The Problem With Jon Stewart - Wanted Democratic Leadership With Dnc Chair Ken Martin

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

As millions struggle to turn their political frustration into positive action, Jon is joined by Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin. Together, they explore the role of party leadership in rebuilding after electoral defeat, discuss the fundamental challenges and internal divisions facing Democrats, and consider how the DNC and the party can rise to meet this moment of political opportunity. This podcast episode is brought to you by: GROUND NEWS - Go to https://groundnews.com/stewart to see how any news story is being framed by news outlets around the world and across the political spectrum. Use the link to get 40% off unlimited access with the Vantage Subscription. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast> TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Producer – Gillian Spear Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. It is Wednesday, September 24th. We're taping the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart. We're doing this in the morning. And I have to say that now because the cadence, the speed, the circadian rhythm by which news occurs. Jimmy Kimmel came back on television last night, delivered, I thought. Just a fantastic, heartfelt, but still funny and interesting.

And just met the most. moment that he was given in such a beautiful way. And I was so proud to be a practitioner in that same business. And who knows? By today, he could have been taken off the air again. We don't really know where this goes. And I think ultimately his point about, this isn't about the dopey shows that we do and the things like that. It's about a principle of a government that has basically operated like a monarchy. And Trump has said it even explicitly, which is, I don't do business with people I don't like, as though government is purely a business. We are not his business partners. We are not his associates. We are the citizens of a sovereign

nation and a constitutional republic that should have representation, whether he likey or no likey. So it's just been, and I don't even feel bad about it because as shitty as he is to all of us, he just walks into the UN and goes, I'm right about everything and you live in hellholds. And the favorite part is the escalator, which has been so pivotal in the rise. The escalator is his vehicle. It is his triumphant chariot as he comes down from what appeared to be a Barnes & Noble down towards what was the food court where he delivered his first message in 2016. But to have that chariot fail him at the UN and to have to go back to use it at its most primitive form,

which is, of course, the stair. The stair is the way that it had to go. blame the UN for subterfuge. And meanwhile, they're like, actually you're, I think you had like a camera dude who tripped up one of the things and that it was a safety alarm and it tripped it up and that and that's why it stopped. But either way, why get in the way of a perfectly good conspiracy about the United Nations wanting to force a cankled man to scale the heights of Mount Escalator, find his way into the general assembly. But we're not talking about today.

Today is a whole different animal. Today we're going to be discussing things about the Democratic Party, which you may or may not know still exists. I believe on paper. I don't know if it exists in the larger cultural sense, relevance-wise, but it is on paper, I believe still there. And we are going to bring on our guest. He is the chairman of,

said Democratic Party National Committee, et cetera. So let's get to our guests now and we'll move this thing forward. All right. So we are joined right now by our guest, the head, the chairman. Is it chairman? Ken, do they call it the chair? I like to call it chair, but whatever the hell you want to call me. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Ken Martin, thank you for joining us.

Oh, thanks for having me, John. It's crazy time. It's a crazy time. The first thing I want to do again, and this may seem a bit remedial, is just to get a sense of what is your job? What is under the purview of the chairman of the Democratic National Committee? Well, I appreciate you asking that because there's a lot of ideas what my job should be. But let me tell you what it really is. At the core, the job of any political party chair of either party at any level, whether it's a national party, state party, local party, is to build infrastructure to actually help us win elections up and down the ballot, right?

And that is very encompassing, of course. What does infrastructure mean? It means that we are, you know, of course, making sure that we're engaging volunteers in the work of talking to voters, to, you know, developing our platform and our message to make sure that were out there recruiting candidates. We're raising the resources to put organization in place to actually help, you know, ID, persuade, mobilize voters to actually show up on Election Day and win elections. It's as simple as that, right?

It's much more complicated in terms of the actual pieces of it. But at the core, I think there's a lot of things people think the Democratic Party is, i.e., you know, that we control our elected officials, our candidates, that we control what happens in the U.S. Congress or in state legislatures. No, the party's role is really simply, what are we doing to actually help us win? Right. But certainly you're not, I mean, I wouldn't think agnostic on policy. I think you're probably determining, you know, it's, you are the architects and builders to some extent. And I would imagine right now, maybe even with an elevated role, because of the lack of an apparent leader of the party. Yeah, of course. Well, look, I mean, I would say this.

You know, obviously we're out of power, and we have a lot of... That might be the nicest way I think I've ever heard that put. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the Republicans are sort of at an apex of their political power. Yes. But I will say this, that the role right now for me, and then frankly, you know, our leaders throughout the country, and we have many different leaders, is to make sure that we're presenting a coherent and concise message that connects with voters again.

And we have a role to play in that for sure. But it's not our role alone. We're not the sole deciders on what our message is, what our platform is, and what we're going to be talking about. But we do work with all of our partners in that conversation, you know, from our governors, mayors. Yeah, I was going to say. So, you know, as you're putting that together, because, you know,

one of the things I think you find right now is, you know, you talk about a coherent message. And that's a great phrase that I have not heard Democrats utter. in quite some time. You sort of have this, you know, there's the Bernie wing that's got a more populist drive, and that's been very active for a couple of decades. You've got kind of this new, maybe Slotkin, let's just talk normal, you know, let's say, Mishigander, as much as we possibly can, so that people go, is that really what they call themselves? You know, you've got sort of the competent governor archetype where they roll up the sleeves and they curse more and say, we're going to get shit done.

How does that come together logistically? And then you've also got maybe on the other side, you've got kind of the Ezra Klein abundance messaging. But if you think about it in Congress, Chuck Schumer is the leader, Hakeem Jeffries is the leader in the House of Representatives. I don't know any role that they have in the messaging. They seem almost vestigial at this point. Let me just say that.

I think what you point to is one of the challenges in the Democratic Party for sure is we're a big tent, right? You know, we're not that big. If you were a big tent, we wouldn't be in this position, would we now? Well, let me say this. In terms of our representation in this, party in terms of elected officials. We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have progressives like me. And then we have the leftists, right? This sort of new emerging wing of our party. And I've always believed that you win elections through addition, not subtraction. You win by

growing your coalition and bringing new voices into the party. What that means, of course, is sometimes that means it's messy. There's debate. There's dissent. There's difference of opinion. That's a good thing for our party, right? But what it also sometimes means is you have some inconsistency in the message itself in terms of breaking through. And I will say part of the challenge for a Democratic Party chair again is how do we get all of the various wings of our party and all of these various ideas into the same boat, rowing in the same direction towards the same goal? And part of that is by creating a frame, a message frame that whether you're a leftist Democrat or a conservative Democrat you can use, right?

And so that, when we talk about messaging, we have to also recognize, I'll use Minnesota as an example. I'm going to stop you for a second. Yeah, please. Because you're, you will take the role of instructor, laying out the steps by which to create a functioning party. And I, I believe, will take the role of doubting Thomas. Please.

Perhaps a skeptic. There's plenty of those out there these days. Understood. What you are talking about and the way that you are talking about it strikes my ear as a kind of consultant-driven as opposed to what I'm hearing from you is we have to have a big tent and draw different ideas and create a unified. And what it says to me is I didn't hear once like, what do you, what do everybody believe in? What's the principle? Well, yeah. What's the drive?

