Rahm Emanuel’s Tough Love Intervention for the Democratic Party

I think last time I saw you were mayor in Chicago at that Apple event. You met my kids.
One of them's now 6'5". 6'5"? Yeah, now one of them is, the other's 6'5".
I know. Lesbians have big kids.
We need them. Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk continue to remake the federal government in their image, which isn't a very good one, and the opposition party continues its search for an effective response.
So I want to talk to a Democrat who has a track record of winning and speaking his mind. I'm speaking, of course, of the one and only Rahm Emanuel.
I interviewed Ambassador Emanuel almost exactly a year ago. At the time, he was busy strengthening America's alliances with our Asian allies as Japanese ambassador, and he seemed optimistic about President Biden's chances to win re-election.
A lot has changed in a year. Rahm is back in Chicago.
He briefly flirted and then discarded the idea of running for DNC chair. He wrote a series of op-eds about what Democrats need to do to find their way out of the political wilderness.
And he joined CNN as a senior political and global affairs commentator. Besides being Ambassador to Japan, Rahm was the mayor of Chicago, White House chief of staff, chair of the House Democratic

Caucus, and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, just to name a few jobs.

He is the kind of person who inspires passionate defenders and also critics among fellow Democrats,

but even his detractors will admit that Rahm says exactly what he thinks and he's never,

ever boring. Our expert question today comes from Amanda Littman, president and co-founder of Run for Something.
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Ambassador Emanuel. I like calling you ambassador.
Do I have to keep doing that? You know what? There is actually a fact on this.

Okay. And I thought, given I'm from Chicago, that the mayor was higher in the hierarchy because your Senate confirmed it's actually the ambassador.
Oh, so it's higher. Yeah.
I think that will come as a rude shock. Would you prefer mayor or ambassador? Well, I answer to schmuck.
Schmuck. Okay.
I'll do that. Okay.
Perfect. If I just, your excellency, schmuck.

Schmuck, okay.

Just kind of warm me, I'll do that. Okay, perfect.
Your Excellency, schmuck.

Schmuck.

Okay.

Just kind of warm me, put some foam on the runway before you hit the hard note. Your fine Excellency, Mr.
Schmuck. Okay, anyway, thanks for coming on.
So I recently did an episode on Elon Musk's hostile takeover of the federal government, which is what I called it months ago. Now DOGE is apparently going to get access to personal taxpayer data at the IRS, this information that IRS commissioners don't even get access to.
I did an episode on the constitutional crisis we seem to be hurtling towards, although people aren't clear if that's the case. Last week, Trump did tweet that he who saves his country does not violate any law.
I'm not sure what he meant by this. Was it a signal to others or what his intent is? So how do you feel about the situation? Is it a five alarm fire for the country? Well, there's a couple things.
I mean, first responding to what you said about what just Trump tweeted last week. It's basically, I mean, he has reflected exactly what the Supreme Court told him.
Right. They gave him a green card and a get out of jail card basically and he's running with it.
And so at one level you can get very angry and frustrated. On the other level, this is on the Roberts court.
And I do, you know, there's kind of two theories and we're going to find out very quickly. One is that there's three equal branches of government.
It's based on a division and diffusion of power with a checks and balance system. Or you have this theory that has been promulgated by a number of people out of the Federalist Society that the president is the first among all equals, just kind of summarize the arguments.
That's not a legal argument. I'm not a lawyer.
But that's basically the case. And the court's going to have to decide, do you actually, as argued out by Madison in the Federalist Paper, and argue out this diffusion of power, which was set up so that no one center of gravity became more powerful? Or, in fact, we're going to concentrate a huge amount of power in one executive branch.
And I mean, they're doing things as a former chief of staff and former senior advisor, two different presidents. I mean, what's good for the goose? So there are things that obviously- Are you saying you'd have liked to have been able to do them? Well, I don't know if I would have liked to, but there's no doubt in the future things that would have been a checkmate mentally will no longer be a constraint.
And people have to think about that in the consequences. Now, to the issue, the second part of your question, which I think is very, very relevant because I have seen – one, when I was a member of Congress, one of the first bills I introduced dealt with the privacy of financial records.
I was on financial services. People do not like the government or anybody.
They don't like the consumer, any agency or any corporation rummaging through your medical records, your financial records, or any other type of records that can then be used almost against you. And the idea that, forget that he's not elected.
Neither do corporations, presumably, because he'll have access to that too. Well, you know, this is a question I know I'm supposed to be doing the answer part, but in the Talmudic fashion, I would like to refer to it.
Okay, go for it, go for it. Well, if you're building an AI company, who has more data than anybody else? The federal government.
I've said this many times. Then it's on me not to, to me.
It's never been unified. I'll tell you that.
That's what's interesting about this. I mean, Elon Musk is getting access to the greatest concentration of data anywhere, which is the building block of AI.
Data is core. Yes.
And they feel like they're running out of it. And he is now getting, he himself and people who are software writers are getting access to a quantity of data that is, you don't, it's like a goldmine.
It's like the California gold rush. It is.
And so to me, this is, that's where I think there's a massive, massive protection should be put on American data even before this, but definitely now because you are going to- Well, that's not what's happening though, correct? I mean, in a recent court filing- I didn't come all the way here. Yeah, no.
My insight is that those guardrails are not happening. This is a very short interview.
So in a recent filing, the White House said Musk is a senior advisor to the president, did not official administrator of Doge. That's flatly contradicted by their statements so far.
So how do you assess his role in this? Because he's been the cudgel for President Trump. Yeah, well, there's two things.
One is the shiny bobble, and it's working here in the interview. We're talking about Musk.
We're not talking about Trump. He is doing a lot of things.
No, there's no doubt. Trump wants him to do that because he's a distraction.
Correct. Look, I'd rather personally, and this gets into topic two, I mean, we can talk about the price of Greenland or we can talk about the price of groceries.
And so this is, no, there's real consequences to what he's doing. It's not about waste, fraud, and abuse, and it's not about corruption.
Because if it was about that, you wouldn't fire every one of the cops, meaning inspector generals or other people that have actually protected and built in it, some adequately,

