The Real Reason Democrats Caved

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native LAMPID is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Reason Choice Media.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome home, y'all.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is episode one hundred and five of Native LAMPI,
where we give you our breakdown of all things politics
and culture.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
We are your host.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross, Andrew Gillim and Bacari Sellers,
the non Beyonce of the group.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Let's start Let's start over. I don't want to do
this in posts, but I think I should be. I
don't know why I mentioned last, but keep.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Going, Sellers and the show continues.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
So anyway, we are here to talk to you all
about all the things that are happening right now.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Shameless plug really quick.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I did an episode with Kamala Harris on election Night
live in Seattle, Washington from Benner Royal Hall. That episode
is now up. We hope you all will check it
out and let us know what you think. But y'all,
what are we getting into today?

Speaker 4 (00:55):
What aren't we getting into? How about this? How about
this negotiation in Washington, d C. Around the opening of
the government. Who won, who lost? Who didn't? Where we at?
I'm interested?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I agree, Andrew, I'm right there with you Bacari tip
what y'all got?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Go ahead?

Speaker 5 (01:15):
No, I've learned I heard in the intro. Is not
gonna last.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for thank you for
giving me my due respect.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Lady, he'll get it tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Keep going, go ahead, Tim, No, well.

Speaker 5 (01:33):
No, lady, first you talking about you anyway, I'm gonna
have y'all about me.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
She was a bad first.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Quickly alone.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
I'm sorry, mama, mississ Sella's I'm sorry to have to
use this using this language. There's a lot going on.
I mean, first of all, to piggyback on Andrew's point,
we're going to get into all of those things. But
then the pinky promus with the ACA vote that came
up on Tammy Ballin's piece of legislation, and they've been
giving out Michelin stars. I saw a little report recently

(02:06):
at a strip club in Charlotte, got a ordered a
Michelin star. I'm checking the veracity of that, and by
checking it meaning I'm gonna go in and see if
the Michelin start about food is working. Listen, people gotta
make this topic. People gotta you know, it's hard out here, man.
They might get their money and so I want to
make sure I'm contributing in the community.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
I look forward to that report.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Thank you, I got you, gotcha, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Please bring evidence, lady.

Speaker 5 (02:31):
You know, I'm really excited to hear from our viewers
every week. I really appreciate people taking time to get
on camera and sending us videos, comments, questions, all of that.
So I'm excited to hear what you all have to
say about this week, and I'm excited for me and
the co host to win. And lastly, we have a
conversation about Donald Trump rigging the twenty twenty six elections

(02:53):
that has been talked about on this show at nauseum.
We even have questioned whether or not we should be
telling y'all how many days are.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Left until the election.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Joining us for that really important conversation is Ari Berman,
an incredible author and a journalist at Mother Jones who
wrote a piece on what Donald Trump will do to
rig the twenty twenty six elections.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Let's get into it, y'all.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
All right, this fight for us is not partisan. It's
not a partisan fight. It's a patriotic fight. We're waging
this fight on behalf of the American people. The five
states that are most impacted by a failure to extend
the Affordable Care Act tax credits are West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, Mississippi,

(03:38):
and Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Forty five percent of the people.

Speaker 6 (03:43):
Of the Americans who are going to lose healthcare or
be at risk of losing health care if they don't
on the other side of the out extend the Affordable
Care Act tax credits. Forty five percent of them are
registered Republicans, thirty five percent registered Democrats, and twenty percent

(04:05):
unaffiliated are independent. This is not a partisan fight for us.
It's a patriotic fight, okay, everyone.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So we are just on the other side of the
longest shut down in government history forty one days, and
the Democrats on the Senate side are being told that
they caved, that they folded, and are being called losers
frankly by a lot of folks throughout this country. But
there are other folks who have also been talked about
as being losers, Republicans certainly government workers, the folks who

(04:36):
lost out their snap benefits, so literally losing, and then
all of the folks who would be covered by the
Affordable Care Act, that is the whole of America also
losing here, So I wanted to have a conversation with
my colleagues about who they think the biggest loser is
of the government shut down. So, if we were doing
a rapid round, really quick, what do y'all think, who
is the biggest loser?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Andrew the American people, American people, Tiff.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
I'll be quick, But to put it in context of
political terms of Republicans versus Democrats, I think it's so
disrespectful to the actual losers. And that's to everyday people
who are impacted by this show.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
She said, all I have to say just what we said.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
A lot of people saying like what does this mean
for Democrats? And what does this mean for the path forward?
And it's like, I'm thinking about people who ain't got
food to eat and who backed up name mortgage, Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
We were just trying to do a rapp and I
was gonna be honest with y'all. It is for social
We'll do what we can with the clue. What I
will say here, too, is I actually think the biggest
losers here are all of the staffers who worked hard
on an issue and did not get to see the
what a win might be looked like. And I think
that folks deserve that, So let's get into this conversation.

(05:50):
I know that there's a lot behind those short answers.
Bacari already has his hands up because he thinks he's
at school. That's what happens when you bring toddlers to
your podcast platform.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
For and Ma, car, what do he have?

Speaker 3 (06:01):
No, I just watched Andrew struggle long enough to get
a question out, So that that was me. I'm using
the tools.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
I've been watching a different a different different tax.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
I think I just have a question for you all,
which is what did Democrats do it for?

Speaker 5 (06:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
You want us to answer?

Speaker 3 (06:23):
No? No, that was that was I mean, if in fact,
you have ten people under the cover of dark or
eight people under the cover of darkness who vote to
in the shutdown, what were the last sixty forty days for?

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Like?

Speaker 3 (06:37):
What what what was it about? I know what we
said it's about, but what what what do we what's gained?
What was gained?

Speaker 5 (06:43):
Well, well, I think those are two different questions. What
was gained obviously you know nothing from my perspective. I mean,
they weren't ready for this game and it was such
a disappointment. But what it was about's healthcare? Which is
a really big deal.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
For years, for.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
Some strange reason, the GOP has had such a heart
on for repealing the Affordable Care Act a ACA. And
more than twenty four million people depend on this, and
so we're going to see it's not just majorities, but
vast majorities who are facing their healthcare premiums going up
by more than one hundred and fourteen percent. So people

(07:21):
are going to be questioning, do I go to the
grocery store, do I go see the doctor. Republicans, you know,
control both the chambers. They control the House, in the
upper chamber in the Senate, and so Democrats had for
the first time some negotiating power. And so you know,
the Kansas are the KFF. They have an analysis out

(07:43):
about the average cost of what people are going to
be paying for health care. It can go up to
more than one thousand dollars for some people. So imagine
for some people this might be an inconvenience, but if
you have a life threatening illness and you're depending on this.
This is why I think we have to draw the
distinction between structural violence, institutional violence, and physical violence. And
right now all of these things are being rained down

(08:05):
upon us by the federal government. So I don't want
to dismiss the efforts of the Democrats and trying to
hold the line for healthcare. Sadly though, I think they
brought a knife to a gunfight. You know, they were
too eager to capitulate, and they weren't really ready for this.
They could have had kids out there, like, get real
live people out there. Get an eight year old standing
in front of a camera saying, Donald Trump, I don't

(08:27):
have anything to eat because you know, snap didn't come
this month. Get somebody sick on camera saying, you know,
I don't know if I'm going to be able to
live beyond next year, to even vote in twenty twenty
six because this president Donald Trump is threatening to take
away my health care. And I just I feel like
they were not ready for the moment, and it is
such a colossal disappointment to so many people because they

(08:47):
ask us to fight every year, They ask us to
show up and vote every year, and when it's time
to show up for us, the rising majority, the base
for Democrat voters, they don't do it. So I definitely
understand the frustration all around, and appreciate and understand the
frustration in your question.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
So I offer a thought on a few thoughts on
what I think they did it for, and we can
each check the box or not as to whether or
not it was accomplished. One, I think they needed to fight.
At the point that they declared that they were going
to deny the Republicans culture the sixty votes that they

(09:24):
needed in the US Senate, they basically laid down to
the gland said we're prepared to fight. And I got
to tell you, given the members of the Democratic Caucus
and the US Senate, they ranged from everything from Republican
light to the left of the left of the left,
liberal socialists in the case of Bernie Sanders, who's an

(09:45):
independent but caucuses with the Democrats. So the fact that
the leader was able to hold together people who cannot
stomach a shutdown. I mean, there are members of the
Democratic Caucus who have decried using the shutdown as a
way to make up political point and would never have
never before been in favor of it. Who Chuck Schumer
got to stick with him for forty days. And I

(10:07):
think the American people needed to see Democrats do something
to show that they had a fight to them. And
I think in the moment that that happened. You saw
a lot, You saw a lot of people stand up,
speak out from everyday people who, quite frankly, I think
inspired this shutdown. The people who were showing up at
these protests on the streets, who were chasing down ice,

(10:30):
trying to say, get out of our neighborhood, so on
and so forth. I think they inspired much of what
the members of the elected US Senate did so, and
I think that they were successful in bringing a fight
number two. I'm not sure that the previous the elections
of a week ago would have been as successful across

(10:52):
the board for Democratic candidates as they were at every
level of government, from dogcatcher to governor of the of
a state. And not only did Democrats win in many
of those places, and many of those places they thumped
the Republicans. I mean rounded lapse races that were supposed
to be too close to call or down to the

(11:13):
last minute, got called an hour after the polls closed.
And in the cases of the two governors I'm sorry,
the governor of New Jersey and of Virginia, they got
double digit leads on their opponents when they were not
expected to. I think that the shutdown the energy around.
The pushback in the fight helped to inspire people to

(11:35):
go to the wall and go to the mat for
their elected leadership that they saw was going to the
mat for them. And I think, I think, I think, finally,
I would say the ending of the fight was one
that could have easily been anticipated by all of us.

