Neera Tanden: Aiding and Abetting Trump

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Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast.

I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Delighted to welcome back one of my favorite posters, president and CEO of Center for American Progress, formerly Domestic Policy Council Director under Joe Biden.

It's Nira Tanda.

What's going on, Nira?

You know, I feel like I'm experiencing the greatest amount of joy I've had in the first six months.

So I'm just happy to express it.

Is it a Bali or

I feel like going two weeks on Epstein has just, you know, put a spring in my step.

Yeah, with some endorphins.

Okay.

But you're not concerned at all about the imminent arrest of Barack Obama?

Yeah, I'm not really worried about the imminent arrest.

I mean, I do think it's unfortunate we live in a kind of crazy la-la land that like that we could actually talk about something so insane.

But

my general take is that I have never seen a politician or political leader in my lifetime act as guilty as Donald Trump has acted in the last two weeks.

So, I mean, I feel like it's like he's indicting himself.

So you're saying you don't think Barack Obama is like quaking in his boots right now, you know, sitting around his home, wherever he's no?

I don't think he's quaking in his boots, in particular because Donald Trump Secretary of State, Mark Rubio, is the one who said, who backed up everything Barack Obama said about Russian interference with the elections.

And when he talked about Russian interference in the elections, he was talking about what has been well established, that they,

you know, use disinformation.

And just want to say, one of the victims of that disinformation right here during the 2016 election.

So I was following the news pretty closely on this.

I'm sorry, Mira.

I think you're part of the hoax there.

I think that when you put out your own emails and you dealt with all of the slander and all of the terrible news coverage in the New York Times, it was all part of an elaborate hoax working in concert with Barack Obama to pretend like the Russians.

Yes, to pretend like the Russians were hurting Hillary Clinton to elect Donald Trump.

To elect Donald Trump.

So that you could, I don't know, do something during the transition to slow down his presidency.

I like the whole thing.

It doesn't even make sense if you say it.

I do.

Marco hasn't really gotten impressed on this.

Yes, he hasn't gotten impressed.

Someone should.

I mean, you know, what's really sort of tragic about Marco Rubio as a human being is, you know, I remember testifying in front of foreign relations.

I think, yeah, it was foreign relations in the spring of 2016.

So it was after he was out of the primary, but still like a normal Republican.

And he was talking about the importance of NATO and how we needed strong alliances.

And he threatened, you know, he's talking about the threat of Russia.

And he has like literally eaten every actual view he's ever had in order to be Secretary of State.

So I really welcome how he handles this.

But, you know, you don't need to listen to me.

I mean, there's plenty of video of him talking about Russia's interference with the elections.

Yeah.

Well, hopefully, I don't know.

Hopefully, he gets pressed on that a little bit in the coming weeks.

I do think we're going to get to your CAP immigration plan.

I want to kind of talk about the Project 2029 stuff in a second.

But

the thing about Marco

to me this week that I just really can't get over is thank God those men are out of Sakat, right?

They do this trade with Venezuela,

this hostage deal.

And there's a story out today.

I don't know if you've seen this.

One of the people we traded for was the perpetrator of a triple murder in Madrid.

Yeah, he killed people with an axe, I guess,

Dahood, Hanid, Ortiz.

And it's like, Marco just gives this huge geopolitical win to Maduro, to the communist dictator that he

proposes to hate.

And now Maduro gets to go around saying, I saved these men from the capitalist white devil and be accurate about it, kind of.

And

we sent the people that were fleeing communism to like a concentration camp.

And it's all Marco.

I feel like he almost gets kind of a pass on this because people focus on, you know, Trump and the Stephen Miller.

But it was Marco's the Secretary of State.

It was Marco that orchestrated this whole thing where we send the people to El Salvador.

They were fleeing communism just like his parents did.

And then now he gives this huge win to Maduro.

It's wild.

I mean, even, I mean, that is a horrible story, but, you know, let's just step back.

These people were fleeing Venezuela and now they are being and and why were they fleeing Venezuela?

Many of them were opponents of the Maduro regime.

You know, in a normal world, Republicans would have supported opponents of the regime, a Marxist regime, right?

So, like, that's what's also really crazy about this whole immigration/slash human cruelty regime, right?

You have people in any other time who are fleeing a communist regime coming to the United States to make a better life for themselves.

You know, we did take a lot of Venezuelans, totally accept that, but they were people who are, you know, basically

most of these people were political opponents of a Marxist administration.

We send them to an El Salvadoran gulag.

Our courts say that's like reprehensible.

So instead of pulling these people back into the United States because they think this would be some kind of political loser, right, to acknowledge that their plan was wrong, they have sent the opponents of the regime back to Venezuela.

Right.

So, I mean, if you actually think about it, it gives a lie to like 50, 60 years of Republican foreign policy about how we have to be a beacon against communism and Marxism.

And it's just like, it's just another core Republican tenant set aside for MAGA white nationalism that doesn't want brown people here.

So, I mean, that's what I think.

I mean, I'd love Marco Rubio to ask like why he thinks it's okay.

I mean, would he be okay if we sent Cubans back to Cuba?

No, that would be terrible because they're opponents of the regime.

I mean, who knows now?

But, you know, usually like you want to ensure

that

people who leave dictatorships and who are actually fleeing to democratic capitalist countries, you know, that has helped us geopolitically in the past.