I'm happy to get into what I think the message should be. And let me say what I think it should be. Thank you. It's very clear. And, you know. No more about boats. No more about rowing. No, no, because I do think it's important to talk about the tactical challenges for the Democratic Party,

which is what you were saying, right? We have all of these different ideas. How do you actually come up with a message? I think the message is very clear, right, John. And we got away from this. In 92, James Carville said this, that it's the economy's stupid, right? And the reality is, if you got 100 people in the room right now, 100 Democrats, and ask them what the Democratic Party stood for, you'd get 150 different answers.

And so I think it's very simple. It's no matter where you're from, no matter where you live, no matter who you love or who you are, you should have an opportunity in this country to get ahead, not just get by. You should have an opportunity to achieve the American dream, to climb the economic ladder and achieve success for your family, right? That at the core of it is fairly simple, right? That is who the Democratic Party has been for years, in my opinion, but we've gotten away from that, right? And I would say we— How have you gotten away from it?

Because one of the things, John, I think what we do is we tend to message to smaller and smaller parts of our coalition. Some people call it identity politics. I actually think it's broader than that. It's also geographic. We say one thing to a rural community. We come into a suburban community and say something different. We come into an urban corn and say something. The needs of a rural community are different from an urban community.

Sure, but there should be some core sort of thread that connects all of them, right? And I'll use Minnesota as an example, John. What connects a corn farmer like my father-in-law, right, in southern Minnesota, with an iron ranger up on the iron range with... Ken, I'm not going to know the answer to this. Well, of course you are because... I don't know what connects a corn farmer to an iron. I don't even know what an iron ranger is. Well, let me tell you what it is.

It's someone who's mining up on the iron range in Minnesota. The largest deposit of iron ore in the country is in northern Minnesota. By the way, with a refugee, a new refugee in the Twin Cities, what is the thing that connects all of them? Well, it's pretty simple. They are very disparate groups for sure. But what connects them is economics. Every one of them has a job. Everyone's working their asses off.

All three of those groups are falling behind, feeling left behind, forgotten, dispossessed, and they feel like the Democratic Party and the Republican Party could give a shit about their lives. These are folks that are hardworking. Most people, by the way, when we talk about the working class, but when we talk about the working class in this country, which is about 70% of Americans that do not have a college degree, these are black, brown, and white people who are busting their ass, who are working harder than ever have before.

And they feel like no one cares, that they're unseen and they're forgotten. So I say this because that has to be the core message, an economic message that gives them a sense that we're fighting for them and their families. But that's, I mean, isn't that Bernie Sanders? Isn't that what he's been saying for? I think it's Bernie Sanders. I think it's Bernie Sanders. I think it's, you know, a whole host of folks from Tim Walls to Josh Shapiro to West Moore to, you know, Joe Biden. I guess my point is when you say something that broadly true, it almost becomes meaningless.

It becomes this idea of the difficulty I have connecting to that is just the very basicness of it, which is we've got to get back to those kitchen table issues. And again, it's a way of political speak that almost renders it devoid of any connection and meaning because it feels so platitudinous. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. And I just said this last night, John, which is to some folks I was visiting with, that's the frame for our message. And then underneath of that, what we have to do is actually start presenting the specific

policy agenda. And one of the things that I think about a lot in 94, I worked on a congressional race. And as you remember, John, what was remarkable about 94. Contract with America. Right. New Cambridge. That's right. And what was also remarkable.

in that year is they flipped a 40-year House majority. Neither party, Republicans or Democrats, have had long-term majorities since then. But the important piece is what you just reflected on. All right, guys, these days, every headline feels like it's been engineered to make you either furious, terrified, or both. It's honestly maddening.

Like, you can't even, you can't watch it. You can't read it. You can't deal with it. Well, ground news is here to help you fight. back against the tyranny of reptilian emotion that these other news organizations are trying to hit you with. It's a response to this fear and anger-based media. They don't tell you how to think or feel. They aggregate and organize information just to help readers make their own decisions. Ground News provides users' reports that easily compare headlines or reports that give a summarized

breakdown of the specific differences in reporting across all the spectrums. It's a great great resource. Go to groundnews.com slash Stewart and subscribe for 40% off the unlimited access vantage subscription brings the price down to about $5 a month. It's ground news.com slash steward or scan the QR code on the screen. Well, so, so let's go back. One of the reasons that people think the Democratic Party abandoned the working class was the kind of, I guess what they would call, and I hate to use these terminologies, but neoliberalism or the idea of globalization and NAFTA and sending jobs overseas and inviting China into the WTF, all these things that were kind of part of, you would think, the Clinton era movement of neoliberal economics, a kind of buying into maybe not explicitly, but supply-side economics, right? Yeah, I think you're right.

And all that. From what I've seen, the people that are building this new Democratic Party, and for those who this is a podcast, I'm making the air quote thing. I'm doing the new Democratic Party. They seem to be of a piece of that same cadre of, in other words, the leadership that has been tasked with creating this new, Democratic Party, which understands the pain of it's the economy stupid and feels your pain is made up of the same DNA and atomic structure.

I think that's unfair. I mean, look, sure. That's what I'm here for. There are some, John, for sure, that represent that sort of old way of thinking. I'm the first car care and union member to be elected DNC chair. I come out of the building trades. My mom was 15 years old when she had me. She raised four kids by herself.

And I say that to tell you that I am the working class. At the end of the day, you know, when I look at, and I agree with your assessment of where our party started to go wrong in the 90s with these trade deals, right? You know, as a union member, I will tell you that at the core, we've seen union membership and union households declining. And of course, as a result, we've seen the middle class shrinking and declining, right? The wealth inequality in this country is greater than it's ever been. And so we have to get back to those roots. And by that, I do not mean through a neoliberal lens as some in our party approach these policy conversations. But let me say this.

We need back to this idea of a frame. We need a frame that's large enough to bring in the leftist Democrats, progressive Democrats, the centrist and the conservative Democrats. Because I think this is important. I don't subscribe to the idea that there's just one way to be a Democrat. It belies the point, which is for us to win, you can't run the same type of candidate everywhere. You just can't. I'll use Minnesota as an example. The fifth congressional district, which is Minneapolis, Ilhan Omar represents that district.

She's a leftist, right? Right next to her, literally the next district over is a third district, which was represented by Dean Phillips, who's a business centrist. And then right next to him, for years, was a guy named Kleeves. Colin Peterson, who is a House-Ague committee chair, a very conservative blue dog Democrat, all three of them Democrats, all three of them important for us for the reasons that we're trying to get into power. You can't get shit done. Wait, you're not supposed to say.

You can't get shit done for people, John, if you actually are in second place. You don't get brownie points for being in a minority. I understand that very, very clearly. Right. But again, this all seems to be talking around the reality. So it's we've got to find a way to appeal to Democrats of all different stripes so that we can get back into power and get shit done for people. But at the end of the day, what it feels like to me is that the Democrats are in the position of defending a status quo in terms of everything that the government does, that the people have decided is utterly broken and corrupt. I agree with you on that. I'm not doing that.