(11:57):
You took a caucus who is already reticent to use
the shutdown as a political cudgel to move public policy.
You had a caucus that did not appear fractured up
until the point that they started to negotiate to open
the government again. Aside from that, none of us would
have been able to name one Senator who was trying

(12:18):
to shut the open the government up against the caucus's wishes.
They pretty much stuck together until after the elections, when
when when they when they couldn't stomach it anymore. But
the reason why I say all of us could have
predicted the end of this and quite the way that
it ended, is one no one has ever extracted major
public policy concessions from a shutdown, not Republicans and not
Democrats over our history. Two of the two party system.

(12:43):
Democrats were always going to be the ones who could
never stomach, a president using children, using the employment of
federal workers, using withholding food to families as a weapon
against their opponent. We never anticipated a president would be
willing to go so far against the American people to

(13:04):
prove his political point. But this president was, and we
know him to be almost diabolical and in formation. So
when you compare the two Democrats were always gonna be
the ones who had a heart for people. They were
always going to be the ones who buckled under the
pressure to not see people suffer. And if you're at
a negotiating table, you'll choose to diabolical one as the

(13:25):
one who will be the last to fold every single time.
Could we have gotten more with longer? I do think
that there could have been more extracted here, But but
I always felt it would end. I don't think they
begin with an end in mind. I think they began
with a fight in mind, and the end would reveal
itself over time. And what they decided was after we

(13:47):
thumped folks on election day, that presented the opportunity to
make this a keystone issue going into the next year's elections,
and it was there. It was their opportunity for an out.
That's my guess I think.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
There are a few things.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
One is I'm also frustrated with what appears to be
the lack of strategy around this particular fight. Andrew, I
completely agree with you that we never anticipated, and I'm
saying we, I'm talking about the whole of the American
people never anticipated having someone like this in the White House.
But we knew with Project twenty twenty five. We knew
with Doge, we knew with the last shutdown from his

(14:27):
last administration. We knew from the last administration we were dealing with.
The last shutdown that was thirty five days long, I
believe was over whether or not we were going to
pay for a border wall.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
So I want to be very clear about the fact
that we knew who the opponent was. The Senate Democrats
knew who the opponent was and still did not go
to the battle with the right tools. I think the
biggest issue here to your point about what they could stomach,
is you have people who are watching folks lose their
snap benefits, who are watching folks suffer with healthcare premium

(15:00):
coming out saying that they're gonna soar. They want to
make sure if people can survive, you know, a serious
health crisis and just you know, engage in practices to
prevent a crisis. But the reality of it is is
they went and said we're going to hold the line.
But they were also errant and I think lacking in

(15:21):
compassion when they didn't consider who was on the front line.
The people on the front line were those children. The
people on the front line were the TSA workers. And
I'm not talking about the folks who make six figures
or above in the federal government who said we want
you to hold the line. I'm talking about the folks
that are members of AFG right, the Medican American Federation
of Government Employees, those who said we want you to

(15:42):
reopen the government because we need our paychecks. And I'm
just saying, when you don't consider the front line in
holding the line, you are always going to lose because
who's fighting for you at that point? That is where
I think the biggest failure was. And it tells us
that many, not just not just the folks who are
inn elected office, but we should expect this of our

(16:03):
elected officials are still not clear about what it is
going to take to adequately combat the enemy.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
What do I mean by that? I mean, they are fighting.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yester year's fight with yesteryear's tools. That is not going
to work. They are showing you that they are ready
and primed and poised and it conditioned even right to
be a resistance party. They are not poised, ready, or
prepared to be an opposition. An opposition party would have
shut the government down or worked, you know, to oppose

(16:35):
the government reopening. Really with fourteen votes in in County
and said, we need to make sure that we have
a snap mutual aid fund. We need to ensure that
we have a fund for people to pull from if
they're not getting their paychecks, for housing, for all of
these other things. None of that was set up. They
have campaign coffers, some of them where they could have
afforded to make donations to nonprofits to keep these people going.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
That was not done.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
It wasn't even considered based on the people I talked to,
So I just I don't know what they would have expected, right, Like,
you're not going to win a long term fight and
these people don't give a damn.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
You're hoping to pierce the consciences of folks who don't
no longer have them.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Yeah, but kay, what's your thought?

Speaker 3 (17:20):
No, I think that from everything that I've seen, I
think that Andrew you did hit something, and I think
that the largest success was elevating the issue of healthcare
to the forefront of individual's minds. Again, we saw on
Tuesday that the number one issue that people faced was
the economy, in number two was healthcare, and it seems

(17:41):
as if in number three was a distant immigration. It
seems as if Democrats are finally able to hone in
on the message surrounding healthcare. Republicans own all those healthcare
premiums rising, There's not a fix for it. Those costs
are going to go up, and Democrats own the issue
of affordability. Because I see this White House acting a

(18:04):
lot like the Joe Biden White House when it came
to issues such as immigration and crime, where Joe Biden
and I was guilty of this as well, simply wanted
it was. We would cite statistics when people were saying
that they felt something, that they saw something safe, and
we would be like, yeah, nah, but the crime rate,
filing crime rate gone down x y z, and people

(18:25):
were like, nah, that shit, I still don't feel safe.
And so you see that, you see the Trump White
House doing something similar with affordability. So Democrats are winning
those two issues. The problem that Angela eloquently and passionately
hit on is that when we got out of the game,
uh you know this week, when we shut the we

(18:46):
we shut at the doors, we did so without a
messaging apparatus. And so now you depressed your base, which
was so excited, and now your base is like, what
what what? What happened? Why nobody told us we were
going to do this. I mean, if you go out
in front of a camera, or you go to a
city and you're talking to people about there's too much
pain in the streets, Democrats are going to be the

(19:08):
adults in the room, and we're going to keep up
this fight for health care, but we're going to reopen
the government because this pain has gotten unbearable for our constituents.
We're going to continue to fight. Then, maybe you don't
have people out here who are struggling to comprehend the
reason why. I mean, I think the four of us
get the reason why. We understand the intricacies. We understand

(19:30):
the ups and downs and all arounds, and we can
talk to folks, including United States senators and people like
that to tell us what is going on. But for
people who are working every day, who don't have time
to scrow x all day long or on Instagram all
day long, they just see that the government opened and
Democrats didn't say anything. And I think that that is
indicative of a problem we've had since Barack Obama, which

(19:52):
is even the good things that we do, we don't
know how to message them. It's what I tell. What
I tell Black folk call it time. If we don't
tell our story, somebody else will, and we have to
do a better job, particularly around this issue of sharing
our story.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
I agree with everything that you guys said, particularly Angelou's
point around creating an infrastructure when we're in the fight
and asking people to hold the line like they're not.
The people elected office are not the only people holding
the line. The real people holding the line are going
to get hurt worse and feel that the fastest, which
cast a dark shadow across a lot of other people's lives.
Mine included, y'all's included. But I disagree with you Andrew

(20:40):
on this point about the excitement around the elections that
we saw. I do not think that was necessarily excitement.
I think those voters showed up more as a repudiation
against Trump more than it was excitement about the Democrats fighting.
I think it is comfortable to how black people have
always maneuvered in this country, this misconception that so many
people have about black folks. So were these Democratic loyalists,

(21:02):
which is not true. The majority of the country was
voting in favor of harm reduction because I can't really
think of a united front of Democrats where I've said, like, wow,
like they are great job guys, like they are really
kicking ass. And I don't know that a lot of
people looked at the shutdown that way.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Honestly.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
I mean, I respect no, no, no, it's all good. I
think in some people's minds it isn't. The conscious't. I
won't say that this was consciously on the minds of people,
but there are things that happened in the ethos that
unconsciously motivate us one way or another. And a lot
of people everyday, people and us on this platform right here,

(21:40):
have gone through days where we said, what what is
it going to take? I feel like there's no way
to stop him. I feel like my head's on a swivel.
If something's coming at us. Every single day, and what
that drove a lot of people to was resignation. I'll
just back up. I'm just gonna take care of me,
you know, get through my day. And when you see
people start to form the formations of a front line,

(22:04):
it starts to buck us up a little bit. I
think it starts to get us, you know, our spine stiff.
And he say, you know what, I'm going back out.
I'm going back out, Send me in, send me in,
I'm going back out. So I think part of it
there were candidates, there's the repudiation, but I don't separate
the repudiation from a demonstrated effect of elected leaders going

(22:24):
out there and saying, no, we're going to stop it.
All stop, all the presses, everything stops until we get
what it is that we want. It would be crazy
of us to think, and would be foolish of us
to tell the American people that this campaign of the
shutdown was going to result, and the Republicans who had
voted over seventy times to repeal Obamacare deciding, Okay, this

(22:48):
is it. People are hurting, especially the ones I don't
care about, and so I'm going to change my position
and now go back on my word and my vote
of seventy plus times, and give these folks.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
I don't know, I don't know, what can I say
really quickly? Half of the people in the marketplace for
the ACA are in Republican districts, when they.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
So are the people who are at the epicenter of
impact from Trump's actions.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Right and.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Snap precisely, and so their constituents are feeling the brunt
of this too. Had there been better messaging, forget about
partisan politics, had there been better messaging from groups the Democrats,
whichever were you, It didn't matter if they voted for
a Democrat or not, but you are sending those constituents
that they're elected leaders saying, hey, I can't feed my

