| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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In my opinion, impossible for to have a functioning government that serves the general public. | |
| Money allows a few individuals to skew the situation so that we don't address the things that are important to the general public. | ||
| So I think the way to improve our government, the way to improve the country as a whole, is to remove money from the politics through some process. | ||
| If we can achieve that, I think we can move on to turn limitations and improve the quality of our political system. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you to everyone who called in for Open Forum and the other segments of our show. | ||
| That's it today for Washington Journal. | ||
| But coming up right after this, we are going to have another edition of the Ceasefire Show. | ||
| We have Washington Journal coming back tomorrow for another edition at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| But coming up next, we're going to have Ceasefire. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Welcome to Ceasefire, where we seek to bridge the divide in American politics. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief, and joining me now on either side of the desk, two guests who have agreed to keep the conversation civil even when they disagree. | ||
| Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazil and former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. | ||
| Thank you both for joining me. | ||
| It is the Ronna and Donna show today. | ||
| Appreciate you being here, ladies. | ||
| Let's start with something you can both relate to. | ||
| These jobs, your former titles. | ||
| You both led your parties at the national level during turbulent election cycles. | ||
| What challenges did you face as party leaders that people might not know about? | ||
| I get a sense it's a thankless job sometimes, Donna. | ||
| Oh, it's a very thankless job. | ||
| You know, I was vice chair for a number of years, and I found myself as the vice chair being prepared to step up if the chair decided to do something else. | ||
| And in the case of Tim Kaine, who was the chair at the time, he decided to run for the United States Senate. | ||
| He was governor of Virginia, and I had to step up for a few months. | ||
| And then here come that big, big convention. | ||
| I'm in Philadelphia. | ||
| I'm ready to start partying. | ||
| And I get a call that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the congresswoman from the great state of Florida, wanted to see me. | ||
| She said, I'm stepping down. | ||
| I say, why? | ||
| And I'm like, oh my God, I got to do this. | ||
| How many glasses of wine in were you when you got that call? | ||
| Well, it was early in the morning, so I was a lot of caffeine in me, but it really was a turbulent moment in the Democratic Party. | ||
| You might recall that the Democratic Party was, we had a very robust political season. | ||
| And Hillary and Bernard went to the bitter end. | ||
| And the Sanders people were demanding changes to the entire process. | ||
| And Debbie decided enough was enough. | ||
| And so I stepped up again. | ||
| And this time I had to serve for quite a few months. | ||
| So unlike the first round of being the chair of the party, this time I had to not only step up, but when Hillary lost to Donald Trump, I had to also begin the transition process. | ||
| It was a tough, it was a tough period. | ||
| Yeah, Ronna, what did your version of that look like? | ||
| It was tough. | ||
| I think for me, coming from outside of D.C., being from Michigan and coming in, I was Michigan Party chair, and then I took over after Trump won in 2016. | ||
| And I was here for seven years, which is the longest for anybody in our party. | ||
| And there was a lot that happened, you know, two impeachments, a Russia investigation, a pandemic. | ||
| There were a lot of things that happened during that time. | ||
| But for me, just getting my sea legs a little bit too, the raising the money, getting to know people, it takes a lot of time and effort. | ||
| And it is a thankless job in a lot of ways. | ||
| You both have had a moment to take a step back. | ||
| The dust has settled. | ||
| We've had some distance from your tenure and from those turbulent election cycles. | ||
| How have you seen your parties evolve over the last several years? | ||
| There's no question the Democratic Party following the disaster of the 2024 cycle. | ||
| The Democratic Party is getting their C-legs back, recruiting new candidates. | ||
| We're about to undergo a generational shift within the party. | ||
| And we'll dig into all of that. | ||
| Not just at the national level, but I also think at the state and local levels, which, as you all know, you need that new energy, that new vision, that new spirit of democracy that flourishes when new people are allowed in the door. | ||
| So I think the Democratic Party has had to learn some valuable lessons over the last few months. | ||
| And one, we have to be a 50-state party 24-7. | ||
| We can't wait till the last minute to engage voters. | ||
| We learned something from the Republicans, especially in the Trump era. | ||
| You have to go out and find the influencers, find people at the grassroot level. | ||
| So I think the party is going to make a good comeback in the 2026 and, of course, the 2028 elections, which is wide open. | ||
| And I look forward to seeing this new generation flourish. | ||
| Lessons learned for Democrats from Donald Trump. | ||
| That's fascinating. | ||
| Ronna, what have you seen in the Republican Party? | ||
| Obviously, there's been so much talk about Trump's influence, but what have you seen in terms of the change since you left your post? | ||
| And from my experience as the White House Bureau Chief, he has changed a lot from his first term. | ||
| The party has changed from his first term. | ||
| It has. | ||
| I mean, I left in 2024. | ||
| So I think a lot of the things that we learned were from Obama, right? | ||
| Getting involved, getting in the ground game, making sure that we're knocking doors and engaging voters and then expanding that and going to the United States. | ||
| Yeah, that's like a guidebook. | ||
| You know, how do we get into communities? | ||
| How do we engage voters? | ||
| We were reaching out to Latino voters and black voters and Asian voters. | ||
| This was a big initiative that I was certainly proud of that the RNC was doing. | ||
| And then Trump took it even further by getting with the influencers, understanding the young male vote. | ||
| I think he understood that so well in 2024, the changing ways that people are consuming news, how they're getting engaged in politics through TikTok and other mediums. | ||
| But I think our parties have changed too. | ||
| Trump is a working class president, and the suburbs have become more Democrats. | ||
| So we've seen almost like a flip in our parties in who's turning out, and we'll see what happens going forward. | ||
| You know, I learned something from the RNC. | ||
| I think we should learn from each other. | ||
| And that is after the 2014 election, the RNC did an autopsy, 2012. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| An autopsy. | ||
| And in that autopsy, they talked about how they had to build bridges. | ||
| They couldn't just rely on the coalition that had won previous elections. | ||
| And the Republican Party began to make investments. | ||
| I went back to Washington. | ||
| I like to travel. | ||
| And I was in your beautiful great state of Michigan. | ||
| And I'm like, the Republicans are here in Wayne County? | ||
| I mean, they had a headquarters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We did. | |
| That was when I was chair in Wayne County. | ||
| In Motown. | ||
| And I'm like, and I kept writing emails to Tom Perez and others. | ||
| I said, the Republicans are making emeralds. | ||
| It was incremental, but it was very important that they had strategic investments, people who could actually go door to door and talk to people about the alternatives. | ||
| And I think that's one of the reasons why Donald Trump was able to expand his electorate and expand his, you know, so-called strategic corridors. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting because I think from the outside, people see that expansion of the coalition and kind of feel like that happened overnight or that happened just because the president is on true social and has such high name recognition. | ||
