Work in Progress: Rep. Eric Swalwell & Jordan C. Brown

If the daily headlines coming out of the White House are making you feel antsy, discouraged, angry, or overwhelmed…you're not alone!

There are people out there fighting the good fight, like Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, and those helping us make sense of the political drama, like political strategist Jordan C. Brown. They want people to know that even though things are feeling dark right now - public sentiment is working! They tell Sophia about the small victories setting the stage for even larger triumphs down the road, the Signal leak and what's really going on, advice for those who want to engage in activism, and lifting the curtain on political theater! Swalwell recalls the time Ted Cruz publicly trashed him on TV, only to turn around the next day and tell him privately he was doing "a really good job!" It's a story you don't want to miss. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hi,
friends and listeners, welcome back to another work in progress.
It is definitely a week for the whips murtys. I

(00:24):
know y'all are engaged. I know you care about what's
going on in the world, and let's be frank, she's
been wild. I decided to call two of my absolute
favorite men in America to ask them what the hell
is going on? And I feel so lucky that they
are both joining us today. Congressman Eric Swalwell is here

(00:47):
and one of my best friends and one of the
most brilliant Democratic strategists I know. Jordan Brown is here
as well. Eric is an absolute legend. He represents the
people of California's fourteenth congressional district up in the East Bay.
He has served on the House Intelligence Committee, overseeing the CIA.

(01:08):
On that committee, he has helped lead the House in
their investigation into Russia's interference in the twenty sixteen election,
the first and second impeachments of Donald Trump. He was
on the House floor on January sixth and has done
incredible work standing up for our law enforcement officers who
were harmed on that day. He currently serves on the

(01:30):
House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, which is why I
really wanted to talk to him about Signal Gate. And
he is the chairman emeritus and founder of Future Forum,
a group of young Democratic members that are focused on
issues and opportunities for millennial Americans. He's also a dad,
a husband, and an absolute lovely friend. And then we

(01:52):
get onto Jordan. He is one of the most brilliant
political strategists that works at the intersection of politics, technology,
and entertainment. He really works to drive progressive social change
and for more than fifteen years he has advised local, state,
and national political campaigns, from Secretary John Kerrey's campaign in

(02:13):
four the Obama campaign in two thousand and eight and
twenty twelve, and for a few years even advising Hillary Clinton.
He is absolutely brilliant at gathering people to ensure that
everyone in our country has a seat at the table.
He's helped advance legislation and advocacy campaigns for issues that

(02:34):
run such a diverse spectrum, cancer prevention, self esteem, LGBTQ rights,
gun violence, mental health, poverty, immigration, HIV prevention, and more.
And as if he's not busy enough, he is a
member of the Policy and Advocacy Committee of Global Citizen
working to end Extreme Poverty by twenty thirty. He is
an advisor to represent US, a bipartisan organization that brings

(02:57):
together conservatives and progressives to pass anti corruption laws, and
he's on the board of Lyft Communities, an organization that
partners with working parents to break the inter generational cycle
of extreme poverty. He is also a husband and a
father to a new baby boy who is so sweet oof.

(03:19):
I can't wait to talk to both of these gentlemen
about how they balance it all and what the we're
all supposed to do. Two months in to this new
administration and you know, the daily horrors. Let's dig into
what's really happening, what deserves our focus, and how we
remain both engaged and hopeful With Eric and Jordan, gentlemen,

(03:53):
I am so glad you are both here today. Jordan,
you are one of my best friends, always one of
my first calls, whether about life or certainly democracy. And Eric,
you have become not only are you someone in the
political landscape that I look up to, whose takes I

(04:13):
always know I can trust, who tells your voters and
Americans around the country the truth. But thanks to Jordan,
you've also become a friend, and the fact that I
get to text you and I have questions still makes
me feel like deeply cool. I think about twenty year
old me in journalism school at Annenberg, knowing that this

(04:36):
is my life now, and it's pretty crazy. So bless
you both for coming. Obviously, everything's nuts. We are two
months into an administration that seems to be taking a
slash and burn approach to everything that is holy about America,
our constitution, our morals, our values, our not only even

(05:01):
our power, but our soft power, which I think has
changed the world for the better in recent decades. Certainly,
I have so many questions for you guys about how
we got here. But quickly so our friends who are
listening can get to know a little bit about you.
Will you each tell us a little bit about your

(05:23):
jobs today. You know what you do, what keeps you busy,
and how you two first connected.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, buddy, I work in Congress. I've been doing this
for about thirteen years. I guess I was a child
sent to Congress, but before that I was a prosecutor,
and before that I was a Congressional intern. When I
was twenty years old and was here September eleventh. Happened
kind of opened my eyes and led me to leave

(05:51):
like an athletic scholarship after interning here for a summer,
and never thought I'd spend this much time.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I'm here.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Actually have thought a couple of different ways that I would,
you know, maybe be doing something else. But Donald Trump
and is just threat to all of our freedoms and
what I think makes this country so special just makes
me think I can't leave. I can't leave the fight.

(06:21):
Like you're in the fight, You're in the fight. We're
all in it in our own unique way, and this
is the most effective way I think that I can
help the people I represent my districts in the East
Bay up in northern California, everything from essentially Fremont, California,
up to San Leandro and then out to wine country

(06:43):
in Livermore. And Jordan and I met as everyone meets
when they don't know each other in southern California, which
is over pickleball, and we've had some pretty spirited, intense
pickleball matches. His husband Colton, has been a part of
that as well, and then my wife Brittany you know,

(07:05):
has also been able to meet Jordan and Colton, whether
at the DNC or just through friends.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
But Jordan.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
What I admire about Jordan is he's a doer, Like
he is a let's get shipped done kind of person,
and it only wants to use active verbs as far
as like what are you going to do to fix things?

Speaker 1 (07:27):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
It's a It really is an honor and I don't
use a word likely to be with both of you.
And so if you know, I adore you, and it
has been so much fun even during the toughest times
that you know, I think for both of us being
the same age and sort of growing up together, we
never really thought that we would go backwards like this.

(07:49):
And you know, we were at the Obama inauguration together
and I still laugh at those photos of those two
kids who were like, everything's just going to keep getting
better all the time, and you know.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Half the day we did it. Yeah, And now.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
I think, you know, we know that nobody really gets
you a full lifetime without this kind of backwards thing,
and so this is the fight. And I think the
wisest people among us sort of know that and have
taught us how to do this. And Congressman It's an
honor to call you a friend, and I've admired you long.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Before we met in person.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
And there's youth is not something that comes up a
lot when we talk about the people running this country.
And for all of the wisdom that we're grateful for
among our elders, we have seen in so many painful
and sad ways over the last five or ten years
in both parties, what happens to our country and how

(08:44):
it can grind to a halt or have really awful
consequences when people who are not healthy and in their
prime are.