(23:38):
family because of what you're doing. I don't give a damn. Instead,
a lot of people sat back and let them control
the narrative and introduce stupid things like the Democratics shut down.
There was not enough pushback, and it was too many
echo chambers regurgitating things that were not accurate, not true,
and so people are just sitting around like I don't know.
I mean, the data showed, the polling show that most

(23:59):
people did describe lame to the Republicans, but I don't
think people were ready to seize on that and take them.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
The numbers also started shifting, be I know you were
jumping in here, but I just want to just one
other quick point. The numbers in the polling data started
shifting towards the middle. It almost felt like our country
from looking at just the numbers were evenly split. And
I got to tell you, guys, I started feeling torn
myself about not whose fault it was, but whether or
not this was the right fight because of what Andrew

(24:28):
just raised around ACA. They've always voted to repeal and
replace Obamacare. They're trying to get to a point where
they have trump Care. Trump Care will be HSA's health
savings accounts where you're not going to be able to
afford chemo or if you have any other life threatening
emergency to cover it. Sure, it'll cover your check up, right,
But one medical for like if your leg falls off,

(24:49):
is not the solution. Yeah, shout out to one medical
because I also use it.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
But I'm just saying, off, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
That ain't falling off. But yeah, yes, I get your point.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Now amputated and I'm just saying, what hold on be
because now you're going to make me forget. The only
thing I was going to say is when you're asking
people to start caring about something that they have repeatedly
told you in multiple congresses they don't care about constituents,
be damned by the way. I don't know if that
was the right fight. I will also say that it was.

(25:22):
I already said that, go ahead, a card.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
I think it's something a little bit more simple than that.
I think Andrew hit on it. I think Tiffany was
saying the same thing. Look, we haven't been able to
say Democrats were winners in a very long period of time.
We also haven't been able to say Democrats were fighters
in a very long period of time, not since twenty twenty. Right,
that mantra hasn't been something. And people like I mean,
it's very simple. People like winners, people like fighters. And

(25:46):
I think both of you all are saying the same
thing in different ways. I mean, you're just saying in
the inverse way, because Tiffany's right. But what happened was
those Trump voters were depressed on Tuesday. Last Tuesday. They
didn't get what they were counting on. They just thought
that everybody else was going to be persecuted. They just
thought Trump was going to come in and shit on

(26:08):
everybody else. They didn't realize that he put them all
in a toilet together, right, And so you had what,
to your point, Tiffany, you had a depressed voting base
on that side and a voting base that wasn't excited
because they realized that Trump looked at them the same
way he looks at us. And then to Andrews's point,
you had people who believed whether or not it was

(26:29):
it wasn't about them. And I think you're right about this.
It wasn't necessarily about the shutdown. What it was, though,
was this movement of energy, and they were just happy
to be a part of the fight. They were happy
to be a part of energy, and they saw the
other side beat down so much. I think sometimes politics
is more simple than people give it credit.

Speaker 7 (26:48):
For.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
The reason why Trump is very successful is because he
has pulled off the greatest con in American history. He
twice twice, but he convinced, He convinced poor people that
a man who shits and olden toilets.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
Is for them champion.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
He is their champion. It's when we look back at
history at that simple fact and how he was able
to do that so successfully. People are going to be
rich writing that book because it's so so fascinating. But
those same people who he convinced of that not once,
not twice, but three times. People forget that he had
a lot come out three times. Those same people they

(27:24):
finally came to this resident, they just resigned themselves to
not even participating in the process. And I think you
saw and the way, the place you saw that more
than anywhere was in Georgia, because not only did Democrats
run up the score in every single county, but you
saw Republican strongholds just not even come out. That level

(27:44):
of depression, I believe is something that will be analyzed
as well.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
Can I say on the issue.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
What I say wrong?

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Nothing? What you said wrong?

Speaker 5 (27:57):
But I am always hesitant to give so much credit
in convincing, you know, poor people that he's their champion
because he didn't do that alone.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
He had a lot of help.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
One I said last week, the Republican base they're united
in our destruction, so they don't really have to agree
on the lot except that we hate these black and
brown folks and they're stealing from us. Two I will
say this until my death. I don't give a shit
if it's etched on my tombstone. The media was willing
to accept his narrative even now. You hear the media

(28:31):
when they were talking about his beef with Elon and
they were like, well, you've got these two alpha males
in what universe? Is he an alpha male? He has
a mitch if ever we've seen one, I've never seen.
He wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight like
he There's nobody I know who would saying this dude
is an alpha male. But they will take that and
carry that message. They also have a habit of presenting

(28:51):
something that is illogical, non factual, and then taking a
legitimate point and presenting these two things to the audience like, okay, guys,
have at it. What do you think. So it wasn't
that he was some genius communicator. It wasn't that he
was so smart. I mean, if you just read the
transcripts of some of his speech, if you just watch
his debate performance, if you listen to things that he says,
when you watch him on the global stage, he has

(29:13):
a national and international embarrassment. So I don't think he
has this charisma. I think what is so seductive to
America and this makes it harder to beat. So I
don't know how we beat this, and I don't want
to depress our audience and sound resign. But what is
so seductive to the American people is the power of whiteness.
So Trump might die, but trump Ism is alive and

(29:36):
well because if you can be white, white adjacent, if
you can abandon your people and get favor on their
side of the divide, that will always appeal to low level,
incurious people who are willing to cut their nose off
to spite their face, even if it means they're going
to hurt themselves if it hurts us, They're okay with that.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
So let me just let me clarify my point real quick,
because I do think and I just I just disagree
with you, Tiffany, because I do think that it's I
think we all have this resignation that we don't like
the man, like a disgust right for what he stands for,
how he carries himself, how he treats people. But what
I'm talking about is the candidate that Trump was. Now,

(30:17):
mind you, he used racism as political currency in a
fashion that we have not seen in a very long time. Right,
not only is he racist, but he used racism as currency. Yes,
And what I mean by that for people who are
listening is I remember I recall being in the studio
one day when he was being interviewed by Jake Tapper
and they were asking him to disavowed David Duke. It
was a Sunday, and he was like, man, I don't

(30:38):
even know who that is. But what was happening on
Tuesday was Mississippi was voting in their Republican primary. Right,
And so there was always this how do we use
this racism as politics? But there was also something else
about Donald Trump that a lot of poor folk, a
lot of poor white folk, a lot of people gravitated
to one. He has this perception of wealth. He has

(30:59):
this now he'dn't been bankrupt thirty seven million times, all
this other stuff, it's this perception of wealth. He also
gave off this perception of I'm a winner, right, He
talked about it all the time. I'm a winner, You're
a loser. I'm a winner, you're a loser. It's very,
very simplistic. But he also gave out this if I'm wealthy,
I can teach you how to be wealthy. I'm strong,
I can teach you how to be strong. And it

(31:20):
was very simple messaging that resonated to those same people
that came out and voted for him. I mean, eighty
million people voted for this guy. Eighty million, and we
have to wrestle with the why. I mean, I just
think we can't discount the why of that. And it's
not giving him props because I refuse to do that.
But what I am saying is, as a candidate, and
something we even saw recently in this kind of pull

(31:42):
and tug of snap and healthcare benefits, et cetera, is
the why people voted for him also leads to the
disappointment they're facing today.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, especially because Angela, before you go to Bcar's last
point on the why people feel more connected, because there
have been six that's what wealthy people, all of them
been wealthy and successful that will run for president. The
difference is as I actually think he's like he reflects
for them, like that guy's like me, right, he he
overdoses on McDonald's and cheeseburgers and and happy meals or

(32:14):
whatever it is that you know, they say about him.
He he he is, to use the term from from
from from tiffany sort of incurious in all ways, right,
he doesn't.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Care about the man. He's dumb of the difference.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
He is dumb, but he's not. He knows the difference.
He knows the difference. But what he does is he
played dumb, and he speak dumb, and he and he
put he portrays himself like if you're sitting at home
and you are one of those people who are like
all of us, who aspire to one day have the
means for everything you want and need without a care

(32:51):
in the world. This man has or demonstrates to have
everything he needs and I have not a care in
a world. But he also looks like he may have
come from around the block, down the street, you know,
across the track, and there's a relatability to that because
the majority of them are that too, not just the
majority are the our our recipients of food stamps, which

(33:13):
I'm not shaming. I had him grown up as well,
so I'm not shaming that. I'm simply saying, this is
the guy who looks like he may have started from
the bottom. Now he's there, even though he started with
a millionaire, a loon from his daddy and flushed that
away and got mar You know, we know the story. However,
he cannote it connotes something else when it's when it's
when it's him, and you can't fake it. It is

(33:36):
what it is, and it has electual electoral persuasion. What
may distance them at some point is if their ship
gets bad enough where they have to reach up, look
up for an alternative. But it hadn't the heat ain't
come strong enough yet, it's still hasn't come.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
I feel like the alternative piece is what's missing, and
I think that is where the opposition, if they will
rise to the occasion, are currently failing so on that
I don't know if they picked the right issue. To
your point, Andrew voted seventy eighty times to repeal and
replace something, taking it to the Supreme Court how many times,
Like this is probably not the thing that they're going

(34:16):
to agree with you on. They called it obamacare. We
called it obamacare because we were celebrating. They called it
obamacare because they're racist, Like it's just that simple, and
so Angela, can.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
I disagree with you just on this point, which is
I think it may have been the wrong issue to
get a negotiated settlement with Republicans, but the right issue
for the American people because it is cross partisan in
the sense that everybody has to deal with health care costs.
When those premium come down, we all got to see
and we all got to pay for them. Those people
on the exchange, they all got to deal with it.

