November 26, 2025 • 35 mins
Hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp are joined by political commentator Chris Matthews to discuss the future of the Democratic Party, lessons from Bobby Kennedy, and the importance of connecting with everyday Americans. They examine recent election results, challenges facing rural America, and how both parties can better serve working people.
You will gain valuable insight into how Democrats can rebuild trust with rural and working-class voters. Chris Matthews shares stories about the Kennedys and offers advice for future leaders. You should listen if you care about democracy, dignity, and the future of rural America.
Join us on The Hot Dish every week, where we serve up hearty conversations that resonate with every corner of the country.
The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. To learn more, visit https://onecountryproject.org or find us at https://onecountryproject.substack.com/.
- (05:22) - Chris Matthews discusses how snobbery hurts Democrats in reaching rural America.
- (12:00) - Chris, Heidi and Joel debate the hypocrisy around immigration in Red states.
- (22:18) - Heidi and Chris highlight the importance of rallying for our country's democracy.
- (27:36) - Joel and Chris discuss how Senators need to speak up and use their office for the good of the country.
- (33:49) - Heidi and Chris debate Roosevelt's Social Security strategy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to the Hot Dish. I'm Heidi Heitkamp. And I'm Joel Heitkamp.
Every week we do a show that we hope you tune in and watch,
but today is a special show because we're here at CrookedCon
and doing a show with somebody who doesn't really need an
introduction, and that's Chris Matthews. Welcome to the Hot Dish. Thank you. Thank
you, Heidi. Yeah. Senator. No, Heidi, that was a good title.
(00:28):
It's a good title, a good reality. You used to do your show on occasion,
and it was fun and always fast moving. And we wanted you
to come and talk about your new book, but also talk about
the elections and what you think as somebody who's been
involved in Democratic politics for a long, long time, what you think
the next step should be for Democrats. And so first, let's
(00:52):
just talk a little bit about the book. Well, it's about
Bobby Kennedy, of course. He was killed at the age of
42. Next, the 20th of
November this year is his hundredth birthday, if
he had lived that long. That's why they wanted me to write the book, Simon
and Schuster, to commemorate the fact I wrote a book on him years ago,
(01:13):
Bobby Kennedy, and sold a lot of books. And that's why they wanted more books.
But it's about a guy. My theme of the book was
America is great when it is good, when
it tries its best to be good. And that's really true. And if you look
at our history, whether it's civil rights or whatever, or even peace and war,
when we did the right thing, you know, we shouldn't have gone to war with
(01:34):
Iraq. I mean, come on. I mean, I know, God
bless his heart, Dick Cheney, but that we should not have done that. But I
think the idea of, you think about one image, the train
tracks from New York to Washington, from St.
Patrick's Cathedral to Arlington Cemetery, where he was
putting together with his dead brother Jack.
(01:55):
And you think about the people along those tracks in Philadelphia. There
were 20,000 African Americans who were
singing spontaneously the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
And you look at all the white people between the cities, between Trenton and
Newark and everything, these white people, they all look like enlisted
guys because all of them were saluting and had their family
(02:19):
in birth order saluting, too. It was so different
cultures, the black culture, the working class white culture,
totally devoted to, to Bobby Kennedy. And it's maybe the
last time anybody's been able to do this or was able to do this. And
that's because he was a tough liberal. He believed in law and order. He would
say, I want, I want law and order. You know, I don't like riots
(02:40):
and stuff like that. And he, but he was for the black opportunity
for civil rights. He- Southeastern Conference football,
okay? Just a simple fact. The players, they,
you tell those white guys stand there, you know, you didn't have any blacks in
his school before Bobby Kennedy came along. Bobby Kennedy desegregated
your college Ole Miss and desegregated University of
(03:01):
Alabama against George Wallace. He did it. He brought in the
army and made sure this thing happened. He brought in James Meredith, you know,
people like that into your school. And now you have the best running
backs in the world. I mean, it's not, it's not the only thing that you
get out of black community, but it's a vivid
reality and that, that's what's going on down there. It's an
(03:22):
integrated society in those universities. And he did it.
How did people, how did people have this image of him
during his brother's administration where he was this
tough enforcement? They hated him. The white people in the South hate him because he
- Organized crime hated him. Well, and then, then you go from
being this caring, caring person that everybody saw. Well,
(03:46):
I think he, I think he got to the heart of the guy. He was
vulnerable. As Arthur Schlesinger, the
historian, said, Jack Kennedy looked like a guy who didn't need protection.
He had. He's the cool guy, the Sinatra,
like, cool guy. Bobby was the guy that looked vulnerable, as always.
In fact, when Jack was killed, Bobby said, I thought it would be me.
(04:09):
I thought I would be the one they would get or whoever the bad
guy was going to be. And so he was like that.
He was shorter than his brothers. He wasn't as good looking as his brothers.
He didn't have it made like Jack and Joe Jr. And Teddy.
He didn't seem like that. He was the runt of the litter. That's what his
father called him. And that's not an encomium you want from your dad.
(04:32):
You're the runt. But that's what he was. But what a legacy.
And you know, I keep thinking about the
heritage of the Democratic Party and certainly the Kennedys are there.
FDR. When people ask me, why are you a Democrat? I said, because my
grandmother said FDR put food on her table. You know, it made
a difference in their lives. And that's why we were. And I
(04:54):
keep thinking, what would all those people say today about the Democratic Party?
Well, that's the problem. There's too much elitism. There's too much
snobbery, to be blunt about it. It's snobbery.
You get in the Washington bubble, like, I live in it. And I gotta
tell you, I am tired of talking about Trump. It
exhausts me. And there's too many points of attack, too many
(05:18):
shots coming out of the plan he has put together or somebody's
put together. And there's a snobbery about it.
You know, the working class guy, a guy. I was a capital cop for a
while, for a few months. When I got out of the Peace Corps, it was
a patronage job. I wasn't claiming to have worked my way into the job. I
was given a job for a while and I had a .38 special, which is
ridiculous. I was armed and dangerous.
(05:40):
And there's a guy worked with LeRoy Terror, he's a white guy from West Virginia,
and he knew I was the college kid. He knew I was the patronage appointment.
He called me aside one day and he's a very serious guy. He's a former
MP. He's always talking about "smoke." We're gonna, I'm gonna bring
smoke into this trouble, you know, he's like, okay, I got. I got your act.
And he called me a mine. He said, you know, Chris, you know why the
(06:02):
little man loves this country? And I thought,
no. It's because it's always God.
And I said, I said, I hope I never forget that. You don't have a
fine house. You don't have kids going off to college. You didn't go to college.
You never thought about it. You don't have a lot going for you in your
life, but you do have your country. Yeah. So don't mess
(06:24):
with me about it. I, I care about my country and a lot of the
working people out there, real people, 70% of the country didn't go
to college, aren't going to go to college. They're real people. And
snobs in the Democratic Party, they got to stop this stuff, you
know, I don't know where it comes. Who's the worst? I guess I could name
some names, but it's like Dukakis, people like that.
(06:47):
It's all academic. It's all. We're the ones with academic credentials.
And stop it. You're turning people off.
Well, I can tell you this. Well, out in West, I'm sure. Out in North
Dakota, I'm sure it's like real. But I'll tell you, it's right outside of Philly.
If you look at the map of Pennsylvania, it's red, right up to the
cities. If it's not for Penn State or Pittsburgh or
(07:09):
Philly, it's red. Well, and it's generational when
it happened. Because in my particular case,
back home, what we need, we need nurses aides, we need LPNs,
we need Diesel Mex. We need all these great people that are going to technical
school. Right. Practitioner. Exactly. And we need them
desperately. Right. And when you talk to them and
(07:31):
you talk to some of the people that head up the Democratic Party,
they don't connect because it's like they don't feel appreciated. And
you know what? These guys shower at the end of the day. Okay, okay. Just
remember I was talking to a labor leader from Iowa, and he said to
me at the end of the conversation on the air, he goes, what's this deplorables
thing? There is a word that has survived
(07:53):
and shouldn't have survived. Whatever Hillary Clinton meant when she said it, how
narrowly she defined it, they heard it. Yep.
