Neera Tanden and John Fetterman: They're Playing With People's Lives

Transcript

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Speaker 4 Hello, and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
We've got a doubleheader today, Senator John Fetterman up in segment two.

Speaker 4 But first, I'm delighted to be here with the former Domestic Policy Council director in the Biden administration. She's now back as CEO for Center for American Progress.

Speaker 4 It is the great Nira Tandon. What's up, Nira?

Speaker 27 Well, we got a lot of problems. That's what's up.
That's what's up.

Speaker 4 We have a lot of problems. We're going to get into the problems.
We're going to spend most of the time on the problems. I first have two backward-looking things for people.

Speaker 4 Number one, for newbies, for new listeners who haven't heard this before, my full origin story.

Speaker 4 I just want to remind people that Nira being denied a cabinet position for mean tweets was the beginning of my radicalization.

Speaker 4 And now we have Gropie McCarespler leading the Department of Defense, but yet people couldn't confirm Neera to the cabinet because, I don't know, she said a couple mean, deservedly mean things about Lindsey Graham.

Speaker 4 It was outrageous. And, you know, I just, I just have to wonder how you controlled your rage watching these dopes be confirmed

Speaker 4 without any issue.

Speaker 27 Well, if I had actually known that the cabinet nomination problem, that whole fiasco was actually contributing to your radicalization, I would have actually thought it was worth it, maybe.

Speaker 4 It was.

Speaker 4 I was ready to go into battle. I was going to put on

Speaker 4 a sword and shield with your face on it.

Speaker 27 I mean, you kind of did. So like, which I really appreciate it.
My actual take on all of this, when it actually happened, was that it was kind of bullshit, right?

Speaker 27 So what was really happening at that time is a bunch of Republicans who had just voted against Trump by voting for impeachment were scared shitless of the Republican base.

Speaker 27 And so they used my nomination as a way to show that they were still Republicans. And

Speaker 27 the rationale, the rationalization was obviously ridiculous since each one of them just voted for some insane lunatic who's like their mean tweets were like the nicest things about them, right?

Speaker 27 They were just bronx, scoundrels, corrupt, ridiculous people who don't care about policy. In fact, really just want to use the government to hurt people.

Speaker 27 So, I mean, I think it just calls a charade you know but i knew it was a charade at the time like it was ridiculous that people who were defending trump and all of his tweets for the last the years four years before that somehow were able to read all of my tweets when they could never have read right

Speaker 4 yeah it was it was interesting they were on some special twitter where they're only getting what you were saying and not what donald i know that's why now i'm like hey i'm tweeting maybe a republican senator will see it

Speaker 4 yeah they had you favorited and you've been sending some good ones. All right.
My other backwards-looking thing, you're the first Biden administration official I've had on since January.

Speaker 4 And I'm just wondering

Speaker 4 how you're feeling.

Speaker 27 That was a mistake for me.

Speaker 4 I know. Sorry.

Speaker 4 Sorry, but like, I don't know. Like, you're looking back now.
I just, I'm wondering how the feelings are.

Speaker 27 I mean, you know, I mean, do we have seven hours? I mean, like, I feel like I need some therapy for this.

Speaker 27 I feel a range of emotions. I feel, you know, we tried to do a lot of important things.
I do worry that perhaps we didn't solve enough problems.

Speaker 27 There were issues that we should have taken on or we took on too late. You know, I think we took on immigration too late.
And I think we should be self-critical about that.

Speaker 27 I don't think it's an excuse for the insanity we're seeing right now, but I also think that we should, you know, we have to be clear-eyed about what went wrong, what went right.

Speaker 27 You know, the president did deliver on a lot of things, and we have to understand why some of that resonated and some of that didn't.

Speaker 27 I mean, I'm really struggling on the economy, for example, and just

Speaker 27 you know, me, I'm 100% candid. You know, we had a message for working-class people.
That message was we have a trillion dollars investments.

Speaker 27 Most of those jobs, most of those investments are translating into jobs for working-class people. 75% of the jobs were for people who don't need a college degree, but that didn't resonate, you know?

Speaker 27 And why didn't it? And I think, you know, this probably gets into the future of the Democratic Party, but I think we have to really

Speaker 27 like, you know, think through why some of the things we did didn't work, didn't resonate. You know, obviously we had some messaging challenges.

Speaker 4 Messengers challenges or messaging challenges?

Speaker 27 I will say messaging. You can say messenger.
That's up to you.

Speaker 4 I will say messaging. What were your messaging challenges, do you think?

Speaker 27 Well, I think it was hard for us to break through. You know, I mean, this is just a huge thing.
Like in America, as Rekline has written, talked about this.

Speaker 27 Like, I do think politics today is about, everything is about eyeballs. Yeah.
And being able to attract eyeballs.

Speaker 27 Like, you know, just to tip back, I think we think of politics as like ideology and biography. We look at politicians through the lens of those like traditional dynamics.
And I think those are

Speaker 27 important dynamics. But the ability to attract attention and keep attention is another

Speaker 27 important facet of political leadership today. And I just think President Biden was a, you know, had been in politics a long time.

Speaker 27 He's done a great, you know, I believe he's done great service to the country, was heroic in the legislation he passed, but we could not figure out how to break through the media cycle in the same way that, you know, obviously Trump does like, you know,

Speaker 27 every day before 8 a.m.

Speaker 4 Well, that leads to my last burning question going backwards. I just had to ask you, which was,

Speaker 4 I still don't really understand.

Speaker 4 Was that why he went out for the first debate? I still don't understand why he went out for the first debate.

Speaker 4 I think that it actually is a great debunking of the idea that there was some conspiracy to hide his mental decline.

Speaker 4 I'm like, well, if there was a conspiracy to hide his mental decline, why did they agree to the earliest debate in history? But I still don't really quite understand why you did.

Speaker 27 I'm just going to be like 100% honest. I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 27 Like, I wasn't in the political strategy meetings. I was a domestic policy advisor.
I was doing my domestic policy.

Speaker 4 I just thought you might have heard some buzz.

Speaker 27 I mean, I think, I mean, I think genuinely they thought, like, what I was told is they thought that one of the reasons why the race was where it was was because people were not actually thinking Trump was going to be the nominee or they weren't really identifying that he could actually be president.

