John Avlon: Winning Back the House from the MAGA Minions

All right, y'all, we've got a great guest this Wednesday, somebody who's gone native. He's left

the commentariat and now he's running for Congress. It's going to be a great discussion.
A few quick show notes. Remember, it's Wednesday.
So if you're looking for my hot takes on Michigan and the other news of the day, pop on over to the Next Level feed where I'll be with Sarah and JVL running through all of that. I'm getting lots of emails, getting feedback.
People like the outro music that Jason has been so adeptly putting in to the end of these episodes. If you want to know

what the songs are, I created a playlist on Spotify. It'll be in the show notes today,

and then we'll put it in the show notes every Friday. So if you're looking for what the songs

were that week, just pop on to that Spotify playlist. Also, if you guys have not checked

out Shield of the Republic, it's a foreign policy podcast we've been putting on at the Bulwark. It is

Thank you. just pop on to that Spotify playlist.
Also, if you guys have not checked out Shield of the Republic, it's the foreign policy podcast we've been putting on at the Bulwark. It is wonky.
It is educational. It has amazing guests.
You know, generals and majors are listening to it and coming on. So if you want to know what is happening in Taiwan, Turkey, Israel, Ukraine, check out Shield of the Republic.
My buddy Eric Edelman is a co-host along with Elliot Cohen. And this week, coming out tomorrow, they got Liz Cheney.
I think you've probably heard of her. So make sure to check out Shield of the Republic and check out tomorrow's episode in particular.
Lastly, JVL is on the special Members Only Just Between Us podcast this week with Mona Charan. So if you want to support the Bulwark, become a member, sign up,

go to the bulwark.com slash free trial.

You can get just between us.

You can get the secret podcast and you can get access to some of these shows where we show a little bit more leg, you know,

when we think that when we think that there aren't any interlopers listening

in. So check out all of that up next, my man, John Avalon.
Hello, and welcome to the Borg podcast. We're bringing back our spirit partner, John Avalon, who's left the commentariat and officially announced last week that he's running for Congress as a Democrat in New York's first congressional district.
Welcome back, brother. And congrats getting in the arena.
Thanks, man. Yeah, it feels good.
You know, it's obviously a big leap, but if not now, when? It's the most urgent time in our lifetimes. And I just didn't feel good about just offering opinions.
As much as I love my job. Well, could you do me a favor? Could you just do me one favor though? I mean, we're going to get to your campaign and I want to hear a little bit more about the Avalon story, but could you just indulge me and be a pundit for one question? Could we do one punditry question at the top? Just bring your old, see if those old muscles are still working one week into the campaign.
All right. So last night we had a Michigan primary.
There's a lot of consternation out there because 13% of the Democrats voted uncommitted in Michigan. I'd point out that in 2016, John Kasich did about 10 points better than that in his run against Donald Trump.
And I don't remember any profiles or obsessions or bedwetting about the Hoover, Miller, Rhino vote and what it means for us uh the centrists who like consensus but uh there's a lot of concern about the kind of progressive vote that that voted uncommitted yesterday so I'm curious how you handicap what we saw in Michigan last night I think you're you're right that this is about an expectation game not about reality when you impose perspective on our political debates sometimes the outrage Olympics are diminished. You know, one of my favorite sites, in addition to the Bulwark, we're fans in our house, the Hovland household, is Tegan Goddard's Political Wire.
Read it for years, great digest. And he did a really useful analysis, basically making the case that I think when Obama ran for reelect, the undecided number was essentially the same.
So this is about gaming expectations and the media falling for it. And the Biden administration probably not pushing back or campaign pushing back effectively enough on it.
But you're right. It's a totally artificial benchmark.
So you impose from perspective and everyone takes a deep breath or should. Okay.
So you're taking a deep breath. No panic right now.
No. I mean, especially when you start dealing with like the you know how will positions on war and peace impact the domestic election that seems like the worst kind of hang ring you do what's right and that's usually good politics as john mccain used to say john mccain had some good wisdom okay so i want to get into like the details of the campaign we're nerds so i kind of want to nerd out on the district and your opponent but you know i was thinking about this interview and i was like you know for me john avalon kind of like emerged out of whole cloth as a centrist commentator you know sometime in the mid aughts you know we've got to hang out a bunch which i have always enjoyed but like i don't really know your origin story so i would love i kind of want to just go do a little bit before we get into the present day of going back.
And what was the political spark for you? Talk to me about Young John. I love the origin story.
I feel like this is like a deep cut Marvel segue. Yeah.
Wolverine. We're doing Wolverine.
We're doing Wolverine. I dig that.
I was a big Wolverine fan once upon a time. So in terms of just what got me excited about politics was being excited about American history.
And that came disproportionately from my grandparents. My grandparents were immigrants.
My grandfather was born in Argentina, a Greek family, came through Ellis Island at the age of three, serving World War II. My other grandfather's family was wiped out in the Spanish influenza epidemic and came here on a ship stowaway and then was adopted by a family.
And I think immigrant families, especially when they achieve the American dream, have a deep appreciation for America that they communicate. Like there's a sense, if you're the grandson of immigrants, that you have an obligation to the opportunities they provided as a family, but also as a country.
So my grandfather in Youngstown, Ohio, served in World War II, you know, we always talk about Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, and these people were incredibly real and relevant to his life. He even had a copy of the Dewey Defeats Truman 48 newspaper in the basement.
And that was hugely, hugely formative for me. And so I was one of those kids who would love reading like books about Abraham Lincoln, or, you know, just meet the presidents, you know, Teddy Roosevelt, all that stuff.
Those little blue cover biography books. Was that you in second grade? I guess I, you know, I, I think they had a lion on the spine, you know, the lion, but, but, but they were, they were great.
You know, politics is history in the present tense. That's one of my sort of core beliefs and overly quoted aphorisms.
So it gives us a chance to interact with that. But I also think there's a certain especially in America, you know, because we're the only nation not founded on a tribal identity, but on an idea, that kind of civic firmament, the making old stories new again is really important.
It's why I'm passionate about applied history.

