Ryan and Saagar discuss Texas And California battle on gerrymandering, Andrew Schulz betrayed by Trump on IVF, Cory Booker refuses Zohran endorsement.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's get to jerrymandering.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Okay, this is a complicated story, Ryan, You're going to
have to help me out a little bit here.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
All of it kind.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Of starts in Texas, although he can argue about where
and when it doesn't. But that was the more most
the high profile action now so far. Governor Greg Abbott
basically accusing other states of accelerating jerrymandering against Republicans. So
him saying no, then we are going to mid decade
(01:01):
redistrict in our state, which would lead to more Republicans
here's what he had to say.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
These legislators have been both They sought money and they
offered money to skip the vote to leave the legislature
to take a legislative act that would be bribery. And
so the facts will have to come out. But I think,
based upon comments made by legislators themselves, they face a
(01:27):
possibility facing bribery charges, which is a second degree felony
in the state of Texas.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
There's one way to cure that.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
And that is if they get back to the state
of Texas and make quorum today at a hearing that
we have at three o'clock, they can cure themselves of
any quid pro quo that would subject them to potential
bribery charges.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So all of the stems from the fact that the
Texas the Texas Legislative Body, was going to move forward
with these redistricting Democrats didn't have enough votes.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
You lock, it used to be would do it every
ten years, right exactly, Traditionally is done ten years every
time there's a new census, etcetera.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
They're doing a mid level the text.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Democrats didn't have the votes to block it, but they
didn't enough people to deny a quorum so all the state,
all the texts, Democrats left the state. So he's accusing
them of taking bribery for leaving the state and for
being facilitated by JB. Pritzker or whatever from Illinois. Okay,
so that's what happened. So then there is now a threat.
Let's put this up there on the screen. Governor Abbott
says that he will remove from office any Democrat who
(02:24):
quote abandons their duty and refused to show up to
the state capital at on August fourth. He says, I
will use my full extridution authority to demand the return
to Texas of any potential out of state felons.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's how he's referring to here.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Now, all of this, as I said, stems from that
vote in the legislative body where the Texas House actually
locked its doors and then approved the motion to arrest
warrants for Democrats who broke korum.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And here's what happened there.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
For bails, the surge in arms and any officers appointed
by her are directed to send for all absentees whose
attended is not excuse for the purpose of securing and
maintaining their under wards of arrest unnecessary until the word
more Republican House.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So that led then to now the Texas Democrats who
are saying, actually, it's not a felony in the Texas
penal code for leaving the state, that they're making it up,
that they have no legal mechanism, but broadly rhyme, this
is all just about the jerrymandering accusation, which would lead
to some five more seats for Republicans in the state. Now,
(03:37):
why are Republicans and the White House getting involved even
in this? And a lot of this is being directed
at the White House because they have such a narrow
margin in the House of Representatives right now, and Texas
obviously under Republican control especially, they increase their margin in
the state. More recently, they're saying, well, hey, Illinois, Massachusetts,
all these other Democratic states are jerry mander to hell
(03:58):
in top of California, So why can't we just go
ahead and do it with Texas. And by the way,
which we'll get to in a little bit, it's it's
kind of true, all right, I mean to the extent
for jerrymandering and one party control of the state.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But what's your analysis here?
Speaker 6 (04:12):
So it is true in places like Massachusetts, there's basically no,
no Republicans I think statewide, although and then the state
votes maybe sixty five thirty five. Right, So if if
you were going to have representation by portionality, which we
don't have.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
We have single Deal, let's make that very members.
Speaker 6 (04:32):
We don't have that anywhere, then you'd have a couple
of Republicans in Massachusetts, but you would actually have to
jerrymander the heck out of those districts to make sure
that you put all the Republicans in these in these seats.
Like you mentioned the top of the show, I've been
covering this for forever now, and it is it is
a case where just and I'm saying, I'm saying this
(04:54):
objectively speaking, Republicans pushed farther and first on on jerryman
entering where they controlled. Let's take Wisconsin, for instance, which
is a swing state, yet when Republicans took it over
in twenty ten, it jerrymandered it to the point where
they had almost the entire congressional delegation, despite the fact
(05:15):
that you'd often have Democratic senators and governors winning. But
because they were, they first gerrymandered this Missouri and other places.
The first gerrymandered in Michigan the state legislatures, and from there.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
They jerremandered the federal districts.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
Whereas and this was a complaint of Democratic voters that
Democrats wouldn't fight back because they were in thrall to
this idea of good government that because liberals really do
and this is a criticism that the left has of liberals.
Liberals value process like they really want the process to
(05:52):
be clean, whereas the left and the right care more
about the outcomes and power, whereas liberalcy like as long
as it's fair. And so in New York and California
and some other states where Democrats were in control, they
set up these commissions that were designed to try to
take power away from the politicians and put it into
(06:14):
these the kind of non biased commissions that would do
it fairly quote unquote fairly. And so as a result,
you could have had many more Democrats in New York
and California in particular than you had over the years.
And so now there, wellas in Maryland, for instance, they
didn't quite do They didn't do that, like they're like, no,
(06:35):
we're going to see if we can figure out how
to get eight democrats, And now they can't but they're
like at seven to one or thing like that. But
now with Texas pushing the envelope constantly and doing these
redistrictings in the middle of the ten years, which used
to be like a norm that wasn't like whoa, you're
(06:56):
gonna you're going to just bust out every two years
and like redraw just to help yourself a little bit.
And when Texas is an interesting case because not only
do you have the shifting politics of different demographics, like oh, now,
all of a sudden, with all these republic Rats now
they're now they're Republicans, So how do we factor that
(07:16):
into a jerrymander all of these suburbs that are exploding
in Texas? Are these California Republicans that are moving to Texas?
Or are these you know, are these Midwest folks that
are coming down to Texas and they're actually Democrats and
and so there it's it's a harder state to jerrymander,
which is why they're constantly trying to do it, because
as they're getting new data coming in from each election,
(07:39):
and then you have to guess, like, are we going
to have a democratic wave here? Is it going to
be like so it's it's tricky, but they're trying to
do it constantly. And so now and I don't know
if we have this next element up now, California and
New York are like, screw it. If Texas is going
to push this hard, then we're going to respond by
(08:02):
throwing out our.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Our commissions. Yeah we have they yet. Yeah we can
put up New York. Let's go and play D six guys,
just to hear from Kathie.
Speaker 8 (08:12):
Yeah, and I have newsflash for Republicans in Texas. This
is no longer the wild West. We're not going to
tolerate our democracy being stole in a modern day stagecoach
hoist by a bunch of law breaking cowboys. Americans don't
want a system that's stacked against them. They believe in fairness.
It's fundamental rigging. The system is un American. But here
(08:33):
they are flaggerly breaking the rules. They can hold on to.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Power, all right.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
And at one point in that speech where she seems
to be putting on a twang just for the fun
of it, Yeah, she says, I'm sorry to the good
government groups, but politics has to be about politics, and
that is for a lot of Democratic voters refreshing to hear,
because they're they're over the like processed stuff like that.
(09:00):
Now they're in the trenches and they're ready to go
toe to toe over this stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, and Gavin Newsom is joining her. And Gavin he
has issued a very similar threat. Let's take a listen
to that, please, d five.
Speaker 9 (09:11):
If we want to still be in this game, we
need to disabuse ourselves, disenthrall ourselves of the status quo
in the past. We have got to enter a new
mindset and we've got to get back on this playing field,
and we've got to do with the kind of vigor
that our kids and grandkids deserve. That liberty and freedom
deserves this moment, the founding fathers deserve the principles that
(09:33):
I find the best of Roman Republic and Greek democracy
that's on the line unless we stand the line and
stand guard this democracy, and that means we got to
go on offense, no more defense, go on offense, fight
fire with fire. So you asked me, am i in,
I'm all in? You asked me, I'm I'm committed. I'm
(09:55):
all in, committed and resolved.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
He's all in.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Ryan, So Gavin and I mean, look new York California
is two most populous blue states, right, and so they're
obviously in California, the most popular state in the country.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I don't Newsom saying he can.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
He's going to call a special election through the redisteresting
and then it kicks to.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
The voters, so the voters would have to approve it.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
But Newsome and democratic thinking is that as long as
it's if it's framed in fairness and good government terms,
democratic voters in California, as they've shown in the past,
would actually they're against gerrymandering, like as a principal, but
setting the principle aside, if they frame it as this
is a fight against Trump and these bad Texas Republicans,
(10:41):
then it's like a sixty forty issue where California voters
probably do end up then approving it.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Right, So what they have right and so for example,
just so Texas would increase its Republican seats by five, yeah, miraculously,
Gavin's plan would reduce GOP representation from nine to four.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, it's just fun.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And then New York actually, if they join, then they're
going to get a couple out of there. And apparently
the Vice president will be flying to Indiana in the
next two days because Indiana, I think there's one or
two seats that they might be able to go. So
it's a race to the bottom, you know, now in
the whole country, and all of it is about control
of the House of Representatives. Ironically, a lot of this
(11:23):
is Trump's fault because he appointed so many House members
to his and to his government, and so my job margin. Yeah,
the Speaker was like, please stop taking people from the
House because what's the GOP margin.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's a couple of seats.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Now, I mean, it's pretty obvious they're probably going to lose.
