So long, and thanks for all the pancakes!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Speaker A (00:00):
Come one, come all to a beautiful show.

>> Bryan Schott (00:03):
It's gonna be awesome.

>> Speaker A (00:04):
and some other stuff.

Some other musical stuff.
Hello.
This is special session for the week
ending Friday, December 6,
2024. I'm Bryan Schott, managing
editor of Utah Political Watch.
On this week's show, we will run down the

(00:30):
top political news stories in Utah from
the past week. My guest on the show this week is Mike
Madrid. He is the author of the fantastic book, the
Latino How America's Largest
Minority Is Transforming Democracy. We're going to
talk to him about the Latino vote,
the 2024 election, and some of the things we can

(00:50):
expect when Donald Trump takes office in
January. Plus, Senator Mitt Romney is
riding off into the political sunset. I'm going
to tell you a story about Senator Romney,
some pancakes, and a fight over a $2 cup
of coffee. Remember to subscribe to
the show wherever you get your podcasts and if you leave a
rating or review, it will help more people

(01:13):
find the program. You can also sign up for my
newsletter for free. The website is
Utopolitical Watch, all one word.
UtopoliticalWatch News. And if you want
to support my work covering Utah politics,
you can become a paying subscriber as well.
Now, let's tackle the News.

(01:35):
During the 2024 election season, there
were a series of really nasty mailers
that went out attacking Democrats for
voting against a number of bills that targeted
the rights of transgender people here in Utah. That
included the bathroom bill that was passed by lawmakers in
this last legislative session that' said people had

(01:56):
to use restrooms in public buildings that
corresponded to the gender they were assigned at birth. And
bills that had bans on transgender athletes
in women's sports and also a
ban on gender affirming care for transgender
youth in the state. These mailers and text
messages came from a political action

(02:16):
committee calling itself the Preserving Utah
Values pac. We didn't know much about this
group. They did register as a political action committee
with the state, but they didn't disclose any spending.
They said they spent nothing prior to the
election. And that doesn't make any sense because they
sent out all of these mailers and text messages

(02:36):
attacking Democrats. Well, we found out this week
who one of the funders is, and it's House
Speaker Mike Schultz. He made a
$120,000 donation to
this political action committee at the end of
November. Democrats here in the state were shocked to
find out that Schultz is one of the funders of this group. In fact,
he's the only donor to this group. He's the only person

(02:57):
who's made a don that's been disclosed
as I'm recording this. And Democrats
in the Legislature were shocked to find out that
Speaker Schultz was the one or is the
only funder behind this group that sent out those
really nasty attack ads during the
2024 election. I spoke with

(03:18):
House Minority Leader Angela Romero, and she
was really taken aback when she found out that it was
Schultz who made this donation. Schultz has
really leaned in hard on anti transgender
messaging recent months. If you'll remember,
last month, he, Governor Cox, Senate President Stuart
Adams essentially, ordered Utah
State University to get involved in a

(03:41):
lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference
because another school, San Jose State
University, allegedly had a transgender
player on its roster. When I reached out to
Schultz about this, I got a statement back where
he said, defending Utah values is the right thing to do. These
principles are the foundation of who we are, and I will always
fight to protect them. Schultz did not get much of a return

(04:03):
on his investment. if you look at the election
results, of the 17 Democrats that were
targeted by the political action committee, only
two of them lost their reelection bids in
2024. And really only one of
them counts. That's Democrat Rosemary Lesser.
She lost to Republican Jill Coford
in House District 10 by just 309

(04:26):
votes. So it's possible that these
ads, these mailers and text messages
attacking her over the transgender could
have helped tip the scales in Coford's
direction. The other Democrat who was targeted by these
ads, that is Representative Joel Briscoe, he
lost his primary election, and
that was before this PAC even got involved in the

(04:48):
race. Now, because this political action committee has not
reported any spending, even though they did spend on the
election, the, Salt Lake Tribune reported that a
number of complaints had been forwarded to the Lieutenant
Governor's office for violating campaign laws. But
there's something even more insidious at work here. If
you go to their website, it says that

(05:08):
it's paid for by the Preserving Utah
Values Fund, not the political action
committee. And that fund was
incorporated as a business in
Delaware in late October. And it's
important to note that it was incorporated as a
business. It's not a 501C3, it's not a

(05:28):
501C4, those nonprofits
where they would have to disclose donors. Now, it was
Schultz who donated to the pac,
but we're never going to find out who donated to the
fund because it's incorporated as a business.
And so when you want to talk about dark money, that
is 100% dark money. It appears that

(05:49):
this group, along with House Speaker Mike Schultz, is
really playing fast and loose with Utah's already
lax campaign finance laws. And it sets a
really troubling precedent going forward.
Governor Spencer Cox unveiled his budget
recommendations for the next year this week.