Yeah. And it means I'm a deplorable. I think in spite of
all of the criticism that we can levy, we had pretty good
night on Tuesday. It was an amazing night. Women, too.
Women had a big night. Yeah. Well, you know, obviously
(08:16):
the Republicans would love to define the Democratic Party
now as the party of Mondami, but, you know,
it's the party of Abigail, it's the party of Mikey. It
is. And we've forgotten and we haven't talked enough about what happened
in. I mean, I think that the Republicans are
salivating to try and get that Senate seat away from
(08:37):
Oslo. But, man, if you look at what happened in Georgia,
that's a good outcome. And in Mississippi, all
across the board, huge successes. And
I attribute that to the fact that the Democratic
Party came home a little bit. Came home to affordability.
Came home. Yeah. Well, they
(08:59):
trusted that. Hispanics trusted Trump when he said,
we're only deporting the worst of the worst. And all of a sudden,
they see their neighbors and friends and people are just working hard in this country
being snatched up indiscriminately. And, you know, when you're
afraid to walk out in the street, even if you're an American citizen, that does
not bode well, in my opinion,
(09:23):
for the direction of your politics. But if you
look at the fundamental argument, the fundamental argument
is regular people can't afford. I mean, you know,
60% of the people in this country could not, you know,
afford a $400 hit to their. To their budget. And they
feel it. And Trump is tone deaf on this. I mean,
(09:46):
he Thinks it's because he wasn't on the ballot. I want to say he was
on the ballot every place. Well, his spending level, which is much
higher than the Democrats, his push on
tariffs and his push for a weaker Fed,
everything points to more inflation. That's where he's heading. And I know it's odd for
Democrats to talk about it, but it is inflationary and
(10:08):
he has denied it. But everything he's done, I want lower interest rates, I want
higher, higher tariffs, and I want to spend more money and
bigger deficits. This is Trump's reality. He's not
running a conservative administration. And
I think the thing, look, I'm a more of a moderate on the border. I
think nobody has complained about the border being closed for the last seven months.
(10:32):
Nobody, nobody. Not the loudest Hispanic community
leader. Nobody's complained because they know that what Biden did was
wrong, that the four years of open border did not work. It didn't work for
the country or anybody. It didn't work for Hispanics. And yet
when you said a minute ago the idea of rounding up people who have been
here 20 years or 10 years is ridiculous. I heard an Hispanic leader the other
(10:54):
day say, give us at least the 10 years. Give us, give us some
history in this country of ours. And I think
if you just said we're just taking the people that came in under Biden, great,
that we'll move on from there. Why don't they have a list of who
overstayed their visas? Why don't they have a list?
Why don't they round up those people? Why do you go into, have to go
(11:14):
into Home Depots and stuff and
pick up everybody looking for a job? Why they got, is there a better way
of rounding up? Why aren't they looking at the people that hired them? Why aren't
they looking at the individuals that actually knew exactly what was going on?
You know why? Because, number one, these people work incredibly
hard. I know that. Oftentimes at jobs that other people don't want.
(11:37):
And number two, they like the bosses. You know,
they're not dragging them by the hair out in the middle of the street. Well,
I know that, too. And cynically, what we do know is that
frequently bosses will hire people who are
undocumented. And then just weeks before they have to pay him at the end
of the project, call ICE. I mean, that's about as bad
(11:58):
as it gets in terms of being cynical. But, but those
people that we talk about, they're in red states, too.
I mean, they're, but you don't see Kristi Noem hunting in red states.
You don't. I mean, you see ICE pulling these people from
streets in Chicago and New York. And,
you know, I can tell you this, in the Dakotas, if
(12:19):
she wants to go after these people that are working their butts
off trying to get ahead and make this their home, she could.
But she doesn't want to do that because it'll make the red states look foolish.
Yeah, well, San Francisco is getting it, cleaning up its act.
A lot of Democrats are getting their act together, too. It's not just the
voters about the problems of homelessness and drugs and things like that.
(12:42):
And everybody who walks through the streets of San Francisco, where I
used to work for the paper out there, you can see it. There's no
argument about it. These retail operations have
closed. These homeless swarm over
the city. The stores close. There's no
future in that. And I think the mayor out there and the DA especially, are
(13:04):
really doing the job. Maybe that's why Trump's staying out of there. But
can I, I want to back up one place, Heidi. We talked about what a
big night it was the other night. This, as a former state Senator,
I think the one thing that's always lost. I mean, you were Tax Commissioner. One
day, nobody wakes up in the morning, says, gee, I hope to be Tax Commissioner.
Well, I wonder who's gonna be Tax Commissioner in North Dakota? And you
(13:27):
grew that into being a United States Senator. As
state Senator, I can tell you those jobs matter in terms of growth, you
know, in terms of where you're going to go politically. In Virginia,
at the Assembly, look at how they won. They won red
seats and the blue took them. That, to me, was
the biggest part of the night. That's what excited me. That's all I'm saying. You
(13:49):
know, that part. You know, I really, I'm older than you guys, and I got
to tell you something I lived through. I was with Frank Moss from
Utah, the last liberal Senator from, he was a liberal in many ways,
from Utah. And that Sagebrush Rebellion that came
across in the late 70s, swept everybody out of office. George
McGovern, everybody lost in Montana, everywhere. And
(14:12):
if we don't get the - If the Democrats don't get the mountain states
back again, we got problems because the geography just isn't there. I
mean, why do we have a Senate except for those areas?
Because they benefit from the small state advantage of a couple, two or
three seats. And all of a sudden, you got as many seats as California or
New York. That's what's going on? And I think Trump would like to keep
(14:34):
the Senate, but get rid of the filibuster. But then he'd rule the world.
Are the Republicans in the United States Senate nervous
now when they weren't before about losing control of the Senate?
I think they're more nervous about alienating Donald Trump.
I don't think that that changes. I think that they're trying to retrench,
(14:55):
but I, you know, John Thune has never been in favor
of killing the filibuster, ever, ever, ever. And Mitch
McConnell is loathe to do it, but when you
think about it, when, when Trump pushes him
to do it, there's gonna be a bunch of people who have taken a
contrary position, are gonna flip, but not enough. I don't think
(15:17):
Thune has the votes to eliminate the filibuster. Well, why would he want to do
it? Just obey Trump. Well, yeah,
obedience plus. Yeah. Like a dog. Yeah. Well, no, really,
that's what you're talking about. Because you give up the filibuster, let's face it, it's
the same as the House of Representatives. Why do we need a Senate if you
really get into it, if there's no filibuster, there's no need for requirement. Why even
(15:38):
have committees if the other party doesn't matter? What do you want to hear from
them for? If you got a majority, you rule a place. That's what he's
talking about doing. Every single appropriations bill
gets passed. There won't be any more
reconciliation bills. Forget all that. You'll pass every
single bill and you'll run the world.
(16:00):
Trump wants this so badly. I will be king if I get
rid of the filibuster. And he wants it because he knows he has total
lock control on the Senators. You know, that would not
have happened in the days of Teddy Kennedy. That wouldn't have happened. How
does Cassidy live with himself? I mean, these are. I know Cassidy's
a good guy. He took me to lunch one time just to talk about life
(16:22):
and stuff and tell us, give me a break. Til us and
all these Senators that left in last November
have already left the place. It's amazing how they can live with
themselves. People talk about the filibuster and when they say getting rid of the
filibuster, they talk about when they're not in the majority, how
this can come back and bite him in the ass. Right. But it's
(16:45):
different than that, too. It can bite them being in
the majority. Because now you are responsible where the
minority can't help you from hurting yourself. Or at least
that's how I see it. I see what's happening in the Supreme Court right now.
