The Dispatch Podcast - From Ohio with Love

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez returns to the podcast this week to discuss his re-election campaign against a Trump-endorsed challenger, the House’s new January 6 commission, how Democrats’ narrow majorities in Congress shape their behavior, what’s really on his constituents’ minds, and why embracing Trump’s election lies should be a non-starter for potential GOP candidates in 2024. Show Notes: -Declan’s article on Trump’s recent rally with Gonzalez’s primary opponent -Gonzalez’s previous Dispatch podcast appearance (Jan. 29) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes. And this week, we're talking again to Congressman Anthony Gonzalez. He is a member of the House of Representatives from Ohio's 16th District, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach the president after January 6th. And he happens to live in the district where Donald Trump held his last rally this weekend to target Anthony Gonzalez for defeat in his next election. Diving right in. The president was in your district for what's being dubbed his revenge tour. You spoke to one of our reporters, Declan Garvey, right after.

And you said that you took your wife on a date and you didn't pay any attention. And I guess my first question, as someone who used to work on, you know, for candidates and principals. Did you take her out a date because you knew you didn't want to watch it? Or was this a legitimate date night that you weren't going to miss? Probably a little bit of both, but honestly, more just a legitimate date night. We're young parents of two kids, two young kids, and the opportunities for us to get out to dinner together coincide directly with our ability

to get a babysitter. And so Saturday night happened to be the night that it worked out for our sitter. And I was glad that it did. And we had a great time and had a great dinner. And, you know, I got home and I think I texted your reporter and just said, hey, is it over? He said, you know, no, but you probably guess what he's saying. And so we did our quick interview and then I went to bed.

Yeah. So you get home from date night and then you, of course, hop on the phone with Decliffe Garvey as any great date night ends. And he reads you the things that President Trump said. And your reaction was, that's actually not so bad. I would have been a little sarcastic. No, I don't know. I mean, look, it's the same song and dance he does every time he's mad at somebody. At this point, I would argue, it's sort of a tired routine. It's probably been a tired routine for a long time. But he has a history of, you know, being effusive with praise whenever somebody

is doing anything he likes and then the second that person does something he doesn't. He completely trashes him and makes a whole bunch of stuff up. So I was certainly prepared for that and didn't affect my mood one bit. All right. More seriously, you're a Republican

congressman, the senator from your state, Rob Portman, was on this week with John Carl. And Rob Portman said that former President Trump is, quote, definitely the leader of the Republican Party. He got some criticism for that,

but it was clearly just a statement of fact, not exactly an opinion. Do you agree that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party? And if so, how do you define yourself as a Republican then? I think he's probably the Republican that has the highest approval rating

within Republican circles. I think that's probably accurate. My personal view is the voters tell you who the leader of the party is. They tell you when they show up. They tell you who they want to represent you or represent them. And we had an election that not terribly long ago. The voters spoke. Joe Biden's our president, whether you vote a form or not. And, you know, the voters will speak again in a year, in my case, in a year for a primary. And then we'll find out who the leaders are. But anything kind of up and to that, I always think is conjecture. Frankly, it's sort of one of those

things, I guess that's interesting in media circles, but I don't personally find it interesting. I just do my job and put my best foot forward and let the voters sort of tell me how they feel I'm doing. And that's my strategy. That's always been my strategy. And it's worked so well or so far. So let's go back to January and think about your vote to impeach the president. And then think about it in the current context. Did you anticipate when you cast that vote, one of ten in the House of Representatives, that this is what you would be getting, that the president would come to your district, do put on a big rally, or hurl a bunch of epithets that you encourage an opponent,

presumably fundraise for the opponent and everything? Did you know that or did you believe that when you cast the vote? Yeah, I don't know that I thought about that specifically, But look, you know when you make that vote that you're going to draw the ire of the former president. So you know that going in. More important to me, maybe more consequential to me is what I said last time I was on the podcast, which is I knew how my voters were going to react because of what had happened with respect to the breakdown in truth and sort of the beliefs that were out there with respect to the election versus what I knew to be reality.