some better than adequately, some below adequately, but there is there. I mean, look, 2023, all the inspector general reports together identified $93.1 billion of savings.
Now, as a former mayor, inspector generals are a pain in the... Okay.
The fact is, though, they do good work and they've identified all these savings. I think at this point of this interview, we're talking about maybe eight to nine billion under Musk, 93 billion.
So it's a 10 to one variation. If I were the Democrats, one, I would take to court the firing of the inspector generals.
It's clear based on the law on 30-day notice. None of it was given, not even three hours was given.
Two, simultaneously in real time, put all $93 billion of the reports on the table, make it very clear these will be amendments on the appropriations process, and we're either going to find the waste, fraud, and abuse or we're not. One, it would put the Republicans back against the wall.
Two, more importantly, it would make sure the Democrats are not defending an institution, but there to find the waste, fraud, and abuse. We cannot be the- The party of bureaucrats.
Well, A, the party of bureaucrats, the party of the status quo. And also, if you're a progressive party, you can't be in the conservative preservation role.
You have to be in the promoting role. And so to me, it has a lot of benefits.
And the other thing is, let's just, I think you will expose the emperor wears no clothes. Yeah.
I think you know this. Inspector Jones has already fired a federal lawsuit.
So it's ongoing, which is, of course, slower. I'm for the inspector Jones.
I want the Democratic Party to do it. To be for them and not be standing in front of buildings.
They don't have a brand. Yeah, they don't have a brand.
We'll get to that in a second. That's diminished.
But one of the things that Ezra Klein, who you recently talked to in Video SE, just did, called Congress non-player Congress, which is a video game reference, which Elon's a big video game player. Do you consider them NPCs? Well, I'd be a little ruder.
I know that comes as a shock. Well, I know.
I think there's a number of Republican senators and members of Congress who I consider serious. I don't agree with them, but I served in committees with them, et cetera.
They have put, and don't get mad because of the gender specific, they've put their manhood in a lockbox. I mean, I'm sorry.
I faced off against public sector unions. Had people call me names, protest outside my kids' schools.
That's called dick in a box, but go ahead. I'm glad we got that.
I'm glad we're so quick. We're only four minutes.
I hope the FCC is not listening right now. But, I mean, they put their manhood in the test.
And then they said, huffing and puffing, you've got to be strong. Well, what happened to you? You sit here, and this is against your conscience.
I know what you've said because you've said it to me privately. And you've said sometimes in other speeches when you've disagreed with President Obama,, you disagreed with Senator Biden, you've had the ability to speak up.
I mean, so it's clear your strength has limitations and your kind of care and your

conscience has limitations. So, you know, a lot of people, we will get to this about the Democratic

Party. Well, I want to have my discussion about the Republican Party.
Where are these people?

What happened to them? Is your throat... They're worried about getting primaried.
They my discussion about the Republican Party. Where are these people? What happened to them?

Is your throat— They're worried about getting primaried.

They're worried about getting attacked online. Well, you get a primary.
Well, let me say this. Either you get a primary or a lot of people, you know, you talk about safe districts.
Well, work your district, men. Okay? That's what this process is about.
And so I think that when you say you get a video game as an analogy, it is you ran for Congress. You ran to – if it's only about getting a good table at a restaurant, got it.
If it's about doing something, I mean there's a lot at stake here. It doesn't mean you and I are going to agree about what the solution is.
But your role in the U.S. Congress.
I mean, you raise every weekend you're doing a fundraiser, every weekend you're doing a parade, every weekend you're running around, you're missing your kid's soccer game, you're missing that, so that you could be a pawn. That's what this is about? Well, if you're going to do brain damage, there's a lot of other things to do for brain damage.
Fair point. Now, someone else said that congressional Democrats engage in a political equivalent of ASMR videos, which is, you know, sand cutting or, you know, things like that.
Democratic lawmakers say their phone lines are flooded with calls from angry constituents begging them to fight back. But so far, a lot of Dems seem like they want to make nice with Trump while he steamrolls when others are standing outside of buildings and yelling and going on traditional television, et cetera.

How do you assess the Democratic response so far? Okay. So first of all, I don't think it's one or the other.
I mean, there are places you are going to fight and draw a line. It doesn't mean you fight on everything because then you don't get hurt on anything.
And it doesn't mean you fold like a cheap suit on everything and don't find anything. Now, take the court battle.
On the 14th Amendment, there was a victory. I think there was also a victory on the spending.
I would go to the inspector general because the law is very clear, and you'll have a victory there. I would not let the inspector generals just do it themselves.
I would do that because it also puts the Republicans, specifically Senator Grassley, Lindsey Graham, who used to be the biggest cheerleaders for inspector generals until they lost their vocal cords, and put them in the uncomfortable position of either standing by 30 years of profile building exercise or not. And then I would build that out because nothing beats in politics.
Winning begets winning.

That's a rule. And a third win would start to build momentum and give confidence again to the Democrats.
And you don't want to go into the midterm election, although there's a long

period of time, with a depressed base. That is not an election you want to go in with a base

depressed. You want to show them you can win, et cetera.

I would immediately, second item, is we're either going to talk about the price of Greenland or we're going to talk about the price of groceries. Now, I advocated to one leader, and I'm not saying this is a great, I do think it was a good idea, but in Super Bowl, what happens before the Super Bowl? Everybody's in the grocery store.
Mm-hmm.