And with the tariffs, if the Supreme Court rules that
what Donald Trump is doing is wrong with the tariffs, Donald
(17:08):
Trump's popularity is going to go up. And the reason it's gonna go
up is, you know, they're gonna save him from himself when it comes
to the economy. But he loses his leverage,
his instinctive ability to do what he wants to do. But if I don't like
China this week, I can screw China, I can screw China, I can screw
Vietnam, anybody I don't like, I can go after Canada again.
(17:30):
He can't do that if the Congress recontrols
the tariff. I worked up there on the Hill, as Tip O'Neill says, hey, I
gotta tell you, fighting about the tariffs was,
you know, the Senate and the House controlled
tariffs. He had a fast track even to bring
up a Bill. It never
(17:53):
worked out that the President called the shots on tariffs. Well, it's going to be
interesting because his Secretary of
Treasury is no dummy and he's already looking at
232 if they lose under
the IEPA, which is the law that's
in question in the Supreme Court, if they lose there going to retrench
(18:14):
and do 232s, they're going to do 301s, they're going to
do other kind of tariff authorities. And so it won't be as
broad but they'll try and leverage as best they can. Well, he's
a smart guy. Yeah, the Treasury Secretary. With Donald Trump, the thing that's ever
going to make him unpopular in red states is going
to be the economy. It is. Let me give you an example, Chris.
(18:38):
He leans into the back of a plane and blows up
ranchers markets by 300 bucks a head just by
mentioning he's going to bring beef into Argentina. Those ranchers are pissed off.
Why is he, why is he more interested in Argentina than he is
than American votes? Why isn't he interested in American votes?
Well, I think the Argentinian thing was he's getting beat up on
(19:00):
grocery prices time and time again. So he needed a villain. He didn't want
to talk about the packers where the real money is being made when it comes
to beef. But he did want to talk about how meat
prices are going to go down. You know, he couldn't ignore that. So what happens?
Those ranchers, it was time to sell the feeders, it was time to
sell those calves, right? Couldn't have been worse time. It couldn't have been a worse
(19:21):
time. I mean, they were going off. And so here we
sit and they're losing 300 bucks a head. That's a lot to ranchers at a
time when they're finally making money. He didn't care. We got soybeans
laying on the ground in the Midwest that we can't
move because he picked a fight with China. We're never gonna get a
big part of that market back. And so my point in this is you
(19:43):
can subsidize it. You can send money out to these guys. You can say, look,
you know, Wilbur Ross, we'll just buy you off kind of an attitude.
But the ranchers are gonna remember this. And the
ranchers are pissed off. That's all I'm trying to say. Well, and the question
is whether, whether the Democratic Party can win some of those
rural votes back. But you know, when you look at kind
(20:06):
of the trend line, the best you can hope for, I
think, is that there is a disillusionment factor that
will curtail kind of turnout among that broad base. And they'll
say, it just doesn't matter. You know, when I travel around,
I've done it recently. Pennsylvania. I'm a city kid.
And we always were amazed. We went on a religious retreat one time
(20:28):
in my senior year and we just went an hour and a half from the
city. And all of a sudden every diner was playing country
western. And we said, what part of the world are we in? And
it's right here. The country's right here. But then I more recently
went around about Adams county and places like that near
Gettysburg and all. There's no downtown anymore. I mean, there's no gift
(20:50):
shops. Remember gift shops where you could go buy gifts? There's nothing like that. It's
all, it's all Walmart and everything. Somewhere out of town,
there's a gas station. There might - There used to be a Blockbuster. At least
you could get a movie. That's all gone. There's no newspaper.
There's no local conversation. It's arid.
The Western, I mean, the rural parts of Pennsylvania are
(21:12):
arid. There's nobody there except some angry people. And they are
angry at the Democrats especially. And they talk about
politically correct or whatever. They had a big store. All they sold was Biden stuff,
negative stuff. That's all they sold. And so
angry. And I got. And I'd ask somebody how they're going to vote. He says,
how are you going to vote? I mean, it was like a reaction was, tell
(21:33):
me how you're going to vote. You know, like you're the bad guy. I ride
motorcycle. And when I went on my trip this year with my buddies, we
went through northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin. We made the
big swoop around, right? I couldn't possibly imagine
with my mom and dad and with the way they raised us religiously,
with the way we were taught to talk. You would have
(21:54):
these flags out, and they have them out that are "eff Biden."
Okay, yeah. If we flew a flag like that, dad
would have had it. He'd been kicking our butt till our noses bleed. You know,
he would have been that mad. I mean, but these people are doing it, and
it's okay culturally to do it. The school bus goes by that flag
every day, and yet they're doing it. And I don't know how we got there,
(22:17):
Chris. I don't. Well, there's a coarseness to all of this that
I think has really discouraged a lot of people, but it also has motivated
a lot of people. I mean, you think about the No Kings
Rally, 7 million people across the country
marching and not angrily,
which is interesting. And I think that's probably more discouraging for
(22:41):
the right than anything, is that these were not crazy
people who were like, kill somebody. These were people
who just said, look, we have an opportunity in the
250th year of our democracy to fight
for our democracy. It's our job now. And this is how I
can do. I think one of the things that we're missing all along
(23:02):
is a call to action, you know, and that's what the Kennedys were
so good at. I mean, you think about, ask not what
your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. That
call to action is what we're missing. But I think it's coming back,
certainly among certain people, unselfishness. I have
to tell you, I researched all the books on the Kennedys I've written,
(23:25):
and I found out where that came from. So I went up to his
prep school, Choate, and I got it. And I was very lucky.
And I was being helped by the archivist of the school, a
woman, and she brought out the
Headmaster's chapel notes. And it was a Protestant school,
and they always had chapel,
(23:47):
chapel with the Headmaster. And in the
notes was the line, ask not what your school can do
for you, ask what you can do for your school. And I
found it in there, and I go, bullseye. This is what I went looking. Because
Arthur or Ted Sorensen never said he wrote that for Kennedy.
Nobody else said it. Nobody ever said, maybe somebody will. But
(24:09):
I found it actually in the notes, and I go, this is where it came
from. Kennedy remembered that he didn't like Choate much. He didn't like the Headmaster
much, but he did listen to him. And that line, it was unique
English, too. It's not regular English. Nobody says, 'ask not.' It was from, from
school. But who's been able to deliver a speech like
the Kennedys since the Kennedys? Well, I
(24:31):
think it's, you know,
it came out of Adlai Stevenson in the early 50s. And then Kennedy
evolved something else. He said he started to ask people, the Peace Corps.
I was in the Peace Corps. I'm telling you, when you ask somebody to do
something, you, you basically create a friend.
Because as Machiavelli - I dug this out in one of my
(24:54):
books, too. Machiavelli said, if you want to make a friend, ask somebody to do
you a favor. Because when you do somebody a favor, you become one of
them. What's a Kennedy Person? Not somebody that got some welfare from the
Kennedys, but somebody who worked for them. Somebody who was in the Army or the
Peace Corps or anything else at the time of the Kennedy era. I
think, I think when you get somebody to work for you, they become your guy,
(25:15):
your person. And I think that that's what that was all about. People
will say to me, yeah, my daughter worked for Kennedy back in the 60s. Oh,
yeah, you're a Kennedy Person. Yeah. And so if you
ask people for, to do something, if you ask them to do something for their
country, they're. They're patriotic. I mean, it is so true, though,
as I was talking about the soldier, the enlisted guy who
(25:39):
spent a couple years or four years in the military, he's very
proud of having been in the military, and it may have been a rough time
for him. It's discipline. It's taking orders, and yet when
it's over, you go, yeah, I was in the military and you
weren't, or whatever. An
example of what I think you're getting at of our dad. I mean, our dad
(26:01):
was constantly asking people in our hometown, and he was the leader
of that town, small town. But here's an example, I think, of what you're
getting at. In our church, the men took a great pride.