Speaker 27 So it was important to join the race, right? And like, this is what I was told inside.

Speaker 27 Like a reason to do this was to show, put them both on stage, have a debate, then you think the kind, then you really think of Trump as possibly president.

Speaker 27 So they were definitely not thinking that it would go, you know, like, I think they thought the debate would

Speaker 27 go well.

Speaker 27 So

Speaker 4 I don't think Mike Donald's itching to come on the pod. So I guess I'll have to learn about the answer in the books, but I'll take your word for that.

Speaker 4 I'm sure some books will come out that'll tell me the truth.

Speaker 27 I'm going to learn a lot in these processes. In the books, too.

Speaker 4 All right. Okay.
Now we are where we are. I guess I want to start first with the foreign policy, even though you're a domestic policy person.
You're banned by Russia.

Speaker 4 That's in your bio. I like that.

Speaker 27 I know. I'm like, you know, I consider it a badge of honor.

Speaker 4 Are you concerned about what that means for your domestic security now that we have decided to side with Russia? Like, what do you make of what has happened in the last week?

Speaker 4 I mean, obviously, it's been a long time coming, but it's become particularly acute since Friday.

Speaker 27 I think this is the

Speaker 27 most sort of disgusting display of American weakness in my lifetime. And, you know, I think this, the thing that Trump is doing is he has like a lot of bluster and he yells a lot of people.

Speaker 27 But when you just ignore the bluster, what he is actually doing is

Speaker 27 breaking the transatlantic relationship so that we can kowtow to Russia, right? There's no demands of Russia. He just wants to normalize relations with Russia.

Speaker 27 I mean, this is just a bonanza for Russia, and they give up nothing.

Speaker 27 And I think this is like one of the challenges with the media is that they are hyper-focused on the optics of like the meeting with Zelensky and whether he was wearing a suit or not.

Speaker 4 But what was fundamentally who had the temper tantrum first?

Speaker 27 And I know who had a temper tantrum first. Was it all?

Speaker 27 I mean, this is the whole challenge with a lot of the media, which is obviously just theater criticism instead of like political analysis or even substance.

Speaker 27 But the truth of it is that the Trump administration, the goal of the Trump administration is not to demonstrate the United States's supremacy over Russia. and its our general opponents, but actually

Speaker 27 to,

Speaker 27 you know, kind of be a subservient partner. And I think that we should step back and just recognize that, again, for all his bluster, this is weakness.
This is cowering.

Speaker 27 This is against America's interest, of course, but I think fundamentally that Donald Trump has met the bully that he cowers to, and it is Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we have some other news on this front since I taped the last pod.

Speaker 4 The administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for about a quarter million Ukrainians who fled the conflict, adding insult to injury.

Speaker 4 French President Macrone has spoken about how they are now planning for Europe to go at this alone in a primetime address to France, to his nation.

Speaker 27 That the nuclear umbrella of France would actually protect other European countries, which means that essentially they do not believe the United States will defend other NATO countries, other European countries.

Speaker 27 Yes. A rational decision, but also really horrifying.

Speaker 4 I mean, just unbelievable. Again, it's like the kind of thing that you imagine imagine for a movie.

Speaker 4 Like, it was like, really, it's the French president saying, our nuclear umbrella will protect you from the Russians because we don't believe that America will anymore.

Speaker 27 Yeah. And I think it's also important to remember, or actually for all of us, to really try to focus on not just it's important that we have these alliances, but why these alliances matter, right?

Speaker 27 So why does it matter that we have this really strong relationship with Europe to people? And just as a reminder, we have intelligence sharing with many of our allies in Europe.

Speaker 27 Americans' lives have been saved because we share intelligence. They have shared intelligence with us that have disrupted terrorist attacks that have protected American lives overseas.

Speaker 27 And I just want to say, when we get to a place when European countries do not want to share intelligence with us because they are worried that we could possibly share it with Russia, that will mean Americans are less safe.

Speaker 27 When defense contractors in Europe are, their stock is tripling because

Speaker 27 Europeans are going to buy from defense contractors in Europe. I just want to remind Secretary of Senators from Alabama, Mississippi, that those defense contractors are going to be

Speaker 27 basically less profitable in the United States. Now, it's not like liberals love every defense contractor.
Sure.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 27 I think someone should raise these issues with senators, Republican senators. You know, the breaking up of these alliances is also,

Speaker 27 you know, I think we have to digest it and understand it will have consequences for American security, for Americans, the price of goods, trade, the American dollar.

Speaker 27 There's a whole range of impacts from the, you know, assaults on our allies.

Speaker 27 You know, I mean, the whole world is crazy when you're angrier at Canada and England and France than you are at Putin, who's a, you know, terrorist killer who invaded a country.

Speaker 27 And yet, I just think we have to make the consequences of those decisions clear.

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Speaker 4 Among those consequences, you mentioned the economic. Again, you know, we're taping this in the morning, so you never know what happens.

Speaker 4 Maybe we get a bounce back in the afternoon, but the markets are down once again this morning. They're down significantly over the course of the past week.

Speaker 4 There were some indications that there are going to be job losses coming, you know, based on reports. Consumer spending numbers are down.

Speaker 4 I mean, like the economic, like impending potential catastrophe that has been unleashed in six weeks is like, I mean, I have TDS, but it's even kind of worse than I expected.

Speaker 27 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 27 I mean, I definitely thought for all these people on Wall Street and elsewhere who were like, oh, it's going to be fine because he's going to be reined in by the market and he'll never want the stock markets to crash.

Speaker 27 It's like nobody is safe.

Speaker 27 If you think that he's not going to, you know, do what he wants in his second term because he's concerned about the market, you know, which I think he described these gigantic crashes as a little bit of an adjustment.

Speaker 27 You know, I mean, that little bit of an adjustment or people losing their jobs, people having to pay a lot more.

Speaker 27 So I think this is a crucial issue about what, you know, a lot of people are talking about, which what does the Democratic Party need to do?

Speaker 27 And I think the most important thing an opposition party needs to do is to drive the connection between the policies and the impact on people's lives.

Speaker 27 I think we could have a long debate about the American Rescue Plan. And I know there were critics of it.
It was trying to save the economy.

Speaker 27 But one of the challenges of it is that the, you know, we passed the American Rescue Plan. And again, I think it did really crucial work to save the American people.