Speaker 5 (08:50):
In positions of great power.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
And so for somebody to have gotten to where you
are as young as you were and still are and
to be a leader in this fight means so much.
And there's just a handful of people like you that
are kind of in that bucket. One of them we
were just talking about before we started recording is on
the Senate floor right now. You know, our friend and

(09:14):
someone we all love, Senator Booker, And you have been
a really clear clarion voice in the last seventy something
days since Trump returned to the White House in saying
this is not right, this is not normal, and here's
what we got to do.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
So he was plain Jordan Sophia.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
I ran when I was thirty one, and I ran
against a guy who had been in Congress for forty
years and he was eighty one.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
And I was.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Probably a little in some of the ways that I was,
you know, trying to contrast the age, showing my energy
against like someone who completely had checked out, like didn't
show up for votes in Washington, didn't pay any attention
to his constituents. And I learned in that campaign that

(10:03):
he had run when he was forty and he had
beaten somebody in their eighties.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
So as I look at it, like my district for
essentially eighty years before I got there, was represented by
people who stayed way too long. So to me, it's
like it's staring me in the face. Jordan is like
what you just said, like, don't be the guy that
sticks too long, Like get in there, get stuff done,

(10:30):
get out. And I think that's the hardest part of
like this job is that you don't know when that
is and people around us don't feel that they have
the permission struggle to tell you that.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, and not only is it so important, I think
for folks in our peer group to see these trends
and to say, oh, I'm not going to do that thing.
I'm going to make sure that I'm helping with turnover.
I'm going to make sure that I'm fostering spaces where
new ideas or evolving ideas can be heard. I also

(11:10):
think it's so important to make sure you're training the
next generation of leaders alongside you, people who can learn
from your expertise. Like listen, there there have been negotiations
that nobody could have gotten done, but Nancy Pelosi and
I want to know who is being trained to be
our Pelosi. I want to know you know who you're

(11:34):
going to have your eye on in the next ten years,
to say you should you should have your you know, eyes,
ears and future on this district. It's so important, I
think too, not that it's a stigma even but in
a way to destigmatize the idea that politics is someone
else's job.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, I love that you brought that up, because in
my the end my first term, speak a Pelosi told
me she wanted to speak to me on the floor,
and I remember being so nervous and going over to
talk to her and didn't really know if I was
being called like to the principal's office, like what was

(12:14):
this about? And she told me, she said, you know,
there are enough young members now in Congress that I
think you should bring them together as a group and
go lead them and go around the country talk to
young people and then come back and tell your colleagues
what you've learned.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
And then the next term she would appoint me to
be the youngest, like least junior person on the Intelligence Committee,
and then she would make me what's called the Steering
and Policy chair, like the person who chairs the committee
that puts everyone on committees.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
And so I had the opportunity to sit next to her,
and I.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
She you know, there's still such a deep power divide
between like what she was able to do and what
I was able to do. But I saw in Speaker Pelosi,
not just with me but others, that if you wanted
to learn, she would meet you there.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, learn, that's really cool.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Her her advice was always if you don't ask, you
don't get, And she often would say, if you don't
buy a lottery ticket, you're never going to win the lottery.
So that was kind of telling me, like, you have
to seek these opportunities and then when you're around people
like her and others like you can't help but learn.
But that was a pretty like that was a big

(13:46):
disparity and like my nior status in the Congress and
like the leader of our party and I and I
soaked it up as much as I could, but I
didn't really have anyone between myself and Speaker Pelosi. And
so what I have tried to do with the newer
members is to be the person between them and Hakim,
who is our leader. Because Hakem has like limited bandwidth.

(14:06):
He can't do that with every member. And so Congress,
for example, I went out of my way because I
saw this young talented member of Congress who was just
lighting up these congressional hearings.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
And her name is Jasmine Crockett.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
And Jordan's smiling because I've since introduced Jordan to Jasmine
and took her out for dinner one night, and I said, like,
let's not even talk about Congress the job. Let's talk
about like life and how you do life, because that's
what no one taught me when I had.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
First gotten here.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Oh that's so special.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I do feel like a responsibility to try and not
just use one hand to reach up and find mentors,
but use the other hand to you know, reach down
to people who have just arrived at you know, where.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
I've been, and try and help them.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
And I don't know about you, but I find that
I still learn and grow find fulfillment in trying to
help others.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Of course, And now a word from our sponsors, who
make the show possible. I think there's such value to
intergenerational friendships and to having intergenerational mentors, you know. And

(15:28):
we're all in this really sweet spot of our lives
right now where we have both. You know, I have
folks who are older than me and wiser than me
that I call on, and I have folks that are
younger than me who I learned so much from, and
they really, you know, transcend industry political spectrum. And I
think that's really important, and I'm curious about it. For

(15:51):
you in particular, Eric and Jordan, even you know, knowing
what I know about how you grew up. This willingness
to reach across divides and learn and with new information
change your mind, but also to require that things we
know to be true are treated as such really stands

(16:14):
out to me. For you Congressman, because I know you
were raised in a very Republican household. You know, your
dad was cop. You grew up in that space, and
I'm really curious how you felt free enough to change
your mind and to say, oh, you know, I agree

(16:34):
with policies that take care of people, and that's happening
in a different party than the one I was raised in.
How did you make that shift? How did that go
over with your family? And then, Jordan, can you talk
to us a little bit about your own experiences, you know,
as a kid, and how you found your way into
this democratic space.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
My parents would say that the reason I'm the only
Democrat in the family is because I'm the first one
in the family to go to college, and that I
was watched by those liberals. But frankly, I don't think
my parents' values are that much different than mine, except

(17:15):
that what I observed in them. And I talk to
my parents every week and visit them as often as
I can. But they, very much, I think, are Republicans
who kind of lead with what they don't like about
Democrats as the Republican party that they loved in the eighties,

(17:38):
like the Reagan Republican Party completely changes, and as a
bandon that I just hear from them and other family
members more of what they don't like about Democrats, and
so just by default they're not voting for Democrats, They're voting.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Republicans.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
And I thought, well, what I like about our party
is like, who were four and is someone who grew up,
you know, going to eleven different schools and living in
thirteen different houses before I graduated college. I saw two
parents who worked hard and expected that they would do
better and dream bigger. But I only saw one party
that actually sought, you know, to advance that like in education,

(18:21):
you know, in like ultimately you know, cost to college
and to work in retirement security. And I had Republicans
offering anything on that. But what I learned by being
raised by Republicans, one thing I've learned, and I think
this is something that I think my colleagues need to understand,
is we often say as Democrats that, you know, Republicans,

(18:45):
any appeal they make to you know, working class Americans
or blue collar Americans or poor Americans is asking them
to vote against their interests. We say that all the time, like,
why would they want to vote against their interests? Yeah,
my parents would tell you that their interest was not
being poor, and their interest was not being in the
middle class, and whether that was realistic or not, like,

(19:06):
their interest was being like wealthy, and they didn't want
to like be renters. They wanted to be homeowners and
to have like, you know, nice vacations and not have
to worry about money. And I think sometimes democrats are
seen by people like my parents as like, we want
to keep people in the status that they're in and

(19:26):
will support you there, but we don't want you to
be ambitious. And so I have tried in my own
like to talk about issues is to say, you know what,
I root for success. I want you to be wealthy, rich.
I just want everyone to have the same chance at
doing it. I want a free market economy, not a
free for all economy. But I think that helps us

(19:48):
connect with you know, working class folks like my parents
who aspire to get out of like the status that
they were in.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, gosh, I've never really thought about it in that
way because it seems so obvious to me that if
we're fighting for social programs and free education and making
sure kids can eat in school and making sure you're
drinking water is safe like, it's because we want you
to be healthy enough and supported enough to advance in
your life. It's wild to hear that to so many people.