No matter what the season was, the ground could be froze four feet deep.
But the men were going to go out and dig the grave. They were going
to go out and dig the grave anytime someone passed. They weren't going to
(26:24):
bring a - Pay somebody with a backhoe. And our dad would organize it, right?
Sometimes they're holding the bar chipping away. Sometimes they got the ax
chipping the dirt because it's that froze. But dad would call him
and he'd say, here we go, at this time. They loved dad.
They really did, but they had no choice. They were going out in that
cold weather, and you didn't want to be the guy that didn't come up. I
(26:45):
know. And, and it was, "Ray called. Let's go." You know,
that's the right. My dad used to say, and he's talking about
end of life. And he said, it's cold down there.
You know, it's an Irish tradition, too, because
I got called to be a pallbearer when I was like, 10 years
old because they didn't want to hire somebody they didn't know. We
(27:09):
don't hire pallbearers. No, we bring them in. And so
I got called in to do it, you know, for some distant relative.
So if you were gonna give advice to the next round of
Senate candidates, Chris, and said,
what should Democratic Senate candidates be doing right now
and be doing during the campaign to
(27:32):
build on this momentum that was created on Tuesday?
Well, I think they have to speak, which they haven't
done, the Democrats haven't done. And
I don't understand why you would want to be a Senator and not have something
to say. I mean, after all the work of getting into the United
States Senate, you would say, I've got something to say. Schumer doesn't seem
(27:54):
to have much to say. I always attribute it to the
enormous amount of human time that he
spends raising money. And he's on the phone, I imagine, all day
long. The Senate leader. That's what they do, just raise money, raise money,
raise money. You know, kiss the butt of somebody on the phone. You know,
'I think Israel's great' or something. Whatever that person wants to hear, you
(28:16):
gotta tell them, and you're exhausted. And I think that, I
think Schumer's like that. I'll just say this for both parties. One
is David McCormick, get elected United States Senate from Pennsylvania, which is, to
me, an amazing ambition. And not say a word.
He hasn't said anything since he's been in office. What is he, why do you,
why do you want to be a Senator? For the honor of being a Senator,
(28:38):
but not saying anything. Where are they? You know, Fetterman, at least
in a strange way, is running around with shorts on and then
acting like he's a yahoo. Like, where do you come from, you know.
But he's got something to say. He does. And I think the
question is Chris Murphy's got things to say.
(28:58):
Look, it looks like the
next Democratic nominee for President is going to be a Governor. And
I say that because the Democrats are tired of losing. They don't want to hear
it. They don't want another oddball out there. They
want a Governor who represents a big state or in
any state and represents both parties, because you have to be able to talk
(29:20):
to both parties to be a president. Bill Clinton could do that. Maybe
Gavin Newsom can do it. Maybe we'll serve J.B. Pritzker, maybe, maybe
Josh Piro in Pennsylvania. Maybe Wes Moore, could be Wes Moore
for VP. I think Wes Moore is VP material, because I
think the Democrats are going to have to run a moderate, and it's somebody
from the, what looks like somebody who looks like they're from the left
(29:42):
as a running mate. They don't have to run a left winger. I don't think
that's necessary. But if you run an African American, people would say, well, he might
be a left winger, he might be on the left, but they got to run
a moderate, somebody like Josh, or they really have to
run somebody who runs and takes the middle, just takes it.
Because I think they showed they can get it. The, the, the Mikie
(30:03):
Sherrill winning this week was like a Democrat of the old days. A
Hubert Humphrey or somebody or somebody would win because he seemed like he was
with the, the working people. He just seems like he's one of them.
He's ready to. And I think that. I think that they need
to get that back. Obama couldn't do it. I love, I loved Obama,
but he didn't seem to connect with regular people.
(30:26):
And you got to find a way into the hearts of people and say, you
know what? I don't know much about this guy, but I think he's with us.
Well, part of that, that recipe you just talked about
is what this is about, right? Yeah. Well, you talked about the train ride. You
talked about stopping. You talked about people, you know, stopping
and talking to everybody to the point where they all felt like they were
(30:49):
part of it. In my home area, I mean, you got John Thune
out saying what he's saying. He's talking, right? He's a leader.
I've got John Hoeven. John Hoeven in North Dakota
still hasn't said anything. I don't know what he's for. I get him on my
radio show all the time, and we always laughed afterwards saying,
okay, what did he say? When
(31:12):
he's done with the interview, everybody I'm around going... Because he didn't
want to say anything. He reminds me, he reminds me of the
guy in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Remember, I dance a little
sidestep. Larry. Larry. Well,
you know, there is no premium in taking a position
anymore, you know. Well, that was, that was, that was
(31:33):
true with Ronald Reagan, who people liked. My job working for the
speaker for six years was to come up with a Democratic
member on the House side to respond to Reagan on the radio
on Saturday. And I was, I would call the people, I'd say, you got, you
got something to say. You're smart. I don't say you're smart. The guys would, they'd
all say, no, I don't want to, I don't want to contend with Ronald Reagan.
(31:55):
Cause people back home, whether it's Rostenkowski or anybody like that,
you may be from a Democratic district, but they like Reagan.
But people don't like Trump. That's the mistake. I hope that's the
case. No, that's absolutely the case. Even people who vote for
him are disgusted by the behavior, don't like them,
but they don't think they've been given an alternative, which is the
(32:18):
failure of the Democratic Party not to provide an alternative that
people can in fact see as a potential. He
is not beloved. Well, the one question I don't not think
Donald Trump is beloved. The one question on my radio show that
the right, which, you know, I come from right country, so I have a lot
of politicians on that are from the right, and the one question I
(32:40):
ask them that makes them the most nervous and now they know they're going to
get asked it and they don't have an answer for it, is do you
think Donald Trump's a good person? Do you think he's a great
person? It's a great question. Then you hear this long pause and they
wait for you to jump in. And say the long pause is, should I lie?
Should I lie? And to be honest with you,
(33:01):
none of the people I've talked to have said yes.
None of them have said yes. Now think about that. He's President of the
United States and none of them think he's a good person.
Well, I think that's a great question. It's like I said in my book,
if you want America to be great, start with the fact it's going to be
(33:21):
good. I love that. You gotta be a good country and that means
dealing with immigration in a reasonable way, dealing with the
bad guys, get them out of here. Fine. The people that have been causing
trouble, fine. But respect the fact that somebody's been going to
church and paying taxes and not getting Social Security and not getting
Medicaid despite the lies of Michael Johnson.
(33:44):
They're not getting it. It's not true. You can't get it if you don't pay
in. I'm sorry. That's how it works. And that was Roosevelt's
genius because he said, I'm going to make sure this is a, you have
to pay for it. I want people to pay for Social Security and I
wanted them to get it. If they're a zillionaire, I want them to get it
still because I want people with wealth to protect Social Security.
(34:05):
I want them to believe in it, too. So he said, it's not going to
be a means-tested program. It's not going to be the way a real
super liberal would want it. He just says, I'm going to make it a program
that people want. Well, I mean, we have so much
more to talk about, but we want everybody to know this
is going to be a great book. Thank you. It is, I think the, the,
(34:26):
that in order to be a great country, we have to be a good country.
