Full Transcript for 11/10/26: GOP Meltdown Over Blue Texas, Hegseth Impeachment Looms, Schumer Support Collapses

points? 00:05:26 Speaker 3: Look, we had a lot of privilege in this cycle, and I've been coming on this program for a long time talking about our need to invest in the community. And it actually happened this time, and it shows. We made every TV commercial in Spanish in every one of these Latino districts. We worked in 24 congressional races. that had any semblance of Latino population. And there were really only three ads that we made. And we made over 200 of those ads. First was cost. Second was corruption. And then third, in some of these districts, we would make an ICE overreach or an immigration ad that was really tied to the economy. Because what we found in places like the Texas Valley is, Republican construction owners who have construction companies who are building things can't find any workers now because of the ice rates. So the immigration issue becomes an economic issue coupled with $ 6 gas, coupled with carne asada costing three times what it cost a year ago. Then you have the perfect storm and then people really, really not liking this war. 00:06:18 Speaker 1: Chuck, let's put your op-ed here. It was really good. A2 that you wrote for the New York Times after the election. Latinos, didn't come back to Democrats out of loyalty. It's a little bit of what you just said here, but I do want to pick up on something that you are saying and really the cornerstone of the Ina Osa campaign, where she has consistently talked about populism. I was rewatching a New York Times interview that she gave recently where she rejected actually the progressive label. Let's put A1 up here just to show what she said. She said, and Ina Osa, when specifically in which she would come in and within an hour of taking the oath of office, I will declare a high cost emergency in the state of Texas issue an emergency executive order to one suspend the gas and the diesel tax and to freeze electricity rates. Obviously, huge issues in the campaign. But this does kind of get to a bigger big picture question, Chuck, that I'm wondering if you could help me work through. I, having seen the results, I don't even know if Texas, I think Texas, I think that the Republicans actually would have lost even without the Iran war going into this. First of all, I'm curious, you know, for your thoughts on that, the bigger picture, why the economic message, which is a little bit different from how the Democrats have run in the state of Texas and nationally prior to this. And how did those lessons, you know, those hard fought lessons come to you and to some of the candidates that were so successful in this cycle? 00:07:45 Speaker 3: Because you hear it on the ground. And in these big campaigns where you're spending lots of money, you get lots of polling and data. And what I give a lot of these folks credit for is they hired a lot of local consultants that even some of the national party pushed back on because they wanted it rooted in community. And you can see that in the campaign, not

just Chuck Rocha. There was lots of other folks who have ties to Texas that were hired there who understood in Texas, there's a lot of Republicans who would understand a Bernie Sanders-esque populist message. who would understand that their life is getting harder, Republicans have been in total control for 31 years, and they're looking for somebody to blame. It was easy to blame Donald Trump and blame Republicans, but when you have Democrats, what you would say a moderate, middle of the road, whatever, people in Texas don't put labels on it, Republicans will, and folks who believe in those labels have already picked a party. Most of the folks in the middle, and Bernie Sanders talked about this a lot in a presidential campaign, He spoke to folks who just are trying to make ends meet people that are just trying to get to where they need to be. And when the cost of things continue to go up, your kids are only going to school four days a week. You've got border patrol agents with masks in your neighborhood. You see the perfect storm for like this upheaval of working class Texans to say, I'm not Democrat, I'm not Republican, but I'm for this stuff. That's going to help my life right now. 00:08:56 Speaker 2: To that point, Chuck, um, Just for people to know, you were integral to the very successful Bernie outreach strategy to Latinos. 00:09:05 Speaker 1: You wrote a book about it, Bernie. 00:09:06 Speaker 2: Thank you. And one thing that has been striking to me, not just in Texas, but in particular with Tallarico, but with candidates across the country, is how much they sound like Bernie Sanders, especially 2016 Bernie Sanders. Let's go ahead and play A7. I think it is the last element in this block to hear a little bit of James Tallarico talking about the billionaires. 00:09:27 Speaker 3: A safe neighborhood. 00:09:28 Speaker 5: A good job, a high quality, well-funded public school, and the ability to see a doctor when we need one. But the billionaires who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens, they want us at each other's throats. They want us focused on how we're different Instead of on how we're the same. They want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them. The real fight in this country is not left versus right. It is top versus bottom. 00:10:13 Speaker 2: And Chuck, I think, you know, Tallarico is not going to govern and vote exactly like Bernie Sanders when he gets into the Senate. We'll see exactly how he positions himself. But as someone who was, you know, OG Bernie presidential campaign. Like, what has it been like for you to hear very similar rhetoric? I heard it from Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Tallarico, you know, really across, Annie Andrews, really quite across the country from almost every candidate using this very populist rhetoric, focusing on the affordability issues that Zoran really kind of laid bare as being effective political strategy. And then the, you know, class war type rhetoric, naming the villains as the billionaires. I think Tallarico in particular, a lot of his campaign was run directly against Elon Musk, which obviously very relevant in Texas. 00:10:54 Speaker 3: I give the credit not to Bernie. I give credit to the people. And Bernie knew the people. So I guess he does get the credit is the people that push politicians to be here because this is where they're at. Bernie was just ahead of the game and he knew that they were there. Us guys who came out of labor, us women who come out of labor. We kind of know that this kind of feel have been this unjust of working folks who felt like. Why don't all of those folks get all the break while I'm paying all the taxes? They're not paying any taxes. Why can't I get health care? It's that anxiety. I call it this building anxiety. And then you build over the anxiety with gas prices and ice. But I think it's a step further, Crystal. I think that James is just one of many. We got to see a bird's eye view because we worked on not just those 25 congressional races, but I helped run the IE in Michigan for Abdul. I got to work in Kansas some and watch that. And then the shining light for us is I ran the largest IE in the LA mayor's race to elect a DSA member mayor of Los Angeles with Latino voters, which folks are like, how does that, what does that lie? Well, you know, saga knows other knows who's followed. This is that we like to put people in these categories of your Bernie, your Trump