So what they're trying to do is at least hang
on to the margin that they might be able to
in some miraculous scenario win.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But I mean broadly, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, it's one of those where it's sad, just
the race to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I guess on all of this.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
But in a sense I agree with the right end
the left here and like power is power, right, I mean,
this is what it's all about. It's already like, let's
all stop eluding ourselves that the system is in any
way fair or whatever.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It never has been, in particular in this regard.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I guess the last question I have for you is
how does the court play into any of this?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
How does that work?
Speaker 6 (12:10):
That's going to be interesting, Like does you know you
put this because the Court has a standard? Yeah, put
D seven up there on the screen.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
The Court has thrown out and they have they have
some standards when it comes to Jerrem. Again, I don't
fully understand it. I tried to read into it a
little bit. But they have the ability to throw things
out as a like on the basis of the Voting
Rights Act and more on racial grounds.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
But I'm still not yet clear on what it all means.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
Right, they can't really throw it out based on partisan grounds.
It's more more of the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
You know.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
It would be wild if the Supreme Court came in
and was like, all right, this Texas one is fine,
but not New York California.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, we're gonna we're gonna let Texas.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
Republicans draw those districts, but we're gonna draw California and
New York. That would be just you know, the you know,
full mass, completely off and shredded. I don't expect that
yet because also, it's not like a democratic House of
representatives is not an existential threat to the Supreme Courts
like right wing project right, they can they can swallow that.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And so with these Yeah, so if everyone's doing the math,
then we've got Texas at five for more seats. California
will respond by removing five Republican seats. Indiana is going
to go for one or two. New York he said
three or four. Yeah, so actually, by my count I
think the Dems are up right now. Yeah, so I guess,
you know, we'll see what the other Republican houses and
(13:40):
all that, but yeah, that is.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Our current state of Jerry Manderin.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
You got to be careful because if you it's an
interesting dial if you push too hard and make all
if Republicans make in a democratic year, push a lot
of seats to like fifty two forty eight so that
they can get as many as they really can actually,
then you can actually lose.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Half of that.
Speaker 8 (13:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I was looking recently, for example, at shared Brown is
hiring campaign managers. He's thinking about running in Ohio, and
I was talking with some friends and I was like,
you know, like he's got a good shot, right, I mean,
he ran ahead Trump even though he lost, Like he ran,
We ran pretty close, way ahead of Trump represented the
state for quite a long time. Ohio probably still read state.
(14:21):
I would probably still bet against him. But if it's
a landslide election, a two thousand and eight style a
year mean, remember eight, there were all kinds of Democrats
who had no business Siana, Yeah, exactly one Indiana.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Who was that Tom Perry Ol.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
There were all these Democrats who we were like, how
are you even here?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Like what are you doing here in Washington? You know?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
And they were it was like a two year long project,
but they were still here, right, And in that way,
that's how you got I mean, I'm trying to think.
There were some who were the Democratic senators like Heidi
Hike Camp right, there were people like.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
The Coda Nebraska, right, they had two senators from North Dakota,
two from South Dakota, right, two from Nebraska.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yes, yes, like it's sixty.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
If you have landslide years and it just happens to
align with some like crazy election or whatever, you can
have pretty dramatic results. So that's a very good point
that goop COO would be shooting itself in the foot
if they do draw all these fifty two to forty eights.
That's not hard to lose at all, especially in a
low turnout.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You know, Cress Maag, you've put up some like knuckle
dragon freak.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah right, yeah, you only need who was a guy's
named Todd Aiken, You only needed eight. You only need
an achin or two or Roy Moore. And all of
a sudden, you know you've got some Doug Jones's h
You know in.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
The US, it can happen, has happened before.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Let's get to the next part here, my old friend
Andrew Schultz. Perhaps you know, we're just covering this just broadly.
Some of the podcast guys continue to break here with
Donald Trump. Let's go and put this one up there
on the screen. This is from screenshots from Andrew Schultz's Instagram.
He says, quote, you don't.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Break your word, your word breaks you.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And this is from a Washington Post article from our
friend Jeff Stein and says Trump promised to mandate IVF care.
The White House says there's no plans to do so.
He continues talking about some assistance IVF assistance grants to
a private charity, saying real Donald Trump flip flop once
again on a campaign promise. This was kind of a
core issue hit for him because him and his wife
(16:18):
had fertility struggles, which he talks openly about. He talks
openly about in his special which everybody can go watch.
But this was a good peg just to act the
actual announcement. Let's go here from Jeff Stein, who followed
up on this in an excellent story over at the
Washington Post, it says the White House does not plan
(16:38):
to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro
fertilization services to people with knowledge of the internal discussion said,
even though the idea was one of Donald Trump's key
campaign pledges last year. He said, if he returned office,
the government would either pay for IVF or issue rules
requiring insurance companies to cover treatment for it. Pledge came
as Trump faced political blowback over the abortion issue. Quote,
(17:01):
the government is going to pay for it, or we're
going to get it, will mandate your insurance company to
pay for it, which is going to be great. We're
going to do that, he said in August of twenty
twenty four. We want to produce more babies in this country, right,
And if you continue to look here, you know kind
of broadly within all of this is that you actually
had a kind of silent move against IVF by a
(17:23):
lot of the most pro life elements. So, for example,
Katie Britt, the Senator from Alabama, just last year introduced
legislation to withhold medicaid funding to bar to any state
that bars IVF after that Alabama law, But nobody has
actually introduced legislation for IVF that has any sizable constituency
(17:44):
in the Senate. And in fact, they're pointing instead to
some of the other things that they had in the
big Beautiful Bill for why it will be pro natalists
while walking away from the IVF promise. So, I mean,
that is one I don't know. I'm trying to for Andrew. Obviously,
it's very personal issues, so that's part of the reason
he's speaking out against it. But I can't help but
think that that moderation from Trump did play some role
(18:07):
in him allowing him to win the popular vote on
the even after a midterm election which had abortion was
a massive issue.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Massive issue.
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Yes, And if the context was that you mentioned this
Alabama Supreme Court ruling, that was just absolutely bananas saying.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
You know that basically was shutting.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Down IVF treatment in Alabama by saying that, you know,
every frozen embryo represented some you know, first degree murderer
of a person. And so Republicans were on their heels there,
and Trump responded by saying, He's going to be the
most pro IVF president in history, and in fact, it's
(18:47):
going to be IVF for all, free IVF for everybody.
And the it's it's now if it wasn't obvious at
the time exposed, it's just ruthlessly cynical. Just just to
comple lie that he told to get over a political
what he saw as a political speed bump, he just
hit the gas boom, drove right over it, without any
(19:11):
concern for what that did to raise the hopes of
people who like for for those who are trying to
conceive and can't.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's a it's it's it's an existential thing.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
It's it's spiritually debilitating month after month to go through that,
and then you layer on top of that the prohibitive
costs of it, on top of the like spiritual emotional
turmoil that it that it takes, uh and the toll
that it takes, and then to then just say, actually,
never mind, right, you.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Thought it was serious.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
See that's why I think in a in a way
it actually is important at a cultural level, because if
it's just same old bas you know, new boss, same
as the old boss, that's not good. The old boss
was not popular for Republicans. Trump's political strength was being
a quote moderating influence or appearing moderating to a lot
(20:04):
of people who are low information voters, who are like, yeah,
he was responsible for abortion, but he doesn't read to
me like a Christian, evangelical or any of these said
he wants free IVF. That sounds pretty good to me, right,
And so then to explicitly the White House now coming
out and saying, well, actually, we have no plans to
require anybody to do it. It would probably require legislation,
(20:25):
or at the very least they could try and do
it through executive order and quietly kind of just let
it drift away. I do think it's a problem, especially
in ironic right, whenever you have an administration which is
talking about like, oh, we need more babies, we need
to increase fertility, and then the only example now so
far are these Trump baby which, by the way, my
child is eligible for. So I'm gonna set mine up
(20:45):
soon my Trump account. Thank you, President Trump for the
one thousand US dollars. It appears that it will compound
to a whopping three thousand, three hundred if I invested
in the S and P five hundred, So you can
use it to I mean within inflation book, Yeah, with inflation,
you know, by a science text book, you know, for college.
(21:05):
I'll take free money, all right, everybody should. But you know,
not exactly game changing in terms of having.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
A child or any that is. It belongs to the child.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
It's not like it covers healthcare costs or any of that.
And what's interesting in the story that Jeff points about
is that under the Obamacare exchanges, which cover some fifty
million Americans, including yours, truly they have the ability through
rules to enforce different things that they can and cannot cover.
