The Daily - The Democrats’ Comeback Plan

Episode Date: July 31, 2018

Democrats are working on an election strategy for the 2018 midterms and beyond. It’s one that deliberately sounds less ambitious than it is. Guests: Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York; and Alexander Burns, who covers national politics for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Democrats are working on an election strategy for the midterms and beyond. Why it deliberately sounds less ambitious than it is. delicious than it is. It's Tuesday, July 31st. This is the office of Representative Jeffries. Hi, how are you? I'm well, and yourself? Good,

good, good. I think we're trying to connect with the congressman. Oh, yeah. Are you from the New York Times? Yes. Okay, let me figure out what to do with your call. One sec. Michael? Yes, hi there, Congressman. It's Michael Barbaro. Hey, how you doing? I'm doing really, really well. Thank you very much for making some time for us. Well, it's great to be on with you. Look forward to our conversation.

Me too. So, Conkerton, the reason why we're talking to you today is because there's this sense that the Democratic Party has lost its way. Do you think that the Democratic Party is lost? I definitely don't think that we've been lost, as some have indicated. I do think that 2016 election was a shock to the system for a lot of folks. And there was an expectation that Hillary Clinton was going to be successful. And perhaps we were going to be able to take back the Senate majorities in the House and the Senate has forced us as Democrats to reevaluate how we govern and how we communicate what we stand for to the American people. But you don't think the party has lost its way? Well, in my view, a setback is nothing more than a setup for a comeback. And we certainly experienced a

significant setback, but that has allowed us as Democrats to make sure that we both reevaluate how we communicate to the American people and more significantly to clarify what we stand for. was a blind spot that we had as Democrats with respect to engaging with the American people around the economic anxiety that they continue to experience, notwithstanding the tremendous progress that was made during the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency. And that was mission number one. Alex Burns, I wanted to talk to you because heading into the midterms, we've been trying to figure out what the Democratic Party's plan is and whether they have a plan. So I recently had a conversation with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who is an up-and-coming member of the House and one of the people tasked with figuring out the Democratic Party's plan. But the plan that he outlined in our conversation seemed confusingly narrow to me. So I wanted to talk to you to understand, is it narrow?

Do the Democrats have a good plan? And do they understand their problems? So I guess my first question is, what is the problem with the Democratic Party? Well, to answer that question, we probably need to back up about a decade to when Barack Obama comes into office after the 2008 election. need to back up about a decade to when Barack Obama comes into office after the 2008 election. If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible. Democrats have control of the House. They have control of the Senate. They have sweeping control of governorships around the country, as good as it's gotten for them, certainly in our lifetimes. And they make a series of political choices that have drastic implications.

And they're basically still grappling with the fallout from that election today. What were the choices that they made that we're still grappling with? Well, the biggest choice the Democrats made after 2008 was to pursue a national health care law with their total control of government. But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came here to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future. And that is the issue of health care. an issue that is central to that future, and that is the issue of health care.

If you think of the total political capital that Obama came into office with and the share of it that he spent on health care alone, it's overwhelming. And if you look at the political implications of that, there's the obvious one, which is that Republicans rode backlash against Obamacare to control the House and then later the Senate. But there's also a whole range of other issues that Democrats didn't deal with because they chose to focus on health care. They didn't do an immigration bill that could have meaning of people becoming eligible, at least for citizenship and voting rights, who in 2008 had no pathway there and still today have no pathway there. They didn't do that. They didn't do a national labor law to really, really strengthen labor unions. That could have made an enormous difference for the Democratic Party in places like Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania, the places that we now think of in many cases as Trump country. The Democrats also didn't pursue any kind of national voting rights law. When you see issues like voter purges pop up in places like Ohio and North

Carolina that matter an enormous amount, these are issues that a federal voting law could actually have done something about. Democrats did not make a real attempt to do that. So not giving citizenship to undocumented immigrants, not organizing labor in a systematic way, not enfranchising voters in a kind of permanent structural way. We're talking about potentially millions and millions of theoretically almost guaranteed Democratic votes not realized under the presidency of Barack Obama. That's certainly how the critics of the Obama presidency within the Democratic Party see things. And there are more of those people than you see in public. Because look, across the Democratic Party, there is really still reverence for Barack Obama. But there is this recognition that when Republicans have had power, they work very, very hard to expand and cement that power.

