“The John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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I'm Jon Lovett.
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I'm Tommy Vitor.
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On today's pod, Tommy talks to Maria Teresa Kumar, the
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president and CEO of Voto Latino. Before that, we'll talk
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about Donald Trump's near-perfect interview with Chris Wallace. He just
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aced it. We'll also talk about the administration sending unidentified
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federal agents to crack down on protesters in Portland and
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the legacies of Congressman John Lewis and C.T. Vivian, civil
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rights heroes who passed away this weekend. But first, Lovett,
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how was the show?
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Great, love it or leave it. Adam Schiff came by.
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We talked about.
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Ways we can hold Trump accountable after he leaves office,
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if that can happen.
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Is he going to impeach him again?
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We did not talk about a post-presidency impeachment, but we
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talked about how to resist the pressure of moving on
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when we know how important it is to make sure
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we understand what happened during the Trump administration. We had
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Zeynep Tufekci to talk about social media and the pandemic,
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Michaela Watkins to played Betsy DeVos, and Nagin Farsad joined
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for the monologue.
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It was a great show.
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Cool. Also, everyone, please subscribe to Crooked's YouTube channel where
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you can find video versions of all your favorite Crooked
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Media pods, fantastic original series like Dan Pfeiffer's Campaign Experts React,
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and live streams of major political, cultural, and news events.
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Smash that subscribe button at YouTube.com.
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Slash Crooked Media. You can't smash it.
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Smash it.
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I love smashing that subscribe button. Finally, a little bit
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of exciting news here. One year ago this week, we
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started a fund to help flip the Senate called Get
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Mitch or Die Trying. It's a Vote Save America fund. Today,
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a year later, over 25,000 of you have raised $ 2
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million for 14 Democratic Senate candidates. And we've already sent
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checks to the following candidates. Doug Jones in Alabama, John
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Hickenlooper in Colorado, John Ossoff in Georgia, and Teresa Greenfield
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in Iowa, Amy McGrath in Kentucky, Sarah Gideon in Maine,
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Gary Peters in Michigan, Steve Bullock in Montana, Cal Cunningham
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in North Carolina, Jamie Harrison in South Carolina, and MJ
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Hager in Texas. We'll also be sending money to the
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nominees in Arizona, Alaska, and Kansas when those primaries happen.
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But we will not be done until Mitch McConnell loses
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his job as majority leader. So keep donating at votesaveamerica.com
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slash getmitch.
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I wanted to send a big giant publisher's clearinghouse checks.
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I did too.
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I don't know.
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We didn't come together. Me too.
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Why did that not happen?
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I know, the big Mitch turtle head on it.
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Get those checks printed. Come on.
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Where's our big check? Well, we also have the Unify
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or Die Fund. And when that is finished out and
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we give the Biden campaign their money, I think we
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should definitely give it to Joe Biden with a big
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publisher's clearinghouse.
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Listen, we know that, look, we're not in favor of
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quid pro quos here, but I do think it should
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be a kind of like Push over the money.
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You push over the candidate. All right. We'll push the
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money towards you.
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All right.
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You don't bring anybody. You come alone. You push Joe
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Biden towards us. We'll interview him. Then you get your money.
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All right. That's the deal. It's going to be more
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of a it's more of a ransom situation.
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All right.
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Let's get to the news. The bad stretch of polling
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for the Trump campaign continued into this weekend. with ABC
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and the Washington Post finding that the president is losing
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to Biden among registered voters by 55 to 40%. Fox
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News has Trump trailing 49 to 41%. Both polls showed
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that voters are most concerned about Trump's handling of the
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pandemic and race relations, as well as his dishonesty and incompetence.
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And so the White House thought, let's disabuse people of
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these silly views by having the president sit down with
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Chris Wallace of Fox News for a 40-minute interview that
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aired on Sunday morning. Here's what happened next.
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I'll be right eventually.
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I will be right eventually.
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You know, I said it's going to disappear. I'll say
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it again. It's going to disappear. Does that discredit you?
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And I'll be right.
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I don't think so. Right. I don't think so. You
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know why it doesn't discredit me? Because I've been right
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probably more than anybody else. Everybody was saying, don't wear
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a mask. All of a sudden, everybody's got to wear
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a mask. And as you know, masks cause problems, too.
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With that being said, I'm a believer in masks. I
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think masks are good. But I leave it up to
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the governors. Many of the governors are changing. They're more
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mask into. They like masks. the concept of masks, but
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some of them don't agree. It depends on who you're
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talking about, when you're talking about. When people proudly had
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their Confederate flags, they're not talking about racism. They love
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their flag. It represents the South. They like the South.
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People right now like the South. I say it's freedom
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of Many things. Now they want to change 1492, Columbus
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discovered America.
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You know, we grew up, you grew up, we all did.
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That's what we learned. Now they want to make it
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the 1619 project. Where did that come from? What does
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it represent? I don't even know.
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It's slavery.
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That's what they're saying, but they don't even know it.
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Joe doesn't know he's alive, okay? He doesn't know he's alive.
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Let's take a test. Let's take a test right now.
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Let's go down. Joe and I will take a test.
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Let him take the same test. that I took.
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Incidentally, I took the test too when I heard that
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you passed it.
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Yeah, how did you do it?
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Well, it's not the hardest test.
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No, but the last- It's a picture and it says,
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what's that? And it's an elephant.
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No, no, no.
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You see, that's all misrepresentation.
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Well, that's what it was on the web.
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It's all misrepresentation because yes, the first few questions are easy,
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but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions.
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I'll bet you couldn't.
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They get very hard, the last five questions.
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Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven.
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And let me tell you, You couldn't answer.
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You couldn't answer. All right. What's the question?
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Many of the questions. I'd get you the test.
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I'd like to give it.
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But I guarantee you that Joe Biden could not answer
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those questions.
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At first, it's easy. At first, it's easy. You take
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a triangle. You put it to a triangle shaped hole.
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But then next thing you know, you got a square.
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You got a square.
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The funny thing is that it's hard to hear is
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after Chris Wallace says one of the questions is count
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backwards from 100 by seven. And then Trump starts talking
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in the background. You just hear Wallace go 93. He
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spots him and answer. So I want to dig in
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more on the parts about the pandemic and racism specifically.
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But first, I just want to get your overall reactions
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to the interview itself. For me, it was a reminder
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that like Trump's pathological dishonesty is rarely challenged with sustained
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questioning from a real journalist. And when it does happen,
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he really falls apart. But Tommy, what did you think?
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What was your reaction?
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Yeah.
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I mean, I think that we just saw the danger
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of living in your own bubble of like a right-wing
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reality and of surrounding yourselves with staffers who are offering,
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I think, the political equivalent of palliative care, right? They're
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not really trying to treat the problem here. They're just
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making the pain go away. And so I'm sure he's
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probably read somewhere or was told by his staff that
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Biden wants to defund the police, but it is not
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true and he couldn't prove it. And it was a
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humiliating moment. I think that I bet you that he
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and Jared walk around the West Wing with a little
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coterie of advisors and they talk about how unfair the
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coronavirus coverage is because they're just doing more testing. But
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when you say that out loud, you sound deranged. If
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you have only white friends and advisors, your response to
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police brutality is to say, yeah, well, white people are
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getting shot too and not realize how tone deaf and
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broken it is. And then, of course, he has his
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staff commissioning their own polls that show him winning everywhere
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because that makes him feel better. So I'm not saying
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this to be cocky or argue that the election is
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a done deal, like far from it. It's just you
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can tell how divorced he is from reality. And so
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the other takeaway for me was good for Chris Wallace
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for pushing back. The interview itself was surprising, not just
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because normally Fox News is propaganda. This was also a
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tougher interview than CBS's Catherine Herridge did last week or
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David Muir from ABC did recently. I don't get why
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every interview isn't like this. It's very easy to fact
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check him. He's predictable. He says the same lies. The
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claims are demonstrably false, and he makes news when challenged.
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So good for Chris, good for Fox for poking a
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hole in this bubble. I wish everybody would do it.
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Love it.
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What'd you think?
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I watched the whole thing.
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I feel like I saw that you guys were watching
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it in real time because you're political cutters, but I
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waited until it was on YouTube so that I could
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watch it at 1.75 speed because- He's taken enough of
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my time.
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I did both.
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That's how sad I am.
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Oh, no.
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But so I would say all.
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That's... Yeah, I had to find those clips. I watched
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it again last night.
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Yeah, now you're just a fan.
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Brutal.
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You're just a Chris Wallace fan.
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You follow Chris Wallace around over the summer for all
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of his live events.
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But no, I would say all that's right.
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I would say, too, that I think I watched it
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and I tried to step back because I'd already seen
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so much reaction about how crazy it was. And I
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actually found that for most of the interview, it was
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just sort of like normal Trump deception. The part about
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the cognitive test does take it into a new level
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of almost art. But the part that I do think was,
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I think, chilling to me was obviously, I think, three parts. One,
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where he talks about the Supreme Court's decision on DACA
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is going to give him the ability to do a
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bunch of things with executive action.
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That is worrying. I want to know what those are.
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What is that?
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He said they were about health care.
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They're about immigration.
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What are those going to look like?
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Two- Obviously, I think people are taking his usual we'll see,
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we'll see to make a news cycle about what will
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happen if he loses and not accepting results. But obviously,
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that's a terrifying prospect. I think a lot of people
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get themselves spun up about it. But it is worth
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noting that he is saying now that he is not
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committed to accepting the results, obviously. And then the third
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thing is that final question where he's asked basically, what
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do you want your legacy to be? Or what are
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you going to say about your presidency in hindsight? And
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he says, I was treated very unfairly. That's like the
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biggest and most important thing that he can take away
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from it. And as we're about to enter a period
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of time in which he's going to be doing these
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coronavirus briefings again at a moment of incredible crisis. No
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matter what we do, it is clear that over the
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next few months, he is going to waste this period
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of time, fail to take the coronavirus seriously, and put
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the country in jeopardy. And it's extremely sad. It's extremely enraging.
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And those were my points.
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Yeah, I thought the same thing as you, Levitt, that
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the answer to the last question sums up the whole
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presidency and Donald Trump. And it's everything you need to
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know about him, which is everything is about himself and
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how he's treated. And he can't even muster some bullshit
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about a second term agenda or the American people or anything.
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And it also reminded me that like, he is incapable
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of course correction, right? This is a point in a
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campaign where if you're down by this much against your opponent,
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you try some new things, you try some new messages,
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you try some new strategies, like none of that's going
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to happen. He may win, but he will either win
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or lose on this message being this Donald Trump, Like,
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you know, they announced today that he's going to bring
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back the briefings. Like, what do we think? Do we
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think there's going to be a new Trump at the briefings?
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He's going to start taking the pandemic seriously. He's going
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to start. No, none of that's going to happen. He's
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going to do this. And like, maybe this is enough
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to have him win. I mean, it's not it's not
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so far, according to the polls, but this is who
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he is. This is what we're going to get till November.
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Wallace started the interview by challenging Trump on his pandemic response.
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And this is what happened when he fact-checked Trump on
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his lie that the United States has the lowest COVID
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mortality rate in the world.
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But when you talk about mortality rates, I think it's
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the opposite. I think we have one of the lowest
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mortality rates in the world.
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Well, we're going to take a look.
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We had 900 deaths on a single day.
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We will take a look.
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This week.
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Ready?
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You can check it out.
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Could you please get me the mortality rate? Yeah. Kayleigh's
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right here. I heard we have one of the lowest,
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maybe the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world.
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Do you have the numbers, please?
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Because I heard we had the best mortality rate. Number
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one low mortality rate. I hope you show the scenario
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because it shows what fake news is all about.
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I don't think I'm fake news. It's really not. I mean,
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his message about the pandemic throughout the whole interview and
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in general is everything's fine. It's not that bad. Media
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is making it out to be more than it is. Like,
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don't worry about it. But it's not just a message.
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You know, he also threatened in this interview to block
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funding for schools that don't open. Washington Post reports that
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the administration is threatening to block funding for testing, contact tracing,
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and the CDC in the next pandemic relief bill. Like,
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I can't imagine Republicans who are up for reelection actually
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going along with this insanity.
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But.
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Tommy, what do you think?
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I mean, on the school's point, the latest Navigator poll
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shows that I think 32% of the country approves of
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his handling of the school reopening question. And 67% of
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the country wants Trump to stay out of it and
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to let local communities make these decisions. So that position
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is already incredibly unpopular. And then he's confronted with the
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fact that the 8% to 10% of funding that comes
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from the federal government is for poor kids, kids who
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have special needs. I mean, Chris Wallace really, I think,
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spells out just how cruel this little ineffective punitive approach
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he's taking is in the first place. And so you're
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not going to find a lot of issues with like
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67% agreement period in this country. I do suspect that
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blocking funding for testing for the coronavirus and for the
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CDC is might beat it, might hit like 90% in
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this environment. It's like nowhere in this interview do you
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see a strategy. There's a lot of like buck passing.
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He talks, he says it's one point, like they got
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a lot wrong. Some of them said the virus would
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go away in the summer. You were the one who
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was pushing that line, buddy. Like that was your big thing.
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And so none of this is like accountability or owning
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the problem, which is why like you, I'm not at
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all worried about the task force briefing starting again. I mean, yeah,
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it's a mess. There's no path forward here.
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Lovett, what do you think? I did see in the
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New York Times, there was the monthly story last night
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about how Republicans are starting to break from Trump. This
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is it? This is finally the time?
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Is that time of year again?
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Yeah, look, this is a good example of arguing with
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Donald Trump makes you dumber even when you're winning. Where
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are we in the mortality charts? None of that is
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about a process of fixing anything. None of that is
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about addressing the disease. That is, purely about Donald Trump's ratings, right?
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That's purely about how is he doing compared to other countries.
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Like where we are in that chart, bickering with Chris
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Wallace over where we are in terms of like our
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line compared to other countries, it's irrelevant. A real president,
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a person of any kind of substance or character would
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say in that moment, look, the bottom line is, Chris,
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we can quibble over the numbers. The most important thing
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is we have to do everything in our power to
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protect our people, get this virus under control so we
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can open up our schools, right? There's a very clear, natural, uh,
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moment for leadership that never comes. Obviously we've done this
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a million times.
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So, uh, yeah.
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And then as for Republicans breaking with Trump, uh, a
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little bit late, you know, there've been, you know, reports
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that he has, you know, Trump's got till Labor Day.
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If he doesn't get this fixed up by Labor Day,
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then we're really, it's like, you're going to, you're going.
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To break with him.
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Circle it on the calendar. Yeah.
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The finish, like three, three years and nine months into
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the administration, you draw the line. No, it's about your
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own political fortunes and trying to save what's left of
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your Senate majority.
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Yeah, the conventional wisdom of no one pays attention to
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politics till after Labor Day seems to touch off when
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everyone's locked inside their homes and can do nothing but
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watch the news in horror. But go on, pundits.