or your Maga. When everybody in the country has just got this overarching anxiety of my life is really sucks right now. And you're the only one really talking to me. You're right. I don't hate my cousin. Who's Maga. What I hate is those billionaires who have all the breaks and they're getting rich. Like our president who's gotten $ 3 million while I'm being in office. And I'm paying twice as much for groceries or the electricity bill. So I think these are the pieces that Bernie and Democrats now have come on board with leading Bernie's way. 00:12:23 Speaker 2: Let me actually talk to you a little bit about Florida in that vein, because, you know, one thing you've always coached us on and I think inform people about is, hey, you can't talk about the Latino community as a monolith, although this time you're saying there are some commonalities across the board here. But in Florida, where you did a lot of work this cycle as well, You had two very different Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket. You had David Jolly, who's literally a former Republican, and Angie Nixon, who is DSA. I was just looking at the numbers. Nixon and Jolly performed exactly the same with Latino voters. Now, there were some differences. Jolly did a little better with Cubans. Angie Nixon did a little better with other Latinos, Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in the state. But when it all came together, it averaged out to them significantly. faring exactly

the same. What do you make of that? Because the Angie Nixon piece in particular, she also won one of the highest percentages of Republican crossover votes. And this is, again, a DSA candidate in Florida. So what do you make of the kind of narrative busting there in terms of what can work with different groups of voters? 00:13:23 Speaker 3: She was very underfunded. If she'd had the money to get to more folks to say for the folks who did hear her message, it was a very working class centered message around us, not them, another Bernie Sanders thing. We worked in three big congressional races down there because for those of you at home, they redistricted all these districts to pick up three or four more seats for Donald Trump. They did that for the Republican legislature, Republican governor. The mistake they made, and it's the same mistake in North Carolina, the same mistake in Texas, is they assumed these Latino voters were going to vote for Republicans at the same rate that they had voted for Donald Trump just two years prior. It was just an overcalculation. So there's a lot of difference between Jared Moskowitz in Florida 25 than a Darren Soto in nine. But the difference is or the similarities are, is they're both districts that have over 45 percent Latinos. Moskowitz, mainly Colombians, Venezuelans and Cubans. Darren Soto, Puerto Ricans. And both of those are R plus 10 districts. You've run for Congress. That's we normally don't play in those kind of districts. And we're going to end up winning both of them because these Latino voters so overperformed. And to your last point about Angie Nixon, the reason that she is even there is because of her overperformance with these Latino voters in the primary. 00:14:34 Speaker 1: So, Chuck, one of the warnings that you give in your piece is that all of these Democrats who are doing victory laps could be very guilty of doing the James Carville 40 more years thesis. It's over. We're done. And you say, absolutely not, even in 2028. I mean, if anything, watching the results of this election. And specifically the Rio Grande Valley. I mean, you and I have now seen these people swing 60 percent in like eight different elections now. And so clearly very, very up for grabs. And in terms of what it means, if the Democratic Party does want to hang on to these Latino voters, what do they need to do in the next two years to make that happen? 00:15:12 Speaker 3: It's a great question. And as I wrote in the op-ed is that these folks aren't back because they're in love with the party. They're back because they're frustrated. They're looking for solutions. And we have a once in a lifetime opportunity because you never get this kind of a swing in one cycle. You get the swings normally like Donald Trump got over three cycles of gradual movement because of frustration. So what we have to do, listen to me, Democrats, it's the most important thing that I will say to you is that. America needs a raise. America hasn't had a raise in a long time. The only two things I heard on the campaign trail over and over, no matter if I was in New York, Florida, Texas, or California, was things cost too much and I don't have enough money. As hard as I work, I don't have enough money because I haven't had a real wage, a real raise in a long time. So whatever you do, Democrats, I don't want to hear a 10-year plan about something. I don't want to hear about something that's going to happen in my tax returns in four years. Something that happens today. and you can do something about giving America a raise, not just raising the minimum wage, that's the bottom. What about overtime pay? What about healthcare premiums? About the things that folks are paying right now, utility bills, the regular everyday care costs, like the real things that are affecting people, do something then. And the second thing is, there was a lot of folks who won't, accountability on this corruption that's going on with this administration. I am not saying Democrats, you got to go run and impeach Donald Trump. But what I'm saying is folks want folks dragged before Congress and want to know why are you getting rich off of my tax dollars? Why is there a no bid contract when I have to bid on everything I need to do? Make people's lives better, help them make more money, but also hold this administration accountable on them wasting our tax dollars, especially on a foreign war. 00:16:46 Speaker 2: So Chuck, smart. Senator Ted Cruz is now the only remaining statewide officeholder. 00:16:52 Speaker 3: Can you say that again? I don't think I heard you. 00:16:53 Speaker 2: Senator Ted Cruz. You might have heard of him. 00:16:56 Speaker 6: Yes. 00:16:56 Speaker 2: The only remaining statewide officeholder in the state of Texas, which is wild. He had a little bit of a reaction to the election results. 00:17:05 Speaker 1: Let's listen to that. 00:17:06 Speaker 6: Texas will be red again. We haven't fundamentally changed who we are as a state. And I think this country remains a center-right country. It doesn't feel like that today. But in many ways, the silver lining is the Democrats are going to overreach. They have tragically been taken over by radicals, by Marxists and Islamists. And that's who's driving the train. And when they get to Washington, they are going to drive an extreme agenda that I think is going to cause a lot of buyers remorse for the voters who wanted something different. 00:17:45 Speaker 2: So I guess a bunch of Marxists and Islamists just won in the state of Texas and kicked the Texas Republican Party's ass. But, you know, how much has he got to be sweating? He's up in 2030. So I think he's pretty fortunate he's not up in 2028. But I'm looking at Bobby Polito down there in the Rio Grande Valley who just won. You know, he had sort of, I think, the biggest swing towards him from Trump. dramatically overperformed, wasn't even close in that race. You know, he's got to be nervous about what his future looks