Flood the zone, go to a grocery store, hold a press conference in front of the eggs shelves. They're empty or they're up to seven bucks.
They used to be $3. You have avian flu everywhere.
And say, while you're shopping, post your own video, engage the public of what the price of your groceries are. What's the price of your eggs today? Go back a week there.
Get the engagement with the public. On Super Bowl, you have everybody at every grocery store across America buying stuff and show them inflation and say, tell me what the price of eggs are in Greenland if you wanted to kind of get cute about.
I think that was like a really missed opportunity. So is there a place to fight? Absolutely.
Is there a place to not say, now like on Doge, you can sit there and focus on Elon Musk, okay? My view is we need to be the party of reform, not of the status quo. So you said minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has talked about finding common ground.
He tweeted, presidents come and presidents go through it all. God is still on the throne and complain that Democrats don't have the leverage.
At the same time, you said that Democrats basically need to pick their spots when it comes to, say, USAID. That's not the hill I'm going to die on.
When you think about him talking this way, like let's find common ground, are you in the fight mode or pick your fights? like you suggested Democrats draw a line in the sand when it comes to the Department of Education. But here's what I, yes.
So let me talk, since I'm here, let me tell you what I've said. Okay.
All right. Well, first of all, I mean, I'm also a product of my own experience.
I remember President Obama's tenure, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with 41 votes said he gets nothing. He's a one-termist.
Yes, I was going to note that. Okay.
So Mitch McConnell, you know, in the Senate now we have 47. And I know one thing.
I'm not a senator, never have been a senator. I think it's a constitutional mistake called the U.S.
Senate. But 47 is a bigger number than 41.
Okay. And if that can be the mindset – now, we did a lot, even though Mitch McConnell fought us every step of the way over broken glass.
I do think that there's leverage in the House and Senate. Yes, we don't have a gavel.
Yes, we don't have the White House microphone. But you look at your assessment of where your power is, and then you exercise.
That is what politics is about. Now, to the point is, I was, as you know, an ambassador to Japan.
We had a regional office for USAID there. They do tremendous work.
I just don't think, if you're going to, since you don't have the gavel and you don't have the White House microphone, I think I would pick fights that

are closer to home, to the kitchen table, to the living room and the family room of a house,

to the neighborhood and community. We just got a report, and this shows both my concerns,

but I think it brings unity to the Democrats and brings independence over. Eighth graders

have the worst reading scores since the early 90s. Okay.
We have some culpability because of what we did during COVID. There's no doubt about that.
We should get back to the basics about reading, writing, math, and the crisis in our schools. It builds a profile, not about bathroom access, not about the name of a school, but what the function of a school is with education.
Kids don't get a do-over. You fail third grade, you failed, and it gets worse, worse incrementally.
You cannot be a party discussing equity and allow a generation to have failed. And I think what they're doing or not doing on education is both a political and a policy opportunity.
Because they're just saying just tear it down, essentially. They're saying tear it down, but again, let me say this.
Look at it this way, Kara, from a political standpoint, not a policy. How many articles and how much discussion and airtime has been around USAID and how much has been around the report on the fact that eighth graders have the worst reading score in 30 years.
Very little. It's like a 20 to 1.
Now, do I care about the healthcare and feeding of kids across the globe? Yes, I do. But not at the expense of our own kids.
And I think when you're trying to both do the future of this, as well as you're building the party back up, you got to pick and choose your fight. And in this case, from a practical point of view, say the Department of Education, how much...
I'm using... I don't mean to interrupt you.
It's not about the Department of Education. It's about eighth graders not being able to read.
I'm asking you a tactical questions. How much...
When you mentioned COVID, where backsliding happened rather significantly. It was a disaster.
Test scores backslid during the Biden's. How do you then credibly say that to people that you, that that's what you're doing? I'm sorry.
Yeah. We screwed up.
Yeah. Now, first of all, I was against this.
We had many Emanuel brother fights about that. Anybody within first six months knew exactly that young kids were- Suffering.
Anyone with kids did. They were suffering academically.
This was a shanda, as my grandfather would say, and my grandmother, on the American people, and we owe you an apology. What happened here is a consequence, and we need to work to cure it.
Everybody was part of it. There's no doubt about it.
And whether you do it, you start by just acknowledging you screwed up and you screwed up in a big way. And we're not getting better having arguments about the name of a school building, access to a bathroom.
The core function of a school is the basic educational building blocks for your success for the rest of your life. And we are failing on math.
We are failing on reading. And because we got one thing wrong doesn't mean we get everything wrong.
And we start there. So what other topic besides education you think should be focused on like that? Is there another area that Democrats need to be aggressive into while being somewhat obstructive in the Senate and the House? Look, it's both an issue but also a narrative.
The American dream is unaffordable, inaccessible, and it's unacceptable to us as Democrats. It can't be the American dream when only the Swisher and Emanuel children have access to it.
Full stop. Two-thirds of the American people's families cannot afford the American dream.
That is unacceptable. Period.
I'll come right back to that. President Obama ran with hope you can believe in, yes, we can.
President Clinton ran on being a new Democrat that basically it's the economy, stupid. Not a lot of policies after that.
I mean, there were policies, but they were thematic arguments. The American dream, basically owning a home, saving for your kid's education and your retirement, affording health care.
I mean, there's other pieces to it, but that's the building blocks of an American dream. And it has, over the last 30, 40 years, through Democrat and Republican, become restricted and restricted to one-third of the Americans whose kids, because of their own lifestyles and own economic position, their children are going to be okay.
And I'm for the fact is we're going to take a generation to build this up. Don't be false that we're going to do this in two years or on a single issue.
And that should be the core North Star of the Democratic Party. And whether it's groceries today and inflation, whether it's the cost of not just college education, but anything your children need going in the future, that the healthcare accident doesn't put you one, you know, one visit to the doctor into the poor house, or whether the fact that your retirement is less secure today than when you started working 20 years ago, however you want to approach it, and it's going to take a generation.
And that to me is the North Star. And then you drive towards that and making people understand.
And I think what having now worked for the two presidents since Franklin Delano, Democratic presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt that got reelected, elected and reelected in periods of times dominated thematically by the other party, is you have a North Star that organizes around this. So is there an immediate thing you need to do? For example, Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a spending bill to avoid a shutdown.
One, should Democrats help Republicans pass the bill? They're not in a current position to change any policies to make the American dream affordable. You're talking about talking about it.
So let me just finish. So what they've been spending a lot of time doing is attacking Elon Musk.
Is that a mistake to do? How do you do the American dream affordable part? Is it a waste of time to attack him and get in the way of spending bills? So let's go to the spending bills first, okay? And there's a premise underneath this question, not your question, but in the debate we're all having about this is a building process, especially when the brand of the Democratic Party, et cetera, is so bad.