(34:47):
And it's cross pots and that's why Speaker doesign jeffreyd
Jesus New York. Jeffries has said this is non partisan.
This is non partisan, of.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Course, and that's how we open the show with Hai
Kim Jeffrey's clip saying it's a nonpartisan fight. However, if
people are still moving their issues aside and what is
in their best interests aside to side with someone who
is highly partisan in this area and to vote against
their interests, I think therein lies the problem. Even Bakari,
I know you wanted to bring up Tammy Balwin's amendment

(35:20):
in the Senate that was voted down. They had the
one thing that Democrats have been asking for for the
last two weeks is at least this messaging vote so
they get Republicans on the record, just so we're really
clear and we're not ever accused the lines to the
American people. That has been the play for two weeks.
That has been the play for two weeks. They were
willing to open the government back up with at least

(35:41):
eight Democrats in the Senate for a messaging vote, and
that still wouldn't have been a win for the American people.
Mike Johnson, when challenged on Jake Tapper Show yesterday, says
that he's not willing to commit to considering right these
subsidies again, even after the House reconsiders this. It's not
clean but their version of a clean continuing resolution. He's

(36:04):
not committing to considering a bill that would reinstate these
healthcare subsidies.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
But he's not committing. But it's not just to Democrats.
He is now telling the American people who now side
with this issue that I can't afford what is coming
down the pike. And the Speaker of the House Republican
is telling you, I don't give a damn.

Speaker 5 (36:23):
I hope moving forward, everybody knows what the Tammy Baldon
Amendment is. Soakari, did you just want to say, oh, yeah, no.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
It just extended the subsidies for one year, which is
the bare bones minimum that people were asking for, so
that for one year you would have those subsidies. And
there was a question of whether or not the subsidies
should be paid directly to the insurance company or be
paid to the person. That's a that's a cute, little
legitimate inside the Beltway fight that people are having. I
have to dig a little deeper on my analysis to
see where I land. But the fact is the subsidies

(36:51):
are needed to drive down costs. Andrews Andrew, and that
amendment failed across party lines. We didn't get one Republican.
But and Andrew was right. And again I feel like
I'm like learning how to mediate you guys, because Andrew
was right, and and Angela was right too, Like it
was it was. It's politically it's a no win issue,

(37:11):
and we know that for every reason that Andrew said.
But politically, you know, in terms of political constituencies, it's
a win win issue. You're never going to get them
to change on this, however, because the issue is so transcendent.
It talked to the end. Democrats won on changing the
political conversation very rarely. I mean, you got to remember
a year ago, we were trying to figure out what

(37:32):
bathrooms people could use. We were talking about we were
talking we were, they were but it was but it
was it was monopolizing, right. You remember you had that,
you had the ad, you had that, they ran ads
on it. I mean that was an ad leading up
to the election. We were This was the conversation that
was being had, right, and now the conversation in the
prison whereby people are evaluating their elected officials has It's

(37:55):
hard to do it, but they were able to parallel
park a submarine. They were able to literally shift the
political discourse and conversation to things that are substance of
that we went on, like health care. I just think
that's that is the win, and I think that we
just have to we have to take that. Now. The
question is in like always, where do we go from here?
I mean, that's that is the question that I struggle

(38:16):
with all the time. It gives me, It makes my
anxiety rage because.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
I don't they should not let up. If if now
affordability and health care is where we want people to
be thinking and deciding when it comes to elections, then
then then where to your point, Angela, where the strategy
must not fail, us must not fail Democrats. Is in
the time between now and the time between the next

(38:42):
election of when it is really pivotal to make the
decision of whether or not we're about to keep charging
forward with this man or bring his administration to a
pretty much halts. That's what's on the ballot in the
in the mid terms, and unfortunately, my level of expect
but my level of what I expect the mcare it
is like at the body.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
I know, I know we we have to close this out,
but I have a quick, for real wrap around, especially
in tip way in here too if you want, but
the car because.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
You are what's the question, I'm.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Sorry, because you guys are formerly elected officials. I want
to know if you were in the United States Senate
today or really yesterday, in the day prior, where what
would you have been?

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Don't answer what.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Would you have been? What would you have been thinking
in the caucus meetings? And then how would that thought,
that strategy, that idea have translated to the Senate floor?

Speaker 2 (39:37):
How would you have voted?

Speaker 3 (39:39):
So that's a that's not a rapid round answer. I
got to I'm going to do my Tiffany cross right here.
Let me and then you know what Tiffany, lean up
into the camera. Let me do my let me, let
me do some context for the people. So I, in
all likelihood, I would have voted to reopen government on
the condition, on the condition that we message around the why,

(40:00):
because I am in the streets enough to see the
pain that this shut down is causing, and I've seen
it at the airports, and I know people aren't getting
paid and that gives me consternation. But the only way
that I wouldn't have done it in the middle of
the night. The only way I would have done it
is if I would have been able to either myself
clearly articulate the why, or as a caucus we clearly

(40:21):
articulate the why. That would be the only way that
I would do it. I would have.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
And the caucus probably argued more for politicos will get this,
but what about the everyday people who we asked to sacrifice.
They won't get this, They won't understand the why, and
they will likely be let down by the fact that
last Tuesday they thought they voted for change around the
country and this looks like the same old, same old.

(40:52):
I would not have voted to open the government. What
I would have done and I would have done this
from the start is I would have identified the the
the most vulnerable eight Republicans. I could the most vulnerable
in the US Senate to go to places where you know,
maybe there were split tickets, right they voted a Democratic governor,
maybe a Republican president, whatever, But those eight seats would

(41:16):
have those senators would have been under duress. Their communities
would have responded so much because we would have been
dialing ads into there. We would have had a volunteer
operation that was making calls into homes.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
We would have it.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
Won't be astro turf. It may have began as astro
turf because it would have come out of the beltwagh,
but it would have been serious activation in those places.
So those senators would have had no choice. I have
been on plenty of votes, and the ones that have
caused me the greatest stomach pain, or when the calls
and the emails and the letters to the editors start
to flood, and hell, it may have been from the
same five hundred people. I wouldn't have known. It would

(41:51):
have felt like the whole world had collapsed on my shoulders.
And it would have it would have would it would
have cost me all my loyalties to make sure that
what I was in line for was to be on
the right side of this issue. And I think from
a strategic standpoint that may have been the failure is
you ain't you know how we say, you're on television,
You're not talking to the person I'm right directly across

(42:12):
from talking to people who are through that lens. That's
what we're not talking to our colleagues up here. Yes,
the negotiation requires an action from them, but we're talking
past them. We are talking to the American people, and
we're talking to these people in these eight particular places
that their folks are right now trying to do a
shuck and drive. They're trying to steal, they're you know,

(42:34):
they're taking your livelihood away right now in public daylight,
and we got to go get them. And I would
have sick them on them, right as they said with Doug, sick,
sick them, sick the people on them. And I think
they failed by trying to talk to all of them.
They failed to talk to eight of them. And that's
what we needed.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Tiff.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
You know, Andrew just said that they that they that
they would have done a shuck and drive.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
I signed us up for that?

Speaker 1 (42:57):
That sound like no, it sounded like I could drive
by shoot, So sign me and no, I'm not for that.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Sign us up for that, not enough for.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
That, not literally but figuratively, because I think right writing
on the.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Food, literally, I can't even get.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
Much. I'm gonna be in an interrogation room snitching. All they
got to do is feed me.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
I'm telling them, you don't take much for you, but
the thing that give.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Me, give me some chicken Chick fil A.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
I'm trying. I'm trying my best.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Well, all I was trying to say was I think
I believe and Tip, maybe I'm not gonna speak for you,
but I believe we would have been on the side
of the caucus that would have us stand up mutual
aid efforts and support for the people on the front line,
and then we can make a decision about whether or
not the government it can reopen. Hopefully we can hold out,
but you can't have people holding out and suffering. Then
you're just making them pick their poison. And that ain't

(43:57):
never right. Know, nobody knows, Okay, everybody. We're gonna get
to that listener question later on in this episode. But
right now it is our pleasure and privilege to welcome
to Native lampod Ari Berman, an incredible journalist and author,

(44:20):
to talk to us about Donald Trump rigging the twenty
six elections and perhaps the presidential as well.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Ari.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Before we bring you on, I just want to roll
this clip from Steve Bannon, and.

Speaker 7 (44:33):
I will tell you right now, as God is my witness,
if we lose the midterms and we lose twenty twenty eight,
some in this room are going to prison, myself included.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
They're not going to stop.

Speaker 7 (44:47):
They're getting more and more and more radical, and we
have to counter that. And what do we have to
counter it with. We have to counter it with more action,
more intense action, more urgency. We're burning daylight if you
look across every aspect of this. We have to codify
what President Trump has done by executive order.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
So we wanted to get into this first, Ari, because
if you let Steve Bannon tell it, he's making it
seem like where are the riggers? We're gonna be the
one who are gonna rig the twenty twenty six elections,
and they're gonna go to jail because I don't know,
maybe the January sixth insurrectionist never did and got parton,
So I wanted.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
To just bring you on.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Are you have always been doing incredible work around the
voting right space, voter suppression, this piece that you wrote
for Mother Jones recently on Project twenty twenty six Trump's
plan to rig the next election. Would love to talk
to you about how you're seeing this, particularly after the
Partons this week, so we'll talk about the Partons as well.