| But actually, those seeds had been planted for a long time, right? | ||
| I think it's important to recognize that it was intentional. | ||
| I mean, we had community centers in Detroit. | ||
| We had them in Texas and Hispanic communities where we were speaking Spanish, the people we had work in it. | ||
| But we also did things off-year, like formula drives or back-to-school drives. | ||
| So we were part of the community. | ||
| We had dance classes. | ||
| We didn't go in and out. | ||
| No, we were there. | ||
| And we had dance classes in some of them. | ||
| We had cooking nights. | ||
| So, but it also makes us better as a party. | ||
| And I think this is for both of us because when you're in these communities, and I'll just give an example of Detroit, our governor at the time was talking about skilled trades, skilled trades. | ||
| And I had one young woman raise her hand and say, you know, your governor is Republican. | ||
| Keep saying that. | ||
| I can't get to work. | ||
| I can't get a license in Michigan right now. | ||
| It's too expensive for me to get my permit. | ||
| And I was able to go back to my governor in a community where we had no Republican representation and say, this is what I'm hearing in Detroit. | ||
| How do we represent people better? | ||
| And part of it's by listening to them. | ||
| So yes, of course we want to get votes, but we have to listen so we can govern better. | ||
| Donna, you talked about autopsies. | ||
| I have gotten the sense from the Democratic Party post-2024 that there's been a challenge to do that autopsy, to do it in a productive and united way. | ||
| There's been a lot of finger pointing, but not a lot of sort of coming together and acknowledging with unity what went wrong, right? | ||
| Do you think there's been enough of an autopsy of 24 to learn those lessons that you can take forward? | ||
| I have read five autopsies. | ||
| Five. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| But they were not drafted or written by the Democratic National Committee. | ||
| I think the committee will put out a report at the end of the year that will go into more detail about how they not only allocated resources, but pretty much, you know, when you have your party have the White House, which you experienced before, the White House drives a lot of your politics, a lot of your resources, and a lot of the deployment of troops. | ||
| I call them troops, but deployment of volunteers and staff and so forth. | ||
| So I think the DNC needs to conduct and finish up its research. | ||
| But by and large, what you've learned from all of the other players in the field is that, one, we waited too long to make the switch. | ||
| We call it on the Democrat, we call it the switch when we switch from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. | ||
| Second, we were not playing across the board. | ||
| We limited our engagement to six, seven states, which is always a problem when you live in a country where you don't know where, which way the wind will blow. | ||
| And I also believe that we've got to look at technology and the algorithms and social media and the using influences. | ||
| I also think they will conclude, and again, I'm not involved in this report. | ||
| We had a lot of grass tops, but we missed the grass bottoms. | ||
| I mean, the people who actually drive politics, drive the conversation. | ||
| And, you know, I agree with the chairwoman. | ||
| Nowadays, people don't want to just gather and talk politics. | ||
| They want to talk about what's going on in the community. | ||
| They want to talk about swimming classes, spinning classes. | ||
| You know, people gather in different ways and book clubs, for example. | ||
| And we're learning that you can reach more people by not putting your partisanship out there, but figuring out what brings people together in that particular community. | ||
| Speaking of autopsies, we had an election this week that I think a lot of folks will be taking notes and taking lessons from. | ||
| We're on a top lines, and then we'll dig into each of the races more specifically. | ||
| But top lines, what's your takeaway from what happened this week? | ||
| Well, I do think the Democrats learned from 2024. | ||
| They talked about the economy. | ||
| I mean, that was the driving force, affordability. | ||
| Whatever everybody says about Mom Donnie, and I do think he's over-promised, and he's a little bit of an emperor with no clothes. | ||
| We'll see what happens in New York with some of the things he promised. | ||
| But he ran on an affordability agenda. | ||
| And he understood that people are worried about rent, they're worried about housing, they're worried about utilities, they're worried about the cost of living. | ||
| And so they stuck on those issues. | ||
| They haven't always done that. | ||
| That was smart for them. | ||
| But I also am not going to get my head down and be over dramatic. | ||
| These were blue states. | ||
| Democrats won. | ||
| New Jersey isn't a state we have typically won. | ||
| Virginia isn't either. | ||
| And I also think there's a thousand news cycles that are going to happen between now and next November. | ||
| But the Democrats obviously had a good night. | ||
| Donna? | ||
| Well, there's no question it was a good night for Democrats. | ||
| It was a good night for the country. | ||
| Look, in addition to New Jersey and Virginia, where Trump again made inroads in 2024, Democrats were able to go back and expand, winning practically every major county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. | ||
| The youth vote really was a difference. | ||
| And in 2024, I call it a testosterone shift. | ||
| I hope I can say that on C-Stan. | ||
| There was a testosterone shift among young voters toward Donald Trump because they believe Trump was listening to them. | ||
| Trump heard them. | ||
| Trump was trying to address their concerns about affordability and the American dream, access to the American dream. | ||
| This time, we had candidates who were laser-focused on the economy, rising prices, and delivering, talking about delivering for the people. | ||
| I mean, Abigail Spanberger, for all, I mean, she said, I'm going to put Virginia first. | ||
| She used Trump language. | ||
| And she wasn't talking. | ||
| You notice in her victory speech, she mentioned Washington, chaos, recklessness, but she didn't say Trump, Trump, Trump. | ||
| Now, and New Jersey. | ||
| Now, Mikey Sherrill had a different race, and I thought that was a sleeper race where the Republicans could make gain for two reasons. | ||
| One, it's hard to win a gubernatorial race three times in a row. | ||
| She was able to do that, so she beat that curse. | ||
| And also, Jack, I cannot say that. | ||
| I just call him Jack. | ||
| Jack came within three percentage points in 2021. | ||
| And yet, she was able to go back into Bergen County, go into a blowout. | ||
| It really was. | ||
| And I was shocked. | ||
| Look, there's no question that the youth vote helped the Democratic Party. | ||
| Democrats lost touch with young people, lost touch with working-class voters, lost touch with minority voters. | ||
| This time, the coalition, they put together a real strong coalition. | ||
| When you talk about youth voters, one of the candidates that did the best with young voters is Zoran Momdani in New York. | ||
| He is a Democratic socialist. | ||
| There's been a lot made about what his election means for Republicans and for Democrats, how both parties are going to use him, distance themselves, embrace him, what the path forward is with such a massive character that has entered the political scene. | ||
| I want you to take a listen to his victory speech this week. | ||
| If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. | ||
| And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. | ||
| This is not only how we stop Trump, it's how we stop the next one. | ||
| So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. | ||
| Turn the volume up. | ||
| New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. | ||
| So hear me, President Trump, when I say this. | ||
| To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. | ||
| Okay, so that was a very different approach than Abigail Spanberger, who you were just talking about, not mentioning him at all. | ||
| Of course, look, he's a firebrand. | ||