Speaker 27 But we took an act early in the administration and then we had inflation and Republicans were able to make an argument about how ARP was actually driving inflation. Now,

Speaker 27 again,

Speaker 27 you know, the Fed did a lot more than the ARP, et cetera. But here you have Trump's actual actions on tariffs driving prices up and also threatening a lot of chaos.

Speaker 27 And ultimately, you know, people will lose their jobs in a range of sectors because prices are too high.

Speaker 27 And this is the number one job of an opposition party, to draw the connection between what Trump is doing and how it affects you as a person.

Speaker 27 And I think that the challenge for everybody is that he's doing so many things, he's violating the Constitution, et cetera.

Speaker 27 But I think a very simple frame is what is the action he is taking today that makes your life harder, that makes a working class person's life harder, that makes any American's life harder.

Speaker 27 Because as you know, just to get into narrative, what the right has done over the last four years with Joe Biden was develop this whole archetype of, you know, there's this government, this giant Goliath that is using the Justice Department.

Speaker 27 I mean, I was always confused because, you know, either Joe Biden was like a puppet or he was a socialist mastermind. But either way.
It was tough.

Speaker 4 Depended on the day.

Speaker 27 But there was a nefarious big government effort to harm this person, you know, take away the rights of this person.

Speaker 27 Now, sometimes it was the Justice Department prosecuting a person who, you know, invaded the Capitol on January 6th. But, you know, they had this kind of David versus Goliath narrative.

Speaker 27 And my view is every day we have David versus Goliath.

Speaker 27 Every day, Donald Trump is hurting the American people, individual American people, like veterans who are really trying to help address veteran suicide, who he fires and then rehires.

Speaker 27 And, you know, even when it comes to Doge, I think we really have to be hyper-focused on the impact on the public, what it means for people.

Speaker 27 And, you know, I'll just give you an example that just scares the shit out of me. So if you don't mind, let's do it.
Last fall during that campaign, I was the domestic policy advisor.

Speaker 27 doing domestic policy work. And when the hurricane hit North Carolina, it took out this plant.
It's called the Baxter Baxter plant. That plant produced 60% of the IV bags in America.
So

Speaker 27 all of a sudden, we could have been facing a massive shortage of IV bags. And, you know, just to say, IV bags are pretty important in the whole surgery thing, okay?

Speaker 27 So

Speaker 27 I and others start working kind of around the clock with people at FDA and this agency no one's ever heard of called ASPER at HHS.

Speaker 27 And you have career professionals who are working around the clock to ensure that we're bringing in the

Speaker 27 right kind of IV bags from around the world from safe suppliers so that there's a little disruption, but you never heard of anyone dying from the lack of an IV bag in the United States.

Speaker 27 Now, a couple of weeks ago, most of those people were terminated on a Saturday night.

Speaker 4 The Asper people.

Speaker 27 The ASPER people and some of the FDA people. And we have drug shortages all the time.
A year ago, we had drug shortages of pediatric cancer drugs. So we have a drug shortage.

Speaker 27 And I genuinely don't know

Speaker 27 who is going to protect us from that, right? Who in the federal government is actually going to work on that problem. This is a whole issue with HHS.
You know, they're playing with lives.

Speaker 27 So I think that's the job of all of us. We're going to do a lot of this work at the Center for American Progress to really drive the

Speaker 27 stories of how a person who's terminated, what it means for your protection, your safety, your health, your economic well-being.

Speaker 27 And, you know, I personally believe that when people, when you have the amalgamation of these harms, that that's the story we need to tell.

Speaker 4 You were working on all this stuff closely, right? I think the other misconception, right, is like that all of these people are upper middle class inerts that live in DC, right?

Speaker 4 And when you're having like a huge cuts at the VA, huge cuts at some of these other places, right?

Speaker 4 Like I was like, one of my Uber drivers was driving me, I'm going to do a Tom Friedman, was driving me, and he was like, he used to do background checks.

Speaker 4 You know, you have the people that do the background checks for the government are everywhere, right? Like it's just like random jobs you don't think about, right?

Speaker 4 So like these are hitting all of these, and obviously it's going to hit Maryland, Virginia disproportionately, but it's hitting all of these other communities too. And

Speaker 4 I think that those are other like people to elevate, I think.

Speaker 27 Absolutely. And look, they're now going after, they're going to shut down a range of social security offices around the country.

Speaker 27 You know, that's those social security offices are about how you get the benefits you're supposed to get.

Speaker 22 Right.

Speaker 27 You know, your earned benefits of Social Security. So, you know, I think the truth of this is that Trump's crazy, you know, his

Speaker 27 antics, his sort of everyday antics, can't let us forget the real harm to people. And again, you know, we have had some successes beating this guy.
Things are different.

Speaker 27 They are dramatically worse in his first term.

Speaker 27 But I am really proud of the fact that the Center for American Progress was a real leader of the effort to defend the Affordable Care Act from Trump's assaults, his effort to repeal it.

Speaker 27 And just to remind everyone, and I think this is a hugely important lesson for us as well, the Affordable Care Act, unfortunately, was not popular when it passed.

Speaker 27 It was not popular from the day it passed until Donald Trump tried to get rid of it.

Speaker 27 And when he tried to get rid of it, we as an opposition were able to communicate to the country how many people will lose health care. 23 million people across the country would lose health care.

Speaker 27 And it became much more popular and it actually cleavaged Republicans.

Speaker 27 And, you know, everyone talks about John McCain, but the reason, you know, people forget 10, 11, 12 Republicans voted against that bill, even in the House.

Speaker 27 And that happened because it was massively unpopular, even amongst 50% of Republicans wanted to keep the ACA by the end of that debate. And that is a job in front of us.

Speaker 27 It is to show the consequences. It is to demonstrate the real harms.
And it is to say, you know, none of you have like magic boots around here.

Speaker 27 You have to deal with political constraints just like the rest of us. Donald Trump is not some magician.
He cannot just make everything change.

Speaker 27 Republican House members, Republican senators are going to face voters, and it is up to us to show those voters the consequences of their actions. It is not hard.

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Speaker 4 Do you have any tactical thoughts? I mean, this is, you know, you're back now. You're back in politics role, not in policy role.

Speaker 4 I'm here at a think tank. We do both.
You do both. You're right.
You're right. Okay.
I'm sorry. But let's be real.
You're the head of the think tank.

