Abigail Spanberger

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with a class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Welcome to The Ticket.

I'm Isaac DeVer.

With the election now behind us, we're faced with a number of new questions.

What lessons should we take from the narrower-than-expected results?

Will Donald Trump concede to Joe Biden and allow a transition to occur?

And while the president refuses to leave office, the pandemic is reaching new heights.

Just how dangerous could these coming months get?

To help answer these questions, I'm joined this week by Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger.

Spanberger is a Democrat from a historically Republican part of Virginia.

With a narrow victory in 2018, she was part of the big class of freshman Democrats who flipped the majority in Congress.

After an even narrower victory last week, she and her colleagues have been debating what the political lessons were from this election.

However, the most pressing question after this election is what Donald Trump will do next.

He's refused to concede or start the transition.

This is another expansion of undermining the basics of American democracy.

It's been a running theme of these four years.

But now it has national security implications.

And that comes as Trump fired his defense secretary and installed loyalists in the Pentagon and with worries of more purging to come.

So I asked Spamberger about all these developments.

Before she was a politician, she was an honest-to-god spy in the CIA, working undercover her entire career there.

She talks about what it was like going from a false alias to a congressional seat, why she ran in the first place, and what she thinks Congress needs to focus on now.

Take a listen.

Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, thanks for being here on the ticket.

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it, Isaac.

So you've spent your life in national security before you went to Congress, you were at the CIA.

How worried are you about what you're seeing going on right now with President Trump firing his defense secretary and installing loyalists in the top jobs over the Defense Department.

What's your sense of what's happening?

Everything that's happening, I think, is incredibly concerning for a whole variety of reasons, but I'm going to pivot from your question ever so slightly and just even point to Secretary of State Pompeo's

Secretary of State Pompeo's comments

just earlier this week where he

kind of wryly, potentially as a joke, potentially quite seriously, made the comment that there will be a smooth transition from a first Trump administration to a second Trump term.

You know, and this is the Secretary of State who is tasked with representing America's values, our democratic values abroad, the face of our nation abroad.

And then, of course, you have the president firing our Secretary of Defense and installing loyalists.

And, you know, really, this is a continuation of what he's been doing since first getting sworn in when he began bit by bit

sometimes in very public ways sometimes less so degrading the very institutions and the value of our public servants so the attacks on our intelligence community the attacks on the fbi you know in the earliest stages of his presidency uh was de devaluing the work of those public servants, but also politicizing.

I think if we think back to the speech he made at CIA headquarters

the day after he was inaugurated, and he chose to have that speech in front of the wall of stars when literally not 100 feet, maybe

1,000 feet away, there's an auditorium, a giant auditorium where he could have easily had that.

But in choosing to kind of stage himself in front of those stars, those memorials to intelligence officers whom we've lost,

he was politicizing the intelligence community community and has continued to do so.

You were in the CIA.

You've walked by that wall of stars.

It's a long time ago already, but it sounds like the memory is still pretty fresh.

When you saw President Trump making that speech, again, the day after his inauguration at that spot, what was your reaction?

Deep, deep sadness.

At CIA,

there's many entrances to the building, but that's the main entrance where when you walk in, you take stock of the fact that people who had previously walked in that building, who had previously done the same job, or who previously served the same mission, never came home.

They died in pursuit of the mission that we were all united around, keeping the United States and America safe.

And so the entirety of my time at the agency, the only event that ever occurred in front of those stars was the annual memorial event where every person on that wall was honored and families were there to honor lost ones.

And, you know, it was a solemn occasion.

That's the only event I ever witnessed take place in front of those stars.

And so, you know, to see them utilized as a tool, as I perceived it, of politics was

just, it was sad.

It was absolutely sad.

I mean, I wonder,

someone made a grim joke to me a couple days ago

that

If this were another country where there was a president or a leader who who had lost the democratic election and was refusing to accept the results and undermining them in the way that he has continued to and

installing loyalists, moving people out of positions, that, and this was the grim joke part of it, that like the CIA would already have been sent in to take the loser out of office.