| And the Democratic Party is a big tent party. | ||
| We have, as you can see there, a Democratic socialist. | ||
| We also had Bernie Sanders, a Democratic socialist who ran for the party's nomination. | ||
| New York has a very unique system where you can run as a Democrat, you can run as a working party person, but he chose to run as a Democrat. | ||
| And look, this was a contest between Eric Adams, who was controversial and tarnished. | ||
| Of course, Andrew Cuomo, controversial, tarnished, and maybe old school, who did not really take this guy seriously in the primary. | ||
| So he has emerged. | ||
| He's now New York City mayor-elect. | ||
| I don't know if we can transfer what happened in New York City to, say, Atlanta, even my hometown of New Orleans. | ||
| But he is a firebrand, and he's going to have to work with Governor Hokul and the New York Assembly in order to, you know, meet the demands of his constituency. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Well, let me now have you listen to Speaker Mike Johnson talking about Mondani. | ||
| Zoron Mamdani is without a doubt the biggest win for socialism in the history of the country and it is the biggest loss for the American people. | ||
| And the results of that race tell you everything you need to know about where the Democrats and their party are headed. | ||
| From the backbench to their leadership, Democrats have fallen in line behind the socialist candidates. | ||
| Okay, so how are Republicans going to use Montana? | ||
| I'll say one thing. | ||
| I don't think calling him a socialist is going to resonate. | ||
| I don't think people know what a socialist is. | ||
| I think you have to talk about how he's going to bankrupt New York. | ||
| I look at him as the kid running for class president saying every class is going to be recessed and we're going to serve dessert for lunch. | ||
| I mean, and now we're going to see what he really does. | ||
| He says he's not going to raise rents. | ||
| He's going to increase the corporate tax rate, free busing, free groceries. | ||
| That's just not going to happen. | ||
| And what they're going to find is it's going to bankrupt that city and they're going to see jobs and business leaders fleeing that city and they're going to be a city further, further in debt. | ||
| His policies will not work. | ||
| And so we have to put that to the American people. | ||
| We need to talk about a prosperity agenda and talk about how we do lower the cost of utilities, how we make sure that housing is affordable. | ||
| We have to talk about education. | ||
| In my state of Michigan, one in four fourth graders right now can read at grade level. | ||
| We have the second highest unemployment in the country under a Democrat governor. | ||
| I mean, people cannot prosper under their policies. | ||
| So I don't love just the socialist and thinking that's enough. | ||
| We have to explain what that means. | ||
| Donna, do you think that Momdani is going to be more an asset or more of a liability given what we just heard from Rana? | ||
| You know, I think people are just really piling on to a newcomer to the political, national political scene. | ||
| He has a lot of challenges ahead. | ||
| He's trying to build bridges. | ||
| He's trying to expand the conversation beyond the so-called primary voters. | ||
| He knows that he needs to retain the business support. | ||
| He understands that he made a lot of promises to young people. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| There's a huge majority in our country. | ||
| They're sick of the old politics. | ||
| They're sick of politicians not delivering, government not being accessible to everyone. | ||
| There are millions of our fellow citizens who live on the outskirts of hope. | ||
| And if we're not able to bring them into the circle of opportunity where prosperity is available to all people, where education is available to all people, then both political parties will suffer. | ||
| You know, the little hidden secret in American politics is that my party is not the majority party in the country. | ||
| Your party is not the majority. | ||
| Independent, non-aligned voters are everywhere to be found. | ||
| And we both have to do a better job of reaching them. | ||
| Otherwise, we're going to lose them. | ||
| So if you were advising Ken Martin, the DNC chair right now, would you advise him to embrace Mom Donnie? | ||
| I would advise him to embrace not only Mr. Mondanu, Mr. Zoron, but embrace those two individuals who won down in Georgia. | ||
| Embrace the people who won in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Embrace voters everywhere. | ||
| Embrace leadership everywhere. | ||
| We have to build a new bench, and we're going to have to be very inclusive in the process. | ||
| I want to talk about something that I've been seeing and hearing and thinking about a lot personally, which is the parallels between Mom Donnie and Trump, right? | ||
| I mean, they're both disruptors. | ||
| They have both found ways to reach voters that a lot of other candidates haven't been able to do. | ||
| I mean, I remember when Trump was coming on and Democrats thought that it was going to be the best thing for the Democratic Party to run against Trump. | ||
| Republicans right now think Mom Donnie is a huge boon to them, right? | ||
| Well, how do you guys see that? | ||
| So one thing I'll say about Mom Donnie that you didn't show in his speech, which I don't think is good for the party, is he rebuked Cuomo quickly. | ||
| He didn't say, for those of you who didn't vote for me, I'm going to be a mayor for all of you. | ||
| I think that was a missed opportunity for him. | ||
| But what I will say about him and Trump is they understand the entertainment part of the job as well. | ||
| They understand social media. | ||
| Donald Trump is a candidate every day, even when he's president. | ||
| He understands news cycles. | ||
| He understands the rapid pace of it. | ||
| And he wants to be front and center of the news. | ||
| And one thing that our party has a problem with, and I will say this because I was chair during both of these midterms, is Trump voters do not show up in the midterms for our candidates. | ||
| And we also saw that in this election this week. | ||
| One data point from New Jersey is Jack Chitterelli got more votes than any Republican nominee in New Jersey since the 1960s, and he still lost. | ||
| You know, and four years ago when I was chair, we did win Virginia. | ||
| We swept it. | ||
| Jack Chitterelli came within three points of a Democrat governor. | ||
| And then in 2022, we didn't have the red waves. | ||
| So I don't get, I wouldn't get all warm and fuzzy at so much changes in that cycle. | ||
| But my caution to our candidates is run a race that's exciting, that's energetic. | ||
| People don't vote for what you've done. | ||
| They're going to vote about what you do and have an agenda. | ||
| Trump ran on no tax on tips, getting rid of Social Security, fixing immigration, getting a ceasefire, all those things he's done. | ||
| He brought an agenda to the American people in 2024. | ||
| And if people think they're going to just ride Trump coattails in the midterms, they're wrong. | ||
| They need to take some lessons from both of these guys and create some energy around their campaigns. | ||
| And they also enlarged the electorate. | ||
| That's something. | ||
| I mean, reaching out to voters who are just disgusted with politics, that don't see politicians as delivering, young voters in particular. | ||
| I mean, what I loved about his campaign, and I followed it from afar, is that he found those new voters. | ||
| And he was their voice. | ||
| Now, I showed my students at Georgetown. | ||
| I said, did you see what the candidate did the Friday before the election? | ||
| He went to a bar and went to a dance. | ||
| And he was there, I mean, partying for two hours. | ||
| And it went all over social media. | ||
| My nieces and nephews down in Louisiana say, where is he running? | ||
| They didn't know what was going on in New York. | ||
| But he had this energy. | ||
| And likewise, Trump. | ||
| I said back in 2016, I said, you know, Trump is in Florida. | ||
| They said, no, he's not. | ||
| I said, yeah. | ||
| But Trump effect, just like there's going to be a Madami effect, because he taught us that you can reach voters with hope and change, and you can bring them into the process. | ||