And I'll tell you what. I think earlier this year, as an example, John, we took the bait on this, right? So Doge comes along and they start making cuts in government, right? And their argument is very simple. Government sucks. It's not working for you. We're going to blow it up and we're going to make it more efficient. There's massive fraud and abuse.

And what is our response? Don't cut government. Government's good. It's working for you. Well, guess what? Most working people I know, most families like, my family, they don't believe that government's working for them, hasn't worked for them for years. So suddenly the Democratic Party becomes the defender of the status quo. Well, guess what?

The status quo is not working for working people. So I think we made we, the collective we as a Democratic Party, made a mistake. Yeah, we believe in government, right? But we got to fix it. We got to reform it. We got to make it work for people. So tell me about that. So those comes out, and that's happening. You've just jumped in at DNC at that point. So what, what, what, what, What is the discussion? Is the problem here that the Democrats only have a way to steer away from the crash, but they don't know what they're driving towards in this moment? Yes.

Yes, I agree. And I'll give you the example of, you know, because there is a thirst out there in the country. Like, I've never seen it. And you see the energy with a guy like Mom Donnie in New York City. and you may not like everything that he's doing, but there's a guy who finally harnesses the type of energy and drive. Yes.

That Democrats have been talking about wanting to harness, and the first thing that happens is everybody runs in the other direction. Well, that's not true, but some people... A lot of people in the Democratic Party. I was a first person out of the gate to endorse him, and I will tell you, John, that I think you're absolutely right on Memnon. But you've got Chuck Schumer and Hockeman. Jeffries, both New York, supposedly the head of the Senate and the head of congressional

Democrats running in the other direction. You know what, John, every morning I say the serenity prayer, which is important to me. And I say that. Let me tell you why, because there's things I can't control. You ask this question at the very beginning, which I appreciated you asking. What is the Democratic Party do? Because this is where people think that the chair of the party has control over their elected officials, as if somehow I could call Senator Schumer or Leader Jeffries or any governor

and tell them what they should do. It doesn't work that way. So I want to be very clear. That's a good point. I think that's a good point. The point I'm making about the serenity prayers, I can only control what I can control, which is myself. And from my perspective, I've always said, and I've been very clear on this, it's up to the Democratic primary voters to decide who our nominee is. And once we, once they send us a nominee, we need to fight like hell for whoever they send us. And, and that's important. Again, for me, I've always, I was the first person after the 2016 election to put forward a superdelegate reform. I authored that. I authored a neutrality pledge to keep party bosses out of putting their thumb on the scale for, for candidates, because I believe as you do, right,

again, that, you know, there are many different voices in this party. And we should not pushing those voices out, we should be bringing them in. But back to your... Well, let's just to stay on that point for a minute, you know, it is difficult, I'm sure, to, you know, make those calls, even though I would imagine that is kind of, you may not have control over it, but it does seem like that would be the place to make your case, at least, or to advocate. But the second part is, even within the areas that are your purpose, you, let's say the Democratic National Committee. You know, David Hogg is a young vocal, you know, may not like all he does, but he's pushed out.

Randy Weingarten, the AFSCME union chiefs are pushed out. Like, it feels like the Democrats rather than, you know, the tent got big enough for Liz Cheney, but it doesn't seem big enough for more rebellious, difficult voices. Here's what I would say before I get into the David and Randy stuff. I started with Paul Wellstone in 1990. I represent, as Paul used to say, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I am a progressive. And like David and Randy, I've been fighting in this movement for a long time to change this party.

You know, and when I started with Paul, I was a young radical. And like many, you know, I wanted to burn the party down. And one thing he said to me, which is stuck with me, John, is he said, look, no institution can solely change on the outside. Yes, we need to build a grassroots movement of people who are going to push our party to be better. The only way an institution will change is from the inside and get involved and make the party that be the party that you want it to be. I've spent 35 years trying to do that. So, you know, look, I will tell you this. Let me talk about the David piece for a second because I think it's important to get into this. I really like David and I support what he's trying

to do. Primaries are really important in our party. It's important in democracy. One, it holds a officials accountable. Two, it brings new ideas and perspectives into the conversation. And three, it's a pathway for new leaders. It's a pathway for young leadership. It's a pathway for, you know, people of color that could never run for office. It's a pathway for a whole group of folks that never would be given a shot, including my first boss, Paul Wellstone, right? So I say this truly because I support primaries. But what that beef was between us, and this is critical. Beef. You don't hear Minnesotans talk beef. Well, sure you do. We got a lot of beef farmers in Minnesota. What are you talking about?

So, but truly, John, listen, in 2016, as I mentioned earlier, I saw the devastating results of party leadership, putting their thumb on the scale and basically telling all of those young supporters of Bernie Sanders to go fuck themselves, right? And as a result, they left the party and they never came back. Whether perceived or real, what ended up happening is we push people out of the conversation. And I want to go back to what I said before. One of the reasons I was successful in Minnesota is because we built the type of coalition that brought everyone into the conversation. And so right after that election in 17, I was elected as a vice chair of the DNC to lead all of our state parties. And I pushed the existing officers and our party to put a neutrality pledge in place to say that party leadership cannot get involved in primaries. They have to stay out and let the primary voters make that decision.

When I campaigned for this position, I said I wanted to codify that into our charter. And so the difference that both David and I supported each other's positions. He supported neutrality. I supported primaries. But there is no way to reconcile them. He couldn't be an officer while also then having his organization he leads be involved in primaries, which is why he decided to step down. No one pushed him out, just the opposite.

I wanted David to stay in. He's an amazing young leader who has a lot of great ideas and we need his voice and energy in the party. But how do you reconcile those two? So you're saying that he had to go because if you are on the DNC, you have to abide by a neutrality pledge. And so if he is involved in an organization that is promoting primaries for people that already have office, that violates the neutrality pledge.

The neutrality pledge of whoever wins the primary. can't get involved in that. You can't get involved before a primary, helping either in comment or a challenge. You can only get involved once the primary has. That's correct. And that's because we want the will of the voters to prevail, not the will of a bunch of, you know, party leaders in a backroom making decisions on which candidates they think the parties should support.

It shouldn't work that way. And that is, for me, a direct result of my early days with Wellstone. when the whole establishment was against him, right, and to 2016 watching what happened in that election, I think it's imperative that the party stays out of primaries. Not that primary shouldn't happen. Primarys should happen. We want them to happen.

But people like me should not be involved in putting our thumb on the scale and picking winners and losers. Our job is to be the referee, to make sure there's a level playing field, to call balls and strikes, and to not actually be a player. We can't be involved in primaries. But that seems, you know, I understand it in theory.

Yep. But in practice, the idea that the DNC is going to be agnostic when it comes to, you know, in the same way that if you see a candidate that you feel like is going to have a better shot at a primary, but is a crazy person that's not going to be able to survive in a, you know, a regular election once the primary is over. and we've seen that in the Republican Party a lot. They pick kind of the most MAGA person to get in a primary, and then they get in a state election or a larger election,

and they fall apart. The idea that the DNC or any of those would not take a position on that or would be agnostic based on that pledge doesn't seem realistic or how it operates in practice. You are also part of recruiting. Of course. You guys go out and you recruit candidates. And this gets to a larger point.