I mean,

the cables that would have been written home, like the sit-rep cables about what's happening on the ground, things are deteriorating.

You know, here's an assessment of what's happening.

But to see the president just sowing doubt is deeply, deeply disappointing.

And it impacts people.

That's the thing.

I think what he says,

I've had conversations now with constituents expressing real concern about the elections.

You know, do you think the things that are going on are okay?

Do you believe in the outcome of the election?

And I have had to explain to them, and I don't know that I've assuaged their concerns.

And, you know, just recently, a gentleman brought a concern to me.

You know, it was clear that, you know, from the things that he was saying, that he perhaps, you know, was not necessarily supportive of President-elect Biden.

But the concern that he was expressing was very real to him.

And it wasn't partisan in nature.

It wasn't him, you know, just expressing displeasure that his preferred candidate hadn't won.

He was actually hearing and perceiving and taking on concern about, you know, our electoral system, because at the highest level, the president and the Secretary of State and others have pushed pushed that narrative.

Yeah, I think that the tricky thing here is that

with what's going on out of the president and some of his supporters,

and by supporters, I mean in Congress and government,

is that they, for the most part, acknowledge behind the scenes that this is performance art, but it's performance art as it's been in other things that they've done that their supporters outside of government and you know just

Americans.

It consumes reality.

Exactly.

Because it's been presented to them that way.

Yeah.

And

when we think about what this does for our international relations, when we think about what it means for our own national security,

we are in a challenged place as it relates, in particular, to COVID-19.

And

our national security and the crux of it really comes down to how resilient we are at home,

how strong we are at home.

And if we as a people and as a nation are susceptible to propaganda, foreign disinformation campaigns and propaganda campaigns, you know, we will continue to see those who wish to do us harm

utilizing those campaigns against us.

Are we less safe?

Are we more vulnerable because of what's going on with the way this transition is, I was going to say being handled, but sort of not being handled?

That

President Trump is not allowing

the formal process to begin of linking up with the Biden transition team.

He's not giving Biden access to the presidential daily briefing.

I should say that another reporter tracked that it seems to be about seven weeks since getting the presidential daily brief has been on the president's own schedule, which doesn't mean that it hasn't happened at all during that time, but it's usually part of the daily schedule.

That, oh my gosh, I guess is maybe your answer.

But I mean, are we, how, how imperiled is our national security in a, in a real way because of what's going on here?

Well, so I'm going to go to some of the basics, which is, you know, back to what I

was talking about at the beginning, which is the strength of our civil service and the strength of public servants who've committed themselves to a career in intelligence.

And so I, you know, I think that despite whatever transition is occurring or is not occurring, it's important for people to remember that there are, you know, incredible, incredible people who are showing up to work every single day at home and abroad, working to keep our country safe.

And so

the foundation of everything is still working.

But then there's the bigger concern that the presidential daily brief exists for a reason, and that is that we cannot contend with problems or threats to our own national security if we do not know them and understand them.

That is why the intelligence community does what it does day in and day out is to inform policy, to inform

the United States's action, and to inform our own decisions about our own national security.

So, in the absence of

a president taking on that information,

I think it is a president who's choosing not to use all of the tools in the toolbox to keep this country safe.

But pivoting to what it means for the fact that President-elect Biden does not have access to that information,

that is

an extraordinary

reality that we have a current president who, because of his displeasure with the electoral outcome, is going to prohibit a president-elect from having the information that he needs to make good decisions, to build up relationships, to prepare himself to take on this role as president, which he will assume in January.

And so the fact that we have a president willing to deny that level of information and informed transition, I think, is incredibly concerning.

But then there's the fact that President-elect Biden previously served in the Senate, previously was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, previously was vice president of the United States.

So there is

benefit in the fact that he has experience in this place.

And so while he may not have access to the Daily Brief to know exactly what X Country is doing right now or what intelligence assessments exist related to this particular threat, He is

an experienced professional in the area of national security and foreign relations, which is frankly what makes it possible for me to actually sleep at night.

We've referred a bunch of times to

your past in the CIA.