I knew that was going to be a challenge. And that's the thing that I care the most about is my voters. But look, like if you and I would have had a conversation immediately prior to the vote, I think we probably would have thought through all the eventualities of making that choice and how the president was likely to react. I think this was very predictable. This is sort of part and parcel for who he is. He's a revenge seeker.

That's part of his personality. You go back to that time frame. And certainly in the days after January 6th and the attacks on the Capitol, The president looked very weak. President Trump looked very weak. You had top Republicans, both the House and the Senate, excoriating him in public remarks, both delivered in the halls of Congress. In media appearances, you had erstwhile, strong allies of the president like Lindsey Graham going on, giving his speech, saying, I'm done, I'm out. I did my best. I'm out. This guy's, it's too much. You had Senator John Cornyn saying, I support a commission, a bipartisan commission, looking into what happened. here looking into the president's role. That feels like another century from where we are right now. He is, the president is ascendant again. Those of you who sort of stood up to him and voted to stand up to him and then were critical after January 6th feel like a small minority in that broader Republican Party. Why do you, how do you explain the change? Well, look, I,

To be perfectly candid, I think the change is primarily driven by electoral politics. I think people made the correct evaluation on January 6th and sort of the ensuing days and then realize, oh, wait a minute, a lot of voters are still behind this guy, and then they decided to change their tune. My personal view is this is why leadership is so important. To me, the country, in any democracy, but any stable society, any organization, any team, any good team you've ever been on, has strong leaders who are willing to make tough decisions and move the direction of the team of the organization towards a better path,

towards a more noble path, towards a more successful path. That's what this moment requires and what that time required. And for a period of time, we had some people who seemed willing to do that, and then they lost their nerve. And as a result, you know, I think we're seeing a lot of the, the questioning things like, you know, where's the Republican Party going and who's the leader of it? I think those come from that uncertainty because everybody saw, okay, it seems like folks are realizing they need to go down a different path. And then rather than

sort of garnering the resolve necessary to do that, folks just sort of fell back into their old patterns. I know that politicians hate pundit questions. And I want to talk to you about the Democratic Party about legislation that's pending before you guys right now, infrastructure in particular. But indulge me in this one pundit question. What does it mean for the Republican Party if Anthony Gonzalez has just one re-election? And what does it mean for the Republican Party if Anthony Gonzalez just lost re-election and is not coming back to Congress? I think a lot of people are going to be watching this race very closely. And I'm curious what you think it will say about the future of the party in either outcome. So you're right. I don't.

like the pundity questions. I will tell you to me what it would say. So if I win, what it says is that the voters in the 16th district who are going to be fully informed by two very well-resourced candidates. And there's not going to be a resource question. I don't think for either of the candidates. And there's actually three in there. So we're going to have a fully informed electorate more so than normal. And people are going to have a choice. And the choice is going to be very clear in my eyes. It's going to be a choice between somebody who's been a very productive member of Congress who I believe we serve our constituents very well and have delivered real results for Ohio 16th District and has a history of doing so in other avenues of life.

And somebody who, let's be honest, was just sort of placed here by the president on the strength of an endorsement in hopes that you can sort of take somebody out. And if the voters are going to have that choice and they'll make it. And what are the implications beyond there? I don't know, frankly, because, you know, Ohio politics and the Ohio 16th district is a lot different from the rest of the country. And so, you know, I'll leave it to folks like you to figure out what it means for, you know, the country. But what I'm focused on is what I always focus on, which is what am I going to do for my constituents. So the blaring headline that we have, Steve, prepared for the day after. We may want to revisit some of that, I guess. Well, my follow-up was going to be

slightly different. Sarah asked you a question about November of 2022, presumably the general election, and you answered a question about your primary. Is the primary the real challenge here or a bigger challenge than a general? If you get through the primary, do you expect to have a bigger challenge in the general? Or is it about your primary opponent pushed by Donald Trump? Yeah, I mean, I think anybody who would look at my districts as currently constituent, uh, and obviously we're going to have the lines redrawn. We're going to have new districts.