Speaker 8 (45:48):
Yeah, thanks so much guys for having me on. Really
a pleasure to be here. And you notice how Steve
Bannon has a new jacket, another jacket on every time,
like he used to have three layers and now it
seems like is more five every time he talks if
he's Trump is a gimmick, and didn't he already go
to prison? So he's saying we're going to go to prison,

(46:10):
but I think he's already been there, so he must
be worried about a return trip. But I think what
I learned from twenty twenty and just the crazy attempt
to try to steal the election was we have to
take these people seriously. I think a lot of people
thought when they started throwing on all these schemes that
like Originally they were joking and it wasn't going to happen,

(46:32):
and then momentum just started building. And so when they
say they're going to do these kind of things, when
they say they're going to seize voting machines, or they're
going to put ice at the polls, or they're going
to declare a national emergency over elections to give Trump
more power, I think we have to take all of
these things seriously. And what's different about Trump's second term

(46:54):
compared to his first term is he has figured out
how to use the full power of the federal government
to his advantage. And they're much more open about what
their plan is. They're not trying to hide their authoritarianism anymore.
It's right out in the open, and they're basically saying,
we know we're going to lose this election if we
don't rig it in our favor. That's why he's going

(47:14):
all out to jerry Mander and doing all these other things.
So I think the plan is really as opposed to
being done in the shadows, it's really out in the
open in terms of what they're planning to do. Now,
the question is is it going to work? And are
people going to be able to stop it.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
Well, we're seeing this week Ari, and I want to
echo Angeline saying, I love your beat you covering voting
rights from Mother Jones, and please people subscribe read the piece.
Journalism costs money, so please support journalism. But we saw
this week that Donald Trump part in dozens of people
allegedly tie to overturning or attempting to overturn the twenty

(47:49):
twenty election. He pardoned Ed Martin, a Justice Department attorney
Jenna Ellis. Of course, Giuliani, Mark Meadows, his former chief
of staff. Now this was federal gardens. Of course, there
are prosecutors in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and I think
another state I can't remember off the top of my head.
So he can't pardon those state selections. But I don't
think enough people really understand the concept of how he's

(48:11):
consolidated power to the executive branch. In March of this year,
he issued an executive order that essentially there are three
key pieces to this that I find very concerning, and
I want to get your thoughts on them. The three components. First,
there's this show your papers type initiative where you would
have to show a passport or something similar to show

(48:32):
that you're registered to vote using a federal voter registration form.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
That's very scary.

Speaker 5 (48:38):
Second, he attempts to make a bipartisan commission very partisan,
the EAC, which oversees voting equipment, and he wants to
access these voting machines, which obviously that is a very
pronounced risk. It can also push states to do hand

(49:02):
counting ballots, which is error prone as we know, it
can cause delays, which I think is very intentional. Third,
this is the most frightening of all these frightening components.
He's calling for DOZE, this made up department and the
Department of Homeland Security, led by the puppy killer Christy Nome,
to obtain state voter files and other records kept by

(49:25):
election officials. That's including voterless maintenance records. This is a
very frightening thing. Now, you remember what happened when they
gave DOZE access to the NROLB, the National Relations Board system.
We immediately saw Russian IP addresses making several attempts to
use to access that database. So putting this in the
hands of Elon Musk is very scary. So when you

(49:46):
look at the collection of what he's done already. I'm
curious your thoughts on how we as regular people, what
we should be doing to combat that, and what do
you think the next steps are in this very Zirphonian,
scary process.

Speaker 8 (50:01):
Yeah, those are all really good questions, Tiffany. I mean,
I think the first thing is just to go back
to what you said about the pardons. People are looking
at it as a get at a jail free card
for what happened in twenty twenty. But it's not just
that it's a get out of jail free card for
future election stealing, because basically the message is if you
try to steal the next election through violence and force

(50:22):
and intimidation and illegality, we're going to have your back
here too. So the pardons aren't just backwards looking, which
I think that's how it's been reported. They're forward looking
as well. They're trying to send a signal to all
the insurrectionists who now are off the hook, basically absent
state courts, that they can do the same kind of
thing in twenty twenty six or twenty twenty eight without

(50:45):
any kind of accountability. Now again, we'll see if that
holds up. But that's clearly why he's doing it now,
to send a signal that this kind of behavior can
happen in future elections. Now on to your points about
the executive order. These were all really good points. First off,
on proof of citizenship to register to vote, this is
a real misconception because people say, oh, it's just voter ID.

(51:06):
It's not voter ID. People carry around their driver's license
with them most places. People do not carry a passport
or a birth certificate around with them when they register
to vote in their day to day lives, and a
lot of people don't have those documents to begin with.
And if you don't have those documents, like a birth certificate,
it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain them.

(51:27):
And so you guys know very well there are people
that were born in the Jim Crow South, couldn't go
to a hospital, never got a birth certificate they could
use in the kind of functional way we think about it.
So it's much more draconian than voter i D. A
lot more people don't have, and a lot more people
will fall through the cracks if it's required. The good
news is that part of the law at least has
been blocked by a federal court. Now they're still going

(51:48):
to appeal it, but for now it's blocked in court.
The second thing is what you said about the EAC,
which is kind of this obscure body that was created
after the two thousand election fiasco in Florida to try
to help stay It's run their elections more smoothly. It's
not really functioning that way. And you mentioned the voting machines.
This is really important. Basically, what Trump said in his
executive order from March was that essentially all the current

(52:11):
voting machines are not certified anymore, and that they need
to be certified based on technology that doesn't actually exist
on the market right now. And this is important because
this could be a pretext to Trump doing things like
you wanted to do in twenty twenty, seizing the voting machines,
saying the elections were rigged, saying that we didn't vote
on proper voting machines and therefore we have to do X,

(52:32):
Y and Z to try to overturn the election. At
the same time that people in his administration, the Justice
Department are going around asking states, can we access your
voting equipment From twenty twenty, which is totally unprecedented for
anyone from the federal government trying to do. Remind me
what the third question.

Speaker 5 (52:50):
Was, that's about essentially putting state election sensitive data in
the doze dose.

Speaker 8 (52:58):
Yes, yeah, yeah, So they're really actively trying to do this.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Now.

Speaker 8 (53:02):
Remember it was a huge deal when Trump, Remember he
lied and said that he lost the popular vote in
twenty sixteen because three million people voted illegally, and then
he had this whole quote unuote Election Integrity Commission, and
they asked for voter file data from all fifty states
and they were rebuked overwhelmingly. The Mississippi Secretary of State
famously told the vice chair, Chris Koboc to go jump

(53:24):
in the Gulf of Mexico back when Republicans still called
it that. And now they're basically trying to do the
same thing through the Justice Department, but it's getting far
less attention. So they're trying to get voter data from
all fifty states so they can run them through these
immigration databases that are not designed for this purpose, so
they can get a lot of false matches. In basics, say,

(53:44):
we have found the fraud, we have found the non
citizen voting that Trump said exists, and therefore we can
call on states to enact of citizenship laws, we can
remove people from the roles, we can file new lawsuits,
all of those things. And this is happening, unlike in
Trump's first term, very much under the radar. The Justice
Department's already sued eight states, seven of which are run
by Democrats, trying to get this kind of data.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
So this is something that.

Speaker 8 (54:07):
I'm still actively reporting on that I'm very concerned about
because it's going to seem very technical, it's going to
seem very bureaucratic, and then all of a sudden, you're
going to see these insane headlines saying that all these
people illegally voted, and then Trump and the whole MAGA
universe are going to go nuclear around this evidence. And
so I'm just saying, prepare for this to happen, because

(54:28):
they're laying the groundwork right now for them to do.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
So I'm glad you went there. I was thinking about
their first administration attempt to get that data, and I
do remember feeling hopeful by the number of secretaries of
states and governors who stood up and said no way.
You know, one of the things that I've said on
this show when we talked about elections being stolen that
kind of thing was I've always fallen back on or

(54:52):
relied on the fact that, you know, our elections are
probably one of the most decentralized structures of structure in
the United States, meaning the power exists at almost such
a local level, from your county supervisors of elections, you know,
up through the ranks of the you know, and through
the states. And that the law I believe should come

(55:14):
down on the side of the states every single time
when when in contradiction with the federal government over the
way in which it runs its elections. That being said,
I'm curious if the president is this time able because
he has figured out ways and is manipulating the powers
of the presidency, declaring emergencies and so on and so forth,

(55:34):
and is able to secure voting equipment, uh from from
from states. For instance, we know he wanted to direct
the military to go in and seize the actual voting
machines and and ballots. I'm if you were forecasting out
assuming he were able to successfully uh be allowed to

(55:55):
seize the voting equipment or voting data. Those are two
separate voting equipment very specifically, or ballots from states. Are
there states that you would list as sort of flag,
you know, burning red, as in if they were able
to corrupt this system, that's the you know, that's the
kid in kaboodle. Are the states that ought to be

(56:18):
perking up thinking about and I'm very specifically thinking about
states that might go D or R or are reliably
D that may or may not have democratic secretives the
states or democratic governors defend back against that kind of
federal attack.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (56:35):
Well, I mean, Andrew, I can think of one state
that you're familiar with, the state of Florida that I
think would love nothing else but to help Trump accomplish
this kind of saying a thing, a state that is
already criminalized voting in so many different ways that in
many ways was a precursor to a lot of what

(56:55):
Trump is trying to do, because, I mean, they gave
people the right to vote, and then they basically said
we're going to turn you into criminals simply for exercising
your right to vote, and did so in a very
intimidating way. So I think that you're right that Trump
is going to run into a lot of resistance in
terms of his plan to try to just take over
the election system, because there's built in protections. The courts

(57:16):
have said that he doesn't have the power to tell
Congress and the states how to run their elections. There
are election officials in both parties that have pushed back
against these efforts. As far as I'm aware, only two
states so far, Wyoming in Indiana, have willingly given their
voter files to the Justice Department. So it's a nerving
that that's happened, But it hasn't been like all of

(57:37):
the red states have come forward and say, we want
to do this.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
To give this to you.