(20:22):
The policies we're trying to enact that allow for advancement
make people afraid that they might stagnate. Yeah, and I
think it's not because that's a feeling that you just
want to.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Keep me here and you don't want to see my
advancement or well against the you go on a crusade
against the rich, and so therefore, like you want when
you say you're for the middle class, you want me
to always be in the middle class.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Wow, that's so interesting. I'm like, no, I want everybody
to do well. I just want rich people to pay
their taxes. Correct, that's like literally all I want. Was
it really eye opening for you, like, you know, being
a kid in the Bakersfield area and then having jobs
that you know take you to DC and you live
in LA and you have to be on the East

(21:11):
coast all the time, Like, do you feel like understanding
smaller city sector life so personally helps you remember the
kinds of things the congressman's talking about.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
Yes, is the short answer. The longer answer is I
think you know, it's more informed by the people I
grew up with and the place I grew up. And
so I grew up in a small town in the
Central Valley near Bakersfield, and it's I grew up in
a very you know, conservative Christian household. But I think

(21:46):
it's important to point out that in the eighties and
nineties that looked much different than it does now. My
parents went to church and they voted, but there was
not twenty four hour news on in the house. There
were not breaking news alerts, and between elections, they didn't
think much about who was president or Speaker of the House,
and it was not something that dominated my childhood or

(22:06):
our lives. And I also have these really clear memories
of coming home in high school when, you know, before
my own political identity had formed, and before I sort
of came to terms with being gay, and I had
gotten yard signs from a friend's house for these propositions,
two of them that were in the late nineties.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
On the ballot in California.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
One was a really draconian measure that was anti immigration
but really inhumane and awful, and the other was that marriage,
you know, was between a man and a woman putting
that in the Constitution, and my mom said, I don't
want those in my yard. And this is a Republican
Christian woman, and I was like, wait, what do you mean,
Like I got it from this friend's house, and like,

(22:49):
isn't that what we believe? And she's like, I don't.
You know, people can live how they want to live,
and we you know whatever, like I don't want to put.

Speaker 5 (22:57):
Those in my yard.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
And I was like, and it was my first I'm
kind of remembering, and you know, this is my mom
who has since left the Republican Party because you know,
she didn't agree with with where it was going. And
I think, you know, my story is part of this
like larger journey where like you now have a lot
of people on the right, I think, who are confused

(23:18):
that this country was founded as a Christian country, because
we're really headed that way to the point where I
find myself getting in debates on social media with people
who were like, yes, we're getting back to our Christian roots,
and it's like you missed the entire point of why
the people who founded this country did so. Yeah, so
you can be a Christian and I can choose to

(23:39):
not be, or I could be Buddhist.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
Or whatever else.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, it's the antithesis actually of a Christian nation. But
people missed the fine print, I guess, and I yeah,
so I.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
Guess what I feel.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
And when I think back to like all the people
I grew up with, they're wonderful people.

Speaker 5 (23:54):
They're hardworking.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
Many of the kids I grew up with served in
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them were
tough jobs and you know, a prison system that's like
really in need of reform, but still like you know,
or other like working class like manual labor jobs, and
they're not you know, I think there's just this assumption
they probably all voted for Trump and they don't. There

(24:19):
is something that feels to me like what I don't
understand the most, and I'm seeking to understand is to me,
a lot of the people on the right who are
driven by their religion to vote for Trump seem to
believe that their religion is under an attack, when what
it seems like to me is they just want everyone
else to have the same religion they have. So that

(24:42):
when I think about where I grew up, all of
those things are sort of swirling around, and you know
sort of feel like inform the way that I'm taking
in what's happening in this moment.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, and now a word from our sponsors. It's an
interesting thing certainly for me. You know, my full time

(25:14):
job is not politics. I have a calling I believe
to use my platform and ability, as you know, a
storyteller and a communicator to help people understand this stuff.
I'm passionate about it. And yeah, it is tough when
the sort of live and let live seems to have

(25:36):
been lost and this iron fist you do it our way,
you copy these things, you know, very Handmaid's Tale vibe
seems to be everywhere. It's scary to me. I think
part of it is because it seems like what's happening

(25:59):
is being downplayed. It seems like what's up is down
It seems like not just that the double standards have
gotten so crazy, but that we have really lost the
plot on facts. And I think the fact, you know, fact, science, truth,

(26:21):
constitution kind of have to be the foundation of the house.
Like we've all got to have a foundation based on justice,
not someone's opinion about their faith. Because to your point, Jordan,
you can't rule that way because then what if someone
who had a faith it isn't your faith was ruling.
How would you feel about that? Like, we need the
law to sort of be our spot, and it seems

(26:43):
like there's a lot of lawlessness going on that I
can't quite understand because as a as a citizen, as
a concerned constituent, it feels like, no matter how you vote,
some of this stuff should bother you. I think Number one,
this signal leak, which, by the way, just for our

(27:03):
friends at home, Jordan and Eric and I scheduled this chat.
I was like, can y'all just give me and the
listeners some perspective on this first sixty to ninety days
of this new administration? And then highly classified top secret
information was leaked on a non secured devices on personal
phones on a social media app. And then people tried

(27:27):
to say it wasn't a big deal, and I was like,
huh so can we start there? I mean a couple
of facts I just have to list for the people.
High ranking officials in the administration shared war plans on
a group chat, again on a social media app, not

(27:48):
secure plans that are not meant to be viewed or
discussed outside of a skiff and they accidentally put a
journalist on the group chat, like this is the kind
of embarrassing drunk thing you might do in college when
you put the person who's surprise party you're planning on
the chat at two am, or like, I don't know,

(28:14):
that's a very positive you know, what if? What does
this mean? And what is what is true?

Speaker 4 (28:21):
I just wish everyone who's listening could see the resign
face you just made.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
Put your hands over your eyes like this this.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Guy, literally, I'm like, how do I even ask the question?
This is so insane, I can't believe it's happening.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Well, it shows one like how dumb they are and
should not be in charge of our safety, right, Like,
my first job, no matter what I do, is to
keep the people I represent safe, Like when we feel safe,
nothing else can happen, right, Not like you can't have commerce,

(28:55):
you can't have education, but you can't do anything else
until you feel safe. So that's the president's first job
is to make us safe. And these idiots failed that test.
Then they lied about it, right, They compounded their inability
to keep us safe by just gaslighting the American people

(29:18):
about it. And they did it as if like there
would be no penalty for it at all. And they've
been proven right because my Republican colleagues don't want to
talk about it at all. And I'll say, like, I
think my Democratic colleagues like have, with what little resources
we have been in the minority, have a lot of

(29:39):
resources as far as like communication and building. Public sentiment
certainly have elevated. You know that these guys are not
going to keep us safe. I do want to say,
though it is dark as it feels right now, public
sentiment is working. For example, you're seeing on the President's

(30:02):
like big beautiful bill as he keeps calling it, where
he's going to take, you know, nine hundred billion dollars
and give tax cuts to the wealthiest people. And you know,
no one that we know or anyone who needs help
is going to get it. It's going to be a
billionaire bro tax package. Public sentiment has been so hard

(30:26):
and so strongly against that that they're already stories this
week that they're actually considering raising the highest income level brackets.
So to anyone who's like does any of this matter,
you know, what are you going to do? We can't
wait for the midterms, Like we're already seeing that you know,
the public sentiment like protesting and being engaged and whatever

(30:50):
the outcome is going to be in Wisconsin and Florida,
I think it's going to go our way. That it's
moving the administration and it's affecting what they're going to do,
which to me, he just means we can't stop, we
can't let up.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Same thing in the courts.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
We've won nearly forty cases in the courts, and so
what are they doing right? They're trying to impeach judges
now because they see that, oh, they have found an
effective path not just democratic appointed judges, but judges appointed
by Reagan and Bush and are siding with us. And
so the courts can be speed bumps. And I say

(31:26):
all of this because we essentially have to live. We
have to allow democracy to live long enough so it
can hopefully live forever. That means get through these court
cases when in Wisconsin, win in New Jersey and Virginia
and the governor's races this year, have the electoral infrastructure
where you can have free and fair elections in the midterms,