(06:09):
Here's something you need to understand about the governor's budget. It really
doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
It's the legislature who sets the budget. It used to be
that the legislature completely ignored the governor's
budget recommendations. There were times during the
Levitt administration that, the legislature
just disregarded anything that the governor

(06:30):
sent forward. These days, the budget process is more
collaborative. Gary, Herbert and now Spencer
Cox try, to work with legislative leaders to
try and come up with something that both sides can agree with. But in the
end, it's the legislature setting the
budget and they don't have to listen to what
the governor has to say. There is one budgetary
item that it seems both the legislature and the governor are on

(06:53):
the same page about, and you need to pay attention to
this, and that is that lawmakers are
going to be coming after higher education in the
state of Utah. Deseret News reports
that when Cox was laying out his budget
proposal to them, he said that he is, quote, very
supportive of the legislature having a heavier hand

(07:13):
in deciding what courses colleges provide and
shaping alternative post secondary pathways
to fit a shifting economy. His quote was,
I'm, one who does believe that higher ed has lost their way
across the country in very important ways. They've
forgotten their core mission and become much more
in the advocacy business than the seekers
of truth. Another story in the Salt Lake Tribune this

(07:36):
week said that leadership at the University of Utah, they
are expecting that there's going to be
a lot more scrutiny on higher
education, especially the University of
Utah, and not just in terms
of the budget. You remember there was the
legislative audit that came out last month that said
colleges need to consider getting rid

(07:58):
of courses that don't attract a
lot of students or don't do much to
prepare students for the workforce. And this is on
the heels of the anti DEI measures
that were passed by the legislature in
2024. It's clear that higher education
is going to be targeted in this session. The drumbeat has already

(08:18):
started. You saw it in Governor Cox's
budget recommendations. And it's going to get
louder as we go through the 2025
session, which begins in January.
And you're seeing this in a lot of
states with Republican controlled
governments. They are worried about activism

(08:38):
on college campuses. And they're really
crack down on that. And that's what you're going to see as the legislature
gets back to work next year in their 45 day
session, which begins in January.
Speaking of the budget, Utah lawmakers may
have a budgetary problem on their hands in the next

(08:59):
session. They are staring at a budget deficit between
225 million and $700 million.
Under the constitution here in Utah,
income taxes from individuals and
businesses can only be used to pay for certain
things in the budget, and those are public
education, higher education, and some

(09:19):
social services. According to legislative budget experts,
revenues from those two sources over the first four months
of the current fiscal year are way
below projections. When lawmakers set the budget
earlier this year in February, they
expected individual income tax
revenues to increase by about
2.9% during the coming

(09:41):
year. But in the first four months of the
fiscal year, they've actually dropped
1.6%, which is almost
4% lower than what they had projected.
In real numbers, that means that individual income
tax collections are between
$146 million and
$576 million

(10:02):
below what they thought they were going to
be. And corporate income taxes are
even further off of what they projected them to be.
Lawmakers did expect that the corporate
income tax collections would drop by
about 4% this year. In reality, over the first
four months of the year, they've dropped more than 15%.

(10:23):
And again in real numbers, that's somewhere between $80
million and $135 million.
And that's where you get the $225 million to
$700 million deficit. And if these
numbers continue, they've got a big
problem on their hands as they set the
budget. Legislative leaders are going to meet on December 9th.
That's Monday, the

(10:45):
pre legislative session budget matters.
And that's where they'll also set the
framework for education funding
next year. Lawmakers have cut income taxes by
more than $600 million over the past
three years, reducing the future revenues
that could go towards education and social
services by that amount. Those income

(11:07):
taxes are already taken into account
when they set the projections, the
revenue projections for the coming year. So they were
already expecting those revenue projections to
be down. For them to be
trending below those projections, that's a
big problem. And you have to start asking the question, did
they get too aggressive when they cut income taxes?

(11:29):
If these trends continue, then
lawmakers are going to have a hard time finding
extra money for things that they want to do. They're already
talking about expanding the Utah fits All
scholarship, the private school vouchers program that comes out of
this funding. House Speaker Mike Schultz says he wants to
create more technical education education
programs in Utah's high schools that comes out of this

(11:51):
funding. And if they're staring a deficit
in the face, they're gonna have a really hard time finding that. Plus
they're also rumblings that they want to do more tax relief.
And if they're trending 225 million to
$700 million below projections, it's gonna
get really tight when they go to set the budget next
year. Now, we did face this situation

(12:11):
last year right before the 2024
session. Income tax collections were about
130 million. Do
what lawmakers thought they were going to be. But those numbers
turned around in time when they had got the final
revenue projections for the year in February.
So they didn't have any problems setting the budget. And so they're

(12:31):
hopeful that we'll see the same thing next year. Pay attention
to this issue. This is a big one, and we haven't
had deficits in a long time. We do have some
rainy day funds. There's more than a billion dollars in the state's rainy day
fund. So I wouldn't expect any drastic
cuts. But this is going to really impact
what they're able to do in expand

(12:52):
education programs if these things don't turn
around.
Let's rewind to the 2022
election. Senator Mike Lee is running for reelection.
He's getting a really strong challenge from independent
candidate Evan McMullen. And during the
campaign, a video from his

(13:14):
first run for office in 2010
resurfaces, where Mike Lee says that his
goal is to phase out Social Security and
pull it up from the roots and rid of it. I'm
here right now to tell you one thing
that you probably haven't ever heard from a politician.
It will be my objective to