This is a building process, and it's not one and done.

So each piece has to be kind of building upon itself, et cetera. Now, part of the Democrats, and this may be a bad gene of mine as a former congressman and chief of staff thinking like this and talking like this, but my approach is not, oh, this is on you, you're the majority, and fold your hands.
Because they will blame you if there's a government shutdown.

Yes, that's right.

So my view is lay out your five principles.

I'm not here to tell them exactly the five things, but on the funding of government,

here are our five principles or here are our five policy goals, however they want to do it.

I would do principles.

Because whatever the

Democrats say is going to cost them somewhere on the other side of the Republican Party.

And if you need, and the goal, which is what we did in 06, and I say we, meaning Steny Hoyer,

Nancy Pelosi, et cetera, was bring unity to the party and division to the other party.

And my view is you want us, you need us. Okay, we're ready.
But here are the five principles. Now, Democrats can then organize and rally around those.
But that is not going to be a cost free. Yes, you're going to have to choose.
And the goal is to put both Donald Trump and the Republican leadership in that famous infamous Yogi Bear comment, when you get to the fork in the road, take it. You want us? We're an expensive date.
Ready. But here's our price.
Otherwise, go find unity among yourselves. And I would be very – rather than fold your hands and say, well, you're the majority.
It's on you. You're going to own that suit.
Because if they can't get unity, you say, Democrats never came. Because it puts the blame on you.
The one thing you have to know in government, et cetera, is the White House microphone is bigger than anybody else's. And they're going to do that no matter what.
So you've got to prepare yourself to be both offensive and defensive. We told you up front.
Here it is. You never took us seriously.
Right now, let's say you're one week out and there's no agreement. What do Democrats say? Except for you're the majority.
Now, that's an inside beltway argument. No, that's not what they elected you.
So the position is we told you months ago we were ready to talk to you. You just never wanted to talk.
Here was the goal. So you give yourself both the protection as well as posturing for the offensive kick because here's what we were for.
Be very clear. You didn't want to do any of this.
You had no interest in talking to us because you weren't interested in eighth grade's reading ability. You weren't interested in making sure that the price of eggs were coming down rather than continue to go up.
You weren't interested in the scientists who protect the quality of our food, but the air that we breathe in the water we drink. You weren't interested.
We're ready to talk. You didn't want to talk because it was not part of your.
Right. Plan.
So they're spending an enormous amount of energy focused on Musk, which is to me is a heat shield for Trump. I call it a shiny bobble.
Right. It's shiny over here.
But he can do that stuff, and then they are busy catching up to him with the mess he makes as he walks around and does things. They're now on the IRS, which is troubling.
And at the same time, if you don't defend against it, you look weak, presumably, correct? Correct. So how do you manage that to be obstructive? It's not about Musk.
It's about what he's getting access to. It's if you're comfortable having your tax returns looked at, then you should just put them on your front door.
We'll pick them up. Don't worry.
And you don't have to put them in an envelope. I don't know if a single American is comfortable having their taxes exposed and looked into.
I don't know if a single American who's comfortable, especially when you think about healthcare costs or consumer reports, et cetera, any of their private information. There is privacy for the American people.
That is a core concept. And you defend the privacy of the American people, not the rules.
Look, this gets to a bigger subject. And now I'm closing my eyes in a moment of prayer.
Less about the rules and more about the results. That should be, when you think of your criticism, your attack, or your fight, we are defending rules.
We are defending processes when we should be defending the end results, whether that's about reforming government or whether that's around, whether you want to make on this argument on the it's not that musk is getting access to the irs it's he's getting access to private information of private citizens that's unacceptable and we're going to protect the citizens not from a unelected official or somebody alan musk personality the alan musk glimmer is blinding that's. It's about the fact that your own tax returns cannot be used against you.
We'll be back in a minute. Today Explained here with Eric Levitt, senior correspondent at Vox.com to talk about the 2024 2024 election.
That can't be right. Eric, I thought we were done with that.
I feel like I'm Pacino in three. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Why are we talking about the 2024 election again? The reason why we're still looking back is that it takes a while after an election to get all of the most high-quality data on what exactly happened. So the full picture is starting to just come into view now.
And you wrote a piece about the full picture for Vox recently, and it did bonkers business on the internet. What did it say? What struck a chord? Yeah, so this was my interview with David Shore of Blue Rose Research.
He's one of the biggest sort of democratic data gurus in the party. And basically, the big picture headline takeaways are on today explained, you'll have to go listen to them there.
Find the show wherever you listen to shows, bro. Let's move on to the Democrat strategy for winning elections then, because that's really where it has to get to, right? Meanwhile, as they- Yeah, elections are kind of an important part of this.
Right. So- Unless that's not- When I last interviewed you exactly a year ago, you said Biden should run on keeping things calm and just back to norm that people are seeking.
But in your post-election assessment, you've criticized Harris for not being a change agent. As you put it, campaigns of joy in an era of rage don't win elections.
Great line, by the way. Wait a second.
Can you put up a smiley face on my homework assignment? That was a really good line. What do you assess now? How do you look at it now? How to move forward from that? I mean, the part that's jarring, and I'm not saying that I have the answers, is Trump's negativity because it's not been the ethos of the United States, both about itself, its self-reflection of itself, or its culture.
Now, as it relates to Kamala Harris, I still believe, I mean, one of the things I talked to her campaign people about, and I'm not saying I was perfectly right, but I think I was closer to the hoop on this, that the future begins today. It had a break from the past.
She needed a moment without being aggressive against President Biden to find that degree of separation without being disloyal and also positing Trump because of 2016 to 2020 in the past. And it doesn't mean you replicate his anger, but she changed, should have and needed to be her calling card, and it wasn't.
If you really look, she runs a very good campaign to the debate. She did not have, if you kind of break it up, the closing argument and the closing argument became closer and closer when it came to democracy, et cetera, to actually replicating President Biden's earlier on themes when he was running.
And I think that was, when proven out, not to be correct. Meaning that the calm down is not what you need.
The future begins today at a demarcation. I respect the loyalty.
I do. Somebody that was loyal to two presidents, and I will continue to be, and I respect that.
But for her own interests, she needed a way to find her own identity outside of the shadow. And between those two goalposts, loyalty to President Biden and your own candidacy and charting your own future, the future begins today.
Did you bring the future begins today to them? Short answer is to people in the campaign, correct. And what did they say? Well, obviously, I think you know the answer.
They didn't use it, right? They didn't use it. I think you know the answer.
So who represents that? Is there a candidate that reflects that from your perspective? Well, that's what a primary – I mean, you've got a bunch of people running around being shadow candidates right now. They're governors and they're senators.
And that's – I don't say that – and that's exactly how it should be. I think there's an apparatus for them as individuals, both governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, et cetera, to all kind of start to figure out their voice and their ideas.
And then there's the apparatus where we start... I think when I look back, trying to understand not just the mistake of 2024, in the early 2000s, there's this concept that demographics is destiny and that the Democratic Party,