(31:47):
win the midterms, and then cut our time and.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Hell, yes, in half. But here's what drives me crazy. Congressman,
and you said it. There seems to be no accountability exists,
Telsey Gabbert. These people perjured themselves under oath testifying to
elected officials about what was in that group chat. Donald

(32:11):
Trump is trying to impeach judges that are impartial, and
he's calling them Obama judges, Democrat judges. You said it,
some of them were appointed by President Bush. They are
weaponizing identity and they are lying about it. And I
am frustrated as a citizen because calling for the impeachment

(32:34):
of judges who won't do your bidding when your bidding
is to break American law is fascism. Making people bend
the knee in advance is fascism. These insane executive orders
against law firms that are now committing to do tens
of millions of dollars in pro bono work to defend

(32:54):
Trump's indefensible legal desires. It really, I mean disappearing people
to Venezuelan gulags like the canaries in the coal mines
are they're past singing, they're dying, and it seems like
nobody's paying attention or doing anything about it. And I understand,

(33:20):
on the one hand, how important it is for people
to see how depraved the administration wants to be. I
understand that we are so lucky that that journalist was
added to that group chat because at least we had
a whistleblower. Because to be clear, for the folks listening
at home, things happening in that group chat aren't happening

(33:41):
in a secure channels, but be monitored channels, which means
they would have been had we not found out about this.
It would have been very hard to foil any of
these records, which is the Freedom of Information Act. For
folks at home who might not be as politically obsessed
as the three of us are. They're trying to be

(34:02):
to erase accountability and we know it. And then they lied,
and then they lied under oath, and now what the
Republicans don't want to talk about it, but I actually
believe this is the kind of thing that should unite
all of us, from the most liberal to the most conservative.
This is an attack on the safety of our nation
and on our national security, and the call is coming

(34:24):
from inside the House. So how do we call for
accountability if the people in majority power don't want it
because it's their people doing the bad shit Like are
the Democrats going to call for HEGXECHT resign? I know
you already have. What what do we do from here?
How do we stop this? Because right now it feels

(34:45):
like we have no It feels like we have no
AMMO in this fight.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Right So we have, as I said, we have public sentiment.
We have congressional hearings where we can put every official
now on notice. When they come testified, we can ask them,
are you using signal chat to communicate? You know? Are
you discussing classified you know, information in non secure spaces?
Are you using your personal phones? And you lock them

(35:12):
in on those answers, because winning the House means that
you can then bring accountability, you know, if they were lying.
But again that's not the only thing that we can do.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
And on the.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Judges, I'll just say small victories will lead to big
victories for us. But something today in a Judiciary committee hearing,
it was set a couple of weeks ago when Trump was,
you know, tweet raging about impeaching judges, Musk was saying,
let's impeach judges. This like brand new member of Congress

(35:46):
from Texas who's just looking to like raise money, introduces
articles of impeachment that he has no intention of actually
following up onnie, just doing it to please Trump. So
he gets his hearing today in the Judiciary Committee and
they bring in New Gingrich is their witness to talk
about like judges. And then the funniest thing happened. Not

(36:07):
a single Republican on the committee other than the moron
who wrote the articles of impeachment that he won't even
move on, supported impeaching judges, not even New Gingrich. And
so what that tells me is that this was like
popular three or four weeks ago. Wow, as we are
turning public sentiment against Trump and Musk because of the

(36:29):
signal chat issues, because of the terrorists, because of the
tax cuts, and because of what he's doing to the.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Rule of law, I mean, the federal workers losing their jobs,
the slashing of USAID.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
So we created this So in this hearing today where
I was ready, you know, to go in, you know,
ready to row down for democracy in our debate, and
they didn't even no one wanted to defend it. And
so that means to me, we created like a hot stove, right,
we created a hot stove that they didn't want to touch.
And so they didn't go in there wanting to defend

(37:03):
Trump on this, So we just have them creating hot
stoves that they don't touch, so that you know, none
of us, you know, suffer the consequences and that small victory.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
But as I said, small victories will lead to big victories.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
Eric, I call you all the time when I think
the most lucid, easy to understand example that's been given
about what it's like to be in a number of
congress these days comes from you. When you gave the
WWE analogy can you And it just helped me to understand,
you know, just the sort of two faced nature of

(37:39):
public and private.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, will you give that to us?

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, Sophia, it took me a while to realize that
I work with pro wrestlers. And what I mean is
that when we're in a committee hearing, we're on the
House floor, or they're on Fox News, they are like
one persona like they're the ultimate warrior, the.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Under the rock whatever.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
But I would start running into these guys, you know,
behind the committee room and like we call it an
ante room, it's just off or at the Congressional gym,
or just like bumping into them at the Dunkin Donuts line,
and they would like come up to me and they'd.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Be like hey, swall, well, hey buddy, like how are
you doing?

Speaker 2 (38:24):
And like I would look at them like they have
three heads because they had just like scorched me personally
on Fox News or in a hearing. And I came
to realize that, like to them, it's just the persona
they have to carry, Like they can hit me over
the head with the steel chair when we're in the ring,
you know, like in the committee hearing, but backstage when

(38:44):
there's no camera for them to perform to just two
guys doing a gig, and I'm like, wait, but like
it's not a gig, like yeah, and the fans that
you are trying to please or called constituents when you're
in He's second.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Impeachment of Trump.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
When I was one of the prosecutors in the Senate,
I had made this presentation about like the violence of
the day, and I had the police officer portion of
the presentation and it was very emotional, and even Mitch
McConnell was like sitting in the front row like wiping
a tear from his wow, because we're washing police officers

(39:22):
just being crushed and then we take a break and
I go to the bathroom and as I'm washing my hands,
I see in the sink next to me, Ted Cruz
washing his hands and he looks over at me and
he drives his hands and he puts his fist out
and he goes, hey, I'm Ted. And I look at
him and I'm like, with my fist, hey Ted. And

(39:45):
you can tell I'm so confused because the night before
he was on Fox News calling Adam Schiff and me
out by name, saying the worst thing, and he goes,
I want you to know you're doing a really good.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Job out there. He goes, no, I mean it, And I'm.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Like, like, what is he talking about?

Speaker 3 (40:02):
But again it's just like it's just like what's crazy?

Speaker 2 (40:05):
So and that there are a few of them, though,
I will give like Marjorie Taylor Green not a pro wrestler,
like she believes her crazy, and I respect that.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
I actually respect somebody who's like this is what I believe.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
It may be, like Battie, But like what I don't respect,
but I have a harder time squaring is people who
actually know better and they just do it anyway because
they think, yeah, the you know, politicainment or like political theater.

Speaker 5 (40:35):
Yeah, it is hard to.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
Blame those people that because that is the only thing
that has been rewarded on the right. And you know,
like when Trump was elected for the first time in
the primaries in twenty sixteen and got the nomination, nobody
else was really kind of only playing to that fox
crowd or only playing to like the most fringe elements
on the right. And what Trump did is make the

(40:58):
fringe the center of that party. And it's like, so
now to compete, you have to mimic him. No one
can quite do it right, And so you know, if
it wasn't so high stakes, you would almost feel sorry
for them, you know, because they look so ridiculous trying
to do this. But it's like, like you said, it's
like the stakes are too high, Like this isn't supposed
to be entertainment, but like.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
It is kind of yeah, correctionally analogy, It's like there's
this royal rumble right now where they're all competing to
like who can outdo the other and Trump, right, Like
one of them wants to put Trump on Mount Rushmore,
one of them two hundred dollars Bill, one of them
wants to rename Dulles after Trump.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
So it's just like this pathetic effort to.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Just try and be the most in you know, service
to Trump among my colleagues and they all.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. It makes
me feel crazy because not only is it also stupid,
but as you said, Jordan, it is so high stakes.