Speaker 4 There are thinkers at the tank that are doing the policy stuff.

Speaker 4 You got to do the politics. You've mentioned it a couple of times.
Like, we're talking specifically about, it's a broad group, but it's like one group.

Speaker 4 It's mostly non-college voters of all races, more men than women, but some women, people that don't consume the bulwark or the New York Times or CNN for that matter.

Speaker 27 So sad.

Speaker 4 I know, it is sad. I mean, we, I guess, probably have a better chance of consuming us than CNN or the New York Times, but you know,

Speaker 4 I don't think they consume anything.

Speaker 27 I'm not saying this to like make you seem cool or anything because I definitely know you're not cool.

Speaker 27 But my son, who's like online all the time i was like i'm gonna do this podcast and he was like oh oh he's cool you know he's 19.

Speaker 4 he's like what's up teenage tandon i always i tell my husband's always like you have two core fan bases nerdy 19 to 24 year old boys and like 60 year old plus women those are the people that stopped me the most i tell him you described him as a nerd he'll be like i don't want to be associated with you ever again okay sorry i don't i don't know him i don't know maybe he's very Maybe he's just a very cool kid that also likes the bulwark.

Speaker 4 Also possible.

Speaker 27 This is what's cool about you. He's actually not a nerd.
He doesn't like, he's not like, you know, he doesn't like watch political podcasts. He actually, you know, whatever.

Speaker 27 So this is my actually leans into what I think, which is like our tactics, which is we have to figure out how we get these stories of harms to people, everyday Americans, working class Americans.

Speaker 27 You know, people are like, who's our best Democratic leader to fight Jonal Trump?

Speaker 27 And, you know, I, you know, I understand people are really scared and want leaders and are anxious and gnashing their teeth all the time.

Speaker 27 But I actually think our best voices to be clear about what Trump is doing is not another politician, but actually an everyday American who's victimized by what Trump is doing, who is scared about what Trump is doing, who's harmed by what Trump is doing.

Speaker 27 And that can be, you know, a working class person. It can be people who look like your friends and neighbors.
They are the best messengers.

Speaker 27 And those are the messengers we need to work on getting out through all our channels and try to get on to channels where people aren't watching news every day.

Speaker 27 That's a lot of the work that Center for American Progress Action Fund, headed by Naveen Nayak, will be doing a lot of that work

Speaker 27 to ensure that we are spreading the word of how people are impacted by Trump, everyday Americans, across all of social media platforms we can.

Speaker 27 But really, you know, the most important thing, people are always like, what can we do? I've called my member of Congress five times.

Speaker 27 I actually think what the right did over the last decade is they made their activist kind of news amplifiers. They'll take an article, they'll send it to all their friends and neighbors.

Speaker 27 And as you know, when someone sends you an article, you know, you tend to believe it more because you trust that person.

Speaker 27 So we're like really trying to engage in telling all your friends and family, your neighbors, your cousins, and those in North Carolina because they have an important set race.

Speaker 27 You know, spread information. That's like spread information, not on how outrageous Trump is and what a jerk he is and what a bad guy he is, but like actually what he's doing to people.

Speaker 4 On the bad shit that's happening. Yes.
To people.

Speaker 27 You know, because I do think people are like, oh, yeah, he was bad and we still elected him.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Share my rants if you want, but that's not really going to do you any good.
Yeah. Share what is happening to people.
I totally.

Speaker 27 You're a natural person and tell a story. You know, there's this veteran who worked in, you know, there's a story about it, a veteran who was in Iraq and he's working, you know, he worked at the VA.

Speaker 27 He's basically helping patients. He's worried about losing his job.
And, you know, I mean, do we really think that that's the person that like we really want victimized today?

Speaker 4 You know, is that the person that's to blame for our $32 trillion debt? Like, I don't think so. Exactly.
I hear you all that, but

Speaker 4 here's my one push argument, Dem politicians. Nira is pissed.
You know how I know Nira is pissed?

Speaker 4 Because I follow you on social media and I can see your rage, and you got denied a cabinet slot because of your rage, and it was righteous fucking rage. And I will go to battle for you.

Speaker 4 And the number of people

Speaker 4 that are Democratic politicians that have NIRA-level rage, I feel like I can count on one hand, maybe two hands. Why?

Speaker 27 Well, we're going to have one of them, J.B. Pritzker, a cap cap in a few weeks.

Speaker 27 I'm very excited to have him here because I think he is channeling people's anger and rage and candor and honesty about what's happening. Trump is lying to you.
He is hurting people.

Speaker 27 He's very clear in his language.

Speaker 4 I guess while we're on rage, I have two other personal questions for you. I want you to rank who you're the most angry at.

Speaker 4 I want you to like, when your blood really starts to boil, like when you think about a person or a group of people, who is making your blood boil the most?

Speaker 4 I'd like to hear a top three, but I'll take one if you only have one.

Speaker 27 I think like really every Republican who lectured a Democrat about norms and proper behavior, you know, I might be a little bit focused on that.

Speaker 4 Roger Wicker, all the random, all the random Republicans.

Speaker 27 All of these people who are like,

Speaker 27 you know, Biden didn't call us about something and that's like socialism. And then they're just on a dime, willing to basically bend anything.

Speaker 4 But when you talk about that group of Republicans, who are you envisioning in your mind's eye?

Speaker 27 Okay, but now you're basically saying, will you please say Susan Collins so that I can reaffirm this?

Speaker 4 No, it's different for all of us. It's Dave McCormick for me.
Everybody has their own triggering person. Dude, though, Tom Tillis is coming up close behind.
Okay, let's go. Tom Tillis.

Speaker 27 Let's go with Tom Tillis because, you know, he has a Senate race. And right now, he's acting like there's no general election.

Speaker 27 He only has to worry about a primary, which means he's actually thinking every Democrat in North Carolina is a sucker.

Speaker 27 And my view of that is you should prove him wrong by actually trying to engage your friends and neighbors and telling them there is actually a Senate race and he actually is accountable to the entire state, not just a Republican base.

Speaker 4 Are the Genocide Joe people in your top three? Or do they not? Do they follow?

Speaker 27 I mean, they're not in my top three because, you know, I honestly believe many people were anxious about the war. I just wish they would be a little bit more vocal.