I feel like

people

will always want to know more about someone who spent time at the CIA.

So

I'm guessing there are things you can talk about and you can't talk about it.

Let me ask it in the most basic way possible.

How similar was your experience to what we have gotten used to seeing on TV and in the movies?

My favorite is at meet and greets or campaign events when constituents would say, okay, I've got one more, or voters, I've got one more question.

Okay.

Do you watch Homeland?

And then the question is, you know, how real is it?

So I was a case officer and I worked undercover for the entirety of my time with CIA.

And then

a while after leaving went through the process of getting my employment declassified.

So I know I'm pretty well versed on the parameters that I'm allowed to talk about

because it is a big process to go through that and to get a resume cleared for usage.

And so I was a case officer with CIA.

I worked undercover.

That is the job where you are out recruiting foreign nationals to commit espionage on behalf of the United States and then collecting that information,

writing up intel reports, you know, shipping it back to Washington and

ensuring that people are getting the answers to the questions that they have.

It's, you know, some of what you see on TV with all of the, you know, the events and the things and you go up and you meet somebody, like

that is true.

It is far more, I think, interesting or salacious perhaps on TV than it is in reality.

But things like,

you know, somebody picks you up on the street corner, you hop in the car, you drive away, and you debrief them.

Those are real practices that you employ in order to be able to

debrief people.

And

your first priority is making sure that the person who's chosen to share information,

usually at great risk to their own life, is safe and able to continue providing that information.

Do you think some of your contacts have now seen you and said, like, oh, wait, I know her.

She's a congresswoman.

Wait, she was in the CIA?

Has that happened?

Which, you know, it's funny.

I used to meet this one gentleman and who was reporting on a really important topic.

And

we used to spend a lot of time, you know,

espionage and when you're meeting with someone who's taking great, great risks to provide information to the United States government, you know, it's all about whether or not they trust you, whether or not, you know, they believe that the risk that they're taking is important for whatever their end goal is.

And their end goal could be

keeping people safe, recognizing that

a miscommunication between their country and our country could

result in catastrophe,

et cetera, et cetera.

And so you have these very human relationships with people, even in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

And so I have spent some time chuckling as to whether or not, you know, particularly some of the people that I spent a tremendous amount of time with, see me on TV and are like, oh, look, it's her.

That's funny.

I mean, and notably, none of them knew my real name.

So that's kind of a funny new element.

Well, you know, and they're like, wait a second, that's not how I knew her.

We're going to take a short break.

When we return, I ask Representative Spanberger about the state of the Democratic Party.

What lessons does she see in the 2020 results?

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Let's talk a little politics.

You have just come off of your reelection campaign with all of this

in the mix as you were doing it.

You won narrowly in 2018 in what was a district that was Republican-held for a long time.

You won even more narrowly last week.

But that was in a presidential election year, and your turnout was higher, just like the Republican turnout was higher.

Are there really big lessons to be drawn from what happened in 2020 and not just that it was all of the craziness of the Sierra, the pandemic, President Trump, all of it so that the year is just a big unicorn?

Yeah, I think we would be mistaken to think that this is just a standalone year or event from an electoral standpoint.

We had tremendous turnout.

We actually had the highest turnout in the state of Virginia in our congressional district.

And I did win, again, by less than two points.

And I outperformed President-elect Biden in our district.

And I think there's a couple of things that we should be looking at.

It's not so much the actual results, it's how different the results were from what was the anticipated result, right?

Is that just bad polling?

Some would say, yes, maybe it's bad polling.

So I, but I think it's more than that because, you know, I had polling that showed that I was going to win.

There were outside polls that showed I was going to win by, you know, even more than my internal polling had.

But yet on the ground, it didn't feel aligned.

So, what I would say is, we had across the board people on TV and pundits and elected folks and people.

And you know, even I got taken in with the notion that it could be true that we're going to hold the house, going to hold seats.

There's all these new seats potentially to win with great candidates.

I mean, we had tremendous candidates running across the country and that the Senate may flip and Vice President Biden will definitely win.

And then

while we held the House and Vice President Biden won,

even the kind of feel of the election was not what people anticipated.