(42:10):
This is life and death for people. When our veterans
lose their healthcare, and we know how many veterans commit
suicide in this country every week, that is life and death.
It is a betrayal of our people. And you know,
to say kids should go hungry in school feels like
a betrayal of who we are. And I guess what

(42:34):
frightens me about what trump Ism has unleashed is such
a movement of the Overton window. We have seen the
spectrum of acceptability get pushed so far into violence and
belittling and bullying. It's so classless and something I respect,

(42:57):
particularly about our country, about American people, about our working
class folks, like we have always had a level of honor.
We haven't always done everything right, but there has been
like a grit and a and some level of decorum

(43:17):
to what we believe in and it's just gone. And
the way that they talk about people, in the way
that they talk about women in the way it's just
like it. It pains me. And I guess I'm curious
in terms of how we communicate about this stuff, because
you said, Congressman, that public sentiment is working, and Jordan,

(43:39):
you are an incredible communicator out in the world to
explain why the political is personal, how everything that happens
in our world, everything around us, is a result of policy.
I'm breathing clean air on the East Coast right now
because of the EPA. I can trust the water that

(44:00):
comes out of my sink to drink because of policy.
And I'm curious about the keep the pressure applied from
the public and how you see us doing that best, Jordan,
because I know that the protests happening around the country
aren't being covered on the mainstream news right now. We're
barely seeing them on Instagram. We got to go looking

(44:23):
to see tens of thousands of people in the street.
You know that big rally AOC and Bernie did in
Colorado just a few weeks ago, for example, How do
you encourage us to keep that foot on the gas
pedal of public sentiment. What's your advice for listeners who
want to be involved, who don't want to see federal

(44:47):
workers lose their jobs, veterans lose their healthcare, kids lose
access you know, to healthy start and snap. What do
we do because people feel overwhelmed because of this flood
zone strategy and I I don't want us to risk
the momentum of sentiment.

Speaker 5 (45:03):
Well, it's a.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
Tough answer because the answer is essentially we have to
what I would say for people, find the person who
most represents you and your beliefs personally and support them.
And you know, I offer every member of Congress you know,
says call my office because that is the thing that
I really get a barometer on what people are thinking.

Speaker 5 (45:25):
And I think that's really true, and Eric, you can
tell us.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
But the other thing I would say is I often
look at, you know, members of Congress who I know
and admire. I'll look at their social media comments and
often it's like, yes, give them hell, you're fighting, thank you.
But just as often with the Democrats since Trump came
back into power, it's like, okay, okay, but this feels performative.
What are you actually doing? And I think it's important
to remind people that we are living in a truly

(45:50):
unprecedated moment in American history. The Democrats don't run anything
in our federal government, not the White House, not the Senate,
not the House of Representatives, and not the highly part
is Supreme Court.

Speaker 5 (46:01):
So it's the wrong question.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
It's why or is the Republican Party accepting a reality
in which there is no red line. The President of
the United States can help our adversaries, can unwind one
hundred years of economic prosperity and protection of democracy around
the world and have no consequences. No senators privately coming

(46:25):
to the White House to be like, hey, you better
stop this year.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
You're going to lose the support of Congress. I mean Nixon.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
You know.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
President Clinton when he was impeached, had those types of
private things happening to him to sort of make sure
that they were responsive to the political realities of like, hey,
if you keep doing this, we're going to lose and
we're all use our seats and you got to stop
or you gotta resign. This is a moment in which
none of that is happening. And Donald Trump signed an
executive order this week to try to take over elections

(46:54):
and make it harder people. So they're literally doing everything
they can to where they can't lose.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
And so there's this weird thing going on I think
with my colleagues where it's this wishful and you wouldn't
blame him for thinking it type of thinking, where well,
we can just keep enabling him, because if to Jordan's point,
Trump makes it harder for people to vote, and if
Elon Musk is successful in Wisconsin and buying that election,

(47:23):
that I will have a ballot box that's harder to
get to and hold me accountable, and a billionaire willing
to bankroll my election so I'm invincible. So that that's
kind of the accountability problem that we have right now.
But to Jordan's point, that question in the comments on

(47:44):
social media, like what are you doing besides like giving us,
you know, a good show and a committee hearing, I
am telling like myself, our family and my constituents, we
all in our activism have to go.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
One rung higher. So whatever we were.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Willing to do in the last election, for now we
have to go one rung higher. I think we're gonna
have to go a few rungs higher ultimately to save
this thing, but right now, just take yourself one wrung higher.
What I'm doing personally is I'm going to Republican districts
where they will not hold town halls, and I'm holding
a town hall. I was in Annapaulin and A Luna's

(48:23):
district two weekends ago. Six hundred people showed up. I
did it with the former Republican in Congress. We had
a fifteen hundred person wait list and we listened to
those constituents and there was talent in that crowd who
may end up being a candidate to run against her,
you know, in the future, and so committing to doing

(48:44):
that is my one rung hire to your listeners, I
would say, if you've never gone to a public protest,
go to your first public protests April five, there's.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Going to be one day of that centric.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
If you've never gone to a city council meeting, go
to a city council meeting. If you've gone to a
city council meeting but you've never put yourself on the
agenda to speak, it's a public agenda speaking. But just
go one rung higher for now home personal activism, and
I think that's what it's going to take to get
us out of this hell that we're in now.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, I really like that. When Jordan mentioned how important
it is for you guys to hear from callers, can
you give us a little bit inside baseball on that,
because a lot of people are nervous to call their
elected representatives. They're not quite sure what to say, they're
not quite sure if it's going to be impactful. So
how much does that matter in congressional offices.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
If that's the only thing you do, I would say,
probably won't make you feel that much better and it
probably won't move the needles too much for the congressional office.
But as I said, if you're willing, if that's all
you've ever done, if you're willing to go one rung
higher and also go to their town hall or go
to their office. There's been protests at different offices around

(49:58):
members who won't hold town halls. I think that starts
to add up because when you're a member and you're
seeing that the phone lines are you know, hot today,
and there's two hundred people outside in my congressional office
demanding that I hold it down, and my dms are
blowing up of people saying, you know why, won't you

(50:21):
talk to me like that? That reaches me and I
can be quite effective, and I you know, I get
a report every week of like what the call volume is,
what the email volume is, what the mail We call
it the mail report. And I also just like talking
to the interns and our staffers and I'll say like,
how is it on the phones, because I just want

(50:43):
the sense of what it's like And you can tell
if it's a stressful day because people are calling and
you know they're pissed off. So yes, that works, but
it doesn't work if you're the only one doing it,
and it doesn't work if that's the only.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Thing that you're doing.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
So we need a lot of people to do things
like that, and we need to do more more than
just you know, calling your rep.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah. I think there's a great website for our listeners
at home called five calls dot org that will help
you identify your reps, identify how to speak about the
issues that are important to you, and I think it's
a really great resource. I have an alarm on my
calendar that goes off every Monday, and it's like, call

(51:21):
your representatives once a week, takes ten minutes. Got to
do it, and I do think to continue to remind
your reps that they work for you. You know you
said it. Your job is to keep your constituents safe
and then to work to better their lives. And I

(51:42):
think a great way to remind people of how to
do that is to stay in communication. Can you give
me a little overview? I know we're coming up on time.
I feel like I could talk to you both for hours.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Our former allies. I think my office has been like
a therapist couch for.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Ally and their leader to come in and just ask me, like,
what did we do wrong? I bet I'm just like
on this apology tour of like it's not you.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
You're like you've you've done nothing wrong. This is crazy.
One of those means yeah, well, and thank you for
taking the time out of your day to come and
talk to us about this. Can you give us a
quick overview of things that listeners should be watching, Like
what are Trump and Musk coming for that people need
to know? We know it's healthcare, we know it's abortion access,

(52:37):
we know it's gay marriage, we know it's voting, we
know it's the VA, Like, are there things you really
want people to know they should be tracking?