like in the state. 00:18:12 Speaker 3: And he's not the only one, Crystal. And to answer his Marxist, Leninist and all the things that he thinks have taken over the party, my firm, and again, we were talking off set, 16 years I've been doing this and I finally got to drive the train for the first time. 25 congressional races, three Senate races, and we won them all. And I never went to college and I grew up in a trailer house in East Texas. I got a criminal record and I was a teenage father. If you think that's a Marxist and you got another thank coming, as my mama would say. 00:18:36 Speaker 2: That's the American dream right there. 00:18:37 Speaker 3: What the biggest thing is that he's worried about is what all these, this is the biggest test for all of us, is that now we move into an open presidential primary where folks are going to determine what's the future of the Republican party post MAGA. And then what's the future of our party post this working class revolution that I like to think of it as, and which one of these Democrat 30 nominees really captures that, right? Because you're going to have every creed and color and philosophy that's running to get these Democratic primary voters. But at the heart of that are working class people and people of color, mainly Latinos in Nevada. In New Mexico, it's set up to where they're forward. You come from Virginia, there's a million Latinos in Virginia. Michigan, same thing. So you're going to have to figure out how to build off of what we just did with these successes and make sure you're showing up and you're investing to explain to people we're going to be now the working class champion. The Democratic Party of old, of Chuck Roach and Dick Gephardt, David Bonior in 2016, Bernie Sanders, of leading people, regular folks that you have the power, that's what people really are yearning for. 00:19:37 Speaker 2: Chuck, one last one, at least for me, for you, because you did work on the Michigan race with Abdul, and that one was so crazy. What were you seeing in the numbers about the Islamophobic attacks, about the Hasan Piker obsession, about Haley Stevens betraying everything she claimed to ever stand for and backing Mike Rogers in the final days? What were you seeing when you were polling and looking at the data and the results in that race? 00:20:01 Speaker 3: Take what you just said and think about $ 300 million spent against Tallarico telling the Every voter in Texas said he was going to turn every child into trans and that he was going to open up the border immediately. $ 300 million. Yeah. Same thing with the racist attacks you see in Michigan. 00:20:17 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:20:17 Speaker 3: People were just sick, and they just toned it out, and they waited too late from a political perspective. They did all these ads too late. Everybody already met their mind, and they had monolithically, every middle-class voter in America was just pissed. And they knew, and they could see through these empty

culture attacks as what they were. Cultural attacks work in a campaign when your belly's full and gas is $ 2. 59 a gallon, when you can have the privilege to think, oh my God, this guy's some culture warrior, when he's looking to the camera going, Don't hate your neighbors. Hate the billionaires. They're the ones screwing you. And Abdul was saying the same thing. 00:20:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. Chuck, I just want to say congratulations. It's really a vindication for so many things that you've worked on, and we hope you come back, man. It's always just such a pleasure talking to you. 00:21:00 Speaker 3: I want to say this before y'all go. Look, a lot of people want me on TV right now, but these two used to have me on TV when nobody would give me any time on TV. I'll be back here any time you want. 00:21:09 Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Chuck. We appreciate that. 00:21:10 Speaker 7: Thank you, Chuck. 00:21:14 Speaker 1: Turning now to Pete Hegseth, who has now had articles of impeachment filed against him by Thomas Massey. We'll get to some of Massey's absolute bangers in his introduction of those articles. But there are currently wild scenes playing out in Washington. Pete Hegseth, for the first time in six months, has taken to the podium to brief Democrats. reporters. Before that briefing began, let's put this up here on the screen. One of his aides came out to tell them, quote, if anyone gets out of line, they will be physically removed. After reporters said, what does that mean? The official just said it meant to maintain decorum. So let's think about this. Members of the United States military at the Pentagon telling reporters they will be physically removed. from the audience quote if they get out a line and we appear now to know why that is because he is currently delivering one of the most on the hinge and ridiculous press conferences not seen in Washington in that briefing room since December 2006 in Donald Rumsfeld's final goodbye, in which Hegseth has the temerity to actually borrow almost a direct line from Rumsfeld saying, history will vindicate the decisions that I have made here. Let's take a listen. 00:22:30 Speaker 7: A historic effort only made possible by a courageous commander-in-chief. History will judge the Iran war quite differently than than conventional wisdom right now. We didn't start this war. Iran did 47 years ago, but President Trump is willing to do what no other president would. He did the tough right thing, not for politics, but for the safety and the security of the American people. That's leadership. He did not kick the can. He kicked their teeth in. 00:23:05 Speaker 1: Kick their teeth in. History will judge. Let me read you this quote. This is December 8th, 2006. I pulled it directly from the Pentagon. Most decisions with the perspective of time will turn out to be the right ones. The perspective of history will judge the overwhelming majority of these decisions favorably. By the way, Trump said something almost exactly the same where you can see where a lot of this cope is coming from. Peg Seth, by the way, also pulled out a 2006 favorite particular line of mine that I remember well. That if you don't support the war, you don't support the troops. Here he is basically saying that if you impeach me, you're going after the troops themselves. Let's take a listen. 00:23:45 Speaker 7: Put the secretary on trial today and the men and women who carried out those orders tomorrow. If they want to come for the warriors, they're going to have to come through me. 00:24:00 Speaker 1: No one's coming for the warriors, Pete. We want to save the warriors from you and your idiots that you have run this war. And you left them out to dry, by the way, in those bases as the warriors themselves who were wounded and killed their families will tell you. So it is honestly surreal, Crystal, almost 20 years to the day since these very same utterances in the same room by Donald Rumsfeld, I guess, in a similar environment, at least Rumsfeld himself. Bush had the dignity to say, hey, man, at least you got to go. And yet the entire administration is lining up behind Pete Hexeth here as his impeachment looms in the House of Representatives. 