And maybe the lesson is people listen too much to polling, but I do think that there were significant indicators on the ground that maybe polling was overshooting it, that maybe there was a disconnect.

You know, I think the

important lesson or place of self-reflection for so many of us is, how is the anticipated outcome so different?

from the reality.

You know, and well, I am delighted and relieved and very excited that we will have Vice President Biden as our soon-to-be president and Kamala Harris as the vice president.

So, there are things to celebrate, but I do think that it's very clear that the fact that there was such a difference between where so many people thought we would be and where we ultimately were, that we should be saying, What's not happening on the ground?

Where are people not understanding what it is that we're for and the policies that we're for?

Or why are people, you know, 70 million of them still so supportive of a president who I did not believe was the best choice and for a whole host of reasons.

And so I just think there's so much place for self-reflection.

You know, I also come from CIA where we love to do after actions and we love to be

overly critical of things that we have done and certainly question our plans into the future.

So I'm particularly comfortable with that level of self-reflection on what we could be doing better.

You

caused quite a stir a couple days after the election on a phone call with a bunch of your colleagues and saying that that the party needed to get away from things like saying defund the police and socialism, and that that's the problem here, that

it's a little bit more detailed than the way you just laid it out.

So much of the discussion in the presidential election became about what's a progressive and a moderate, and the establishment.

And I spent a lot of time covering the election.

I'm not sure that I could make much sense of what it was.

It was sort of like if you were aligned with Bernie Sanders, you were a progressive, and otherwise, you were a moderate.

And

which I'm not sure quite adds up.

Agree.

I think that one of the challenges that exists is we are in a time of such significant unease and concern across the country between the millions of Americans who have contracted COVID to the hundreds of thousands who have died to the losses of jobs and small business owners even our most basic human interactions when we talk to each other when we greet each other you know we're not supposed to shake hands we can't see each other's faces i i think it can't be underestimated how unsettling all of that is and so you know i think people are looking to understand and have shortcuts for you know what is the current reality on the ground and and so i i i would maybe defer to you as to whether or not in prior years there's been so much labeling but it just feels like currently everybody wants to have a bucket.

This is that bucket.

This is this bucket.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it's a function of

Twitter taking over so much of the political conversation in part and just people tuning in for less time to everything and just wanting to know, like, okay, which one are you?

You're okay.

You're over there.

You're over there.

But

it's all binary.

It's good, bad.

Yeah, but I mean, the problem that you guys seem to have as a party, as a House Democratic caucus now, is that

there are a lot of members who have won in very Democratic districts and some new ones that are going to be coming in in January who now won in primaries that moved a Democratic district to be an even more left Democratic district.

But we have yet to see a officially

mandated progressive in the way that groups like Justice Democrats talk about it win in a swing district.

And meanwhile, the House Democrats would not be in the majority if not for you and other Democrats who are in swing districts.

And it's that clash that it feels like the story of the next two years or beyond is going to be about.

You know, and I'm relatively new to Congress, so I don't know how much this has been the story of Congress for quite some time.

And it just wasn't as clear because as you mentioned, you know, maybe Twitter wasn't yet involved in some of these disputes.

But the way that I look at it is

we have a vibrant and diverse party.

The Democratic Party has always been a very big tent party, and we have a real opportunity to make an impact in people's lives.

And my hope would be that recognizing that that opportunity comes when we build coalitions within the Democratic Party or across party lines.

You know, I think that it's unfortunate at times that

the kind of personality differences or distinctions that may exist within Congress seem to be the driving narrative, seem to be what gets kind of the most attention.

And I understand it because talking about you know, well, this person wanted, you know, put forth this amendment, which would, you know, make this slight tweak, like that's not interesting.

That's not engaging in the same way and that's you know really the focus of policy people um you know which i i love the policy side of it so you know i love that stuff well can we talk about it maybe specifically around health care right that's an issue that um the i mean this you've talked about this a lot in the past that the push to repeal obamacare that resulted in that vote in 2017 that did not go forward because of john mccain that's what compelled you to decide that getting into politics was the right thing to do you were not in politics at all before then then.