It's something that calls to the higher angels. And so congratulations. You
sound like Lincoln. No, I don't. I wish I
could sound like Lincoln. But thank you so much
for being on the Hot Dish. One more episode
and we're so glad you all tune in and we're hoping that
(34:50):
you continue to visit us us. It's brought to you by
onecountryproject.org. And we want to know what you
think. So please let us know what you think. I mean, this is a work
in progress. This is something that we want to do with
you. So do that, go to onecountryproject.org.
That's onecountryproject.org. And both Heidi and I thank you for
(35:12):
joining us.
Welcome to the Hot Dish. I'm Heidi Heitkamp. And I'm Joel Heitkamp.
Every week we do a show that we hope you tune in and watch,
but today is a special show because we're here at CrookedCon
and doing a show with somebody who doesn't really need an
introduction, and that's Chris Matthews. Welcome to the Hot Dish. Thank you. Thank
you, Heidi. Yeah. Senator. No, Heidi, that was a good title.
(00:28):
It's a good title, a good reality. You used to do your show on occasion,
and it was fun and always fast moving. And we wanted you
to come and talk about your new book, but also talk about
the elections and what you think as somebody who's been
involved in Democratic politics for a long, long time, what you think
the next step should be for Democrats. And so first, let's
(00:52):
just talk a little bit about the book. Well, it's about
Bobby Kennedy, of course. He was killed at the age of
42. Next, the 20th of
November this year is his hundredth birthday, if
he had lived that long. That's why they wanted me to write the book, Simon
and Schuster, to commemorate the fact I wrote a book on him years ago,
(01:13):
Bobby Kennedy, and sold a lot of books. And that's why they wanted more books.
But it's about a guy. My theme of the book was
America is great when it is good, when
it tries its best to be good. And that's really true. And if you look
at our history, whether it's civil rights or whatever, or even peace and war,
when we did the right thing, you know, we shouldn't have gone to war with
(01:34):
Iraq. I mean, come on. I mean, I know, God
bless his heart, Dick Cheney, but that we should not have done that. But I
think the idea of, you think about one image, the train
tracks from New York to Washington, from St.
Patrick's Cathedral to Arlington Cemetery, where he was
putting together with his dead brother Jack.
(01:55):
And you think about the people along those tracks in Philadelphia. There
were 20,000 African Americans who were
singing spontaneously the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
And you look at all the white people between the cities, between Trenton and
Newark and everything, these white people, they all look like enlisted
guys because all of them were saluting and had their family
(02:19):
in birth order saluting, too. It was so different
cultures, the black culture, the working class white culture,
totally devoted to, to Bobby Kennedy. And it's maybe the
last time anybody's been able to do this or was able to do this. And
that's because he was a tough liberal. He believed in law and order. He would
say, I want, I want law and order. You know, I don't like riots
(02:40):
and stuff like that. And he, but he was for the black opportunity
for civil rights. He- Southeastern Conference football,
okay? Just a simple fact. The players, they,
you tell those white guys stand there, you know, you didn't have any blacks in
his school before Bobby Kennedy came along. Bobby Kennedy desegregated
your college Ole Miss and desegregated University of
(03:01):
Alabama against George Wallace. He did it. He brought in the
army and made sure this thing happened. He brought in James Meredith, you know,
people like that into your school. And now you have the best running
backs in the world. I mean, it's not, it's not the only thing that you
get out of black community, but it's a vivid
reality and that, that's what's going on down there. It's an
(03:22):
integrated society in those universities. And he did it.
How did people, how did people have this image of him
during his brother's administration where he was this
tough enforcement? They hated him. The white people in the South hate him because he
- Organized crime hated him. Well, and then, then you go from
being this caring, caring person that everybody saw. Well,
(03:46):
I think he, I think he got to the heart of the guy. He was
vulnerable. As Arthur Schlesinger, the
historian, said, Jack Kennedy looked like a guy who didn't need protection.
He had. He's the cool guy, the Sinatra,
like, cool guy. Bobby was the guy that looked vulnerable, as always.
In fact, when Jack was killed, Bobby said, I thought it would be me.
(04:09):
I thought I would be the one they would get or whoever the bad
guy was going to be. And so he was like that.
He was shorter than his brothers. He wasn't as good looking as his brothers.
He didn't have it made like Jack and Joe Jr. And Teddy.
He didn't seem like that. He was the runt of the litter. That's what his
father called him. And that's not an encomium you want from your dad.
(04:32):
You're the runt. But that's what he was. But what a legacy.
And you know, I keep thinking about the
heritage of the Democratic Party and certainly the Kennedys are there.
FDR. When people ask me, why are you a Democrat? I said, because my
grandmother said FDR put food on her table. You know, it made
a difference in their lives. And that's why we were. And I
(04:54):
keep thinking, what would all those people say today about the Democratic Party?
Well, that's the problem. There's too much elitism. There's too much
snobbery, to be blunt about it. It's snobbery.
You get in the Washington bubble, like, I live in it. And I gotta
tell you, I am tired of talking about Trump. It
exhausts me. And there's too many points of attack, too many
(05:18):
shots coming out of the plan he has put together or somebody's
put together. And there's a snobbery about it.
You know, the working class guy, a guy. I was a capital cop for a
while, for a few months. When I got out of the Peace Corps, it was
a patronage job. I wasn't claiming to have worked my way into the job. I
was given a job for a while and I had a .38 special, which is
ridiculous. I was armed and dangerous.
(05:40):
And there's a guy worked with LeRoy Terror, he's a white guy from West Virginia,
and he knew I was the college kid. He knew I was the patronage appointment.
He called me aside one day and he's a very serious guy. He's a former
MP. He's always talking about "smoke." We're gonna, I'm gonna bring
smoke into this trouble, you know, he's like, okay, I got. I got your act.
And he called me a mine. He said, you know, Chris, you know why the
(06:02):
little man loves this country? And I thought,
no. It's because it's always God.
And I said, I said, I hope I never forget that. You don't have a
fine house. You don't have kids going off to college. You didn't go to college.
You never thought about it. You don't have a lot going for you in your
life, but you do have your country. Yeah. So don't mess
(06:24):
with me about it. I, I care about my country and a lot of the
working people out there, real people, 70% of the country didn't go
to college, aren't going to go to college. They're real people. And
snobs in the Democratic Party, they got to stop this stuff, you
know, I don't know where it comes. Who's the worst? I guess I could name
some names, but it's like Dukakis, people like that.
(06:47):
It's all academic. It's all. We're the ones with academic credentials.
And stop it. You're turning people off.
Well, I can tell you this. Well, out in West, I'm sure. Out in North
Dakota, I'm sure it's like real. But I'll tell you, it's right outside of Philly.
If you look at the map of Pennsylvania, it's red, right up to the
cities. If it's not for Penn State or Pittsburgh or
(07:09):
Philly, it's red. Well, and it's generational when
it happened. Because in my particular case,
back home, what we need, we need nurses aides, we need LPNs,
we need Diesel Mex. We need all these great people that are going to technical
school. Right. Practitioner. Exactly. And we need them
desperately. Right. And when you talk to them and
(07:31):
you talk to some of the people that head up the Democratic Party,
they don't connect because it's like they don't feel appreciated. And
you know what? These guys shower at the end of the day. Okay, okay. Just
remember I was talking to a labor leader from Iowa, and he said to
me at the end of the conversation on the air, he goes, what's this deplorables
thing? There is a word that has survived
(07:53):
and shouldn't have survived. Whatever Hillary Clinton meant when she said it, how
narrowly she defined it, they heard it. Yep.
Yeah. And it means I'm a deplorable. I think in spite of
all of the criticism that we can levy, we had pretty good
night on Tuesday. It was an amazing night. Women, too.