My guess, Ryan is that they most likely, because they're
(21:36):
still committed to a lot of this free market bullshit,
is that they realize how much of them increase it
would cause in premiums. And also, as you and I
know at the same time that this is all having
a discussion, in double digit premium hikes are currently expected
for a lot of the Obamacare exchange sometime in the
next two years because of the stripping of subsidies. Yeah, so,
(21:58):
I mean that's kind of the news broadly for the
IVF healthcare conversation. But I mean, listen, I guess it'll
just continue to summer underneath until anybody does anything about it. Currently,
they're far focused on pharmaceuticals, sending demand letters to Swiss
companies you must lower your drug prices or something like that,
and it's like, okay, well, easier way is to force medicare, right,
(22:18):
you know, to just say hey, this is what we're
going to pay for your drugs.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Take it or leave it, you know, screw off. But
apparently that's not what they want to do, right, Well,
it ain't free to occupy Gaza. Oh right, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We can't forward to do everything. That's what we need
to raise all of our money for. It makes a
lot of sense.
Speaker 10 (22:32):
All right.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
We've got abdual l Siad standing by. Let's get to it.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
Joining us now is doctor Abdul Elsaiad, doctor from Michigan
and former gubernatorial candidate. He's now running in the Senate
Democratic primary in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Abdul thanks so much for joining us. Good to see you.
Speaker 10 (22:54):
It's always a privilege to be with you, guys. Thank
you for having me.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
And so I covered your race back in twenty eighteen.
I remember this one dearly. This was you had this
bizarre case of shere thriving. I forget his last name.
He's now a member of Congress. We can talk to him,
talk about him in a moment. Was a front runner
in the in the race until he completely fell apart,
(23:17):
exposed basically for fraud. And Gretchen Whitmer and you were
then the kind of remaining viable candidates, and she ends
up winning the race, becoming Michigan governor. Now kicked around
as this national figure. You're coming back in a bid
for Senate. What are the differences that you've seen on
(23:38):
the ground in you know, this cycle versus twenty eighteen,
and you know what makes it plausible for you this time?
Speaker 11 (23:46):
Yeah, Ryan, I appreciate you covering the race then, and
it's great to talk to you again.
Speaker 10 (23:49):
Now.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
I said something at the time that I think in
the zeitgeist folks weren't quite ready to hear, which is
that Donald Trump himself is not the disease in our politics.
He's just the symptom of the disease, and the disease
is a system by which corporations and billionaires and would
be oligarchs can buy politicians buy access to regulation that
they basically roll back in ways that empower huge corporations
(24:13):
in our lives so that they can suppress the wages
we earn and charge us more for the things that
we have to buy from them. And I think eight
years on, people are a lot more willing to see that,
both because Trump got re elected, so we dealt with
the symptom, but it came back roaring because we never
dealt with the disease, and also because things have just
gotten harder for people, whether it is inflation, whether it
(24:35):
is the fact that the economy has made it so
that the job you worked yesterday is just less secure
for you tomorrow, whether it's the impossibility of ever imagining
you could buy a home if you're under the age
of thirty five, or how hard it's been to stay
in your home if you're over the age of sixty five.
It's the incredible medical debt that people have accrued to
ONO hundred and twenty five billion dollars, which is more
than the GDP of the majority of US states. All
(24:57):
of that has just made it harder to get buy
I've been to forty some different cities across my state,
and no matter where I go, people just tell me, look,
it just shouldn't be this hard, and I agree, which
is why I'm running.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So, doctor, I have a question for you about your
potential role if you were to win the primary and
to get elected. We had potential future colleague on Alyssa
Slotkin here on our show, and she would not commit
to new leadership in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I know you've spoken about that with Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So give us an idea of the type of candidates
that you would support for Democratic leader and why you
think that's important.
Speaker 11 (25:32):
I've got a clear set of things that i want
to accomplish for michiganers and for the American public. The
first is I want money, particularly corporate money, in special
interest money out of politics. The second is I want
to put more money in people's pockets by standing up
to big corporations and trusts, making it easier to build
and scale a small business, make it easier to join
and form a union. And I want to pass Medicare
for all and whoever it is who's given me the
(25:54):
best commitment to standing for those causes and giving us
the best chance at passing that legislation to earn my vote. Look,
I've got a lot of questions about current leadership, but
I'm not willing to tell you I'm going this way
or the other without knowing who my options are, because
if they give me John Fetterman, I'm certainly not.
Speaker 10 (26:09):
Voting for him.
Speaker 11 (26:10):
So all of that is to say that I'm going
to vote my conscience based on what I'm seeing. The
last point here that I also have to call out
is the fact we've got to be honest about how
we are misappropriating our money abroad, sending blank checks to
fund genocides abroad, when we've got hungry kids here at
home who deserve so much more and so much better.
So rather than starving kids abroad, I want to feed
(26:31):
our starving kids here at home. And so I'm going
to support leadership that understands that, that has the moral
clarity on those issues. And I'm going to make a
choice between the options that I've got for folks who
are vying for that leadership.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
I want to briefly play a clip from Corey Booker
speaking about Zora, Mom, Donnie, because I think that his
race in New York plays an interesting role in this
Michigan race, and I'll ask about it first.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Let's roll this Booker clip f one, Mom and Donnie,
Are you going to support him?
Speaker 5 (26:59):
I have learned a long time ago. Let New York
politics be New York politics. We got enough challenges in Jersey.
I got a governor's race. I'm supporting Mikey Cheryl, I
got legislative races. That's where my energy is going to go.
Going to November New York City. I love you. You're
my neighbor. You're about ten miles from where I live.
You guys figure out your elections. I'm going to folks
on mine.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
I mean. Normally a Democratic politician asked about the Democratic
nominee next door, he says, yeah, of course I support
the Democratic nominee. Keem Jeffries has declined to do so,
Chuck Schumer, tons of other you know, top Democrats have
declined to do so. When I watch you campaigning out
in Michigan, not only on the substance of your of
your campaign, but also on the style of it, it
(27:42):
feels similar like you know, you're out there on TikTok
and Instagram, you quick kind of some quick quick cut edits,
you know, talking to people on the ground. You know, Mom, Donnie,
you know, we kind of launched his campaign just talking
to people for several months asking them, you know, why
did you vote for Donald Trump?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
For insis?
Speaker 6 (28:01):
What was it that made you do that when you
hadn't voted for him in the past. So, how has
how do you see yourself in relation to mom done?
And howe has his victory kind of influenced the Michigan race.
Speaker 11 (28:16):
Roan, let me give you a perspective from on the
ground in Michigan, because I've been to forty plus different
cities now, done over one hundred events in our state,
and everywhere I go, it's this fascinating thing because when
I talked to Democrats over the age of fifty, they're
astounded that they see democrats under the age of fifty
at my events.
Speaker 10 (28:35):
And they're always like, how'd you do it? How'd you
get the young people out?
Speaker 11 (28:37):
And I'm like, well, I'm talking about the issues that
young people are facing, in the language that young people
are using, about what they'd like to see as solutions.
I'm talking about things like Medicare for all, I'm talking
about housing affordability, I'm talking about AI coming for their
jobs in ways that could indelibly change our economy because
of the weird incentives we've created around the system, because
(28:58):
again it's driven by greed and corporate profits. And so yeah,
they're coming because they see themselves in our political movement.
And one of the interesting things that I think all
Democrats should be paying attention to is we've lost young people.
It's been a slow trickle, and now it's almost like
a breaking of a damn when you look at twenty
twenty four. So we probably want to pay attention to
elections where young people turned out. And the most interesting
(29:19):
thing about that New York Democratic primary is that there
was an inversion of the usual demographics of the race.
You saw young people coming out and voting at higher
rates than their elders. That doesn't usually happen in our politics,
particularly in Democratic primary. So I would imagine that any
Democrat who's committed to the future of the party would
be committed to those people who are literally have the
(29:42):
highest stake in that future, who are young people and
would want to learn a thing or two or get
behind a movement that is including those young people in
our politics. We're doing that here. We learned a lot
from how they did that in New York. And if
young people don't turn out for what you're talking about,
you really really need to think about the sustainability of
what you're building.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Doctor, do you want to win this race? You're going
to have to win a state where.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Donald Trump won by some one point four percent in
twenty twenty four. What's your diagnosis of what the Democrats
did wrong in twenty twenty four to lose to Donald Trump.
Speaker 11 (30:12):
Look, I'm really thinking about the lessons we can learn,
and I think the challenge that we've had too often
is that Democrats haven't been willing to actually go out
and talk about the issues that people are facing. I
think we tend to think about these elections in terms
of left and right, but that's frankly a manufactured lens
for the consumption of people who think about politics as
(30:33):
a hobby. I don't think about left and right, and
I don't think most voters think about left and right.
I think about whether or not our politics service the
people who've been locked out of the system, or they
service the people who have locked them out, and I
think what they're seeing in our movement and the reason
we're getting such a diverse grouping of people, people who
voted for Donald Trump and people who have never voted
in their lives at our events is because we're talking
(30:55):
to the people who have been locked out in language
that critiques and identify why they've been locked out and
what it means to build a system where they are
also included.