It's why, you know, in addition to being a columnist and editor and, you know, analyst anchor, you know, I write history books. I love that.
And it's applied history, right? It's a different take. It's a different cut.
Washington's farewell address was the subject of one. Lincoln's plan for how you win a piece after winning the war, but also using the second inaugural as a text.
It's about useful wisdom. And it's about making those old stories new again, because America really depends on that.
And of course, that imposes perspective on our politics. You realize the times that we've been fragmented, it looks like our country's falling apart.
The forces that lead to that fragmentation are similar. So you can impose some clarity on the political choices.
It helps if you hear the echo. If you hear the echo of segregationist arguments, then you know you're probably on the wrong side of things.
But also the kind of it is possible to offer unifying leadership in divided times, but that requires, in Lincoln's case, a reconciling leader. And if you look back at the founding fathers' principles, Washington spent most of his farewell address warning about hyper-partisanship and polarization, what they called faction, but we would recognize.
He says it inflames ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, leads occasionally to riot and insurrection. This is hugely relevant, wise stuff.
And that's why in most of my writing as a columnist and as a commentator and as a historian, it's all different takes on the same issue that I know we're all in common cause. Warning about the dangers of hyper-partisanship and polarization and then hopefully proposing solutions for how we can reunite as a nation.
Because democracy depends on it. And that's one of the things I love about what you guys are doing at the Bulwark and the whole loose coalition sometimes called like democracy.
The pro-democracy movement. We're doing it.
Yeah, man. Sorry, I'm rambling because I can talk about that forever, but it's really important to me.
I think that there's a direct line between what you're talking about. And this was another

thing I wanted to get into is this, the threats that you saw that Washington warned about with

factionalism, the wisdom of the Lincoln second inaugural. Talk to us about how that ties to

your rationale for getting in this race now and what you see as the reason why you need to actually be in the arena, not on the CNN side. As much as I loved my job and my colleagues, and I think CNN does great work, I didn't want to look at my kids and say that I could have done more when it mattered most.
I think this is one of those moments in our history. If there's ever moral clarity and moral urgency around an election, it's this time.
We've never had a major party nominee campaign on an authoritarian platform while praising dictators who already tried to destroy democracy on the back of a lie, who not only that is using that election lie as a litmus test for party loyalty and succeeding. That's not sinister.
Nothing is. That's not dangerous to our democracy.
Nothing is. And so it seems to me that simply, you know, as much as I love doing what I've done, I don't think commentary and opinion is enough if you have an opportunity to do something different.
And in this case, the opportunity to flip a seat where we live with a candidate who's embraced Donald Trump, first term Republican. And I was looking at the field of candidates and I said, this is a chance to put our ideas in action and do some good in a measurable, meaningful way.
And obviously there are real sacrifices. We got a young family, not as young as yours, but we got a young family.
And so this was a really serious decision, but I didn't want to look back and feel like

I could have done more when it mattered most.

And I feel like this is an all hands on deck, not a drill moment.

And you got to get off the sidelines and roll up your sleeves and get in the arena.

And it's been hugely invigorating and rewarding.

But I understand why, you know, it's tough, right?

