John Avlon: Winning Back the House from the MAGA Minions

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Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 A few quick show notes.

Speaker 3 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.

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Speaker 3 So if you want to support the Bulwark, become a member, sign up, go to thebulwark.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

Speaker 3 Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Welcome back, brother, and congrats, getting in the arena.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And I just didn't feel good about just offering opinions as much as I love my job.

Speaker 3 Well, could you do me a favor? Could you just do me one favor, though?

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 Could we do one punditry question at the top? Just bring your olds,

Speaker 3 see if those old muscles are still working one week into the campaign. All right.
So last night we had a Michigan primary.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of consternation out there because 13% of the Democrats voted uncommitted in Michigan.

Speaker 3 I'd point out that in 2016, John Kasich did about 10 points better than that in his run against Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 And I don't remember any any profiles or obsessions or bedwetting about the Hoover, Miller, Rhino vote and what it means for us, the centrists who like consensus.

Speaker 3 But there's a lot of concern about the kind of progressive vote that voted uncommitted yesterday. So I'm curious how you handicapped what we saw in Michigan last night.

Speaker 5 I think you're right that this is about an expectation game, not about reality. And when you impose perspective on our political debates, sometimes the outrage Olympics are diminished.

Speaker 5 You know, one of my favorite sites, in addition to the bulwark, we're fans in our house, the Hoovelin household,

Speaker 5 is Taken Goddard's Political Wire. Read it for years, great digest.

Speaker 5 And he did a really useful analysis, basically making the case that I think when Obama ran for re-elect, the undecided number was essentially the same.

Speaker 5 So this is about gaming expectations and the media falling for it. And the, you know, the Biden administration probably not pushing back.
or campaign pushing back effectively enough on it.

Speaker 5 But you're right. It's a totally artificial benchmark.
So you impose from perspective and everyone takes a deep breath or should.

Speaker 3 Okay. So you're taking a deep breath.
No panic right now.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 You do what's right and that's usually good politics, as John McCain used to say.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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 to i kind of want to just go do a little bit before we get into the present day of going back and like what was the political spark for you you know talk to me about young john i i love the origin story i feel like uh this is like a deep-cut marvel segue yeah wolverine we're doing wolverine we're doing wolverine i dig that i I was a big Wolverine fan once upon a time.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 My grandfather was born in Argentina, Greek family, came through Ellis Island at the age of three, serving World War II.

Speaker 5 My other grandfather's family was wiped out in the Spanish influenza epidemic and came here on a ship,

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 So my grandfather in Youngstown, Ohio, served in World War II. you know, would always talk about Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, and these people were incredibly real and relevant to his life.

Speaker 5 He even had a copy of the Dewey Defeats Truman 48 newspaper in the basement. And that was hugely, hugely formative for me.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 Those little blue cover biography books, was that you in second grade?

Speaker 5 I guess.

Speaker 5 I think they had a lion on the spine.

Speaker 5 But 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And it's applied history, right? It's it's a different take, it's a different cut. Washington's farewell address was the subject of one.

Speaker 5 Lincoln's plan for how you win a peace after winning the war, but also using the second inaugural as a text.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 You realize the times that we've been fragmented and it looks like our country's falling apart. The forces that lead to that fragmentation are similar.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 But also, the kind of it is possible to offer unifying leadership in divided times, but that requires a, you know, in Lincoln's case, a reconciling leader.

Speaker 5 And if you look back to the founding fathers' principles, you know, Washington spent most of his farewell address warning about hyper-partisanship and polarization, what they called faction, but we would recognize.

Speaker 5 You know, he says it inflames ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, leads occasionally to riot and insurrection.

Speaker 5 This is hugely relevant, wise stuff.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And that's one of the things I love about

Speaker 5 what you guys are doing at the Bulwark and the whole loose coalition, sometimes called like democracy.

Speaker 3 The pro-democracy movement. We're doing it.
Yeah, man.

Speaker 5 Sorry, I'm rambling because I can talk about that forever, but it's really important to me.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Talk to us about how that ties to your rationale for getting in this race now and what you see as

Speaker 3 the reason why you need to actually be in the arena, not on the CNN set.

Speaker 5 As much as I loved my job and my colleagues and think CNN does great work,

Speaker 5 I didn't want to look at my kids and say that I could have done more when it mattered most.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 We've never had a major party nominee or 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.

Speaker 5 That's not sinister, nothing is. That's not dangerous to our democracy, nothing is.

Speaker 5 And so it seems to me that simply, you know, as much as I've loved doing what I've done, I don't think commentary and opinion is enough if you have an opportunity to do something different.