Speaker 3 (52:47):
And watching yes on this.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
It's called reconciliation. That's the name of the procedural process.
But for Trump to give nearly a trillion dollars in
tax cuts to billionaires, republic Ks in Congress will have
to vote for it, and they have a very narrow majority.
And so watch who benefits and who loses who does
he take them? Right now, the only way for the

(53:12):
billionaires to get their tax cuts is for him to
take away healthcare and social security benefits.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Period.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
We should be watching that as he tries to make
it harder to go to the ballot box. You're seeing
lawsuits being brought to stop and Leader Jeffries just brought
a lawsuit on behalf of House Democrats on one of
the executive orders that makes it a lot harder for
people to vote. Also, if you live in a democratic state,
meaning like you have a democratic governor, make sure that

(53:41):
your governors are maxing out democracy. Because we talk a
lot about voting rights and access to the polls, but
it's not like we're perfect in blue states. It's not
like you have voting lines of thirty minutes or less
in a blue state, right Like, there's still long lines

(54:01):
in states. So we should have high expectations on our
secretaries of state and governors in blue states that in
the lead up to this upcoming election where the midterms
are on the line, that we are maxing out democracy
and we are leading by example, not the lowest common
denominator as it relates to, like how people get to
the polls and are able to vote.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
I love that. Thank you so much, Thank you, Congressman.
I'm going to ask Jordan a last couple of questions,
but please go to your meeting. We're with you, We
love you, you.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Too, You're in it. I love it.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
It inspires me, it reminds me why we all have
to stay in it, and just so grateful.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
You could do anything else.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
You have so many options, but you care about you know,
making sure our freedom and our opportunities do not evaporate
around the wall.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
So I care about it the most. Thank you for that.
All right, see you guys, good luck out there. And
now a word from our sponsors that I I really
enjoy and I think you will too. Jordan, You're doing
a really cool thing that really makes me feel excited

(55:13):
because we do this a lot together. I mean, you're
one of the people I talked to about, as I
said earlier, everything going on in life, but certainly what's
going on in the world. And I've sat on many
a flight, in many a car canvassing, and certainly on
many a night in your backyard or mine over a
bottle of wine trying to figure out why people that

(55:37):
actually are so much more aligned than the algorithms or
these media silos would have us think, think they're so
far apart. And I think anytime you sit down with
people you know, you break bread, you meet their kids,
you spend time in their town, you realize we all
want a lot of the same things. You decided to

(56:01):
take those conversations out into the world and ask, what
if you're wrong, can you sit and talk to someone
who has a different opinion than you and make space
for their thoughts and feelings. Can you, you know, come
to some sort of mutual agreement. And you've done a
lot of those conversations over you know, dinners and and

(56:26):
at gatherings, but now you're doing it in this space,
in the podcast space. Why did you feel like this
was the moment and what do you think you've learned
so far?

Speaker 4 (56:36):
Thanks for asking. Yeah, it is first of all, as somebody.
You know, your podcast is one of you know, it
doesn't that I subscribe to and listen to. And so
just first of all, respect because it's a lot harder
than I thought it was going to be so good
for you. The thing that there are two things that
made me made me do this. Number One, I married

(56:58):
the love of my life, who's family, you know, like
most American families has every political viewpoint represented, but several
people who are major Trump supporters and AREFK supporters who
are really excited about this new moment in our country.
And so I found and I love them and I

(57:19):
love spending time with them. And what I realized is
when I'm getting all these news alerts that make me
want to puke, they're like pumping their fists in the
air that they love them because it's not because they're
bad people.

Speaker 5 (57:32):
It's because I mean.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
First of all, they may have different values than me,
but we share a lot of the same values. But
really what it is is like they spend every waking
moment in a totally.

Speaker 5 (57:43):
Different reality than I do.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
Right, So everything that they are subscribed to or that
their algorithm shows them is representing this viewpoint. And I
think you know, we know that YouTube radicalized a lot
of people, right with the algorithm of like if you
like this, you're gonna like this, and then yeah, there
is this famous experiment that if you sign up with
no information about yourself and you want you know, within

(58:05):
like thirty videos, you're watching some fringe conspiracy videos. So
this has been something that is people aren't choosing to do.
It's happened to them, and it has broken our society.
And so the second reason is when Trump won the
first time, it was very close and a shock, and

(58:29):
I think there was this sense among many of us
that this is a fluke, you know, where there was
something unique to like the right had vilified Hillary Clinton
for so long that just like she couldn't like, yeah,
but he won this time.

Speaker 5 (58:41):
It was not close. It wasn't a blowout, but you know,
he won every battleground state.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
It was close in the popular root, but it was
the kind of thing where like we all went to
bed that night knowing you was going So it wasn't
like this drawn out thing.

Speaker 5 (58:55):
It really humbled me.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
And so what I realized is like, what can I
do because it's not helping me to sort of just
like stay in my bubble, but it's really uncomfortable to
talk to people.

Speaker 5 (59:05):
You know, my husband and I had a.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
Baby, and there are like millions of people out there
who think that's not okay or that it's wrong. And
it's so tempting to just be like, put my little
blinders on and be like everyone who's in my circle
loves us and it's all good. But I'm not doing that,
and I'm choosing to sort of engage in some of
those tougher conversations where I think it's the only way

(59:28):
out of this.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah, I agree. I mean part of the you know,
the joy for me of my career is that it
takes me to live in so many places around our
country sometimes around the world. I'm always kind of tickled
when I spend time with really conservative people and we
get along really well, and they're like, I thought you

(59:50):
were going to be a banshee, and I'm like, no,
I just I just want us to care about each other.
And if the media you are receiving isn't telling you
about these true things, you know, the RFK of it all.
For example, people are like, yeah, too many EPA regulations

(01:00:12):
deregulate and I'm going y'all are worried about supposedly worried
about heavy metals and foods. Do you know how they
get there? They get there from environmental pollution. They get
in the water and the soil, and then it's in
the food we eat. And what bothers me is realizing
that the right in particular has weaponized the gotcha moment.

(01:00:34):
But they'll take the smallest slice of a whole big
pie and say this slice is the information, and they
leave out all the rest of the context, all the
rest of the facts. And so you know, yesterday, for example,
when Aaron Parness broke the news that they are removing
the terms safe drinking water from EPA legislation, I'm going,

(01:00:58):
this is going to hurt you, no matter how you've
It's going to potentially poison my kids and yours. And
so I think being willing to sit down with people
and get us out of these silos, you know, get
us out of the WWE energy that Congressman Swolwell was

(01:01:20):
speaking about. I'll never forget years ago, a friend to
you and I have in common, a comedian who shall
remain nameless because I don't want to blow up a spot.
But told me that because of a project he'd wound
up spending some time with Tucker Carlson and was like,
he's actually really smart and totally hates Trump and thinks
the whole thing's bullshit, but knows all the rich people

(01:01:40):
are making a ton of money, so they're going to
go along with it for a little while. And you know,
they don't assume America is going to blow up or anything.
And I was like, huh, Like we're saying this like
it's a good thing. You know, it's bullshit, but you know,
it riles people up in their homes, It makes people upset,
It makes people hate neighbors, it makes people not trust

(01:02:02):
their doctors. It's not just a money grab. It has
real consequences. And so I think when we can actually
be with people and reconnect, it can hopefully push back
against some of that really poisonous messaging one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
And I think there's this dynamic of something that's happening
on the right and something that's happening simultaneously on the
left that I think feeds what you just described. So
on the left we could be a lot better. There
are some people who are open to being allies with
some of the groups we fight for. Yeah, they feel
really a lot of pressure and nervousness around using the

(01:02:46):
right terminology or saying something right.