And I don't mean to bring this up just from the Democrats, but there is a trust issue that we have right now between the rhetoric of our politics and the reality of our politics. And Kamala Harris' book, I think, has done a real, I know everybody's shitting on it. I haven't read it yet. It does a real service. Maybe not in the way that she had intended

or that the political parties will be happy about. But it exposes that the conversation that we all think is happening, but we're told over and over again is not happening, whether it be, when you choose a running mate, are you looking at whether or not they're gay or Jewish or black? To the point of when you looked at President Biden, did you think he was strong enough to go up against Donald Trump in, in the point of? the national election again, we were told over and over again how ridiculous those statements were, how crazy that is, that, no, I pick the most competent, I look for the best person possible. What, Joe Biden behind the scenes is sometimes during meetings, he'll be solving quadratic equations while we're also doing Medicare. It was all bullshit. Yeah.

And Ken, that can't hold. And so when we talk about like, we're a newtron, we stay out and here's the rules and this is how we play. Like, it really strikes me as a fundamental foundational problem of erosion of trust. Whether it's with your besties or date night, get to all the hottest concerts with Go Transit. Go connects to all the biggest entertainment venues and makes it affordable with with special e-ticket fares. A weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network

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We get to make these decisions and you don't. We as party leaders get to decide who the best candidate is and your voice doesn't matter. But you guys recruit candidates. Of course. You funnel money. Do you have resources? Listen, I think the D-Trip, the D.S, other organizations within the larger ecosystem, of course, are going to support their preferred candidates. What I'm suggesting is party leaders.

Our job is to build infrastructures to win the November election. and ultimately to make sure that we're growing our coalition, building our party, bringing voices in, and making sure that we honor the will of those voices. You can't be half-pregnant. You can't say, oh, yeah, guess what? We honor the will of the voters when it benefits our candidates. And then, of course, when they decide to send us Mamdani, say, well, you know, we're not going to endorse him. It's why I endorsed them right away.

You either believe that in this idea that primary voters matter and that their voices matter, that they're the ones who select our nominee, or you don't. You can't be half pregnant. It's either you do or you don't. And I say this true. It feels like building a house without a blueprint, if that makes sense. Oh, I've got a blueprint. And I understand your point you're making.

But again. You've got a logistical blueprint, but I meant a more fundamental sort of blueprint of principle. Well, the question here again is how do you grow your party? How do you bring new voices? Are you asking me? Well, no, I'm just saying. I have an idea, but I... Well, I think it's more, it's certainly rhetorical, but it's the larger...

It's the larger question here, John, is that's the goal of the Democratic Party is to continue to grow and to continue to bring voices in. Let me answer your rhetorical question. Yeah, please. You grow your party. by inspiring people with a message that resonates with the reality of their lives. And you grow your party by understanding the disconnect from the sclerotic dying infrastructure of the status quo of that party and their ideas and how far away it is from the reality of those that would follow it.

And so that's the piece that's missing. Well, but I'm with you on that. So imagine, by the way, you have a candidate who comes along who's inspiring all those folks, right? And the party leaders say, well, you know, that's not our candidate. We want someone else. He eats with his hands. Right. By God's.

Right. But this is the point, which is primaries are meant to actually make sure that those candidates represent exactly what you're talking about. So, you know, when a mom d'ani comes along, right? And then we decide, well, you know, it's not our type of candidate. We might not agree with him on all the issues. And, you know, he's not the type of candidate we want. We're essentially saying to all those primary voters who chose them, right, and who are excited about him, we don't want you in the party.

That's my point here. But in the primary, that is exactly what happened. I mean, in the primary, for the most part, the status quo went with Cuomo. I mean, they were saying that. And then won, and now they have to flip it back around. In the primary. Yeah, that's right. And people will play in primaries.

And candidates and elected officials and others are allowed to do that. But you're asking me, how do you grow the party? And I'm saying is you grow the party by recognizing the reality of where your party is at. Yes. And even when you think about, you know, the Republican Party did an autopsy of their loss after Romney. Right. And, you know, I still remember Sean Hannity on television going, the big problem is we've got to be nicer to Hispanics. You know, we've got to let them know they're welcome here. And we've got to open up our country to Hispanic. Right. And nobody bought it because it was a calculation. It was math. It wasn't anything that resonated with the people that vote with that party. And it left their party.

ripe for a hostile takeover, which occurred through Donald Trump. That's right. The Democratic Party finds itself in the very same place as the Republican Party in 2015. Yeah, I don't disagree. I don't disagree. And the question is, do you want energy in the party or do you want it on the outside, right? Do you want to grow your party ranks? You know, again, I go back to what I said before.

Yes, it means it's messy debate and dissent and, you know, a wide degree of opinions on any given issue. You know, the Republican Party benefits from the fact that they're very homogenous as it relates to ideology. And so it's easier for them to be more disciplined, it's easier for them to be more nimble. And so, but I don't know that that's necessarily the case, but. I think it is. I mean, you know, but let me say this.

In terms of ideal, explain that because I'm not so sure, especially now where Trump had inroads into the black community and the Hispanic community. And, you know, I would say the Democratic Party has plenty of litmus tests for their candidates. You know, that, you know, does the Republican Party have some pro-choice members? It does. Does the Democratic Party have pro-life candidates? Probably not. Yeah.

Here's what I would say. You know, at the end of the day, there is a, Donald Trump has essentially stifled out any dissent within his party. Well, certainly now. If a Republican elected official dare speak out and stand up for their position, they're drummed out of the party. And so I don't think they're... But it's not ideological dissent. It's basically, if you like me and you'll do what I say, you're in. Because he's not ideologically consistent.

He's socialist at times. He's corporateists. I see that. I see that. He's all over the matter. But there's no, I guess a larger point I'm trying to make is there's no dissent allowed in that party. there's no debate, there's no difference of opinion. The reality is, is they are a very, they are a very small tent as it relates to where they stand on these issues.

And whether that's true, because, you know, I'm sure you have conversations with Republicans who will tell you things privately. I do all the time. And they will then publicly, you know, essentially kiss his ring to your point, right, because they don't want to be drummed out of the party. I think that's what I'm suggesting right now is we are a big tent. We do have different. I mean, you can see it play out in front of your eyes with the debates between the different elected officials in our party on any given issue. But I would say that, again, some people fear that. That's not me.

It's a thing that helped our Democratic Party grow. Let me share this. It's a little bit of a long story, but 1948. You and I, I know. Wait. What? Okay. Hear me out on this because it's going to take a little bit.

We're going Truman? No, it's going to take a little bit of a meandering path. No, no, no, no, no worries, no. 1948, a young mayor from Minneapolis, he's 34 years old at the time, brings a civil rights plank to the National Party Committee, right? To the D&C to our platform committee. The platform committee, surprisingly, votes down a civil rights plank. Votes it down. So there's young mayor.

By the way, not surprisingly. Right, right. Go ahead. Yeah, this young mayor brings his minority. report to the floor and he starts building support for it. Eventually it passes. He gets up and gives that famous speech where he says it's time for the Democratic Party to come out of the shadows of states' rights and march forth rightly near the bright sunshine of human rights civil rights. That mayor, of course, was Hubert Humphrey. But all the Dixiecrats got up from our party.