Speaker 8 (57:42):
Similarly, when they tried to ask for voting equipment in Missouri,
a very red state in rural counties, they were told no,
that's not how it works. So I am hopeful that
the coalitions that stood up to defend democracy in twenty
twenty still exist in some form or other, in a
bypl artisan or nonpartisan way. But I am concerned about

(58:03):
the pressure here that if Trump just kind of grounds
people down. So even if they say no once, they
say no once, they say no twice. We saw those
are the jerrymandering right. When he wanted states to start jerrymandering.
Republicans didn't actually want to do it. Texas Republicans didn't
want to do it. Missouri republicans didn't want to do it.

(58:23):
North Carolina Republicans may have wanted to do it a
little bit more. But the point is is that eventually
they complied. And so the question is are they going
to comply in the same kind of way or will
this be beyond the pale. The reason for Hope Andrew
is that they may say, if we do it now,
it's going to set a precedent, and we may not

(58:45):
want this being weaponized against us in the other direction.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Right.

Speaker 8 (58:50):
And the thing about Trump is what's going to happen
is as he becomes more popular, he is going to
become more authoritarian, but he will be a less less
effective authoritarian the more unpopular he becomes, meaning that if
people see him as a lamb duck, as if people
see and we know that the Republicans are going to
do the right thing based on principle, right, but they

(59:11):
might do the right thing based on politics, which is
they want to save their own ass. And so if
they start to see that becoming a reality, they may say,
we're not going to go along with some of the
more extreme things that he's trying to.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Ask us to do.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
I want to get to get back to this pardon piece.
So on November ninth, Ed Martin tweeted out this laundry
list of seventy seven individuals that Donald Trump wanted to pardon.
As you all know, Ed Martin serves as the pardon
attorney for the Department of Justice.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
So he's saying, this is a.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Very important parton list of the twenty twenty electors. We
call them the fake electors. As tip as reference earlier,
he listed particularly Georgia and Michigan fake elector in this
laundry list. What I find fascinating ari is this list
that again Ed Martin puts out November ninth. The last

(01:00:09):
time the DJ Clemency and Pardon website was a web
page was updated was on November tenth, But somehow they
didn't put this up. It just so happens to be
while we're in a government shut down, And I think
what is disheartening is the way in which they move.
They will spread certain messages to their base, but they

(01:00:31):
don't move necessarily in great transparency. And so when I
think back to your piece and some of the different
flags that you kind of raised that would be the
ways that Donald Trump would rig a midterm election in
his and the administration and the people who support him,
the folks who could have told him, no, we're not
going to do this, but fold him. Every time we're

(01:00:52):
talking about folding to day. It's not just Democrats who
follow y'all right, These Republicans haven't launched much of an
opposition to stay Donald Trump's authoritarianism. So when you talk
about the ways in which he's using ice in federal
law enforcement to flood the streets, the ways in which
they would undermine the integrity of elections, the ways in

(01:01:13):
which they've weaponized the Department of Justice against his political opponents,
even naming Barack Obama as of late, I think he
would be probably not able to be prosecuted given the
criminal immunity now that the Supreme Court has.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Given to presidents. But I just want to hear from
you on this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
How do you think these partons also go to support
the piece that you put out around Project twenty twenty
six and Trump bringing elections.

Speaker 8 (01:01:39):
Well, I think it just sends a signal to people
that they can get away with this kind of election rigging,
that if they try to do it again, they won't
face any consequences for their kind of actions, and therefore
it's going to embolden them to try to do some
of these more extraordinary themes. You know, I started reporting
this article over the summer, and I was asking people

(01:02:01):
hypothetical questions, what could the president do? These hypotheticals became
much less hypothetical over time when Trumps started sending the
National Guard to places not just California, but started sending
them to DC and Chicago and other places, and basically
started focusing only on democratic cities and urban areas in

(01:02:21):
terms of where he would send troops. Then when the
Supreme Court said ice could engage in racial profiling, and
then you had people like Steve benn And say we're
going to have ice at the polls. So these kind
of things are not theoretical anymore. And it's very possible,
if not likely, you're going to have the military engage
in some kind of election activity that has never happened

(01:02:44):
before in American history. That you could have ice raids
in democratic neighborhoods, you could have ice at the polls.
I'm not saying any of the stuff will be legal,
but I think they're going to try to explore these
kind of things. They were going to try to say,
for example, that they want to see the voting machines.
The last part of my piece was about just refusing
to swear in people all together. What we saw that

(01:03:06):
happen too. I mean, we've never seen a situation where
someone has had to sit this long to be sworn in,
and people saying, why do they care? Are they just
worried about the Epstein files? And to me, it wasn't
just about Epstein. It was about the fact that they
are laying the groundwork for if the House is contested,
if it's within a seat or two, for example, and

(01:03:26):
there is a member from California or another state where
Trump alleges fraud, they're going to try to say, we
don't have to sit this person so that Mike Johnson
can remain Speaker of the House. Now, again, we don't
know if they're going to get away with it, but
they're laying out the groundwork to do so right now,
and so all of these things that might have been hypotheticals,
they're becoming very real. And I think that's why we

(01:03:48):
all need to really pay attention to what's going on
as it happens in real time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Let me ask you this question, how do we talk
about this without depressing voter turnout? Yeah, that's a really
good question.

Speaker 8 (01:04:01):
I mean you've thought about that probably more than I have.
I mean, I think you you. I think you have
to activate people about the threats that they face, but
I think you also have to say that people can
overcome them, people can do something about them, and that
you're raising awareness not to scare people, but to try

(01:04:24):
to activate them. And that's what That's what I said earlier,
which is that as Trump becomes more unpopular, he will
become more authoritarian, but his authoritarianism will be easier to
defeat because he's more unpopular. So I do think that
the elections Tuesday send a signal that Trump can be defeated,
that Trump is can be defeated. I also think it

(01:04:46):
sends a signal that there were some problematic aspects to
the voting. Bomb threats called into polling places, for example,
but by and large voting went smoothly. And so I
think that can be something that you can And I
think it goes back to the message and at the
protests around the country, which is that the president doesn't

(01:05:07):
have the power of a king, that he might want
to do all of these things, but that he doesn't
actually have the power to do so, and that the
way to prevent him from doing these kind of things
is to check his power. So I would argue it's
going to be much harder for Trump to try to
steal the election in twenty twenty eight, either for himself

(01:05:28):
or forever his successor might be. If there's a democratic house,
then if there isn't right because if Trump is constantly
looking over his shoulder, if he knows that there's some
level of accountability coming, then he's going to be less
likely to try to pull off these schemes than if
the government stacked with his enablers. But I also think Bakari,
I mean, to just ignore it doesn't seem like the

(01:05:50):
answer either, because if he's going to do these things regardless,
then I feel like you have an obligation to fight him.
And you look at the jerrymanderin battles for example. I mean,
Democrats could have just said, like the we're like the
elect we're completely screwed, Like they're just going to go
state by state by state and gerrymander and that's what

(01:06:11):
they did initially, and then California said, no, no, we're gonna
come up with something creative to try to check them.
And then once California came up with something creative, Virginia
started saying, well, we're going to come up with something
creative too to try to do something about it. And
now the gerrymandering wars, in which the GOP won the
first three or four battles, is looking much more like
a draw than an outright victory potentially. And so I

(01:06:33):
think that's the example of how you can take something
that ultimately is scary to people, can demobilize people, but
then use it to try to activate them to realize
that the right to vote is still worth fighting for.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
I just doubled down on that point. I think it's
so important we oftentimes take away the brilliance of everyday
American people to not be able to balance multiple things
at one time. And my fear is is that when
we don't bring these things out into the sunlight, right

(01:07:07):
into transparency, people end up getting stunned by what they
end up walking into. And when they're stunned or they're
shock they tend to recess, not go headstrong through it,
and so I think we talk about it as often,
as frequently and as empowering as we can so to
prevent people from showing up at a poll and seeing

(01:07:28):
the National Guard and deciding, oh no, back up, reverse,
I'm out of here. I don't know what this about,
but I'm leaving. It's best we tell them what to
expect so they persist, hopefully in charge right through it
and full command of what their rights are to vote
and to win. I am sorry, Angela, you got it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
No, I just wanted to say, Ari, thank you so
much for joining us. Ari Berman, you are incredible. We
are so grateful to have you and your brilliance on
Native Lampod. We hope this will not be the last
time you join us, but certainly are going to be
voting rights fights on every side, and we would have
no other person that we'd rather be in that battle
within you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
So thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
Great to talk to you. Welcome well, brother, welcome home.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Who cares about truth? When the last morning's seen it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:21):
All right, everybody, it is that time of the show
where we are getting to action. These are our calls
to action, and this time, because we don't want to
spend too much time asking you all to come in,
send your videos, send us your thoughts and questions. We
are going to yield some of our calls to action
time to viewer questions.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Let's get started.