Speaker 5 (01:02:48):
And we know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
Now that a lot of the online discourse that the
left perpetuated alienated people who whatever with us on the issues,
but they're kind of like, you guys are too much.
At the same time, on the right, there's this famous
John Lennon quote that's one of my favorite quotes.

Speaker 5 (01:03:03):
It's so simple, don't hate what you don't understand. To me,
it just gets everything right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
So we know that with the gay rights movement, things
got a lot better for queer people. Once you had
a gay neighbor or a teacher or a coach, or
just someone that you knew in your lists that was gay,
and you're like, oh, I like this person. They should
have rights. Yeah, And you know, so that is the
natural trajectory. And so what they do on the right

(01:03:30):
is parody the most extreme examples.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
So, with regard to gender, if one person posts on
Twitter my pronouns are like a tree. There is an
entire news cycle of the right wing media sphere that
is like, oh no, you can identify as a tree.

Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
You know what's next?

Speaker 4 (01:03:52):
You're going to identify as a spaceship when in reality,
ninety nine point nine percent of people who feel, you know,
who are non binary or have some gender not performing issue,
which is like a real thing. It's an actual thing,
and it's a serious.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
And it's always been a thing. It's not new.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
It takes so little effort and energy just to you know,
be human about it. But all of that is suddenly
non serious because they're expert at taking those French things.

Speaker 5 (01:04:19):
And there's an.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
Example with everything, yeah, of making something really fringe look like, oh,
this is what the left's trying to do. When you
call on one, they don't want anyone to pick up right,
No more police because one guy got killed, you know,
on YouTube.

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
And you know, to me, like the most.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Haunting image so far of what you were describing earlier,
of like the bending the knee and the total subservience
of the major law firms. But was seeing them jackhammer
black lives matter the words black lives.

Speaker 5 (01:04:51):
Matter jackhammering them, or the.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
NFL taking the words end racism out of the end zone.
And it's like across the culture, government, business, the news media. Yeah, everyone,
there is a real cost, real or perceived but it
almost doesn't matter because the things that they are doing
are trying to placate Trump so he doesn't come after them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Yeah, and it's scary. It's scary to give in to cruelty.
And what frustrates me is it's the opposite of efficient.
You have any idea how much money it costs to
jackhammer up three city blocks in Washington, DC and repave them? Yeah,
for what? You know, the cuts that we're seeing, you know,

(01:05:35):
cutting usaid when there's in a bullet outbreak in Africa,
It's like, what are we doing? And you know, medications
already on the ground, and these clinics are being told
throw it away, life saving medication, they're being told to
throw it away. The cruelty and the wastefulness is so

(01:05:55):
hard for me, but I agree with you. They they
message with these slogans that can be so far off
from what's true. And what it seems to have done,
in my observation is it's made it It's made truth
feel like a non necessity. People don't even care what's

(01:06:19):
true anymore. They're just tired. And that is scary. So
I'm curious, how do you encourage people to stay hopeful?
What helps you not just throw your hands up in
the air and go back to bed in the morning.
Aside from your perfect, precious little baby's so cute.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
I try really hard to practice what I preach is
the first thing. So you know, I'm someone who has
spent twenty years trying to help Democrats win elections and
raise money in this really broken system where wealthy people
like you on. But he's certainly not the first. He's
just the largest contributor. But you know, our system is broken, right,

(01:07:06):
and we have to work with the system we have
in order to change it. But one of my favorite
personal sayings is you have to win elections in order
to govern. In order to help all these people that
we care about, we first have to win an election,
and that means you have to convince enough Americans that
we have better ideas.

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
What I mean by practicing what I preach is, you know,
this analogy I use a lot is like we're at
the social media.

Speaker 5 (01:07:31):
Broke politics, right.

Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
You made us all where put on a jersey that
was red or blue, And so think about how fanatically
you love your favorite sports team. You have the merch
you go to the games, you get season tickets, you're
cheering and screaming for them, you watch highlight reels. It's
very hard then, in the big game to get somebody
to actually be, hey, can you take off this jersey,

(01:07:53):
go to the other side of the field, sit in
those stands and not cheer for these players who you
don't know or you hate. Yeah, And so what I
try to do that as have moments where I can
at least acknowledge that there's someone in my party who
I disagree with, or I think they.

Speaker 5 (01:08:08):
Did something wrong or that's harmful for the country.

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):
And I want to be able to articulate that what
I expect from all of the people who voted for
Trump is the same thing. So a very powerful question
that I've been asking to my friends and family who
voted for him and support him is just simply this,
is there anything that he could do that would cause

(01:08:31):
you to stop supporting him. It's a really powerful question,
and people it takes them a really long time to answer.

Speaker 5 (01:08:39):
And you're so politics has become like religion. The fervor
is so real that and answer it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
But that's to me, like, if we can't answer that,
then we're kind of cooked, right, Unless we can figure
out a way to win an election, because that really
is what it comes down to in this moment is
we've just never had this moment before, where like you know,
famously Trump said when he was running the first time,
I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not support

(01:09:07):
It felt so extreme to say. But not only was
he right about that, it's I could cozy up to
Vladimir Putin, who runs America's adversary. I could dismantle NATO.
I could ruin the American economy with pointless tariffs that
will cause a trade war, and we know don't work,
and I won't lose support. So it's like, at this point, what,

(01:09:28):
you know, where can we go?

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
What can we do right?

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Well, what do you think I.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
Do think that you know, we obviously can't give up
and we have to remember, you know, Kamala Harris got
forty eight percent of the popular vote, Yes, Trump about
forty nine Each of the battleground states was within you
know a point. There's not something fundamental that has happened
in the country. We had this really difficult situation as
Democrats where everyone saw in real time that President Biden

(01:09:57):
was no longer up to the job. There was a panic,
you know, and there was this process or lack of
a process, really a very difficult position for Vice President
Harris to step into. And I think she did a
really wonderful job. She had one hundred years to do
something that most people who have ever run for the
job have two years. Yes, so there's not something that's

(01:10:20):
totally broken about the dump or is it humbling? Yeah,
could we have a more attractive message, yes, Could we
have more dynamic leaders step up to the plate, for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:10:29):
But the only way that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
They can have a permanent majority is if enough of
us sit back quietly while they fix the courts and
make yes, sorry, fix them in the way like rig
them better word. But there's a playbook, you know, from
Hungary to Brazil to all kinds of other countries in

(01:10:51):
the world. Like it's it's just a playbook that everyone
knows about.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
It's how to the authoritarian playbook.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
And so, like.

Speaker 4 (01:10:57):
Congressman Swollwell said, there's all things we can do to
push back against it, and they are all in some
ways equally important. So, you know, the leaders the future,
Our future leaders come from state and local politics, right,
So like, yeah, Obama was a state senator in Springfield, Illinois. Right,

(01:11:18):
Clinton was the governor of Arkansas, like one of our
smallest states.