because the country becomes a majority minority, we will be the majority party. By fait accompli, it will be delivered like Uber Eats.
All you got to do is do a tip at the end. Okay.
And we became intellectually flabby. And I kind of think of us now, while we should focus on defining ourselves vis-a-vis Trump and what we disagree with and with the purpose of building back the party, not only brand, but the capacity.
Second, there should be another initiative in and around the policies and the actually working document of what the party stands for and how it will rebuild both the not only the American dream, but build the party as a party that gives voice to the middle class working class of the country. Which Gallup polls are showing they want a more Democratic and Democrat leaning independents want the party to become more moderate or focused on.
I don't think the American dream is moderate.

I think it's a radical idea.

But my view is that's what we should be doing.

And rather than just, you know, counterpunching.

Now, the counterpunching against Trump needs to happen, but happen in the context while also over here.

Because this part's defining you.

The counterpunching is all that's defining you. Look, I mean, think of it this way, for lack of a better way of saying it.
Yes, counterpunching is defining us. To me, the project 2025, while everybody else was doing whatever they were doing, running for president, running for senator, et cetera, there was people intellectually thinking about the day after.
Right. Who is that? Yeah, and that should be the party.

Who will render us non-flaccid? I like all your Dick references. Well, who will? Well, first of all, I think you seem to...
No, it's your talking point, Warren, intellectually flaccid. I use the word limp a lot.
I do think the party looks – there is – people like strength. So who looks hard? Let's keep on that.
Well, I think there's a lot of people with a lot of talent, and I think it's early to talk about any individuals right now. And, you know, there's some people not just on the policy side, but also because I talked about this early and I find some affinity to it, but the sense of it's not just a hollowing out of America, but we have a generation of Americans who've incorporated and internalized a sense of self-doubt in themselves.
And I think in, you know, the first, Chicago was the first city back in 2014, and I'm proud of this, when we sued the pharmaceutical industry over opiates. I gave President Obama then a book about what was happening with opiates in America.
And we've lost a generation that are destroying themselves. And it's not just the soul of America.
It's individual souls that have incorporated this level of, I don't know if it's self-hatred, but this darkness about themselves. And we are letting, cavalierly, a generation that can't read, a generation that is inflicting- Hopelessness.
It is a hopelessness, but it's also self-destruction, that hopelessness. And we can't do it.
It's not just about what new drug will work, that will be part of it, but to believe again and not give in and give up on themselves. And that has been- Which is why Trump's negativity works well.
Yes, it's a very fertile ground for that. So one of the things that you had said was the Democrats had become the party of advocacy and they needed a sister soldier moment where the publicly repudiate someone on the left in order to distance themselves from aggressive positions that are unpopular with voters.
I'd love to know what you... Because you've written that crime, immigration, homelessness, and fentanyl crisis are issues that people are worried about, even though statistics show violent crime is down, people don't feel that way.
What do you think the three most harmful progressive advocacy positions associated with the Democratic Party right now? And who exactly should Democrats publicly reject in order to show independent voters they're not captured by special interest groups?