00:24:36 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:24:36 Speaker 2: And I don't think old Pete's standing with the rank and file of the military is quite what he thinks, because, you know, obviously that you had the whole situation with sailors on the USS Lincoln under horrific conditions. some attempting suicide. That's how dire it was. Richard Ojeda, who just obviously selected to Congress and is former military himself and is now going to represent Fort Bragg, he was telling me about how military families, you know, if you're preparing for a long deployment, There's a lot you have to do. You can imagine, Sagar, as a father, if you're going to be away for a long period of time, there's a lot you have to do to prepare your family and make sure everybody's okay. Everybody's okay in terms of their basic needs. Everybody's okay psychologically. They were told, oh, this will be a short couple of weeks and you'll be home. So people deployed and they were not prepared. And now they're missing major life events. And this was not expected. This was not planned for. So you also had remember the graffiti in the dust of that airplane talking about how disgusted they were, you know, that they were fighting Epstein's for the Epstein class and fighting Israel's wars, etc.? Like he does not have the uniform respect, let's just say, of the rank and file from all available evidence. But mostly this press conference just reads as desperate. You know, his time, his days in Washington may well be numbered. Actually, I was just looking at Ted Cruz. He predicts that Pete Hegseth is either going to step down voluntarily or he's going to be fired because he says if that doesn't happen, it is very likely, if not certain, the House will impeach him because the votes are there. We heard that the

Speaker of the House held the House out of session leading into the midterms because he wanted to avoid this vote because he knew that the votes were there to impeach Hegseth. This is going to be an easy vote for a lot of people. Obviously, for Democrats, it's an easy vote. But you have Republicans who just lost, who are pissed off. You have Republicans who narrowly won, who are pissed off and also want to be able to do something to signal their unhappiness and their distance from what's going on with this administration. Pete has not a lot of love for him among Republicans, either in the House or the Senate. So, yeah, I think this reeks of desperation, and that's why he's reaching for these preposterous talking points. 00:27:01 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. By the way, he's doing a tried and true one. I'm just following orders. B3, let's take a listen. 00:27:07 Speaker 7: As for the articles themselves, Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen, every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief, then ordered by myself. notified to Congress and executed by American warriors who did their jobs. We destroyed terror regimes capabilities. We sank the boats carrying poison into our communities. We put a narco dictator in handcuffs. These are not high crimes. 00:27:38 Speaker 3: This is the job. 00:27:40 Speaker 7: And it's the job well done. 00:27:43 Speaker 1: Just a job well done. By the way, literally breaking on the wire, Donald Trump and his immediate reaction. Pete Hegseth gets an A + + +. for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated former congressman, Thomas Massey, a total loser. Let's take a listen to that total loser, shall we? And actually listen to what Thomas Massey had to say whenever he introduced those articles of impeachment. Perhaps one of the most eloquent and interesting speeches ever given in Washington. The very first sock, guys, let's take a listen. 00:28:15 Speaker 8: Against Peter Brian Hegseth, Secretary of Defense. in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors. Article one, waging war in contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, section 2C. And I suspect since we saw the secretary have scheduled his own press conference that they're gonna let him deliver a rebuttal. And to that point, I hope he addresses the eight articles and doesn't get up and misquote the Bible in Quentin Tarantino fashion and do some pull-ups, and, you know, call everybody fat and gay, like, for being for this impeachment. 00:28:54 Speaker 7: Like, I may have just given you half his speech, I don't know. 00:28:57 Speaker 8: But I would like to see him go through the eight articles of impeachment. 00:29:02 Speaker 7: And just make the argument from a podium. You can use notes, get the lawyers to help you. 00:29:08 Speaker 8: Tell us why you are not guilty of each of these eight articles of impeachment. 00:29:14 Speaker 1: And obviously, that is not what Pete Hegseth did. And as I said, Donald's for God. I love him so much. It's really sad. 00:29:22 Speaker 2: God bless him. 00:29:23 Speaker 1: He's such a real one. 00:29:24 Speaker 2: It really sucks that he lost. Yeah, I mean, it really is. It really is such a loss for the country that he was defeated in his Republican primary. And it was because he went against Israel and because he went against Trump. And he paid the price for it. Ro Khanna was on with CNN. By the way, we're trying to get both. of them on this week as well. We'll see if their schedules allow it. But Ro was on, you know, really lauding him and saying he gave up his entire career, you know, to push on releasing the Epstein files and then against the Iran war. And You just really, I mean, I have a lot of ideological differences with him, but I have to admire the courage and the willingness to go out there. I mean, where are the Democrats on this, by the way? Any of them could have introduced these articles of impeachment, but it took him bringing all of this forward. You know, in a way, Hegseth's argument is true in that, yeah, it is true that ultimately the blame does lie with Donald Trump. Not that it's an excuse. The just following orders excuse doesn't fly. It's not what the Constitution says. However, the ultimate blame does lie with Donald Trump. And so we'll see moving forward if there is any more accountability for him as well, since he's the real reason that we are in this disastrous war. But Pete apparently was cheerleading this from the beginning. 00:30:36 Speaker 1: Pete was the primary proponent of the war in the Situation Room. He was one of the people saying this is going to be easy. It's going to be done and dusted just like we did Venezuela. By the way, I can't help it. This is why I have a visceral hatred of Hegseth is that he came in with this. And I'll be honest, you know, I thought I thought it'd be OK. And he comes in and he's like, look, we're going to push out the Mark Milley's and we're going to be you know, we're going to go to war with not grappling with our failures. I'm like, oh, that sounds good. You know that, you know, we've had this bureaucratic and ridiculous nonsense. Over the last 20 years where people who fail, fail upwards. And then he ends up obviously being one of the worst secretaries of defense in modern American history who presides over one of the great strategic disasters. And yesterday he literally had the gall to go to one of the U.S. war colleges and say that they're not doing enough to teach strategic failures because of woke or DEI or whatever. I mean, let's take a listen to this, guys. I actually couldn't believe my ears in the middle of one of the great strategic disasters in American history, the Iran War, B5. Let's take a listen. 00:31:48 Speaker 7: One of the most alarming findings of our comprehensive review was that our war colleges actively avoid the rigorous study of recent American strategic failures. Faculty dismiss them as sore subjects or