So presuming my district looks similar, has a similar partisan makeup. Uh, the race will, will be a primary race, uh, primarily. Now you still got to run hard in the general, obviously, but, uh, but, you know, history shows and, and I think, frankly, my bipartisan record shows that if I get through a primary, uh, then I'd be fine in the general. the Congress House of Representatives right now as actually as we are recording this or before we were recording this started a debate on a January 6th commission Congress I think both because of Nancy Pelosi and some partisan moves that she made at the very beginning of a discussion of us of a special commission to conduct that investigation and then later because of Republicans, primarily in the Senate, who opposed it, didn't go that route. Now what we're talking about is something that's likely to be a much more partisan investigation pushed by Democrats and conducted by Democrats.

Are you in favor of such an investigation? So I was in favor of the bipartisan independent commission that wouldn't be run by politicians, which is what I voted on. because I think that's the best way to get a full accounting of what happened on January 6th. Let's take politicians out of it, people who are running for re-election. Let's appoint people with equal powers on both sides and really get to the bottom of this. I am not going to support the Pelosi bill just candidly. I don't trust her at all to do anything, especially get to the bottom of something in a nonpartisan way. So I will not be, I will not be supporting that.

Frankly, you know, the failure, in my opinion, is with Senate Republicans for not supporting the independent bipartisan commission, which I think 35 House Republicans supported. Because the choice, which people didn't seem to get, the choice wasn't between a commission or no commission. The choice was between a bipartisan independent commission, which is the one I supported, or a Pelosi commission. Well, in that world, if you gave that choice to your average American, even Democrats, they would probably say, I'd prefer the nonpartisan independent one. And so, you know, I think we really screwed up in that regard.

And so as a result, we're going to have a commission, but it's going to be a bunch of politicians on there who are going to be screaming and yelling at each other and saying all kinds of crazy stuff. I don't think the country's going to learn much from that. I really don't. Would you accept a position if offered? I don't know. Good question. I don't know. I haven't thought about that. I mean, here's the thing.

So there's not bipartisan subpoena authority. So my guess is what's likely to happen is you'll see somebody like Kevin McCarthy gets subpoenaed. Okay, fine. But I think Nancy Pelosi should be subpoena, too. She was in charge of protecting the Capitol that day. And so if I had assurances that we could get sort of good subpoena power and that it would be a decent, use of time and that we could actually get somewhere and I'd be open to it. But, you know, the way it's currently constructed, honestly, it's really hard to see how it's going to be a beneficial

thing. That's my view. People have different views. That's fine. That's my view. Does it matter who the Democrats are? I mean, do you expect that she's going to put a bunch of sort of hard-charging partisan Democrats on this panel in order to drive the narrative that she's been pushing publicly, or do you anticipate that she would try to make it feel more independent or serious-minded? I suspect she will exact maximum political pain, which is sort of something she always does. And again, that's part of why I don't think it's going to be very productive. But that would be my guess.

I think you're going to see hearings go into next summer and findings released right around election time. And, you know, it's, it's going to be a political commission. It's not going to be a, again, the one I supported, which I think is a great idea and would be a great service to the country, is a nonpartisan, independent, balanced commission, sort of like the 9-11 commission. I think we'd learn a lot from that. We've talked a lot about the Republicans. I want to give you a little bit of time here to just talk about the other party from your view on the ground from the House of Representatives. So we go into this Congress, Democrats only having a four-seat majority in the House. And, you know, there were some

wishful thoughts that that would encourage bipartisanship, some maybe less wishful thoughts that it would just result in total deadlock. What's been interesting to me from the outside is that in some ways it has really empowered the progressive wing, albeit a small wing of the Democratic Party, actually, to have that veto power in a way that in the Senate, we've actually seen Mansion in cinema, the more moderate parts of the Democratic Party, become those swing votes, if you will. I'm curious, A, if you think that's a correct assessment, and B, why the House reaction to being nearly 50-50 has been so different than the Senate reaction. Well, this is more the case in the Senate, but it's true in the House as well.