This is, you know, Steve Bannon with his flood the zone with shit stuff has made public service seem indecent and dangerous to people's reputations, their finances and everything else. So what does that do? That's designed to sort of seed the public ground to people who don't mind, you know, wading through shit, you know, those ideologues and extremists.
And he's winning that battle on the Republican side, by the way, look at Mike Gallagher, right? Like as you're getting in, you see Mike Gallagher's the world, the Kathy McMorris Rogers, these people are just like, nope, not worth it, not worth it, I'm leaving. And that's a real loss, right? I mean, you know, to our country, I mean, you know, so many good Republicans, you know, have been run out of their party or decided to abandon ship.
And we all know the problems, right? It's, it's the rigged system of district ring. It's closed partisan primaries.
It's a party that has become radicalized and requiring lies as a litmus test. On the Republican side, so we have one big tent functioning political party in America left.
That's the Democratic Party. And there's no substitute for victory.
Got to win. But it's been fascinating to see it on the other side as well.
It's really, it's been fascinating. So I'm loving it.
I want to hear about that because look, before we end, we're going to have just a big agreement about the radicalization of the Republican party. We're just going to have a heated agreement and about your opponent, Nick Lollota, who's a total MAGA freak.
But I'm interested in, you know, sort of how you see yourself fitting in the Democratic coalition, right? Because your brand was always, you know, kind of like, I'm a centristrist guy i want it's about political reform it was about you know um initially you were part of like kind of no labels 1.0 before the sort of bastardization of no labels we've seen lately how do you see yourself fitting in the democratic coalition today particularly new york where it's extremely wide at you know you have jamal bowman types who are very far to the left kind of DSA curious almost. And then you have a lot of moderate.

You know, you have Jamal Bowman types who are very far to the left, you know, kind of DSA curious, almost. And then you have a lot of moderate, you know, Eric Adams is the mayor of New York, who's like kind of a MAGA Democrat, if that's a thing.
And the Democratic Party in New York is unwieldy. So, like, where do you see yourself fitting in that world? First, I think it's healthy to have big tent political parties.
And in New York in particular, we've always had a sort of a reform wing of the Democratic Party that I think has been essentially centrist and interested in strengthening democracy. If you look at the Senate seat held by Bobby Kennedy and Moynihan and Hillary Clinton, you see a straight line in that regard.
I'm not a DSA kind of guy and my beliefs are pretty constant. The MAGRA crew clearly believes bipartisanship is the problem.
It's actually the solution, right?

And that doesn't mean you need to be consistent about your principles and values, but you

also need to solve problems.

And, you know, democracy, that requires constructive compromise.

So I think this is actually very much about putting those ideas that I've been developing

and articulating into action in terms of this campaign.

I mean, this is a swing seat. It is a swing district.
The lines in New York just got moved again yesterday. So this is a district that Biden had won narrowly and they just moved the lines to have Trump winning it narrowly, but it's a swing district.
Yeah. What'd you think about that? Let's just, we'll do a little nerdy stuff first.
Cause I saw that number yesterday. It looked like it was moving.
So your district ends up being kind of a narrow Trump district, Trump plus one or two. Is that final? What do you think about that? It appears to be final.
I would have rather than have left the lines alone. I've been a very public critic of redistricting because very often, as we see in Texas and North Carolina, it's done for naked partisan advantage or some kind of collusion between the two parties.
I would have preferred it stayed where it was, which was R plus three. Now it's a little more Republican, but still absolutely winnable and well within the defines of what makes a swing district, especially with the right kind of candidate.
But look, our country needs more swing districts, right? One of the driving factors that the problem in our politics is too many safe seats where people have lifetime employment unless they lose a closed partisan primary, which makes them vulnerable, frankly, to ideological extortion. And that's where you get Republicans especially doing things like voting in a way that doesn't actually reflect what they believe or what they think is good for the

country, but they're looking over their shoulder and hoping that someone else votes in a way that

will reflect the national interest and their personal beliefs. That's sick.
That's psychotic.