| But let's see if he can deliver on some of those promises. | ||
| Do you think that the wins in New Jersey and Virginia with Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill, who ran as real moderates, real common sense moderates, does that provide a tension with Mom Donnie about the direction of the Democratic Party, or do you see it more as a compliment? | ||
| You know, when you think about my party, I'm from New Orleans. | ||
| I grew up in a very moderate to conservative household. | ||
| Most Americans are not looking at party labels. | ||
| They're looking at results. | ||
| And so I think when they looked at Abigail, they say, you know, she leaned into her national security experience. | ||
| Same Mikey leaned into as part of their narrative, their bio. | ||
| And also, she leaned into the fact that she's a mom with three girls in public schools. | ||
| Mikey leaned into the fact that she was a mom of four children. | ||
| And I think two of them are about to join the Navy. | ||
| So it's really a different scenario for the Democrats. | ||
| I mean, as you well know, we have governors who are just waiting to get that call to start running for 2028. | ||
| But we know next year is a big political year with 36 gubernatorial races, 35 senatorial races. | ||
| And let's just be honest, I think today's decision, the decision by Nancy Pelosi to step aside and not seek reelection is also another part of the chapter, this new chapter in the Democratic Party. | ||
| We might see a tidal wave of Democrats and maybe some Republicans who decide this is the year to retire. | ||
| Your take on Pelosi's retirement, Rana? | ||
| I think you're right. | ||
| It is bringing in a new chapter. | ||
| I think the Democrat Party is looking for energy. | ||
| They got some of that on Tuesday. | ||
| I think it's been a big boost for them. | ||
| There's no question their fundraising is probably going to increase. | ||
| They had some energy with their turnout. | ||
| So this is something Republicans have to take note of, heading into a midterm where Trump voters the past two cycles have kind of stayed home in those midterms. | ||
| So that being said, we have a lot of energy in our youth vote too with Turning Point and what happened with Charlie Kirk and all those people that showed up in Arizona. | ||
| So there's a youth movement on our side. | ||
| I think Trump has a lot of good policies in place. | ||
| Gas prices are down. | ||
| If we can get the tariffs figured out, if the Supreme Court rules on that, create some certainty around that. | ||
| You've seen inflation going down. | ||
| If interest rates go down, if we have a good economy, that's going to lead to a very good midterm. | ||
| But it's way too early to prognosticate for 2020. | ||
| Let's not make bets. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll see. | |
| 2016. | ||
| We'll lose money real fast. | ||
| One thing that is going to impact what happens in the midterms and beyond is this redistricting battle. | ||
| Proposition 50 did pass in California. | ||
| They're redrawing the maps. | ||
| Gavin Newsom won on that. | ||
| Earlier, there was a debate whether that was even something that voters would be interested in. | ||
| Democrats are going down that path. | ||
| I want you to take a listen to Ken Martin on redistricting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now we've leveled the playing field, and now it's up to Republicans. | |
| If they continue with this nonsense and continue going down this road of trying to redistrict, unconstitutionally redistrict in Republican-controlled states, we're going to meet them state by state. | ||
| They wanted this fight. | ||
| They created this fight, right? | ||
| And we're going to meet them. | ||
| This is not your grandfather's Democratic Party where we're going to play with one hand behind our back. | ||
| We are actually fighting back. | ||
| I'm proud of Governor Newsom and Californians for sending a message. | ||
| My hope now is that it creates a chilling effect for the Republicans, and they realize that we're going to meet them each and every step of the way. | ||
| So, DNC chair says we're going to keep doing this if we have to. | ||
| Is this a dangerous road, or is it something that Democrats have no choice but do? | ||
| You know, Donald Trump started this, and he started this by telling Governor Abbott, let's move. | ||
| You know, mid-century, mid-decade redistricting. | ||
| It's not a battle that I'm pretty happy with, satisfied with, but it's a battle that Democrats cannot sit on the sideline. | ||
| Ronna? | ||
| I think how many races are going to be toss-ups then if they keep doing this? | ||
| I think this is going to be both sides. | ||
| They're going to keep it. | ||
| I'm going to say by they, who do you mean by? | ||
| Both Republican and Democrat. | ||
| It's going to keep going. | ||
| I mean, I think this is going to keep going. | ||
| You've seen Missouri, Indiana, you've now seen Maryland's getting some pressure. | ||
| Westmore came into the conversation. | ||
| Now with Virginia, it's probably going to do this. | ||
| So who knows where it ends up? | ||
| The courts will decide it. | ||
| But if there's like only 17 races that decide the balance of the House, how much money is going to go into those races? | ||
| How much vitriol? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| I mean, I just don't think you can even saturate the airwaves enough. | ||
| So what I would say to our candidates is start running now. | ||
| Start preparing now. | ||
| Start putting your message out now before it gets to November and you're tuned out and start making the case as to why you should be elected right now because we don't know what's going to happen in the courts. | ||
| What do you say to your party about this redistricting push, though? | ||
| I don't think it started with Donald Trump. | ||
| I think it started before that. | ||
| This has been both parties. | ||
| It's happened in the courts. | ||
| I mean, historically, it's true. | ||
| Both parties have happened. | ||
| Every party's fighting for power, right? | ||
| But now that it's going down this road and down this road pretty fast, and they're both tit for tat with this now, what do you say to Republicans? | ||
| Oh, exactly. | ||
| I mean, California is doing it. | ||
| This is just the way it's going to be. | ||
| We have a very slim margin in the House. | ||
| Trump does not want to lose the House. | ||
| And his political team came in and said, we're going to start immediately to make sure we can get into these states, redistrict, and get some more House seats so that we can weather these midterms, which traditionally are bad for the party in power. | ||
| We know that. | ||
| But I think they came in with a plan. | ||
| The benefit Trump had of not being in office for four years is he came in with a lot of plans with a team ready to go. | ||
| So they had all this ready and they've unleashed it really early on in his presidency. | ||
| And I don't think this is going to stop. | ||
| But you know, they based their map in Texas on the results in 2024. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| And, you know, this could well backfire in Texas because the Latino vote is trending back toward the Democratic Party. | ||
| So this could backfire. | ||
| You think she could be right about that, Ronald? | ||
| Well, if you're making the margins lower, right, if you have an R plus 10 and you're making to an R plus 5 and generic ballot goes to a D plus 8, you're putting those districts in play. | ||
| So we don't know what that'll be. | ||
| And I think Donna's got a point. | ||
| You could be making some of these safe seats. | ||
| You could be spreading out. | ||
| It could be a little bit more competitive. | ||
| Look. | ||
| You could. | ||
| Your message to Democrats about redistricting? | ||
| Fight like hell. | ||
| I would say the same thing. | ||
| Trump came in to fight like hell. | ||
| Fight like hell. | ||
| I mean, you're not going to tell Democrats to lay down and take it. | ||
| They're going to fight like hell. | ||
| Although we have a limited playing field because Republicans control more state houses and we've seen in Ohio. | ||
| Of course, if they make a move in Indiana, make a move in Florida, I mean, it's really going to get dicey, especially if New York cannot make a move. | ||
| And there's a lot of states that have no Republicans, too, so they don't have, because they've done this so well already, right? | ||