Speaker 27 I mean, I do think people should be protesting Trump.

Speaker 4 Trump. Sometimes.

Speaker 4 That would be an interesting idea. Maybe protest Trump.
And he's trying to purchase Gaza. Okay.

Speaker 4 I joked earlier about whether you are worried about your legal status here since you've been banned by Russia. But seriously, now you're the head of a

Speaker 4 Target. And a lot of people out there are worried about Ed Martin and Pam Bondi and the lawless kind of actions that we're seeing.

Speaker 4 How worried are you about this administration coming after political folks?

Speaker 27 I am very worried about this administration coming after political folks. But I really want to separate this out because I do think their fear and intimidation is a tactic to silence people.

Speaker 27 So, and I do think there are democratic leaders who say, oh, maybe we shouldn't protest because that'll be an excuse for them to use martial law. And we cannot have pre-cowering, pre-obeyance.

Speaker 27 So, you know, I'm a little worried that

Speaker 27 the more effective we are, the more they'll come after us. But I think, you know, you cannot be scared.

Speaker 27 If you let them get into your head that they will scare you, you will, you know, you'll, you'll come back a little bit from your criticism. You'll, you'll not protest, instead of protest.

Speaker 27 You'll take actions. And like, this is exactly how democracies fail.
So my view is I'm going to fight like hell. I'm going to act like this is still a democracy and I can fight like hell.

Speaker 27 And if they come at, you know, I'm not going to be insane, but if they come after me, then, you know, I'm going to expect that there are other fighters in this army that we're in, and they will use that as an argument for the rest of the country that we've gone off the deep end.

Speaker 4 I knew that'd be your answer. That's why I asked that.
All right. I've got Federman up next.
Do you have any questions for him? Center for American Progress.

Speaker 4 Anything you'd like for me to raise?

Speaker 27 I feel like you'll channel many of my questions. Okay.

Speaker 4 Thank you for the trust, and thank you to the fucking awesome son that you've raised, who is like obviously at keg parties and like hanging out and dating people and very popular.

Speaker 27 That was worth that the embarrassment of being popular.

Speaker 4 Very, I'm sure you're very popular, very smart, very engaged. Son, congrats on that, Nira.
I appreciate you. Let's do this.
I don't know, you know, every six weeks or so. Let's do a check-in, huh?

Speaker 4 All right, all right, great to see you. I appreciate it very much.
Up next, John Fetterman.

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Speaker 4 All right, we are back with the senior Democratic senator from Pennsylvania. It's John Fetterman.

Speaker 4 I've done a wardrobe change, you know, and in your spirit, I am like your number one apologist about wearing the hoodie on the floor. No, there's no need to wear a suit for these people.

Speaker 4 All right, so you just keep doing you.

Speaker 29 The truth story behind the hoodie thing, it's like I never went to anybody or Schumer, anyone to ask for that. You know, I read about that.

Speaker 29 I'm like, oh, I'm like, I never asked for those kinds of things. I was never going to like just give speeches, you know, hoodie there.

Speaker 29 So,

Speaker 29 but, but, but for me, I'm a comfort guy, and I'm also, I'm also a lazy man, and I don't have to iron it. It's just easy to wash it and I'm ready to go.
And plus, it's hard to find suits, too.

Speaker 4 Well, I appreciate it. I wanted to have you on.

Speaker 4 You really spoke out this week in defense of trans athletes. And I wanted to start there, and then we'll get into some Trump stuff.

Speaker 4 But you wrote this: the small handful of trans athletes in Pennsylvania are in a political maelstrom. They deserve an ally, and I am one.

Speaker 4 Empty show votes or cruelty on social media aren't part of a thoughtful, dignified solution. What made you jump out so aggressively on that? And what do you think a more thoughtful solution would be?

Speaker 29 Well, because for me, it's been born from my commitment to never to pick on anybody i mean when i was when i was very young i got bullied and picked on and and and that really kind of shaped a lot of my experience and i'm not part of those communities you know lgbtq kinds of things but now like that really started when i was a small town mayor when gay marriage was illegal literally it was illegal and then then there was an opportunity there was uh someone uh starting to sign those things and i said a hundred percent i got on tv i'm like i'll sign them come with me and that was illegal and then the governor at the time threatened to have me arrested and and i said well hey you know you know where i live bring it bring it and i signed for those things and that was the first i was at the time the only official in pennsylvania willing to sign those and they all became legal and that was back in 2013 and so it's the same kind of thing uh it's like marriage equality I really support that.

Speaker 29 And if I was convicted of that crime, because technically it was a crime, I'm like, well, hey, then that might be the end of my political career.

Speaker 29 But, you know, I'll never, you know, degrade somebody based on who they love.

Speaker 29 And now for this, and I'm not dumb either. I know the polling.
And now a lot of people are saying it's absurd, it is absurd, kinds of thing. And now,

Speaker 29 so for me, that's when I felt like it's a time to really say, look, now for me, it's about I'm not going to bully or I'm not going to degrade those.

Speaker 29 And now, you know, we're a 13 million people in our state, and that's a small, small number of people that are involved on that.

Speaker 29 And I have a 13-year-old daughter, and she plays basketball, and I'm not a raid that she's going to get mowed down.

Speaker 29 But for me, it turns into an issue that is more appropriate to be handled on at a very hyper-local level and not dropping them into a meat grinder and national thins and weaponizing that.

Speaker 29 And I know, I'm not dumb. I know there'll be commercials saying, you know, Fetterman's for they, them, and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, hey, you know, like, bring it in.

Speaker 29 I'm not afraid to stand for my side on that because for these kids, for me, how difficult that it is. And now in this kinds of a world, nuance goes to die.

Speaker 29 And having a more meaningful conversation on that, it's difficult right now. So for me, you know,

Speaker 29 I made that choice.

Speaker 29 And I could have tried to kept my head down like a lot of my other colleagues decided to do that but but for me even though i know it's uh politically unpopular i think that's the kind of time to do that and i do i do believe that a person's character is defined by the things that they're willing to do even if that moves against their political interests well i appreciate that maybe i should have got married in braddock because it was like not till five years later that i got my gay marriage you know i it is just one more thing on the nuance of this it's just worth saying i martina navitilova not a liberal i saw her tweeting at you on you know, saying that, I don't know, it's different for teen girls.