Women had a big night. Yeah. Well, you know, obviously
(08:16):
the Republicans would love to define the Democratic Party
now as the party of Mondami, but, you know,
it's the party of Abigail, it's the party of Mikey. It
is. And we've forgotten and we haven't talked enough about what happened
in. I mean, I think that the Republicans are
salivating to try and get that Senate seat away from
(08:37):
Oslo. But, man, if you look at what happened in Georgia,
that's a good outcome. And in Mississippi, all
across the board, huge successes. And
I attribute that to the fact that the Democratic
Party came home a little bit. Came home to affordability.
Came home. Yeah. Well, they
(08:59):
trusted that. Hispanics trusted Trump when he said,
we're only deporting the worst of the worst. And all of a sudden,
they see their neighbors and friends and people are just working hard in this country
being snatched up indiscriminately. And, you know, when you're
afraid to walk out in the street, even if you're an American citizen, that does
not bode well, in my opinion,
(09:23):
for the direction of your politics. But if you
look at the fundamental argument, the fundamental argument
is regular people can't afford. I mean, you know,
60% of the people in this country could not, you know,
afford a $400 hit to their. To their budget. And they
feel it. And Trump is tone deaf on this. I mean,
(09:46):
he Thinks it's because he wasn't on the ballot. I want to say he was
on the ballot every place. Well, his spending level, which is much
higher than the Democrats, his push on
tariffs and his push for a weaker Fed,
everything points to more inflation. That's where he's heading. And I know it's odd for
Democrats to talk about it, but it is inflationary and
(10:08):
he has denied it. But everything he's done, I want lower interest rates, I want
higher, higher tariffs, and I want to spend more money and
bigger deficits. This is Trump's reality. He's not
running a conservative administration. And
I think the thing, look, I'm a more of a moderate on the border. I
think nobody has complained about the border being closed for the last seven months.
(10:32):
Nobody, nobody. Not the loudest Hispanic community
leader. Nobody's complained because they know that what Biden did was
wrong, that the four years of open border did not work. It didn't work for
the country or anybody. It didn't work for Hispanics. And yet
when you said a minute ago the idea of rounding up people who have been
here 20 years or 10 years is ridiculous. I heard an Hispanic leader the other
(10:54):
day say, give us at least the 10 years. Give us, give us some
history in this country of ours. And I think
if you just said we're just taking the people that came in under Biden, great,
that we'll move on from there. Why don't they have a list of who
overstayed their visas? Why don't they have a list?
Why don't they round up those people? Why do you go into, have to go
(11:14):
into Home Depots and stuff and
pick up everybody looking for a job? Why they got, is there a better way
of rounding up? Why aren't they looking at the people that hired them? Why aren't
they looking at the individuals that actually knew exactly what was going on?
You know why? Because, number one, these people work incredibly
hard. I know that. Oftentimes at jobs that other people don't want.
(11:37):
And number two, they like the bosses. You know,
they're not dragging them by the hair out in the middle of the street. Well,
I know that, too. And cynically, what we do know is that
frequently bosses will hire people who are
undocumented. And then just weeks before they have to pay him at the end
of the project, call ICE. I mean, that's about as bad
(11:58):
as it gets in terms of being cynical. But, but those
people that we talk about, they're in red states, too.
I mean, they're, but you don't see Kristi Noem hunting in red states.
You don't. I mean, you see ICE pulling these people from
streets in Chicago and New York. And,
you know, I can tell you this, in the Dakotas, if
(12:19):
she wants to go after these people that are working their butts
off trying to get ahead and make this their home, she could.
But she doesn't want to do that because it'll make the red states look foolish.
Yeah, well, San Francisco is getting it, cleaning up its act.
A lot of Democrats are getting their act together, too. It's not just the
voters about the problems of homelessness and drugs and things like that.
(12:42):
And everybody who walks through the streets of San Francisco, where I
used to work for the paper out there, you can see it. There's no
argument about it. These retail operations have
closed. These homeless swarm over
the city. The stores close. There's no
future in that. And I think the mayor out there and the DA especially, are
(13:04):
really doing the job. Maybe that's why Trump's staying out of there. But
can I, I want to back up one place, Heidi. We talked about what a
big night it was the other night. This, as a former state Senator,
I think the one thing that's always lost. I mean, you were Tax Commissioner. One
day, nobody wakes up in the morning, says, gee, I hope to be Tax Commissioner.
Well, I wonder who's gonna be Tax Commissioner in North Dakota? And you
(13:27):
grew that into being a United States Senator. As
state Senator, I can tell you those jobs matter in terms of growth, you
know, in terms of where you're going to go politically. In Virginia,
at the Assembly, look at how they won. They won red
seats and the blue took them. That, to me, was
the biggest part of the night. That's what excited me. That's all I'm saying. You
(13:49):
know, that part. You know, I really, I'm older than you guys, and I got
to tell you something I lived through. I was with Frank Moss from
Utah, the last liberal Senator from, he was a liberal in many ways,
from Utah. And that Sagebrush Rebellion that came
across in the late 70s, swept everybody out of office. George
McGovern, everybody lost in Montana, everywhere. And
(14:12):
if we don't get the - If the Democrats don't get the mountain states
back again, we got problems because the geography just isn't there. I
mean, why do we have a Senate except for those areas?
Because they benefit from the small state advantage of a couple, two or
three seats. And all of a sudden, you got as many seats as California or
New York. That's what's going on? And I think Trump would like to keep
(14:34):
the Senate, but get rid of the filibuster. But then he'd rule the world.
Are the Republicans in the United States Senate nervous
now when they weren't before about losing control of the Senate?
I think they're more nervous about alienating Donald Trump.
I don't think that that changes. I think that they're trying to retrench,
(14:55):
but I, you know, John Thune has never been in favor
of killing the filibuster, ever, ever, ever. And Mitch
McConnell is loathe to do it, but when you
think about it, when, when Trump pushes him
to do it, there's gonna be a bunch of people who have taken a
contrary position, are gonna flip, but not enough. I don't think
(15:17):
Thune has the votes to eliminate the filibuster. Well, why would he want to do
it? Just obey Trump. Well, yeah,
obedience plus. Yeah. Like a dog. Yeah. Well, no, really,
that's what you're talking about. Because you give up the filibuster, let's face it, it's
the same as the House of Representatives. Why do we need a Senate if you
really get into it, if there's no filibuster, there's no need for requirement. Why even
(15:38):
have committees if the other party doesn't matter? What do you want to hear from
them for? If you got a majority, you rule a place. That's what he's
talking about doing. Every single appropriations bill
gets passed. There won't be any more
reconciliation bills. Forget all that. You'll pass every
single bill and you'll run the world.
(16:00):
Trump wants this so badly. I will be king if I get
rid of the filibuster. And he wants it because he knows he has total
lock control on the Senators. You know, that would not
have happened in the days of Teddy Kennedy. That wouldn't have happened. How
does Cassidy live with himself? I mean, these are. I know Cassidy's
a good guy. He took me to lunch one time just to talk about life
(16:22):
and stuff and tell us, give me a break. Til us and
all these Senators that left in last November
have already left the place. It's amazing how they can live with
themselves. People talk about the filibuster and when they say getting rid of the
filibuster, they talk about when they're not in the majority, how
this can come back and bite him in the ass. Right. But it's
(16:45):
different than that, too. It can bite them being in
the majority. Because now you are responsible where the
minority can't help you from hurting yourself. Or at least
that's how I see it. I see what's happening in the Supreme Court right now.