Yeah.

I mean, Marco kind of positions his own story as having fled communism, even though technically I think his parents fled like the pre-communist fascists in Cuba.

But any, either way, just a total, a total gift to Maduro in exchange, apparently, for an axe murderer.

Before we get into the, you know, more challenging questions, let's just, let's just kind of roll around in the upstein.

Suffer a little bit and just in this fucking bed that they've made for themselves.

Yeah, live by the sword, die by the sword, my friend.

It is like, you know, like it is the most like karma experience.

Like it's so.

Really is.

So the house is shutting down until September, I guess.

Ann Coulter, famous lib, tweeted, this totally conveys innocence with a screenshot of the Mike Johnson plan to shut down the house.

I guess, on the one hand, I just kind of riff on what it says that they like, that they've completely, I guess, given up on governing because they are covering up this Epstein situation.

But also, I mean, I guess about the Democratic strategy and how that's, it feels like they finally found their sea legs a little bit on using the limited power they have to pressure these guys.

Yeah, I mean, let's just be clear: what's happening here is because there is a bipartisan but heavily Democratic discharge petition that's you know also pressuring the rules committee

because you know Democrats and some Republicans, but mostly Democrats are talking about the Epstein case.

And let's just be reminded what the Epstein case is about.

The Epstein case is about Jeffrey Epstein, who is a known sex trafficker.

And because essentially people are asking for the files to be released, Republicans do not want to take a vote on the release of the files.

Because, I mean, let's just also say let's say you're a Republican like why are they trying to avoid this vote so much right like let's just game this out let's say you're a Republican House member and you vote no on releasing the files right like we could get a vote where a handful most likely outcome here on a discharge petition is a handful of Republicans join Democrats in getting a discharge petition and getting a push for release of the files.

Somehow the files come out after this discharge petition and then you have voted no, which is what most of the Republican Party will do because Donald Trump will demand that.

And then

terrible things come out about Donald Trump.

So you have now just opposed that.

So I think this is a protection of his own members.

And I think they're hoping that people will just forget this in the next five weeks, which is odd since they haven't forgotten it in six years since the man died.

But of course, who knows?

I think at this point, you know, when people are in power in a moment like this, you're in a scandal.

People are living day to day.

I think Mike Johnson is just like, I need to get out of town.

So to me, this whole effort is just confirmation about the fear of what's in these files because no one

would

get the headlines of closing down the house, which of course I cannot remember this ever happening.

I've lived through some scandals, by the way.

Of course, I worked for Bill Clinton in the last couple of of years there.

Lived through some scandals myself.

We never, I've never seen the House just shut down business, the Senate just shut down business, either House shut down business in order to avoid votes on a scandal.

So, I mean, I just think this confirmation to not just, you know, tin hat foil-wearing people, but to just normal people that the entire Republican Party is in couch to close these files down.

Yeah, when this all started, I think Hakeem Jeffries' point was well taken, which was kind of like they're either covering up something about Trump in these documents, or you know, they're embarrassed because they're lying the whole time about their, you know, being whatever Epstein files at all.

It's not even really an either-or for me anymore.

Like, it's pretty clear they're just they're covering up something that for Trump.

And, you know, you have this Durbin letter to Cash Patel that's like, supposedly, according, and I assume you got this information from people inside the Justice Department, they had FBI officials reviewing these documents and flagging mentions of Trump.

Yeah.

So to me, that signals that they have at least some mentions of Donald Trump in the files.

I mean, not only that, but let's just, again, yesterday they announced, just a reminder, it's the president's personal attorney is the deputy attorney general.

Also weird, just to say out loud.

Yeah.

Isn't it stupid?

But it's also like, let's just think about that.

Isn't that suspicious at this point that he put his personal lawyer as a reminder?

personal criminal attorney, too?

His personal criminal attorney as my director.

Like his campaign attorney or whatever, like his criminal attorney.

Yeah, it's like, you know, I mean, for those of us who want to go into the Wayback Machine of the Clinton era, it's like putting David Kendall, Bill Clinton's personal attorney, like as deputy to Janet Reno.

I think people would have found that really weird.

So, okay, I mean, Trump makes everything weird, so like it just normalizes.

But just now, in the context of all of this, I think it looks really weird.

But so his personal criminal attorney, who is a deputy AG, announces yesterday that he's going to interview Maxwell,

Slain Maxwell, right?

So just a reminder, they put out a memo two weeks ago saying there's no there there to this.

There's no client list.

There's nothing to this scandal.

And it's clear that they never even talked to Ghislaine Maxwell in order to determine the backing of that memo.

So like, this is what the problem is in a scandal, is it's impossible to think 10 steps ahead.

And I think, you know, you were absolutely right at the beginning of the scandal.

It was like, well, I mean, Pam Bondi was telling the truth.

She's telling the truth now, or she's telling the truth in February, but she couldn't be telling the truth both times.

Now, during all of that, I was like, of course, why is Pam Bondi going through any of this unless someone is ordering her to?

But now I think it feels pretty certain because, of course, you could just throw Pam Bondi under the bus with this level of scandal, right?

You could, you don't, you don't have to fire her.

You could just say she was an idiot.

She screwed this whole thing up.

She can apologize.