(13:35):
phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the
roots and get rid of it. When that video
resurfaced, Lee said his comments were taken out of
context and critical details were left
out. When he was voicing that
opinion in 2010, he said
that he really meant that the federal government should not have

(13:55):
sweeping power over people's livelihoods.
And he said that Congress uses Social Security as a
slush fund and that Congress has a
responsibility to honor the commitments it made to
Americans who paid into Social Security.
It turns out those comments weren't lacking context,
because in a long social media thread this week,
Lee laid out a blueprint for dismantling

(14:17):
Social Security, and that he is ready
to make good on his promise to pull it
out by the roots. In that thread, Lee called
Social Security a, a classic bait and
switch and an outdated, mismanaged
system. And he made several arguments in that
thread. He said that Social Security is a tax that

(14:37):
the government can use for whatever reason it wants.
He said that the money goes into a big
pool, the Social Security trust fund, and
that the government routinely raids this
fund for other purposes. And
then the point of the whole thread is that the government
mismanages the fund, according to Lee, and that
Americans would get a much better return if

(15:00):
they decided where to invest. What Lee
is advocating for here is
privatizing Social Security. That idea has been
rattling around in conservative circles
for years. If you'll remember, President George
W. Bush pushed that really hard in
2005, and it didn't go anywhere because it
turns out people like their Social Security.

(15:22):
About 21% of the federal budget goes
to Social Security. That's $1.4 trillion
every year. And a report from the Cent on
Budget and policy priorities says that Social
Security has reduced poverty in every state
and it's lifted more people above the poverty
line than any other program in

(15:43):
American history. So it's a very important
social safety net. But what Lee is doing here is he's
laying out a blueprint for
dismantling the program. And if you
don't think that that is one of the
goals of the Trump administration, you're not paying
attention. Because less than half an hour after
Lee post his thread, Elon

(16:05):
Musk, who is in charge of
the figurehead Department of Government
Efficiency Doge, because he has a
junior high sense of humor. Well, Musk
amplified Lee's post by saying,
interesting. So it's clear that an
overhaul, dismantling reform, whatever you want to call it,
of Social Security, it is on the table. In the

(16:27):
new Trump administration. The left leaning group,
the Nationals Committee to Preserve Social Security
and Medicare said that Lee was attempting to,
quote, undermine public faith in Social
Security so conservatives can cut or
privatize it. You think that group pointed out that
Lee's arguments about Social Security were either
misleading or a complete disregarding of the

(16:50):
facts. As to Lee's claim that the government raids
the Social Security trust fund, they said that it's a
bogus claim that opponents of Social
Security often dredge up.
The Social Security trust fund, which currently has
about $2.8 trillion in
is invested in treasury bonds
which are backed by the US Government, and Congress

(17:13):
can spend the money from those
bonds, however they see fit. It's no
different than bonds held by Wall street or
mutual funds or foreign governments. But Congress is
not able to raid the Social
Security trust fund itself. And they've never
done that. What they've done is they've spent the money that the

(17:33):
trust fund has invested into the government bonds.
That's where they get that money from. But the act, actual
trust fund itself, Congress does not raid for
its own purposes. And as for Lee's
argument that people would be better off if they chose where
to spend the money, they say that it's true that
investments can sometimes pay off. But Social

(17:53):
Security is not an investment fund. It
is a collective fund. It's a social insurance
program that pays out benefits. And it's
been around for 90 years and it's never missed a
payment to beneficiaries. But despite all that, this
is something that is pushed by Senator Mike Lee,
and it's in service of, his

(18:14):
long stated goal to pull Social
Security out by the roots and get rid of it. He
laid out what he wants to do this week, so keep your eye on
that as we move forward over the next four
years of the second Trump administration.
The right wing group Utah Parents United

(18:34):
has a couple of big items on their to do
list for the next legislative session. They
want lawmakers to crack down on the Utah
Education association, which is the
state's largest teachers union, and
they want to get fluoride out of the state's drinking
water. This week, Corrine Johnson, who is

(18:54):
the president and founder of the group, was speaking to
another right wing organization, Utah Citizens for the
Constitution. She said that among their
legislative priorities this year are those
two items. They want to, crack down on the
uea and they want to remove fluoride from
the drinking water. Let's talk about the UEA first.
Utah, Parents United came to prominence during the COVID

(19:16):
pandemic. They led, a lot of the pushback about
the mask mandates in schools. I think you remember
they had a campaign called, let me see your smile
because they didn't want masks covered up kids,
faces. And they also wanted to get kids back in the classrooms. They
didn't like a lot of the remote learning that went into effect during the COVID
pandemic. And they were also a

(19:36):
driving force behind the Utah Fits all
scholarship, which is the state's private school
voucher program that lets parents take money that's supposed to
go to public schools and use it for private school tuition
or to pay for homeschooling or any number of
other expenses. The Utah Education
association has sued to
block the Utah fits all scholarship from going

(19:58):
into effect, saying that it's an unconstitutional
program because Utah's constitution guarantees
funding for public education, and lawmakers are taking
money away from that to fund these private school
and homeschool vouchers. So it makes some sense that
UPU would be going after
uea. There are some anti UAE
union bills that they are