And that's not something the Democrats saw Barack Obama do. It sounds like as noble as it might seem, Obama focused on governing as a Democratic president, but not on building up the Democratic Party itself. That's right. And he focused on areas of governing that didn't do much to change the basic structures of American politics in a way that favored his own party. A great example of that is that when, after the 2010 elections, Republicans in state capitals around the country redrew the congressional maps and state legislative maps in their own favor, the Obama Justice Department mostly did not challenge those maps in court. You have seen the attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, has since been suing states all over the country. He didn't do that when he was attorney general. The Obama administration

let that one go. So that's fascinating. I think we expect to start the clock of the Democratic problems in 2016 with the defeat of what seemed like a very well-positioned Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, against a highly unconventional Republican candidate, Donald Trump. And everything that was revealed by that victory, we see that as being where the problems start for the Democratic Party. But you're saying that's not quite right. No, it's not. And when you look at the 2016 election, Democrats were already a clear minority in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and in state capitals around the country. When you're a party in that position and you've essentially bet all your chips on the presidency as a way to maintain a hand in government, you're not looking at a healthy political party. So is the 2016 election, Alex, a symptom of this root problem, this kind of structural trouble you're talking about, an exacerbation of it,

or what exactly? I think it's the climax of it that you see in the 2016 election, the Democratic Party pay this catastrophic price. So, you say Hillary Clinton lose, and lose badly in places like Ohio and Iowa, where President Obama had won four years before and eight years before. What you saw in the intervening years is the Democratic Party, rather than trying to take care of its foundation in these places, you saw them embrace this theory that the country was changing so much, that there were generational and social and demographic changes in the country that sort of meant that they were inexorably going to win in 2016. And you saw in the Clinton campaign an entity that wanted the country to look like a state like Virginia that was growing increasingly diverse. And instead, you have a country that actually looks a lot more like Ohio, where she

lost and lost badly. And what does it mean to look like Ohio? It means that you're looking at a state where there are very substantial minority communities, but they are not a decisive force in elections. You're looking at a community of white voters who are less college educated than the country at large and where issues like trade, issues like immigration, issues like crime and policing play very differently than they do in the kinds of places where Hillary Clinton won. So I have, ever since the first day of my campaign, called for criminal justice reform. I've laid out a platform that I think would begin to remedy some of the problems we have in the criminal justice system.

It's not just that the Clinton campaign is speaking to elites. It's that the people they're speaking to who aren't elites aren't necessarily hearing a message about the economy or about national security or about national identity that they find compelling. And we all want a society that is tolerant, inclusive and fair. We all believe that America succeeds when more people share in our prosperity. So you had people start to think that the Democratic Party was not talking to them anymore. And in 2016, they didn't necessarily get a message from Hillary Clinton that sounded like even the message they got from Barack Obama four years earlier. And then, of course, in watch Donald Trump, who is probably unique among modern Republicans as somebody who would speak the populist language that Democrats had talked for generations.

The forgotten men and women won't be forgotten anymore. Forgotten men and women. forgotten anymore. Forgotten men and women. I see you, I hear you, and I will never, ever let you down, I promise. We will never let you down. He goes into a place like Michigan, which rejected George W. Bush twice, and he wins it. And Democrats in between the 2004 election and the 2016 election had kind of convinced themselves that these states belong to us. And they hadn't done a lot of the work that it would require to make sure that that state stays locked down. Do the Democrats understand all of this? That the problem doesn't just start and stop with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but that they have a bigger problem on their hands.

And that's why they've lost control. them on their hands. And that's why they've lost control. For the most part, they do understand it. And that's why in 2018, you see them focusing so narrowly on a couple places in the political map where they think they can start to claw their way back in state capitals and most importantly, in the House of Representatives. So that brings us back to my conversation with Hakeem Jeffries. So let me explain a couple of things that confused me about talking to him. First of all, you just used the word narrow. And his plan, to my mind, felt incredibly narrow. There was an absence of a clear and compelling message that dealt with the economic anxieties of the American people.

But we as House Democrats, looking forward, decided that we were going to make sure we corrected that problem. And that's what initially gave birth to the Better Deal economic agenda, focused on better jobs, better wages and a better future, higher pay, lower costs and making sure the American people had the tools to succeed in the 21st century economy. and making sure the American people had the tools to succeed in the 21st century economy. And I think we've done a reasonably good job of staying focused on economic issues that are important to get us to the point where we're now in striking distance to finish the job and win back the House in November. It's a plan just for the House, he said, not for the Senate and not even for the candidates seeking a seat in the House. And that seems like a recipe for disaster if people are looking for a clear identity for the entire Democratic Party. I don't think most voters distinguish between Democrats in the House and Democrats in the Senate or even a Democratic presidential candidate.