That they're not doing that.

He's defending Pam Bondi.

You know, it's not like he's known for loyalty.

He's defending Pam Bondi.

Because he's doing what he wants.

Yes, because he's, because basically, like, what's the most obvious answer here?

They're all covering up.

Donald Trump in the files.

Like, that just seems like so.

And like, you would not have the House just adjourn.

and all these Republicans have to answer the question if it was really just an issue of Pam Bondi looking like a jerk.

Like nobody would do that.

Hence the spring in my step.

I mean, I shouldn't, I'm not like, I mean, I'm not trying to be a total jerk, but it's been a rough six months.

We need to take it.

You got to take your wins where you can get them.

You got to just take the joys where you have them.

You know.

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As you mentioned, you've been on the incoming side of some select committees and some oversight committees and subpoenas and all that.

So thinking about that, I mean, if the Democrats take back the House, we'll get to the politics of this in a little bit.

What are the tools, I guess, available for them both right now when they're in the minority and then prospectively next year if they were to take the majority back as far as Epstein is concerned.

Yeah, right now, I mean, I think the most important thing, most important tool they have is the fact that there is such bipartisan outrage about this stance and the lack of transparency that Republicans are feeling more pressure on this.

I mean, it is a little ironic that they feel more pressure on Jeffrey Epstein than like cutting health care for millions of people.

That is like kind of a weird thing.

Letting the poorest children in the world die.

Yes.

Agents grab people off the street and send them to born gulags.

Yeah, sure.

There are other things that you would think they'd feel pressure on, but okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I mean, like, I do think that's a like unfortunate thing about their side, but whatever.

So, you know, that is obviously creating a lot of

pressure when you have Josh Hawley, Tim Burchett, others saying, you know, just get all the material out there, even though they all know Donald Trump does not want to get all the material out there.

So I think their number one tool, which they are using, is the discharge petition.

It is to, they are using, and I just want to say, in the rules committee, there are not limits on amendments.

So the threat of the amendments in the rules committee is really what is getting everyone scared to avoid a rule.

So rules are necessary for bills that are not overwhelmingly supported.

So any kind of...

Any bill that has like, you would get 55 or 60% of Congress to vote for.

So that's what's making them close down.

Essentially, they don't want to face a vote in the rules committee.

So I think the Democrats have been very strong.

And, you know, I will say, you know, it does feel like they are bringing a gun-to-a-gun fight.

You know, they are saying out loud, release the files if Donald Trump has nothing to hide.

You know, I know that it sounds, you know, it's like...

little weird for members.

Maybe they feel uncomfortable saying like the strongest accusation here, but we have to make clear what we are fighting for, and that is transparency about a case in which a man victimized lots and lots of girls and women.

And it is a case where,

you know, it was a bunch of powerful men who seemed to be victimizing people.

Jeffrey Epstein got a sweetheart deal on his first interactions with law enforcement, in part, I think, really because he was so powerful and had a lot of friends.

And just as a reminder, the prosecutor who gave him that sweetheart deal was in Donald Trump's cabinet as his first labor secretary.

So in his first term, he had to resign because of all the interactions with Epstein.

So, you know, I mean, I just think like this is an area where you just have to prosecute the case aggressively.

And it is having an impact.

I mean, the fact that Democrats are carrying this has made the Republicans, you know, go into kind of free fall.

But I will also say, an important thing is if they take power next year, you know, they should commit to issuing subpoenas to release the files.

Yeah, there should be a Benghazi-style committee.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

A giant public committee airing everything that happened with these files.

And also, let's also, they will also should be going through

the actions around this cover-up over the last, or, you know, seeming cover-up over the last, you know, basically a couple of weeks.

Subpoena the people that were reviewing these documents.

Like, if that's true.

Sepoon Pam Bandi to come forward.

You know, I mean, look, they could, Republicans could have Pam Bondi testified this week.

They are not doing that.

Why?

Because they're scared what she will say.

Okay.

I have one loyal listener who will be upset at me if I don't ask you this legit question, which is, if Trump is in these files as much as it seems like he is, why didn't the Biden administration do anything about this?

An administration you are in?

What do you think about that?

Yeah, so this is what I'd say to this.

I mean, I get this all the time.

So I didn't think you were not going to be expecting the question, but i it is it is a question that merits

it's like anytime i say anything upstairs on episode they're like why didn't joe bidens why didn't joe biden release fuss and this is why i'd say

have you met merit garland we're blaming merit garland okay i mean i'm just saying first of all i mean like legitimately the joe biden white house had nothing to do with enforcement on any topic if anything we because of the abuses of the trump administration the White House, you know, didn't engage in any particular enforcement matter.

We barely did engage in criminal and policy with the Department of Justice.

They were so armed-slecked as so.

I mean, I can attest to that

from my experience as DPC domestic policy chair.

We in the White House had no idea.

So I can't really tell you why Merrick Erland didn't do it.

I would say that he was hypersensitive about

any perceptions of unfairness

to a point where I think, you know, I'm not sure justice was always even done.

And I can imagine he thought,

you know, after he's doing January 6th and all the conservative blowback on that, maybe he wouldn't even look into Ghislaine Maxwell.

But someone should ask him because I, Maxwell and Epstein.