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Yeah, we're trapped. The other notable section of the interview
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was about police brutality and racism. First, Wallace challenged Trump
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on his lie that Joe Biden supports defunding the police.
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Let's take a listen.
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Liberal Democrats have been running cities in this country for decades.
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Poorly.
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Why is it so bad right now?
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They've run them poorly.
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It was always bad. But now it's gotten totally out
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of control. And it's really because they want to defund
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the police. And Biden wants to defund the police.
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Sir, he does not.
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Look, he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders.
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It says nothing about defunding the police.
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Oh, really?
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It says abolish.
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It says defund. Let's go.
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All right.
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Get me the charter, please.
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All right.
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Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
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Get me the charter.
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Let's do this.
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Where did he get charter from?
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Chart.
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What are they signing?
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I think he said chart.
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No, charter.
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Wouldn't it be a chart of the stats?
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No, no, he's saying charter.
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No, it's charter.
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Because he's bigging up, because he doesn't, you know, his
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vocabulary is down to like 500 words, and he's trying
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to big up the plans, right?
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He doesn't want to say they have a plan with
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the charter.
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00:17:02.789 --> 00:17:03.429
Oh, the Bernie thing, yeah.
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Because it's an agreement with Bernie. He's basically, it's a
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charter to hand over the government to Antifa.
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That's what he's building towards.
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Right, right.
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That's what it is.
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00:17:11.089 --> 00:17:11.529
I've seen that.
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00:17:11.809 --> 00:17:12.069
Well, so.
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00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:17.559
So the Post reported over the weekend that Trump's central
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00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.079
message about Biden now is that he'll allow the radical
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00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.059
left to usher in a new dystopia.
404
00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:23.380
I don't know.
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00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:25.039
It seems like there's a hole in that strategy. But
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00:17:26.339 --> 00:17:28.559
what do you think? Is that a smart message that
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00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:30.819
Joe Biden's going to usher in a new dystopia?
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00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:35.410
There's a real logical problem in all these arguments, which
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00:17:35.470 --> 00:17:38.650
is all of their ads are like, if Joe Biden
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becomes president, what's happening now is going to happen.
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That's right.
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I'm like, wait, you're president. You're president now. It's you.
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Joe Biden, he's been in Washington forever, and he's going
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to be with the radical left. It's like, Joe Biden,
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more of the same radical change.
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Yeah.
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You can't be both.
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One of the first days I worked for Barack Obama,
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I remember Robert Gibbs telling me, the first rule of
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spin is it has to be believable. And maybe $ 100
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million worth of attack ads could prove me wrong, but
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It seems like their other message is that Joe Biden
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is senile and can't do the job. So I think
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what they're expecting us to believe is that Joe Biden
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is so senile that during the day, AOC will sneak
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into the Oval Office and start writing executive orders. And
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that's how things are going to go south. Like this,
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00:18:24.869 --> 00:18:28.829
the whole thing is ridiculous. I don't it's just I'm
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00:18:28.869 --> 00:18:31.529
so burned by 2016 and scared of making predictions. But
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00:18:31.549 --> 00:18:34.150
this doesn't seem like it's working in any way, shape
431
00:18:34.170 --> 00:18:34.430
or form.
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00:18:35.690 --> 00:18:36.089
Yeah.
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00:18:36.230 --> 00:18:38.359
The squad is going to weekend at Bernie's, Joe Biden.
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That's what they want.
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00:18:41.220 --> 00:18:43.160
Yeah. And it's just like, what are you trying to
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00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:43.779
drive turnout?
437
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No.
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Yeah.
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00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:49.740
OK.
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00:18:51.220 --> 00:18:53.859
So in another exchange, the president said that he doesn't
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00:18:53.940 --> 00:18:56.740
care if the military and a bipartisan majority in Congress
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00:18:57.089 --> 00:18:59.470
want to rename bases that are named after Confederate leaders.
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And then he said this.
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I don't care what the military says.
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I do.
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00:19:03.569 --> 00:19:06.250
I'm supposed to make the decision. Fort Bragg is a
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00:19:06.289 --> 00:19:09.630
big deal. We won two world wars. Nobody even knows
448
00:19:09.710 --> 00:19:12.809
General Bragg. We won two world wars. Go to that
449
00:19:12.910 --> 00:19:15.450
community where Fort Bragg is in a great state.
450
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I love that state.
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00:19:16.769 --> 00:19:19.259
Go to go to the community. Say, how do you
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like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg?
453
00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:24.289
And then what are we going to name it?
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00:19:24.299 --> 00:19:27.140
You're going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton.
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00:19:27.619 --> 00:19:29.220
What are you going to name it, Chris? Tell me
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what you're going to name it.
457
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Subtle, subtle, subtle stuff.
458
00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:37.740
I mean, That comment about Al Sharpton really tells you
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00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:42.420
everything you need to know about Donald Trump and his
460
00:19:42.420 --> 00:19:47.359
particular brand of racism, which is like a very you know,
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00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:48.490
living through the 80s.
462
00:19:48.619 --> 00:19:51.400
It's a New York Post. It's New York Post.
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Right, it's a New York Post.
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New York Post.
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00:19:53.410 --> 00:19:56.009
It's the wood of the New York Post in 1984.
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That is who is president. The wood, as they used
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to say, I guess, you know, back in the day.
468
00:20:02.250 --> 00:20:04.589
It's just amazing to me that he, like, we all
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00:20:04.609 --> 00:20:07.170
know he's racist, but that he is going to run
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to the right on race and like the right of
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the Mississippi State Legislature that took down the Confederate flag.
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00:20:13.470 --> 00:20:16.809
You got the military wanting to rename the bases. You
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got Republicans in Congress. And he still has staked out
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this position. I don't understand it.
475
00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.680
Yeah, I mean, Sharpton being what he blurts out is
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incredibly telling. I mean, you know, a name he didn't
477
00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:31.700
know is Army Sergeant William H. Carney, the first African-American
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00:20:31.779 --> 00:20:34.500
to win the Medal of Honor for his bravery in
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the Civil fucking War. How about that guy? is what
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00:20:37.930 --> 00:20:41.079
Fort Bragg is renamed after because, you know, there have
481
00:20:41.099 --> 00:20:43.880
been 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients. Only 88 of them
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00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:46.400
have been black. That in and of itself is a scandal.
483
00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:49.339
But all of those people would do more honor to
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the military if they had bases named after them than, like,
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Confederate traders.
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00:20:55.490 --> 00:20:57.269
Yeah, he sort of gives away the game, too, in
487
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that aside when he's like, no one even knows who
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00:20:59.250 --> 00:21:00.930
Bragg is. So who cares?
489
00:21:00.970 --> 00:21:01.710
He doesn't know.
490
00:21:01.730 --> 00:21:01.930
Well, then.
491
00:21:02.589 --> 00:21:04.390
He doesn't know. Well, then what the fuck's your problem?
492
00:21:05.130 --> 00:21:07.230
Why do you want to keep the name so badly?
493
00:21:07.349 --> 00:21:11.109
As if like Donald Trump from Queens has this great
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connection to the Confederacy from his days of doing reenactments.
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00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:17.259
He's full. It's just it's he's again. Well, we know
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00:21:17.299 --> 00:21:19.099
what this is. We've been doing this a long time.
497
00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:21.680
He's talking to a sliver of the country who will
498
00:21:21.700 --> 00:21:25.099
either help him stay president or help him turn OAN
499
00:21:25.140 --> 00:21:28.460
into Trump TV. And either either way is a fine
500
00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:28.950
option for him.
501
00:21:37.589 --> 00:21:39.549
All right, let's talk about what's going on in Portland,
502
00:21:39.990 --> 00:21:42.109
where hundreds of protesters have been on the streets for
503
00:21:42.150 --> 00:21:45.029
more than 50 days now, many of them protesting police
504
00:21:45.049 --> 00:21:48.309
brutality and systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
505
00:21:49.069 --> 00:21:51.329
Most of the protesters have been peaceful, but to deal
506
00:21:51.349 --> 00:21:54.049
with those who are not, Donald Trump has deployed unidentified
507
00:21:54.170 --> 00:21:57.670
federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security who so
508
00:21:57.710 --> 00:22:00.970
far have used tear gas and rubber bullets, fractured a
509
00:22:01.019 --> 00:22:04.880
person's skull with a, quote, non-lethal weapon, and pulled people
510
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:08.539
into unmarked vans. where they've been detained without a warrant.
511
00:22:09.059 --> 00:22:12.759
So state and local officials in Oregon have explicitly asked
512
00:22:12.839 --> 00:22:16.119
these federal agents to leave, but the Trump administration claims
513
00:22:16.160 --> 00:22:18.839
they have the authority to be there because the president
514
00:22:18.859 --> 00:22:23.470
signed an executive order to protect monuments, statues, and federal property. Tommy,
515
00:22:23.509 --> 00:22:26.509
are they right? How unusual and alarming is this?
516
00:22:26.529 --> 00:22:29.470
I think this is pretty alarming. It's a scary precedent.
517
00:22:29.569 --> 00:22:32.250
It's a big deal. So the administration says that under
518
00:22:32.289 --> 00:22:36.430
the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the DHS secretary has
519
00:22:36.450 --> 00:22:40.109
the power to deputize other federal agents to assist in
520
00:22:40.250 --> 00:22:43.589
this agency called the Federal Protective Service that protects federal
521
00:22:43.650 --> 00:22:47.019
property like the courthouse in Portland, like a bunch of
522
00:22:47.119 --> 00:22:49.809
monuments that we're all now really worried about apparently. And
523
00:22:49.829 --> 00:22:54.349
so the administration has deployed 2000 officials from like CBP, ICE, TSA,
524
00:22:54.390 --> 00:22:57.750
the Coast Guard in support of this agency to protect
525
00:22:57.890 --> 00:23:01.450
federal properties ostensibly. But what you're seeing in practice is,
526
00:23:02.150 --> 00:23:06.289
you know, guys jumping out of unmarked vans who don't
527
00:23:06.349 --> 00:23:10.119
have clear markings of what agency they're from. And by
528
00:23:10.150 --> 00:23:13.619
the way, who would expect to be detained by CBP
529
00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.299
in Portland? We're not very close to the border at
530
00:23:16.339 --> 00:23:19.299
the moment. And so The ACLU says, you know, usually
531
00:23:19.339 --> 00:23:21.799
when you see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone
532
00:23:21.819 --> 00:23:23.980
off the street, we call it kidnapping. I think that's
533
00:23:24.019 --> 00:23:26.799
a pretty good point. The Oregon Department of Justice is
534
00:23:26.819 --> 00:23:29.369
going to sue them for civil rights abuses through these
535
00:23:29.390 --> 00:23:32.890
federal agencies. The U.S. senators from Oregon are introducing an
536
00:23:32.910 --> 00:23:36.529
amendment to stop the deployment of these paramilitary squads. It
537
00:23:36.650 --> 00:23:40.430
looks like they're trying to deploy 150 of these, I
538
00:23:41.190 --> 00:23:44.640
don't know what we call them, paramilitary DHS people to
539
00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:48.000
Chicago there. So To me, this feels like a very
540
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:53.240
purposeful effort to increase conflict, to create scenes of chaos
541
00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:56.960
on the streets. Every time protests have gone badly in
542
00:23:56.980 --> 00:24:00.059
the last four or five months, it's when the cops overreach.
543
00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:03.339
It's when there's police brutality. It's when protesters are beaten
544
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:07.240
and the violence escalates. And sometimes you have to wonder
545
00:24:07.380 --> 00:24:09.319
if that's not the strategy because those images are what
546
00:24:09.339 --> 00:24:10.180
they want on Fox News.
547
00:24:10.599 --> 00:24:12.880
It does seem like a, a purposeful strategy.
548
00:24:13.099 --> 00:24:13.410
Love it.
549
00:24:13.619 --> 00:24:15.660
And also, you know, by all accounts, it seems like
550
00:24:15.700 --> 00:24:18.940
the protests were dying down until Trump sent in these agents. Um,
551
00:24:19.029 --> 00:24:21.890
and now they're bigger than ever. It seems like he is, uh,
552
00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:24.269
trying to provoke, uh, these people.
553
00:24:24.650 --> 00:24:26.150
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's right.
554
00:24:26.170 --> 00:24:28.230
You know, there was an interview in the times Charlie
555
00:24:28.250 --> 00:24:31.250
Wurzel interviewed Robert Evans, who has been covering this on
556
00:24:31.269 --> 00:24:34.029
the ground in Portland for the last 50 days and
557
00:24:34.109 --> 00:24:36.839
just sort of get a feeling of what's been happening. And, and, and,
558
00:24:37.269 --> 00:24:39.349
what that reporter describes is basically there's been a ton
559
00:24:39.369 --> 00:24:41.859
of overreach by the Portland PD, right? That what the
560
00:24:41.910 --> 00:24:44.940
federal agents are doing, what the, you know, basically acting
561
00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:48.039
like a secret police are doing is in line with
562
00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:51.279
what we've seen in Portland. But the difference is there's
563
00:24:51.319 --> 00:24:54.599
a kind of randomness to it and an unpredictability to
564
00:24:54.640 --> 00:24:56.900
it when there's been a rhythm to these exchanges, which
565
00:24:56.920 --> 00:24:59.940
has made, I think, a lot of the protesters incredibly wary.
566
00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:02.299
And yes, it does seem as though they're looking for
567
00:25:02.339 --> 00:25:05.970
a confrontation. They're not I mean, this has been a
568
00:25:05.990 --> 00:25:08.589
problem in Portland now for 50 days, but it doesn't
569
00:25:08.630 --> 00:25:11.069
seem like anyone on the law enforcement side is interested
570
00:25:11.109 --> 00:25:13.890
in de-escalation, right? If we had de-escalation that was effective,
571
00:25:13.930 --> 00:25:17.500
these protests would have died down. Instead, the federal agents
572
00:25:17.559 --> 00:25:19.779
doing this has only brought out more protests, has only
573
00:25:19.819 --> 00:25:22.079
caused more unrest, has only caused a greater response. And
574
00:25:22.099 --> 00:25:24.259
there has to be a greater response because you can't
575
00:25:24.279 --> 00:25:30.180
just allow unidentified people in fatigues to go around grabbing people.
576
00:25:31.099 --> 00:25:33.740
There's a whole bunch. Obviously, it's dangerous in a ton
577
00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:37.349
of ways. Why should we presume that these are from
578
00:25:37.369 --> 00:25:40.170
the government? If somebody is just pulled and grabbed off
579
00:25:40.210 --> 00:25:45.069
the street, the reason police need to identify themselves, the
580
00:25:45.109 --> 00:25:46.910
reason that there are procedures, the reason that this kind
581
00:25:46.930 --> 00:25:48.400
of thing is not allowed is because you have a
582
00:25:48.410 --> 00:25:50.039
right to defend yourself. You have a right to know
583
00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:51.740
who's picking you up, who's pulling you off the street.