The way that the majorities are structured, a very slim majority in the House and even split, essentially in the Senate is it empowers any small group of Democrats who decide to have steel spines and buck leadership. That could be moderates. That could be progressives. That could be anybody. On the Senate side, it happens to be Cinema Mansion, which, you know, frankly, it works better for me, and I think it's better for the country because I'm certainly closer to them

than I am to AOC. And we've been working on the infrastructure deal through the Problem Solvers Caucus and the Senate's version of that. I had a call with Senator Sinema and Portman today. And they're great to work with. They work the way that most professionals in sort of my pre-politics world work, which is to be transparent with their objectives and what they believe and to try to find an agreement. but the structure of Congress today, any small group of Democrats who decides they want to exert

their will, they could do it. It's just a matter of whether they have the spine to do it. So let me ask a follow up on that related to the infrastructure bill, but actually pretty much the same question I was asking about your election. If the bipartisan infrastructure bill reaches Joe Biden's desk and he signs it, what do you think that opens up the door for for sort of the next piece of bipartisan legislation that's possible. And on the flip side, if this bipartisan infrastructure deal really falls apart, which it looks, I mean, boy, that thing's hanging in the balance right now. And if it falls apart, it'll be from the left.

What are the results of that? And do Republicans basically at that point sit on the sidelines and watch the Democratic Party fight amongst itself? Yeah, you know, I think this is probably our last shot at anything major from a bipartisan standpoint, this Congress, you know, once you, I know it's depressing. I saw your eyes rolled. It's June. It's only June. Trust me. I know. But, you know, look, we're going to go to the August recess. We'll come back. You know, we'll do the things you have to do at the end of the year that are sort of mechanical. And then all of a sudden, the New Year rolls around and you're

going to have a fairly partisan January 6th commission. That's in the threat. of getting started and so we have a four-month legislative session in this country you have about a 12-month legislative session in this country and what i said is is anything major anything major there'll be some some things around the edges but you know if you're saying hey look you know are you going to do a comprehensive immigration bill after you do infrastructure my answer would be probably not if i were betting them not because i don't want to but because there's no appetite for it Do you have a sense talking further about infrastructure? Do you have a sense, I mean, last week on Thursday, President Biden went out after having reached some deal with Republicans, particularly in the Senate, but also in the House, to move forward on this bipartisan basis.

And he then made this comment that's become famous in less than a week that had to be passed in tandem with this broader reconciliation bill that would give Democrats sort of everything on their. on their wish list. Do you have any sense in talking to either Republicans who are involved in those negotiations or your Democratic colleagues in the House? What led him to do that? Honestly, who knows? I mean, I think it was such a bad faith statement. Mike, if I had to guess, and this is a pure guess, if I had to guess either his staff or some of the progressives got to him and said, hey, you know, you can't do that. Maybe it was Pelosi and Schumer. I know they were sort of lockstep on that position. But it's such a bad faith move to cut a deal, have this wonderful bipartisan press conference at the White House, and then two hours later

completely kneecap all the people who just negotiated the deal. If I were a Democrat, I'd be mad. I mean, you know, to put these deals together, these are hard. You know, they have been largely behind closed doors, but these take place over months. And these are big issues and they're hard and work. There's real give and take. People would be really proud to see how this infrastructure bill has come together between the two parties because it would give you some hope that the system works. But if leadership is undercutting you all the way, whether it's Pelosi Schumer or Biden or if we're undercutting on our side, then that's a disservice to the country and it just kills any momentum and good faith that may have been built up. Yeah, I mean,

it was very clear from the public reactions of the Republican senators involved in those negotiations that they were, should we say, pissed at the president and pissed that he would make that kind of a statement. Did his walk back subsequently restore any sense that this was good faith, or are they still pretty skeptical? I mean, I think people were happy to see that he, you know, reverse course again. But the question I had, is sort of where, where do you put your faith in? Right? I mean, I, over the course of 48 hours, I saw three different statements. And the deal had it changed. So, you know, how do you read that? Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how

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There's any number of other topics that no doubt Steve and I are very interested to talk to you about. but I'm curious at this point, especially maybe in wake of the president's rally, when you go back to your district, what are your voters actually asking you about? Now, that's a great question. So, you know, look, Northeast Ohio and my district in particular, we're a kitchen table issue kind of a district. So people want to know that you're working on jobs in the economy. They want to know that you're focused on workforce, secure in the border,

China issues come up. Obviously, you know, with the impeachment vote, the impeachment vote comes up at times as well. But people really want to know that when I'm here, I'm working on issues that are going to affect them and their kids. That's what our district cares about. Let me run through some topics. And I'm curious if they're coming up in your like day-to-day, life in your district. Critical race theory. Yes. Dr. Seuss books. No. ranked choice voting, the New York mayor's debacle, you know, can they trust election results? They've never heard. New York City. No, no, no. Everybody knows what New York City is, but nobody, I mean, look, my district is not paying

attention to the mayor's race in New York City as a general rule. What about our pullout from Afghanistan? A little bit, but not much. Bombing Iran? Just happened. So, you know, not a ton. But, you know, we've had a couple calls on it. Anything on the AUMF and sort of presidential authority broadly to take military action?