But he could have been nice and bipartisan and nabbed Bill Clinton and Donald Trump would have been okay with me.

Yeah, exactly.

I wish they did.

I mean, I wish he had looked into it.

I mean, I kind of think this became like a, this was an issue of the far right that was really pushing it with some kind of crazy allegations, and it would have been better.

I mean, like, let's just remember, Donald Trump was president when Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide.

It's not like he committed suicide in the Clinton White House or something in the Clinton administration.

So, you know, Bill Barr was attorney general when he committed suicide, and Bill Barr's dad gave him his first job, longtime friend of the Barr family.

So take that for what you will.

you know like what is the missing there's some missing minutes in the camera that's all i know i know it's exactly i know also what's weird is you know according to wired they're now three minutes missing like doesn't that feel weird does that feel like a glitch

three minutes missing in the camera i don't know it's like i i just think it's like takes me to my pete buttigig question back to you though thinking about merit garland which was if you had a if you had a time machine if you had a delorean

you could go back to the beginning of the biden administration and you could sit down.

I mean, Joe doesn't drink, but you could sit down with the former president.

You're in the Oval Office and he's just like, Nira,

you have this wisdom having come from the future.

Tell me one thing I should do different.

Is Merrick Garland the thing you do different or something else?

I mean, I think Merrick Garland, yeah, I mean, I would have, I mean, Merrick Garland is a very

nice man and has a lot of wisdom on a lot of topics, but I just think was not

like living in the world that we are in in today.

You know, he just, I mean, I think it's a tragedy.

He moved on the special prosecutor around

January 6th.

So it took him so long to do that that it just became impossible to have real accountability.

And I think that's, you know, we're kind of living with the results and that's a tragedy.

And I think he thought, and you know, I'd say, look, I think a real challenge is that in the Biden administration, there was this whole theory of like, we just need to restore

institutions and order.

And I think there was a just, you know, a broad misunderstanding that politics has fundamentally changed.

I don't think you should have a Department of Justice that's weaponized like the current one.

But I also think, you know, like you have to think about time horizons on accountability and go a little bit faster than rather go so slow.

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All right, that takes us to the current day, whether we've learned any of those lessons.

Let's talk a little bit about some democracy concerns.

The redistricting stuff is out there obviously texas talking about redistricting they think that they can potentially get five more seats out of there i mean i looked at that map and it's a preposterous map that would go from like houston to amarillo or something there'd be a district so i don't i don't know if they're really gonna be able to get five out of there but um

You know, there's some discussions about what the Democrats can do, or can, or should do.

J.B.

Pritzker in Illinois said earlier this week, we ought to play by the rules, but counterbalance might be necessary.

Is that the right way to think about it?

Is counterbalance the right way to think about it?

Or should California and Illinois just start doing redistricting right now?

I mean, I think it's hard to redistrict a little bit more out of Illinois since I don't really think they have many Republicans.

They have very few seats there, but it's a really good thing.

We can't squeeze two more out of there.

We can't squeeze two more out of them.

My overall take here is that, you know, democracy is really on the line.

Let's just be clear what's happening.

Donald Trump has called up the governor of Texas and said, I want you you to squeeze five more seats because he thinks if he does not, if he has the playing field he has today, which is not even really level because North Carolina already did a post-decennial redistrict and gained three seats, which again

that map is absurd.

And just to say, if they hadn't done those three seats, we could be like Speaker Jeffries, one seat, one seat away from that, or like right there, any moment.

So, so you know, like i think the lesson basically what trump wanted fewer democrats died and north carolina not redistricted maybe we'd have speaker jeffries i'm for both of those things okay

alive alive democrats alive democrats

right right right people not running who are that old so so i'd say you know if we just recognize what's going on trump thinks he's going to lose with the maps that we have he's going to lose the house with the maps that he has he's probably worried about accountability for jeffrey Epstein and any other accountability.

And so that's why he is asking to change the rules.

And, you know, we had Better O'Rourke at the Center for American Progress.

And, you know, he talked about this issue specifically.

And, you know, I think there's an incredibly persuasive case to make that the actual way to stop this race to the bottom, right?

I mean, the fundamental problem we have is Republicans are willing to squeeze out more seats and Democrats are Democratics, you know, blue states have kind of traditionally done these commissions.

So what does that create?

It's an imbalance where Republicans can put power above process or due process or norms or right, like the right thing to do or morality and just gain power.

And I think, unfortunately, we live in a world right at the moment where you have to fight fire with fire.

The only thing we can do to stop a Texas from going through an ugly redistricting is a threat of blue states doing the same.

And if they go and proceed, you know, blue states are going to have to do that.

And it will be hard in California.

But I mean, I think they should undertake the process of, you know, like re-looking at their constitutional proposition on their commissions because that's, you know, California is going to be an important counter to what happens in Texas.

Are there other states besides California that could do that?

I know there's some talk in Wisconsin, but they're getting stymied by the state Supreme Court.

Are there other places that could potentially?

New York had a map.

They went through an interaction with their courts.

Maryland

has potential maps.

They've had some challenges with their courts.

I do think there'll be a question of how courts look at these redistricts, even in blue states, if they are looking at Texas kind of redistricting in the middle to do it.

So, you know, I like, unfortunately, we live in a world.