Speaker 5 And in this case, the opportunity to flip a seat where we live with a candidate who's embraced, you know, embraced Donald Trump, first-term Republican.

Speaker 5 And I was looking at the field of candidates and I said, you know, this is a chance to put our ideas in action and do some good in a measurable, meaningful way.

Speaker 5 And obviously, there are real sacrifices. You know, we got a young family, not as young as yours, but we got a young family.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 So, what does that do? That's designed to sort of seed the public ground to people who don't mind wading through shit, you know, those ideologues and extremists.

Speaker 3 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, look at Mike Gallagher's as well, the Kathy McMorris-Rogers.

Speaker 3 These people are just like, nope, not worth it, not worth it. I'm leaving.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And we all know the problems, right? It's the existence of redistricting. It's close partisan primaries.
It's a party that's become radicalized and requiring lies as a litmus test.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 I want to hear about that because, look,

Speaker 3 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 Nicola Loda who's a total MAGA freak but I am interested in 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 centrist guy I want to it's about political reform it was about you know 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 um particularly in new york where it's extremely wide You know, you have Jamal Bowman types who are very far to the left, you know, kind of DSA curious almost.

Speaker 3 And then you have a lot of moderate, you know, Eric Adams is the mayor of New York, who's like

Speaker 3 kind of a MAGA Democrat, if that's a thing. And the Democratic Party in New York is unwieldy.
So where do you see yourself fitting in that world?

Speaker 5 Well, first of all, I think it's healthy to have big tent political parties.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 The MAGA crew clearly believes bipartisanship is the problem. It's actually the solution, right?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 The lines in New York just got moved again yesterday. So this is a district that Biden had one narrowly and they just moved the lines to have Trump winning it narrowly, but it's a swing district.

Speaker 3 Yeah, what did you think about that? Let's just, we'll do a little nerdy stuff first. Because I saw that number yesterday.
It looked like it was moving.

Speaker 3 So your district ends up being kind of a narrow Trump district, Trump plus one or two. Is that final? What did you think about that?

Speaker 5 It appears to be final. I would have rather them have left the lines alone.

Speaker 5 I've been a very, you know, public critic of redistricting, you know, because very often, I mean, as we see in Texas and North Carolina, it's done for naked partisan advantage or some kind of collusion between the two parties.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 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 close partisan primary, which makes them vulnerable, frankly, to ideological extortion.

Speaker 5 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'll reflect the national interest and their personal beliefs.

Speaker 5 That's sick. That's psychotic.
So look, more competitive districts, the better. And if you mean that, then put it into action.

Speaker 5 You know, my belief is that we need to build the broadest possible coalition to defeat Donald Trump, defender democracy, and win back the House from his MAGA minions like Nickelodeon.

Speaker 5 Like, we need to do that, right? We need to reach out to independent voters. We need to inspire the Democratic base.

Speaker 5 We need to reach out to the reasonable Republicans who are left who recognize that Donald Trump is the opposite of, you know, anything resembling constitutional conservative. I think we can do that.

Speaker 5 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 love writing books.
I love history.

Speaker 5 I'm going to continue to do it in some capacity, I'm sure.

Speaker 5 But the idea of actually getting in the arena and actually putting these ideas in action is to me thrilling and to do it at a time when it matters most.

Speaker 5 This is no ordinary time, as they say. And so let's go.

Speaker 3 I'm with you. How are we doing that? How are you getting the

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, no, I think

Speaker 5 Swazi gave a lot of really good lessons.

Speaker 5 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 adjoining district, right?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Now they know they do.

Speaker 5 But as a radical left, liberal hack. But

Speaker 5 one of my opponents in the Democratic primary is trying to attack me as a

Speaker 5 shadowy co-founder of no labels seeker Republican.

Speaker 3 So please. Welcome to the game.

Speaker 5 Yeah, give me a break.

Speaker 3 And exactly, if you're getting, that means you're probably doing something right.

Speaker 5 But most importantly, what I think it does is it shakes up the race.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 And he won pretty handily last time, for people not familiar, right? Like Lolota won

Speaker 3 in 22, not in 20, but in 22. Yeah.

Speaker 5 In 22. And just to, you know, because this is a political nerd fest, 22 is an outlier election in New York because Lee Zeldon, the former congressman who held this district, was running for governor.

Speaker 5 Right. 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.

Speaker 5 I also think the Trump coalition, as you do, has only shrunk since 2020. And so I even think that benchmark is off.
Now, how the independent voters affect things, particularly nationally, we'll see.