politically sensitive topics. 00:32:05 Speaker 3: But we have to ask ourselves, How. 00:32:07 Speaker 7: Can an institution claim to teach military strategy while refusing to conduct an unsparing autopsy of, for example, the catastrophic withdrawal in Afghanistan? 00:32:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, so they haven't teach it. They should also teach an entire semester just on Iran war leadership under your tenure, sir. I think we'll start with that one about how the people who ran against the former ended up doing the latter. And then we can tell that story a little bit chronologically, which kind of culminates in your ridiculous speech. I mean, it's so crazy. But look, I mean, I don't know if Ted Cruz is correct. Trump is backing him all the way. So Hegseth feels no pressure to go. Maybe, you know, if they impeach him, but it's not like the Senate will necessarily convict him to go. And Trump, I mean, the real thing is confirmation. Nobody is going to vote for whoever his replacement. It would literally have to be a Democrat who promised to end the war for any of these Democrats to vote to confirm a new secretary of defense. And it's not like acting Is all of that easy really to run the Pentagon or to do the job? It creates a lot of regulatory problems actually for the administration. So I don't know what they're going to do. 00:33:15 Speaker 2: Well, Pete is playing his strongest card, which is to say basically, hey, if you come for me, you're really defying Trump. And Trump is helping him, giving him backup in that. And Trump right now, you know, I was listening to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan talk this morning. Obviously, they're some of the sort of best sourced inside the White House and have the best understanding in the mainstream press of what's really going on behind closed doors. They said everything Trump is doing now should be seen through the lens of he's trying to reassert control. He is trying to keep control of the Republican Party. He does not want defections. He wants to keep himself controlled. the center of politics. You know, he's seeing all this coverage too of us saying, hey, the Trump era is over and he's a lame duck and everybody's moving on. And look at Ron DeSantis saying, here's all the things that went wrong. People positioning themselves already for the post-Trump world. Do you think that he's okay with that? Of course he's not. So whether it's bringing in Stephen Miller as chief of staff because he's a bulldog and he in his mind thinks this is going to somehow rally the base back together because Stephen Miller is so psychotic or whether and because he'll defend him vociferously and all of these things. or whether it's him saying, no, actually, I'm standing by Hegseth. I am sticking with him. And there is no way in hell I'm going to admit that there was any problem with the Iran war. Actually, the Iran war is the best thing that I ever did. The Iran war is going to be vindicated by history. 00:34:36 Speaker 1: We won. 00:34:37 Speaker 2: It's been spectacular. Or whether it's, let's put B8 up on the screen. Now, after initially accepting the election results, now he's back on his bullshit with his election rigging nonsense. Not that I feel this has a lot of purchase with the American people, but he's still putting this out there, at least to his base. He says, does anybody really believe that this election, in quotes, was honest? How could the polls be so wrong? Well, they were wrong in the direction of understating Democrats, actually. Some early voting dumps were so large, it was impossible to win no matter how many people went to vote. It's all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter president, DJT. Sagar, I don't remember all the details, but there was some, like, MAGA dude who bought a bunch of the voting, like, Voting machines. 00:35:23 Speaker 1: I do. So I know. Yes, I know exactly what you're talking. Yeah. 00:35:26 Speaker 2: So, I mean, I mean, anyway, obviously, like it's preposterous. He doesn't believe it. There was a quote that came out that was published in the press about them saying on election night, like, oh, it's too big to rig. Basically, like it's not coming down to a handful of states and a few thousand votes. So I guess there's nothing really we can do about it. But this is his message that he wants to put out to his base of like, I didn't really lose. This was all rigged and fake. Actually, I'm still just as strong and powerful as I've always been. 00:35:53 Speaker 1: Trump is going down with the ship. He's going to take everybody down with him. That's why I keep warning about J.D., warning about Hegseth. It's also, by the way, where I'm very worried about Iran. We don't have a ton of time, but I'll just say the statements that came out yesterday, again, in a previous time, this would have rated as the A block of our show, but he claims that the emir of Qatar in his meeting, who is brokering the negotiations, he claims that the Gulf nations told him that they want to continue the blockade. And so the current policy is no war, no peace, which is basically forever war. They're saying we're going to continue the blockade, but we're not going to go through with negotiations. He stated that yesterday from the White House podium in his ridiculous press conference with Dana White over at the UFC. He started off by reading his true social posts saying that the Gulf countries have requested that that I keep the blockade. He is not anywhere closer to a deal, which means the ball is in the Iranians court and they can escalate if they want to, unless they want to get choked to death over the next two years. So Trump is not hearing anything really about this. He may not preemptively start war with Iran, but he's going to have to react to it if the Iranians who are continuing to be choked by this blockade, I don't think they're just going to sit there and take it. 00:37:00 Speaker 5: I don't. 00:37:00 Speaker 1: And so

something is going to happen. And it's Trump's fault, this entire thing. 00:37:04 Speaker 2: All right, let's turn to the Democratic side and what's going on with the leadership fights there. So one of the big questions that has emerged for Democrats in the wake of their sweeping victories is, will they stick with the same tired, out of touch, old leadership? Well, we got a really important development yesterday when Chris Van Hollen, who is receiving tons of calls from people saying, please, please, please run for Senate Majority Leader, says that he is actually open to running for that job. Let's take a listen. 00:37:36 Speaker 9: You put any thought into that, please? Well, I've said from the beginning we shouldn't have a coronation. We just had a big election. People spoke from all over the country. 00:37:47 Speaker 4: And Democratic senators need to make sure we have a plan to use our majority wisely on behalf of the American people. So my view is that we should have a full caucus discussion. before anybody makes any decisions. 00:38:07 Speaker 9: Would you consider a run against Leader Schumer, though? I have said that I am in listening mode. 00:38:13 Speaker 4: There are clearly lots of people around the country and a number of our members, quite a few of our members, who want to have this discussion. And so I'm in active listening mode. 00:38:23 Speaker 1: You're open to it, though. 00:38:24 Speaker 9: I haven't closed the door. 00:38:25 Speaker 2: And then what was your conversation with Senator Slotkin about? 