Now, some of us argued like in a decade ago that maybe blue states shouldn't go through these commission processes because Republican states could do things like this.

And I remember really, you know, like good people, good, good, good, good, good government people saying, no, no, no, we have to role model.

But this is exactly why you need national legislation that prohibits gerrymandering because otherwise you do get this asymmetry.

Like blue states go through these independent commissions.

Like that's the problem in California.

They have an independent commission.

And red states just like, you know, almost illegally draw lines that now there's like essential lawlessness around because the Supreme Court has like exited this area.

And so that is like the fundamental,

you know, I mean, we just live in a world where if one party is going to do put power above everything else, the only way to address that is really strong countermeasures.

I have another strategic question for you about Texas.

That's...

It's a little, it's maybe a little touchy.

And so I want to give a, give a, give a long preamble to it to be nice to people because you had Betto at Cap yesterday.

I love Betto.

It seems like he's thinking about running.

I don't know if he's going to.

I like Colin Ulred a lot, who's running for Senate in Texas.

This guy, James Tallarico, I don't know him, but he seems like a good person.

And his Joe Rogan interview is nice.

You look at Iowa.

Zach Walls is running.

Great guy.

All these people seem like good people.

They also all seem like different flavors of vanilla Democrat to me.

And like the Democrats

really need to win Texas or Iowa if they ever want to take back the Senate again.

And so, I don't know, you're kind of more in these meetings than me.

I say it about myself.

Like, I like me as well, but I wouldn't pitch me as the solution for winning back a Louisiana Senate seat from Bill Cassidy.

I don't think I would be the strongest candidate to put up for that.

You know, a gay, a gay guy, I don't think it's probably going to win Louisiana, even as a former Republican.

So, you got to be kind of hard-headed about this stuff.

Is there any effort to like try to recruit people in these states

that

have a little bit of independence from the Democratic brand?

Are those conversations happening?

Are there worries about this?

Or is everybody just going to kind of get on board with

the horses that we got in these races?

You know, I think the thing for all of us to think about is how do we have

policies and ideas that can actually win in purple, purple to red states?

So, you know, I think this is like the big, you know, we had this big debate.

Should we,

there were lots of Democrats who are like, you should recruit like

union members who are independents and a bunch of these states.

Sure.

Dan Osborne style.

You're like a Dan Osborne style.

And look, John Bell Edwards won the governorship of Louisiana and he is, you know, he is for life.

He's anti-choice, but he did a Medicaid expansion or Andy did a Medicaid expansion, you know what I mean?

and like did a lot of good in that state, right?

So I think we have to do really two things.

One is we have to give grace to people who have different positions than other people in states that they are running in.

But I also think we need a fundamental rethink of how we have policies and ideas that can appeal to people in a place like Iowa, as well as a place like Illinois or California.

And I will say, you know, this is maybe to get to it.

You know, this is one of the ideas behind our immigration plan.

We know the Center for American Progress put forward an immigration plan that secures the border.

It ends the abuse of the asylum system.

We do believe there was misuse and abuse of the asylum system over the last four years, longer actually, since 2017.

Started

really 2015, 2016, grew in 2017.

The smugglers figured out the system back

over like almost a decade ago.

So we fixed those parts and also believe we should expand legal immigration and I think and provide a path to citizenship for people who've been here 10 years or longer.

And I think that plan, you know, that plan is broadly supported in the country.

It's

60, 70 percent and can and can be a plan that you could talk about in Iowa and California.

And that is what I think actually the party needs to do.

It has to have ideas.

I mean, you can ask candidates to go into states and run against the party, right?

Like, or you can expand the tent of the party so that it's actually welcoming of ideas that are a little bit more broadly expansive than where we have been.

And my view is that, you know, it's important to offer ideas out there that a person running in Iowa doesn't have to run away from, but could actually strongly embrace and say this is kind of a mainstream view.

Because, you know, the truth is we live in a hyper-polarized world and you can have a great candidate.

But if, you know, basically they have to say, I'm going to vote, you know, I'm going to fight the party, then if you really want to fight the party, you'll just go with a Republican.

So I kind of think you have to actually engage in a broader effort to kind of recenter ideas and the party and our immigration plan is one step in doing that.

You know, we also have to have ideas that excite our base and other things.

You know, we're not like fighting with the base every day, but we're trying to create ideas that kind of can unite people to get to a better, higher ground and not create those conflicts.

And also, I, you know, just to say one last word, and in Iowa and other places, I think if you have a plan, if a Democrat even in Iowa has a plan where they can, you know, talk about a secure border, it allows them to go on offense against Republicans who right now are like eliminating due process or ignoring due process to pick people off the streets who have been here 10, 20 years, eliminate the legal status people have so you can deport them.

I mean people have been here 30 years, 25 years, 30 years, under legal status from temporary protected status because they were fleeing a communist regime.

They got that status.

This administration's policies are so extreme they're getting rid of that status so they can deport them to countries they don't even know.

So I think Democrats should be able to go on offense on these issues, but they probably feel more secure if they have a big plan that does that.

I mean, I think that you're right exactly on the immigration stuff.

I guess I would ask, I mean, if there are any other of those types of policies you want to talk about, about like what might make sense for the Democrats in a proactive policy platform.

But also just think about it in the context of,

I mean, I'm with you.