They walked out. And as a result, our party became the party that was cemented with civil rights. And that was a game changer for sure. In 1972 in Miami, right, the convention there, it was women and feminists who stood up and pushed our party on an equal rights amendment and abortion rights. 2012, I was proud in Charlotte to be one of the authors of the marriage equality amendment, right? I say this truly, John, nothing good in our party. I'm not going to talk about the Republican Party. Nothing good in our party happens without new voices pushing our party to evolve on issues. It doesn't just happen organically through the goodness of elected officials and party leaders

come into their senses on any issue. It takes people pushing. So how short-sighted would it be to me for me as the chair of the DNC to say, you know what, I disagree with your position, so you're out. No, the only thing that helps our party grow and evolve is to bring new voices in who will help push our party to be better. And I truly believe that. And yes, it's caused a lot of consternation and pain and argument and all that over the years, but we're better off for it.

And back to your earlier point about having a vision, I couldn't agree with you more. The reality is, is we got to take it from just the platitudes and have a specific policy prescription to your point about 94, right? What Newt Gingrich did, and I didn't agree with anything that he stood for, is this, he gave people a value proposition. You vote for us. Gave an infrastructure. Here's what we're going to deliver.

Here is a value proposition. The Democrats aren't doing shit to help you. Here's what we're going to do. So what I have said to other leaders in this party is this. We've got to move from just the frame, from just the sort of larger vision we have to specific policy that gives people a sense of actually what we would do

if they put us back in power. Do you have a sense that you know? You know, it's interesting. Kamala Harris' book is called 107 days. Yep. And the premise of the book is, it's just not enough time. Yeah.

People didn't know what I wanted to do. I think that's right. But let me give the caveat. In 100 days, Trump has completely transformed the entire nature of how our government operates. Now, it's the culmination of a 50 to 60 year plan put in place by, you know, Republican operatives, whether it be through their think tanks or, you know, the federalist, or any of those other places, but there's an intentionality to it that it's creating it. Democrats have been defending a broken status quo for 50 years.

107 days might not be enough time, but that ended in November. Yes. It's almost a year now. I still don't know what that plan would be other than maybe you get $5,000 for a new housing start. To create a document like that, to come. come up with the ideas of that, the thinking to me feels too conventional and institutional. And that institutional thinking doesn't give me hope that there are those changes that are going to be coming to the Democratic Party because, you know, I look at everything as process equals

product. If your process is flawed, your product is going to be. is going to be flawed. And I'm a little concerned about process. And back to our original point, which was that's kind of more the purview of where you guys are. Yep. How are you, you seem to understand where you want to go. Do you understand the process by which you want to get there? Yes, for sure. I mean, look, I mean, we have a brand problem, a message problem, a messenger problem. A policy and a policy problem. Well, that's the message, right? And so the message problem.

It's not the message. Well, here's it. The message is how you sell the policy, but shitty policies, it doesn't matter how you message it. Yeah, that's right. Brand message, messenger problem. And we also have a tactics problem in terms of message delivery, where we're getting our message out to, etc. You can have the best message with a shitty messenger, and it's not going to break through. You could have a great messenger with the right message.

but if it's not delivered to where people are getting their information, it doesn't matter. And the last thing is, you know, if people are already preconditioned to believe something about the Democratic Party, i.e. a brand, right, it's also a challenge. I mean, think about this, John, last spring, and it should have been the biggest canary in the coal mine for Democrats. And most people miss this research. There was research that showed for the first time in modern history that the perceptions of the two political parties has changed, that the majority of Americans, now believe that the Republican Party best represents the interest of the working class and the poor and the Democratic Party is a party the wealthy and the elites. That is a wholesale sea change of where people and what people believed the Democratic Party was fighting for. So they already have

in their minds, many parts of our coalition, working class people believe that the Republican Party best represents their economic future and their chance for success. So if you're already, your mind's already in that space. To Kamala's point, in 107 days, it's very hard to actually change that. Look, we spent many of us, you know, in the years leading up to that election, spent time talking about Biden's excellent economic record, right?

High GDP, low unemployment, a boom in stock market, you know, real job growth and wage growth for the first time in 30 years we saw wages increasing. And, you know, at a macro level is great. But when I was out there trying to sell that, especially to union members and working class people I know, they were like, what kind of plant, what planet do you fucking live on?

Because that's not happening in my life. I can barely put groceries on the table. I can't afford my rent. You know, at the end of the day, I can barely afford to take my kids on a vacation, right? This is not, this economy is not working for me. It goes back to this Doge thing. We become, but that's what I'm,

I think what I'm saying is you're saying, if we, you know, get better messengers and better messages, and I'm saying that is all, wrapping paper. You know, if you don't have policies that resonate with them. And that's where I think what we're talking about. So my concern is that Donald Trump is a tremendous diagnostician. He is able to look into a place and go, here's the fault line of this issue.

Here's where people's complaints are. Right. To say that the Biden administration thought their economy was great. And when we went out to talk to people, it turned out it sucked. is malpractice for the political class of the Democratic Party. So I don't disagree with you. I worry that when I hear the fixes, we got to really think about messaging and messengers and all that without hearing a more prescribed, you know, diagnostic. If you don't have the diagnosis about why that is.

Absolutely. Why is it that government policies are not? not connecting. Is it because the bureaucratic landmines make it so that we can't build Wi-Fi in rural areas? Is it because our tax dollars will reflexively defend, you know, foreign programs or things that are going to be cut without realizing, you know, people are not feeling the effects of their tax dollars? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's all of that. And the reality is, look, John, I, I fired all those consultants.

I fired every single one of them. So that's why unemployment is taking out. There you go, no. Because it's a large group. Yeah, let me tell you, I'm not interested. I mean, let me give you an example. Last year, we spent, the campaign spent a billion dollars on broadcast TV. Overall, there was $10 billion.

How much? One billion dollars, just the campaign. In 107 days. Well, you know, over that time, you know, by it. 107 days. Right. So, but let me just say this. Well, Kamala's campaign and Biden's campaign

combined a billion dollars on broadcast TV. Here's a reality on this. I'm in my mid-50s. I still read hard. I gotta tell you, you look fantastic. Thank you. Here's the deal. I still read a hard copy of a newspaper.

My boys think I'm a nut because I can get it on my phone, right? But the one thing my wife and I don't do, John, is I don't watch broadcast TV anymore. In fact, I don't know many people my age that do. I mean, maybe when I... Does that include cable, basic cable? No, I don't watch cable anymore. I'm all on streaming.

I know, I'm sorry, John. But the point is this. The reality is our tactics is a huge problem as well. But underlying all of this is what you said. If people don't know what the hell we're fighting for and what specifically we would do to improve their lives, it doesn't matter. We can fix the tactics.

We can find the best messengers. We could fix our brand. At the end of the day, we have to give people something to vote for. And I will say this, what is the lesson from Mdani? And it's not ideological. People seem to think, well, the big lesson here is you need to run to the left. No, the lesson here, whether you're in a very conservative district or a very left-leaning district, is very simple. One, authenticity matters.