00:38:28 Speaker 9: Was it about this leadership issue? Yes, we discussed the issues we're talking about right now. 00:38:35 Speaker 2: So, Sagar, I think this is a monumental development because Chris Van Hollen is someone who really unites a lot of factions of the Democratic caucus. You know, he's a very seen as a very sort of like mainline normie Democrat. But he also has the love from the base, in particular because what he did with Kilmar Brego Garcia at a time that that was very courageous. And also because of the way that he traveled to Israel, he traveled to the region and really exposed a lot of the blocking of aid into Gaza and was very outspoken there as well. So he is someone that really could bring a lot of people together and, you know, would be acceptable to a wide range of Democrats within the caucus. It's perceived right now that Schumer is more on the ropes than Jeffries. Part of that is just pure math. Jeffries has secured, the House Democrats have secured such a large margin of victory in the House that it would take peeling a lot of people off. I think also, look, Schumer's on the way out. He probably can't win a Democratic primary even if he runs again. So it's seen very much that this is likely his last two years. So I think that makes him less of a threat to people who are afraid of retribution because he's going to be out of the party and out of office here shortly. He also, both Jeffries and Schumer are unpopular for obvious reasons, but Schumer is much more unpopular and I think much more known than Jeffries as a sort of villain nationally and within the Democratic Party base. This is a man, Sagar, who could not ever even bring himself to endorse the Democratic nominee, Zoran Mamdani, in New York City, even though he literally lives in New York City and obviously represents the state of New York. So it's hard to think of someone, you'd have to think of like John Fetterman, to picture someone who would be less in step with the mood of the country, let alone the mood of the Democratic base. 00:40:21 Speaker 1: And went on a pro-Israel book tour, let's not forget, in the wake of October 7th. Not joking. Literally happened. And you can go and look how that worked out for him. Let's put C2 up here on the screen because, you know, it's not the Van Hollen thing that shocks me. When I see Dick Blumenthal, Richard Blumenthal, one of the most no-name, forgettable senators, standard... Democrat rubber stamp come out and declined to endorse Schumer, where yesterday in a conference in Connecticut, he says, quote, we need a conversation about leadership going forward because we need new energy and ideas. That's when I'm like, oh, this is real. This is very real. I also we don't even have this. It just came across. Peggy Flanagan said, quote, I have been very impressed by Senator Van Hollen's leadership. I can tell you, I think there's a And we should listen to the power of those voices. We certainly haven't had formal conversation, but I appreciate Van Hollen's leadership. So that's one of the new blood. Then you've got Blumenthal there. To your point there about Schumer. So Schumer is very different, right? In that, yes, he does command a significant amount of fundraising prowess. However, if you're a Democrat who just won in this cycle, you did not win because of big money. You won because of small money, because of small dollar donations. And you really do kind of have an independent power base that really backs you going into this election. So you don't necessarily need the millions of dollars that Chuck Schumer was once able to give you. Let's not forget, too, Schumer is kind of the antithesis on many of the issues that are important, let's say, to the Democratic base right now. Obviously, he was the Senate leader for the Democrats under Trump, basically did nothing. Well, let's even look issue by issue. I mean, Chuck Schumer is basically the senator for Wall Street, right? And he's also the senator from big tech. His own wife or sorry, his daughter is a major big tech executive, which has been hired by various different big tech companies specifically to try and gain access to him. He blocked antitrust investigations and others. So it's not exactly like he is not guilty of corruption and in particular of the familial connections that a lot of people want to go after the Trump family for. And then on Israel, I mean, Israel is the most glaring and the

biggest problem really for him within the caucus. He's been one of the most stalwart defenders of Israel. And are you really going to elect a guy to defund the Iran war who was against the Iran deal in 2015? Let's not forget about all of that. And so, you know, I know some viewers and others, you know, haven't been around for so long, but like his long track record in the United States, track record of the United States Senate is basically like Joe Bidenism. And it has no really no comparison to a lot of the mood of where we are right now. I honestly find it impossible that he could be a genuine standard bearer for what the new Democratic Party identity, I guess, seeks to be going into this cycle. 00:43:12 Speaker 2: It feels unsustainable. I mean, regardless of what happens with these particular votes, and I do think Schumer is on the rocks, and I'll get to that more in a moment. But when you think about Israel, when you think about being in bed with corporate interests, when you think about the popularity of Medicare for All now, when you think about big tech, and how you have this, again, this is not just Democratic Party. This is a national mandate to push back against the tech oligarchs. And meanwhile, both of these guys are completely cozy with the tech oligarchs and with, you know, AI industry players. It just feels completely unsustainable. Now, the problem for Schumer is what you were alluding to there, Sagar. So you've got Scott Cologne, right, Mississippi. So coming from the most conservative state of any of the Democrats in the Senate, And he says, you know, I don't like that leadership for the House and the Senate are literally from the same borough in New York. We need some representation that reflects how big this country is and how disparate the viewpoints are. So if you are a conservative, you know, coming from a conservative state, red state Democrat, you have every incentive to say, I want to go in a different direction. Abdul Syed, who I think deserves a lot of credit for actually saying, hey, Chris Van Hollen's the guy that I would like. And that put additional pressure on him. And then you had the calls flood his office. He obviously looks at this and says, this guy doesn't align with any of my values, with any of the values of the Democratic base. Why would I vote for him? So you have those two. Then the really surprising thing, Blumenthal, by the way, sort of like walked back his comments. So that's disappointing. The fact that he said it at all, though, it was quite stunning. Cory Booker says he's open. Alyssa Slotkin doesn't. says she thinks we need new leadership and apparently met with Chris Van Hollen yesterday in his office. So you've got some rebellion in the ranks of the existing Democratic members and almost across the board with the large class of new members that are coming in, they're saying we need new leadership. So the fact that you have a logic for the progressive members and the logic for the more moderate