So look, more competitive districts, the better. And if you mean that, then put it into action.
My belief is that we need to build the broadest possible coalition to defeat Donald Trump, defend our democracy, and win back the House from his mag and minions like Nicoletta. We need to do that.
We need to reach out to independent voters. We need to inspire the Democratic base.
We need to reach out to the reasonable Republicans who are left, who recognize that Donald Trump is the opposite of anything resembling constitutional conservative. I think we can do that.
This is a great testing ground. And I love the idea of putting ideas into action.
I feel a certain frustration about simply occupying the world of ideas. I love writing books.
I love history. I'm going to continue to do it in some capacity, I'm sure.
But the idea of actually getting in the arena and actually putting these ideas in action is, to me, thrilling to do it at a time when it matters most. This is no ordinary time, as they say.
And so let's go. I'm with you.
How are we doing that? How are you getting the soft Republicans? How are you getting people maybe even that voted for Trump but didn't like him last time? How do you get into the load? Is there anything you learned from Swazi? Yeah, no, no. I think Swazi gave a lot of really good lessons.
You know, my first campaign event was at the Huntington Town Democratic Committee, which now is a little more in Swazi's district. But basically, it's a joining district, right? I think Swazi showed that you can, if you're strong in the center, if you play offense on the issues, right, Democrats are always on defense.
I've heard real frustration on the part of voters about this, you know, active Democrats being like, why are we always on defense? Why don't we lean into issues? Why don't we actually play offense? And, you know, and if people are concerned about crime and immigration, talk about it. Don't say, oh, that's not really a thing.
Talk about their concerns, offer solutions that are consistent with our values. And I think that's exactly right.
And I do think there's strength in the center. That's just obvious electoral math.
And to me, look, I've got to win a primary first. I want to be real clear.
So that's the first test. And the day I got in, not only did the National Republican Congressional Committee attack me immediately first time, because they thought they weren't going to have to contest this seat.
Now they know they do. But as a radical left liberal hack.
But, you know, one of my opponents in the Democratic primary is trying to attack me as a, you know, shadowly co-founder of no labels, you know, secret Republican. So, you know, please.
Welcome to the game. Give me a break.
And exactly. You know if you're getting, that means you're probably doing something right.
But most importantly, what I think it does is it shakes up the race. And what a lot of Democrats have told me is, is there was this sort of glum sense that the seat wasn't going to be contested, that it wasn't being treated as the swing district.
It actually is because there hadn't been a candidate who could shake things up and energize the base and try a different kind of politics. And he won pretty handily last time for people not familiar, right? Like Lelota won.
He did. In 22, not in 20, but in 22.
Yeah. In 22.
And just to, you know, because this is a political nerd fest, 22 is an outlier election in New York because Lee Zeldin, the former congressman who held this district was running for governor. And so, you know, he had not only really high name ID, but I think Democrats said, well, you know, that's his home district.
Let's fight elsewhere. That's a one off, I believe.
I also think the Trump coalition, as you do, has only shrunk since 2020. And so I think even think that benchmark is off now how the independent voters affect things, particularly nationally.
We'll see. But I think New York has a chance to and will make a very strong statement.
But the other candidate who's in the race right now, and I have respect for anyone who gets in the arena. I really do.

I have newfound appreciation for it. Believe me, it's not easy.
You know, someone who, you know, I voted for and wanted to succeed, but you know, she spent $8 million and lost by double digits. You know, there were 20,000 voters who went Biden-Zeldin in that race.
There's no reason to rerun that play. Try something different.
If you've had a photo of you taking and holding a defund the police sign, that's not going to go away. It's probably going to get worse, not better.
So you mentioned the statement. I want to pull it actually up because somebody used to be a practitioner of the trade.
It's interesting to watch the development of the kind of language that comes out of the Republican committees these days. Here's what they said about your announcement.
We look forward to litigating this smug liberal hacks past so voters can see just how lefty and the rest of the modern democratic part, excuse me, modern Democrat. At least I didn't say demon rat.
democrat party have become um just a little a little childish maybe so yeah how are you gonna push i hear you you got a primary first but okay you know the point of this is beating nicolota in the end so like how do you push back against these freaks i mean look this is one of the things i think it's going to be real hard to paint me as a scary far left liberal because i'm'm not. I mean, we can talk about liberalism, not that they actually want to, and the dangers of illiberalism.
Yeah, classical liberalism. Yeah, we can talk about that a little bit.
Liberal democracy. Yeah, sure.
Defending liberal democracy, diverse liberal democracy at home and abroad. But look, that's a cut and paste hit job.
And I think people recognize that it's fundamentally false and it feels counterfeit, right? That's the problem with all sort of political boilerplate is people catch on to the fact it's BS sooner or later, but also candidates matter. And whether you can credibly paint someone as that negative stereotype that you depend on to demonize the other side and win elections, that's just not going to work with me because of my record and what I've done with my life.
It's just ain't true. You know, what I really care about is finding a way to reason together off common facts and solve problems.
You say, I mean, I've been an apostle for the vital center in effect. I mean, I care about this stuff.
And I think right now, I mean, it's very clear that the Democratic Party is continuing that tradition and the Republican Party has utterly abandoned it, unfortunately.