584
00:25:51.779 --> 00:25:54.180
You have a right to know that this is legal
585
00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:55.880
and not extra legal, which is what's happening now.
586
00:25:57.319 --> 00:25:58.859
Yeah, I mean, one of the protesters said that when
587
00:25:58.900 --> 00:26:01.589
he was pulled into a van, he didn't know if
588
00:26:01.730 --> 00:26:05.869
they were federal officials or like a right-wing paramilitary group.
589
00:26:05.970 --> 00:26:06.150
Right.
590
00:26:06.210 --> 00:26:08.490
Because they've been out in these protests as well. And
591
00:26:08.539 --> 00:26:11.079
how would you know the difference when you're just like
592
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:13.059
thrown into a van? No, it's great. I mean, it's
593
00:26:13.099 --> 00:26:17.980
incredibly dangerous. It's incredibly scary. I also think it's fairly
594
00:26:18.599 --> 00:26:22.119
stupid as a political strategy anyway. I mean, you looked
595
00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:25.660
at that Washington Post ABC poll, and Trump is trying
596
00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:29.490
really hard for sort of crime and law and disorder
597
00:26:29.569 --> 00:26:31.869
to be like a top issue on people's minds. It's
598
00:26:31.930 --> 00:26:34.809
not in all these polls. It's not the coronaviruses, the
599
00:26:34.869 --> 00:26:37.569
economy is, and crime is way down there. But even
600
00:26:37.710 --> 00:26:40.490
on the issue of crime, Trump is behind Joe Biden
601
00:26:40.509 --> 00:26:44.519
by nine points on who would do better handling crime
602
00:26:44.539 --> 00:26:47.220
and handling law and order. So the idea that Trump
603
00:26:47.259 --> 00:26:51.140
is now going to, you know, gain in the polls
604
00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:57.319
by sending paramilitary groups to liberal cities across America, to
605
00:26:57.539 --> 00:27:02.359
crack down on protesters in disgusting ways is just, you know,
606
00:27:02.940 --> 00:27:05.200
it's one of those things where it will both not
607
00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:08.079
help him politically, but also sort of push us to
608
00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:09.640
a much scarier place as a country.
609
00:27:09.660 --> 00:27:11.200
I just want to say one more thing, too, which
610
00:27:11.240 --> 00:27:12.839
is that, you know, I've seen people try to, you know,
611
00:27:13.220 --> 00:27:15.279
look at where the kind of responsibility for this lies.
612
00:27:15.299 --> 00:27:16.920
And I think there's people that have been talking about how,
613
00:27:17.299 --> 00:27:20.819
you know, the Abolish ICE movement, you know, was predicting
614
00:27:21.019 --> 00:27:23.140
or at least sort of pointing out some of the
615
00:27:23.180 --> 00:27:25.400
dangers of having this kind of an unaccountable police force
616
00:27:25.420 --> 00:27:27.650
in this country. I think that's fair. But in a
617
00:27:27.670 --> 00:27:31.089
broader sense, what we're seeing is, like, you know, Tommy
618
00:27:31.130 --> 00:27:33.930
pointed out that there's this debate about the legality. You know,
619
00:27:34.309 --> 00:27:36.809
one of the big goals after Trump is gone has
620
00:27:36.849 --> 00:27:39.259
to be not just to make sure we figure out
621
00:27:39.299 --> 00:27:41.779
what crimes were committed, not just to make sure that
622
00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:44.859
the president is accountable and that there's, you know, anti-corruption
623
00:27:44.940 --> 00:27:46.839
efforts to make sure the president can't abuse the Department
624
00:27:46.859 --> 00:27:48.119
of Justice as he's done.
625
00:27:48.549 --> 00:27:49.690
There also needs to be a.
626
00:27:49.690 --> 00:27:51.509
Real look at some of the laws that were passed
627
00:27:51.569 --> 00:27:53.569
in the wake of 9-11, at some of the other
628
00:27:53.670 --> 00:27:55.710
powers that have been granted to the federal government and
629
00:27:55.730 --> 00:27:58.029
to the president in particular. And those powers need to
630
00:27:58.069 --> 00:28:00.470
be devolved back to Congress, devolved back to the states,
631
00:28:00.529 --> 00:28:03.670
because right now this guy, you know, Chad Wolf, the
632
00:28:03.819 --> 00:28:06.940
acting Secretary of Homeland Security, He's making these incredibly broad
633
00:28:06.980 --> 00:28:08.759
statement about what his prerogatives are as the head of
634
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:11.500
Homeland Security. And I think even I think we are
635
00:28:11.579 --> 00:28:14.319
we end up trapped in these kind of legalistic debates
636
00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:16.599
about what's allowed. And it's all very murky and it's
637
00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:18.380
all very foggy. And it has to be the job
638
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:21.329
of Congress in the beginning of the next administration to
639
00:28:21.420 --> 00:28:24.750
really lay down some new barriers to abuse of power
640
00:28:24.789 --> 00:28:25.109
in this way.
641
00:28:25.250 --> 00:28:28.390
That's all. It does seem like the Department of Homeland
642
00:28:28.410 --> 00:28:32.609
Security has some fairly broad, extraordinary powers. to do some
643
00:28:32.630 --> 00:28:32.769
of this.
644
00:28:32.789 --> 00:28:33.289
Yeah, absolutely.
645
00:28:33.309 --> 00:28:35.369
And in part because of those powers. I mean, I
646
00:28:35.410 --> 00:28:38.069
think you have people even within some of these agencies
647
00:28:38.190 --> 00:28:44.700
worrying that they're becoming this unaccountable paramilitary sort of pseudo
648
00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:48.839
intelligence community force that seems to only respond to Donald
649
00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:51.000
Trump and to nobody else. I mean, the US senators
650
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:53.759
from the state can't get answers about who these guys
651
00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:57.089
are chucking people into vans and detaining them in their
652
00:28:57.130 --> 00:29:00.369
own state. That's not a well-functioning democracy. That's not a
653
00:29:00.410 --> 00:29:05.160
well-functioning police force or national security infrastructure. So, yeah, we
654
00:29:05.180 --> 00:29:08.720
got to really fix this shit. Yeah, and I think,
655
00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:11.200
I mean, Congress is demanding answers. They probably have to
656
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:16.029
act as well, whether it's investigations or whether it's holding
657
00:29:16.069 --> 00:29:19.710
up funding in whatever way they can. because I don't
658
00:29:19.730 --> 00:29:22.349
think just asking Donald Trump for answers is going to
659
00:29:22.390 --> 00:29:23.910
get you anywhere. No, and I think the Oregon senators,
660
00:29:24.130 --> 00:29:26.279
to John's point, I think they're trying to put an
661
00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:29.480
amendment onto the NDAA, the Defense Department Funding Act, that
662
00:29:29.500 --> 00:29:32.839
would prevent the deployment of these individuals to their state
663
00:29:32.859 --> 00:29:35.430
and hopefully to other states if they're actually planning on
664
00:29:35.450 --> 00:29:37.470
sending these guys to Chicago, because that is not going
665
00:29:37.490 --> 00:29:37.829
to go well.
666
00:29:38.549 --> 00:29:40.670
So there was also some sad news over the weekend.
667
00:29:40.750 --> 00:29:43.380
We lost two giants of the civil rights movement.
668
00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:44.130
C.T.
669
00:29:44.170 --> 00:29:46.160
Vivian, a Baptist minister and a key leader of the
670
00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:48.819
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who was described as one of
671
00:29:48.859 --> 00:29:51.519
Martin Luther King Jr. 's field generals, passed away on
672
00:29:51.619 --> 00:29:54.839
Friday at 95. And on the same day, we also
673
00:29:54.859 --> 00:29:58.029
lost Congressman John Lewis, who was 80 years old. Lewis
674
00:29:58.049 --> 00:29:59.710
was known as the conscience of the Congress where he
675
00:29:59.730 --> 00:30:03.259
was first elected to in 1986. Before that, he was
676
00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:05.200
one of the younger leaders of the civil rights movement.
677
00:30:05.259 --> 00:30:07.660
Most famously, he led the march across the Edmund Pettus
678
00:30:07.700 --> 00:30:10.420
Bridge on Bloody Sunday. He was deeply involved in the
679
00:30:10.460 --> 00:30:13.799
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was the last living
680
00:30:13.900 --> 00:30:16.680
leader to have spoken at the March on Washington, which
681
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:19.480
he did when he was just 23 years old. Here's
682
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:20.579
some of what he said that day.
683
00:30:21.200 --> 00:30:23.240
We're talking about slow down and stop.
684
00:30:24.460 --> 00:30:25.480
We will not stop.
685
00:30:26.650 --> 00:30:30.460
All of the forces of Eastland, Barnett, Wallace, and Thurman
686
00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:39.980
will not stop this revolution. If we do not get
687
00:30:40.019 --> 00:30:43.789
meaningful legislation out of this Congress, the time will come
688
00:30:44.410 --> 00:30:44.930
when we will.
689
00:30:44.809 --> 00:30:46.970
Not confine our march into Washington.
690
00:30:47.670 --> 00:30:50.609
We will march through the South, through the streets of Jackson,
691
00:30:50.630 --> 00:30:53.109
through the streets of Danville, through the streets of.
692
00:30:53.029 --> 00:30:55.269
Cambridge, through the streets of Birmingham.
693
00:31:02.250 --> 00:31:05.650
But we will march with the spirit of love and
694
00:31:05.690 --> 00:31:08.470
with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today.
695
00:31:13.240 --> 00:31:18.140
By the forces of our demand, our determination, and our numbers,
696
00:31:18.750 --> 00:31:22.569
we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces.
697
00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:26.299
put them together in the image of God and democracy.
698
00:31:26.740 --> 00:31:29.660
We must say, wake up, America, wake up, for we
699
00:31:29.700 --> 00:31:32.869
cannot stop and we will not and cannot be patient.
700
00:31:36.109 --> 00:31:37.950
Tommy, your reflections on John Lewis?
701
00:31:38.349 --> 00:31:41.230
It is truly astonishing how young those civil rights leaders
702
00:31:41.289 --> 00:31:43.569
were when they were changing the course of history. It
703
00:31:43.650 --> 00:31:48.490
is remarkable. I mean, look, I think that John Lewis
704
00:31:48.890 --> 00:31:51.589
is one of the greatest human beings this country has
705
00:31:51.630 --> 00:31:54.369
ever produced in that I suspect that our kids will
706
00:31:54.390 --> 00:31:57.089
be taught about him in school in the same way
707
00:31:57.170 --> 00:32:00.220
that we were taught about George Washington. And it starts
708
00:32:01.339 --> 00:32:03.920
with the incredible bravery he showed as a civil rights
709
00:32:03.960 --> 00:32:07.480
leader in the 50s and 60s. And we talk about
710
00:32:07.579 --> 00:32:09.339
nonviolent protests a lot, but I think it's a bit
711
00:32:09.359 --> 00:32:12.569
of a misnomer because the response to the nonviolent protests
712
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:16.289
was so unbelievably violent. We've all seen the iconic photo
713
00:32:16.309 --> 00:32:18.839
of Lewis being clogged by an Alabama state trooper on
714
00:32:18.859 --> 00:32:21.940
the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But before that, he was nearly
715
00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:24.140
beaten to death for trying to use a whites-only bathroom
716
00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:27.400
in Mississippi. One obit I read talked about how Lewis
717
00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:30.099
and a friend were staging a sit-in in a restaurant,
718
00:32:30.119 --> 00:32:33.000
and the owner locked them in, started fumigating the place,
719
00:32:33.079 --> 00:32:37.349
and nearly killed them with pesticide. So the courage they
720
00:32:37.490 --> 00:32:43.470
showed was superhuman, and the visual image of violence from
721
00:32:43.769 --> 00:32:46.940
white thugs is what changed the hearts and minds of
722
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:49.619
people across the country, and I think allowed for so
723
00:32:49.660 --> 00:32:52.740
much change with the Civil Rights Act. The other thing
724
00:32:52.779 --> 00:32:55.380
that's so awe-inspiring about John Lewis is that the guy
725
00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:57.539
stayed in the fight for decades, right? I mean, he
726
00:32:57.579 --> 00:32:59.859
came out in support of gay marriage in the early 2000s,
727
00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:02.140
long before many others. He let us sit in on
728
00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:04.569
the floor of the House in 2016 to support gun violence.
729
00:33:04.609 --> 00:33:09.809
So he's just a towering human being. He was also
730
00:33:10.250 --> 00:33:14.109
as kind and humble and decent a human being as
731
00:33:14.170 --> 00:33:18.279
I think anyone new in Washington. And, you know, it just,
732
00:33:18.380 --> 00:33:21.529
it made me very sad. Uh, I went on a, uh,
733
00:33:21.700 --> 00:33:25.769
a John Lewis related book, buying spree, starting with these
734
00:33:25.849 --> 00:33:29.230
great ones, these March animated, uh, books.
735
00:33:29.609 --> 00:33:29.890
Yeah.
736
00:33:29.950 --> 00:33:33.710
And so anyway, I just, you know, very, very sad day.
737
00:33:33.750 --> 00:33:35.849
It's incredibly sad when there's a generation of people who
738
00:33:36.529 --> 00:33:39.150
were part of something so monumental, like the civil rights
739
00:33:39.190 --> 00:33:41.970
generation or, you know, Holocaust survivors, right. When you sort
740
00:33:41.990 --> 00:33:45.230
of lose that, that living history of, of these moments,
741
00:33:45.849 --> 00:33:48.609
it's incredibly sad. And I think it's even more incumbent
742
00:33:48.670 --> 00:33:51.750
upon us to learn about and understand and pass along
743
00:33:52.349 --> 00:33:54.859
that story and what happened so we can all learn
744
00:33:54.890 --> 00:33:55.880
from it. Love it.
745
00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:59.519
Yeah, there was a piece in The Times by Bernard
746
00:33:59.559 --> 00:34:02.980
Lafayette about what it was like to fight to desegregate
747
00:34:03.099 --> 00:34:06.079
the buses. And there were two points that that piece
748
00:34:06.119 --> 00:34:09.059
made that I think were striking. One was the fear
749
00:34:09.400 --> 00:34:11.440
when they split up when John Lewis got off the
750
00:34:11.460 --> 00:34:14.099
bus and Bernard Lafayette was still on the bus. And
751
00:34:14.139 --> 00:34:15.780
they didn't know where it was safe. They didn't know
752
00:34:15.820 --> 00:34:18.920
what would happen when the bus got to its final
753
00:34:18.960 --> 00:34:22.840
destination because it was dangerous. And they were beaten.