Well, you didn't, if we're reading lines of myself against myself in my court case here. One is we did look like the substitute teacher and we looked like we were taking the side of the kid throwing the spitballs.
Yeah. Okay.
And the data is very clear. The country thought in this case that we were more controlled and more sensitive to, quote unquote, using it as a shorthand, the woke left than we were about mainstream.
I wasn't just doing it tactically, although I'll play out the tactics. I do think there's a difference between 100,000 community police officers and defunding the police.
And even, I said it, when people are advocating defunding police or cutting police budgets, I mean, I think the greatest example, there's a state senator in New York right now running for mayor who three years ago, four years ago, wanted to expunge everybody's criminal record. Today, he's talking about 3,000 more to put in the police office.
You can't run for office anywhere locally on a defunding police or even cutting the budgets. That's not where the American people are.
And you're telling me the data says X. Right.
Doesn't matter. No, I get that.
Okay. On crime, I'm just saying this.
Look, we got to appreciate this. Nobody walks around saying, I feel 22% safer.
Agreed. I had this argument in San Francisco when they were arguing.
I said there's murders down. I said people don't like their cars being broken into.
You don't have to choose between them. They don't like cars broken into.
And let me tell you one other thing. They don't like carjacking.
Right. Now, not to relive something, some of us advocated also focusing on the carjacking when the data was coming out about murder and shootings and trying to argue with people about how they felt.
That's not a place to go in politics. So, and I, you know, at that time when Sister Soulja came up or when President Obama talked about fatherhood, I mean, this happened at Pat Moynihan.
President Obama got yelled at. We should be able to have a discussion about family.
I say this in our, you know, you have two kids. We were starting four.
I have four kids. I'm the Elon Musk of lesbians, but go ahead.
Well, I'm going to build you a statue in a park. Do you want wood or bronze? What kind of material do you want? I have three.
Someone will take it down 100 years from now and it'll be an issue. Well, you know, look, first of all, whatever one person feels like, that should be that is core.
It may have a political point, whether it's sister soldier or in President Obama's case, parenting and fathering. As I think he used to say, it's easier to father a child.
It's harder to be a dad. That shouldn't be a topic off topic.
Now, people yelled at him about it, and people yelled at President Clinton about that time when he was a candidate. His comments on sister-soldier has become now a shorthand metaphor.
And I think the fact is there's opportunity. And I said in this

piece that you're quoting from, I think President Biden went at the State of the Union, missed an

opportunity when he said illegal immigrants did not actually achieve the political goal,

let alone the policy goal. If you're an immigrant and you cross the border illegally,

it speaks to yourself and people get it. You want to use undocumented, that's up to you.

I use what I am. I'm comfortable with what I said.
It's a character piece. And it happens to be

I'm going to you. I use what I am.

I'm comfortable with what I said.

It's a character piece,

and it happens to be something that people would have looked at all the data.

Now Democrats are flipping over themselves to talk about what they do at the border.

He had the slowest pitch over politics I ever saw.

And there are going to be opportunities.

And a classic example,

I think the idea that you have open drug markets, ridiculous. I think it's crazy.
I think it's a bad example to set out for kids that there's an open drug market or the idea that you're going to let people walk by, whether it's a homeless shelter or a drug market. Now, you want to have different policies, you want to have different discussions about how to deal with a war on drugs that have not succeeded over 50 years? I'm open to that.
But I'm not going to have an open that gives you a permission slip and a permissiveness to a culture in which we're trying to ensure that children actually don't- So that's a progressive advocacy position you think they shouldn't be? I think it's, I would not have, as a former mayor, I was not for it. I wouldn't have done it.
And we didn't do it. Now, I think there's a lot of different ways on homelessness, on this idea that you have tent cities everywhere.
We have, I mean, we started, I mean, I believe in these little tiny homes. And I know this, in big cities in America, you have a lot of empty lots, okay? Well, and not just individual lots.
You have areas where you have other factories that have been closed for 30 years. That's a way to handle homelessness.
And there's the tiny homes that are very, very- These are the Schwarzenegger homes, yeah. Well, we had some in Chicago, but there's a lot of ways to go.
The idea that you are permissive to homeless tents and homeless tent cities and calling them cities within a city that are homelessness. When I was thinking of running for mayor of San Francisco, I said one of the platforms is nobody gets to sleep on the streets, period.
That's it. And I got killed.
I was like, it's not good for the people on the streets.

It's not good for the people who live there.

It's not good for children.

It's not good.

No, this is.

People did go crazy, though.

I'm sure they went crazy.

But, you know, today you'd probably be getting a ticker tape parade.

But to me, those are examples of.

And I also, you know, I will say this.

The people that said defund the police doesn't mean that. Well, then don't use the English language.
Try any other language, but not that. So to me, you know, I got to be honest.
I mean, maybe this will be the end. We have always been a tolerant party and an accepting party.
We became an advocacy party. Now, I get discussions about bathroom access.
The problem is it is literally shutting down a discussion about reading, math, and writing. And that is why you send kids to school.
And there's a discussion here and an argument that is consuming what should be a discussion, and it is literally silencing a discussion, which is core to 99 point... To winning, to winning.
Not just, no, not just winning, winning the future, not just winning an election. I'm sorry, kids are being sent to school for basic academic accomplishments, and that conversation is not happening.
That is unfair. You know, one of the things about politics is sound is not always fury.
And I'm sorry. It is an important conversation.
It's just not more important than reading, writing, and math. And the schools are failing in their primary tasks.
Do you think that happened on topics like trans issues was another thing that worked for Trump? Ads that highlighted Harris's support for government-funded gender-affirming surgery for inmates were very effective. A strong majority of voters think that trans women shouldn't be allowed to play women's sports.
They just passed that rule. How do you thread that needle by being tolerant, like you say, which is a civil rights issue, trans rights are, and the moral one, and also meeting voters where they're at? Does that come later or do you abandon it? It's not.
It's your job to kind of put these in stark terms for that purpose. But it's not that you abandon it.
You just don't let it be the only thing you're identified with. And or more importantly, I mean, you've got four kids.
I guarantee that the priorities on education, when you were thinking of school, you did not sit at the kitchen table or the living room or the family room or up at night with your partner and your wife and say, you know what? Let's discuss what bathrooms are used. You probably said we were going to pick this school because we like the principal, we like their academic background, we like that.
I'm not against, and again, I'm trying to say this because I don't want to go into a witness protection plan in our party. I'm not against a discussion about bathroom transgenders and a culture of acceptance.
That's for the principal to do. And I'm for that.
And an extent of acceptance because a child going through transition is difficult. It cannot, though,