So am I wrong to think that that plan seems quite narrow? No, it is really narrow. And it's a matter of political necessity for Democrats as they campaign in a fairly narrow way. This is about the House of Representatives because the House is the place where Democrats think they can actually start to win back power. Very, very tough to imagine them taking the Senate this year. Not impossible, but very tough. So you see them focusing on the House because they think if they can start to win some places that have historically voted for Republicans and some places that voted for Donald Trump, then they can use the House to position the party in a much more politically appealing way than the Clinton campaign did in 2016. So the map for taking back the House supports a plan that's focused on voters that they

realize they kind of neglected in 2016. It's focused on voters who are soft Republican voters. Well, the economic issues are what are unifying as it relates to the gorgeous mosaic of the American people. Sort of when we decide to communicate clearly about what we as Democrats stand for, for the people, we're talking about urban America, rural America, suburban America, the heartland, small-town America, the north, the south, the east, and the west. You're talking about people who voted for Trump, voted for him reluctantly, maybe didn't like him on the day that they voted for him but didn't like Hillary Clinton.

People who might have been Democrats in 2008 and sometime in the middle drifted away from the party. And so what you see in the messaging from Democrats, at least the Democrats who are campaigning effectively, from Democrats, at least the Democrats who are campaigning effectively, is you see them talking about issues that will appeal to a 60-year-old white guy who's a union member in Toledo and a white woman who makes six figures as a lawyer in the suburbs of Columbus and small donors to the Democratic Party in places like New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco. And there aren't that many issues that cut across all three of those groups. We've articulated three issues that we're going to focus on in terms of improving the quality of life of everyday Americans. Number one, we're going to lower health care costs. We're going to strengthen the Affordable Care Act. We're going to dramatically drive down the price of

prescription drugs. Number two, we're going to focus on increasing the pay of everyday Americans with an emphasis on continued and strong economic growth by rebuilding America. And number three, we're going to clean up corruption in Washington to make sure that government works for everyday Americans. And so that's what we're all about. That's what Democrats wake up and fight for, right? For everyday Americans, for the people. And we've brought that to life through those three direct, distinct policy areas. Does that explain why Hakeem Jeffries is talking about the economy, the economy, the economy, and nothing else? Yes.

And the idea is don't talk about those polarizing questions of identity, immigration, foreign policy, that that's counterproductive. Or at least don't put them out front on the billboard that defines the Democratic Party. There's never been a conversation amongst House Democrats about targeting any one particular group of folks. It's about how do we reach everyday Americans and make sure that we are clearly articulating our focus and what we're about versus what they're about. If I could just call back to the 2010 election, Republicans did a similar thing with a message that at the time seemed to me to be fairly vapid, that you had this mantra that was,

where are the jobs? It was not an agenda. It was really almost a taunt. And I wondered whether it would work. And it worked, and it worked spectacularly well. So, the idea is to talk about the economy and issues related to the economy that basically everybody cares about. So, they need to govern on those economic principles in a way that rebuilds the party identity as for working people. If Democrats were to implement this plan successfully, I think what you would see them do is take the House of Representatives and then pass popular bills on healthcare,

popular bills on taxes, popular bills on drug prices that would then get sent up to the Senate, maybe probably controlled by Republicans, and knocked back or sent through the Senate if Democrats take the Senate and then knocked back by the White House and essentially used the House as a platform to define what you would get if Democrats actually controlled the federal government. So even if they don't succeed in passing any of this legislation, the message itself becomes potent and symbolic, lays the groundwork for the next election. potent, and symbolic, lays the groundwork for the next election.

In a lot of ways, it is, again, mimicking the Republicans from a few years ago, that when Republicans took the House, they voted, it felt like every other day, on repealing the Affordable Care Act, even though they knew there was not a chance that it was going to be repealed when Barack Obama was president. But it defined them as the party that was against this unpopular legislation. And if the Democrats do this successfully, it would challenge the idea of President Trump as the man of the people, because he might sit there and literally veto these bills. And it would give people a second version of what being for the working class looks like beyond the Trump version. That's right. If they were to start passing a middle class tax cut that raised taxes on rich people and the president vetoed it, you would then have every

Democrat campaigning on, we need to stand up to this guy who's only in it for the 1%, which would really undercut the image that President Trump has cultivated. Okay, so there's a total logic, now that you've explained it, to this Hakeem Jeffries House plan. message in 2020 and theoretically reclaim the Senate, theoretically reclaim the presidency and the working class. Theoretically is the key word here. But yes, that's the sort of long-term vision. But a lot can go wrong. And a lot, frankly, has already gone wrong since they announced this messaging plan.