Speaker 10 (31:05):
If we're able to do that, I think we can win.
Speaker 11 (31:07):
And I hate to say it, Democrats too often have
costplayed the folks who have locked people out. They assiduously
avoid issues that are really important to everyday people but
are uncomfortable to talk about.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
And I hate to say it.
Speaker 11 (31:18):
When it comes to Donald Trump, he's usually pretty good
at just saying what comes to his mind. However insane
and driven by his narcissism that it is. But it
doesn't feel like he's trying to lock you out of something,
even though his politics have done exactly that, and his
policies have been terrible for a lot of these folks
who have been locked out.
Speaker 10 (31:34):
So we've got to go where people are.
Speaker 11 (31:35):
We've got to speak in language that addresses the challenges
that they face. They have to see themselves as part
of our movement, and if we do that, we win,
and more importantly, we can win the future of our politics,
giving people more health care rather than taking away, making
sure that the rich the ultra rich pay their fair share,
rather than being in a situation where they are keeping
more and more of the value that's created by everyday
(31:58):
folks who just want to be able to get by.
Speaker 6 (32:00):
So, there haven't been many polls in your race, but
the ones that have been conducted seem to have you
and Congresswoman Haley Stevens kind of neck and neck. And
then you've got state Senator I think, former Media Matters person, who's.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Down at maybe ten or eleven percent.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
Stevens had the support of a strong support of APAK
an enormous amount of money in our last race to
beat a Democrat to get back into Congress. What is
your plan if major APAC money comes into Michigan heading
into the primary.
Speaker 10 (32:36):
So I'll say a couple of things about this.
Speaker 11 (32:38):
First and foremost, I've been clear and I'm not afraid
of APAC because to me, my moral integrity means everything.
And I think any Democrat today should agree that MAGA
billionaire money flooding democratic primaries should not be what dictates
who comes out of democratic primaries. I want that to
be something that everybody agrees to. Now I know that
others are probably not, but also say this that on
(33:00):
the merits of the issue, we have been watching as
our taxpayer dollars have been subsidizing a genocide perpetrated by
the most extreme element of another country who's received blank
checks from US for a very long time. I think
people look at their kids' schools, they look at their
healthcare centers, they look at their infrastructure, and they ask,
(33:22):
why are we sending money over there to bomb out
other people's infrastructures in their schools and kill their kids
when we could be invested in our own children here
at home.
Speaker 10 (33:32):
And there's something.
Speaker 11 (33:33):
About the obvious nature of what is being done over
there that I think a lot of Democrats ought to
pay attention to, because here's the thing about it. If
you're not willing to see truth for truth and address
and ask questions about the enforced language that MAGA billionaires
try and enforce on the Democratic Party, then when you
(33:53):
walk around saying that you're going to stand up to
corporations and billionaires to make people's lives more to affordable
people kind of question whether or not you actually have
the fortitude or the moral clarity to do either of
those things. And so I'm willing to go toe to
toe on this question because I think it's right. And
I'm also willing to go toe to toe on this
question because it demonstrates that I don't back down to anybody,
(34:14):
whether it's MAGA billionaires funding their money through APAC on
this question, or its corporations like pharmaceuticals or insurance companies
who want to tell us that we cannot actually have
guaranteed health care in America. Those questions are one and
the same, and I think we win on the courage
of our convictions by stating our values clearly and having
conversations with people in their VFW halls, their town halls,
(34:35):
their living rooms about what we aim to do.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
But Doctor, does that include your fellow Democrats. I mean,
you can call it MAGA billionaires. I don't think that's
necessarily incorrect. There's a lot of Democrats out there WHOAYPAC recipients.
In fact, some of them are in Israel right now
on an APAC funded trip. Your potential future colleague, Lissa
Slackin was on his show, refused to say the word genocide,
waffled a little bit on offensive weapons.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Who actually attended Colbert.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Some of this is going to be uncomfortable to require
you taking on people in your own party, something that
you're willing to do if you're elected.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
I mean, I've been willing to do it from day one.
Speaker 11 (35:05):
To me, it is about what we do to deliver
for the people in our state, how we're able to
address the fact that their groceries are too expensive, their
healthcare has become unaffordable. It's a principal cause of debt
in this country about how we're willing to stand up
to the corporations who have rigged our system, and yes,
the special interest who have rigged our system. I'm willing
to stand up to anybody and everybody, and I have
(35:27):
taken on my own party on this issue. I'm also
glad to see that more of my party is starting
to find moral clarity on this. But I want to
ask us all a big question here. Imagine, rather than
in the summer of twenty twenty five, all of us
were faced with these images of children whose ribs you
could see through their skin and had to confront the
(35:47):
reality that we were subsidizing a genocide. Imagine, instead of
having that moral clarity in the summer of twenty twenty five,
we had that moral clarity in the summer of twenty
twenty four. Maybe we would never be in a situation
where an extra ten thousand, tens of thousands.
Speaker 10 (36:02):
Of innocent people were killed.
Speaker 11 (36:04):
We wouldn't be watching as food was used as a
weapon of war, and maybe, just maybe, the clarity on
this issue might have changed the outcome of the twenty
twenty four election. Look, I endorse Kamala Harris because I
knew that Donald Trump would be worse whether you're talking
from the eyes of a child in Detroit or the
eyes of a child in Gaza. But it was so
frustrating to watch our party fail to take on the
(36:25):
obvious issue of a genocide. And I am hoping that
we are learning from this mistake and that we are
willing to become the party of peace again, because look,
my second presidential election was I got to vote for
a guy named brock Usain Obama who bucked his party
on the issue of war in Iraq.
Speaker 10 (36:40):
I think Democrats want peace.
Speaker 11 (36:42):
I think Democrats want to be on the right side
of history, and I know the Democrats that I'm talking
to every day they want that desperately.
Speaker 10 (36:48):
And that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 11 (36:49):
And I think we're going to win a race because
we're willing to have the moral clarity, whether it is
against the pharmaceutical corporations who are raising people's drug prices,
or it's against the subsidies toward a genocide in God.
Speaker 6 (37:00):
Last question for me, why do you think Trump won
the state of Michigan And what role do you think
the genocide did actually play in the final outcome, and hey,
particular the Democratic support for it.
Speaker 11 (37:13):
Look, I hate to say it, because it is about
moral clarity.
Speaker 10 (37:18):
It is about integrity.
Speaker 11 (37:19):
It is about strength for us to say that we're
going to stand up to corporate power, or we're going
to stand up to lobbyists, or we're going to stand
up to the oligarchs who are rigging and dominating our system.
You've got to show that you can both see what
the problem is and that you're willing to have the
strength to take it on. But if you can't see
a genocide being perpetrated and you don't have the strength
(37:40):
to take it on. It forces his people to ask
whether or not you actually have the strength to take
on all of the folks who have been rigging the
system in ways that have made our lives more affordable.
So I do think it played a really important role,
and it certainly played an important role here in Michigan.
But I think Donald Trump won via a combination of things.
I think our party wasn't willing to face up to
the fact that for far too long we didn't have
(38:01):
a nominee who could withstand the role of the office.
Is handling of gaz that demonstrated that. I think we
weren't able to mount a campaign that was true and
honest to our convictions. And I think for a lot
of people they were able to ask, they had to
ask themselves, who is actually going to unlock the system
that has locked me out. I am so terribly sad
(38:21):
as somebody who both endorsed Kamala Harris and understands how
dangerous Donald Trump has been even in his first six
months that Donald Trump won that election.
Speaker 10 (38:29):
And at the same time, the question for Democrats.
Speaker 11 (38:32):
Has to be, Okay, so how do we go back
and get the voters we lost?
Speaker 10 (38:37):
I think.
Speaker 11 (38:37):
It starts with being one hundred percent honest about what
happened in twenty twenty four. It starts with being one
hundred percent honest about the ways that we were wrong
on policy issues that are so clear. And it starts
with being one hundred percent honest about what it will
take to stand up to corporate and oligopoly power that
is rendering people's lives unaffordable for us. To me, as
(38:59):
someone who wants to be enitor from Michigan, the question
for me is always what do we do with our
tax dollars? Can we actually rebuild our schools? Can we
provide everybody healthcare? Can we invest in our infrastructure? Can
we make it easier for you to afford your basic needs?
And that means that our money should be spent here,
And it means that we are willing to stand.
Speaker 10 (39:18):
Up the power.
Speaker 11 (39:19):
Whether those powerful people may agree with us on some
issues or they may not. It is about calling it
how you see it, and it is about being willing
to stand up to the powerful who want to enforce
a system that makes you double check or rethink the
reality you see with your own I all right.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Well, we'll follow your race with great interest there. Thank
you for joining us.
Speaker 10 (39:36):
I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.