754
00:34:22.860 --> 00:34:23.420
They were arrested.
755
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:26.030
And what the piece talks about is what it was
756
00:34:26.090 --> 00:34:27.650
like to sort of look into the eyes of that
757
00:34:27.670 --> 00:34:29.489
bus driver and know that it wasn't safe, to know
758
00:34:29.510 --> 00:34:32.070
that this was somebody that wasn't on their side at
759
00:34:32.110 --> 00:34:35.469
a time in which the law, the government, was on
760
00:34:35.489 --> 00:34:41.090
the side of segregation, on the side of violence. inflicting
761
00:34:41.130 --> 00:34:44.030
pain on black people throughout the South and throughout the country.
762
00:34:45.150 --> 00:34:49.369
And to Tommy's point, you know, the experience of John Lewis,
763
00:34:49.389 --> 00:34:51.699
the experience of people like Bernard Lafayette, the experience of
764
00:34:51.719 --> 00:34:54.900
people like CT Vivian, of looking into the eyes of
765
00:34:55.539 --> 00:35:01.019
white people enforcing legal racism, how acceptable it was, how
766
00:35:01.739 --> 00:35:04.300
taken for granted it was, I do think is something
767
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:08.619
we're losing as this generation passes on in the same way,
768
00:35:08.639 --> 00:35:10.380
as Tommy pointed out, that we're seeing the last of
769
00:35:10.440 --> 00:35:12.860
the World War II generation. And the other part of
770
00:35:13.199 --> 00:35:15.739
the piece that was striking too is talking about what
771
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:18.650
it was like to be arrested before there was a
772
00:35:18.860 --> 00:35:22.829
national conversation around nonviolent protests, before it was accepted, right?
773
00:35:22.849 --> 00:35:25.269
We've all talked about the fact that the polling around
774
00:35:26.050 --> 00:35:30.190
the civil rights movement was, you know, now it is
775
00:35:30.250 --> 00:35:34.110
part of legend. Now there's bipartisan statements when someone like
776
00:35:34.130 --> 00:35:36.530
John Lewis passes away. At the time, it was extremely
777
00:35:36.550 --> 00:35:39.269
divisive in the sense that white people were against it,
778
00:35:39.300 --> 00:35:40.599
and it took a long time for white people to
779
00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:42.739
come on board. And so, you know, we're talking about
780
00:35:42.780 --> 00:35:45.159
people who were arrested and beaten before they were legends,
781
00:35:45.219 --> 00:35:47.409
before it was lore, before it was clear what would happen,
782
00:35:47.449 --> 00:35:49.690
before they would be revered, when they were just taking
783
00:35:49.769 --> 00:35:53.230
great personal risk of their reputation, of their livelihoods, of
784
00:35:53.269 --> 00:35:54.730
their safety to do this.
785
00:35:56.409 --> 00:35:56.860
Yeah, I.
786
00:35:57.949 --> 00:36:01.119
I remember the first major speech I ever worked on
787
00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:05.320
with Obama was a tribute to John Lewis in Atlanta
788
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:09.099
on his 65th birthday. It was in the winter of 2005.
789
00:36:09.099 --> 00:36:12.079
And to prepare for it, because that's not one that
790
00:36:12.099 --> 00:36:15.380
you want to screw up, I remember reading his memoir
791
00:36:15.420 --> 00:36:17.420
about his time in the civil rights movement, Walking with
792
00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:19.880
the Wind, over a weekend. And I have been in
793
00:36:21.090 --> 00:36:24.150
awe of the man ever since. And one thing that
794
00:36:24.230 --> 00:36:28.440
Obama always went back to on Lewis was, the discipline
795
00:36:28.539 --> 00:36:35.530
required to sort of live a nonviolent philosophy in the movement. And,
796
00:36:35.590 --> 00:36:38.409
you know, Tommy, you were saying this, that like, it's not,
797
00:36:38.929 --> 00:36:41.789
it's sometimes a misnomer because nonviolence is not about shying
798
00:36:41.849 --> 00:36:45.110
away from violence. It's certainly not about perpetrating violence, but
799
00:36:45.170 --> 00:36:48.369
it's actually, it's about like putting yourself in harm's way.
800
00:36:48.849 --> 00:36:52.159
And in many instances, knowing that violence will be committed
801
00:36:52.219 --> 00:36:54.960
against you. And that is actually part of the strategy.
802
00:36:55.019 --> 00:36:56.920
And he also talks about the fact that, you know,
803
00:36:58.530 --> 00:37:00.969
you have to look into the eye of someone who
804
00:37:01.250 --> 00:37:03.489
just put a cigarette out in the back of your
805
00:37:03.570 --> 00:37:07.489
throat and think that that person is just as much
806
00:37:07.530 --> 00:37:09.989
of a victim of a larger system as you are,
807
00:37:10.429 --> 00:37:13.230
which is sort of like just a view that is
808
00:37:13.309 --> 00:37:17.989
so hard to grasp. And nonviolence was not easy, both
809
00:37:18.050 --> 00:37:21.679
because he was beaten to within an inch of his
810
00:37:21.739 --> 00:37:25.670
life multiple times, But also, you know, later in the movement,
811
00:37:25.769 --> 00:37:28.530
in the late 60s, you know, he leaves the student
812
00:37:28.570 --> 00:37:33.219
nonviolence coordinating committee because Stokely Carmichael and others thought that,
813
00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:37.519
you know, maybe violence was a tactic that we needed. And,
814
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:39.360
you know, he was seen as too close to LBJ
815
00:37:39.420 --> 00:37:41.739
and then Martin Luther King at that time. And so
816
00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:43.800
to sort of to balance this and to have the
817
00:37:43.860 --> 00:37:46.159
discipline that he did throughout his life, he was almost
818
00:37:46.199 --> 00:37:50.650
sort of the perfect example of the activist politician, someone
819
00:37:50.690 --> 00:37:53.510
who starts in the movement and organizes and then becomes
820
00:37:54.050 --> 00:37:57.750
an elected official, even as, while he's an elected official,
821
00:37:58.030 --> 00:38:00.849
continues to protest. He was arrested at least, I think,
822
00:38:00.909 --> 00:38:03.960
five times while he was a member of Congress. There's
823
00:38:03.980 --> 00:38:07.460
that sort of iconic picture of him marching with the
824
00:38:07.500 --> 00:38:11.260
Parkland students after gun violence. So he was, right up
825
00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:14.440
until the end, he was still part of social movements
826
00:38:14.460 --> 00:38:18.519
all across the country. So it is a giant loss. So,
827
00:38:18.539 --> 00:38:20.760
you know, as you mentioned, Lovett, you know, tributes sort
828
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:24.550
of to Lewis poured in from just about everyone, including
829
00:38:24.590 --> 00:38:27.469
elected officials in both parties. Many of these tributes were
830
00:38:27.789 --> 00:38:30.969
quite moving. Some rang a bit hollow. Mitch McConnell and
831
00:38:30.989 --> 00:38:33.869
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp praised Lewis as a giant and
832
00:38:33.909 --> 00:38:37.590
a hero, despite spending most of their careers fighting against
833
00:38:37.610 --> 00:38:40.179
the voting rights that he risked his life for. Marco
834
00:38:40.219 --> 00:38:42.980
Rubio's first attempt at a John Lewis tribute featured a
835
00:38:43.019 --> 00:38:46.869
picture of Rubio and Elijah Cummings. which, believe it or not,
836
00:38:46.949 --> 00:38:51.130
is a mistake that Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan also made. Lovett,
837
00:38:51.170 --> 00:38:53.210
what do you think about all these new John Lewis fans?
838
00:38:53.969 --> 00:38:56.949
It's very easy to praise someone when they're dead because
839
00:38:56.969 --> 00:38:58.829
they're no longer working against you.
840
00:39:02.230 --> 00:39:04.090
That is about right.
841
00:39:04.489 --> 00:39:07.920
I just, you know, well, it's, no, the serious point
842
00:39:07.960 --> 00:39:12.260
is only that, like, it is a positive, you know,
843
00:39:12.280 --> 00:39:14.380
I talked about, you know, whatever, changing polls, like, it
844
00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:19.409
is a positive, when people like John Lewis become revered
845
00:39:19.429 --> 00:39:25.090
in our national consciousness because it's a model of leadership
846
00:39:25.150 --> 00:39:27.750
of human virtue and values to elevate, of course, but
847
00:39:27.789 --> 00:39:30.610
the danger is in the elevation, in the making of
848
00:39:30.659 --> 00:39:34.739
a legend, you divorce it from the actual hard substance
849
00:39:34.780 --> 00:39:38.239
of what they fought for, even parts of that agenda
850
00:39:38.300 --> 00:39:41.260
that are either political or partisan or what have you.
851
00:39:41.619 --> 00:39:43.860
And just making sure that as we elevate someone like
852
00:39:44.099 --> 00:39:47.590
John Lewis, it's not denuded of the actual radicalism that
853
00:39:47.639 --> 00:39:49.679
he fought for for huge parts of his career and
854
00:39:49.699 --> 00:39:51.360
for the continued relevance of some of the things he
855
00:39:51.380 --> 00:39:53.480
fought for all the way back in the late 50s
856
00:39:53.500 --> 00:39:55.739
and 60s is really, really important because, you know, we're
857
00:39:55.760 --> 00:39:57.590
in the midst of a fight over whether or not
858
00:39:57.610 --> 00:39:59.710
people are going to be able to vote. And Mitch
859
00:39:59.750 --> 00:40:02.510
McConnell right now is sitting on restoration of the Voting
860
00:40:02.530 --> 00:40:02.869
Rights Act.
861
00:40:04.789 --> 00:40:08.420
Yeah, I know there's a lot of commentary on Twitter
862
00:40:08.460 --> 00:40:10.610
about like, why hasn't Donald Trump done a statement yet?
863
00:40:10.659 --> 00:40:14.349
Like I almost prefer Trump's relative silence to like just
864
00:40:14.829 --> 00:40:16.449
naked hypocrisy from Republicans.
865
00:40:17.530 --> 00:40:19.369
Who wants, what are you going to do with a John, John,
866
00:40:19.389 --> 00:40:20.690
what are you gonna do with a John Lewis statement
867
00:40:20.710 --> 00:40:21.210
from Donald Trump?
868
00:40:21.710 --> 00:40:22.190
Who needs that?
869
00:40:22.250 --> 00:40:23.690
What are you going to do with that? What will
870
00:40:23.710 --> 00:40:23.880
you do?
871
00:40:23.929 --> 00:40:24.250
I don't know.
872
00:40:24.269 --> 00:40:27.869
I think it's a, it's a threshold amount of decency
873
00:40:27.929 --> 00:40:30.309
to show respect for like one of the greatest human
874
00:40:30.349 --> 00:40:32.949
beings in our country. And so the fact that he,
875
00:40:33.050 --> 00:40:34.840
you know, put out one with a typo from the
876
00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:37.980
golf course, does speak to how little he cares about
877
00:40:38.139 --> 00:40:40.880
the black community in this country and people like John Lewis.
878
00:40:40.900 --> 00:40:44.159
I mean, look, it's fun to dunk on Marco Rubio
879
00:40:44.429 --> 00:40:47.289
for being dumb enough to post a photo of the
880
00:40:47.329 --> 00:40:50.010
wrong person. But so many of these Republicans were just
881
00:40:50.030 --> 00:40:53.409
gaslighting and releasing these statements. I mean, Mitch McConnell, like
882
00:40:53.449 --> 00:40:58.030
Lovett mentioned, has actively fought legislation that would end voter
883
00:40:58.050 --> 00:41:01.489
suppression for decades. And his statement really pissed me off.
884
00:41:01.719 --> 00:41:03.420
The one that might have been the worst was from
885
00:41:03.460 --> 00:41:06.539
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who stole the election from Stacey
886
00:41:06.579 --> 00:41:10.199
Abrams and has done more to disenfranchise black voters in
887
00:41:10.239 --> 00:41:14.949
Georgia maybe than anyone else alive at this moment. So
888
00:41:15.710 --> 00:41:20.670
it was pretty disgusting cynicism. They are clinging to the
889
00:41:20.730 --> 00:41:25.429
legacy of a heroic man, despite doing whatever they can
890
00:41:25.530 --> 00:41:29.530
to unpack and undo that legacy. And we need to
891
00:41:29.570 --> 00:41:30.239
call them out for it.
892
00:41:32.619 --> 00:41:34.199
Yeah, I mean, I do think it's worth talking about
893
00:41:34.550 --> 00:41:36.670
sort of the best way to honor John Lewis's legacy.
894
00:41:36.690 --> 00:41:39.210
You know, there's a bit of a movement on Twitter
895
00:41:39.269 --> 00:41:41.849
to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge after Lewis, though, you know,
896
00:41:41.869 --> 00:41:44.030
Lewis himself said in 2015 that's a decision that should
897
00:41:44.050 --> 00:41:46.590
be made by the people of Selma. More substantively, a
898
00:41:46.630 --> 00:41:48.989
lot of progressives and Democrats have proposed restoring the Voting
899
00:41:49.030 --> 00:41:51.170
Rights Act. Lovett, what do you think?
900
00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:54.920
Yeah, I mean, I think take the names of horrific
901
00:41:54.960 --> 00:41:57.980
racists off of bridges, replace them with the names of heroes.
902
00:41:58.239 --> 00:41:59.659
I think that that's a good thing to do.
903
00:41:59.659 --> 00:42:00.500
That seems like an easy one.
904
00:42:00.780 --> 00:42:01.340
Yeah.
905
00:42:01.929 --> 00:42:04.849
I do think if there's a way in which connecting
906
00:42:04.969 --> 00:42:07.030
the restoration of the Voting Rights Act to John Lewis's
907
00:42:07.070 --> 00:42:09.269
legacy is a really important and positive step that we
908
00:42:09.289 --> 00:42:11.909
can take, I think we should do it. I'm also
909
00:42:11.929 --> 00:42:14.090
thinking about right now how we're in the midst of
910
00:42:14.130 --> 00:42:16.949
a fight in Florida where, despite the fact that voters
911
00:42:16.989 --> 00:42:18.150
in Florida.
912
00:42:19.199 --> 00:42:20.380
Voted to restore.
913
00:42:20.099 --> 00:42:25.039
The rights of former felons in that state, there's now
914
00:42:25.059 --> 00:42:28.099
been an effort to kind of get around that by
915
00:42:28.159 --> 00:42:30.199
making sure people can't vote if they have to pay fines.
916
00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:34.909
This is the culmination of a racist effort to disenfranchise
917
00:42:34.949 --> 00:42:37.730
black people in Florida, those kinds of efforts we need
918
00:42:37.769 --> 00:42:39.309
to fight all across the country and are sort of
919
00:42:39.710 --> 00:42:41.889
making sure we tie what's going on right now in
920
00:42:41.909 --> 00:42:45.190
Florida to John Lewis's life, I think is really important.