Since then, you and a lot of other Democrats won in 2018 because there was such a pushback on the efforts to scale back Obamacare.

But now just this week,

we have the election results being processed through as the new Supreme Court majority

heard this case on repealing Obamacare.

We don't know what the Senate's going to look like, whether those two seats in Georgia are going to firm up the Republican majority or give the Democrats the majority.

And that means that we don't know whether there's an ability to change the way the Obamacare works in a way that would sort of obviate whatever the Supreme Court does, even if they are going to decide to strike it down.

And all of that's playing out as

you have a different view of what should happen here than your colleagues who believe that Medicare for all should be the answer, which is, and it should be noted that Medicare for all would never pass the Senate.

And I don't think it would pass the House, but it's a fight that is happening.

So take me back for a moment to that decision to get in because of health care and then how that puts you to here.

Yeah.

So 2017, and

for me,

I had been thinking about running for Congress for a whole host of reasons, but uncommitted to doing it, weighing the options, what would it mean?

Everyone says the seat's unwinnable, et cetera, et cetera.

And then the day that the House health care bill bill vote occurred, that AHCA passed in the House, was the day that I decided to run.

And I was just filled with so much concern and anger that we would have a United States Congress vote to upend the health care of millions of Americans, take away pre-existing conditions, protections, do away with the prohibition on a lifetime.

cap, you know, do away with the provisions of essential benefits and allowing young people to stay on their parents' insurance till they're 26, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that people would do away with that piece of legislation for a campaign promise because it had been a slogan, because it had been something that they had solely campaigned on, repeal and replace.

Well, replace with what?

Replace with a bill that totally upends our United States' health care system and all of the protections of the ACA.

That's what it was.

And for me, it was astounding.

that we saw legislators who were so focused on, you know, presumably the politics of it, that they didn't have time or focus to actually come up with something better.

And so that was the day where every risk I ever took as a CIA officer, every bizarre or interesting experience I ever had in the pursuit of information that would allow somebody somewhere to make a decision that was good for the United States and for the safety of the American people,

I made those efforts so that people could make good informed decisions.

And the idea that we would have a Congress not making good informed decisions and doing it just based on politics

really was more than I thought was acceptable.

And so that is the day that I decided definitively, I'm going to run and we're going to win.

Well, then where does that bring us now, though, right?

Where you've got to now negotiate the waters between get rid of Obamacare entirely and turn it into Medicare for all.

And you're somewhere in the middle trying to say, you want to get

people to have a lot of money.

Yeah, I want a public action.

I want to negotiate.

You know, I want Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs.

And, you know, where I think it gets us is that we have to think you know especially within the democratic caucus which is the root of your question um how do we exhaust the areas of agreement so all democrats and i would argue many republicans agree that we should have health care coverage and people shouldn't die because they can't go to the doctor right like okay so let's agree on that so what's the next level okay well healthcare is too expensive sure who agrees on that okay next level uh aca and essential benefits those are things worthy of protection and they're good okay next level And go through literally the thought process of what do we agree on?

Okay, how many millions of Americans currently don't have health care, don't have access to it, don't have it through an employer-provided plan and can't necessarily afford it or don't know how to afford it?

Or, you know, states that didn't do Medicaid expansion where there's working Americans who fall in this donut hole.

How do we ensure that those people have coverage?

You know, for me, I'm a supporter of a public option.

I don't support doing away with private health insurance, but it's about how do we have more options?

How do we ensure that every single person in this country is covered?

And I think that what we need to have is a willingness to see we all have the same goal.

And maybe someone would argue that point.

But in the Democratic caucus, we all have that same goal, at least from my perception.

But we have different ways of getting there.

Let me ask you, though, like in sort of like a lightning round type of way here, if

the Democratic push becomes

we got to get to Medicare for all, then A,

is that going to result in any kind of a healthcare legislation existing on the other side of this court decision?

And B, is that going to result in you losing your seat in 2022?