Ryan and Emily and beyond tomorrow. Thank you Ryan.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
It's great to see you man, and have a great
Counterpoy show tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
See you later Up
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
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Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's get to jerrymandering.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Okay, this is a complicated story, Ryan, You're going to
have to help me out a little bit here.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
All of it kind.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Of starts in Texas, although he can argue about where
and when it doesn't. But that was the more most
the high profile action now so far. Governor Greg Abbott
basically accusing other states of accelerating jerrymandering against Republicans. So
him saying no, then we are going to mid decade
(01:01):
redistrict in our state, which would lead to more Republicans
here's what he had to say.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
These legislators have been both They sought money and they
offered money to skip the vote to leave the legislature
to take a legislative act that would be bribery. And
so the facts will have to come out. But I think,
based upon comments made by legislators themselves, they face a
(01:27):
possibility facing bribery charges, which is a second degree felony
in the state of Texas.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
There's one way to cure that.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
And that is if they get back to the state
of Texas and make quorum today at a hearing that
we have at three o'clock, they can cure themselves of
any quid pro quo that would subject them to potential
bribery charges.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So all of the stems from the fact that the
Texas the Texas Legislative Body, was going to move forward
with these redistricting Democrats didn't have enough votes.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
You lock, it used to be would do it every
ten years, right exactly, Traditionally is done ten years every
time there's a new census, etcetera.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
They're doing a mid level the text.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Democrats didn't have the votes to block it, but they
didn't enough people to deny a quorum so all the state,
all the texts, Democrats left the state. So he's accusing
them of taking bribery for leaving the state and for
being facilitated by JB. Pritzker or whatever from Illinois. Okay,
so that's what happened. So then there is now a threat.
Let's put this up there on the screen. Governor Abbott
says that he will remove from office any Democrat who
(02:24):
quote abandons their duty and refused to show up to
the state capital at on August fourth. He says, I
will use my full extridution authority to demand the return
to Texas of any potential out of state felons.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's how he's referring to here.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Now, all of this, as I said, stems from that
vote in the legislative body where the Texas House actually
locked its doors and then approved the motion to arrest
warrants for Democrats who broke korum.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And here's what happened there.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
For bails, the surge in arms and any officers appointed
by her are directed to send for all absentees whose
attended is not excuse for the purpose of securing and
maintaining their under wards of arrest unnecessary until the word
more Republican House.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So that led then to now the Texas Democrats who
are saying, actually, it's not a felony in the Texas
penal code for leaving the state, that they're making it up,
that they have no legal mechanism, but broadly rhyme, this
is all just about the jerrymandering accusation, which would lead
to some five more seats for Republicans in the state. Now,
(03:37):
why are Republicans and the White House getting involved even
in this? And a lot of this is being directed
at the White House because they have such a narrow
margin in the House of Representatives right now, and Texas
obviously under Republican control especially, they increase their margin in
the state. More recently, they're saying, well, hey, Illinois, Massachusetts,
all these other Democratic states are jerry mander to hell
(03:58):
in top of California, So why can't we just go
ahead and do it with Texas. And by the way,
which we'll get to in a little bit, it's it's
kind of true, all right, I mean to the extent
for jerrymandering and one party control of the state.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But what's your analysis here?
Speaker 6 (04:12):
So it is true in places like Massachusetts, there's basically no,
no Republicans I think statewide, although and then the state
votes maybe sixty five thirty five. Right, So if if
you were going to have representation by portionality, which we
don't have.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
We have single Deal, let's make that very members.
Speaker 6 (04:32):
We don't have that anywhere, then you'd have a couple
of Republicans in Massachusetts, but you would actually have to
jerrymander the heck out of those districts to make sure
that you put all the Republicans in these in these seats.
Like you mentioned the top of the show, I've been
covering this for forever now, and it is it is
a case where just and I'm saying, I'm saying this
(04:54):
objectively speaking, Republicans pushed farther and first on on jerryman
entering where they controlled. Let's take Wisconsin, for instance, which
is a swing state, yet when Republicans took it over
in twenty ten, it jerrymandered it to the point where
they had almost the entire congressional delegation, despite the fact
(05:15):
that you'd often have Democratic senators and governors winning. But
because they were, they first gerrymandered this Missouri and other places.
The first gerrymandered in Michigan the state legislatures, and from there.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
They jerremandered the federal districts.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
Whereas and this was a complaint of Democratic voters that
Democrats wouldn't fight back because they were in thrall to
this idea of good government that because liberals really do
and this is a criticism that the left has of liberals.
Liberals value process like they really want the process to
(05:52):
be clean, whereas the left and the right care more
about the outcomes and power, whereas liberalcy like as long
as it's fair. And so in New York and California
and some other states where Democrats were in control, they
set up these commissions that were designed to try to
take power away from the politicians and put it into
(06:14):
these the kind of non biased commissions that would do
it fairly quote unquote fairly. And so as a result,
you could have had many more Democrats in New York
and California in particular than you had over the years.
And so now there, wellas in Maryland, for instance, they
didn't quite do They didn't do that, like they're like, no,
(06:35):
we're going to see if we can figure out how
to get eight democrats, And now they can't but they're
like at seven to one or thing like that. But
now with Texas pushing the envelope constantly and doing these
redistrictings in the middle of the ten years, which used
to be like a norm that wasn't like whoa, you're
(06:56):
gonna you're going to just bust out every two years
and like redraw just to help yourself a little bit.
And when Texas is an interesting case because not only
do you have the shifting politics of different demographics, like oh, now,
all of a sudden, with all these republic Rats now
they're now they're Republicans, So how do we factor that
(07:16):
into a jerrymander all of these suburbs that are exploding
in Texas? Are these California Republicans that are moving to Texas?
Or are these you know, are these Midwest folks that
are coming down to Texas and they're actually Democrats and
and so there it's it's a harder state to jerrymander,
which is why they're constantly trying to do it, because
as they're getting new data coming in from each election,
(07:39):
and then you have to guess, like, are we going
to have a democratic wave here? Is it going to
be like so it's it's tricky, but they're trying to
do it constantly. And so now and I don't know
if we have this next element up now, California and
New York are like, screw it. If Texas is going
to push this hard, then we're going to respond by
(08:02):
throwing out our.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Our commissions. Yeah we have they yet. Yeah we can
put up New York. Let's go and play D six guys,
just to hear from Kathie.
Speaker 8 (08:12):
Yeah, and I have newsflash for Republicans in Texas. This
is no longer the wild West. We're not going to
tolerate our democracy being stole in a modern day stagecoach
hoist by a bunch of law breaking cowboys. Americans don't
want a system that's stacked against them. They believe in fairness.
It's fundamental rigging. The system is un American. But here
(08:33):
they are flaggerly breaking the rules. They can hold on to.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Power, all right.
Speaker 6 (08:39):
And at one point in that speech where she seems
to be putting on a twang just for the fun
of it, Yeah, she says, I'm sorry to the good
government groups, but politics has to be about politics, and
that is for a lot of Democratic voters refreshing to hear,
because they're they're over the like processed stuff like that.
(09:00):
Now they're in the trenches and they're ready to go
toe to toe over this stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, and Gavin Newsom is joining her. And Gavin he
has issued a very similar threat. Let's take a listen
to that, please, d five.
Speaker 9 (09:11):
If we want to still be in this game, we
need to disabuse ourselves, disenthrall ourselves of the status quo
in the past. We have got to enter a new
mindset and we've got to get back on this playing field,
and we've got to do with the kind of vigor
that our kids and grandkids deserve. That liberty and freedom
deserves this moment, the founding fathers deserve the principles that
(09:33):
I find the best of Roman Republic and Greek democracy
that's on the line unless we stand the line and
stand guard this democracy, and that means we got to
go on offense, no more defense, go on offense, fight
fire with fire. So you asked me, am i in,
I'm all in? You asked me, I'm I'm committed. I'm
(09:55):
all in, committed and resolved.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
He's all in.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Ryan, So Gavin and I mean, look new York California
is two most populous blue states, right, and so they're
obviously in California, the most popular state in the country.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I don't Newsom saying he can.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
He's going to call a special election through the redisteresting
and then it kicks to.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
The voters, so the voters would have to approve it.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
But Newsome and democratic thinking is that as long as
it's if it's framed in fairness and good government terms,
democratic voters in California, as they've shown in the past,
would actually they're against gerrymandering, like as a principal, but
setting the principle aside, if they frame it as this
is a fight against Trump and these bad Texas Republicans,
(10:41):
then it's like a sixty forty issue where California voters
probably do end up then approving it.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Right, So what they have right and so for example,
just so Texas would increase its Republican seats by five, yeah, miraculously,
Gavin's plan would reduce GOP representation from nine to four.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, it's just fun.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And then New York actually, if they join, then they're
going to get a couple out of there. And apparently
the Vice president will be flying to Indiana in the
next two days because Indiana, I think there's one or
two seats that they might be able to go. So
it's a race to the bottom, you know, now in
the whole country, and all of it is about control
of the House of Representatives. Ironically, a lot of this
(11:23):
is Trump's fault because he appointed so many House members
to his and to his government, and so my job margin. Yeah,
the Speaker was like, please stop taking people from the
House because what's the GOP margin.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's a couple of seats.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Now, I mean, it's pretty obvious they're probably going to lose.