921
00:42:45.429 --> 00:42:48.869
But yeah, I mean, one of the first things Congress
922
00:42:48.889 --> 00:42:52.789
should do is if we are able to keep the
923
00:42:52.809 --> 00:42:54.409
House and win the Senate and win the White House
924
00:42:54.550 --> 00:42:56.809
is restore the Voting Rights Act in a way that
925
00:42:57.010 --> 00:43:00.789
lives up to John Roberts's dumb opinion that stripped it
926
00:43:00.829 --> 00:43:02.179
back and has caused a lot of these problems.
927
00:43:03.739 --> 00:43:03.969
Tommy?
928
00:43:04.840 --> 00:43:08.059
I think that John Lewis in that generation, but him
929
00:43:08.079 --> 00:43:12.500
in particular, showed us the power of combining protest and
930
00:43:12.519 --> 00:43:16.119
direct action with an inside legislative game that was designed
931
00:43:16.139 --> 00:43:19.760
to pass legislation. And I talk about this in the
932
00:43:19.780 --> 00:43:22.980
interview today, but what's, I think, exciting and inspiring is
933
00:43:23.019 --> 00:43:28.099
that we have seen these record historic protests led by
934
00:43:28.139 --> 00:43:30.739
Black Lives Matter And then in the wake of those
935
00:43:30.780 --> 00:43:34.809
protests have seen registration bumps among young voters of color
936
00:43:34.949 --> 00:43:38.170
all across the country. So people are clearly following that path.
937
00:43:38.570 --> 00:43:42.070
The other thing I think that you take away from
938
00:43:42.130 --> 00:43:47.449
someone like John Lewis is the grace and the willingness
939
00:43:47.590 --> 00:43:53.920
to redeem others. I mean, the decency, the moral certitude
940
00:43:53.960 --> 00:43:58.369
it takes to tell someone like George Wallace that you
941
00:43:58.429 --> 00:44:01.519
forgive them for what they did to you. It's such
942
00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:07.380
a staggering amount of grace that it's almost incomprehensible to me.
943
00:44:08.099 --> 00:44:11.400
It's sorely lacking in the political conversation. It's sorely lacking
944
00:44:11.420 --> 00:44:12.949
in the way I talk about politics. And I think
945
00:44:12.989 --> 00:44:15.329
that's just something to emulate. And then lastly, I know
946
00:44:15.349 --> 00:44:17.449
you guys both hit on this, but when I think
947
00:44:17.510 --> 00:44:20.650
about month one or two of the Obama administration, I
948
00:44:21.030 --> 00:44:24.300
wished more than almost anything else that we had just
949
00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:28.340
jammed through some massive pro-democracy bill. And John, you were
950
00:44:28.360 --> 00:44:32.239
tweeting about this over the weekend, like automatic voter registration,
951
00:44:32.750 --> 00:44:36.789
vote by mail, just generally making it easier to register
952
00:44:36.829 --> 00:44:38.710
to vote, making it easier to get to the polls
953
00:44:39.090 --> 00:44:40.989
on days that aren't election day or make it a
954
00:44:41.030 --> 00:44:43.630
national holiday. There's a million things we can and should
955
00:44:43.670 --> 00:44:47.980
do that will ultimately protect our democracy from another monster
956
00:44:48.059 --> 00:44:51.289
like Donald Trump. But we need to get to work
957
00:44:51.349 --> 00:44:53.429
on that on day one of the Biden administration if
958
00:44:53.469 --> 00:44:56.639
he wins. And he can't sit and wait to negotiate
959
00:44:56.659 --> 00:44:59.980
with Mitch McConnell over things like the filibuster or waste
960
00:45:00.019 --> 00:45:01.800
any time. I think we got to really move on this.
961
00:45:02.300 --> 00:45:04.960
Yeah, no, I think we should go really big on this.
962
00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:10.280
I completely agree with everyone who's called for introducing legislation
963
00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:12.840
to restore the gutted provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
964
00:45:14.039 --> 00:45:17.500
I think Joe Biden's first bill that he introduces if
965
00:45:17.519 --> 00:45:20.269
he's president should be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act
966
00:45:20.309 --> 00:45:24.210
of 2021. And I think it should go beyond restoring
967
00:45:24.230 --> 00:45:26.010
the Voting Rights Act. I think it should expand voting
968
00:45:26.050 --> 00:45:29.969
rights and basically have two guarantees in there, a guarantee
969
00:45:30.010 --> 00:45:31.530
for the right to vote and to the right to
970
00:45:31.590 --> 00:45:34.260
equal representation. And under the right to vote, I think
971
00:45:34.300 --> 00:45:37.699
you do, like Tommy said, automatic voter registration, including those
972
00:45:37.719 --> 00:45:40.440
who've been incarcerated. It means making sure everyone has mailed
973
00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:42.739
a ballot, making sure everyone has the opportunity to cast
974
00:45:42.780 --> 00:45:45.519
that ballot through universal early voting, making election day a
975
00:45:45.559 --> 00:45:48.829
national holiday, fully funding polling locations. And then I think
976
00:45:48.849 --> 00:45:51.570
you have a second part that's the right to equal representation.
977
00:45:52.210 --> 00:45:55.110
And that bill should offer the choice of statehood to
978
00:45:55.130 --> 00:45:57.730
the people of D.C., Puerto Rico and other territories. We
979
00:45:57.769 --> 00:46:01.360
should do equal representation in the House by ending partisan gerrymandering,
980
00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:04.559
more equal representation in the Senate by eliminating the filibuster
981
00:46:04.980 --> 00:46:08.440
and more equal representation in the presidential elections by ratifying
982
00:46:08.460 --> 00:46:11.440
the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which essentially gets rid
983
00:46:11.460 --> 00:46:13.619
of the Electoral College. So I think we do. I think,
984
00:46:14.070 --> 00:46:17.559
you know, Biden is going to confront, if he is president,
985
00:46:18.019 --> 00:46:22.619
obviously the pandemic, the recession, racial justice, climate. I think
986
00:46:22.659 --> 00:46:26.449
his ability and the ability of future Democratic presidents and
987
00:46:26.510 --> 00:46:29.130
Congresses to deal with any of that is going to
988
00:46:29.170 --> 00:46:31.989
be constrained by the reality of a system that gives
989
00:46:32.050 --> 00:46:37.119
disproportionate power to mostly white and rural citizens. And so
990
00:46:37.239 --> 00:46:39.099
there's going to be a lot of jockeying. I'm like,
991
00:46:39.260 --> 00:46:42.059
what's his first bill? But like, you know, the good
992
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:44.329
news is, The Democrats, when they took over the House,
993
00:46:44.650 --> 00:46:46.530
when they passed H.R. 1, that was a bill that
994
00:46:46.550 --> 00:46:50.010
includes some of these reforms. Joe Biden and a lot
995
00:46:50.030 --> 00:46:52.269
of the other candidates, when they were running in the primary,
996
00:46:52.409 --> 00:46:54.690
said that this would be one of their first priorities.
997
00:46:55.309 --> 00:46:57.739
I think you got to do it soon because you
998
00:46:57.780 --> 00:46:59.840
only get a couple pieces of big legislation before the
999
00:47:00.139 --> 00:47:04.539
midterms come around. And once we hit 22, 2024, 2026,
1000
00:47:04.539 --> 00:47:07.320
like it is going to be harder to get progressive
1001
00:47:07.340 --> 00:47:11.199
electoral victories and legislative victories than when you don't have
1002
00:47:11.219 --> 00:47:14.719
a historically unpopular Republican president in the middle of a pandemic.
1003
00:47:15.510 --> 00:47:17.269
And the map's going to get harder for us. And
1004
00:47:17.630 --> 00:47:21.590
this could be our last chance to institute pro-democracy reforms
1005
00:47:21.909 --> 00:47:25.050
that make it easier for everyone to vote and sort
1006
00:47:25.070 --> 00:47:29.349
of change some of the anti-majoritarian institutions that we have
1007
00:47:29.389 --> 00:47:33.639
right now. So I think it's pretty important to do. And,
1008
00:47:33.650 --> 00:47:38.530
you know, let Mitch McConnell try to filibuster the John
1009
00:47:38.570 --> 00:47:41.710
Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2021. And that would be
1010
00:47:42.210 --> 00:47:45.610
such a perfect opportunity to finally end the filibuster on that.
1011
00:47:46.409 --> 00:47:46.630
Yeah.
1012
00:47:46.650 --> 00:47:47.590
I mean, it's interesting.
1013
00:47:47.650 --> 00:47:50.610
I do think it's worth thinking through. I think sometimes
1014
00:47:50.650 --> 00:47:53.170
the filibuster is taken as this abstraction. Do you support
1015
00:47:53.190 --> 00:47:55.690
the filibuster? And it shouldn't be thought that way. There's
1016
00:47:55.710 --> 00:47:57.530
going to be a moment where there's going to be
1017
00:47:57.570 --> 00:48:00.030
a piece of historic legislation versus the filibuster.
1018
00:48:00.050 --> 00:48:01.170
And I think it's worth thinking.
1019
00:48:00.949 --> 00:48:04.940
Through Pure politics, like what is the best message bill
1020
00:48:05.179 --> 00:48:06.639
to be the bill you break the filibuster?
1021
00:48:06.679 --> 00:48:08.340
It might be this. It could be climate.
1022
00:48:08.579 --> 00:48:09.480
It could be immigration.
1023
00:48:09.800 --> 00:48:10.480
It could be healthcare.
1024
00:48:10.500 --> 00:48:13.989
There's a host of big, like, even thinking about this,
1025
00:48:14.030 --> 00:48:17.050
it's like the staggering, there are people talking about what
1026
00:48:17.090 --> 00:48:19.090
an inauguration might be like, and we should not count
1027
00:48:19.110 --> 00:48:25.130
our chickens. But I don't, whatever happens, like January 2021,
1028
00:48:25.130 --> 00:48:26.530
even if Trump is gone, is not going to be
1029
00:48:26.570 --> 00:48:28.190
a moment of celebration. It's going to be a moment
1030
00:48:28.269 --> 00:48:34.469
of chaos and- grief in the country. And anyway, that's all.
1031
00:48:35.130 --> 00:48:40.239
Yeah, no, I look, I totally agree. And there's going
1032
00:48:40.280 --> 00:48:42.739
to be a moment early on where that's why, like,
1033
00:48:42.840 --> 00:48:44.199
you know, seeing a lot of people say, oh, we
1034
00:48:44.219 --> 00:48:47.800
shouldn't reintroduce the bill to restore the Voting Rights Act now. Yeah, absolutely.
1035
00:48:47.900 --> 00:48:50.369
But nothing's going to happen until we have a Democratic president,
1036
00:48:50.389 --> 00:48:54.349
Democratic Congress. And then when we get that opportunity, think big,
1037
00:48:54.610 --> 00:48:57.670
go big, because like this is this will be if
1038
00:48:57.730 --> 00:49:01.019
we get it. a very rare chance to do something
1039
00:49:01.099 --> 00:49:04.340
big and meaningful. And so you got to take it. Okay.
1040
00:49:04.559 --> 00:49:06.699
When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with
1041
00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:10.349
Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino.
1042
00:49:14.289 --> 00:49:22.019
Voto Latino Maria Teresa Kumar is the founding president of
1043
00:49:22.079 --> 00:49:25.829
Voto Latino, a grassroots political organization focused on educating and
1044
00:49:25.869 --> 00:49:28.590
empowering a new generation of Latinx voters.
1045
00:49:28.949 --> 00:49:30.510
Thank you so much for doing the show. It's great
1046
00:49:30.550 --> 00:49:31.380
to talk with you.
1047
00:49:31.389 --> 00:49:32.289
Thanks for having me on, Tommy.
1048
00:49:33.170 --> 00:49:35.449
So I feel like I've been, you know, watching your
1049
00:49:35.489 --> 00:49:37.570
work and following it for a long time. Can you
1050
00:49:37.809 --> 00:49:41.449
tell us a little bit, just to start, about Voto Latino,
1051
00:49:41.710 --> 00:49:44.010
the work you guys do, and then how has that
1052
00:49:44.050 --> 00:49:45.949
work been impacted by the coronavirus?
1053
00:49:46.690 --> 00:49:49.389
Yeah, so Voto Latino, we started 15 years ago, and
1054
00:49:49.449 --> 00:49:51.820
it's going to sound counterintuitive, but it's like we were
1055
00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:55.300
made for this moment. Our focus is young Latinos because
1056
00:49:55.320 --> 00:49:57.960
we recognize that they play an outside influence on their families.
1057
00:49:58.099 --> 00:50:04.059
They are oftentimes first-generation, navigating America, telling their parents what
1058
00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:06.599
car to buy to what neighborhood to live in. And
1059
00:50:07.179 --> 00:50:09.239
we said, well, why don't we use the exact same
1060
00:50:09.639 --> 00:50:12.960
influencer and talk to them about democracy? And we use
1061
00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.400
it through, I always say we speak their language, meaning no,
1062
00:50:15.420 --> 00:50:18.440
not Spanish. We speak to them in English. We use technology,
1063
00:50:18.489 --> 00:50:22.170
we use the internets and really do mobilization online. And
1064
00:50:22.210 --> 00:50:26.650
so when COVID hit, Tommy, most people were devastated that
1065
00:50:26.670 --> 00:50:29.449
they wouldn't be able to continue their work on voter registration.
1066
00:50:29.730 --> 00:50:33.030
And if anything, we were just able to scale. In
1067
00:50:33.070 --> 00:50:35.340
the month of June, to give you an idea, because
1068
00:50:35.619 --> 00:50:39.519
of the George Floyd protest, Voto Latino knew that, you know,
1069
00:50:39.539 --> 00:50:41.599
from experience that young people were leading it, that young
1070
00:50:41.619 --> 00:50:44.500
Latinos were allied in the African-American experience when it comes
1071
00:50:44.539 --> 00:50:46.860
to police brutality. And so we started serving up ads
1072
00:50:46.920 --> 00:50:51.869
specifically tying protest to voting, basically selling democracy. And by
1073
00:50:51.949 --> 00:50:54.710
June 3rd, we had exhausted our voter registration and budget.
1074
00:50:54.750 --> 00:50:57.829
We expected to have registered like 21,000. By the whole
1075
00:50:57.849 --> 00:51:00.500
month of June, we had registered over 98,000.
1076
00:51:00.500 --> 00:51:01.239
That's incredible.
1077
00:51:01.380 --> 00:51:03.199
In the states that matter, right? That's where we make
1078
00:51:03.239 --> 00:51:05.760
our investments. Young people are attuned. I don't have to
1079
00:51:05.800 --> 00:51:09.219
tell them that it's important. For us, we're trying to
1080
00:51:09.239 --> 00:51:12.179
close the last mile. Young people care about the environment.