(20:19):
advocating for. What they want to do is they
want to prevent the UEA from
collecting union dues from their members
through paycheck deductions. And they
also want to make the union have to
recertify themselves with a vote every year
or every couple of years. And if they fail that vote, then the union

(20:39):
is disbanded. Lawmakers tried to do that during the
2024 session, but they backed off
after the state's union's members had
a big show of for, there was massive opposition
and they backed away from that. But UPU wants them
to take another run at it this year. The other thing
that is on their to do list
is a bill to remove fluoride from the

(21:02):
state's drinking water. Johnson said
during the meeting that they already have a lawmaker lined up
to run the legislation. She wouldn't say who it is,
but this legislation is going to, come
out during the 2025
session. Now, it's already illegal to put
Fluor in the drinking water here in the state because in

(21:22):
1976, the voters approved a ballot
initiative that said you cannot put fluoride in
the state's drinking water unless there is a
public vote approving it. Brigham City was the first city in
the state to have fluoridated drinking water. Voters there approved it
in 1966, and they seem to like it because
there was an initiative on the ballot in Brigham City in
2023 asking whether fluoride

(21:45):
should be removed from the drinking water system, and it got
crushed. Statewide, about 45% of Utahns
have fluoride in drinking water. That ranks the
state 44th out of 50. So they're near the
bottom. Nationwide, about 63% of Americans have
fluoride in their drinking water. Fluoride has
been a bugaboo, especially on
the far right in American politics. For a number

(22:08):
of years. Back in the 50s and 60s, there were
conspiracy theories about it being part of a
communist mind control plot. In more recent years,
there have been concerns that it may negatively
impact health of people who have
it in their drinking water. Now what you're going to
see is Utah Parents United saying that

(22:28):
There is a massive number of parents
who want these things, who want
lawmakers to pass these bills
attacking the, UEA and getting rid
of fluoride in their drinking water. One of the ways that they show
that is the results of their Legislative
Priorities Survey that they send out to parents
asking a number of questions, and then they present these

(22:50):
numbers to lawmakers. And this year on
their survey, one of the things they ask is,
would you like to see fluoride removed from the
water in the state? And there were several questions
on the survey attacking the Utah
Education Association. I looked at some of them.
One said, do you believe the UEA represents your
values? And another said, do you believe the UEA

(23:13):
has a negative influence on education
in the state? And then they asked whether they
would support getting rid of these special
privileges for the uea, such as payroll
deduction for dues and then requiring them to
recertify with a vote. And so you'll see
Utah Parents United go up to the Hill with these
survey results and they will loudly proclaim to

(23:35):
lawmakers that 85, 95,
100% of parents support this
idea. But it's not a scientific survey. If you're
not on their email list, if you're not in their social media channels, you're
not going to see this survey at all. So it is
a self selecting echo chamber
of people who already support what they want to do. This is a group
that is hostile to the idea of public education.

(23:57):
They are big advocates of homeschooling and
parental choice in school. So they are very hostile to
public education. They have a vested interest in
presenting these ideas as having overwhelming
support by parents in
the state, when really it's just a
small group of people who agree with them already. Watch
how this group, Utah Parents United, which has

(24:20):
a lot of sway on the Hill, presents these
issues saying that parents want this.
Well, parents who responded to their survey
want this. It's not a scientific survey. It's not an
accurate depiction of, what
the overall opinion of the group of parents in
the state is. It's just those who

(24:40):
responded to their survey and the large number of
those already agree with them in the first place.
They're not big organizations. There's not a lot of
people who are part of these groups or who support these
groups, but those that do are very engaged and
they are very organized. And that's why they, they
have so much pull on the Hill. And you need to understand

(25:00):
that because they are the ones who are driving a lot
of the decisions that your government is making. Right
now. So pay attention to that as we move forward in the 2025
session.
Joining me now on the show is Mike Madrid.
He is a longtime political strategist. He was the

(25:21):
political director for the California Republican
Party for a number of years. He is the author of the
tremendous book the Latino Cent How America's
Largest Minority Is Transforming
Democracy. And I'm really excited he had some time to
join us today. Mike, how are you?

>> Speaker A (25:37):
Bryan I'm doing great. It's always good to talk to you. Thank you so much for
having me.

Let's talk about, what happened
in the 2024 election.
it seemed like towards the end that Kamala Harris
had some momentum, but polls
leading up to the election kept telling us it was going
to be a very close election. And that's what happened. We had a very
election and everything broke towards

(26:02):
Donald Trump. Why do you think that that
happened?

>> Speaker A (26:06):
I think fundamentally, when we look back at the race, I think people
just were not happy with the direction of the country and the performance
of the administration. I think there's a lot of hand wringing
that goes beyond that. Teeth gnashing about
the future of democracy and racism and sexism.
And I don't mean to diminish all of that, but when we're looking at
margins this small, and this was a historically close
election, very close, both in the popular and electoral

(26:29):
college, yeah, what you saw was a one, one and a half percent
break in one direction. It could have broken just as easily in the
other direction. But what we know from
campaigns is that when there are large swaths of
undecided voters, they tend to break away from
the party in power. Because if you haven't
closed the deal within four years, the
chances of doing that in the last seven to 14 days

(26:52):
is pretty, pretty small. So I think this really
just followed that trajectory. This was, you know, there
was a rightward shift in a lot of places, but they were not
so significant that they, I think, portend a whole lot more than
people were not comfortable with the performance of the
last administration from an economic perspective, and it probably wasn't
a whole lot more than that.