And I think there are some good Republicans who are persuadable, absolutely, because they feel abandoned by their party, because they have been. Let's talk about then the issues.
Like, obviously, maybe not obviously, but I presume we all agree. Number one issue here is preserving our democracy and making sure that Donald Trump isn't president, that Nick Lelota isn't helping him do a soft coup.

Come next January. But what else? What are the other top things you think you'd really care about? Well, yeah, so I want to be clear.
That's what motivates people like you and me about the broader stakes of this election. I very much buy into this idea that we need to focus on the stakes of this election.
But most folks, that's not necessarily what's going to motivate them. But I think there's a way to square the circle in important ways.
I think people have been really disillusioned and frustrated and feel alienated by the failure of our democracy to solve problems for them. And I think that's actually been one of the key issues.
Also, just affordability and frankly, the long-term squeezing of the middle class. It's not a coincidence to me that exactly the time the middle of our politics have been hollowed out is in the wake of the middle of our economy being hollowed out and the middle class feeling squeezed for decades.
And I think rebuilding the middle class is something that is an urgent need for the country. It's the kind of thing that can pass the UNUM test and focus on reuniting us.
And it's a real need here in Suffolk County. Because look, this is something Democrats can do and Biden's got a good record on, even though it's only beginning to be felt, you know, whether it's the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the bipartisan chips act, the downstream effect of that is going to be enormously powerful for rebuilding the middle class in America.
And that's a record we need to build on. You talk about affordability, people talk about it all the time.
Average cost for the house out here is over $600,000. Okay.
Well, what are you going to do about that? And I'll tell you one thing, and this always blows people's minds, but Donald Trump and Republicans raised our taxes. They took away the state and local tax deduction that a lot of New Yorkers depended upon.
And they did it out of spite as part of a political stunt. And they're not going to reverse it because they're so invested in the red state, blue state divide.
So part of my message is Democrats are going to bring that deduction back. You're going to get more money back in your pocket.
And I think Democrats can do more. We found our first disagreement maybe ever, John Evelyn.
I live in Louisiana now, so whatever. I don't need that deduction up there.
Well, you know, all politics is local, but I actually, you know, it is necessary for a bunch of reasons as much as I love NOLA. I think, you know, expanding the child tax credit.
We did it for one year during COVID. It cut childhood poverty in half.
That's something that Democrats can do that will really help put, you know,k family pockets. But I think also you look at the way that immigration is a real concern for folks.
And it's not just fear-mongering from the far right, although that's certainly contributed to it. And obviously, I think immigrants make us better.
It makes better economically, culturally. I'm the grandson of immigrants.
One of the greatest moments of my life was giving a keynote address at a naturalization ceremony at Mount Vernon two years ago. It was amazing.
We need more legal immigration. We need less illegal immigration.
We need a comprehensive immigration bill. But what the country just witnessed, and this had something to do with Swazi winning, I think, what the country just witnessed is the profound cynicism and cowardice of demanding a border security bill to pair with Ukraine funding and Israel funding and funding for Taiwan, and then abandoning it at Donald Trump's request, because they'd rather fearmonger and fundraise off the issue than fix it.
That to me, that's a firing offense. And Nick Lelota puts out a tweet mocking Oklahoma Senator James Lankford for having shepherded that deal through.
A deal that Wall Street Journal said was the best deal that anyone would ever get. And that to me just typifies everything that's wrong and why this cat in particular is far too far right for the district.
And by the way, he doesn't even live here. You know, Anthony Garbarino, he is another congressman.
He literally can't vote for himself in the election. So it's just ridiculous.
But it's the MAGA minion thing. It's the Trump flunky thing that pisses me off.
Yeah, I'm happy you brought that up because that deal, I was a little flummoxed. The Democrats occasionally flummoxed me.
And there was a debate in California in that Democratic Senate race. Well, I guess it's a jungle primary right there.
So Garvey's on there on there too the republicans garvey it's schiff uh it's katie porter it's barbara lee and they asked them if they would have supported the deal and they all said no everybody said no now their reasoning is different from the loader right like they're worried that in a democratic primary out there that they're going to come off as too anti-immigrant because of the because of the immigration issue on there i just i looked at that i was like that is frustrating that is the frustrating element of this primary politics everywhere that people can't just like look at this deal and say hey like it's okay to say it's not perfect i don't agree with every element of it right but if you look at that and you realize that immigration is probably realize ukraine's a problem i mean isn't this like how shit's supposed to work it is how shit's supposed to work and by the way you know go back to the constitutional convention if you're venerating the past all the time go study anything about american history that shows that constructive compromise is the essence of how you get you know deals done in a democracy in that point about imposing history on things what Republicans are doing by blocking Ukraine aid.