So what they're trying to do is at least hang
on to the margin that they might be able to
in some miraculous scenario win.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But I mean broadly, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, it's one of those where it's sad, just
the race to the bottom.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I guess on all of this.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
But in a sense I agree with the right end
the left here and like power is power, right, I mean,
this is what it's all about. It's already like, let's
all stop eluding ourselves that the system is in any
way fair or whatever.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It never has been, in particular in this regard.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I guess the last question I have for you is
how does the court play into any of this?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
How does that work?
Speaker 6 (12:10):
That's going to be interesting, Like does you know you
put this because the Court has a standard? Yeah, put
D seven up there on the screen.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
The Court has thrown out and they have they have
some standards when it comes to Jerrem. Again, I don't
fully understand it. I tried to read into it a
little bit. But they have the ability to throw things
out as a like on the basis of the Voting
Rights Act and more on racial grounds.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
But I'm still not yet clear on what it all means.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
Right, they can't really throw it out based on partisan grounds.
It's more more of the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
You know.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
It would be wild if the Supreme Court came in
and was like, all right, this Texas one is fine,
but not New York California.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, we're gonna we're gonna let Texas.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
Republicans draw those districts, but we're gonna draw California and
New York. That would be just you know, the you know,
full mass, completely off and shredded. I don't expect that
yet because also, it's not like a democratic House of
representatives is not an existential threat to the Supreme Courts
like right wing project right, they can they can swallow that.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And so with these Yeah, so if everyone's doing the math,
then we've got Texas at five for more seats. California
will respond by removing five Republican seats. Indiana is going
to go for one or two. New York he said
three or four. Yeah, so actually, by my count I
think the Dems are up right now. Yeah, so I guess,
you know, we'll see what the other Republican houses and
(13:40):
all that, but yeah, that is.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Our current state of Jerry Manderin.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
You got to be careful because if you it's an
interesting dial if you push too hard and make all
if Republicans make in a democratic year, push a lot
of seats to like fifty two forty eight so that
they can get as many as they really can actually,
then you can actually lose.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Half of that.
Speaker 8 (13:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I was looking recently, for example, at shared Brown is
hiring campaign managers. He's thinking about running in Ohio, and
I was talking with some friends and I was like,
you know, like he's got a good shot, right, I mean,
he ran ahead Trump even though he lost, Like he ran,
We ran pretty close, way ahead of Trump represented the
state for quite a long time. Ohio probably still read state.
(14:21):
I would probably still bet against him. But if it's
a landslide election, a two thousand and eight style a
year mean, remember eight, there were all kinds of Democrats
who had no business Siana, Yeah, exactly one Indiana.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Who was that Tom Perry Ol.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
There were all these Democrats who we were like, how
are you even here?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Like what are you doing here in Washington? You know?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
And they were it was like a two year long project,
but they were still here, right, And in that way,
that's how you got I mean, I'm trying to think.
There were some who were the Democratic senators like Heidi
Hike Camp right, there were people like.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
The Coda Nebraska, right, they had two senators from North Dakota,
two from South Dakota, right, two from Nebraska.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yes, yes, like it's sixty.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
If you have landslide years and it just happens to
align with some like crazy election or whatever, you can
have pretty dramatic results. So that's a very good point
that goop COO would be shooting itself in the foot
if they do draw all these fifty two to forty eights.
That's not hard to lose at all, especially in a
low turnout.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You know, Cress Maag, you've put up some like knuckle
dragon freak.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah right, yeah, you only need who was a guy's
named Todd Aiken, You only needed eight. You only need
an achin or two or Roy Moore. And all of
a sudden, you know you've got some Doug Jones's h
You know in.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
The US, it can happen, has happened before.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Let's get to the next part here, my old friend
Andrew Schultz. Perhaps you know, we're just covering this just broadly.
Some of the podcast guys continue to break here with
Donald Trump. Let's go and put this one up there
on the screen. This is from screenshots from Andrew Schultz's Instagram.
He says, quote, you don't.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Break your word, your word breaks you.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And this is from a Washington Post article from our
friend Jeff Stein and says Trump promised to mandate IVF care.
The White House says there's no plans to do so.
He continues talking about some assistance IVF assistance grants to
a private charity, saying real Donald Trump flip flop once
again on a campaign promise. This was kind of a
core issue hit for him because him and his wife
(16:18):
had fertility struggles, which he talks openly about. He talks
openly about in his special which everybody can go watch.
But this was a good peg just to act the
actual announcement. Let's go here from Jeff Stein, who followed
up on this in an excellent story over at the
Washington Post, it says the White House does not plan
(16:38):
to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro
fertilization services to people with knowledge of the internal discussion said,
even though the idea was one of Donald Trump's key
campaign pledges last year. He said, if he returned office,
the government would either pay for IVF or issue rules
requiring insurance companies to cover treatment for it. Pledge came
as Trump faced political blowback over the abortion issue. Quote,
(17:01):
the government is going to pay for it, or we're
going to get it, will mandate your insurance company to
pay for it, which is going to be great. We're
going to do that, he said in August of twenty
twenty four. We want to produce more babies in this country, right,
And if you continue to look here, you know kind
of broadly within all of this is that you actually
had a kind of silent move against IVF by a
(17:23):
lot of the most pro life elements. So, for example,
Katie Britt, the Senator from Alabama, just last year introduced
legislation to withhold medicaid funding to bar to any state
that bars IVF after that Alabama law, But nobody has
actually introduced legislation for IVF that has any sizable constituency
(17:44):
in the Senate. And in fact, they're pointing instead to
some of the other things that they had in the
big Beautiful Bill for why it will be pro natalists
while walking away from the IVF promise. So, I mean,
that is one I don't know. I'm trying to for Andrew. Obviously,
it's very personal issues, so that's part of the reason
he's speaking out against it. But I can't help but
think that that moderation from Trump did play some role
(18:07):
in him allowing him to win the popular vote on
the even after a midterm election which had abortion was
a massive issue.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Massive issue.
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Yes, And if the context was that you mentioned this
Alabama Supreme Court ruling, that was just absolutely bananas saying.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
You know that basically was shutting.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Down IVF treatment in Alabama by saying that, you know,
every frozen embryo represented some you know, first degree murderer
of a person. And so Republicans were on their heels there,
and Trump responded by saying, He's going to be the
most pro IVF president in history, and in fact, it's
(18:47):
going to be IVF for all, free IVF for everybody.
And the it's it's now if it wasn't obvious at
the time exposed, it's just ruthlessly cynical. Just just to
comple lie that he told to get over a political
what he saw as a political speed bump, he just
hit the gas boom, drove right over it, without any
(19:11):
concern for what that did to raise the hopes of
people who like for for those who are trying to
conceive and can't.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
It's a it's it's it's an existential thing.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
It's it's spiritually debilitating month after month to go through that,
and then you layer on top of that the prohibitive
costs of it, on top of the like spiritual emotional
turmoil that it that it takes, uh and the toll
that it takes, and then to then just say, actually,
never mind, right, you.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Thought it was serious.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
See that's why I think in a in a way
it actually is important at a cultural level, because if
it's just same old bas you know, new boss, same
as the old boss, that's not good. The old boss
was not popular for Republicans. Trump's political strength was being
a quote moderating influence or appearing moderating to a lot
(20:04):
of people who are low information voters, who are like, yeah,
he was responsible for abortion, but he doesn't read to
me like a Christian, evangelical or any of these said
he wants free IVF. That sounds pretty good to me, right,
And so then to explicitly the White House now coming
out and saying, well, actually, we have no plans to
require anybody to do it. It would probably require legislation,
(20:25):
or at the very least they could try and do
it through executive order and quietly kind of just let
it drift away. I do think it's a problem, especially
in ironic right, whenever you have an administration which is
talking about like, oh, we need more babies, we need
to increase fertility, and then the only example now so
far are these Trump baby which, by the way, my
child is eligible for. So I'm gonna set mine up
(20:45):
soon my Trump account. Thank you, President Trump for the
one thousand US dollars. It appears that it will compound
to a whopping three thousand, three hundred if I invested
in the S and P five hundred, So you can
use it to I mean within inflation book, Yeah, with inflation,
you know, by a science text book, you know, for college.
(21:05):
I'll take free money, all right, everybody should. But you know,
not exactly game changing in terms of having.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
A child or any that is. It belongs to the child.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
It's not like it covers healthcare costs or any of that.
And what's interesting in the story that Jeff points about
is that under the Obamacare exchanges, which cover some fifty
million Americans, including yours, truly they have the ability through
rules to enforce different things that they can and cannot cover.