1081
00:51:12.199 --> 00:51:14.739
They know that it's none of your business who you love.
1082
00:51:15.079 --> 00:51:16.929
And they know that women have a right to choose.
1083
00:51:16.969 --> 00:51:19.610
They care about gun control and they care about, you know,
1084
00:51:19.630 --> 00:51:23.510
honest immigration. It's that cultural shift that oftentimes is harder
1085
00:51:23.550 --> 00:51:26.090
for older voters, not for young people. But our job
1086
00:51:26.130 --> 00:51:27.690
is to say, now let's get you to vote so
1087
00:51:27.710 --> 00:51:28.869
that you could actually make that change.
1088
00:51:29.469 --> 00:51:32.210
Yeah. Well, it makes sense that you were able to adapt.
1089
00:51:32.230 --> 00:51:35.829
I've heard you talk about starting the starting the organization,
1090
00:51:36.389 --> 00:51:38.469
going to debt on credit cards, working out of Starbucks.
1091
00:51:38.489 --> 00:51:40.010
So it's no surprise that you were scrappy.
1092
00:51:41.429 --> 00:51:43.070
This is good. Now I'm really going to like age
1093
00:51:43.090 --> 00:51:45.750
myself because it had high-speed connection at the time.
1094
00:51:45.849 --> 00:51:47.809
Yeah, free Wi-Fi, of course.
1095
00:51:47.849 --> 00:51:48.489
Free Wi-Fi.
1096
00:51:49.550 --> 00:51:51.670
You buy a coffee, you refill it 700 times. Look,
1097
00:51:51.710 --> 00:51:54.210
I was deeply unemployed for a long time. I've spent
1098
00:51:54.230 --> 00:51:57.889
some time at Starbucks. So it's incredible that you've had
1099
00:51:58.010 --> 00:52:00.219
this success in the midst of the coronavirus. It's really
1100
00:52:00.239 --> 00:52:03.730
an affirming thing To hear that people understand that you
1101
00:52:03.769 --> 00:52:05.670
protest and then you vote and it's all a piece
1102
00:52:05.690 --> 00:52:08.690
of a puzzle. But, you know, the coronavirus hasn't just
1103
00:52:08.750 --> 00:52:12.750
changed the way we're doing voter contact. It is disproportionately
1104
00:52:12.789 --> 00:52:17.150
impacted communities of color. Has that changed the conversations themselves
1105
00:52:17.230 --> 00:52:19.769
that you're having? Are people more focused on the pandemic?
1106
00:52:19.869 --> 00:52:20.730
What's the difference?
1107
00:52:20.949 --> 00:52:21.230
Huge.
1108
00:52:21.329 --> 00:52:24.269
I mean, the challenge is sadly that the Latino community
1109
00:52:24.289 --> 00:52:28.059
and the African-American community are at the forefront of who
1110
00:52:28.079 --> 00:52:31.570
the essential workers are. Oftentimes, our communities don't have the
1111
00:52:31.630 --> 00:52:34.449
choice of sheltering in place, but we are the economic
1112
00:52:34.610 --> 00:52:38.090
engine for the rest of the country. And the biggest challenge, though,
1113
00:52:38.219 --> 00:52:40.800
is that we're also sadly the leading causes of death
1114
00:52:41.059 --> 00:52:44.860
under COVID. For a long time in San Francisco General Hospital,
1115
00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:48.039
while Latinos are roughly 30% of the population, they were
1116
00:52:48.239 --> 00:52:52.150
over 81% of the COVID cases at the general hospital.
1117
00:52:53.030 --> 00:52:56.809
And 20% of the Latino workforce has been left out
1118
00:52:56.869 --> 00:53:00.429
of the CARES Act passed by Congress because Trump doesn't
1119
00:53:00.449 --> 00:53:03.869
want to provide benefits to people, to American citizens who
1120
00:53:03.929 --> 00:53:06.949
may have relatives that are undocumented living in their own households,
1121
00:53:07.780 --> 00:53:11.159
let alone undocumented individuals, even though we know that undocumented
1122
00:53:11.199 --> 00:53:15.139
pay $ 27 billion a year in federal taxes. And that
1123
00:53:15.159 --> 00:53:18.039
doesn't even include what they pay for Social Security. So
1124
00:53:18.139 --> 00:53:20.179
the way we've harnessed that is we realized that we
1125
00:53:20.989 --> 00:53:23.289
Voto Latino, yes, we do voter registration, but we're a
1126
00:53:23.329 --> 00:53:26.170
civic media organization. So we reach roughly about six and
1127
00:53:26.190 --> 00:53:28.800
a half million people a month before COVID. In the
1128
00:53:28.840 --> 00:53:30.300
month of June, we reached 92 million.
1129
00:53:30.909 --> 00:53:31.159
Wow.
1130
00:53:31.909 --> 00:53:32.559
That's amazing.
1131
00:53:32.679 --> 00:53:34.679
Yeah, no, I mean, but that was because we started
1132
00:53:34.719 --> 00:53:37.510
providing people with the information they needed, right? We started
1133
00:53:37.570 --> 00:53:39.650
learning that a lot of young women were really concerned
1134
00:53:39.670 --> 00:53:42.849
that they couldn't access reproductive health and abortion care. So
1135
00:53:42.889 --> 00:53:45.880
we brought in Alexis McGill, the president of Planned Parenthood,
1136
00:53:46.139 --> 00:53:48.099
and had a frank conversation of what that looks like.
1137
00:53:48.159 --> 00:53:50.380
What did young women need to know so that they
1138
00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:53.579
could actually get the health they needed? We've had conversations
1139
00:53:53.679 --> 00:53:56.599
with Ruben Gallegos and Julian Castro around how do you
1140
00:53:56.659 --> 00:53:59.880
access PPP loans if you're part of a small business?
1141
00:54:00.239 --> 00:54:03.340
Really providing people with relevant information and obviously then sneaking
1142
00:54:03.360 --> 00:54:05.019
in that voting message that needs to happen.
1143
00:54:05.039 --> 00:54:05.639
Yeah.
1144
00:54:06.320 --> 00:54:08.599
Well, I'd love to talk more about the Trump administration,
1145
00:54:08.619 --> 00:54:10.420
some of these policy questions in a little bit, but
1146
00:54:10.500 --> 00:54:13.440
allow me to start with political tactics because that's where
1147
00:54:13.460 --> 00:54:16.820
my brain is these days. There is, I think, understandable
1148
00:54:16.860 --> 00:54:21.079
concern about Joe Biden's level of support in polling among
1149
00:54:21.320 --> 00:54:24.130
Latino voters. I saw an article that mentioned how a
1150
00:54:24.190 --> 00:54:27.489
great polling firm, Latino Decisions, did a survey of six
1151
00:54:27.530 --> 00:54:31.070
battleground states. They found that Latinos, especially younger Latinos, had
1152
00:54:31.090 --> 00:54:35.570
a lower intensity or enthusiasm about 2020 elections. than they
1153
00:54:35.610 --> 00:54:38.500
did at this point in 2016. And I always cringe
1154
00:54:38.539 --> 00:54:41.019
a little bit when I hear like broad descriptions of
1155
00:54:41.420 --> 00:54:44.159
Latino voters, because I suspect if you and I were
1156
00:54:44.219 --> 00:54:46.800
making those calls for the poll, we'd hear about different
1157
00:54:46.840 --> 00:54:50.670
issues from Cuban Americans and Venezuelan Americans than maybe here
1158
00:54:50.710 --> 00:54:54.730
in Los Angeles. But what is your sense of Joe
1159
00:54:54.769 --> 00:54:58.909
Biden's enthusiasm level? And if there's a deficit, what might
1160
00:54:58.929 --> 00:54:59.639
be driving that?
1161
00:54:59.860 --> 00:55:02.260
So we actually worked with the Void of Participation Center
1162
00:55:02.320 --> 00:55:05.280
and we actually helped craft that survey that you mentioned.
1163
00:55:05.719 --> 00:55:07.780
And it was the first one that we actually crafted
1164
00:55:07.840 --> 00:55:10.460
because we know that the house is on fire. And
1165
00:55:10.739 --> 00:55:12.400
we were able to one of the things that we
1166
00:55:12.440 --> 00:55:15.119
have been seeing is that in the Latino youth community,
1167
00:55:15.219 --> 00:55:19.639
after Bernie Sanders dropped out, there was a softness in participation.
1168
00:55:19.800 --> 00:55:22.179
And so for the first time, Voto Latino, we endorsed
1169
00:55:22.219 --> 00:55:26.960
a political candidate. We endorsed Joe Biden. after we requested
1170
00:55:27.039 --> 00:55:30.460
real serious policy changes from him. And now we have
1171
00:55:30.480 --> 00:55:32.579
the receipts, so to speak. But the reason we did
1172
00:55:32.619 --> 00:55:35.610
that is because we recognize that there is a huge gap.
1173
00:55:36.010 --> 00:55:40.429
And we wanted to know what was that level. 30%
1174
00:55:40.429 --> 00:55:43.730
of registered Latino youth actually will vote for Joe Biden
1175
00:55:43.769 --> 00:55:46.349
right now at a soft. That is a code red
1176
00:55:46.409 --> 00:55:50.360
for us because we recognize that unlike in black and
1177
00:55:50.420 --> 00:55:53.780
white households, where the parents tell the kids to go
1178
00:55:53.860 --> 00:55:56.920
register and vote. It's the opposite in the Latino community.
1179
00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:00.079
It's the young person who are first generation Americans that
1180
00:56:00.219 --> 00:56:03.340
are receiving voting messages. They influence their parents. You know,
1181
00:56:03.409 --> 00:56:06.750
everybody was like, what did Bernie Sanders do that got
1182
00:56:06.889 --> 00:56:09.730
all these folks in Nevada to vote? they targeted young people.
1183
00:56:09.849 --> 00:56:12.429
They used the vote Latino strategy. I mean, full disclosure,
1184
00:56:12.880 --> 00:56:14.840
our male guy for nine years was one of the
1185
00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:17.320
guys inside the Bernie campaign. And it was just like,
1186
00:56:17.420 --> 00:56:21.400
vote Latino almost on steroids, Tommy. That's what a vote
1187
00:56:21.420 --> 00:56:24.550
Latino fully funded campaign would look like, quite frankly.
1188
00:56:24.590 --> 00:56:27.070
But just to underscore your point, I mean, Bernie Sanders
1189
00:56:27.130 --> 00:56:29.190
won 53% of the Latino vote in Nevada, 49% in California,
1190
00:56:29.190 --> 00:56:36.429
39% in Texas. You talked about he literally had an
1191
00:56:36.590 --> 00:56:39.250
ace in the hole here with your strategist in the campaign.
1192
00:56:39.269 --> 00:56:43.469
But do you think that strength was Bernie overperforming with
1193
00:56:43.510 --> 00:56:46.800
young voters generally? Was there sustained outreach? Was it all
1194
00:56:46.820 --> 00:56:49.780
of the above? What should Joe Biden steal from that primary?
1195
00:56:50.340 --> 00:56:52.940
Yeah, I think. So it's interesting. So Bernie wasn't going
1196
00:56:53.159 --> 00:56:56.000
bananas like he did among young people like he did
1197
00:56:56.079 --> 00:56:58.199
in 2016, right? There was actually a dampening. But in
1198
00:56:58.219 --> 00:57:02.280
the Latino community, he the focus on the young Latino influencers.
1199
00:57:02.559 --> 00:57:05.889
So I will give a completely anecdotal. I'll tell you
1200
00:57:05.909 --> 00:57:08.630
that when I started voting in my household, I would literally,
1201
00:57:08.690 --> 00:57:10.989
my aunt would arrange a call with my mother and
1202
00:57:11.030 --> 00:57:12.869
we would go down the list of who they should
1203
00:57:12.889 --> 00:57:15.239
be voting for. And then they would call my relatives, right?
1204
00:57:15.380 --> 00:57:18.840
That wasn't just me. That's how it happens. We have
1205
00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:20.639
our own little mafia of sorts of who's going to
1206
00:57:20.679 --> 00:57:23.340
vote for, right? But nobody has time, but young person
1207
00:57:23.360 --> 00:57:27.360
has time, right? And so that is emblematic of what
1208
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:30.000
happens in millions of households in the Latino community and
1209
00:57:30.019 --> 00:57:32.409
in immigrant communities. I'd say the South Asian communities, the
1210
00:57:32.429 --> 00:57:35.590
Pan-Asian communities are very similar. And so for me, For
1211
00:57:35.670 --> 00:57:38.159
Joe Biden, I would encourage him to identify who are
1212
00:57:38.199 --> 00:57:41.460
those influencers that can make those changes. And it's not,
1213
00:57:42.500 --> 00:57:45.579
we use a lot of Hollywood celebrities to amplify our message,
1214
00:57:46.019 --> 00:57:50.309
but we partner them oftentimes with validators, with people who
1215
00:57:50.369 --> 00:57:52.750
are credentials, with people, you know, if we want to
1216
00:57:52.789 --> 00:57:56.130
talk about healthcare, for example, we would partner Rosario Dawson
1217
00:57:56.210 --> 00:57:58.210
with a medical professional and so that she can have
1218
00:57:58.230 --> 00:58:01.239
that conversation. Because I do believe that we are of
1219
00:58:01.260 --> 00:58:04.119
a generation where we don't want the glitz and the glam,
1220
00:58:04.179 --> 00:58:07.809
we want solutions. And we'll use Rosario's base to ask
1221
00:58:07.849 --> 00:58:11.010
really smart questions, but for amplification of what the facts are,
1222
00:58:11.159 --> 00:58:15.159
if that makes sense. That's the strategy he needs to deploy,
1223
00:58:15.360 --> 00:58:15.840
among others.
1224
00:58:16.500 --> 00:58:18.400
And one of the things you always hear about the
1225
00:58:18.420 --> 00:58:21.840
Democratic Party, especially when it comes to outreach to Latino
1226
00:58:21.860 --> 00:58:24.579
communities and the African-American community, is that it's too little,
1227
00:58:24.619 --> 00:58:28.590
too late. Is that the primary mistake that campaigns make
1228
00:58:28.630 --> 00:58:31.070
in your mind? Are there mistakes you see over and
1229
00:58:31.110 --> 00:58:33.139
over again? when it comes to outreach that drive you
1230
00:58:33.159 --> 00:58:34.929
crazy that you just want to shout at people right
1231
00:58:34.949 --> 00:58:35.710
now to stop doing?