It makes those... and a democracy.
In that point about imposing history on things, what Republicans are doing by blocking Ukraine aid, it makes them complicit because they're compounding Putin's invasion of Ukraine and actual invasion. I mean, this is a serious damn thing.
This is about, and history is also really clear. You stop aggression.
You stand up to bullies. If we don't do this, it's not going to just be Ukraine, right? This is about the trajectory of the 21st century.
Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow, you stand up to authoritarian aggression. Here's something that Joe Biden has been right about from the very beginning.
The defining struggle of our time is autocracy versus democracy. We need to be on the side of democracy, the United States of America.
That's what we stand for at home and abroad. Donald Trump doesn't.
And the fact that the party that prides itself on backing freedom, that it was part of a robust international foreign policy tradition during the Cold War, from Eisenhower through Reagan and on, would go neo-isolationist at the drop of a hat and effectively enable and rationalize and justify Vladimir Putin, that is a civic sin of the first order. And all those cats can't be allowed to forget it they are hanging out the brave people of ukraine and their democracy to die for domestic reasons that they don't even believe and even worse if they let it for a vote it would pass they're blocking it out of fealty to donald trump they're on vacation like what what's happening the government's going to shut down in a week it's a total disgrace but we've seen that game of chicken over and over again you know what happens is is that you get a super majority of democrats and a small number of republicans to ensure that the national interest is felt but republicans are absolutely incapable of governing basically not just in the national interest just period governing they need democrats to pass anything.
This is just a fact, right? Like this is not an accusation. It's just a fact.
Like they're running the house and they can't pass anything because their majority is so small and that they have a far right faction that refuses to vote for anything. Nancy Pelosi had a really small majority as well.
And she got over, there were over 300 pieces of bipartisan legislation passed in the first years of the Biden administration when Nancy Pelosi was speaker and Democrats had a 50-50 split in the Senate. Again, this just goes to show the asymmetry in our politics that bipartisanship has become a partisan virtue.
Democrats believe in, preach and practice bipartisanship. Republicans can't run the government at all, let alone in the national interest.
They're captive to the extremes in their party and they keep rolling over for them and are nominating them again. The extreme is kind of the median in the party now.
You wrote in 2010, I've said that, I wonder if you wrote that book in 2010 about wingnuts. At the time, I got to confess.
I was like, I don't know. Avalon might be overstating it a little bit.
Avalon, this might be a little hair on fire. We still nominated McCain.
Romney's around the corner. It's not as bad as he says it is.
And I think that you had me beat on that one by a couple of years. I didn't want to be right.
And my wife would have agreed with you at that time. Our first date was my first book, Independent Nation.
And one of the really fun things was not only debating her, but seeing her mark up the copy of my first book with things like wrong in the margins and all that stuff. And, you know, Trump has brought us closer than ever politically.
I know a little bit about that. And it was a little echoes.
I remember when I started doing the extremist beat as a columnist, the daily beast, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I,