Speaker 5 (01:11:21):
And so we've I think.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
Again, find identifying somebody that you think represents your values
and that's you're excited about in kind of supporting them
helps motivate you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
And now for our sponsors, who are you excited about?
Who are the leaders that you love right now?

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
So many people I think that you know, the first
that comes to mind is the wonderful new governor of
Maryland who.

Speaker 5 (01:11:51):
You and I met together, Wes Moore.

Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
Yes, in addition to just being like a wonderful human being,
you know, he and his wife are so dynamic and
he's already done it a lot that was bipartisan in Maryland.
I love Congressman Richie Torres from the Bronx. He was
the first gay man of color to be elected, along

(01:12:16):
with Manda Jones, the former congressman from New York.

Speaker 5 (01:12:19):
I think Richie Torres is great.

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):
I love Gina Raymondo, who was a governor before she
was in President Biden's cabinet. Ruben Diego, the new senator
from Arizona, who were Kirsten Cinema Boo.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Ruben's wonderful I got to campaign with him quite a
bit this year and just our guess last year and
just adore him and his family.

Speaker 5 (01:12:45):
Pete Boota judge, you know who's new.

Speaker 4 (01:12:48):
But you know, we forget that. Pete Poota Judge won
the Iowa caucus in twenty twenty, right before COVID started.
He's a serious, serious leader of our party. Jasmine Crockett,
who's Congressman.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
Swallow mentioned, she's so wonderful.

Speaker 4 (01:13:08):
She's so I mean, she's a brilliant lawyer, but you know,
she's obviously feeling that void that people feel sometimes, like
why don't we have someone who's like more of a
fighter you.

Speaker 5 (01:13:16):
Can really like take. Yeah, so that's Jasmine Crockett.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
If you don't know her, yeah, she's amazing. Somebody, uh, somebody.
I posted something about how disrespectful Marjorie Taylor Green was
to a journalist this week, and someone was like, you
have nothing to say about Jasmine Crockett, And I said, honey,
Jasmine Crockett is just matching their volume.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
I'm like, if you don't like it, get your people
to stop.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
And I was in a room recently with her and
there was just tremendous grassroots support for her kind of
unlike anything. Seemed like people whipping their napkins at the table,
like yeah, got it. There's a lot of talent in Michigan,
obviously the one Yes, Gretchen Whitmer and the new son love.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Big gretch walk In. She's wonderful too.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:14:02):
So there's a lot of people we have wonderful, wonderful talent.
But to me, it's like what happened in twenty seventeen
when Trump won is a bunch of talented badasses ran
for office. A bunch of veterans, nurses and doctors, people
who are running the PTA and saw what was going
on the schools and they're now in Congress and they're
like amazing. You know Abigail Spanberger from Virginia, more In

(01:14:26):
Underwood from Illinois'.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Yes I love her, who was a nurse.

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
And saw with the Affordable Care Act and was like, no,
you know, that is how we fight back and build
and win. So to your listeners, I would also say,
like there's nothing magical about running for Congress. Start small, like,
but get in the mix if you care about the
cool board, even being involved, you know, in your community,

(01:14:53):
organizations matters right now.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Yes, absolutely, it's all such good advice in it, and
it does remind me of the power levers that we
as citizens can still pull and push on, which feels exciting.
Who do you hope will make a bid for our
party for president twenty twenty eight?

Speaker 4 (01:15:15):
Well, it's a tough thing to answer, because what I
think about in my quiet moments is like, has has
something changed that to the degree that we won't go
back to how it was before?

Speaker 5 (01:15:27):
So we know that we've.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
Always had If there's a Venn diagram of like what
makes you a talented politician and what makes you a
talented actor or entertainer, big overlap from Ronald Reagan to
Jesse Ventura to Donald Trump, and there are many more,
you know, Sonny Bono, Yes, So what I don't know

(01:15:49):
is like, are we at a place now where we
need a celebrity to win? And I'm just not sure.
So there's a world in which you have George Clooney
or Matthew McConaughey or the Rock running for the Democratic
nomination a year and a half. While none of those
people would be a bad president, I think any of
them would be one thousand times better than Donald Trump

(01:16:11):
and Jade Vance. That is very different though, from a
primary that has Pete Boodha Judge and Wes Moore and
Gretchen Whitmer and Amy Klobuchar. Or is there someone from
business you know, Howard Schulton, Michael Bloomberg tried last time.
Is Mark Cuban gonna throw his hat in the ring?
I don't think he will? But or is there someone
else who runs a beloved you know, Bob Iger who's

(01:16:32):
run the most beloved corporation on Earth for twenty years, Like, yeah, Iran, well, Oprah.
So I don't know what I hope there's not one person.
I know that we will have a really competitive primary.
Vice President Harris might choose to run again, And I
just I know that I'm proud to be a Democrat

(01:16:52):
right now because the people standing on our primary stage
are going to look like the country, and there will
be kind of everything, And I hope that What I
do think we've moved beyond is identity politics.

Speaker 5 (01:17:07):
And we know why they started and why we needed
them right.

Speaker 4 (01:17:11):
Marginalized groups had to organize to get rights. But now
what we have realized is that most people who are
in those communities don't want to be grouped into that.
And so you know, six months ago we had Ombre's
Coen Harris right for like Latino men who were hare like.

Speaker 5 (01:17:31):
People didn't react well to that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
And so I think ideas and talking about the future
and the aspirational part of like being an American who
has enough money to like have a nice life, that
is what our nominee should and I think will represent, yeah,
rather than like, oh, here's the gay candidate, here's the
black candidate, here's the Latino candidate.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
That's not what we need. And I don't think that's
what our party will offer going forward, right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
Well, And I guess what's frustrating is if you are
described by any of those words, people act like that's
your whole personality or the whole reason you're a candidate.
It must be DEI and it's like, no, these are
just people who will ensure that people are represented. It's like,

(01:18:19):
it's not that complicated. And I do hope that the
more conversations we can have in our communities, the more
engagement we see people participating in from town halls to
making calls to Congress, to protesting to volunteering. My wish

(01:18:40):
is that it reminds us that we all really are
in this together, and at the end of the day,
the more people that are represented in any room, the better.
The outcomes in that room are for everyone, even the
people who've traditionally had the power. So I hope we
can show people another way. And for now, I'm really

(01:19:03):
grateful to have both of you gentlemen on my speed dial,
and we'll just keep going.

Speaker 5 (01:19:11):
Thank you for everything you're doing.

Speaker 4 (01:19:13):
And you know, it's like Eric said at the start
of the conversation, you don't have to be doing this,
but I think, knowing you for almost twenty years, like
it's what makes you come alive, and it's in your bones.
And I know that out of your millions of followers,
just as many are coming to you for how to

(01:19:34):
be a citizen as they are for their favorite show
or podcast, and that it's a real testament to how
you show up in the world and the reputation you've
built for fighting for everyone, even the people that don't
look like you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
So thank you, Thanks Jordan, Thank you. I met a
really sweet Alan Wilmington about a week ago who said,
I'm going to law school because of you. I've followed
all this stuff, you know, since middle school, and now
I'm going to law school and I was like, oh
my god, this makes me want to sob. She's going
to be a human rights attorney, and it was it
was very special. So it is meaningful to do this

(01:20:15):
work with you. It's meaningful to get to have these
conversations with everyone who's listening at home. Thank you all
you know for being here. And I do hope that
some of this pragmatic advice has has reminded you to
stay hopeful and stay in the game because we're not
going to see our territory. We're not going to see

(01:20:37):
this country to anybody who wants to take it apart.
Damn it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:42):
Well, I love you, I love you, Thank you for
having me