1232
00:58:36.610 --> 00:58:42.190
Yes. Diversify your, your team, right? Like if at Voto Latino,
1233
00:58:42.289 --> 00:58:44.530
all we do every day is wake up and figure
1234
00:58:44.550 --> 00:58:46.110
out how are we going to register another voter? How
1235
00:58:46.329 --> 00:58:47.650
are we going to get another volunteer? How are we
1236
00:58:47.670 --> 00:58:50.260
going to make a voter contact? Because Latino community, we
1237
00:58:50.280 --> 00:58:52.760
have skin in the game. It has not gone well
1238
00:58:52.820 --> 00:58:55.420
for us under this presidency. And this is not just
1239
00:58:55.460 --> 00:58:58.659
under COVID, but the caging of children. He's, Trump has
1240
00:58:58.719 --> 00:59:02.099
created a denaturalization task force to denaturalize citizens. I mean,
1241
00:59:02.139 --> 00:59:05.090
the outrage should be marching in the street just on
1242
00:59:05.130 --> 00:59:09.889
these basic pieces of policy that he's done. And what
1243
00:59:09.929 --> 00:59:12.269
I find in oftentimes in campaigns is that the center
1244
00:59:12.289 --> 00:59:15.280
of gravity of the person who has the ear of
1245
00:59:15.360 --> 00:59:18.380
the candidate does not reflect the community that they want
1246
00:59:18.389 --> 00:59:21.360
to serve. It does not reflect the voting population. So
1247
00:59:22.500 --> 00:59:25.519
it's been since 1963, I think it is, that it
1248
00:59:25.539 --> 00:59:28.639
was the last time that the majority of white men
1249
00:59:28.739 --> 00:59:33.510
voted for a Democratic candidate. So who's voting for them
1250
00:59:34.630 --> 00:59:36.909
and getting them into office? It is a very diverse
1251
00:59:36.949 --> 00:59:41.300
population that happens to be young. Oftentimes it happens to
1252
00:59:41.360 --> 00:59:44.679
be women and that has to be people of color.
1253
00:59:45.119 --> 00:59:49.269
So that campaign strategy should include people that look of,
1254
00:59:49.530 --> 00:59:51.829
I would say, a whole bunch of smart young people,
1255
00:59:51.849 --> 00:59:55.730
a whole bunch of women that are particularly our mothers
1256
00:59:55.769 --> 00:59:58.150
because we actually have different issues that we care about
1257
00:59:58.369 --> 01:00:02.210
and people of color. And that's not the way it
1258
01:00:02.230 --> 01:00:02.829
usually happens.
1259
01:00:04.170 --> 01:00:05.389
No, look, it's a lot of people that look like
1260
01:00:05.449 --> 01:00:07.969
me when the reality is that white male voters are
1261
01:00:08.010 --> 01:00:09.389
the root of a lot of our problems.
1262
01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:11.940
No, but I would say it's not even that they
1263
01:00:11.980 --> 01:00:15.079
look like you. It's because he needs youth in there.
1264
01:00:15.980 --> 01:00:21.539
If I can call you youths. I'll take it. No,
1265
01:00:21.559 --> 01:00:24.579
I mean, what Obama did brilliantly is that he had
1266
01:00:25.019 --> 01:00:30.989
whip-smart young people of all ethnicities in his ear crafting strategy.
1267
01:00:31.219 --> 01:00:34.340
And that were curious. And it was not just the
1268
01:00:34.409 --> 01:00:37.210
field organizers. It was up and down the campaign. And
1269
01:00:37.230 --> 01:00:41.880
they transformed how we communicated because he was a digital
1270
01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:44.559
organizing president at the same time, right? So he opened
1271
01:00:44.599 --> 01:00:46.960
it up. And what I see oftentimes in these last
1272
01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:49.159
couple of campaigns, not just with Biden, but with many
1273
01:00:49.179 --> 01:00:52.900
of them, is that they become very insular. And that
1274
01:00:53.139 --> 01:00:57.210
insular nature actually gives you blind spots to what is
1275
01:00:57.269 --> 01:01:00.630
happening on the ground to be reactive. And I think
1276
01:01:00.650 --> 01:01:03.170
that is the challenge. I think what my concern is
1277
01:01:03.210 --> 01:01:05.789
that everybody right now wants to create almost like these
1278
01:01:06.030 --> 01:01:07.550
tribal pieces. I was like, no, no, there is a
1279
01:01:07.590 --> 01:01:11.409
generation that is, that is incredibly diverse that actually has
1280
01:01:11.730 --> 01:01:13.929
a vision for what the future looks like. And it's
1281
01:01:13.969 --> 01:01:15.260
going to take all of us and that should be
1282
01:01:15.300 --> 01:01:16.110
reflected in the campaign.
1283
01:01:16.320 --> 01:01:17.239
Yeah, totally agree.
1284
01:01:17.599 --> 01:01:17.760
Yeah.
1285
01:01:17.780 --> 01:01:20.599
Look, the strength Obama had was one, you know, he
1286
01:01:20.639 --> 01:01:23.039
was a, an organizer by trade and two, he was,
1287
01:01:23.599 --> 01:01:25.760
he was still, he and the first lady were still
1288
01:01:25.820 --> 01:01:28.039
normal people at that point. Like they had just paid
1289
01:01:28.099 --> 01:01:30.760
off their loans. They, you know, their first condo was,
1290
01:01:30.969 --> 01:01:33.360
you know, small, too tight for their kids. They were
1291
01:01:33.429 --> 01:01:35.210
human beings. They could relate on a different level too.
1292
01:01:36.389 --> 01:01:39.530
You mentioned the administration. I mean, this White House is
1293
01:01:39.670 --> 01:01:42.889
full of people like Stephen Miller, who seems to wake
1294
01:01:42.929 --> 01:01:46.289
up every day and think like, how can we punish immigrants?
1295
01:01:46.909 --> 01:01:49.449
How can we punish people from Mexico or Central or
1296
01:01:49.510 --> 01:01:53.480
South America in particular? The family separation policy is, I think,
1297
01:01:53.579 --> 01:01:56.519
one of the cruelest chapters in our country's recent history.
1298
01:01:57.300 --> 01:02:00.099
I think the conventional wisdom, or at least Washington would
1299
01:02:00.119 --> 01:02:02.849
be like, that should that people thought this is going
1300
01:02:02.869 --> 01:02:06.739
to turn off Latino voters forever. But, you know, when
1301
01:02:06.780 --> 01:02:09.300
you see estimates, like I saw something in The Atlantic
1302
01:02:09.340 --> 01:02:12.579
that said Trump seems on track to capture 25 to
1303
01:02:12.579 --> 01:02:15.159
30 percent of Latino voters. What do you think the
1304
01:02:15.199 --> 01:02:18.219
disconnect is between that conventional wisdom and the reality of
1305
01:02:18.550 --> 01:02:19.650
what the math may be?
1306
01:02:19.670 --> 01:02:22.909
Yeah, I actually I don't think that I think they
1307
01:02:22.949 --> 01:02:26.210
always project folks project high oftentimes because where they find
1308
01:02:26.250 --> 01:02:28.530
a lot of these Latino voters and even African-American voters
1309
01:02:29.289 --> 01:02:33.949
is they we become a sub-sample of places like Westchester, Connecticut, right?
1310
01:02:33.989 --> 01:02:36.030
If you're in Westchester, Connecticut and a person of color,
1311
01:02:36.110 --> 01:02:39.409
you're okay, right? You don't have the same issues and
1312
01:02:39.429 --> 01:02:42.289
they don't reflect the population at large. What I do
1313
01:02:42.349 --> 01:02:45.110
though think that is part of the challenge and the
1314
01:02:45.170 --> 01:02:49.210
campaign has an opportunity to demystify is that even when
1315
01:02:49.289 --> 01:02:55.139
I speak to the community in my, again, anecdotal nucleus
1316
01:02:55.159 --> 01:02:58.179
that is Sonoma, California, When I talk when I phone
1317
01:02:58.219 --> 01:03:00.480
back home, they're basically saying, well, you know, the neighbors
1318
01:03:00.500 --> 01:03:02.679
are saying that Trump gave me a twelve hundred dollar
1319
01:03:02.719 --> 01:03:05.639
check from the CARES Act. Like, well, that's actually not
1320
01:03:05.679 --> 01:03:06.079
from him.
1321
01:03:06.260 --> 01:03:06.480
Right.
1322
01:03:06.559 --> 01:03:09.050
So there might be some sense that he's giving them
1323
01:03:09.119 --> 01:03:12.510
some sort of leg up under this pandemic when we
1324
01:03:12.550 --> 01:03:14.690
know that that is not the case. So it's a
1325
01:03:14.710 --> 01:03:18.170
long winded of saying way of saying is that everybody
1326
01:03:18.730 --> 01:03:21.730
as a voter doesn't really turn on to campaign until
1327
01:03:21.809 --> 01:03:25.119
after Labor Day. And at that moment, we have to
1328
01:03:25.159 --> 01:03:28.099
demystify and tell the truth of what has happened under
1329
01:03:28.619 --> 01:03:33.119
this administration. People are dying needlessly because they haven't been
1330
01:03:33.139 --> 01:03:37.250
able to get their act together. When we started the pandemic,
1331
01:03:38.070 --> 01:03:41.230
we started at the same time as South Korea. Italy
1332
01:03:41.269 --> 01:03:45.949
was at an all-time high. And they're recovered, right? They
1333
01:03:46.150 --> 01:03:49.429
are recovering. They actually have COVID under control. They have
1334
01:03:49.489 --> 01:03:52.760
systems in place. And we have an administration that people
1335
01:03:52.800 --> 01:03:56.139
say that it is incompetence. I actually say it's malpractice
1336
01:03:56.480 --> 01:03:59.400
because we have a president who was encouraging people to
1337
01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:02.860
take Lysol as a way to combat the virus. That
1338
01:04:02.920 --> 01:04:06.489
is encouraging someone to harm themselves with potential death, right?
1339
01:04:06.510 --> 01:04:08.869
So we're not playing around with him anymore. I think
1340
01:04:08.909 --> 01:04:10.590
a lot of times people were trying to figure out
1341
01:04:10.710 --> 01:04:12.409
how bad was he going to be. I remember Newt
1342
01:04:12.469 --> 01:04:15.909
Gingrich saying, well, let him be an apprentice president. And
1343
01:04:16.230 --> 01:04:18.230
from the beginning, I was always like, he told us
1344
01:04:18.250 --> 01:04:21.739
who he was. Yeah. And nothing that he's done, if anything,
1345
01:04:21.780 --> 01:04:24.340
he's crueler than he's already promised us he would be.
1346
01:04:24.940 --> 01:04:27.960
And we can point to Steve Miller, but Stephen Miller
1347
01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:31.010
has power only because the president allows him to. He
1348
01:04:31.179 --> 01:04:35.610
is right lockstep and center with whatever Stephen Miller proposes.
1349
01:04:35.730 --> 01:04:39.550
And sadly, I can share with you that he starts
1350
01:04:39.590 --> 01:04:42.750
with the undocumented community, but it's also part of who
1351
01:04:42.809 --> 01:04:46.349
he considers American. And I say this because the administration
1352
01:04:46.369 --> 01:04:48.230
wanted to include a citizenship question in the census.
1353
01:04:48.289 --> 01:04:48.409
Right.
1354
01:04:48.980 --> 01:04:50.280
And they were like, we just want to know who
1355
01:04:50.300 --> 01:04:53.570
our population is. Well, the Supreme Court struck the census
1356
01:04:53.590 --> 01:04:58.969
question because they were able to find on the GOP
1357
01:04:59.090 --> 01:05:02.130
operatives email, an email that literally said that they wanted
1358
01:05:02.170 --> 01:05:06.659
a census question because they wanted to create white, non-Hispanic
1359
01:05:07.030 --> 01:05:10.860
Republican districts. At that point, they don't even want Republicans.
1360
01:05:11.059 --> 01:05:13.340
They just want a very specific, they have a very
1361
01:05:13.400 --> 01:05:16.440
specific worldview. And so when people say, well, you know,
1362
01:05:16.480 --> 01:05:18.659
it's just rhetoric, it's like, oh, it's just policies. We
1363
01:05:18.780 --> 01:05:22.559
actually have during the pandemic, he wanted to cut SNAP,
1364
01:05:23.000 --> 01:05:25.900
which is a food program for mostly for women and children,
1365
01:05:26.659 --> 01:05:29.050
because it was going to disproportionately be for brown people.
1366
01:05:29.130 --> 01:05:29.349
Right.
1367
01:05:29.369 --> 01:05:32.590
Like that's that's cruelty when we know. And then you say, well,
1368
01:05:32.730 --> 01:05:34.909
what's your how do you translate it to the general population?
1369
01:05:35.289 --> 01:05:38.789
He's actively trying to cut health care. the ACA, while
1370
01:05:38.869 --> 01:05:41.940
we have an all-time high of health crisis. I mean,
1371
01:05:41.980 --> 01:05:42.820
none of it makes sense.
1372
01:05:43.059 --> 01:05:46.260
Yeah, no, you're right. Cruelty is the policy, and it's
1373
01:05:46.280 --> 01:05:49.579
not just Stephen Miller. It's the ill-fitting man in the
1374
01:05:49.599 --> 01:05:52.539
ill-fitting suit at the top. Apologies for jumping around a
1375
01:05:52.539 --> 01:05:52.940
little bit.
1376
01:05:52.960 --> 01:05:54.800
No, no, no, no.
1377
01:05:55.530 --> 01:05:57.510
We just went through and are still going through in
1378
01:05:57.550 --> 01:06:01.210
some places this extraordinary protest movement after the murder of
1379
01:06:01.250 --> 01:06:05.420
George Floyd in Black Lives Matter. Has that protest movement
1380
01:06:05.500 --> 01:06:07.460
and the success of it and the power of it
1381
01:06:07.960 --> 01:06:11.989
changed the way your organization, the people you work with,
1382
01:06:12.409 --> 01:06:16.030
think about ways to create change or how they want
1383
01:06:16.050 --> 01:06:18.010
to conduct themselves now until the election?
1384
01:06:19.250 --> 01:06:23.489
Absolutely. So we were part of President Obama's 21st Century
1385
01:06:23.530 --> 01:06:28.639
Policing Task Force because we recognize that while the African-American population, sadly,
1386
01:06:28.719 --> 01:06:31.599
is the most targeted, the Latino community is not far behind.
1387
01:06:32.510 --> 01:06:34.829
One of the biggest challenges in the Latino community is
1388
01:06:34.909 --> 01:06:38.130
that we know that we suffer police brutality, but because
1389
01:06:38.289 --> 01:06:43.170
most precincts, Tommy, only record race based on black or white,
1390
01:06:43.469 --> 01:06:46.230
there's no Asian and there's no Latino, depending on what
1391
01:06:46.369 --> 01:06:48.579
shade scale you fall in, that's how they record it.