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I, And, you know, Trump has brought us closer than ever politically. I know a little bit about that.
And it was a little echoes. I remember when I started doing the extremist beat as a columnist, the Daily Beast, and what came into the books, Wingnuts.
And the whole point was, it was like, this is happening. Pay attention.
But also, look at the history behind this stuff. So, you know, it was Glenn Beck at the time.
And look at the churn on this stuff. You know, well, to understand this, you need to understand the John Birch Society.
You know, at the time, the Drudge Report had a banner ad across the top after Obama's elected and the country was feeling pretty good with like 70% approval at the time and calling for massive resistance to the election of Barack Obama. And then you're like, oh, wait, you know, that's the slogan of the White Citizens Councils.
And I'm not even sure that was conscious, right? It's like this synaptic twitch, this sort of lizard brain. Like Make America Great Again was not conscious.
It's not like Donald Trump knew the history of that. No, exactly right.
But when you understand the history, it's the old Harry Truman line. The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.
And when you understand the history and you can listen for, you know, history doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes. So when you know how to listen for what rhymes, that's very clarifying or should be.
We've had some really bad presidents. God knows.
Andrew Johnson, probably chief among them. And a few that followed him.
But what we've been dealing with in our country is without precedent, but there should be real moral clarity. Okay, two other things for you.
The abortion issue, I'm interested in how you kind of see how you want to talk about that this time around. I think in New York, I assess that part of the reason why the red wave did hit in New York and California, maybe not as much as they thought but why why a lot of republicans got elected in 22 is because a lot of voters just didn't really think that abortion was a threat there you know as in the same way in other states right like it didn't this issue didn't feel as real kind of in these blue parts of the country and and i thought boy i think that's going to be different 2024 different in 2024 with Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House and Donald Trump coming up as President.
I'm just wondering how you're thinking about talking about and campaigning on that issue. I think you're exactly right that it's going to be different in 2024.
Defending women's reproductive freedom is basic. It's fundamental.
It's under threat. We shouldn't be surprised.
Right. They've been telling us, I mean, when people tell you who they are, believe them.
And, you know, now we're fighting over IVF? Are you kidding me? I mean, you know, other than some outtake from the Handmaid's Tale, I mean, if you actually want families, you know, IVF is something you want to encourage, not punish. But this is the problem with extreme ideology imposing itself on people's lives.
Look, this is something that we've seen the eight states, including deep red states, that have pushed back against ballot initiatives to further restrict abortion. But yet Republicans are still pushing a national ban.
That's clearly at the top of the agenda. And you and I remember when people said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It's never going to happen. But we saw Republican judges lie to the American people and lie to the Senate about this and then overturn it the first chance they got.
And I think people realize, oh, you're taking away a freedom. And by the way, look, this is the most difficult personal decision that a woman can make.
And I firmly believe that it should be between a woman, her doctor, and her God, not the government. I don't think that's a radical statement.
I think that's something that the vast majority of Americans can agree on. And the fact that we are back here fighting this fight is kind of akin to the fact that we're back fighting for liberal democracy.
Things people thought were safe aren't because radicals and extremists hijacked the political process. And they're also, you know, they're running against majoritarian democracy.
I wrote a whole column about this, looking at Mike Johnson and the Mike Lee stuff. They think majoritarian democracy is the problem rather than the solution.
You cannot overstate how dangerous and extreme that is. And so that alone is reason for us all to roll up the sleeves and get involved in our democracy because it's not a spectator sport.
This is real. To me, that radical and extreme side is the same because I'm for if there are reasonable reforms, this isn't what's reasonable limits.
This is what is happening though. No.
And for me, here's my one piece of pro bono political advice for you. In some ways, Mike Johnson, I think, if district voters can be educated about him, might be scarier than Trump in New York.

in New York, you know, because to some of these people that don't take the democracy threat as seriously, which I get because they have regular lives and it's kind of esoteric.

Mike Johnson is a Christian radical that wants to be in their sex lives.

And I think that that is going to be that wants to be in their sex lives.

And I think that that is going to be a very dangerous and scary element for a New York district.

Yeah.

And, you know, if you're voting for a Republican for Congress, you're voting for Mike Johnson.

You're voting to empower that man and his agenda.

And it's not about being a person of faith.

I'm a person of faith.

But being a person of faith has nothing to do with being a bigot and wanting to sort of, you know, ignore fundamental tenets of our country. You know, like one of the basic tenets of liberal democracy being like, let's keep religion and politics, you know, separate.
Let's not have a religion driver of politics, which is also founding fathers' wisdom. But, yeah, I completely agree with you because you can't separate the two.
It just so happens that of the 18 Republicans who represent districts, Biden won, which this was in 2020. Lelota was the first one to hug Donald Trump the hardest, you know, putting out statements saying he's a middle finger to New York City, you know, okay, not running away from that.
You know, unlike Lee Zeldin, he didn't vote to overturn the democracy after the attack on the capitol or at least stefanik you know other new york republicans but like he didn't do it liz cheney or adam kinsinger or any of those folks did either though and god bless those folks that's why we need to build the broadest possible coalition right now you know i think that's the real opportunity i remember i interviewed kinsinger and he said he hadn't gotten outreach from the biden campaign and it wasn't that he was feeling needy for attention. It was more sort of guys that we got to build the broadest coalition right now.
And so let's do that. We just got to win.
Adam might be a little needy. He likes getting texted.
Hi, Adam. He's great.
Okay. We got to end with Rudy.
I'm sorry. We have to do it.
Sure. You worked for Rudy back right out of college in 2001.
Different Rudy.

So let's do that first.

I have one question for you about that time, about 9-11.

I want to end with that.

But let's just do the Rudy of it all first.

Sure.

You saw it up close.

Was it there?

Did you see this, the crazy Rudy?

Is it the scotch?

Is it the power?

What is it?

What happened?

So let me put all this in context for folks.