And with the tariffs, if the Supreme Court rules that
what Donald Trump is doing is wrong with the tariffs, Donald
(17:08):
Trump's popularity is going to go up. And the reason it's gonna go
up is, you know, they're gonna save him from himself when it comes
to the economy. But he loses his leverage,
his instinctive ability to do what he wants to do. But if I don't like
China this week, I can screw China, I can screw China, I can screw
Vietnam, anybody I don't like, I can go after Canada again.
(17:30):
He can't do that if the Congress recontrols
the tariff. I worked up there on the Hill, as Tip O'Neill says, hey, I
gotta tell you, fighting about the tariffs was,
you know, the Senate and the House controlled
tariffs. He had a fast track even to bring
up a Bill. It never
(17:53):
worked out that the President called the shots on tariffs. Well, it's going to be
interesting because his Secretary of
Treasury is no dummy and he's already looking at
232 if they lose under
the IEPA, which is the law that's
in question in the Supreme Court, if they lose there going to retrench
(18:14):
and do 232s, they're going to do 301s, they're going to
do other kind of tariff authorities. And so it won't be as
broad but they'll try and leverage as best they can. Well, he's
a smart guy. Yeah, the Treasury Secretary. With Donald Trump, the thing that's ever
going to make him unpopular in red states is going
to be the economy. It is. Let me give you an example, Chris.
(18:38):
He leans into the back of a plane and blows up
ranchers markets by 300 bucks a head just by
mentioning he's going to bring beef into Argentina. Those ranchers are pissed off.
Why is he, why is he more interested in Argentina than he is
than American votes? Why isn't he interested in American votes?
Well, I think the Argentinian thing was he's getting beat up on
(19:00):
grocery prices time and time again. So he needed a villain. He didn't want
to talk about the packers where the real money is being made when it comes
to beef. But he did want to talk about how meat
prices are going to go down. You know, he couldn't ignore that. So what happens?
Those ranchers, it was time to sell the feeders, it was time to
sell those calves, right? Couldn't have been worse time. It couldn't have been a worse
(19:21):
time. I mean, they were going off. And so here we
sit and they're losing 300 bucks a head. That's a lot to ranchers at a
time when they're finally making money. He didn't care. We got soybeans
laying on the ground in the Midwest that we can't
move because he picked a fight with China. We're never gonna get a
big part of that market back. And so my point in this is you
(19:43):
can subsidize it. You can send money out to these guys. You can say, look,
you know, Wilbur Ross, we'll just buy you off kind of an attitude.
But the ranchers are gonna remember this. And the
ranchers are pissed off. That's all I'm trying to say. Well, and the question
is whether, whether the Democratic Party can win some of those
rural votes back. But you know, when you look at kind
(20:06):
of the trend line, the best you can hope for, I
think, is that there is a disillusionment factor that
will curtail kind of turnout among that broad base. And they'll
say, it just doesn't matter. You know, when I travel around,
I've done it recently. Pennsylvania. I'm a city kid.
And we always were amazed. We went on a religious retreat one time
(20:28):
in my senior year and we just went an hour and a half from the
city. And all of a sudden every diner was playing country
western. And we said, what part of the world are we in? And
it's right here. The country's right here. But then I more recently
went around about Adams county and places like that near
Gettysburg and all. There's no downtown anymore. I mean, there's no gift
(20:50):
shops. Remember gift shops where you could go buy gifts? There's nothing like that. It's
all, it's all Walmart and everything. Somewhere out of town,
there's a gas station. There might - There used to be a Blockbuster. At least
you could get a movie. That's all gone. There's no newspaper.
There's no local conversation. It's arid.
The Western, I mean, the rural parts of Pennsylvania are
(21:12):
arid. There's nobody there except some angry people. And they are
angry at the Democrats especially. And they talk about
politically correct or whatever. They had a big store. All they sold was Biden stuff,
negative stuff. That's all they sold. And so
angry. And I got. And I'd ask somebody how they're going to vote. He says,
how are you going to vote? I mean, it was like a reaction was, tell
(21:33):
me how you're going to vote. You know, like you're the bad guy. I ride
motorcycle. And when I went on my trip this year with my buddies, we
went through northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin. We made the
big swoop around, right? I couldn't possibly imagine
with my mom and dad and with the way they raised us religiously,
with the way we were taught to talk. You would have
(21:54):
these flags out, and they have them out that are "eff Biden."
Okay, yeah. If we flew a flag like that, dad
would have had it. He'd been kicking our butt till our noses bleed. You know,
he would have been that mad. I mean, but these people are doing it, and
it's okay culturally to do it. The school bus goes by that flag
every day, and yet they're doing it. And I don't know how we got there,
(22:17):
Chris. I don't. Well, there's a coarseness to all of this that
I think has really discouraged a lot of people, but it also has motivated
a lot of people. I mean, you think about the No Kings
Rally, 7 million people across the country
marching and not angrily,
which is interesting. And I think that's probably more discouraging for
(22:41):
the right than anything, is that these were not crazy
people who were like, kill somebody. These were people
who just said, look, we have an opportunity in the
250th year of our democracy to fight
for our democracy. It's our job now. And this is how I
can do. I think one of the things that we're missing all along
(23:02):
is a call to action, you know, and that's what the Kennedys were
so good at. I mean, you think about, ask not what
your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. That
call to action is what we're missing. But I think it's coming back,
certainly among certain people, unselfishness. I have
to tell you, I researched all the books on the Kennedys I've written,
(23:25):
and I found out where that came from. So I went up to his
prep school, Choate, and I got it. And I was very lucky.
And I was being helped by the archivist of the school, a
woman, and she brought out the
Headmaster's chapel notes. And it was a Protestant school,
and they always had chapel,
(23:47):
chapel with the Headmaster. And in the
notes was the line, ask not what your school can do
for you, ask what you can do for your school. And I
found it in there, and I go, bullseye. This is what I went looking. Because
Arthur or Ted Sorensen never said he wrote that for Kennedy.
Nobody else said it. Nobody ever said, maybe somebody will. But
(24:09):
I found it actually in the notes, and I go, this is where it came
from. Kennedy remembered that he didn't like Choate much. He didn't like the Headmaster
much, but he did listen to him. And that line, it was unique
English, too. It's not regular English. Nobody says, 'ask not.' It was from, from
school. But who's been able to deliver a speech like
the Kennedys since the Kennedys? Well, I
(24:31):
think it's, you know,
it came out of Adlai Stevenson in the early 50s. And then Kennedy
evolved something else. He said he started to ask people, the Peace Corps.
I was in the Peace Corps. I'm telling you, when you ask somebody to do
something, you, you basically create a friend.
Because as Machiavelli - I dug this out in one of my
(24:54):
books, too. Machiavelli said, if you want to make a friend, ask somebody to do
you a favor. Because when you do somebody a favor, you become one of
them. What's a Kennedy Person? Not somebody that got some welfare from the
Kennedys, but somebody who worked for them. Somebody who was in the Army or the
Peace Corps or anything else at the time of the Kennedy era. I
think, I think when you get somebody to work for you, they become your guy,
(25:15):
your person. And I think that that's what that was all about. People
will say to me, yeah, my daughter worked for Kennedy back in the 60s. Oh,
yeah, you're a Kennedy Person. Yeah. And so if you
ask people for, to do something, if you ask them to do something for their
country, they're. They're patriotic. I mean, it is so true, though,
as I was talking about the soldier, the enlisted guy who
(25:39):
spent a couple years or four years in the military, he's very
proud of having been in the military, and it may have been a rough time
for him. It's discipline. It's taking orders, and yet when
it's over, you go, yeah, I was in the military and you
weren't, or whatever. An
example of what I think you're getting at of our dad. I mean, our dad
(26:01):
was constantly asking people in our hometown, and he was the leader
of that town, small town. But here's an example, I think, of what you're
getting at. In our church, the men took a great pride.