1392
01:06:48.670 --> 01:06:51.670
But we know that it's a problem. And so when
1393
01:06:51.690 --> 01:06:55.750
the George Floyd protests started happening, we started specifically talking
1394
01:06:55.809 --> 01:06:58.840
not just about voter registration and participation, But we also
1395
01:06:58.880 --> 01:07:01.280
had kind of a come to Jesus moment because 24%
1396
01:07:01.280 --> 01:07:06.909
of Latinos identify as Black. And that is because Latinos
1397
01:07:06.929 --> 01:07:10.989
come from different parts of the Americas. My family, my grandmother,
1398
01:07:11.030 --> 01:07:15.650
she is Afro-Colombiana. That is her heritage of where she
1399
01:07:15.690 --> 01:07:18.130
comes from. And so it was an opportunity for us
1400
01:07:18.170 --> 01:07:21.349
to have a very blunt discussion of what was happening there.
1401
01:07:21.750 --> 01:07:24.130
in the Latino community, even based not just on policing,
1402
01:07:24.170 --> 01:07:27.349
but allyship about race, conversations that we need to have
1403
01:07:27.389 --> 01:07:31.369
with our parents to unpack it. And it provided, I think,
1404
01:07:31.469 --> 01:07:35.809
also an opportunity to just speak truth and to figure
1405
01:07:35.829 --> 01:07:40.280
out how do we move the needle on policing itself.
1406
01:07:40.440 --> 01:07:42.599
In the survey that you mentioned with Latino decisions, one
1407
01:07:42.619 --> 01:07:45.400
of the questions we asked was specifically that. And one
1408
01:07:45.440 --> 01:07:47.559
of the things that we learned was the top three
1409
01:07:47.639 --> 01:07:50.519
issues for Latinos, first it was healthcare, the second was jobs,
1410
01:07:50.539 --> 01:07:53.809
the third one was social and racial justice for blacks
1411
01:07:53.849 --> 01:07:58.389
and Latinos. That was huge revelation. I mean, we, we
1412
01:07:58.469 --> 01:08:01.269
knew it instinctually, but for older Latinos to be part
1413
01:08:01.289 --> 01:08:05.800
of that, it speaks to how much awareness that innocent
1414
01:08:05.820 --> 01:08:07.440
created for us to actually give voice.
1415
01:08:07.500 --> 01:08:10.519
Yeah, no, that's, those are, those are very hopeful answers too,
1416
01:08:10.579 --> 01:08:12.239
by the way, with the things people care about. Um,
1417
01:08:12.920 --> 01:08:13.960
you know, so like a lot of people listen to
1418
01:08:13.980 --> 01:08:17.380
this show, uh, are activists in their own life. They
1419
01:08:17.420 --> 01:08:19.310
make phone calls and they text on the weekends and,
1420
01:08:19.800 --> 01:08:21.859
And I think sometimes when people think about voter contact
1421
01:08:21.899 --> 01:08:25.119
and persuasion, you imagine this scene where you come to
1422
01:08:25.180 --> 01:08:27.380
a door and you knock on it and you talk
1423
01:08:27.399 --> 01:08:29.560
to a Trump voter. And by the end, they've changed
1424
01:08:29.579 --> 01:08:31.500
their mind. And that's not really how a lot of
1425
01:08:31.899 --> 01:08:33.840
field works, right? A lot of it is like, how
1426
01:08:33.859 --> 01:08:37.279
do you turn a non-voter into a voter? Are there
1427
01:08:37.319 --> 01:08:41.020
best practices that you've learned over years of doing this
1428
01:08:41.189 --> 01:08:43.430
that you think are broadly applicable that people can steal
1429
01:08:43.470 --> 01:08:43.670
from you?
1430
01:08:44.760 --> 01:08:47.039
This is the wildest thing. So in the last two
1431
01:08:47.119 --> 01:08:51.439
election cycles, 49% of registered Latinos never received a voter contact. Wow.
1432
01:08:51.439 --> 01:08:52.119
That's terrible.
1433
01:08:52.119 --> 01:08:53.369
From a political party.
1434
01:08:53.109 --> 01:08:56.510
Or from a candidate. It's absolutely terrible because they already registered.
1435
01:08:56.510 --> 01:08:56.770
Right.
1436
01:08:56.770 --> 01:08:57.170
Right. No.
1437
01:08:57.350 --> 01:08:57.489
Right.
1438
01:08:57.550 --> 01:09:01.239
And so the biggest thing you can do is actually talk.
1439
01:09:01.300 --> 01:09:05.220
And the reason being is because young voters and Latinos
1440
01:09:05.399 --> 01:09:08.539
specifically as well, don't have a voting history. And so
1441
01:09:08.560 --> 01:09:10.380
the way candidates like to work is like, well, these
1442
01:09:10.460 --> 01:09:12.260
folks are sure bets. Well, some of the sure bets
1443
01:09:12.340 --> 01:09:14.239
have no, are no longer part of our party. Like
1444
01:09:14.260 --> 01:09:17.119
they went to the Republican side. So your voter contact
1445
01:09:17.140 --> 01:09:19.500
by default becomes for the other side. I would encourage
1446
01:09:19.520 --> 01:09:21.970
you to look, you know, your listeners to look for
1447
01:09:22.210 --> 01:09:27.750
organizations that deal specifically with young voters and that talk
1448
01:09:27.770 --> 01:09:30.350
to communities of color. And, you know, when you talk
1449
01:09:30.369 --> 01:09:32.430
to Doug Jones, what he did, he's like, you know,
1450
01:09:32.689 --> 01:09:35.439
thank you to the African-American community, the Latino community and
1451
01:09:35.460 --> 01:09:37.380
the Jewish and happy Hanukkah. That was his like, his
1452
01:09:37.420 --> 01:09:39.460
like thank you message. But you said, well, what did
1453
01:09:39.479 --> 01:09:41.319
you do? He's like, I contacted every voter.
1454
01:09:41.340 --> 01:09:41.520
Yeah.
1455
01:09:42.479 --> 01:09:44.560
And every voter is on our side, you know, and
1456
01:09:44.600 --> 01:09:46.960
for relational organizing, if people want to volunteer with us,
1457
01:09:47.340 --> 01:09:50.800
You know, text volunteer to 73179 and we will put
1458
01:09:50.840 --> 01:09:54.079
you to work to text every voter because the numbers
1459
01:09:54.119 --> 01:09:56.850
are on our side, Tommy. Our job is to ask.
1460
01:09:56.970 --> 01:09:58.449
And one of the things that we know, at least
1461
01:09:58.489 --> 01:10:00.949
from best practice, is that when you ask a Latino
1462
01:10:00.970 --> 01:10:03.590
to register and ask them to vote, they turn out.
1463
01:10:03.850 --> 01:10:06.260
Seventy nine percent of the people we register vote. It's
1464
01:10:06.300 --> 01:10:09.520
because no one's asking them. Because, again, if we're not
1465
01:10:09.539 --> 01:10:12.840
even asking people who are registered, let alone the opportunity.
1466
01:10:13.199 --> 01:10:15.420
It's so basic. We make it so hard sometimes. It's
1467
01:10:15.460 --> 01:10:16.159
so basic.
1468
01:10:16.199 --> 01:10:17.899
Yeah, no, no. It's like, everybody's like, well, you know,
1469
01:10:18.060 --> 01:10:19.909
it's so funny. People are like, well, what should we do?
1470
01:10:19.909 --> 01:10:21.949
I'm like, just register and talk to them because we
1471
01:10:22.010 --> 01:10:24.590
actually have, for the very first time, we're going to
1472
01:10:24.890 --> 01:10:28.170
have 12 million more young voters than baby boomers. That's
1473
01:10:28.210 --> 01:10:30.399
a huge opportunity because for the first time in the
1474
01:10:30.439 --> 01:10:34.579
midterm election, generation X, Y, and Z outvoted older voters.
1475
01:10:34.779 --> 01:10:38.180
And we brought in the most diverse Congress. And when
1476
01:10:38.199 --> 01:10:41.270
people say, well, So what? I'm like, look, we have
1477
01:10:41.270 --> 01:10:43.989
400 pieces of legislation that speak to our values as
1478
01:10:44.010 --> 01:10:46.130
a result of this diverse Congress that was ushered in
1479
01:10:46.170 --> 01:10:48.630
by a new generation of voters. All of that is exciting.
1480
01:10:48.710 --> 01:10:49.649
We need to finish the job.
1481
01:10:49.750 --> 01:10:53.850
Yeah. I saw an incredible statistic that was said in
1482
01:10:54.270 --> 01:10:57.229
a news article by you, which was that of the- Well,
1483
01:10:57.310 --> 01:11:01.840
quote me, please. Of the 32 million Latinos eligible to
1484
01:11:01.880 --> 01:11:03.420
cast a ballot in 2020, 4 million of them turned
1485
01:11:03.420 --> 01:11:08.729
18 after the 2016 election, which just speaks to how
1486
01:11:08.829 --> 01:11:11.979
young and how powerful this emerging crop of voters is.
1487
01:11:12.010 --> 01:11:13.069
That's a huge number.
1488
01:11:13.869 --> 01:11:16.979
Yeah. So when we started 15 years ago, there was 30,000
1489
01:11:16.979 --> 01:11:20.520
Latinos turning 18 every single month. Now it's a million
1490
01:11:20.579 --> 01:11:23.319
every single year. And that tsunami of Latino voters won't
1491
01:11:23.420 --> 01:11:25.960
crest for 10 years. It's on our, I mean, it's
1492
01:11:26.020 --> 01:11:28.199
also why they, they decided to get the voting rights
1493
01:11:28.279 --> 01:11:30.550
act and to create all these voting barriers because they
1494
01:11:30.590 --> 01:11:34.640
saw a huge new young group of Not just Latino's,
1495
01:11:34.649 --> 01:11:37.180
but literally a new generation of voters. The millennial generation
1496
01:11:37.239 --> 01:11:40.699
is larger than baby boomers. Generation Z is our largest generation.
1497
01:11:41.479 --> 01:11:44.159
And they are coming into power. And what's deeply beautiful
1498
01:11:44.180 --> 01:11:47.399
about this generation is that they are clear-eyed. They don't
1499
01:11:47.420 --> 01:11:50.460
want platitudes, but they want solutions. And they're rolling up
1500
01:11:50.479 --> 01:11:51.699
their arms. I can't even.
1501
01:11:53.869 --> 01:11:55.810
So this is where my ESL comes in. You know,
1502
01:11:55.949 --> 01:11:57.949
I love to say these idioms and I always fail
1503
01:11:57.989 --> 01:12:03.439
at them. Sleeves. Thank you. I was like bootstraps. I'm like,
1504
01:12:03.529 --> 01:12:04.579
that's not right.
1505
01:12:04.640 --> 01:12:06.619
I like that too. I think that's actually better.
1506
01:12:06.640 --> 01:12:09.760
I know, but they, they want to get people who
1507
01:12:10.220 --> 01:12:11.659
will work on their rehab.
1508
01:12:11.739 --> 01:12:14.569
Yeah, that's good. It is good. Um, Last question for you.
1509
01:12:14.680 --> 01:12:16.239
I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening
1510
01:12:16.539 --> 01:12:20.260
who hear about Voto Latino. They want to get involved.
1511
01:12:20.579 --> 01:12:22.800
Or maybe they want to work with you or maybe
1512
01:12:22.819 --> 01:12:24.739
they just want to support you directly. Where can they go?
1513
01:12:24.779 --> 01:12:25.539
What should they do?
1514
01:12:26.539 --> 01:12:29.300
Yeah, if they go to votolatino.org, they can register to
1515
01:12:29.319 --> 01:12:31.939
vote or they can donate 20 bucks and pay it forward.
1516
01:12:32.000 --> 01:12:35.279
We're really good at registering voters. We're registering them roughly
1517
01:12:35.319 --> 01:12:38.970
at $ 12. And with the extra $ 3, we basically get
1518
01:12:38.979 --> 01:12:39.689
them out to the polls.
1519
01:12:40.229 --> 01:12:40.710
That's amazing.
1520
01:12:41.090 --> 01:12:43.789
Yeah. And then finally, please volunteer. So if they text
1521
01:12:43.890 --> 01:12:47.930
volunteer to 73179, we'll put you to work. That's not
1522
01:12:47.949 --> 01:12:48.310
a problem.
1523
01:12:49.390 --> 01:12:51.770
I love it. Well, we have a lot of listeners
1524
01:12:51.810 --> 01:12:54.600
who are scared to death. And so I imagine you'll
1525
01:12:54.619 --> 01:12:56.800
get some texts from this. Maria, thank you so much
1526
01:12:56.899 --> 01:12:58.619
for doing the show. Thanks for all your work you're
1527
01:12:58.640 --> 01:13:01.520
doing with Voto Latino. And, you know, I guess we
1528
01:13:01.560 --> 01:13:04.850
all just work so our anxiety goes away until November.
1529
01:13:05.010 --> 01:13:05.529
That's the deal now.
1530
01:13:06.539 --> 01:13:08.859
Yeah, well, I think that there's, you know, people are
1531
01:13:08.920 --> 01:13:10.619
paying attention and that's good. I mean, the fact that
1532
01:13:10.659 --> 01:13:13.760
we saw such a surge in voter registration is that
1533
01:13:13.859 --> 01:13:17.010
people are fed up and our job is to close
1534
01:13:17.050 --> 01:13:22.529
that gap and folks flood the zone. There are 123
1535
01:13:22.529 --> 01:13:25.489
million of us sat it out last time, flood the zone.
1536
01:13:25.989 --> 01:13:28.479
And that way we send a clear message, not just
1537
01:13:28.520 --> 01:13:30.680
to this president, but also to the Senate that they
1538
01:13:30.699 --> 01:13:32.619
have to get their act together, that we're paying attention.
1539
01:13:33.109 --> 01:13:36.689
Amen, Senate and Joe Biden. Get rid of the filibuster.
1540
01:13:36.729 --> 01:13:39.229
We're not messing around this time. Maria, thank you again.
1541
01:13:39.289 --> 01:13:39.970
Great talking with you.
1542
01:13:41.010 --> 01:13:41.449
It's a pleasure.
1543
01:13:41.489 --> 01:13:41.810
Be well.
1544
01:13:42.069 --> 01:13:42.409
Thank you.
1545
01:13:46.600 --> 01:13:49.380
Thanks to Maria Teresa Kumar for joining us today. And
1546
01:13:49.859 --> 01:13:50.739
we'll talk to you guys later.
1547
01:13:50.960 --> 01:13:51.500
Bye, everybody.
1548
01:13:54.640 --> 01:13:57.739
Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
1549
01:13:57.760 --> 01:14:00.920
producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
1550
01:14:01.399 --> 01:14:04.239
It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
1551
01:14:04.279 --> 01:14:08.359
our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
1552
01:14:08.470 --> 01:14:11.670
Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
1553
01:14:11.710 --> 01:14:14.949
our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
1554
01:14:14.970 --> 01:14:18.130
Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
1555
01:14:18.289 --> 01:14:18.630
every week.