Speaker 9 (01:08:38):
Podcast gave me a headache. Steve stephen A Lenard is
a provocateur? Is that menstrel and all he did was
ask you questions. He didn't add anything in the conversation.
How do we get these black men to realize that
black women, this is why we're dying young. They're expecting

(01:09:00):
person to do everything and to talk to everybody. Our
community is not a monolith and we have never been
this kumbaya loving thing where the women all talk to
everyone and go on everyone's podcast. Now do you how
do you communicate that to them? It's not about the

(01:09:22):
people who agitate each other talking because two agitated people
are never gonna are. It just doesn't work. I send
you so much love because that was just tough and hard.

Speaker 10 (01:09:38):
What's up Native Lands is Craig. I just saw a
recent episode. I thought it was brilliant, which driving me
to God. And everybody was on the panel and I
just wanted to say this topic really resonated with me
because I feel like at times I've been on both
sides of that black intellectual versus, you know, the view

(01:10:00):
of the everyday guy. I've been on both sides of that.

Speaker 11 (01:10:06):
There have been times when I felt like I was
out of place in both arenas. So I just wanted
to say that I really appreciate this episode. It really
made me think about a lot of things in a
different way, and I want to say I appreciate y'all
and welcome home.

Speaker 5 (01:10:22):
Well, thank you guys for taking the time. I don't
know if there was a question in that, so for
forgive me. I think the first woman was asking I'm
not sure what she was asking. I think she was saying,
how do we communicate to provoctive tours? What black women do?
Sorry if I have anything about what you were saying, wrong,
But what I'll say, what I appreciate is the conversation

(01:10:45):
that this sparked in so many spaces. My dentist was
like a really close friend of mine, Doctor Richard Forgore
was telling me that people were in his chair telling
him he didn't they didn't know that we even knew
each other talking to him about the converse. So no
matter where you fall on, whichever side of the divide,
I really appreciate everybody tuning in and listening, and I

(01:11:07):
still maintain my thoughts. Like I said, my thoughts don't
slay in the wind of public opinion. The first time
that I respond to something based on public opinion, I'm
a slave to those thoughts, and it would, you know,
take away the integrity I have. I do my thinking
about a thing before I say it, So I am
glad that other people had so many strong thoughts about it,

(01:11:27):
and I hope the conversations continue.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Well, I'm just going to weigh in here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
I really want to get black folks to the point
where we can have disagreements without name calling. The ad
hominem attacks are unnecessary. I think they're divisive. I don't
think that you, and I'm particularly talking to the first
syst You don't have to call somebody a minstrel or
a minstrel show or whatever. It's just unnecessary. You can
disagree with someone, you can say that they were factually inaccurate.
You can say you know, this is something that I

(01:11:55):
think encourages people to go a different way. Whatever but
I just I really I don't like that it makes
it hard for me to respond to the substance of
the question. When I hear and at hominem attack, I
try very very hard not to engage in those I
will say that one thing I value very much about
our show, my conversations with my brother Lenard, is I

(01:12:17):
am stretched often to reconsider my position to think through things.
To Tip's point, I don't think it means I'm blown
by public opinion or swayed by public opinion, but I
do think hearing different perspectives informs my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
So I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Grateful for you Craig who said I've been on both
sides it is, brother, I'm with you. I've been on
both sides of it too.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
So I'm appreciative of those thoughts, and I hate that
the podcast was difficult for anyone to hear. But I
hope that we don't run away from these conversations. The
math ain't math and without the whole of us, so
we don't have time for any mathematics that would cause
us to divide and subtract in this moment.

Speaker 5 (01:12:57):
Can I just sounds a quick question because I hear
you about the name calling, but when we I just
wonder if that line flides, you know, because I know
I've been the phrase turned the phrase before and talking
about people, and certainly, like on this podcast frequently you
call like Clarence Thomas so Hucci like, and I think
you're right. I think you nail it. I think that's
very accurate. Do you like, is there a line where

(01:13:21):
it's like, it's okay for these people who are on
this side of the divide where you can say that,
or do you feel like, well, I'm not gonna refer
to Clarence Thomas that way anymore, which I hope you
always do, because I think I don't think it's name calling.
I think sometimes it's an accurate description.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Let me let me clarify. Thank you for that question. Tip.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
I'm always going to rest squarely in the fact that
I'm a human with hypocrisy, right, I got blind spots blind.

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
I never heard nobody say that out loud, and I'm
stealing it because that is a beautiful state.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
It is so true.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
And I and I hate the fact that we but
that we when we issue these purity tests that we
can't pass ourselves, like We talk about people all the
time on the show that don't get to come on
and defend themselves. We had a conversation last week where
it was like, oh, well, this person's not on to
defend themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
So we have these blind spots.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Now here's my real blind spot, Tom's I reserve the
right to call a Tom a Tom. Now other than that,
I'm gonna try to disengage from an hominem attacks. I
think that black people who are striving for the betterment
and liberation of black people, I do not.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Want to call names. So that is really what I mean.
Can I be pushed on that? I'm open to it.
So I love to be challenged.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
I love to hear from people who are like, we
want you to exist at a higher a vibration system.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
I'm open to it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Right now, I'm higher vibration, but I got a petty
side that comes around every hour.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
So I'm willing to be stretched their.

Speaker 5 (01:14:44):
First another prices, you know, like Steve might feel strongly
about her position.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
I'm just I'm not gonna do that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
So one again, Lenard is I'm not gonna let anybody
call y'all out your name to me. Ever, So Lenard
is my brother. Y'all are family me. I'm not doing
that like that is a hard line in the stand
for me. I don't play about it. Me and him
will go total told rumble on policy stuff, on strategy
all the time. Do not call him out his name
to me and think I'm not gonna say that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
So, Andrew, do you have a call to action today?
I don't. I don't know. Welcome, Welcome to the show. Brother,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
I'm saying no, we have more to say.

Speaker 5 (01:15:21):
But I appreciate both callers' perspectives and thank you for
sending it in. And you know, they have a right
to say what they want, but you know people have
a right to respond. You still mute because you're still singing.
Probably Andrew, take it off, mute, take it off me mute,

(01:15:42):
be you go because Andrew is so. Butkar you had
a call to action? What what's yours? I know you
wanted to talk about veterans.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
Yeah, man, I just think that you can't. You cannot
live in this world and not appreciate those individuals and
get people their flowers while they're living, or those individuals
who passed, or some of our unsung heroes, My grandfather
passed away, Reverend W. Williamson decades ago, but he was
a World War Two Armie chaplain. It's those type of

(01:16:12):
stories about the faith that led us, and so I
didn't really care what nobody was talking about. I just
wanted to make sure that I honored my family and
lifted up those people who sometimes don't get the credit
they deserve in space as they deserve it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
Ma'am, Do I know that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
We were talking about another listener question for a call
to action? Are we doing another question?

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Y'all?

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
Happy to yeah?

Speaker 12 (01:16:34):
May Gleam podcast.

Speaker 13 (01:16:35):
I feel so good about this week's episode. I'm not
sure if I haven't listened well, but take me and Andrew,
like you two really expressing why some of us did
not find a humane vote for Kamala Harris really touched
me deeply.

Speaker 12 (01:16:57):
She's being over qualified. I think she was the best choice.
I have to deal with the conscious that I did
vote for her in New York City, but I knew
I was doing it as a selfish American in the
sense of self preservation and readis reception, especially after I
start Trump Raley in New York, which I didn't think
was possible. However, I can't say I'm sad that she's

(01:17:22):
not in the sense of she aligned herself with genocide,
but that does not mean she wasn't qualified.

Speaker 9 (01:17:33):
But thank you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:17:35):
Well, I think that was a comment. So I the
other thing I'll say is it is Kamala the pronunciation
of her name, and that's it for.

Speaker 5 (01:17:45):
Me, and it got something to say.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
I just don't know what it's gonna take for people
to stop saying this like she's she was on the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
She's not just been on the stage with me.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
She's done a full book tour talking about where she
feels like they've made a miss. She was the first
person in the Biden administration to call what was happening
there a genocide. I don't understand why that's not penetrating.
I certainly understand frustration, tensions being high, but I just
I really don't like that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:15):
And I think possibly because when it matters, that distinction
wasn't there we were seeing, and when it mattered was
when she was running for president and what her position
was at the time. I think it was even further disappointing,
you know, at the convention when and I know she
didn't run every detail, every stop every whatever. But at

(01:18:37):
her convention, we didn't get to hear from the Palestinian
speakers who who wanted to take the podium, which on
this show we created a platform for it. But you know,
this is a big tent party and one big enough
where the voices of people who were very directly affected
by US foreign policy wanted to make you know, wanted

(01:18:58):
to make their opinions and depressions known to a larger audience.
And the DNC would have created that. But I think,
you know, look, this is gonna be a hard one
for her to shape because very few people are willing
to accept that when you're that adjacent to power, you
have your own power. But then you are that adjacent
as a as A as A as A as a

(01:19:19):
listening and sharing and thinking partners to the president and
the US policy. It did not translate that there was
anything other than support for the the Nehu regime and
and and just the rot of death that has encircled
that entire region.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
I guess what I'm curious about is how what like
what people expected the vice president to do? Let me
just finish this, but she also and she also did
the same at the foot of the m and Pettis Bridge.
Before she was running, she did the same thing. So

(01:19:59):
I just I'm not clear about this. And I also
will say that she talks about in the book several
closed door conversations where she voiced very clear opposition to
what was happening.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
I would love for people to articulate what.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
They believe a vice president can do, other than disagree
on messaging, what they believe the role of the vice
president is in that situation.

