeah. You know, it's, it's theater. Yeah. Whereas JD doesn't try to be funny.

He tries to be mean. Yeah. Like he's like, JD tries to be mean to make up for the intellectualism. And it's, and it comes off as, is like, smarmy and yucky. Well, and let's admit it, the president in Asia, a lot of that stuff was pretty cringy, pretty cringy. You mean the getting the crown and the ketchup? Like South Korea is like, sir, sir, you're the first American to ever get our highest honor. It's a Burger King crown with a ketchup staff.

And you're like, what? And the MAGA people are tweeting that, what a, they respect Trump now. And I'm like, you guys are dumb. This is dumb. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, anybody can get that with a happy, you just show up and you go at noon to Burger King and order the kids meal. I didn't know that our foreign policy was based on, you know, Kim feeling good, getting little rewards. And it's just, I mean, of all the mysteries for me of Donald Trump. Trump is that if you went to the coffee shop in Manitur, North Dakota, and you sat around a table

and somebody bragged as much, somebody, you know, kind of behaved like they were better. And, you know, there was a local award and they nominated themselves for the local award. People would go, you know, that's cringy. You know, if you're worthy, you want cream rises to the top. You know, you don't need to ask for it. You just need to wait your turn. And Donald Trump breaks all those norms. And I have no idea why people think that's okay because I think it's cringy. Same. Heidi Highcamp, what a pleasure. It's so good to get to hang out with you. It's always fun. The work you're doing is really important at one country. So folks should check that out, the podcast, Hot Dish. And we'll do it again in a few months, all right?

You know, every year we try and put out some ideas on how people can be more respectful when they go to rural America, but also encourage people to know those issues and understand what those challenges are as they're looking at building back. But if they don't show up, all the people who are sitting on the sidelines, and there are people, you know, 20, 30 percent who are not with this president, but they are cowed because there is so much social pressure to not step out of, I just got to called Tim from a longtime Democratic leader who moved to a fairly good-sized town who said, man, there's a lot of Democrats here, but they aren't talking. Can you come and, you know, kind of give us some ideas? And so what I would say to candidates, there's a lot of Democrats

out there. They're not talking. And they need to see somebody whose leaders who are step up and actually help them get back to some semblance of political balance in rural America. Amen to that. When you put out that report, sent it to me. And we'll make sure to publicize it. Appreciate you, as always. And everybody else will see you back here for another edition of the podcast tomorrow. Peace.

In 81, I was just a drink on the shelf, a daquery. Not even a thought. Till sometime in July. Sometime in July And something happened in 84 I ended up with two places to be from The only tree with leaves in the bag With roots and mineral wells

Mineral wells Mineral wells At night I dream I'm in the Brazzest River Pines and Cyprus to the west cross timbers And oh I know It shows I'm another one still thirsting for my home

There's a spot under the train track treasels, the water's too deep to stand in. And you were there once, we climbed the sandstone and jump in. Hold your breath and jump in. We take the airboat to the way upstream. The heat's tiring and I fall asleep. In my folding chair. I dreamed dad was smoking cigarettes. He always had one hanging promise lips.

And at night I dream I'm in the Brazis River Hines and Cyprus To the west cross timbers And oh I know It shows I'm another one still thirsting for my I'm another one still thirsting for my

The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.