No matter what the season was, the ground could be froze four feet deep.
But the men were going to go out and dig the grave. They were going
to go out and dig the grave anytime someone passed. They weren't going to
(26:24):
bring a - Pay somebody with a backhoe. And our dad would organize it, right?
Sometimes they're holding the bar chipping away. Sometimes they got the ax
chipping the dirt because it's that froze. But dad would call him
and he'd say, here we go, at this time. They loved dad.
They really did, but they had no choice. They were going out in that
cold weather, and you didn't want to be the guy that didn't come up. I
(26:45):
know. And, and it was, "Ray called. Let's go." You know,
that's the right. My dad used to say, and he's talking about
end of life. And he said, it's cold down there.
You know, it's an Irish tradition, too, because
I got called to be a pallbearer when I was like, 10 years
old because they didn't want to hire somebody they didn't know. We
(27:09):
don't hire pallbearers. No, we bring them in. And so
I got called in to do it, you know, for some distant relative.
So if you were gonna give advice to the next round of
Senate candidates, Chris, and said,
what should Democratic Senate candidates be doing right now
and be doing during the campaign to
(27:32):
build on this momentum that was created on Tuesday?
Well, I think they have to speak, which they haven't
done, the Democrats haven't done. And
I don't understand why you would want to be a Senator and not have something
to say. I mean, after all the work of getting into the United
States Senate, you would say, I've got something to say. Schumer doesn't seem
(27:54):
to have much to say. I always attribute it to the
enormous amount of human time that he
spends raising money. And he's on the phone, I imagine, all day
long. The Senate leader. That's what they do, just raise money, raise money,
raise money. You know, kiss the butt of somebody on the phone. You know,
'I think Israel's great' or something. Whatever that person wants to hear, you
(28:16):
gotta tell them, and you're exhausted. And I think that, I
think Schumer's like that. I'll just say this for both parties. One
is David McCormick, get elected United States Senate from Pennsylvania, which is, to
me, an amazing ambition. And not say a word.
He hasn't said anything since he's been in office. What is he, why do you,
why do you want to be a Senator? For the honor of being a Senator,
(28:38):
but not saying anything. Where are they? You know, Fetterman, at least
in a strange way, is running around with shorts on and then
acting like he's a yahoo. Like, where do you come from, you know.
But he's got something to say. He does. And I think the
question is Chris Murphy's got things to say.
(28:58):
Look, it looks like the
next Democratic nominee for President is going to be a Governor. And
I say that because the Democrats are tired of losing. They don't want to hear
it. They don't want another oddball out there. They
want a Governor who represents a big state or in
any state and represents both parties, because you have to be able to talk
(29:20):
to both parties to be a president. Bill Clinton could do that. Maybe
Gavin Newsom can do it. Maybe we'll serve J.B. Pritzker, maybe, maybe
Josh Piro in Pennsylvania. Maybe Wes Moore, could be Wes Moore
for VP. I think Wes Moore is VP material, because I
think the Democrats are going to have to run a moderate, and it's somebody
from the, what looks like somebody who looks like they're from the left
(29:42):
as a running mate. They don't have to run a left winger. I don't think
that's necessary. But if you run an African American, people would say, well, he might
be a left winger, he might be on the left, but they got to run
a moderate, somebody like Josh, or they really have to
run somebody who runs and takes the middle, just takes it.
Because I think they showed they can get it. The, the, the Mikie
(30:03):
Sherrill winning this week was like a Democrat of the old days. A
Hubert Humphrey or somebody or somebody would win because he seemed like he was
with the, the working people. He just seems like he's one of them.
He's ready to. And I think that. I think that they need
to get that back. Obama couldn't do it. I love, I loved Obama,
but he didn't seem to connect with regular people.
(30:26):
And you got to find a way into the hearts of people and say, you
know what? I don't know much about this guy, but I think he's with us.
Well, part of that, that recipe you just talked about
is what this is about, right? Yeah. Well, you talked about the train ride. You
talked about stopping. You talked about people, you know, stopping
and talking to everybody to the point where they all felt like they were
(30:49):
part of it. In my home area, I mean, you got John Thune
out saying what he's saying. He's talking, right? He's a leader.
I've got John Hoeven. John Hoeven in North Dakota
still hasn't said anything. I don't know what he's for. I get him on my
radio show all the time, and we always laughed afterwards saying,
okay, what did he say? When
(31:12):
he's done with the interview, everybody I'm around going... Because he didn't
want to say anything. He reminds me, he reminds me of the
guy in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Remember, I dance a little
sidestep. Larry. Larry. Well,
you know, there is no premium in taking a position
anymore, you know. Well, that was, that was, that was
(31:33):
true with Ronald Reagan, who people liked. My job working for the
speaker for six years was to come up with a Democratic
member on the House side to respond to Reagan on the radio
on Saturday. And I was, I would call the people, I'd say, you got, you
got something to say. You're smart. I don't say you're smart. The guys would, they'd
all say, no, I don't want to, I don't want to contend with Ronald Reagan.
(31:55):
Cause people back home, whether it's Rostenkowski or anybody like that,
you may be from a Democratic district, but they like Reagan.
But people don't like Trump. That's the mistake. I hope that's the
case. No, that's absolutely the case. Even people who vote for
him are disgusted by the behavior, don't like them,
but they don't think they've been given an alternative, which is the
(32:18):
failure of the Democratic Party not to provide an alternative that
people can in fact see as a potential. He
is not beloved. Well, the one question I don't not think
Donald Trump is beloved. The one question on my radio show that
the right, which, you know, I come from right country, so I have a lot
of politicians on that are from the right, and the one question I
(32:40):
ask them that makes them the most nervous and now they know they're going to
get asked it and they don't have an answer for it, is do you
think Donald Trump's a good person? Do you think he's a great
person? It's a great question. Then you hear this long pause and they
wait for you to jump in. And say the long pause is, should I lie?
Should I lie? And to be honest with you,
(33:01):
none of the people I've talked to have said yes.
None of them have said yes. Now think about that. He's President of the
United States and none of them think he's a good person.
Well, I think that's a great question. It's like I said in my book,
if you want America to be great, start with the fact it's going to be
(33:21):
good. I love that. You gotta be a good country and that means
dealing with immigration in a reasonable way, dealing with the
bad guys, get them out of here. Fine. The people that have been causing
trouble, fine. But respect the fact that somebody's been going to
church and paying taxes and not getting Social Security and not getting
Medicaid despite the lies of Michael Johnson.
(33:44):
They're not getting it. It's not true. You can't get it if you don't pay
in. I'm sorry. That's how it works. And that was Roosevelt's
genius because he said, I'm going to make sure this is a, you have
to pay for it. I want people to pay for Social Security and I
wanted them to get it. If they're a zillionaire, I want them to get it
still because I want people with wealth to protect Social Security.
(34:05):
I want them to believe in it, too. So he said, it's not going to
be a means-tested program. It's not going to be the way a real
super liberal would want it. He just says, I'm going to make it a program
that people want. Well, I mean, we have so much
more to talk about, but we want everybody to know this
is going to be a great book. Thank you. It is, I think the, the,
(34:26):
that in order to be a great country, we have to be a good country.
It's something that calls to the higher angels. And so congratulations. You
sound like Lincoln. No, I don't. I wish I
could sound like Lincoln. But thank you so much
for being on the Hot Dish. One more episode
and we're so glad you all tune in and we're hoping that
(34:50):
you continue to visit us us. It's brought to you by
onecountryproject.org. And we want to know what you
think. So please let us know what you think. I mean, this is a work
in progress. This is something that we want to do with
you. So do that, go to onecountryproject.org.
That's onecountryproject.org. And both Heidi and I thank you for
(35:12):
joining us.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.