or red state members to push against Chuck Schumer is what makes things really, really difficult for him. So moving on to Jeffries, the story is somewhat less hopeful there, although we will see how these things shake out. Let's go and put Greg Kassar, his comments here up on the screen. As reported by Politico, so Cazar is the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He said he expects the caucus to deliver for Jeffries in exchange for an agenda. Justice Leader Pelosi at the time, after having won the 2018 election, had productive conversations with every caucus. I will have those same conversations with Leader Jeffries. I expect we will both deliver the votes, but also deliver the proactive, populist, powerful agenda that people are calling us about. This reminds very much of what Ro Khanna said to me and similar to what Summer Lee said to me yesterday in our interview as well, where basically what Ro said is we have our demands and we think Jeffries will meet them. And so I pushed like, OK, well, if he doesn't, are you going to withhold your vote? And he refused to say that. I think the other problem in the House is that you don't have anyone who has been willing, like Chris Van Hollen has, to put their name forward and even say, hey, maybe Ro I would do this. And so it becomes very difficult to sort of organize or to even really pressure the progressive members or the members who would be, you know, of any ideological stripe who would be uncomfortable with Jeffries. It becomes more difficult to pressure them because they can just come back and say, well, no one's running against him. So what do you expect me to do? So that's why right now in the House. that landscape looks more difficult. And like I said before, Jeffries is very unpopular, but he's not as unpopular as Schumer. And I also think that there is a sense, and Matt Stoller was actually tweeting about this, about some of the internal logic. There's a sense that Jeffries may be more of a pushover and you may be able to get more from him. And so maybe that's worth like playing ball and seeing what you can get. Again, this is not logic that I subscribe to, but this is apparently some of the rationale that's going on inside because otherwise I'm like, I just don't understand why people are being so lame on this. He's obviously, he has been an ideological adversary to progressives. I mean, he's gone out of his way to undercut the progressive movement. And yet you have all these progressives who are basically saying, yeah, we're going to vote for him. We're going to deliver the votes from the Congressional Progressive Caucus to make sure that he is speaker. And then I also think that there is, you know, fear of crossing the Congressional Black Caucus and fear of what that will mean for people and what they'll say about you if you try to undermine Hakeem Jeffries. 00:47:58 Speaker 9: Yep. 00:47:58 Speaker 1: The race card is alive and well, despite what we hear. I honestly think it's pathetic and I will just compare it to Republicans. So after 2010, they came in with an explicit mandate. and goal of making Boehner and Paul Ryan and all of these, Eric Cantor, all of these people, they said, we're going to make your life hell. And that's just how it's going to be. And the way that they got what they wanted was by playing chicken over the debt ceiling, over votes to fund the government, over basically everything. And so that's a lesson, is that they forced them via Fox News, because that was kind of their platform at the time to rally the base and to show Boehner and others, we don't need you. We don't need your money. We don't even need necessarily your committee assignments. You're going to give me what I want, because if you don't, you are going to face a national onslaught. And that is exactly what happened and worked. It was vindicated really in their strategy. So this whole like bear hug strategy, I guess I would compare it. You know, if I bear hug Hakeem Jeffries, then he'll give me what I want. I mean, how many times do we need to learn this lesson. Washington is a brutal power. It's a power game. It's about bitch slapping each other very often. And that is just not, I mean, it's true. I mean, it's really what it comes down to is like, you got to walk in there and be like, no bitch. Like I'm the person who's in power, which, by the way, is literally what happened in some cases in 2011. Really, if you want to go back and read some of the histories. Of that period to just show you, I mean, Boehner literally resigned from Congress. He's like, I can't take this shit anymore. He started smoking weed because he was so depressed about how his tenure went. And then Paul Ryan had to deal with the same thing. That's what you want if you were a faction who wants to try. And get what you want. So I don't know. I mean, these people, they don't learn despite whatever chart AOC wants to put out. 00:49:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about that chart. So she did like an Instagram Live sort of explainer of how the race for speaker works. And, you know, the subtext of this is basically she even before the election said she was going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. And so the subtext of this is her explaining to her very unhappy base. why she has really no other alternative but to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. So she's trying to explain the inside baseball of this. Let's go and take a listen. I'll react on the other side. 00:50:21 Speaker 10: Question is not this person, yes or no. The question needs to be, who do you actually want for the speakership? 00:50:27 Speaker 1: Who is running? 00:50:28 Speaker 10: Right now, both of these races are uncontested. Don't be mad at me. I'm just reporting what the facts are. Right now, this race is unopposed. It's not Hakeem Jeffries, yes or no, Chuck Schumer, yes or no. It's the name of the person you want to be speaker. Electing a progressive speaker is an absolutely worthwhile endeavor. It also takes a

massive undertaking. After the speaker vote happens, that's when committee assignments get doled out. If you want to fight for Medicare for all, like I do, you want to be on the committee of jurisdiction that covers healthcare, for example. Once again, people can get mad. Don't get mad. I'm just letting you know how this works, right? I'm letting you know the incentive structure that people operate within. You can stand up and vote no on this if you'd like. If we have a massive majority, which we do right now, it likely will not change the outcome, mainly because there's no opposition. Committee assignments are doled out afterwards. You have a choice to make. 00:51:27 Speaker 5: You can. 00:51:28 Speaker 10: Stand up, do this thing, and you can accept your assignment for the next two years, possibly being in a place of obscurity. People that you may be a very big fan of, oftentimes it was because they were placed on a visible committee that does visible work. 00:51:43 Speaker 9: As of today, there's just one name. 00:51:46 Speaker 10: Sounds like a game of Survivor. 00:51:48 Speaker 9: Abso- Absolutely. 00:51:51 Speaker 10: I can't tell you how many times I've seen Survivor and I'm like, this is my job. If we want progressive shift in what the party does, we have to elect a broad caucus of more progressive Democrats, which I believe our generation has been doing. The American people are starting to actually make this change. They are starting to vote out incumbents, which is something that never happened. 