Speaker 5 But I think New York is a chance to, and will make a very strong statement. The other candidate who's in the race right now, and I have respect for anyone who gets in the arena, I really do.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 You know, There were 20,000 voters who went Biden-Zeldon in that race. There's no reason to rerun that play.
Try something different.

Speaker 5 If you've had a photo of you taken holding a defund the police sign, that's not going to go away. It's probably going to get worse, not better.

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Speaker 3 Granger are the ones who get it done.

Speaker 3 So you mentioned this statement.

Speaker 3 I want to pull it actually up because as somebody who 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.

Speaker 3 Here's what they said about your announcement.

Speaker 3 We look forward to litigating this smug liberal hacks past so voters can see just how lefty and the rest of the modern Democratic party, excuse me, modern Democrat, at least I didn't say demon rat, modern Democrat party have become.

Speaker 3 Just a little childish, maybe. So yeah, how are you going to push? I hear you.
You got a primary first, but okay, you know, the point of this is beating Nickelodeon in the end.

Speaker 3 So like, how do you push back against these freaks?

Speaker 5 I mean, look, this is one of of the things. I think it's going to be real hard to paint me as a scary far-left liberal because I'm not.

Speaker 5 I mean, we can talk about liberalism, not that they actually want to, and the dangers of illiberalism.

Speaker 3 Classical liberalism? Yeah, we can talk about that a little bit. Liberal democracy.
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 5 Defending liberal democracy, diverse liberal democracy at home and abroad. But look, that's a cut-and-paste hit job.

Speaker 5 And I think people recognize that it's fundamentally false and it feels counterfeit, right?

Speaker 5 That's the problem with all sort of political boilerplate is people catch on to the fact it's BS sooner or later.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 That's just not going to work with me because of my record and what I've done with my life. It just ain't true.

Speaker 5 You know, what I really care about is finding a way to reason together off common facts and solve problems.

Speaker 5 You say, I mean, I've been an apostle for the Vital Center, in effect. I mean, I care about this stuff.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And I think there are some good Republicans who are persuadable, absolutely, because they feel abandoned by their party, because they have been.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about then the issues. Like, obviously,

Speaker 3 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 Nicola Loda isn't helping him do a soft coup come next January.

Speaker 3 But what else? Like, what are the other top things that you think you'd really care about?

Speaker 5 Well, yeah, so I want to be clear. That's what motivates people like you and me about the broader stakes of this election.

Speaker 5 I very much buy into this idea that we need to focus on the stakes of this election. But

Speaker 5 most folks, that's not necessarily what's going to motivate them, right?

Speaker 5 But I think there's a way to square the circle in important ways.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And also just affordability and frankly, the long-term squeezing of the middle class. It's not a coincidence to me that

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And it's a real need here in Suffolk County.

Speaker 5 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 bipartisanships act, the downstream effect of that is going to be enormously powerful for rebuilding the middle class in America.

Speaker 5 And that's a record we need to build on. You talk about affordability.
People talk about it all the time. Average cost of the house out here is over $600,000.
Okay.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 You know, you're going to get more money back in your pocket. And I think Democrats can do more.

Speaker 3 We found our first disagreement, maybe ever, John Evan. I live in Louisiana now.
So

Speaker 3 you don't need that deduction up there.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 We did it for one year during COVID. It cut childhood poverty in half.
That's something the Democrats can do that will really help put, you know, money in Suffolk family pockets.

Speaker 5 But I think also, like, 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 certainly contributed to it.

Speaker 5 And obviously, you know, I think immigrants immigrants make us better. That makes better economically, culturally.
I'm the grandson of immigrants.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 What the country just witnessed is the profile and 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.

Speaker 5 That, to me, that's a firing offense. And Nick Lolota puts out a tweet mocking Oklahoma Senator James Lankford for having shepherded that deal through.

Speaker 5 A deal that Wall Street Journal said was the best deal that anyone would ever get.

Speaker 5 And that to me just typesize 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.

Speaker 5 You know, Anthony Garbarini is another congressman.

Speaker 5 He literally can't vote for himself in the election. So it's just ridiculous.
But

Speaker 5 it's the MAGA minion thing. It's the Trump flunky thing that pisses me off.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm happy you brought that up because that deal, I was a little flummicked. Sometimes, you know, the Democrats occasionally flummox me.

Speaker 3 And there was a debate in California in that Democratic Senate race. Well, I guess it's a jungle primary out there.
So Garvey's on there too. The Republicans, Garvey, it's Schiff.
It's Katie Porter.

Speaker 3 It's Barbara Lee. And they asked them if they would have supported the deal.
And they all said no. Everybody said no.

Speaker 3 Now, their reasoning is different from the loader, right?