No. Again, you know, the issues that I'm going to hear about, I'm going to hear about infrastructure. Hey, where are we at on infrastructure? I'm going to hear a lot about things that people are worried about by an administration doing. And those have to do with critical race theory, politicization of the military, those sorts of things. People do worry about that quite a bit. Healthcare costs are going to come up. That hasn't been as top of mind for folks, but it's sort of right below the surface.

What about unemployment benefits? And the crisis at the border. The border's coming up a lot. Yeah, unemployment benefits, yes, in the sense that, you know, from a business standpoint, our labor market is as disjointed as I think I've ever seen it. When I talk to business owners, what they'll tell me is, you know, this is the worst labor market I've ever operated in, and those are people who've been in business for 30, 40 years. So unemployment comes up in that context, and then the second context that comes up in

is we've had an enormous amount of fraud in Ohio with respect to unemployment benefits. So, and that, it looks like, is coming from international crime organizations. So that's a big issue and one that definitely comes up. But, you know, the God's honest truth, and this is why I love my district so much. It's the summer. We're getting past COVID. People are happy. They're out. They're enjoying life. And so politics is exactly where it should be, in my opinion, which is just in the background. So a high percentage is on your football career. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. How about Donald Trump? How many questions do you get about Trump? How often do you get asked about the claims that he and his handlers have been making about? stolen elections? What's your sense of where your constituency is, where your constituents are?

I'll start the question again in case we had some audio. What's the, what's the, what's the, I mean, it's a documentary on the loveliest whale. False. She's watching dynasty on the side. She's not even really dialed in to this. And we should definitely keep this, Caleb. We should not, we should not cut this. We should definitely keep this. If you've never heard about number 52, the loneliest whale in the world who has a different, he makes his call at the wrong frequency. And so no one can hear him. And now is just a good time to explore that right in the middle. Yes.

So my question before we're so rudely interrupted, what do you hear from your constituents about Donald Trump broadly? What do you hear about the claims that he's made continues to make about the election? being stolen. Do you hear anything about the audit in Arizona, the proposed audits in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, elsewhere? So interestingly, in terms of the alleged audits in places like Arizona, I don't hear that. I'm really not hearing that. People aren't calling in about it. People aren't talking me about it. I think that's happening sort of, I don't want to say, off the grid, but it's not a part of my daily life. People aren't asking me. about it. But, you know, if you look at the attendance at the rally and you look at, sort of what

he's been saying in different media platforms, he's doubling and tripling down on incredibly dangerous rhetoric that ultimately led to insurrection on January 6th. And some of the reporting suggests that the people in these movements would acknowledge that it's likely to lead to more violence in the future. And so, you know, that's where I think people like myself have a responsibility to be honest with our voters and tell them the truth about what happened in the election, what was sort of legitimate grievance versus not, and reassure them that despite the fact that it was a unique election as a result of COVID, it was a legitimate election. And, you know, two things I'll say on that. So I think we have an ethical obligation, a constitutional obligation,

to do those things for our voters, to be honest with them. forthright about the stability of our democracy and the legitimacy of our elections. Do we need to make changes to election laws in certain instances to make them more secure? Yes, of course. But was the election stolen? No. I think we need to do that. But there's an electoral point, a political point, which is also important in that, as you know,

I played professional football at one point, right? every good team I've ever been on confronts reality they look at the scoreboard at the end of the game they don't whine about the refs they don't complain about how you know it rained that day and well we couldn't throw the ball and if it wouldn't a rain we would have won guess what none of that matters you either win or you lose and in this case we had a big loss we're completely out of power we don't have the white house we don't have the house we don't have the senate that's the first time in 90 years that this has happened in our country where a party held the White House, the House, the House, and the Senate, and then four years later was completely out of power.