People have a bullshit meter. People can tell, you know, my old boss, Paul Wellstone used to say, you should never separate the life you lead from the words you speak. The reality is there's too many politicians who do that. And at the end of the day, people can smell through it. When you're talking about just platitudes, right, to your point, people can smell through it. Don't just tell me what I want to hear. I need to see you actually show me what you're going to do and then deliver on it. And I want to come back on the delivering piece in a moment.

But I would say, can I just very quickly, you know, again, authenticity is the new buzzword. The new strategy is authenticity, but it's still a strategy. What I think connected with Mamdani is he diagnosed a frustration within the population of New York City. He understood that the real tenuousness of New York City is affordability that people, that the city itself has become. And it wasn't the authenticity of, and I'll eat with my hands and I'll do that and I'll go out to the San Giro and act like a real dude. it was how in God's name is a plate of food from a cart $12 or $15. That's right. And he deconstructed that.

He was able to identify the crux of the issue and very simply present some ideas that might be able to battle that. It's simpler than authenticity and the messenger and the metric. Well, I do think it's simpler than that because at the end of the day, right, we could have plenty of people who are saying the exact same thing who aren't believed by voters. At the end of the day, this is where the authenticity matters. If you, it's not just saying something. Well, you have to believe it, certainly. But that's the point.

The reason we've lost trust is because people don't believe that we actually believe the shit we're selling them, that we're saying, we're telling them what they want to hear. To my point in the book. Yes. Yes. And she says, I didn't go with Pete Buttigieg because he's gay. And that'd be too far. And you're like, oh, my God, it's actually reverse affirmative action. It's like, what?

Yeah. But I think the point here is that you have to be an authentic, incredible messenger. And it's not authenticity. Yes, that's the new buzzword. But now you got people, you know, it's the same thing with, you know, people want to show strength. Right. And so now, you know. Now everybody curses.

now. By the way, a trend that I was on for years now. Everyone is. Everyone is. To my own horn. Right, right. But everyone's cursing. Everyone's getting up, giving these fiery speeches. You know, you've got male elected officials growing beards because they want to show strength and masculinity. It's bullshit. Strength, it's action. It's action and it's authenticity. Do you really, really believe the shit you're selling? Because let me ask you a question. And this is a question I posed to Democrats all over the rhetorical one or can I answer? No, no. It's a question for your. viewers, if you're not willing to fight like hell in this moment for the things you believe in, do you really believe in them at all? Because the greatest divide right now in our party,

John, is not ideological. The greatest divide in our parties between people who are using every lever of power they have to actually fight back in this moment and stand up and fight for what they believe in and those who are sitting down the sidelines. But let me get back to the two other points that I think that were important. I want to answer to that as well. Okay, to Memdani, right? It was not just authenticity. He also campaigned for something to the point we were making earlier. He didn't just run against the establishment against his opponents. He gave people a value proposition.

He said, here's my plan. Here's what I would do if I was elected, right? And it was focused on affordability. And the last thing that I think is important is he was ubiquitous in this sense that he campaigned everywhere in person throughout New York. You couldn't run, you couldn't walk throughout New York without running into his campaign in some way. And that was true in terms of his online presence. To your point about being on a halal food podcast, I watched that food podcast. They had like 25 to 50 people. If he had been listening to

his consultants, they would say, oh, don't go on that podcast. There's far few people listening. The point is, is be ubiquitous, be everywhere, don't discriminate, talk to every single voter and give them a sense of what you're standing for and do it in a way that's real. Just be yourself. Just be honest. Be transparent. Be vulnerable. Put yourself out there. Don't try to wordsmith. Don't do one of these. A finger in the wind politician. You know, long before there was a Bernie Sanders, there was a Paul Wellstone, who was an OG progressive voice in the Senate. And the reason people liked Paul is not because they agreed with them 100% of the time, but they knew that he had a core set of convictions that he was willing to stand up and fight for come hell or high water. That's authenticity. That's what Mamdani had. You cannot fake authenticity. It's either real or it's not. And people have a bullshit meter and they can see that.

I want to talk a little bit about this other thing that's sort of boiling up, which is we've got to fight. We've got to stand up and fight and people. You've got to fight like hell. And I believe this is a moment that's going to take effort and energy. And anything that I've ever seen done in Washington that I thought was of good value was a protracted battle. What I'm seeing a lot from the Democratic Party is you've got to stand up and fight. but I'm not seeing a lot of directional energy to that regard. I'm seeing some theater.

I'm seeing a variety of, I'm not seeing a coherent effort. The thing about the energy, right? Right now out in the country is maybe the most vast reserve of potential energy that I can recall seeing maybe since, and I was very young, and so I probably don't have a great understanding of it, but as the Vietnam War was winding down, there was a feeling in the country, a vast potential energy of a new way to move forward.

And I'm seeing a lot of that now, and I'm seeing the urgings of a party. The issue that I'm seeing is to convert that potential energy into kinetic energy is going to dissipate out into the atmosphere if it doesn't have a focus, if it doesn't have a parabolic way of, of creating heat and light because it's not enough to say,

you've got to go to these town halls and stand up and yell. Like, that's not where people's thirst is. That's right. They want to convert that potential energy to kinetic energy. To start, they want to start understanding that the politician that wants to lead them knows what's wrong with the system. that they're seeking to fix. Yes.

And I have not seen a great deal of that. And isn't that job one that will help be the stepping stone for all those other things that you talk about that are so necessary, right? Everything you're talking about is necessary to create a sustained movement of change in that direction. Yes. But short answers, yes. Have we missed that, oh, you know what we forgot to do is build the front steps?

No, I don't think so. I mean, look, this is a rebuilding process right now. And part of the reason I ran is not just as a result of the last election cycle, John. I have seen over 20 some odd years negligence on the part of the Democratic Party. But let's just take how we campaign as an example, right, to put the messaging stuff aside for a second. We show up three months before an election and have the first conversation with voters, right? And usually that first conversation is, hey, we need you to do something for our party. We need you to vote for us, right?

So it's a very transactional relationship. Then, again, they don't see us for two more years. Same time we come around. We have the same conversation. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And suddenly people start saying, well, holy shit, the only time I see that Ken guy is when he needs something for me, right? He doesn't really seem to be invested in me, my community, my life.