silence a discussion about education. And the best way for us politically, and not just there's a policy part, but since we're talking about the politics, to then have a discussion by proposing ideas.
We'll be back in a minute. So every episode, we get a topic expert to send us a question.
This is slightly off this topic we're talking about. So let's hear yours.
I'm Amanda Lipman, co-founder and president of Run for Something. We recruit and support young diverse leaders to run for state and local office in all 50 states, which is connected to my question for you, Mr.
Ambassador. Back in 2006, you and then DNC chair Howard Dean quite infamously got into a fight about a 50-state strategy.
And in the short term, your hyper-focus on targeting exclusively battlegrounds helped flip the house. In the years since, Dems and especially Democratic donors have failed to build long-term infrastructure basically everywhere outside of the battlegrounds.
Now, while I'm not sure that would have won Kamala the election in 2024, it absolutely leaves us behind as we look to make up ground nearly everywhere and as we try to re-expand the Senate map in the next few years and consider how the Electoral College math will change post-2030 census. So I'm wondering if in retrospect you think that kind of hyper-targeting was a little bit short-term thinking and how you think Dems should think about geographic prioritization and resource allocation moving forward.
Thanks. Well, I don't think it was short-term because you now have senators in the U.S.
Senate from that. I mean, Chris Murphy out of Connecticut, 06 baby.
Kristen Gillibrand out of New York, Governor Walz in Minnesota, 06. I mean, I can go down Governor Paulus out of Colorado.
I think that was 08, but same. So no, I don't think it was short term because a lot of the people, in fact, we also had people in North Carolina.
We had people in Georgia. We had people in Kentucky.
We had people in Indiana. Three Democrats, in fact, seats that flipped and one of them became a U.S.
Senator, Joe Donnelly, and then he became ambassador to the Vatican. So I don't want to sit here and go through it, but I think I gave you enough to work with on there, I get it.
So the idea, and, you know, Governor Dean, when, and you got to go put it in context, but since you decided to give me PTSD again about 06, I'll do it. We had lost in 2000, 2002, and 2004.
And donors walked off the field. Candidates walked off the field.
And my job was to both recruit candidates in districts and to give Nancy Pelosi the gavel. That was my job.
The party was broken. We ran candidates across the country in the districts, and we picked the lock to a electoral map that was designed to prohibitively elect Democrats.
We picked the lot. Now, we happen to do it because it was after President Bush's war in Iraq, the country and the beginnings of the financial scandal and housing problems were beginning to take a toll.
We developed the 6 in 06. But no, I don't think it was short term because when you look at the long term, there are governors and senators, ambassadors there.
So second is I'm on a roll. I just got a tax.
So I'm gone. It's not a tax.
It's asking. What do we do now? I think that's.
No, but well, I still believe. So it had its payoffs is your point.
A, it's had its payoffs. Thank you for the shorthand.
The second piece is I still believe since it worked in 06, 08, 2018, and 2022, we had developed something that had not been worked on, which is that the recruitment, the messenger is the message. The idea, and I'll never forget this, I had to defend the strategy in the caucus very early on, and I was attacked for not recruiting Democrats.
That's what I was told. These aren't

real Democrats because they were Iraq, Afghanistan veterans. They were sheriffs.
They were football

players. They were small business owners.
And I said, the idea is in that district to elect a

Democrat who reflected that district. The Upper West Side of Manhattan is not South Bend, Indiana.
It just isn't. And we could find somebody that makes the donor class in Upper West Side of New York comfortable, but that's not going to make the voters of South Bend, Indiana.
Now, in the end of the day, are they going to vote right on the gavel? Are they going to support the 606? They all voted for the minimum wage increase. They all voted for Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker.
I'm good with that. That was my job.
And I think it's the right thing to do because when you go back and then start looking at 08 and start looking at 2018, our successful, not just midterm elections, but elections of getting some of the most promising people. And Tim Walsh is a good friend, the governor of Minnesota.
When you look at his case, or you look at the senator from Michigan that just got elected, they have a military background. They have a profile that brings in a set of voters that culturally, not policy-wise, culturally were blocked from seeing the Democrats.
And because there was a comfort level, there was a segment of voters that then became open. Now, one of the things, if you look at where the party was post-2024, et cetera, politics is about addition, not subtraction.
You take a 20-year look at the Democratic Party, we have now lost Silicon Valley, we're losing black men, Hispanic men, we are actually doing subtraction. You got to stop digging, stop it, and start growing again.
And to me, the messenger is part of the message when you want to bring independent voters, weak Democrats back into the fold. You have to find a messenger that gives them a comfort level of listening to everything else.
That shouldn't be so hard. So now what? Right now, what should they do about geographic prioritization and resource allocation? You thought about running for the DNC head.
You did not. No.
I have in my life one election and that wasn't, I mean, I care about it. It just wasn't the election I wanted to run as like mayor and congressman, caucus chair or something like that.
I think, so look, you have to take an assessment. So I'm not doing this, but at least on the congressional level and somewhat true on

the Senate level. And you look at it and say, okay, and you have to have some sense, okay,

this is where we're going to be in 2025. And when I say 2025, because you're going to have both