Speaker 4 And Gavin Newsom, big progressive, said that he is breaking with Democrats on youth sports. So I don't know.

Speaker 29 You know, he's, in my opinion, he's going to get the worst of both worlds of that. I mean, he's going to be seen as just flip-flopping, and

Speaker 29 he's going to anger his progressive base.

Speaker 29 And we all know why he's doing those kinds of things.

Speaker 29 And then on the other side are going to know why he's making those kind of changes so for for me like it's like he's going to own the worst of both of those worlds for that to me i the clearer one is the trans military thing that's the one that i liked you i see the nuance of the youth sports issue i i i did a video i'm like look i mean it was not there was a time when it wasn't controversial desegregating the the military was incredibly controversial at the time i'm not going to serve i'm not going to fight i'm not going to bunk with with with black soldiers now of course that needed to change and then there was I'm old enough to remember when don't tell don't ask thing and now I it's like regardless of who you who you love I mean you know that doesn't make you more lethal or more suitable to be a soldier based on who you love that was really front and center with the hegseth nomination well what about women in combat and now based on their gender and you know when you have gender neutral kinds of things that and then it's it shouldn't matter based on your gender.

Speaker 29 And now, so, regardless on how you identify, you know, that doesn't make you any more or less lethal.

Speaker 29 And as long as you're able to meet those kinds of a standard, for me, it's about, it's about the dignity, the dignity of the soldier.

Speaker 29 And I'm not going to degrade that based on their race, obviously, on their gender, on who they love, and not how

Speaker 29 they identify. And that's why I did that video, knowing that it's not politically popular.

Speaker 29 So that's why I decided to lean on that, because I think it's it's part of that narrative, that arc of whether what was really controversial and unthinkable based on race, and now we're along that arc.

Speaker 4 I think the military one might become popular framed the right way.

Speaker 4 The idea that like a draft dodging guy wearing makeup is going to ban people who volunteered to serve based on their gender identity, it's fucking, it's sick. It's gross to me.

Speaker 29 It was considered controversial.

Speaker 29 It's like based on you who you who you love i like i i don't understand that and and i'm like for me like for for i say to my conservative friends it's like it's about freedom freedom it's one those are the kinds of the fundamental kinds of things on you know i love the freedom to love who you love and and now if you have that kinds of internal conflict about your gender you know i i didn't experience those kinds of things but i know people that that have and they are coming from a very sincere place and they are trying to live you know their their truths and i don't think uh that they don't deserve to be ridiculed or uh turned into pariahs and definitely you know teenagers especially i'm not going to be part of dropping them into that meat grinder what'd you make of the uh the zelensky meeting on friday and the way that uh the president's been treating our ally ukraine cutting off intelligence and now i guess a report this morning potentially getting rid of legal status for ukrainian feel it's like asylum I've been unapologetically pro-Ukraine.

Speaker 29 You know, I'm like, one of the best things I've ever done as a senator, I voted for the aid for Israel, for Ukraine and Taiwan. I mean, like, for me, that's a global struggle against democracy.

Speaker 29 And obviously, Russia was the aggressor. When I'm old enough, I've said this before.
I'm like, when I grew up, I'm like Red Dawn. I'm like, you're cheering for the Wolverines, the Wolverines.

Speaker 29 And Russia was the evil empire, and it is. It is.
If you disagree with Putin, two days later, they find you because you fell out of a window.

Speaker 29 So I absolutely didn't agree with what happened in the White House, but I didn't jump online and started yelling. But two things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 29 I certainly didn't appreciate what happened in the White House, but it's also also undeniable that Ukraine doesn't have,

Speaker 29 you know, he doesn't have all the cards. I mean, what's true now, too?

Speaker 29 The president is the commander of chief, and he has the ability to shape and and and really alter the contour of that and if we're moving towards peace you know i don't want to inflame that situation i mean we're not come on we're not moving towards peace what evidence is there that putin wants peace and trump has not asked putin for anything what has trump asked putin for as part of peace Again, Putin is a killer.

Speaker 29 And of course, Russia is our enemy, always. And that hasn't gone to change.
My hope is, is that it is moving towards, because I do not believe that the war in Ukraine is sustainable.

Speaker 29 And I have met amputees. I have met them.
I have met them. And they're getting all back to the front line.
And now, if you're sending those wounded men there, it's a terrible situation.

Speaker 29 And if there's a path for peace, I don't agree those kinds of terms necessarily. And I fully support seizing.
There's about 218 billion of seized Russian assets.

Speaker 29 And I'm absolutely like they need to seize that. And those are the kind of assets that should rebuild it.

Speaker 29 We should rebuild that and i don't think we should extract those kinds of funds uh you know and repaid uh repaid my my our nation our nation i thought it was always a bargain to break and humiliate the russia military and demonstrated their lack of capabilities

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Speaker 4 Talking about not jumping online and being alarmed, you wrote after Trump's whatever that was, not State of the Union speech, the address to Congress, that your colleagues participated in a sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance, said

Speaker 4 we are becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to. I don't know, though.
Aren't we in car alarm territory? Isn't a time for alarm?

Speaker 29 What I'm saying, though, is like, of course,

Speaker 29 there are things that are concerned, but without realizing the circumstances and part of the reasons why we ended up in this place. I mean, I'm a big believer in American democracy.

Speaker 29 And right now, when we're 53 and 47 in the Senate here, and they own the government right now, and of course, they're going to lose the house. I hope they're going to lose the house.

Speaker 29 So they're going to do a lot of these things. I don't agree with a lot of those things.

Speaker 29 You know, do you think what they did during the SOTU, if you thought that was smart messaging, if you landed, I mean,

Speaker 29 I don't agree with that.

Speaker 4 No, I didn't think it was smart. I agreed with you on that.
But I guess I'd just say this. Trump, I looked at your phrase, unhinged petulance.

Speaker 4 I can't think of a phrase that better describes Donald Trump than unhinged petulance. All he did was call Joe Biden dementia Joe.
He yelled and he screamed and he posted and he bleeded.

Speaker 4 He did embarrassing things. And in the end, he convinced a lot of people.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 Isn't politics, part of politics, telling people about all of the terrible things that the opposing party is doing?