Like what exactly? Well, it was not in the plan to be talking about abolishing ICE. We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality. A hundred days before a midterm election, right? As Senate. As prominent members of the Senate, some members of the House, activists around the country have been talking about it. That puts pressure on Democrats in red districts, in purple districts, to address an issue that they simply don't want to be talking about, period.

They want to be talking about health care prices. And what else could theoretically go wrong in this already theoretically complicated plan that Hakeem Jeffries has outlined? Use the House to make economic case and build towards the midterms and then the presidential election. Well, the biggest challenge is probably sorting out who is actually going to lead the party in 2020. That it's all well and good to have something on paper that says this is what the Democratic Party is and this is some draft legislation that reflects that. But at the end of the day, political parties are mostly defined by who they nominate for president. And there is no guarantee at all that at this time next year, Democrats are going to be coalescing around someone who is talking about mainstream economic issues. So the House

is trying to ignore the identity politics as phase one. But you're saying this could all go wrong if the future party leader, the nominee for president, doesn't do that. You can only put off the identity debate so long in that party. That's what happened on the Republican side. They didn't want to talk about a lot of the identity issues

and nationalism issues for years and years and years. And ultimately, they end up with Donald Trump, someone who really did speak to the preoccupations of the party's most loyal, most fired up base. If Democratic voters feel that the party is giving them a set of options that are essentially boring or essentially non-confrontational and ducking the big issues that they want to be talking about, that is how you end up nominating somebody totally out of left field, the Democratic version of Trump.

you end up nominating somebody totally out of left field, the Democratic version of Trump, that if you present a choice between, you know, a Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders, if Hillary Clinton were not a historic figure, that is probably how you end up with a candidate who compromises them in the general election. Right. Because you can only avoid talking about the elephant in the room for so long. That's right. And when you look at the candidates who are out there preparing most intensively for 2020 And when you look at the candidates who are out there preparing most intensively for 2020, when you look at people like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. Recently, you will be coming up to me and they say, Carla, talk to us about women's issues. And I look at them and I say, I am so glad you want to talk about the economy.

I'm so glad you want to talk about the economy. Because what we know is when you lift up the economic status of women, you lift up the economic status of families and neighborhoods. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. I remember talking to my grandfather about what it meant to get a job at a factory, at Ford Motor Plant, the dignity of work. Well, in one generation, we've destroyed that dignity of work, one, by commoditizing workers.

You already see how careful they're being to really stay focused on the economy, but then try to figure out, how can I also talk about the issues, the issues around immigration, the issues around law enforcement and social justice that rank-and-file Democratic activists demand that you talk about. Who in your mind is the ideal person to realize this complicated alchemy that's involved in this long game of speaking directly enough to the economic issues, managing the expectations of the Democratic base, to talk about identity, with so many potential pitfalls, who is the right person? I think there are a lot of really prominent people in the party who are wrestling in an absolutely agonized way with that very question. And what they're trying to figure out is not just

what is the message, but what is the kind of person who can carry that message in a way that the country can hear? If they could sort of clone Barack Obama, that would be the person they would want to carry the message. It's not clear that person exists right now. And so you end up having a conversation about how, well, if only Joe Biden were 20 years younger, or if only Kamala Harris had been in the Senate for five years longer or something like that. And that's obviously not how you ultimately choose a presidential nominee. So the Democrats need another Barack Obama, but this time he would actually need to protect the party while in office. They would need a sort of a Barack Obama with the wisdom of having governed for eight years as Barack Obama, right?

And that's not a person who's available. Right. Thank you, Alex. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. You've met with the leaders of North Korea and Russia. Are you prepared also? Are you willing to meet with President Rouhani?

And under what conditions? On Monday, just a week after threatening Iran with war in a tweet, President Trump said he would be willing to meet with the country's president, Hassan Rouhani. I do believe that they will probably end up wanting to meet, and I'm ready to meet anytime they want to. And I don't do that from strength or from weakness. I think it's an appropriate thing to do. Such a meeting would mark the first face-to-face contact between the country's leaders since the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 after Iranian revolutionaries held 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy there.

Do you have preconditions for that meeting? No preconditions, no. They want to meet on me anytime they want, anytime they want. It's good for the country, good for them, good for us, and good for the world. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.