That was right before FDR, Herbert Hoover. That was Herbert Hoover. And from that point forward, Democrats ran Washington in the country for basically the next 60 years with a handful of interruptions, like six years of interruption across the House and Senate. So it behooves us from a political standpoint to confirm. that reality and say, we just ran this play. We just ran all in with this guy. And we are completely out of power. If that happens in professional football, guess what? The coach is fired, the quarterback's probably gone, and you're retooling that team because you don't want to lose

again. Your job's on the line. For whatever reason, we've chosen to ignore this reality and double and triple down on a strategy that just lost. So I don't like losing. I've never been a fan of it. I think we should confront reality, be honest with our voters from an ethical constitutional standpoint,

but also from a political standpoint. What on earth is the purpose of lying to yourself if it's going to put you in a position where you can't evolve and win the next time? I mean, headline coming out of this podcast, obviously, professional athlete doesn't like losing, I was going for a big, big headline. So there you go. I'm curious, you know, stepping back a little, curious what it's like to be a congressman. I've been reading a bunch of books on persuasion recently,

articles on persuasion, sort of the sociology of persuasion, because in this moment of hyper-partisanship, what you end up finding is the more you engage with someone to argue with them, actually, the less persuadable they become. And when we're talking about something as fundamental as whether our experiment of self-government will continue, it seems like no matter how good it feels to argue with someone on Twitter, if it's actually having the opposite effect, maybe we should all take a step back. I'm curious as a congressman, how much you think about that kind of thing? I mean, this is an important issue to you. I can tell they're very passionate about it. And how you try to persuade people who are persuadable. Look, there's people who simply are not persuadable. Let's take them out of the bucket.

But someone who says, look, I'm seeing everything that's happening and, like, where there's smoke, there's fire. I just, I think something weird happened in this election. Obviously, there were some, like, shady shenanigans going on. Just look at what happened in New York. These elections are not run very well. So you're saying that we have to accept that we lost, but, you know, it does make a difference when the refs make that terrible call in the New Orleans Saints game on pass interference. Like, that, you know, refs can, throw the game at the end. Yeah, so I think the way that I approach it is, I take everybody's feedback sincerely.

You know, if somebody has a question about, hey, look, what about this thing that I saw in Michigan or whatever it is, right? We'll take it seriously. I mean, I'll sit down and say, okay, look, here's how that all went in Michigan. Here's how that played out. Here's what the investigators found out. Here's what the court said. And, you know, this is how the laws in Michigan evolved pre and post election. And again, you know, my position is not, hey, look, nothing to see here. We shouldn't sort of open this up and take a look. My position is a process played out across all 50 states. The president went through his legal process, went through the rule of law, the process that the rule of law prescribes in each state was defeated in court every time. Independent

investigations have uncovered the same thing. And audits have uncovered the same thing, which is that did election laws change in certain states ahead of election day? Yes, they did as a result of COVID. That happened. There's no, you can't lie about that, just like you can't lie about the fact that the process played out. And there is no evidence that would give the election to Joe or to President Trump. And so the election is over. We had a legitimate election.

It was a unique election, but a legitimate election. And if anybody wants to have specific conversations about specific things that they saw, I'm happy to entertain those. But to your point, I have found that those conversations are best had one-on-one or, you know, in a small group, as opposed to in a big giant room of 25 where, you know, everybody's got a different complaint that they kind of want to talk through. And so I think it's better, from a persuasion standpoint, I think it's better to have those conversations, you know, in sort of smaller groups.

And yet, despite all of this, despite the fact that, you know, President Trump has presided, at the very least presided over, I think many would argue, caused or contributed to, to be sure, these losses for Republicans, everybody who wants to be the next leader of the Republican Party, virtually everybody, is basically imitating President Trump, trying to be like President Trump. it's very early Sarah's got a piece that she's going to be writing about this next week all of the things that are happening behind the scenes now

to prepare the Republican Party for its next leader heading into 2024 two questions is there anybody that you see

who's doing it right or you see who's you're excited about as a potential Canada would be candidate number one, number two what are the kinds

things you're looking for in a candidate and Is there any chance that those things will be successful in the current environment? Yeah, good question. I'll say this. I'm not paying a ton of attention to sort of the 2024 conversation. I'm legitimately focused on my race.