Speaker 4 I didn't really think that what happened at the State of the Union was particularly good, but I think that Democrats should be louder, not quieter. What do you think about that?

Speaker 29 What I'm saying, though, is what I witnessed wasn't helpful, and that wasn't moving the ball for Democrats.

Speaker 29 I don't believe that. And if you can't just all stand and cheer for a 13-year-old boy that got, I mean, I have a 13-year-old myself, you know, got over cancer.
I mean, that's

Speaker 29 that's wrong message.

Speaker 4 I agree. Can't you do both?

Speaker 29 And again, I remember, I remember, I remember when Joe Wilson, Joe Wilson, that jerk off yelled, you lie, you lie, you know, and and everyone recoiled and like that was appalled by that.

Speaker 4 and it's like yeah so so now we became the joe wilson of 2025 and and that was a loser in 2009 and and i don't think that's a winner or it's appropriate anymore now in 2025 yeah i agree when it comes to the behavior in the room i'm talking a little broader than that i guess my point is can't you stand and cheer for the 13 year old with with the brain cancer and then also the next day go out and say donald trump and elon musk are acting illegally they're firing vets at the va Donald Trump is abandoning.

Speaker 29 I don't agree with all those things. I don't understand what their upside is.
I don't know what they get out of a lot of that chaos.

Speaker 29 But now they seem to be wanting to triple down on some of that kinds of thing. But I do believe, you know, core is that if you become the party of chaos, you lose.

Speaker 29 And the second Americans decide, it's like, you know, people aren't going to vote for chaos. And if you can, can you create more and more and more kinds of chaos?

Speaker 29 Again, of course, there is going to be a backlash. So that's where we're at.

Speaker 4 I defined defined your strategy the other day to somebody, and you can tell me if this is wrong, and maybe this isn't a strategy. Maybe you're just being you.

Speaker 4 As you're basically voting with the Democrats on most everything, a couple of things, no, but like most everything, you're voting with the Democrats, but you're spending a lot of time talking about how they're annoying.

Speaker 4 Not most of them.

Speaker 29 The border, the border. You know, like I really pushed and got Lacan, you know, I was like the co-sponsor for Lakin.
That's true. And then Israel, Israel, absolutely.
You know, like, you know, so not

Speaker 4 most of the of the time.

Speaker 4 People

Speaker 4 were saying that you were going to vote for the cabinet appointees. I'm like, you know, again, on certain issues on immigration, on Israel, there have been policy differences from some in your party.

Speaker 4 But a lot of the times you've been, you, you're still a, I mean, you endorse Bernie, like you're still a pretty. liberal person on most issues, right? And you're just, it's just your rhetoric.

Speaker 29 It was like eight or nine years ago, I mean, and that was about very basic kinds of things. And like I've described, it's like, you know, the label left me, you know, like it wasn't that.

Speaker 29 So eight years ago, the world, you know, the world was much different. People thought that it was unthinkable that Donald Trump could win.
And he did.

Speaker 29 Now, I would like to remind everybody, Trump, you know, won two out of the three last cycles, and he nearly could have won the 2020. So why? And I'm trying to figure out a way forward.

Speaker 29 You know, hey, I wish I had a deep blue state or a district and I can yell and get on and be like, ah, you know, but that's easy, you know, and I'm, and then they can monetize that and they can jump on an email and raise money for them, their campaign for that thing.

Speaker 29 But for me, I'm trying to find a way forward for our party. And I'm not going to be a mansion.
I'm not going to be, you know, I'm not going to go independent or doing all those kinds of things.

Speaker 29 But, you know, when you represent one of the most purple land in the country, and I don't believe, I stop believing on like cheap heat online and just yelling just because I don't agree with it on the time.

Speaker 29 If you yell at everything, then everything just becomes absurd. That's why, you know, does anybody call the police when they see or hear a car alarm going off?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 29 You know, no. People ignore that.
So if everything, you know, and the world is on fire and that actually doesn't happen, people stop listening or just assume that that's really what you do.

Speaker 29 So I want to be very selective. And now, like, a constitutional crisis.

Speaker 29 The second the president defies the Supreme Court or any of that, that defines, that's literally the definition of a constitutional crisis.

Speaker 29 And I'd be the first person to just be like, no, we have a, you know, so I think if you pick your own fights, so I like to believe that, you know, your words will matter more if it's not always spending time yelling and saying that the world's going to end.

Speaker 4 You said you think the left or the progressives or whatever left you. Like, what do you think changed? Right.
I mean, because look, and Twit's funny, in 2015, you were endorsing Bernie in 2016.

Speaker 4 I was for Jeb, you know, so like, here we are. So something's changed.
And people kind of wonder whether you've changed, but I guess you're saying that you don't think you've changed.

Speaker 4 You think that the progressives has changed or have you changed?

Speaker 29 Well, I think it's both. I mean, for me, if anything, what happened about Israel?

Speaker 29 What happened on 10-7?

Speaker 29 A lot certainly changed.

Speaker 29 I was shocked of the way that members of my party, the way they behaved for that. And also the border.
I mean, if you've been on my social media, I dropped a chart.

Speaker 29 And it's like, you know, what's real chaos? What's real chaos? You know,

Speaker 29 250,000, 300,000 people showing up at our border every month. That's the size of Pittsburgh.
And now, like, that's real, that's chaos.

Speaker 29 And the Democrats have no, had no answer to say, well, oh, it's all going to work out. It's all just fine.
You know, like, everything's fine. There's nothing wrong there.

Speaker 29 So that really is, that's, that's true chaos. And I, I, as my party, tried to, you know, I tried to warn that we're going to, we're going to be punished by this and trying to pretend that we're wrong.

Speaker 29 And I always knew we were going to get rolled on that bipartisan deal thing. Do you think Trump's going to

Speaker 29 give that away? I always say, like, I'm never going to pick a fine on fried chicken with Colonel Sanders.

Speaker 29 He owns the border and does, and that's definitely too valuable for him to hand that away. So it's obvious we were going to get rolled.

Speaker 4 So going forward, one thing I wanted to ask you is I was listening to some focus groups yesterday and there were some guys that, I don't know, kind of sounded like you.

Speaker 4 They're these kind of voters that they really don't like big pharma. You know, they like Bernie, but they also really appeal to RFK.