Did that surprise you that things
broke towards Trump? he
had been in office before, but
it's. It seems like voters viewed him as a
change agent, and that's why a lot of the undecided
voters broke his way, even though
he had been in office before. That's, a

(27:31):
really interesting, I guess idea
that Donald Trump, who had been the president for
four years, was seen as the change
candidate.

>> Speaker A (27:41):
Yeah, that's not terribly uncommon, I think.
Surprised, no, disappointed I think is probably a
better word because people knew what they were largely
getting. And I think this is just a reminder to most people who
closely follow politics that, you know, the
closer you follow politics, the more intricate you are in
understanding the nuances of the different perspectives of both

(28:03):
parties. It's lower information voters, people that
are not as consumed by the obsession of politics that so
many of us are, that really don't know who Matt
Gaetz is. They don't really know what Trump said at
the last rally. They don't particularly care. They
don't particularly know. They don't take a lot of this terribly
seriously. And they are the ones who broke

(28:23):
strongly for Donald Trump, not because they're concerned
about democracy one way or the other, but because
they are concerned about the economic performance of each
administration and they remember better times under Donald
Trump. Yeah.

And you mentioned that, people were, dissatisfied,
with the direction of the country. And I agree with you. I think that
that's the thing that doomed Harris in this
campaign. Are now trying to
use people in Donald Trump's orbit. His allies
are now trying to paint this very close election
that was based on the economy as a mandate

(28:56):
for radical change in
government, overhauling the government. You have Elon Musk and
Vivek Ramaswamy doing their pretend
government agency that's going to look at cuts and things, and
you're just hearing all these plans for a
radical reshaping of the American
government. I'm curious your thoughts about trying to

(29:17):
paint pain it in that direction. I understand why. Because if you
control the narrative, you know, that this
was historically, that this was a
landslide election when it wasn't. If you control that narrative, you're able
to plant that narrative, then it's easier to
do what you want to do. But I'm trying to figure out
your thoughts on that.

>> Speaker A (29:36):
Well, I'm of the opinion that Donald Trump would be doing this even
if he lost. Right. Remember, if Donald Trump
lost right now, we would be in the middle of a civil war with
his, his, you know, supporters taking to the
streets armed and, you know, saying this election was overthrown
again, unless they win, then, then. Then, you know, they're going to
throw a heated tantrum and would

(29:57):
claim a mandate regardless. So, look, Donald Trump, if
Donald Trump was the only person voting for himself, would be claiming a
mandate. So I'm not particularly concerned about,
about that. You know, they're going to do what they're
going to do with, the levers of power they have.
And so it's up to the opposition party and members who are
opposed to it in a democracy, as it's stands to

(30:17):
be just as vigilant, in pushing back
and arguing that this is not the direction they want to go. And that's fully
legitimate in the system that we have. In fact, it's
required in the system that we have. So, no,
there's no mandate. I think that's a very
overused word. But I think we have to remember who we're talking about
here. These are folks that are going to claim it regardless.

Your book, which came out right before the election, was
incredibly prescient in which you argued
that neither party was effectively
communicating to this very
large bloc of voters,
Latinos, many of whom grew up
in America. They are not immigrants.
They are disconnected from the immigrant experience.

(31:02):
and whichever party is able to figure out
how to effectively engage those voters and speak to
those voters, was going to have success down the line. And what
we saw is that Donald Trump, even
though he, he was talking about mass
deportations and has called
Hispanic immigrants rapists and

(31:22):
they're not sending their best, and there was that
terrible joke at his pre election rally,
about Puerto Rico. Despite all of that,
43% of Latinos voted
for Trump in this election. What's your take on
that? I mean, it basically is proof of
concept of your book.

>> Speaker A (31:41):
Yeah, and again, I did not
necessarily write my book as a, as a prediction, although,
you know, it proved to be one. I wrote it as a
warning to the Democrats. So they, like you
guys, you better pay attention to what's happening here. And
unfortunately a lot of that was either
unheeded or culturally not able to get there. But I think it's still a good
roadmap going forward.

(32:02):
So to your question, we have to really
understand, that just the very nature of
equating this huge swath of Americans,
now the largest ethnic, minority in the
country, and rapidly, increasing,
equating this group, with the
immigrant experience itself, even when it gets
to talk about mass deportations or building a wall or setting

(32:25):
their own countries, is in many ways its own
ethnic trope. It's its own offensive category.
To ask, like, how can you be bothered by that?
When we don't ask, you know, that same questions of white
Europeans about European politics is the
point I think people really need to grasp. It is
absolutely okay and appropriate to talk about

(32:46):
border security in the way that I think Kamala
Harris did, for example. That's not racist. Trump
is doing it in a racist way. I think we can all agree on that.
But the point is Trump is viewed as a much
more strident, protector of the borders, whatever
that means, which was ultimately what he was aiming for. And I'm
not, certainly not excusing him. I'm trying to explain it.