I've got enough going on to be thinking about. That being the case, in terms of sort of what I'm looking for, as a first filter, I'm looking at people who believe in democracy. Pretty basic. But I'm looking at people who respect our electoral process. process, and essentially, if you're a senator, weren't there trying to overturn the election. So if you're in that, can I just jump in there? I have to jump in there. Like, can you imagine, when you first contemplated running for office, can you imagine giving the answer you just gave? Like,

my first thing is going to be that they believe in basic democracy. Like, think about, what does that say about where we are? I mean, it's such, it's like, I believe you entirely that that's what is your, your motivating factor. You've shown that both with your public statements and your votes. But, I mean, holy shit, like, that's a bad place to be. Yeah. Well, we have some very irresponsible people. And, you know, that, I can't explain that. Look, my family came here from Cuba. We escaped a fallen country. We escaped that country and specifically came here for democracy, the consent of the government, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the things that make America America.

That's what draws people to this country. And we should be enormously proud of that. And if we ever lose that, then we've lost America. And so in my role, I see that as the ultimate first filter. Now, the good news is on the Senate side, there weren't. that many, but one is too many in my view. Because, again, it's just basic stuff. If you lose faith in the electoral process and you move to a system where the Congress or the vice president can select the president of the United States if enough people get angry and enough people

lie, then you're no longer America. If you don't have the peaceful transition of power you're not a democracy or something else. I don't know what that is, but it's not a place that anybody who's looked up to America for the last hundred years would recognize or want to emulate in their own countries. All right. That was pretty depressing. So I want to end on a high note. What is the news that has brought you the most joy in the last month or two?

It can be a headline. it can be the reboot of a TV show, you know, your kid throwing the game winning, whatever, whatever. What's the thing that has brought you the most joy heading into now, really, the July 4th weekend? Well, it's definitely my kids, of course. You know, the one fun part of COVID is I've got to see them grow up in a sort of day by day in a way that I probably wouldn't have

if we were out sort of in life as we know it. So it's been really fun. My daughter's developing a personality that is very similar to my Cuban grandmothers, who was one of my best friends and somebody I love to pieces that's stubborn as a bowl. We always said loved with a velvet heart but ruled with an iron fist. My daughter's sort of picking that up, which is really fun. In terms of public things, I mean, the thing that's probably given me the most joy, I'll give you one.

So the Cleveland Browns historically, we've had some tough years. That's one way to put it. Yeah, it's been a tough in a decade and a half. But we are absolutely on the ascendancy. And for the first time, maybe in my life, I watched the NFL draft, other than the year I was in it. I watched the NFL draft with no anxiety about who the Browns were going to pick. I thought, you know, their end of the first round, whoever they get. I hope it's a good player, but we got a great team and just going to enjoy the festivities.

They happen to be in Cleveland, and I think the city did a great job. So, no, I think that was one of those like, you know what? The world feels pretty good. At least the football world does. So that gives me joy. Yeah, try watching that draft as a Packer fan. Yeah, you've had a tough off season. Not nearly as fun.

Not nearly as fun. Yeah. But it's better than being a Cowboys fan because of it. then you've got Mike McCarthy as your as your head coach, right, Caleb? Right? You know what, though? Don't feel bad for Steve. Steve had what amounts to an all-you-can-eat meat buffet yesterday at the office.

So Steve had his moment of joy. It just came in different form. True. Yeah. No, you know, that's actually another one moment of joy. I had a, one of my good friends had a birthday party, and that was kind of the first time my wife and I had gone out and really seen friends in a year and a half, like in that sort of format. And there's a crowded dinner in a small room. And it was awesome. I mean, we had the time of our

lives. It was so much fun. All right, Congressman, we know you have to get to votes. Thank you so much for your time. We always appreciate your perspective, how candid you are about what it is to be a congressman, what you think of the party, what it's like behind the scenes, all of it. We really, really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

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