Speaker 4 RFK appeals to them because they, you know, they think that big pharma, these big corporations are out to get them. These used to be Democratic voters.

Speaker 4 They're examples of these young men that now have kind of lost trust in institutions that are now becoming MAGA voters. And I'm wondering how you think Democrats could get them back.

Speaker 29 I'm not sure. I've witnessed that starting back in 2015, 16.

Speaker 4 So what would be your strategy to vote for TM to vote for you? Forget the Democratic Party.

Speaker 4 What kind of messages do you think you're going to focus on that you think might resonate with them?

Speaker 29 I'm not like a you should, you should, you should guy. It's my own examples and the kinds of things that I happen to believe.

Speaker 29 And that's why I'm willing to talk to everybody. And that's not why I think that everything that comes from a Republican is bad or evil or it's terrible.

Speaker 29 And I try to find things that we can agree, and there's some things that we're not going to agree on on all of those things. But I promise you, a lot of the messaging that's being emerging

Speaker 29 since after the inauguration, I don't think that's going to be the kinds of messaging that's going to change our party in the ways that can avoid that we end up in a way not

Speaker 29 different than we were back in 2024.

Speaker 4 What about the Bernie messaging since the election?

Speaker 4 Really, just focusing on billionaires, focusing on these big corporations, focusing on big pharma and how Democrats need to be the party of reform and going after

Speaker 4 the wealth gap. What do you think about that?

Speaker 4 Does that appeal to you at all?

Speaker 29 I think they've been there.

Speaker 29 Very, very bizarre. We were forced to spend till five in the morning to keep having all these

Speaker 29 empty show votes, you know, trying to tie the Republicans to billionaires. I'm like, hey, they campaigned with a billionaire.

Speaker 29 I'm like, we love them. They announce it.

Speaker 29 They get in front of now. And now they just went at

Speaker 29 the State of the Union speech.

Speaker 29 I love that billionaire. That's my partner.
Having all of these silly votes till five in the morning,

Speaker 29 that never went anywhere. It all just vanishes and never goes

Speaker 29 anywhere. I don't agree with a lot of this messaging.
It's not helpful.

Speaker 29 I'm just going to continue to try to find a way forward, but I'm not going to spend time yelling online and dropping silly videos or just you had lunch with Trump, and I don't know.

Speaker 4 He's easy to flatter, right? And afterwards, he's like, that guy is better than I thought or whatever. So I don't know.

Speaker 4 He's probably more likely to answer your call than mine, seeing that he doesn't like traders.

Speaker 4 But I'm wondering, if you were to call him back up, is there a specific thing they've been doing these first two months that you are most upset about that you would like them to change course on not politically but like an actual substantive policy that you could try to persuade them on?

Speaker 4 What would it be?

Speaker 29 I mean,

Speaker 29 there would be a lot of, there's a lot of things, but I don't flatter myself to think that, you know, like as a Democrat, a senator is going to carry how much weight on that.

Speaker 29 But I don't understand what they're getting out of the chaos.

Speaker 29 I'd like to say, like, if the Republicans stop being dicks,

Speaker 29 they're never going to lose an election. And if Democrats don't stop getting kind of crazy or goofy or fringy, then they're never going to lose another election.

Speaker 29 It's like there's a lot of overreaction. So I really don't understand a lot of the chaos.
And then when they say things that are absolutely not true, you just diminish your own credibility.

Speaker 29 So I think if they make some of those small changes, but I don't agree with many of the things that happen, but when I do happen to agree that we do need to secure our border, and I do think we need to really stand firmly behind Israel, I do.

Speaker 29 I agree with a lot of those things.

Speaker 4 So when you did talk to him, what did you talk to him about when you guys had lunch? What did you guys talk about?

Speaker 29 We talked to a lot of different things. Like his playlist.

Speaker 29 I talked to everybody as long as people are playing it straight. And that's what it was.

Speaker 29 It was a conversation.

Speaker 4 I mean, like the border or like his hair or money, crypto. I mean, who knows?

Speaker 29 And again, it's like, that's one of the, you know, I never divulge what happens in private conversations.

Speaker 29 I mean, you know, they're always, we always have to have honor amongst thieves, otherwise things will completely break down. I met with all of the secretary nominees, and we all had conversations.

Speaker 29 And I never just ran to the press or said things or did that kinds of things. It's like I play things straight.
I will want people to play me straight.

Speaker 29 And as long as people do the same thing, I'm going to have a dialogue with virtually anyone.

Speaker 4 Well, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. And obviously, I don't think that your wish that the chaos will tamp down is going to happen.

Speaker 4 So as more stuff happens, we'll hope to be talking to you again soon. Very good.
Okay, thank you. All right.
Well, that was John Fetterman.

Speaker 4 We'll see what you guys think about that one in the comments. Much appreciated to him for coming on and for speaking his mind, particularly on trans issues.
And thanks to my friend Nira Tandon.

Speaker 4 Hopefully we'll be having her back again soon. And rest easy to one of the greats, Roy Ayers.

Speaker 4 He wrote maybe the vibiest song of all time. Everybody loves the sunshine.
We're not in a sunshine place right now. So I'm going to take you out today with something else.

Speaker 4 Y'all can go check out the Roy Airs discography and come back here tomorrow. We're gonna have one of your favorites on a weekend edition of the Bullwork podcast.
We'll see you all then. Peace.

Speaker 4 And they're the day

Speaker 4 I will say my soul is a truthful way for searching

Speaker 4 Said butterfly up in the sky We've got a story to say and take a while searching

Speaker 4 You see my friend I need someone who feels and easily say this I'm searching

Speaker 4 Searching,

Speaker 4 searching,

Speaker 4 searching.

Speaker 4 The Bullard podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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Speaker 30 The Verizon Visa signature card is issued by Synchrony Bank pursuant to to a license from Visa USA, Inc.

Speaker 31 Master distiller Jimmy Russell knew Wild Turkey Bourbon got it right the first time. Mellowed an American oak with the darkest char.

Speaker 31 Our pre-prohibition style bourbons are aged longer and never watered down. So you know it's right too, for whatever you do with it.

Speaker 31 Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon makes an old-fashioned or bold fashion for bold nights out or at home. Wild Turkey Bourbon, aged longer, never watered down to create one bold flavor.

Neera Tanden and John Fetterman: They're Playing With People's Lives

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