I mean, I'm a moderate squish.

So let's put out a policy platform that's going to appeal to 60% of the country.

That's probably going to appeal to me more.

But that's not really what MAGA did, right?

Like they put out their Project 2025 plan that had a lot of deeply unpopular things in it, but they were able to kind of offset it because Trump did run against the party, not against the Trump party, but against the Bush Party basically, on like wars and entitlements, essentially.

And so, I don't know, is there not room to kind of do both, right?

Like have a can't, you know, have a broader, more appealing agenda, but also run against whatever people perceive to be some unpopular parts of the party over the last decade.

Yeah, but you know, you could embrace our immigration plan and be a critic of, you know, what happened in the last administration, right like that's a that's a way to also think about it Trump did attack you know where I think lots of people thought the George Bush administration had gone wrong which is the Iraq war was a disaster and he was willing to say that so you know I mean future Democrats could say maybe we handled this problem badly that's fine and like I think that's like important and good I think it's like do you think people want candor and it's important to be honest about those things I guess I'd say you know I when it comes to Project 2025, I think we should be really clear.

Like, the Trump campaign was lying, but did say that Project 2025 wasn't their agenda.

And so, you know, I do think there's an important role for people to do actually a version of Project 2025, which was go agency by agency.

And our version, we would, and we will do this at the Center for American Progress,

you know, go agency and aid by agency and actually think about how we can rebuild them to actually meet people's needs, which is kind of the inverse of what Project 2025 did, but it is like a similar kind of detailed plan.

Over the next year, you know, we're going to be putting out ideas on a whole cross on a whole slew of issues.

You know, and I think, again, we think of these as issues that can attract a broad majority, but they won't necessarily always be like squishy bit moderate or whatever.

You know, I think there's really bold ideas on housing that we can do that get to supply, but but also take other steps.

We will be offering ideas on, you know, I think how we ensure public safety in the country.

I want to just remind everyone that working-class people experience crime at a much higher level than, you know, college-educated folks.

And sometimes, if we feel impervious to crime, we can communicate that it's really not that big a deal.

And I think that's a problem.

So, but you know, I also think it's wrong that Republicans kind of, and Trump does this every day, he creates a straw man between improving public safety and caring about people's civil rights.

And we don't have to choose.

We can actually lower crime and maintain due process rights and respects for people.

So, and I think, in my view, I think we have to answer the mail across the board.

Like, I think a big challenge is sometimes we don't engage in these ideas, these, these debates.

We just like retract.

And I think that is a huge problem.

So you're not worried about the recruitment like me.

We got into policy.

You're not worried worried about the, you know, to feel like, I mean, it's okay.

This is the fine position to have.

I don't think there's a clear answer, right?

Like, I don't, you know, going out and recruiting eight Dan Osborns, I don't know.

Like, that might not work.

But, but it's different.

It's something different.

And the Democrats haven't won in these states in a while, in the Florida, Texas, Ohio, Iowa type states.

And so I'm kind of open to different ideas.

But where are you at on kind of the recruitment side?

I mean, I guess my take is I'm open to different ideas too.

And I actually think, honestly, I mean, like, if independents want to run, I think that then it like puts pressure on Democratic candidates to actually prove that they can win.

I mean, I think my take in the Trump era is we should do whatever it takes to beat back the

assault on democracy.

And if that's a Dan Osborne in a state or others, but you know, I also think let's give people some chance to show that they can get a strong majority, you know, that they can actually win.

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Thinking of different ideas, you know, I have to ask you about Zoron Mania.

You haven't always been the darling of the Zoron wing of the party, I wouldn't say, based on my monitoring of your Twitter mentions.

I'm big tent.

I'm big tent.

I'm big tent everywhere.

You're big tent.

So you're cool.

I don't want to push you.

What were your observations about the Zoron campaign?

What do you think about him?

My basic take is, like, we should learn lessons where we can get them, right?

He communicates in a great way.

He's very candid.

I do think, like,

the lesson, you know, one of the things I draw from his videos, which I find very entertaining, honestly, is that he is

taking on like things, elephants in the room.

He talks about, you know, the New York, like basically the New York Post out to get him.

He jokes about it.

He's funny.

I think he does understand politics.

It's also a little bit about entertainment.

He's gotten a lot of young people to support him.

I mean, I have, I have some, you know,

I do think he should condemn just clearly globalized intifada as an anti-Semitic term.

And

so, you know, but it does sound like he's moving in some direction or to me.

It's not that complicated to just say it's like anti-Semitic.

It seems like an easy sentence.

But, you know, I think we should be candid that we are kind of in a shitstorm, honestly, and we have to learn lessons of victory wherever we can get them.

I also think New York City is a big, complicated place.

And people, even in our party or in the Democratic Party, I shouldn't say our party, where I'm a 501c3, but in the Democratic Party, on the broad center left, should recognize New York has elected Republicans multiple times in the last couple of decades.

So I think, you know, if I were advising the Mamdani campaign, I would say, like, you also have to demonstrate.

There's a lot of talk about, you know, why aren't Democratic leaders embracing him?

I could say they're not embracing him because there are some like deep concerns about some of his stances.

But he should also recognize he has to reach out, not just in talking to people, but in some of his policies if he wants to have a broad coalition to defeat his opponents in the election, some of whom, you know, I think Cuomo did not run a good campaign.