My guess, Ryan is that they most likely, because they're
(21:36):
still committed to a lot of this free market bullshit,
is that they realize how much of them increase it
would cause in premiums. And also, as you and I
know at the same time that this is all having
a discussion, in double digit premium hikes are currently expected
for a lot of the Obamacare exchange sometime in the
next two years because of the stripping of subsidies. Yeah, so,
(21:58):
I mean that's kind of the news broadly for the
IVF healthcare conversation. But I mean, listen, I guess it'll
just continue to summer underneath until anybody does anything about it. Currently,
they're far focused on pharmaceuticals, sending demand letters to Swiss
companies you must lower your drug prices or something like that,
and it's like, okay, well, easier way is to force medicare, right,
(22:18):
you know, to just say hey, this is what we're
going to pay for your drugs.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Take it or leave it, you know, screw off. But
apparently that's not what they want to do, right, Well,
it ain't free to occupy Gaza. Oh right, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We can't forward to do everything. That's what we need
to raise all of our money for. It makes a
lot of sense.
Speaker 10 (22:32):
All right.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
We've got abdual l Siad standing by. Let's get to it.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
Joining us now is doctor Abdul Elsaiad, doctor from Michigan
and former gubernatorial candidate. He's now running in the Senate
Democratic primary in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Abdul thanks so much for joining us. Good to see you.
Speaker 10 (22:54):
It's always a privilege to be with you, guys. Thank
you for having me.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
And so I covered your race back in twenty eighteen.
I remember this one dearly. This was you had this
bizarre case of shere thriving. I forget his last name.
He's now a member of Congress. We can talk to him,
talk about him in a moment. Was a front runner
in the in the race until he completely fell apart,
(23:17):
exposed basically for fraud. And Gretchen Whitmer and you were
then the kind of remaining viable candidates, and she ends
up winning the race, becoming Michigan governor. Now kicked around
as this national figure. You're coming back in a bid
for Senate. What are the differences that you've seen on
(23:38):
the ground in you know, this cycle versus twenty eighteen,
and you know what makes it plausible for you this time?
Speaker 11 (23:46):
Yeah, Ryan, I appreciate you covering the race then, and
it's great to talk to you again.
Speaker 10 (23:49):
Now.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
I said something at the time that I think in
the zeitgeist folks weren't quite ready to hear, which is
that Donald Trump himself is not the disease in our politics.
He's just the symptom of the disease, and the disease
is a system by which corporations and billionaires and would
be oligarchs can buy politicians buy access to regulation that
they basically roll back in ways that empower huge corporations
(24:13):
in our lives so that they can suppress the wages
we earn and charge us more for the things that
we have to buy from them. And I think eight
years on, people are a lot more willing to see that,
both because Trump got re elected, so we dealt with
the symptom, but it came back roaring because we never
dealt with the disease, and also because things have just
gotten harder for people, whether it is inflation, whether it
(24:35):
is the fact that the economy has made it so
that the job you worked yesterday is just less secure
for you tomorrow, whether it's the impossibility of ever imagining
you could buy a home if you're under the age
of thirty five, or how hard it's been to stay
in your home if you're over the age of sixty five.
It's the incredible medical debt that people have accrued to
ONO hundred and twenty five billion dollars, which is more
than the GDP of the majority of US states. All
(24:57):
of that has just made it harder to get buy
I've been to forty some different cities across my state,
and no matter where I go, people just tell me, look,
it just shouldn't be this hard, and I agree, which
is why I'm running.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
So, doctor, I have a question for you about your
potential role if you were to win the primary and
to get elected. We had potential future colleague on Alyssa
Slotkin here on our show, and she would not commit
to new leadership in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I know you've spoken about that with Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So give us an idea of the type of candidates
that you would support for Democratic leader and why you
think that's important.
Speaker 11 (25:32):
I've got a clear set of things that i want
to accomplish for michiganers and for the American public. The
first is I want money, particularly corporate money, in special
interest money out of politics. The second is I want
to put more money in people's pockets by standing up
to big corporations and trusts, making it easier to build
and scale a small business, make it easier to join
and form a union. And I want to pass Medicare
for all and whoever it is who's given me the
(25:54):
best commitment to standing for those causes and giving us
the best chance at passing that legislation to earn my vote. Look,
I've got a lot of questions about current leadership, but
I'm not willing to tell you I'm going this way
or the other without knowing who my options are, because
if they give me John Fetterman, I'm certainly not.
Speaker 10 (26:09):
Voting for him.
Speaker 11 (26:10):
So all of that is to say that I'm going
to vote my conscience based on what I'm seeing. The
last point here that I also have to call out
is the fact we've got to be honest about how
we are misappropriating our money abroad, sending blank checks to
fund genocides abroad, when we've got hungry kids here at
home who deserve so much more and so much better.
So rather than starving kids abroad, I want to feed
(26:31):
our starving kids here at home. And so I'm going
to support leadership that understands that, that has the moral
clarity on those issues. And I'm going to make a
choice between the options that I've got for folks who
are vying for that leadership.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
I want to briefly play a clip from Corey Booker
speaking about Zora, Mom, Donnie, because I think that his
race in New York plays an interesting role in this
Michigan race, and I'll ask about it first.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Let's roll this Booker clip f one, Mom and Donnie,
Are you going to support him?
Speaker 5 (26:59):
I have learned a long time ago. Let New York
politics be New York politics. We got enough challenges in Jersey.
I got a governor's race. I'm supporting Mikey Cheryl, I
got legislative races. That's where my energy is going to go.
Going to November New York City. I love you. You're
my neighbor. You're about ten miles from where I live.
You guys figure out your elections. I'm going to folks
on mine.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
I mean. Normally a Democratic politician asked about the Democratic
nominee next door, he says, yeah, of course I support
the Democratic nominee. Keem Jeffries has declined to do so,
Chuck Schumer, tons of other you know, top Democrats have
declined to do so. When I watch you campaigning out
in Michigan, not only on the substance of your of
your campaign, but also on the style of it, it
(27:42):
feels similar like you know, you're out there on TikTok
and Instagram, you quick kind of some quick quick cut edits,
you know, talking to people on the ground. You know, Mom, Donnie,
you know, we kind of launched his campaign just talking
to people for several months asking them, you know, why
did you vote for Donald Trump?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
For insis?
Speaker 6 (28:01):
What was it that made you do that when you
hadn't voted for him in the past. So, how has
how do you see yourself in relation to mom done?
And howe has his victory kind of influenced the Michigan race.
Speaker 11 (28:16):
Roan, let me give you a perspective from on the
ground in Michigan, because I've been to forty plus different
cities now, done over one hundred events in our state,
and everywhere I go, it's this fascinating thing because when
I talked to Democrats over the age of fifty, they're
astounded that they see democrats under the age of fifty
at my events.
Speaker 10 (28:35):
And they're always like, how'd you do it? How'd you
get the young people out?
Speaker 11 (28:37):
And I'm like, well, I'm talking about the issues that
young people are facing, in the language that young people
are using, about what they'd like to see as solutions.
I'm talking about things like Medicare for all, I'm talking
about housing affordability, I'm talking about AI coming for their
jobs in ways that could indelibly change our economy because
of the weird incentives we've created around the system, because
(28:58):
again it's driven by greed and corporate profits. And so yeah,
they're coming because they see themselves in our political movement.
And one of the interesting things that I think all
Democrats should be paying attention to is we've lost young people.
It's been a slow trickle, and now it's almost like
a breaking of a damn when you look at twenty
twenty four. So we probably want to pay attention to
elections where young people turned out. And the most interesting
(29:19):
thing about that New York Democratic primary is that there
was an inversion of the usual demographics of the race.
You saw young people coming out and voting at higher
rates than their elders. That doesn't usually happen in our politics,
particularly in Democratic primary. So I would imagine that any
Democrat who's committed to the future of the party would
be committed to those people who are literally have the
(29:42):
highest stake in that future, who are young people and
would want to learn a thing or two or get
behind a movement that is including those young people in
our politics. We're doing that here. We learned a lot
from how they did that in New York. And if
young people don't turn out for what you're talking about,
you really really need to think about the sustainability of
what you're building.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Doctor, do you want to win this race? You're going
to have to win a state where.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Donald Trump won by some one point four percent in
twenty twenty four. What's your diagnosis of what the Democrats
did wrong in twenty twenty four to lose to Donald Trump.
Speaker 11 (30:12):
Look, I'm really thinking about the lessons we can learn,
and I think the challenge that we've had too often
is that Democrats haven't been willing to actually go out
and talk about the issues that people are facing. I
think we tend to think about these elections in terms
of left and right, but that's frankly a manufactured lens
for the consumption of people who think about politics as
(30:33):
a hobby. I don't think about left and right, and
I don't think most voters think about left and right.
I think about whether or not our politics service the
people who've been locked out of the system, or they
service the people who have locked them out, and I
think what they're seeing in our movement and the reason
we're getting such a diverse grouping of people, people who
voted for Donald Trump and people who have never voted
in their lives at our events is because we're talking
(30:55):
to the people who have been locked out in language
that critiques and identify why they've been locked out and
what it means to build a system where they are
also included.