So my actually first, you know, you asked earlier about my origin story. And I told you about sort of being a kid and being interested in how I got interested in politics and history.
The first campaign that I really got excited about was Bill Clinton, 1992 and 96. And I volunteered on both.
And I was a subscriber to Blueprint, the DLC magazine. And the DLC approach made a lot of sense to me, right? And Bill Clinton politically, like Democrats had lost three elections in a row with more than 40 states.
And he turned that around. So doing something right there.
And if you look back in the Clinton-Blair politics, that's something we need to take another look at. Because they actually anticipated a lot of the problems in the declining community that led to the rise of Trump.
But that's another podcast for another day. After the 96 campaign, Rudy Giuliani was a pro-choice, pro-immigrant, pro-healthcare, pro-gay rights Republican.
He was basically DLC in an urban context. You know, he used to say to be locked into partisan politics doesn't permit you to think clearly.
He clearly stopped thinking clearly. And I think it's because he got locked into partisan politics.
And among other things, it's a cautionary tale about how Donald Trump leads people to destroy their reputations in the service of a lie, to see him destroy his reputation. And obviously, one of the most pivotal points in my life, and you alluded to it, one of the most defining moments of my life was 9-11.
I was there when the towers collapsed. I wrote an essay about it that some people speak kindly of called the resilient city that recounts what I was doing.
But my team and I, I was chief speech writer in city hall at the time and we wrote 343 firefighter eulogies. So if you want to obsess over Rudy, that's the most formative moment of my life.
You know, the police officer eulogies and the way that the city and the nation briefly united in unimaginable suffering and why we need to always stand strong against terrorism. Remember, it's always one bad day away from being the number one issue.
But those moments, that time, forever defined me in just fundamental ways. And what happened to Rudy? I think Donald Trump happened to Rudy.
It's evident with regard to when the man lit his reputation on fire and had to declare bankruptcy. And there's no resemblance.
I know. They would have renamed LaGuardia after him if he would have just shut up and drank red wine and just did nothing else.
It's really, it's just unbelievable. I do, I want to end with those eulogies though, because I reread that essay this morning before this.
It's moving. This was hoping you could talk about that.
I mean, just that experience and like learning about all those folks' lives and maybe how that bound you to New York. And if there's any memories that stand out from that process and learning about all those firefighters? I mean, so many.
You know, the first thing is we were determined normally if a firefighter in New York dies, the community stops. And all of a sudden, we'd lost more people in a day than we'd lost in the history, right? It was just 343, so I'm not school.
The mere fact of the example they set in their death, running into the fire, is the most powerful example of what we do in a democracy, and it should never be forgotten. That real heroism is about thinking about something bigger than your own short-term self-interest.
You run towards danger to help people. And the firefighters remind us, you don't need to be perfect to be a hero.
You just have to do what's right when it matters most. And in writing all those eulogies, you have an appreciation for one of the majesties of democracy, which is that we're a nation up for and by the people.

And everyone's got the capacity to stand up when it matters most and do what's right. And that example then becomes eternal.
I learned the importance of, you know, as tragic as it is to leave kids.

I think one of the transformative things about having a family is you automatically adjust your perspective for something bigger than yourself.

And even I'll never forget Terry Hatton was the captain of rescue one.

And his wife, Beth Hatton, was with her when the towers fell.

We found out the night before his funeral that she was pregnant.

And little Terry is graduating a college about oh my god and um beth lives in dick's hills she lives here in south county and when i i drove by the other day a fire station out on the south fork and very subt, there was a 343 outside on a stone tower.

And my son asked, what's that? And so you start to have those conversations.

But I think it's so important to remember the sacrifice and the heroism that day.

The fact that we responded as a civil society to evil, that we have that capacity within us, and that while we can't wait for disasters, naturally man-made, to unite us as a nation, the fact that that's been strained at all, I think, speaks to how deep the rot has got. But I still also believe that we can, we have the inherent capacity to unite.
There's always more than unites us than divides us as Americans. And we need to show that more in our day-to-day lives.
And that's a way of honoring and respecting those examples, the best examples from American history, and to echo it in some small way in our

own lives. And now I believe directing it towards defending our very democracy itself.

Amen, brother. I really appreciate you sharing that with us, John Avalon.
He's running New York's

first district, johnavalon.com. If you want to learn more or support his efforts, we'll be talking

to you. Keep us posted as the campaign goes on, brother.
We'll see you soon.

Absolutely, brother. And thanks to everything you guys are doing at the Bulwark.
My famous last words

are laying around in tatters

sounding absurd

whatever I try But I love you And that's all that really matters If this is goodbye If this is goodbye

Bright shining sun

Would light up the way before

You were the one Made me feel I could fly And I love you Whatever is waiting for me

If this is goodbye

If this is goodbye

The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.