In fact, it was kind of a horrifying campaign in that he didn't actually campaign.

But, you know, he's also, like, I think he's a tougher candidate than some people think in a general election in New York.

I've become anti-anti Zoron a little bit, to steal a phrase from my old friends that are on the National Review who are anti-anti-Trump.

I'm anti-anti-Zoron.

And I think it's kind of weird that some of the Democrats haven't embraced it.

Honestly, again, you can say, I think he has some policies I don't agree with, but he's clearly better than

Eric Adams.

I don't know.

I mean, you don't see a lot of Republicans saying,

like, formally saying I refuse to endorse Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I don't know.

Maybe they should.

I guess I'm not sure.

What do you think?

It's a little

strange that people are not just like,

you can say I would, I prefer him with reservations, right?

I don't know.

Yeah, look, I mean, I guess I'd say I think

I think honestly, what's happening, you're right, it is just a mayor's race, and you know, because it's New York City, everyone thinks America is fixated on it.

Um, but I also think, like, look, I think there's a delicate dance probably going on behind the scenes of,

you know, what, where does he move on some issues?

Where does the where do leaders move on some issues?

And we're actual voters, you know.

So, my take is: this is probably not the end of the story.

It's probably the beginning of it where it is.

And, you know, we're not like Democrats aren't like Republicans.

You know, most of the time, that's a good thing.

You know, we aren't like just falling line with everybody, et cetera.

Yeah, I agree with that.

I like, like, the question was out, and halfway through the question, I was like, wait a minute, I want Republicans to not endorse Marjorie Taylor Greene.

What am I doing?

Why am I modeling that?

Like, that's what I'm saying.

I know.

I'm like, are you like, we're supposed to like say, I mean, and also, you're making, I mean, even, I'm not saying Mamdani is like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I just want to say you started.

I'm comparing him to Marjorie Taylor Green.

That was you.

Well, I mean, they both have the same position on Israel.

So they have that one thing in common.

Okay, we're going to move on before I get in trouble.

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Speaking of the delicate dance behind the scenes, Chris Murphy said something to me yesterday.

Now that I'm a media man, I'm a podcaster, I'm like out of,

I don't go to the conferences with the donors and stuff anymore.

It's just not my world.

It used to be my world.

You're still in that world.

He was saying that he's still pretty concerned that like democratic donors are going to sit on the sidelines out of a combination of fear of retribution from Trump and a feeling of like, it's a fait accompli.

The midterms are always good for thou party.

Why should I put myself on the line?

Are you worried about that?

Are you seeing that at all in your kind of convos?

I mean, I think an asymmetric asset that Trump has and is definitely using is that he uses fear to intimidate people.

So, I think there are a range of institutions, not just donors, philanthropy, like the business sector, who's, you know, would have been in any normal world standing up a lot more to the insanity that we're seeing.

And

he's, there are actually a whole range of people who I think are just basically intimidated into

not engaging in the fight.

And I find that very frustrating as a person who's engaged in the fight every day and just, you know, can't like, I'm definitely under right-wing attack, but like, you have to, I want to tell my grandkids that I did everything I could in this moment to save the country, and I definitely think that's what's at stake.

So I feel like people, the more outrageous Trump has become and the less popular he has become.

And so it is important to remember he his, it's not like, you know, I think there's a discourse in Democratic politics a lot or in like the broad center laugh, you know, does politics, polling doesn't actually matter.

It doesn't matter if people go into the streets, he's impervious to everything, but it really does matter.

It is signaling to other people that you can stand up against him.

And when other countries, you know, other countries that have gone through authoritarian threats like this or Bon others, when the opposition just goes to sleep because it's so ugly, that is when democracy fails.

So I do think like donors are kind of getting

a lot of people are kind of coming into the fight.

There's obviously a need for a lot more,

But we should also recognize that

there is a kind of tremendous amount of fear.

I mean, I've never had people raise to me issues like, could the administration come after me?

And they are now, and that is a deep concern.

But it's also, it's important to remind people every day.

He is a deeply unpopular president.

He is the most unpopular president at this time.

His actions on things that are strengths like immigration are unpopular with the country.

His positions are unpopular.

The majority is against him.

I love that you're in the fight.

That's what I appreciate about you.

Is there anything that you're hot under the collar about that I didn't ask you about?

Do you have any rants you want to pop off on anybody?

I feel like, I mean, we could go on Jeffrey Epstein for 10, 15 more hours,

but I feel like I might get in trouble.

Everyone would sort of yell at me.

The one thing I would say is you talk to a lot of leaders.

A really important thing over the next six weeks into the August recess is for, you know, it's really important we talk about Jeffrey Epstein.

I'm not one of these people who are like, we shouldn't talk about this.

We should only talk about kitchen table issues.

But we have to talk about both.

It is really important in the August recess that

Republican House members who voted for this and lied to their constituents that it would be only minimal cuts.

They would only vote for like $300 billion or $400 billion.

And my favorite, Mike Lawler, who said he would absolutely not vote for more than $500 billion in Medicaid cuts and voted for a trillion.

You know, they have to get the lesson in the recess that it is unacceptable to hurt people, take away people's health care for tax cuts for billionaires.

I agree with that.

Okay, last thing.