Speaker 10 (31:05):
If we're able to do that, I think we can win.
Speaker 11 (31:07):
And I hate to say it, Democrats too often have
costplayed the folks who have locked people out. They assiduously
avoid issues that are really important to everyday people but
are uncomfortable to talk about.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
And I hate to say it.
Speaker 11 (31:18):
When it comes to Donald Trump, he's usually pretty good
at just saying what comes to his mind. However insane
and driven by his narcissism that it is. But it
doesn't feel like he's trying to lock you out of something,
even though his politics have done exactly that, and his
policies have been terrible for a lot of these folks
who have been locked out.
Speaker 10 (31:34):
So we've got to go where people are.
Speaker 11 (31:35):
We've got to speak in language that addresses the challenges
that they face. They have to see themselves as part
of our movement, and if we do that, we win,
and more importantly, we can win the future of our politics,
giving people more health care rather than taking away, making
sure that the rich the ultra rich pay their fair share,
rather than being in a situation where they are keeping
more and more of the value that's created by everyday
(31:58):
folks who just want to be able to get by.
Speaker 6 (32:00):
So, there haven't been many polls in your race, but
the ones that have been conducted seem to have you
and Congresswoman Haley Stevens kind of neck and neck. And
then you've got state Senator I think, former Media Matters person, who's.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Down at maybe ten or eleven percent.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
Stevens had the support of a strong support of APAK
an enormous amount of money in our last race to
beat a Democrat to get back into Congress. What is
your plan if major APAC money comes into Michigan heading
into the primary.
Speaker 10 (32:36):
So I'll say a couple of things about this.
Speaker 11 (32:38):
First and foremost, I've been clear and I'm not afraid
of APAC because to me, my moral integrity means everything.
And I think any Democrat today should agree that MAGA
billionaire money flooding democratic primaries should not be what dictates
who comes out of democratic primaries. I want that to
be something that everybody agrees to. Now I know that
others are probably not, but also say this that on
(33:00):
the merits of the issue, we have been watching as
our taxpayer dollars have been subsidizing a genocide perpetrated by
the most extreme element of another country who's received blank
checks from US for a very long time. I think
people look at their kids' schools, they look at their
healthcare centers, they look at their infrastructure, and they ask,
(33:22):
why are we sending money over there to bomb out
other people's infrastructures in their schools and kill their kids
when we could be invested in our own children here
at home.
Speaker 10 (33:32):
And there's something.
Speaker 11 (33:33):
About the obvious nature of what is being done over
there that I think a lot of Democrats ought to
pay attention to, because here's the thing about it. If
you're not willing to see truth for truth and address
and ask questions about the enforced language that MAGA billionaires
try and enforce on the Democratic Party, then when you
(33:53):
walk around saying that you're going to stand up to
corporations and billionaires to make people's lives more to affordable
people kind of question whether or not you actually have
the fortitude or the moral clarity to do either of
those things. And so I'm willing to go toe to
toe on this question because I think it's right. And
I'm also willing to go toe to toe on this
question because it demonstrates that I don't back down to anybody,
(34:14):
whether it's MAGA billionaires funding their money through APAC on
this question, or its corporations like pharmaceuticals or insurance companies
who want to tell us that we cannot actually have
guaranteed health care in America. Those questions are one and
the same, and I think we win on the courage
of our convictions by stating our values clearly and having
conversations with people in their VFW halls, their town halls,
(34:35):
their living rooms about what we aim to do.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
But Doctor, does that include your fellow Democrats. I mean,
you can call it MAGA billionaires. I don't think that's
necessarily incorrect. There's a lot of Democrats out there WHOAYPAC recipients.
In fact, some of them are in Israel right now
on an APAC funded trip. Your potential future colleague, Lissa
Slackin was on his show, refused to say the word genocide,
waffled a little bit on offensive weapons.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Who actually attended Colbert.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Some of this is going to be uncomfortable to require
you taking on people in your own party, something that
you're willing to do if you're elected.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
I mean, I've been willing to do it from day one.
Speaker 11 (35:05):
To me, it is about what we do to deliver
for the people in our state, how we're able to
address the fact that their groceries are too expensive, their
healthcare has become unaffordable. It's a principal cause of debt
in this country about how we're willing to stand up
to the corporations who have rigged our system, and yes,
the special interest who have rigged our system. I'm willing
to stand up to anybody and everybody, and I have
(35:27):
taken on my own party on this issue. I'm also
glad to see that more of my party is starting
to find moral clarity on this. But I want to
ask us all a big question here. Imagine, rather than
in the summer of twenty twenty five, all of us
were faced with these images of children whose ribs you
could see through their skin and had to confront the
(35:47):
reality that we were subsidizing a genocide. Imagine, instead of
having that moral clarity in the summer of twenty twenty five,
we had that moral clarity in the summer of twenty
twenty four. Maybe we would never be in a situation
where an extra ten thousand, tens of thousands.
Speaker 10 (36:02):
Of innocent people were killed.
Speaker 11 (36:04):
We wouldn't be watching as food was used as a
weapon of war, and maybe, just maybe, the clarity on
this issue might have changed the outcome of the twenty
twenty four election. Look, I endorse Kamala Harris because I
knew that Donald Trump would be worse whether you're talking
from the eyes of a child in Detroit or the
eyes of a child in Gaza. But it was so
frustrating to watch our party fail to take on the
(36:25):
obvious issue of a genocide. And I am hoping that
we are learning from this mistake and that we are
willing to become the party of peace again, because look,
my second presidential election was I got to vote for
a guy named brock Usain Obama who bucked his party
on the issue of war in Iraq.
Speaker 10 (36:40):
I think Democrats want peace.
Speaker 11 (36:42):
I think Democrats want to be on the right side
of history, and I know the Democrats that I'm talking
to every day they want that desperately.
Speaker 10 (36:48):
And that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 11 (36:49):
And I think we're going to win a race because
we're willing to have the moral clarity, whether it is
against the pharmaceutical corporations who are raising people's drug prices,
or it's against the subsidies toward a genocide in God.
Speaker 6 (37:00):
Last question for me, why do you think Trump won
the state of Michigan And what role do you think
the genocide did actually play in the final outcome, and hey,
particular the Democratic support for it.
Speaker 11 (37:13):
Look, I hate to say it, because it is about
moral clarity.
Speaker 10 (37:18):
It is about integrity.
Speaker 11 (37:19):
It is about strength for us to say that we're
going to stand up to corporate power, or we're going
to stand up to lobbyists, or we're going to stand
up to the oligarchs who are rigging and dominating our system.
You've got to show that you can both see what
the problem is and that you're willing to have the
strength to take it on. But if you can't see
a genocide being perpetrated and you don't have the strength
(37:40):
to take it on. It forces his people to ask
whether or not you actually have the strength to take
on all of the folks who have been rigging the
system in ways that have made our lives more affordable.
So I do think it played a really important role,
and it certainly played an important role here in Michigan.
But I think Donald Trump won via a combination of things.
I think our party wasn't willing to face up to
the fact that for far too long we didn't have
(38:01):
a nominee who could withstand the role of the office.
Is handling of gaz that demonstrated that. I think we
weren't able to mount a campaign that was true and
honest to our convictions. And I think for a lot
of people they were able to ask, they had to
ask themselves, who is actually going to unlock the system
that has locked me out. I am so terribly sad
(38:21):
as somebody who both endorsed Kamala Harris and understands how
dangerous Donald Trump has been even in his first six
months that Donald Trump won that election.
Speaker 10 (38:29):
And at the same time, the question for Democrats.
Speaker 11 (38:32):
Has to be, Okay, so how do we go back
and get the voters we lost?
Speaker 10 (38:37):
I think.
Speaker 11 (38:37):
It starts with being one hundred percent honest about what
happened in twenty twenty four. It starts with being one
hundred percent honest about the ways that we were wrong
on policy issues that are so clear. And it starts
with being one hundred percent honest about what it will
take to stand up to corporate and oligopoly power that
is rendering people's lives unaffordable for us. To me, as
(38:59):
someone who wants to be enitor from Michigan, the question
for me is always what do we do with our
tax dollars? Can we actually rebuild our schools? Can we
provide everybody healthcare? Can we invest in our infrastructure? Can
we make it easier for you to afford your basic needs?
And that means that our money should be spent here,
And it means that we are willing to stand.
Speaker 10 (39:18):
Up the power.
Speaker 11 (39:19):
Whether those powerful people may agree with us on some
issues or they may not. It is about calling it
how you see it, and it is about being willing
to stand up to the powerful who want to enforce
a system that makes you double check or rethink the
reality you see with your own I all right.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Well, we'll follow your race with great interest there. Thank
you for joining us.
Speaker 10 (39:36):
I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.
Ryan and Emily and beyond tomorrow. Thank you Ryan.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
It's great to see you man, and have a great
Counterpoy show tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
See you later Up
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