And so you start to lose trust, right? The second piece of this, by the way, is delivering, which is we get into power. We make these promises. Hey, vote for Democrats. We're going to actually make a difference in your community. We get into power and then we don't deliver on those promises, right, in a real way that actually moves forward. So the idea of actually presenting a vision of going back, again, no one believes the status quo is working for them right now. We have to present a new vision of government that works for working people.

again, a new vision of where this Democratic Party is going because that old vision, people don't buy it. Clearly the brand is broken, but also that old sort of platform and approach to policy is not working, which again, requires us to move from the platitudes to the specifics so people know, how is what you're selling me any different from what you told me for the last 30 years and my life is still the fucking same, right? So who's involved in that process? Because when you talk about, I'm going to relate this to the only thing I know how to

related to, which is the New York football giants. They are also rebuilding. It's been about 10 years now, and they keep talking about it. We just got to fix the offensive line. But they keep going with the, you know, sort of the status quo of people. That goes back a little bit to what we talked about earlier. Is the process by which you are doing that? Flexible enough, open enough, visionary enough that you're not just bringing in, you know,

near a Tandon and Jake Sullivan and going like so have at it you know are are you is the is the institutional thinking being challenged enough to create that step that needs to be created yeah I mean look we're certainly pushing here I mean we started right when I came in with a whole branding and narrative project that's outside of what our policy makers and others are doing up in Congress and throughout the country to really, and this, again, is very technical, but I think it's important. You know, uh, technical in the sense of like, like digital or no, well, some digital. No, no, no, no, here's, here's where it's technical, which is, um, I think the research that

we've used to sort of, uh, understand public sentiment is really flawed. Quantitative and qualitative research is only as good as the inputs in. And so we're only get, Come to the deli I go to. You will get feedback is very clear. This is the point I'm making, actually, John. Thank you for sharing this. Because actually, Bill Clinton said this in 92, which, you know, again, hasn't changed, which is we really want to know how the American people are, go and sit in a cafe

or go to a Friday night football game and listen to parents around you, right? We don't do that anymore. And by the way, because we're only connecting with voters three months before an election, we're just getting a sliver of the actual public sentiment. And this is why we have a brand problem. them. At the end of the day, we're not listening anymore. And so much of this is listening. So we are from a technical standpoint. We're using AI and social listening tools to actually get on a daily basis what's happening out there on social media. But we're also getting out to the cafes

into the football games. We're doing ethnographic research. For AI listening tools, it's so fucking simple. It is simple. People have kids. And then then, then, They have kids and the kids get older and they got to save money for college. And just in the moment where they're spending a shit ton of money on college, their parents get older. And they got to spend money on doing their parents. And there's nothing that the government is really providing for them or helping them out with. And the cost of their housing and the education and the elder care and the child care. Like, do we really need AI tools to understand that it's about that.

No, we don't. But I think you're right. It's the trap that people find themselves. You're absolutely right, John, and this is the issue. You don't need any of that, right? But the question is, without any of that, you're just sitting in a back room with a bunch of policymakers deciding on things that have no connection to the American people in their lives. So you have to have a sense of...

They're doing that anyway. Washington, D.C. is the most insulated, isolated, lobby surrounded. Agree. It's why I don't spend much time here. I've been on, I unfortunately live in this Godforsaken town now. And my family's all back in Minnesota, but I would tell you in the eight months. I've heard it's very safe now. Yeah, thank you, federal troops.

But let me just say this, eight months on the job, I've been in 32 states. You know, elections aren't won in D.C. They're one in the states. And they're one by connecting the people. And they're one by connecting to exactly what you're talking about, the struggles of everyday life. And I will tell you, as much as you talked about having a very prescriptive policy point, I think that's right. We do have to have a policy agenda, but we also have to zoom out because it's very simple. It's what you said. And I'll share the story of my father-in-law for a moment because he's a beef cattle farmer in southern Minnesota and 85 years old. And he voted. And he's still out there doing it? He's still out there. He's still out there. But I would tell you, he has this, he's voted Democrat his whole life. And in 16, 20 and 24, he voted for Trump. And in 16, I said,

Dave, you know, why did you vote for Trump thinking he'd give me some sort of policy answer on egg policy or, you know, what he told me. And this goes to your point. He said, look, the high school that I went to has closed down and consolidated with another high school. So I no longer have a Friday night football game to go to the grocery store on Main Street has closed. So I got to drive, you know, a lot further to eat. Just get my groceries. The clinic that was in town has closed. and now my wife who has Parkinson's disease,

I have to drive 100 miles to get her health care, right? You know, the farm that my family's farmed for 135 years, none of my kids, including your wife, want to come home and farm it. And so it was truly, I mean, what you're not hearing there is policy. I want you to, what you're hearing is,

here's a guy, 85 years old. He shouldn't have a knot of anxiety in the world about his future because his future is not that long. right in the sense that he's on the tail end of his life he should be living carefree at this moment but he does have a nod of anxiety in his future because his whole identity is being taken away from him the world around him is changing and what he feels is no one sees him no one cares about what's happening in his community so along comes the biggest con man and snake oil salesman in the world saying make america great again and there's people like davo rourke saying well you know what

I do want things to be the way they were. I do want my community be vibrant and robust. Now, of course, there's nothing that Donald Trump would do or has done that would actually improve Dave O'Rourke's life, just the opposite. But the point is, at the end of the day, one thing you said that really resonates with me is it's really simple, what people want in life. It's very simple. They just want to be able to get ahead. They want to be able to build a better life for their families, they want to be able to maybe just maybe, you know, take a vacation, to retire with dignity, to give their kids a shot in an opportunity. It's as simple as that. Yes, there's policies underneath we need to talk about, but when we lose that piece and the policies are disconnected

from the struggle, then what the fuck are we doing? That's what I'm talking about. And I also think in all the craziness that goes along, I almost think that the next great successful politician, I think their slogan for the election will be. It's a. enough already. Because that's what it feels like. And I do think sometimes the spiral feels inevitable, but I don't think it is. And oddly enough, I remain steadfastly optimistic. That's good. Within that. And is that, do you continue to feel that way as well? I'm very optimistic about our chances to win. And I will tell you, I'm doing.

Don't can. No, no, let me touch. This close, buddy. No, no, I'm going to switch to the other piece. Just winning without. No, no, this is my point. I'm not optimistic that winning in 26 and 28 helps us win. And what do I mean by that?

Yeah. If we do it the wrong way again, we're not building trust with voters. If we do it the wrong way again without a very specific policy agenda, we're not building something that transforms people's lives. All right. If we build it in a way that actually doesn't reflect where the American people are at, it's just not going to work. And so I am optimistic that will win. I'm not as optimistic as much as I'm trying to change the way we do this, that we can change, to your point, this whole ecosystem in, you know, this short time. Here's what I'm pessimistic about.

And I want to be really clear. I think in this moment right now, there's something bigger. stake here that we didn't even talk about. And I don't want to focus on Trump. But when I was growing up, there were values that united us in this country that were not partisan values, that united Democrats and Republicans. And you and I could say, well, at least they agree on this, right? Now those values, like, you know, the idea of due process in this country, the rule of law, you know, separation of power, belief in a free and independent press, idea that we would stand with our allies around the world and protect emerging democracies.

Those are things that we could always count on Democrats and Republicans agreeing upon, by and large, right? By and large, I would say, I would say that's a slightly nostalgic view, but. Well, listen, do you, in this moment right now, those values, even the freedom of speech, right? I mean, shit. Listen, I will not in any way argue that we are not under a press. pressurized crucible of unitary executive like I haven't seen. It is, it's the type of governance from a really vindictive and small person creating emergencies that don't exist.