(33:07):
And when you have second, third, and now a discernible fourth
generation Latino voter that doesn't have any personal experience with
the, with the immigrant experience, to have
them equating this talk,
this language, these policy suppositions
any differently than the average white
American really should not surprise.
What should surprise us is, again, our continual need to

(33:30):
say, why aren't you reacting as
an immigrant would? see the world? that I think
has turned off a lot of Latinos. And, it's that
unrelatability that I think is particularly damaging to the
Democratic Party at this moment in time.

One of the things that we're seeing now in the
aftermath of Trump's win is just a ramping
up of the rhetoric
and the amplification of the plans for these mass
deportations that are coming. But there's also
this curious phenomenon that is happening where
you're seeing in media reports and
interviews and in social media a number

(34:06):
of Latinos who may have
immigrated here or may have families who are
undocumented here in the United States.
And their thought is,
it's not going to affect me. They're only going to get the
criminals. They're only going to come after those who are breaking
the law, ignoring the fact that being here illegal, legally is
breaking the law. but it's.

(34:29):
And I think that that goes to one of the
central points in your book, is that a lot of
Latinos are disconnected from that
immigrant experience. And, you know, you've
seen a lot of this on social media where people are saying it's f
f o f around and find out.
I think a lot of people are going to be really shocked when we get to the
find out stage of this. Meaning that you're going to see people

(34:51):
who didn't think they would be targeted by some of these
policies, finding, that their families
are being rounded up and put
and deported.

>> Speaker A (35:02):
let me say maybe. And I'm not suggesting, first of all,
and I've written extensively on this on my substack too, if
there are these mass deportations, which, by
the way, we have done twice before in our
history, we did it during Franklin Delano
Roosevelt Hoover actually began
the process as the great, Depression began.
We rounded up what was called the Mexican

(35:24):
Repayment repatriation, which is a sane washing way
of basically saying we, we remove
1.8 million Mexicans, half of
which, by the way, over half of which were U.S. citizens. Rounded
them up from round them up, California deported
them, even though they were U.S. citizens. And we did it again under,
under the very racist term Operation Wetback during the

(35:45):
Eisenhower administration when, the bracero program
was started, again, over half of the people rounded up and
deported were U.S. citizens. So we have a bad history of this
in the first place. I think what the
difference here is, and we will see
if this does happen, if there are camps set up and
millions of people are rounded up, I do believe that there

(36:05):
will be very, very significant pushback,
broadly, not just with Latinos. I also think, by the way,
I also think there will be very strong support for the
program in the Latino community as well, and we should
examine that. But, and here's where really important.
The main reason why I'm not terribly
sold on the idea. I wouldn't be shocked if he did it, but

(36:25):
I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't do it, is because of the
extraordinary economic impact that this is going to have
on most of his rich friends who are going to say, there's absolutely no
way you can destroy our supply chains or
destroy the agricultural economy. This is incredibly
inflationary and we're reliant on this labor
stream. In fact, we need more. We need more
labor, not less. So I think the

(36:47):
jury's really out as to whether or not, this will happen. Now,
do I believe that he will begin deporting people
based off of a certain criteria? 100%,
I do. Is he going to start with the most violent offenders
amongst us? Absolutely, he will. And I will tell you
what, if Democrats start to oppose
that, they're going to hit the find out stage really,

(37:08):
really quickly, because the American public has zero
tolerance for that. If you are here illegally
and you've committed crimes and you are being rounded up by
the Trump administration, Trump's numbers are going to go through the roof,
especially if Democrats start opposing it. So we got to be
really careful. And like I said, we need to be vigilant.
And I don't know what the plans are,
but I do know that we have never successfully done this as a

(37:30):
country without including US
Citizens. I also know that this would have
a massive, massive impact on
our businesses and our economic
interests, many of whom are very close to Donald Trump. And
that's distinctly different than what we were
experiencing when we did it for the first time m in the
1930s and the second time in the 1950s

(37:52):
when agribusiness and by the way, and the
Mexican government were both complicit in both of those
mass deportation movements because they needed the cheap
labor too. So we're gonna have to wait and see.
like I said, would I put it past that's Trump? Of course
not. would I be shocked if he did or didn't
do it? I wouldn't be either way. But I would also caution
people to remember this guy promised to build a wall and have

(38:15):
Mexico pay for it. He did neither of those
things. And so when Latinos look at this guy and say,
yeah, he's doing this tough talk thing that he does the cowboy
talk, but he never really does it. There is some
rational basis for it.

You've seen some people in the incoming administration,
Stephen Miller in particular, start talking
about ending birthrights to citizensh
about denaturalization.
that seems, you know, that's
a terrifying thought. that they would
strip citizenship from people who were

(38:48):
born here. And you know, and birthright
citizenship came out of the post of Civil War
era. But that's a terrifying idea.
Again, I think there's a lot of risks
in doing that. And I agree with you. There would be a lot of
pushback. do you think that that is going to happen or do you
think it's just rhetoric that's going to
quickly run into

(39:10):
reality?