Do you ever look at J.D.

Vance and think to yourself, man,

In a different world, I could have been the vice president for a president that's only job was to Twitter, to quote tweet our enemies?

I feel like you would have been really good at that, Neera.

If we had realized 10 years ago that that was the only qualification, it could have been Biden Tandon, maybe.

And your job would have just been shitposting.

I would have been so good at that.

Let's just be clear.

I know.

So, yeah, look at J.D.

Vance.

You're like, damn.

You know, no?

You know what's actually weird about, you know, like I was at government, wasn't really shit posting.

I really liked,

I was really behaving.

And, you know, I liked, you know, I think a big difference between JD Vance and I.

I think we're probably both pretty good at shit posting.

But like, I actually looked at government service as an opportunity to help people.

And I just not tracking that as his top priority, really, at the moment.

So I think there's some big differences.

Although, you know, we both went to Yale Law School and we were both research assistants for this like.

very good kind of cratchety liberal.

I shouldn't call him cratchety because boy he wrote, but

professor.

So I know a little bit about him,

him and him that way.

What about him?

The thing about his Yale, so since you have that experience together, the thing that annoyed me, I have so many things that have annoyed me about him.

I find him so, I find him repulsive across every possible metric.

But

he tells this origin story about going to Yale law as a country boy and he sat it at some fancy dinner that, you know, maybe that.

Crunchedy professor brought him to.

I don't know.

And he didn't know which fork to use and how he felt like everyone around him did.

And this was really radicalizing about how the elites have a culture that

they don't translate.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like, we all went to college and didn't know shit.

I don't know.

Did you feel that way at all, Yale?

Did you feel like the

ostracized for the elites about the fork usage?

You know, I will say, I mean, not that I'm trying to be sympathetic to JD fans, but I will say, you know, I went to public schools my whole life

until I went to Yale law school.

And I loved loved Yale Law School.

But, you know, there were a number of people there who'd, you know, gone to private school like from the time they were two, not like five,

through like Dalton, Harvard, Yale Law School.

Like it was a much more natural thing for them.

I mean, the thing about J.D.

Vance is that the...

When he was at Yale Law School, you know, this is what everyone says, you know, he was Tim Miller.

Like he was David Frum.

He was, you know, he was like positioning himself as an intellectual, moderate Republican who didn't like Obama at the edges and thought he was like, you know, it had gone off, but there was like a reasonable middle in the country.

And he was like, for a strong national defense, like strong, you know, I mean, none of the

gay friends, like, he's, you know, like his wife is Usha, Usha.

Like, none of the hard right hate your

kill your enemies.

Like liberals are the monsters.

I just want to eat them for breakfast.

It was all like, can't we just get along in a slightly more moderate direction?

So, you know, I personally, and it wasn't like he came to Yale Law School at like 19.

You know, he had fully formed views by then.

So like, you know, I think that's just good.

You also, so you're saying you also felt a little socially isolated from the prep school dorks, but it didn't turn you into a fascist.

So that's.

Yeah, I mean, I will say, let me tell a story so like one of my first dinners i did go to a dinner where i turned to somebody and i was like oh where do you come from and this guy turns to me and was like when i was like where do you come from he decided to give me his like private school lineage and say it was literally turned to it says like i went to dalton then i went to choke then i went to harvard and now i'm at gill law school and i said i remember i said back to him i was like i went to public school my whole life and we're at the same place yeah

you're like i wanted to know if you were like from Kansas City.

I know exactly.

I was like, what's what kind of what like state are you from?

And he's like giving me his whole thing.

And I was like,

I'm stateless.

I'm just, I just went from, I just went from prep school to boarding school to prep school.

You know, that's a little bit of the global elite right there, I have to say.

Anyway, I mean, he's a lovely person, but I was, I, I definitely was like, my education cost a lot less than yours and we are in the same place.

So I took it as a point of pride.

I didn't actually take it as like, you know, I didn't take offense at it.

I actually was like, wow, it makes me pretty cool because I didn't have all those advantages and I've shown up in the same place.

But I also don't hate everybody.

Yeah, right.

It's a key difference.

Another key difference.

Thank you so much for being in the fight.

I love your tenacity.

We'll be doing this again in a couple months.

How's that sound?

That's great.

Always fun, my friend.

All right, we'll see you soon, girl.

Everybody else, we'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark podcast.

Peace.

Can you catch your medicine ball?

Can you catch yourself when you fall?

You should be careful.

Do you catch my drift?

Cause what I really want to know is: can you catch these fists?

Level up.

I know all too well just when you're alive.

I don't want your love, I just wanna fight.

Walk on my way to the club.

Stupid is,

stupid does.

Lizine,

rockin' up,

get on me,

giddy up.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

man.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

Level up.

I know all too well just what you're like.

I don't want your love, I just wanna fight.

He don't get pussy, get the boot.

I saw him sipping on top fruit.

This always happens late at night.

Some guy comes up, says I'm a stype.

I just threw up in my mouth when it just tried to ask me out.

Yeah, don't approach me.

I just wanna dance with my friends.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

Land down.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah, yeah,

yeah.

Well,

I know all too well, just what you're like.

I don't want your love, I just wanna fight.

I know all too well, just what you're like.

I don't want your love, I just wanna fight.

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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