00:52:16 Speaker 2: So her explanation there, Zagar, is perfectly accurate. It just ignores the fact that she is a power player within the system. And so, you know, if she wants to go in a different direction than Jeffries, then look, I get that she doesn't run for Speaker of the House. I don't think it makes sense for AOC to be Speaker of the House. However, I don't think that's where her political strength would be, which she acknowledges. But then guess what? You know all these people. You know, talk to Jamie Raskin or Joe Neguse or whoever else is out there that could be an alternative and say, I'm going to float your name. I want you to, you know, I'm going to call, I'm going to get my supporters and have them call your office and say they want you to run. You can actually... have some impact behind the scenes on how this all plays out rather than just acting like you're some passive observer, like, well, this is just how it works. And so there's nothing really I can do about it. The other piece to your point, you know, she's talking about, well, I want to be on this committee so I get to work on Medicare for all. If you're not putting pressure on Jeffrey's, you're not going to get a Medicare for all vote. There's not going to be any working on Medicare for all. The only thing that these people respect is power. So if you aren't willing to organize with the large caucus coming in that wants to do something different and try to move the caucus in another direction, it is not going to happen. And so You know, I was talking to someone yesterday and they said, you know, the real divide here in the caucus and with the Democratic electeds isn't even between progressive and centrist. It's between fast learners and slow learners, which is why you see a lot of the new people who just got elected from like our plus 20 districts who they're the ones who are saying, you know what? I have red lines. I'm not going to vote for Hakeem Jeffries if I don't get the things that I need to be able to deliver for this country and for my constituents. So to me, there seems to be a real divide between the people who have been in Washington, who are completely Washington brain and thinking about their committee assignments and, you know, going through this chart the way that AOC did. And the people who are coming in fresh from the outside are saying, no, I got elected because the American people are disgusted with what Washington has been up to. We have to do things different than we've done them before. 00:54:31 Speaker 1: Yes, I actually think it's new doesn't also fully describe it. Let's think about we're about to play Richard Ojeda. And I was thinking about this with Scott. I mean, when you guys are representing Trump plus 16s voting for Hakeem Jeffries or Schumer's could be a death sentence in your next election. I'll give you an example of my congressman. Whenever I was a student and I was an intern for him when I was 18 in 2010. Chet Edwards, he was a Democrat who represented the most Republican district in the nation. And he had served in the Congress for literally like two decades. And one of the lessons that we all saw as he got defeated, literally, is that his votes for Nancy Pelosi destroyed him in 2010. And if you're Scott, cologne and you're in mississippi in a trump plus what i don't even know what it is trump plus 30 years on who knows you know how much trump won mississippi by you really want ads in six years saying he was a rubber stamp for the democratic agenda or richard ojeda i mean the political calculus for them is definitely not to endorse status quo politics and so in some ways i was thinking about it you know in aoc you know it's not gonna hurt her that much in her district in new york or even row in any of these you know, hyper blue district, summerly, any of these were relatively comfortable. I mean, Richard Ojeda and especially the people who won in these Trump plus 10s, Trump plus 16s, they could be in the fight of their lives in two years. And if they want to survive, they need to show up, show that they're going to stand against both party establishments, because if you just become a rubber stamp for them, that will kill you. That will say, oh, it's just another D. We thought it was something different. 00:56:14 Speaker 6: Right. 00:56:14 Speaker 1: Because that's actually what people voted for, especially in the in the big swing districts, in the Trump plus tens and

more, of which you know that there are significant members now, a significant number of these new Democrats are people who came from where they are not expected to be, were not expected to be in Congress. And thus they need to act differently or otherwise their constituents are going to revolt. Completely. 00:56:36 Speaker 2: So you mentioned Ojeda. Obviously, he just won. He just unseated the NRCC head, Richard Hudson. 00:56:41 Speaker 1: Literally. 00:56:42 Speaker 2: Really shocking results. In a very red part of North Carolina, he now represents Fort Bragg, among other rural areas. And so, yeah, it's going to be very difficult to hold this seat. In any case, he was asked as he's walking through the hallways, hey, what about Hakeem Jeffries? Let's listen to his response. 00:57:01 Speaker 1: Do you support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker? 00:57:04 Speaker 3: I'm listening to everybody. And right now we're not making any decisions. But once again, ending Citizens United is my hard line. It is my hard line. 00:57:13 Speaker 2: So there you go. He says, ending Citizens United is my hard line. I'm not voting for him if he isn't going to play ball with me. And he says it so easily. You know, it's not tortured. It doesn't require a whiteboard and a chart and a 30-minute explanation of what's going on. 00:57:29 Speaker 1: It's no. 00:57:30 Speaker 2: Here's what I was elected to do. This was at the center of my campaign. I am not going to, as my first act once I get to D.C., completely abandon my principles and everything that I ran on. 00:57:43 Speaker 1: Exactly right. And and a reminder, if he doesn't do that, then he's going to lose like that's that is now the calculus. And so you want to see Democrats who represent places like this. They're going to have to look a lot more like that. Stand up to the party, actually deliver some things, really, you know, make headlines, be on television. And I don't I don't really see a lot of the fight right now. And I do think actually that the new versus old is a very useful thing. framework because the new people not only won just on the backs of a different electorate, they won in places that are literally new Democratic seats. And thus, they have to govern differently because if they don't, then everyone will just kick them out. One lesson from Chuck and all of this midterm election, if you are just same old, same old, you are not long for this town. The American people, their patience, it's even shorter than it used to be when it was just four years. Now they will throw your ass out within two if you don't do things the right way. 00:58:43 Speaker 2: No, that is absolutely the case. And look, they have been given a tremendous mandate and opportunity to do things different, to actually try to deliver. And Hakeem Jeffries is on a step with the Bays. He's on a step with the country. Chuck Schumer, same thing, on a step with the Bays, on a step with the country. devastatingly unpopular. And I think Scott Colon's point that they're both from literally the same borough of New York City, I think that's an important note as well for a Democrat. Party that is just one in places as disparate as Kansas and Texas and Iowa and yes, California and New York City as well. So if you aren't reflecting that in the way that you are approaching your policy mandate, then yes, voters are going to, whether it's in two years or four years, voters are going to toss you out.