| So there are states like Massachusetts. | ||
| Yeah, they don't have, they've redistricted us out already, so there's not as much playing field for them. | ||
| And now Trump's saying we're going to play like they are. | ||
| In the end, my biggest thing, and I'm going to say this as a party chair, is if you're going to make these districts slimmer, you are going to have to have a ground game. | ||
| So where is that going to come from? | ||
| You're going to have to have that turnout the vote operation and that ability to reach out to the Latino community. | ||
| So where's that going to be? | ||
| The RNC needs to do it. | ||
| I think groups like Turning Point USA are going to have a big role heading in to the midterms to mobilize and build that ground game. | ||
| TV alone doesn't just turn out voters. | ||
| Streaming alone doesn't turn out voters. | ||
| You're going to have to be knocking doors. | ||
| And you're going to have to recruit candidates who can appeal to the middle, swing voters, independent voters. | ||
| I think Utah is going to be interesting as well. | ||
| Again, there could be unintended consequences across the board by messing with these districts at this hour. | ||
| Ladies, a lot to be watching for in the next year. | ||
| Midterm season officially started. | ||
| I love campaigns, so this is the kind of conversation I just get my kicks out of. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love you too. | |
| I'm also glad I'm not in charge of it. | ||
| I am so blessed not to be in the last year. | ||
| One thing you can both definitely, definitely agree on. | ||
| Thank you both for your time. | ||
| Former DNC chair Donna Brazil, former RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel. | ||
| Thank you, ladies. | ||
| Thanks for having us. | ||
| Let's turn now to this week's C-SPAN Flashback, where we dig deep into the video archives to show you a moment in political history. | ||
| This week, former Vice President Dick Cheney passed away. | ||
| He served in a number of political roles before the 2000 George Bush campaign asked him to vet potential running mates. | ||
| Bush ultimately chose Cheney himself. | ||
| Here's the 2000 announcement from the C-SPAN archives. | ||
| I'm proud to announce that Dick Cheney, a man of great integrity, sound judgment, and experience, is my choice to be the next Vice President of the United States. | ||
| When the governor first asked whether or not I would consider being a candidate, I respectfully declined. | ||
| I was deeply involved in running a business, enjoying private life, and I certainly wasn't looking to return to public service. | ||
| But I had an experience that changed my mind this spring. | ||
| As I worked alongside Governor Bush, I heard him talk about his unique vision for our party and for our nation. | ||
| I saw his sincerity. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I watched him make decisions, always firm and always fair. | |
| And in the end, I learned how persuasive he can be. | ||
| Dick Cheney served as vice president from 2001 to 2009. | ||
| He was 84 years old. | ||
| We are joined now by two political pros from both sides of the aisle to talk about the top political stories of the week, Democratic strategist Megan Hayes and Republican strategist Cherry Holt. | ||
| I will look to both of you guys to peel back the curtain. | ||
| Today you're here as strategists, not surrogates, given some analysis to help people understand what each of the parties is doing here. | ||
| Before we get started to the news of the week, though, Terry, I want you to take a moment. | ||
| You were a spokesperson for the Bush-Cheney campaign. | ||
| Tell me a little bit about what your thoughts are looking back. | ||
| Well, in the 2000 campaign, when we needed, we had the Florida recount, everybody was on their edge of seat trying to figure out whether Al Gore or President George W. Bush, then governor, was going to be president. | ||
| And we were all down in Florida trying to win the recount battle. | ||
| Well, Dick Cheney and his team was up here working on the transition, and it made it possible. | ||
| Dick Cheney's role then and there as a significant player on the campaign. | ||
| He became the transition leader and helped us hit the ground running when we came into office in January. | ||
| So from the very beginning of the presidency, he was a very consequential player. | ||
| A lot of us also remember as Hill staffers that he was one of the president's best negotiators when it came down to issues like the tax cut, like the No Child Left Behind bill, and many other of the president's priorities during that first four years of office. | ||
| So Dick Cheney was a misunderstood leader, but one who was principled and fair and ultimately a great man to work for if you ask any of the folks who worked for him. | ||
| Let's dig into what we have seen this week. | ||
| This shutdown set a record. | ||
| Taking a step back, big picture, what do you think this record says about the state of our politics, Megan? | ||
| I think that it says that we are extremely divided. | ||
| And I don't, one thing it's hard for me to understand from a Democratic perspective is they are paid to work for their constituents. | ||
| And when they are not working and the government is shut down, then that means they are not delivering to their constituents. | ||
| And so it's unclear why Democrats would let the government shut down without an off-ramp to open it. | ||
| I do think that health care is a noble cause, but it just, it makes me a little anxious that there doesn't seem to be, I know there's now some negotiations happening, but for 30-some days, nobody seemed to be working with anybody else. | ||
| And it just shows how divided we really are. | ||
| Do you think Democrats may have misplayed this? | ||
| No, I don't think they misplayed it. | ||
| I think that the entire Congress is misplaying. | ||
| And I think I don't, I'm not one of these people who just genuinely believes that we're just going to stand firm and we shouldn't do anything, we shouldn't negotiate. | ||
| But their job is to work for the people, and they're not doing that. | ||
| I do think that, again, health care is a noble cause to be fighting for. | ||
| It is important to have affordability and have affordable health care. | ||
| But I just, it makes me a little anxious that we are this divided that we can't keep our government open. | ||
| Terry, who do you think is winning this fight in terms of optics and messaging and how the American people view the parties? | ||
| Well, I think in 12 months, it's going to be very unclear who the winner was for this current shutdown. | ||
| I think in the long run, pocks on both their houses. | ||
| But right now, the Democrats seem to be winning the war over who's to blame. | ||
| And I think that's fine for now, but it's not sustainable. | ||
| And at this point, I think that there is room for negotiation and that after you've proven that Republicans are cruel, you've made your political point. | ||
| And it's time now, I think, to find the off-ramp. | ||
| Do you agree with that? | ||
| I absolutely agree. | ||
| And I think it's embarrassing for the Republicans that even the president is blaming the shutdown is why they had such disastrous losses on Tuesday. | ||
| Yeah, let's actually, let's take a listen to that moment because it was a striking comment from the president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We had an interesting evening and we learned a lot. | |
| And we're going to talk about that. | ||
| And I'll say a few remarks. | ||
| And then after that, I'll ask the press to leave. | ||
| I thought we'd have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented and what we should do about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night. | |
| I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. | ||
| I was surprised to hear him say that, Terry. | ||
| Well, it's because it's true. | ||
| Most people believe that Donald Trump could snap his fingers and get this government turned on in a heartbeat, that he could have the negotiation. | ||
| And as the art of the deal says, he would be able to make the deal. | ||
| So I think that's why most people think that it's up to him to fix this problem. | ||
| And I think it's the Republicans that have now risked their own political lives that they have put themselves in the same economic basket as Donald Trump. | ||