I just want to make sure that like there was no past of all Americans could at least agree that there were three separate branches of government and they all had an equal say. And like, that's never been the real case. Sure. And we've always argued back and forth from the expansion of rights for different groups. Of course. The suppression of rights for different groups. Like, we cannot say in a country that had Jim Crow from, you know, the decades that we had it,

that somehow we all agreed on certain values because we didn't. No, but I think at the core, there may have been differences of opinion about what those values are. Now you have a party who basically could give a shit about due process and says as much. They could give a shit about the rule of law and separation of power. Right. Their principle is power. So, I mean, I think that's the challenge right now is, you know, we both have to fight for something, right? And at the same time, we have to acknowledge that, you know, when people say to me, right, you know, well, I don't know if there's going to be elections in 26, you know, who knows if this democracy survives that long.

I think if people had said that to me four years ago, I would have thought maybe they should be institutionalized, right? It's not out of the realm of possibility. And I understand people's nervousness and anxiousness because so many of those sort of core values, yes, there were differences, but they seem to be fundamental to who we are. I mean, think about just the attack in the last week on the freedom of speech. There's a reason it's the First Amendment, right? It's the most important right in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights is the ability for people to stand up, to speak out to share their opinions. And that's now under attack.

So I say all of this because I think where people's angst and anxiety comes from is not just the fact that the Democratic Party has a piss poor message and isn't necessarily presenting an alternative to what the Republicans are doing. It's also what the Republicans are doing. And their anxiety that, holy shit, we may not have our democracy anymore. Yeah. There is definitely a tenuousness. to a lot of the things that we thought were, you know, kind of,

it feels a little bit like the hot air balloon where it's just like there's just now the two ropes that are holding it together. And you're like, I don't know about those two. But we really appreciate taking the time. I know you're busy. I know you want to get out of D.C. Chair, Ken Martin, thanks for joining us today.

Really appreciate the conversation. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Thanks, man. I'm going to tell you guys something. I don't know how to feel. I felt like every time I brought up something, he was like, yeah, that's right.

just go back of the, you know, yeah, but you don't want to do like these consultant driven. I've gotten rid of all the consultants. So here's what we're doing. We're going out with the AI and we're looking into the thing. I'm like, but I think we just, didn't we just say? No, it's about authenticity. But it's not authenticity. He died and so probably went, no, no, no, not authenticity.

What you just said. It was, I felt like I was talking. It was like an improv exercise where I would say something and he would go, yes, and. No, and. And then. Yes, and. No and and yes and. Yes.

Yeah. How were you experienced? I felt for a second like, am I being gas? Like, I wasn't sure what was happening. No, there was a lot of contradiction just from past statements and by past, I mean a month ago to today and even within this conversation. So I can totally see why there's no message. Not only can I see why there's no message, I can see why there's no method.

Yes. I'm not even sure we settled on that. I mean, I've been told that the Republican Party is this existential threat to democracy, and I happen to agree with that. But whether or not Democratic politicians act on that seems to only come into play when it aligns with their political ambitions, and I'm exhausted by that right now. I would love if we could come up with something to rally around and not just wait it out. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I understand that Ken Martin can't control. the candidates, even though he's recruiting people and putting... No, no, no, no. Neutrality. They have a declaration of neutrality. I know.

But something that did stand out to me is that we didn't discuss the fact that Mamdani partially was so successful because the other Democrats, like Brad Lander, rallied around and made it more about the Democrats than about individual power. And something that stood out to me in our Pritzker conversation two weeks ago is that when you specifically asked that question of is individual ambition getting in the way of Democrats working together? And his answer was about how people get elected. That was the wildest part to me. By the way, thank you for sort of bringing all that together with past conversations because, you know, I don't listen to this podcast. I don't care for it. But I have to say, I think that's what struck me is

you would say, isn't there a principled, inspiring message of change that is step one to building the thing? Absolutely. And that's why we changed our branding. Just none of the statements felt, it all felt discordant to me. And I, boy, do I have sympathy for the difficulty of what it is and how exhausting it must be. but wow, is that hard to listen to eight months into? And the strategy still seems to be historically the party not in power gained seats in the midterm. Yeah.

Yeah. And when you look at, I mean, the 2012 autopsy, they came out of that with the same diagnosis. I think that Democrats are having now, which is we have these amazing ideas. And it's all really good. We're kind of awesome. We can't communicate it to the people. And we just have to get better at that. And the Republicans were successful in the 2014 midterms.

Maybe that's, you know, just the way that it goes. But they lost their party. Right. And they kind of lost the country. Yeah. I'd say the only thing really that's changed in the messaging from like eight months ago to now is just the passage of the so-called big beautiful bill. Like they're saying we need to highlight how it's going wrong, what's bad with it.

That's really the only change I've seen. But still defending the status quo of programs that most people think are broken. Yeah. They somehow devalue even the struggles of their own actual constituents in an effort to appease people that, to his point, may be unwinnable. But maybe they're unwinnable, but boy, it would be helpful if you had something that you thought was affirmative and not just strategic. But fuck, man. But we are back anyway. Brittany, what are the questions they want from us this week?

They're writing in. First up, since Trump renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War, what would you rename the Department of Justice under Trump? Oh, wow. I would say the law firm of Trump, Giuliani, and associates. I would rename it as that. Yeah, no, it is when the Department of Justice becomes just a department in the Trump organization. So however he would, I would say he'd probably call it like the eighth floor.

You know, oh, you got to run to the eighth floor. They'll take care of that stuff for you. And you'll be able to sue whoever it is that you need to sue. So yeah, there is no Department of Justice. There is merely the legal wing of the Trump organization. And that's how it will remain. sads. Wonderful.

Wonderful. I wish I had a better moniker for it. It could be actually, no, I was going to make a joke about Jewish lawyers, but I. Do it. On Russia, Shana. On Russia, Sean. I forgot. I forgot.

Go ahead. What's an example? John, is it time for another rally to restore sanity and or fear? No. Last one didn't take. Take either. And I don't think I can have another day where I fuck. up without even realizing that I'm fucking you know we had this whole uh I've told you guys

with that whole thing planned you know uh cat Stevens Yosef Islam's going to come out and sing peace train uh Stephen's going to cut him off Ozzy Osbourne's going to jump in and sing crazy train and then we're going to end it with the OJ singing and love train and the whole thing goes off I mean we were we rehearsed in a trailer that morning Ozzy Osbourne literally right before the entire performance started after we had done all this rehearsing in the trailer I go up to Ozzy right before and I go, Yusuf is going to do peace train. Stephen's going to cut off and then you jump in with crazy train, right?

And he's like, oh, yeah, it's going to get his own train. As I'm walking away, he goes, huh, who's Stephen? So that was, and then literally like the next day, Salman Rushdie's on the phone with me going, how can a rally to restore sanity have a singer that wants me dead? And I'm like, wait, what? What the fuck? So there was a whole hullabaloo.

So yeah. Not only did I, we not restore sanity anywhere, but I lost mine. That's such. But it's a delight. How can people keep these questions coming? Our Twitter, we are weekly show pod, Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel,

The Weekly Show with John Stewart. Respect. Guys, as always, fabulous, fabulous job. lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mimedevick, producer Jillian Spear. Video editor and engineer Rob Vittolo, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, executive producers. Chris McShane, Katie Gray, guys, fantastic job. And we will see you all next week. Bye-bye.

The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions. Podcasts.