Speaker 4 (01:20:18):
But disagreeing on messaging when you're the vice president or
a president who has a different position as a big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
She did that at the foot of the m and
Pettis Bridge, she did.

Speaker 4 (01:20:27):
And I will also say life was brightest on her
as a candidate for president. I could not see daylight
between she and President Biden.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
There was daylight in her speech on the floor of
the Democratic National Convention. And I will tell you, and
I will tell you that I also agree with you
that it wasn't far enough. I do agree with that,
and I will also tell you that she agrees with you,
had said as much in the book that she did
not go far enough. So I agree on all of
those points. What I don't agree with are the people
who did not see this. Man says in this question

(01:20:57):
or in his comment that he couldn't believe there was
a rally, a Trump rally in New York. Well, now
we can't believe all these other things that are way
far beyond a rally. And if you don't understand the
distinction between a Donald Trump presidency and a Kamala Harris presidency,
I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
And yes, there is a lot of light between.

Speaker 5 (01:21:16):
I think he so, just to honor his point, I
think he very much probably understands the difference. And I
think it's really difficult to have frustration with people who
saw the daily onslaught of atrocities that we saw, of
imagery of hospitals being bombed, knowing that the United States
was funding it, and having the responsibility to call out

(01:21:38):
our leaders to say, yes, we demand more. And so
if you're bombing people who look like me, if you're
doing this people who don't look like me, I want
you to do everything possible to stop it, even if
that means disrupting norms. So I don't have smoke for
people who feel that level of pain, for dying children,
dying men, dying women, that it is clearly an ethnic cleaning,

(01:22:00):
while some people were walking around with a shoulder shrug
an indifference. I just I understand that level of humanity
from folks.

Speaker 4 (01:22:08):
So I hear you.

Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
I think I think there, I think there's ability to
understand the policy of it. But I'm not mad at
people who were conflicted and who still have a lot
of frustration around it. I'm sorry if it sounds at
all like I'm mad at anybody. What I'm just saying
is there is deep frustration for for me personally. I
don't want to project this on y'all, but to understand
how vastly different they would be on these policies. The

(01:22:32):
fact that Donald Trump has given cover to a war
criminal in that Yahoo's currently under like in a corruption
trial like this is not Those are not her people,
and she made that very Some.

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
Of us would interpret that the previous administration also gave cover.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
The previous administration did, but not Kamala Harris, so where
there was distinction.

Speaker 4 (01:22:50):
But she's in she's in the administration.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
Yes she was, And the only way that there would
have been any change is for her to have had
an opportunity, and sadly there was. And again I agree
that you could have gone further, she says in the
books she could have gone further, but she's still articulated.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Where there was difference.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
And I think what's unfortunate about it is not only
did we not get difference, we got far worse with
the administration that we have and sadly, in this country
until there is not a two party system, there were
only two choices, and Kamala Harris by far was the
better choice. I know we all believed that as rough
as this was, there were those of us who sat
out of Christmas parties.

Speaker 2 (01:23:29):
We wrote letters letting them know that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
There was a lot going on with Gaza that we
could not turn a blind eye to. Do not hear
me say that I'm turning a blind eye to this suffering,
but please hear me say that in a space where
there were only two choices, there were only two choices,
or you could sit it out and you still made
a choice.

Speaker 4 (01:23:47):
That's what we talked about that though last week Angelo.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
Yes, we talk about it again.

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):
No, no, no, I mean the point is this, I think
while we may be voters who can consider the full
range of the issues that may be at impact on
the ballot, there's some people who have a smaller window
by which they view these things. And what I mean
by smallers, I don't mean pejorative. I just mean single issues,
narrow limbs, more narrow lens to what it is that

(01:24:12):
they make these decisions on. And I get it. I
try to. If I could force people to have to
care about the range of it, I would, but we can't.
And just because we can't doesn't make necessarily their motivation
for going to vote or not to vote the wrong
with the right one.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
It is frustrating. And I'll just tell y'all this too.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
And I know we have to wrap to sit with
her last week and to have not one, not two,
not three, not four, not five, but six folks protest her,
someone who like if they read, if they even read
the articles, let's say they can't read the book, they
read the articles about where she's at. Why are you
not protesting Trump events? Why are you not protesting the

(01:24:53):
Republican senators, the folks who have said that they will
continue to get support from APAC donors. Why are you
not protesting them? They're protesting someone who is essentially an
ally and honestly, I hope she doesn't mind me sharing
this was like, I want to have a roundtable discussion
with some folks who are Palestinian leaders in this space
so I can understand where else I can may be

(01:25:14):
able to lend my influence.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
She's that type of person.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
I've always known her to be that type of person,
So it's good.

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
But I think part of the protesting Angela is that
we liked we go places where we think we may
we may be heard. Yeah, that's I think a lot
of times are protest and where there is care, I
ain't going to. Trump can come to here all day long.
I'm not going to. I don't care for him. He
don't care for me, and my protests are not going
to equal concern by him for the things in which

(01:25:42):
I'm experiencing. So a lot of times when we've organized
protests within our own movement circles, within our own community,
we go to places where we think, one, there is care,
you might see me as human just like you, And
then two I expect more, and so I want to
say that and now we can get to the then
happens after. But I think people make those choices very consciously,

(01:26:03):
like this is where we're targeting. I used to I
remember I told you when I first got mayor and
they protested me. I was like, I was just watch
all at the problem, bring food to you at night.
This is that a third Well, now occupy a different space.
Now you're the mayor and you represent a system, and
that system is not gone just because you're here. It's
it's continuing to thrive. So now it's on you. And

(01:26:23):
I know you see me. I know you have love
for me, and I know you care, and that's why
I'm here demanding more. Whether that's the right tact, I
don't know, or rather I don't think it should be
the only exclusive tact. I think you put heat on everybody.
But I do know why people make those choices, and
its largely because you're going to a target who you

(01:26:46):
think will see your humanity, who cares. And then two
to say I expect more, well, I aree.

Speaker 5 (01:26:51):
You to how people feel. I'm not dismissing anyone's feelings.
And I please fact check me on this, because I
haven't fact checked. But Angela and I were talking about
this earlier and I think I have not FactCheck. But
I think this might be the only full broadcasted book
conversation that she's had. Forgive me if if I'm wrong

(01:27:12):
about that, but you all please be sure to check
it out on NLP's YouTube page. It was a really
great conversation and you can also see Angela's outfit, which
I loved.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
God, thanks TIF. It was a repeat.

Speaker 5 (01:27:26):
I know what Paris, Yeah, yes, I was like, yes,
you better. I loved it, loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
Well, it's sadly it's because Inga's gonna kill me. But
the Sergio outfits that I got, apparently I'm not tall
enough to wear some of Sergio's pants, so I had
some fashion fails and had to run that old thing back.

Speaker 2 (01:27:43):
It looks, you know, sometimes you got to do that.
I really.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
Let me just tell you, guys, I so appreciate you
for stretching me, for stretching the audience, for stretching each other.
I think it's so important that we always look not
only at our politics, but policies and the impacts that
it has on people's lives.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
And the one thing that you can rest assured that you're.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Going to get on Native Lampod is a policy consideration
that centers people. And so I'm grateful for y'all, even
when it sounds like I'm getting callous, like I got family.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
That'll that will loop me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
Wrote me back in And I appreciate y'all even on
this last question and this comment.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
But car you are quiet. I don't know if you
have anything before we wrap.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
No, I'm just tired of relitigat in the past. I
look forward to talking about tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:28:25):
I like our disagreements. I think it's get to see
that in other places, so they have some people call
it nuanced, but I don't even think our disagreements are nuanced.
I think they are hardcore disagreement. But in other spaces
we get lumped in the same category, like you're here
to represent this person, but here we get to be
free to explore ideology and ideas. So I do appreciate

(01:28:47):
you guys for that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
All right, y'all, well, thank you so much for tuning
in to today's Native Lampod episode. As always, we want
to remind all of you to leave us a review
and subscribe to Native Lampod. We're available on all podcast
platforms and YouTube. If you're looking for more shows like ours,
check out the other shows on our Reasent Choice Media networks.
Politics with Jamel Hill, Hey j Off the Cup with

(01:29:10):
se Cup and Now you Know with Noah Dibasso. Be
sure to give those a follow, and don't forget to
follow us too on social media and subscribe to our
text or email list on Native landpod dot com. We
are Angela Ride, Tiffany Crost, Andrew Gillim and Bacari Sellers.
Welcome home, y'allrease order.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
There are three hundred and fifth way Pacari. There are
three hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
And fifty six days until midsterm elections.

Speaker 14 (01:29:38):
Welcome home to the Native Landing on the podcast space
tests and for greatness, sixty minutes is so hit, not
too long for the grave shit, high level combo politics
in a way that you could taste it then digest it.
Politics touches you even if you don't touch it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:53):
So get invested.

Speaker 14 (01:29:54):
Cross the t's and doctor IDs, kill them, got them
ass sellers stand on business with Rick. You could have
been anywhere, but you truse us. Native Lampot is the
brand that you can trust.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
Native Lampot is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with
Recent Choice Media. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to
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Angela Rye

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