| And that's a disconnect with most of the people out there that are struggling in red states and blue. | ||
| I mean, he talks a lot about blue states being out of control, but there are people suffering in red states under the current policies. | ||
| And I think the Republicans need to find a way to distinguish themselves from some of these more callous policies of this presidency. | ||
| Well, there are a lot of Americans that are suffering right now because of the shutdown, right? | ||
| Whether you're talking about the health care premiums, whether you're talking about SNAP benefits. | ||
| And something a lot of Americans, probably most Americans, are going to be impacted by if this continues is travel, right? | ||
| We're coming up on holiday season. | ||
| I want you to take a listen to the FAA administrator. | ||
| Take a listen. | ||
| When we see pressures building in these 40 markets, we just can't ignore it, you know, and we're not going to wait for a safety problem to truly manifest itself when the early indicators are telling us we can take action today to prevent things from deteriorating. | ||
| So they're reducing air traffic by 10% at heavily traveled airports. | ||
| I mean, what is this going to do for the mood in the country? | ||
| So this is interesting because it's actually going to be the first thing that really hits a lot of people. | ||
| Only 44 million Americans are on SNAP benefits. | ||
| A lot of people don't understand what the ACA is. | ||
| They have jobs that they get their health insurance through. | ||
| So it's hitting a different group of people. | ||
| And it also is going to impact commerce because goods aren't going to be able to move. | ||
| Your Amazon goods aren't coming to you in two days if they're going to start shutting down airports and decreasing traffic. | ||
| So I think this is going to actually hit a lot more of the masses in America. | ||
| And I do think that is going to cause a great problem. | ||
| People are going to be pissed and they're going to continue to call their members. | ||
| And they don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. | ||
| They want their goods from Amazon, just like people want their SNAP benefits. | ||
| And I don't mean to diminish people who are getting SNAP benefits or ACA. | ||
| It's just it's going to hit a different group of people. | ||
| Do you think that that presents a new danger for Democrats, even if they're feeling this high from the election, even if the president himself is admitting that the shutdown has been bad for Republicans? | ||
| Does this put Democrats at more risk now? | ||
| Absolutely, because I do think that it makes it, people don't necessarily care. | ||
| And some people don't know who their members are. | ||
| This will become an anti-incumbent problem. | ||
| So when they go to run in the midterms, they're going to vote for the other person because they didn't shut down the government. | ||
| They didn't shut down. | ||
| They could get to their friend's wedding or they could get to a baptism that they couldn't get to before. | ||
| Terry, this move by the FAA, do you think it's, I mean, there is a safety concern, right? | ||
| But how much is it also trying to just put pressure on to get the government reopened? | ||
| Every aspect of this government right now, your spokesman for some department, you are painting a grim picture of what the shutdown means for average people. | ||
| And it's all back to that cabinet meeting. | ||
| Go back to the cabinet meeting and tell the president it's time to end the shutdown, bring the Democrats in. | ||
| I think, like I said before, they've won the battle, but now they have to find a way to get the president to say yes. | ||
| It's him who's the stick right now. | ||
| And I think it's one of those things that the Republicans don't have an answer for. | ||
| They've never stood up to him. | ||
| And now they're stuck with him in this terrible situation where every aspect of government is threatened. | ||
| And as you said, touches on different demographics to the point where now we have a majority of people who are under total duress because this deal can't be done. | ||
| And on that point, the president hasn't showed any interest. | ||
| He's traveled abroad several times. | ||
| Most presidents, if there was a shutdown, would never leave Washington. | ||
| They wouldn't go to their weekend house. | ||
| They wouldn't travel abroad. | ||
| They wouldn't care what it was. | ||
| They would literally sit here and figure out how to negotiate. | ||
| And those members would be traveling in and out of the White House at all hours. | ||
| And also, members wouldn't be back in their districts. | ||
| Most presidents would not allow Their members to not be here to negotiate. | ||
| So it's kind of, they're following the president's lead, and he's leading them down a very dangerous path because it's going to impact. | ||
| It impacted them on Tuesday, and if they continue, it will impact them again in the midterm. | ||
| Well, let's remember that Republicans and Democrats alike have to get in and out of D.C. on a regular basis. | ||
| And if anything will shut a shutdown down, it's those members of Congress and senators having trouble logistically doing their job. | ||
| That might be the straw that breaks the Campbell's back ultimately. | ||
| Well, maybe these flight delays are going to force members to be stuck either here in Washington or back home and trying to figure it out. | ||
| The other thing that the president is doing here is pushing for the filibuster. | ||
| Listen. | ||
| It's time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that's terminate the filibuster. | ||
| It's the only way you can do it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And if you don't terminate the filibuster, you'll be in bad shape. | |
| We won't pass any legislation. | ||
| There'll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter. | ||
| We have three and a quarter years, so it's a long time. | ||
| And we should do our own bills. | ||
| We should get out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We should do our own bills. | |
| We should open up. | ||
| We should start tonight with the country's open congratulations. | ||
| Then we should pass voter ID. | ||
| We should pass no mail-in voting. | ||
| We should pass all the things that we wanted to pass to make our election secure. | ||
| You see some stoic faces there. | ||
| I mean, Terry, the Republicans on the Hill have said yes, sir, to just about everything that the president has asked of them. | ||
| This seems a little different. | ||
| This seems like it's going to outlive Donald Trump. | ||
| I think our leaders in the Republican Party showed a very brief moment of independence over the filibuster because they do recognize that they will have to live in the Senate long after this thin majority they have is gone. | ||
| And so I think they're looking ahead that they may someday be in the minority and don't want to be put in a position where they can be railroaded. | ||
| I don't think they also want to take votes on some of these things that Donald Trump wants. | ||
| I think that the Republicans deep down know that some of these votes are not good for them and voter ID and some of these things that are really not helpful in their own districts, they don't want to take these votes. | ||
| So they don't want the filibuster to have to take those votes. | ||
| Well, how do you think Democrats should navigate this? | ||
| Is there a world in which Democrats say, sure, let's nuke the filibuster and then when we're in power, we take it on? | ||
| I really hope not, that they're not thinking that because they also are going to, this flips, it flips all the time. | ||
| We see different majorities all the time. | ||
| And I just, it's a dangerous place to be. | ||
| There's a filibuster for a reason. | ||
| And it just, it makes me really anxious. | ||
| And I hope that they're not saying that, but you never know. | ||
| Axios is reporting that Trump could retaliate against members of his own party. | ||
| One source said he will call them at 3 o'clock in the morning. | ||
| He'll blow them up in their districts. | ||
| He'll call them un-American. | ||
| He'll call them old creatures of a dying institution. | ||
| Believe you me, he's going to make their lives just hell. | ||
| How should Republicans navigate this? | ||
| Well, so far, they have bowed at every turn. | ||