>> Speaker A (39:12):
That's a great question. And look, I think that there is no doubt that
there's going to be a very heated discussion about
repealing the constitutional amendment that
guarantees birthright citizenship. And I've heard
this on, my entire 30 years of working in Republican politics.
In fact, it was one of the main issues that I heard Republicans
talking about in 1992. 1992. Right.
Is saying we need to revoke this relic of the,

(39:34):
of the, of the Reconstruction era. Birthright
citizenship was, was put in the Constitution to protect
the children of slaves. That's why it was.
There is. What they were basically arguing was you weren't a
citizen if you were a slave. So to protect their
children, we automatically granted citizenship to anybody
born on the soil. There's a different consideration than what

(39:55):
we're seeing right now. I, I believe very
strenuously we should continue birthright
citizenship. I, think it brings up a lot of interesting
questions. So for example, if you're a combination
between a recent migrant and somebody who's been here for two
or three generations, and, that child is born
here. What does that mean, talking to you, Baron
Trump? Right. Like your mother's an immigrant. What

(40:17):
does that mean? What does that mean? Right. What are we talking about
here? And so we need to be very careful.
But changing the Constitution to
get there is another consideration.
Now, what that means legally as it works through the legal
system, I do believe the Trump administration is going to
advance a lot of these issues to challenge some of these
notions.

(40:37):
But unless you repeal the constitutional
amendment for birthright citizenship, it's very,
very explicit on what that means, which is, regardless of
the intent of the amendment, if you are born on
this soil, you are a U.S. citizen.

Well, we all know that there's no
way that they're going to be able to repeal an
amendment. But one of the things that the Trump administration is
talking about, and I've seen multiple reports on this, is they're going to try
to do it administratively. One of
the things that they've said is they refuse to
issue documents like Social Security numbers or birth

(41:11):
certificates to the children of
immigrants who are here illegally. and that's a way
to administratively accomplish
something that they're not going to be able to do through the
mechanisms provided in the Constitution. So there's a lot
of ways, ways that they could try to go about this.
And, you know, once it gets to the Supreme Court,

(41:31):
we, who knows how they would rule on this sort of thing.
so to me, it still seems like something that we need to
be aware of and worry
about, because if they can administratively do these
things, then, you know, that's
a whole nother can of worms.

>> Speaker A (41:49):
Yeah. I'm not suggesting this isn't a very, very,
very serious concern it out.

Yeah, no, no.

>> Speaker A (41:54):
Even if they weren't doing it administratively, just the sentiment
that somehow they could do it is deeply troubling.
Unfortunately, we're kind of way past that at this point, in American
history. But I do believe the courts, as conservative
as they are, you know, if you ruled
against something like that, which is very explicit in the
Constitution, you're basically saying the, Constitution doesn't

(42:14):
exist anymore. Are we at that point? I don't think that
we are. if we are, then, you know, that will be another
conversation that doesn't diminish the
seriousness of the question. It is. This is a very deeply
concerning issue and question. I think it's actually
a legitimate conversation to have an understanding why
we, as Americans, as a unique nation, as a unique

(42:34):
country, have birthright citizenship and
should, and I would argue should continue it. but.
But there's no doubt there's a wide swath of people. If you polled, by
the way, if you polled birthright
citizenship, it is not popular. People wants
to get rid of it. now, as that becomes
more real and as human story starts to be told
and people begin to understand the nuances and the complications and

(42:57):
the history, that changes. But he's
not on shaky ground in the, in the court of
public opinion on this. He would be, shaky in the court
of the law, the legal system. But again, we know that
that's not, anything he's afraid of taking.

He is Mike Madrid, his book, and if you haven't
gotten it, you should go buy it. The Latino
Century. How America's Largest Minority Is
Transforming Democracy. Mike, where is your substack?
I'm also, a subscriber to that. I'm sorry I didn't
mention in the open, but people should also subscribe to
that. Where can they find you?

>> Speaker A (43:32):
Yeah, thanks, Bryan And again, I write about these topics
almost daily as we're kind of barreling down into this new era
in this new age. Myself, Substack is called the
Great Transformation with, Mike Madrid.
talk about everything from, the changing concepts of race,
gender, currency. I'll be doing some
stuff on Bitcoin. With Bitcoin hitting $100,000,

(43:52):
what that means in our changing institutions. a big
top part of what I talk about. Bryan you and I have these conversations offline,
too, is this country is changing. Whether
Kamala Harris won or Donald Trump won, our
institutions need some dramatic
transformation. we have to change the way we think as, as
Americans going forward. I'm certainly not happy with
where we're at this moment politically, but I am optimistic.

(44:14):
I do believe that we are headed towards better times, even though the road to get
there is going to be very perilous.

He called what was going to happen in the
2024 election. He's been right on pretty much
everything that he predicted that was going to happen
leading up to this moment. So there's absolutely no
reason why you should not buy his book and subscribe to his substack.
Mike Madrid, thank you so much, Bryan

>> Speaker A (44:36):
I always love being with you, love the conversation. Thank you for having me.