New Jersey and Virginia governor's races open. You have good candidates there.
All came out of

military. Yeah.
And some midterm elections. Look at Virginia.
The congresswoman, if she's the nominee, has a military background, came in one of the midterms, 2018. And I would make sure the recruitment and the testing, not only for governor, but for the other constitutional officers, state legislative, that's a laboratory.
That should be informative to where you're going to go in 2026, even though that process is starting already. And it's not an accident.
I mean, you think about the Virginia governor's race last time. Schools became the issue.
And Youngson ran about schools and as did Terry and it became the issue. It led something to what Governor then DeSantis started to talk about and other governors because there are laboratories politically for what has saliency and so that's how I would look at it.
So I'm going to wrap up with some foreign policy questions. One of your main goals as Ambassador to Japan was countering China's influence.
You and I talked about this, both of us very concerned when we talked last time. On your way out, you said the big five defense countries miss deadlines, go over budget, spend way too much money on stock buybacks, and have zero sense of urgency or understanding how America's deterrence and security commitments are being undermined.
Very quickly, what do we do right now about China, especially deterring President Xi of attempting to take Taiwan by force? Okay. There's like six things.
One, I would ban the big five from any stock buyback for the next six years until they get back on track. Full stop.
Raytheon and Lockheed together did $19 billion in stock buyback and $4 billion in capital expense for new plants. That's just unacceptable.
And it's the only business model I know of where failure is rewarded with no kind. You're not going to get new stuff until you fix.
Second, I'm for affirmative action for small businesses and startups in the defense industry. And third, I would give Ukraine's drone industries, huge amount of investment from the United States government.
And that would be the way we stand up the defense industry. 40% of their weapons today are self-made.
That wasn't, I mean, made in Ukraine. They're going to be enormous force once they get back on their feet.
Well, I hate to say this because it's a horrible way to talk about it, but they have a frame between idea and production of one month. We couldn't do it in 10 years on a drone.
It's ridiculous. And that's an opportunity.
Second to Xi, and this gets to what's happening today in the news when we're talking about this. The idea that you are going to empower your adversaries and endanger your allies is crazy.
Now, one of the things I worked on with Gina Raimondo,

and Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor,

and Tony Blinken, was export controls on high tech to China.

Why were they effective?

Not totally effective, but better than what we had.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and dutch all stood with the united states now you tell me how an ally is going to stand with you on export controls to prevent the red army from the next generation of technology when you just told your allies to go pound dirt this is what's happening in ukraine and with Russia is going to massively destroy the United States' greatest foreign policy strengths. Look, Russia and China have two principles, spheres of influence and power makes right.
We believe in e pluribus, alliances out of many, one. And our economic and physical security come from our values, ideals, and our alliances.
What does Greenland, Panama, and Canada as the 51st state all have in common? So we have now adopted the geographic, the idea of spheres of influence. We've always believed our values have no geographic limitation.
Now, all of a sudden, we're going to adopt the principle one, that spheres of influence exist. And the way we're working is that might equals right.
But if you're a small country or a minor country, sit on the sideline, we'll tell you about your sovereignty and independence. So think about what's going on in Ukraine.
We said to Russia, you get all the geography you want. You also get no Ukraine and NATO.
We get the minerals and Ukraine gets to give their sovereignty up. That's basically what we said.
And to me, China's looking at this saying you're pissing off the allies. Now, how do you look at this? You talked to me uh taiwan or anything on china i always say this to everybody i've said it for the last two years what are you talking about taiwan talk about the south china sea in philippines philippines is a nation taiwan is not a nation philippines is a treaty ally taiwan is not we just finished a military exercise the united states navy japanese navy and the french navy in the.
As soon as you get very clear deterrence to China, this is not just the Philippines. There's this thing called the cavalry right behind it.
We're sending a signal. If you're another country, both either in the Indo-Pacific or in Europe, that has been now focused on the South China Sea, and the Italians were aircraft carrier was just in the South China Sea as well, you're sending a signal that there would be no American allies.
Why would we ask the American, and I'm saying this as a father with two Navy children, why would you ask the American kids to not do something when the Japanese, the French, the Australians, the Italians were willing to be part of this. It's not only as credibility deterrence, strength deters aggression.
Weakness invites it. And I think this to me- So this is linked to what's happening in the South South Asia and what they're doing in Russia when these- China is all over this.
It's watching this. Not just watching it.
They're interpreting it. And they have interpreted.
Now, I say this also. The Russians are referring, you're doing this interview today,

just after Saudi Arabia. They're referring this as negotiations.
The Americans came out and referred

to it as mediation. Well, negotiations, mediation are not the same thing.
I don't know. Maybe it

happened while we were in here, in this studio. Did you see the similar conference with the Ukrainians? Because if we're mediating, that's what you do.
That's what showed up. We didn't.
They got literally a phone call with a readout. Which then China is paying attention to when it comes to Taiwan.
and China cares and I keep saying this I'll say it again they care about

the South China Sea

they have called it

their back pond

and you have Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Who now don't trust us as allies.
Why would you? Why would you? And Philippines is a treaty ally. Vietnam just raised the United States as a strategic partner.
What is the end game here then?

With him?

Yeah.

Well, I do think, I don't fault Putin.

I've written about, there's one article you didn't quote.

I mean, Putin and Xi, they're going to use his vanity.

So we should use his vanity.

And my view is, the president has two motivating factors, his own vanity and looking like he won something. Use the vanity against him because that's what the president's North Star is.
It is not the United. Let me say this.
If you're worried about ensuring that there's no young men and women dying in Europe in the future, we have done the worst set of things to do that. Agreed.
So last two questions. You've been involved in multiple rounds of negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians.
You pan Trump's plan also to ethnically cleanse Gaza, which is, I think, what it is. What do you think Democrats who love Israel do to prevent Trump's plan from poisoning our relationship with Arab allies, the other allies who are now looking at us askance and emboldening the extreme right in Israel.
The president is endangering the Arabs that were going to be a partnership in confronting Iran. That's the danger of what he said in Gaza, is you are on the precipice of finally isolating Iran, not just losing Syria, not just losing Lebanon.
And that's the danger. All right.
Last, very last question. So you don't seem afraid.

You're not done with politics.

Will you be running for office

or joining a presidential campaign?

Well, as I said before, look.

You sort of mentioned it.

No, I'm not done with public service

and I'm hoping public service is not done for me.

So we'll see how that plays out.

It's very early.

Very early.

Senate, Congress.

No, Senate's too small for you.

We'll see how it plays out.

Okay.

All right.

I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
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