| I expect them to really go back to their districts over the course of the next couple of months and take stock in where their voters are, where the farmers are, where the small businesses are. | ||
| They will gain strength from their constituencies. | ||
| And when they find out and have a handle on where their constituencies are back in these red states, they may come back with more backbone. | ||
| But I don't see it happening anytime soon. | ||
| The tactics have worked for 10 years. | ||
| Until they don't work, he's going to keep trying them. | ||
| But this is like in the governor's race in New Jersey when Mikey Sherrill connected Chittarelli to Trump. | ||
| That worked for her. | ||
| And so I just, these members, these Republicans should really take note. | ||
| Does it help me to be aligned with Trump or does it help me just to take his incoming and be my own person to be reelected? | ||
| So they're going to have to think about what's important in their own future because it might be more beneficial to them that their opponent can't run a campaign out that they're with them. | ||
| They can run an ad saying, I'm an independent thinker, I stood up to him, which I think is going to benefit a lot of these people in Purple District. | ||
| Well, it's really interesting. | ||
| I think there is a bit of a crossroads for Republicans in terms of how they campaign and how they win over voters in these competitive districts, because you have some takeaways from Tuesday night saying that it's because Trump wasn't on the ballot. | ||
| And Jack Chittarelli, for example, was not able to bring out the voters in some of those places in New Jersey where Trump really was able to expand the coalition. | ||
| You have others saying that it was Trump's economic policies and Trump's lack of message on the economy that was the problem for Republicans. | ||
| How should Republican candidates navigate the Trump of this in the midterms? | ||
| The president and his team just ignored the biggest issue of the last campaign, the economy. | ||
| The economy hasn't gotten any better. | ||
| It's gotten worse for most people. | ||
| And they didn't talk about it enough, as Donald Trump himself admitted. | ||
| But they've also done things to undermine the economy, to make things worse. | ||
| And so as long as they are at that stage where they're talking tariffs without any tangible benefit to average people, they're going to be in a box politically. | ||
| And I think we'll see people in red states going to the president saying, we need to change course. | ||
| And we'll see if he listens to them or if he listens to the oligarchy that he is in bed with. | ||
| So what do Democrats do with this? | ||
| I think Democrats keep running on affordability and keep running against Trump. | ||
| Nobody likes the chaos of Donald Trump. | ||
| He's upside down on all of the things that are crime, immigration, the economy. | ||
| He is upside down the polling right now on everything. | ||
| So he can continue to fight on immigration and crime, which are winning issues for him. | ||
| But if people think he is chaotic and then they still don't have any money, they're not going to either turn out or they're not going to vote for him. | ||
| And I'm not, I don't believe that there's all these persuadable independent voters that continue to go back and forth. | ||
| This becomes an issue of how do you get your bait, how do you get people to vote? | ||
| And if you can't turn people out like they couldn't on Tuesday, they will continue to lose. | ||
| I think there are persuadable voters. | ||
| I think a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because he made the strong and determined leadership thing about the economy. | ||
| And when he didn't pay off, they don't necessarily go because of all the MAGA stuff. | ||
| They go because of the pocketbook issues. | ||
| And I think that's going to be what really forms the boundaries of the 2026 races. | ||
| I mean, you talked about the challenges that Trump has on the issue of affordability. | ||
| His poll numbers are dropping, but Democrats are still below that. | ||
| The approval ratings for Democrats are below that of Trump's. | ||
| What are they to do? | ||
| Can they take lessons from what we saw on Tuesday? | ||
| So the National Party's numbers as a Democrat, like the Democrat overall, that polling number might be really low. | ||
| But as we saw on Tuesday, people still believe in the Democratic Party in their own communities. | ||
| Well, people might believe in specific candidates. | ||
| The Democratic brand, I think there's a ton of evidence to say it's not where Democrats want it to be. | ||
| And that's fine. | ||
| They might not think that the overall leadership of the Democrat Party is not up to par, but they won 13 different statewide races on Tuesday. | ||
| They won every mayor's race, and almost 99% of the mayor's races Democrats won. | ||
| So you can't discount the local leadership. | ||
| And Democratic politics has always been local. | ||
| Their leaders have always been local, and they always look to a local person. | ||
| It's not been a top-down party like the Republican Party. | ||
| So I just think that, yes, the overall brand and people might be mad at Chuck Schumer or mad at Jeffries, but they are not mad with their individual leaders. | ||
| And that's how the Democrats won on Tuesday and won overwhelmingly in places. | ||
| They stopped a super majority in Mississippi. | ||
| I mean, that is an unheard of thing. | ||
| And they won statewide seats in Georgia that they haven't won in decades. | ||
| That's an untenable thing to continue to do if the Democratic brand locally was bad. | ||
| It's a national problem that we have. | ||
| Well, let's stay for a minute on the party's identity and the future of the party. | ||
| There was a big change this week in Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Meredith, stepping down or announcing that she's going to retire. | ||
| Take a listen to her announcement. | ||
| For decades, I've cherished the privilege of representing our magnificent city in the United States Congress. | ||
| It was the faith that you had placed in me and the latitude that you have given me that enabled me to shatter the marble ceiling and be the first woman Speaker of the House. | ||
| I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, Speaker, leader, whip, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I will not be seeking re-election to Congress. | |
| With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative. | ||
| Megan, what does this mean for the Democrats? | ||
| They're losing us, or we're losing a formidable leader and someone who has really taken shape of the Democratic Party. | ||
| There's no one that's been able to whip easier than Nancy Pelosi was able to get her members in line very quickly. | ||
| But the other thing is, we're also losing an incredible fundraiser for the Democratic Party, which I think is something that we desperately need right now to be able to raise money. | ||
| She just has such a long-standing career and has done so many wonderful things. | ||
| She's not replaceable by any stretch of the imagination. | ||
| But I do appreciate that she's reading the room and going out on her own terms and not letting the tides turn on her and being pushed out. | ||
| Terry, for Republicans, Pelosi had been a boogeyman for a long time. | ||
| What do they do now? | ||
| Well, they turn their sights on Mom Dhani. | ||
| I'm still troubled with trying to decide how to say that. | ||
| But they're going to look for a new boogeyman. | ||
| They seem to have found it. | ||
| Mike Johnson was on TV today, yesterday, and repeatedly attacking Mondavi. | ||
| I think Nancy Pelosi was a serious person, and so she got the respect of Republicans, like John Boehner, who was Speaker and took the gavel from Nancy at one point. | ||
| She knew how to count votes as a whip, but also as a speaker, she knew how to lead her caucus. | ||
| And I think they're going to be missing a real component of leadership in the House that Jeffries really, I would believe, leaned on her and her quiet ability to read the room, like you said, and also to be able to lead the room, which is something that really is required these days if they're going to get out of the minority. | ||
| What do you want to see from Jeffries in the wake of this departure? | ||