Senator Mitt Romney said Goodbye to the U.S.
senate this week. He delivered his farewell address.
And because of that, I'm going to tell you a
little story about Senator Romney that involves some
pancakes and A fight over a $2 cup
of coffee. Ah. In January of 2018,
Senator Orrin Hatch announced that he would not run for

(45:04):
another term in office. And up to that point, there
was tons of speculation that Romney was going
to jump into the race to succeed him. And
he finally made it official about a month later in
February of 2018, announcing that he would run for
that seat, which made him the odds on favorite. As you can
guess, everybody in the Utah media was
clamoring to sit down and interview

(45:26):
Romney. So in early March,
his campaign set up a series of
interviews with local media outlets. We would go
one by one and sit down and talk with him. We'd each get
about 15, 20 minutes, and they were going to be held at the
Little America coffee shop downtown. So
on the day of the interview, we all showed up
and waited our turn in the lobby area of the

(45:49):
hotel. And when my turn came, one of his
campaign staffers came and got me and escorted me towards
the back of the restaurant. And we turned a
corner and Mitt was sitting with his wife
Ann, and he was absolutely
housing a plate of pancakes,
just putting these bad boys down. Mitt
apologized for eating during our meeting time, but he'd

(46:11):
been at this for a couple of hours already, hadn't had
breakfast yet. I said it was absolutely no
problem. And I, ordered a cup of coffee to have
while he finished his breakfast. And
then Mitt started to expound
on his love of pancakes for several
minutes. It was amazing. He said that they
were one of his favorite breakfasts, but nobody made

(46:34):
them quite as good as his wife Ann could. And
he just went on and on and on about pancakes.
It was absolutely delightful and also kind of surreal
because here was a guy who, just six years
before that was the Republican nominee for
President of the United States, and he's going on and
on and on about pancakes. Sometimes we forget

(46:55):
that politicians are people, too.
They have lives away from the political arena like
the rest of us. They have families, they
have high hobbies, and some of them
really, really love pancakes. After we finished our
interview time, I asked the waitress for my check
for my coffee, but Romney said it was already covered.
He had already paid for it. Now, this may

(47:18):
sound like a brag, but my personal
ethics as a journalist dictate that I do not
take free stuff from anybody that I'm
covering. I don't take free tickets to
events. I don't let someone else buy
me lunch. I buy my own
coffee. The problem was Romney had already paid
the bill, which included my cup of coffee.

(47:40):
I didn't have any cash on me at the time and you might be saying to yourself,
it's just a two dollar cup of coffee. Why didn't you let it
go? I can't. I was a journalist. I
don't, I don't want to owe anybody anything, even if it's
just a two dollar cup of coffee. So what happened was
one of his campaign staffers and I had to go to the front
of the restaurant and reverse

(48:00):
Romney's Bill, take my $2 cup of
coffee off of it, recharge Romney's
card, and then I paid my bill for
the $2 cup of coffee. And yes, I
gave a pretty generous tip because I knew
that I was causing a problem and some frustration over
just a two dollar cup of coffee. I've covered Mitt Romney

(48:20):
on and off since he headed up the 2002 Winter Games
in Salt Lake City, and I'm going to miss him.
He's always been gracious with his time.
I've enjoyed our interactions over the years,
however brief they have been. He's always
been forthcoming. You may not agree with his politics,
but the sense that I got is that he

(48:41):
took his public service job
seriously. He wanted to do
things. He wanted to get things accomplished that he felt
would help people, that he felt would
make a difference. And he did that while he was in the
Senate. He found a sweet
spot where he could work with people on the other side of the
aisle and passed a number of really significant

(49:03):
pieces of legislation during his one
term in Washington. I wish him well as
he retires from public life, and I think one of the things that
he's looking forward to is he won't have to deal
with reporters like me
anymore. Godspeed, Senator Romney,
and thank you.

(49:24):
And that's all for this week. My thanks again to Mike
Madrid for joining me on the show. His book, the
Latino Century How America's Largest
Minority Is Transforming Democracy
is a great read. I cannot recommend it
high enough. His substack is the Great
Transformation with Mike Madrid. Buy his book.
Subscribe where you can. He is a very smart person and worth

(49:46):
your attention and will help you understand some of the things that
are happening in our current political moment.
Remember to rate and review this podcast
to help new listeners find the show. I would
be very appreciative of you if you did that. If there's a
topic you'd like me to tackle or a guest you want to hear on the
program, reach out and let me know. You can email me

(50:07):
or find me on Threads, Bluesky Facebook,
Instagram. Those links are in the show notes. Sign up for my
newsletter at Utahpole.
You can sign up for free or you can become a
paying subscriber, which supports my work and
allows me to continue committing acts of journalism
covering Utah politics. I'd, be very appreciative

(50:27):
if you are able to swing that. It's as little as
$5 a month to become a paying subscriber.
It makes more podcasts like this possible and more
reporting on Utah politics.
Special Session with Bryan Schott is written and
produced by me, Bryan Schott. Thank you
so much for listening. We'll talk to you again next week.

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So long, and thanks for all the pancakes!

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