So I think you already answered that question when you said no way would Medicare for all pass

the Senate

and

potentially wouldn't even pass the House of Representatives.

So I think that answers that question.

And

if you're asking the question, do I think that if we spend the next two years

arguing over which is the policy we should pursue instead of pursuing policies, if you're asking if I think that is the path towards maintaining the majority, the answer is definitely not.

And do I think that for every person who campaigned on protecting people with pre-existing conditions and lowering the cost of prescription drugs, do I think that we need to deliver on those promises?

Absolutely.

And this is not the left versus center versus right versus, you know, all of the labels.

This is actually just what do the American people expect us to deliver to them.

Right.

I mean, people want, there's a desire to actually have things get done.

And it does seem like the reason why there's been this consistent pattern, with the exception of 2002 for George Bush and I think FDR's first midterms that first term presidents lose big in the midterms is because because people say, okay, like we gave you a chance to do things and then you didn't do it.

So now we're annoyed.

And that happened.

Again, that happened for Trump, that happened for Obama, that happened for Clinton, you know, all the way back, right?

And you had some friends who lost last week, but the sort of core group of those women with national security backgrounds who were elected in 2018, you all did survive, it seems.

I'm wondering if you can just talk about how,

because so much of the dynamics of of the way this stuff gets talked about is like the squad

and the group of four

congresswomen who are very distinctive and have gotten a lot done, but that it's just them.

I wonder what your group of friends and colleagues, how that has

been important over these two and now more than two years.

You know, I want to be very clear that, you know, there are so many incredible members of Congress.

You know, some get media attention, some don't.

And I think that the important thing for all of us is that we're not looking to be compared to anybody else.

You know, I do have a core group of colleagues who have very similar backgrounds and perspectives to mine because of their prior service to country.

You know, Elaine Lauria from Virginia, 20-year Navy veteran, Alyssa Slockin, who was the CIA analyst, Mikey Sherrill, who was a helicopter pilot, Chrissy Houlihan, who was the Air Force veteran.

We all have backgrounds that we're proud of and perspectives that we're proud of, and we all flipped seats and are very, very proud of that and retained our seats in 2020.

They're the squad, you guys are the ones that have the actual like national security background.

Do you guys have a nickname that you call yourselves?

So I'm going to say no to that question, but the reality is the others would say yes.

And what is it?

So

we, other people, other

people have referred to us as,

you know, I'm from a polite southern district,

but other people have referred to us as badasses based on our background, which it's too bad this is just all audio.

Otherwise, you would see that my face is red and I'm wildly uncomfortable right now.

And you know, I often say in podcasts that you can curse, but badasses is in a very tame Congresswoman.

Well, I feel like

that's maybe a good place to leave it with you blushing.

But

this is the dynamic that we're going to see play out

over this time ahead.

And again, it feels like a lot of it depends on what happens with the Senate majority in those Georgia Senate seats.

But given what we've seen over the last week from House Democrats trying to figure out which one it is, which one is the path to victory, I'm glad that you were here to help out, lay out what your vision of that is.

And would say, you know, just because sometimes there is a narrative of really trying to put, you know, again, with, and maybe it's the need for sort of reductive language during a global pandemic when people are tired and stressed and life is so so hard.

But I do think it's important that, you know, as a as a member of Congress, my focus is on my district.

And, you know, there are incredible members across the country from, you know, Cindy Axney in Iowa to Lauren Underwood in Illinois to Lizzie Fletcher in Texas and a whole host of others who are really, really incredible.

And I respect and think very highly of people across the board, whether I agree with them frequently or infrequently.

And so there's sometimes this desire to create a cast of characters.

And I will try to reject that notion whenever possible, because I think that sometimes the excitement of the conversation around policy and what we can achieve for the American people can get diluted and the focus on actually delivering can get diluted when we jump into these discussions about kind of the who's who.

I'd much rather do the what's what's of the policy, which I hope isn't too boring.

So, I hope you'll invite me back.

No, I will, I will.

But when I

let you get back to that day job, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, thanks for being here on the ticket.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

That'll do it for this week of the ticket, Politics from the Atlantic.

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