| I think it's going to be hard to replace her just in her sheer knowledge of politics and she was so good at politics, right? | ||
| Like she understood what members needed what and when and what people could take votes that other people couldn't. | ||
| I don't know that Jeffries has that experience yet. | ||
| I think it's extremely difficult in a time to lead in Trump right now. | ||
| I think Jeffries is definitely standing up and I think people are seeing a different leader than we saw before during the shutdown. | ||
| So I do admire that. | ||
| He's just, no one's ever going to be Nancy Pelosi. | ||
| No one's ever going to be able to whip and to get votes the way she can. | ||
| So I do, he has a tough road. | ||
| If Democrats take back the House, it'll be interesting to see. | ||
| Before I let you guys go, I want to get to our weekly feature. | ||
| It's called Not On My Bingo Card, where we talk about the unexpected, quirky, bizarre, silly political stuff that we see every single week. | ||
| This week, what was not on my bingo card is an interesting side hustle. | ||
| His day job is lawyer for the IRS, but during the shutdown, Isaac Stein is using his time away from a government job to realize a long time dream. | ||
| He runs a hot dog stand. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We caught up with him this week. | |
| This is a passion project. | ||
| This was 70% a backyard art project that I also intended to be a business. | ||
| And it was intended to operate on the side. | ||
| So I would work on, I intended to work this Fridays and weekends. | ||
| In early October on the 8th, I got furloughed. | ||
| And then since then, I've been serving somewhere between five and seven days a week. | ||
| So I've been out most days. | ||
| But as for where this came from, this is my attempt at humor. | ||
| This is my attempt at a passion project. | ||
| And I'm just having seriously a great time being out here connecting with the people who live here and just chatting, learning about people's lives, and just generally having fun. | ||
| I look forward to getting back to work as soon as possible. | ||
| My coworkers that I know feel the same way. | ||
| But the feeling that I've been getting from them and that I share as well is that everyone just wants to get back to work, doing our jobs, and serving the American people. | ||
| I love that he's still in the suit, even running the hot dog stand. | ||
| Any side hustles from YouTube that we should know about? | ||
| Side hustles. | ||
| I worked every political campaign you could think of, and some of them, there were a lot of strange things. | ||
| You know, just going into the bathroom with your principal. | ||
| That needs to be bad me. | ||
| I didn't know when I first got in politics that you followed your boss to the bathroom because they might say something that you needed to know about. | ||
| Bathroom attendant. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| What about you, Megan? | ||
| We used to joke about that on trip calls when we were planning trips. | ||
| If the president knew how much we were talking about where he was going to the bathroom, he'd be horrified. | ||
| Because you spend a lot of time being like, there's a bathroom here. | ||
| There's a bathroom there. | ||
| Like, he's going to walk up 10 stairs. | ||
| Like, it's just, it's uncomfortable. | ||
| A little TMI in the show. | ||
| Excellent. | ||
| Well, Democratic strategist Megan Hayes, Republican strategist Terry Holt. | ||
| Thank you both so much for joining me. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yep. | |
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| And we'll close this week's program with our Ceasefire Moment of the Week, highlighting what's possible when politicians come together as Americans, not just partisans. | ||
| Montana Republican Senator Tim Sheehey and New Mexico Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich joined forces to launch the bipartisan Senate Stewardship Caucus focused on protecting public lands. | ||
| Here's what they had to say. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Martin, for partnering with me, the new guy on the block. | |
| One thing I did that Benji didn't matter that's very important to this is I used to fight wildfires and that was my life for about 10 years after fighting two wars for this country as a Navy SEAL officer. | ||
| I was an aerial firefighter and water bottom pilot and saw firsthand how challenging that threat can be not just to our forests and our public lands but most importantly to our communities that are surrounded by our public lands. | ||
| Martin obviously as you know from New Mexico not quite as beautiful as Montana but close and again you know he's been a great leader in this regard in so many different areas so Martin thanks for letting me be your partner in this and look forward to your comments. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks. | |
| When we get together and talk and we're not arguing we're talking about the places that we have in our states that we care about the communities and their relationship to them. | ||
| Like that is something that brings everybody on this stage together. | ||
| And we need, I believe, a caucus that can come together from both sides of the aisle and accelerate the amount of work that we're doing in this space. | ||
| Lawmakers coming together, the type of moments we love to showcase here. | ||
| That's all the time we have for this episode. | ||
| And don't forget, Ceasefire is also available as a podcast. | ||
| Find us in all the usual places. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns. | ||
| And remember, whether or not you agree, keep talking and keep listening. | ||
|
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Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series, today with our guest, The Chronicler of Adventures, award-winning, best-selling author David Graham, whose books include The Lost City of Z, Killers of the Flower Moon, and... | |
| and The Wager. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| So what about this fact, about this occurrence, made you think this could be something worth your time? | ||
| And I started to realize that this odd little old manuscript contained, you know, the seeds of one of the most extraordinary stories of survival and mayhem I had ever come across. | ||
|
unidentified
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Watch America's Book Club with David Graham. | |
| Today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, White House Historical Association President Stuart McLaurin, author of The People's House Miscellany on the History of the White House and White House Related Trivia. | ||
| He'll also talk about the changes that presidents and first ladies have made to the White House's interior and exterior, going back to President Thomas Jefferson. | ||
| The president never and his family never had a place to go outside and enjoy like we have a deck or a patio. | ||
| And so Truman broke up that colonnade of the South Portico and right in the middle, put a balcony off the residence level of the White House so the family could go out there and enjoy fresh air. | ||
| And very controversial. | ||
| People thought it ruined the look of the White House. | ||
| Congress was not going to fund it. | ||
| Truman said, I'll find the money and do it anyway. | ||
| And he built it. | ||
| And in this book, there are quotes by a number of presidents who said, thank you, Harry Truman. | ||
|
unidentified
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White House Historical Association President Stuart McLaurin. | |
| Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts or on our free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're joined now by Jim Antle, excuse me, who's the executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| So can you first give us an update? | ||
| We're on day 40 of this federal government shutdown. | ||
| What's the state of play? | ||
| Well, I think things are mostly still as they have been. | ||
| You have Republicans saying that they would like the passage of the Clean Continuing Resolution, which has passed the House and which they've had on offer. | ||
| Democrats would like to see some movement on the extension of Obamacare subsidies or some other concessions that would justify reopening the government in their minds at this time. | ||
| I think where there's been some degree of movement is we've had elections. |