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And I just, I looked at that and I was like, that is frustrating. That is the frustrating element of this primary politics everywhere.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 But if you look at that and you realize that immigration is a problem, you realize Ukraine's a problem. I mean, isn't this like how shit's supposed to work?

Speaker 5 It is how shit's supposed to work. And by the way, you know,

Speaker 5 go back to the Constitutional Convention.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And that point about imposing history on things.

Speaker 5 What Republicans are doing by blocking Ukraine aid it makes them complicit because they're compounding Putin's invasion of Ukraine, an actual invasion. I mean, this is a serious damn thing.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 This is about the trajectory of the 21st century. You know, Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow, you stand up to authoritarian aggression.

Speaker 5 Here's something that Joe Biden's 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.

Speaker 5 The United States of America, that's what we stand for at home and abroad. Donald Trump doesn't.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And even worse, if they let it for a vote, it would pass. They're blocking it out of fealty to Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 They're on vacation.

Speaker 3 What is happening? The government's going to shut down in a week.

Speaker 5 It's a total disgrace. But we've seen that game of chicken over and over again.

Speaker 5 You know what happens is you get a super majority of Democrats and a small number of Republicans to ensure that the national interest is felt.

Speaker 5 But Republicans are absolutely incapable of governing, basically. Not just in the national interest, just period, governing.

Speaker 3 They need Democrats to pass anything. This is just a fact, right? Like, this is not an accusation.
It's just a fact.

Speaker 3 Like, they're running the House and they can't pass anything because their majority is so small and they have a far-right faction that refuses to vote for anything.

Speaker 5 Nancy Pelosi had a really small majority as well.

Speaker 5 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 Democrats had a 50-50 split in the Senate.

Speaker 5 Again, this just goes to show the asymmetry in our politics that bipartisanship has become a partisan virtue. Democrats believe in and preach and practice bipartisanship.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 nominating them again.

Speaker 3 The extremes kind of the median in the party now.

Speaker 3 You know, you wrote in 2010, I've said that, I wonder if it's like you wrote that book in 2010 about

Speaker 3 wingnuts. At the time,

Speaker 3 I got to confess. I was like, I don't know.
Avlon might be overstating it a little bit. You know, like Avalon, this might be a little hair on fire.

Speaker 3 Like, we're still, you know, we still nominated McCain. Romney's around the corner.
Like, 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.

Speaker 5 I didn't want to be right. And my wife would have agreed with you

Speaker 3 at that time.

Speaker 5 Our first first date was my first book, Independent Nation.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And, you know, Trump has brought us closer than ever politically.

Speaker 3 I know a little bit about that.

Speaker 5 And it was little echoes. I remember when I started doing The Extremist Beat as a columnist, The Daily Beast, and what came into the book's wing nuts.

Speaker 5 And the whole point was, it was like, this is happening. Pay attention, but also look at the history behind this stuff.

Speaker 5 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 Burch Society.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 Make America great again was not conscious. It's not like Donald Trump knew the history of that.

Speaker 5 No, exactly right. But but when you when you understand the history, it's that it's old Harry Truman line.
The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 when you understand the history and you can listen for, you know, it's the, you know, history doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 And a few that followed him. Wow.

Speaker 5 But what we've been dealing with in our country has been

Speaker 5 without precedent, but there should be real moral clarity.

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Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 that part of the reason why the

Speaker 3 red wave did hit in New York and California, maybe not as much as they thought, but why a lot of Republicans got elected in 22 is because a lot of voters just didn't really think that abortion was at threat there, you know, in the same way in other states, right?

Speaker 3 Like it didn't, this issue didn't feel as real kind of in these blue parts of the country.

Speaker 3 And I thought, boy, I think that's going to be different in 2024 with Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House and Donald Trump coming up as president.

Speaker 3 I'm just wondering how you're thinking about talking about and campaigning on that issue.

Speaker 5 I think you're exactly right that it's going to be different in 24. Defending women's reproductive freedom is basic.
It's fundamental. It's under threat.
We shouldn't be surprised, right?

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 I mean, you know, other than some outtake from the handsmaid's tale, I mean, if you actually want families, you know, IVF is something you want to encourage, not punish.

Speaker 5 But this is the problem with extreme ideology imposing itself on people's lives. Look,

Speaker 5 this is something that they're, you know, we've seen the eight states, including deep red states, that have pushed back against ballot initiatives to further restrict abortion.

Speaker 5 But yet Republicans are still pushing a national ban. That's clearly at the top of the agenda.

Speaker 3 And you and I remember when people said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And I think people realize that, oh, you're taking away a freedom. And by the way, look, this is the most difficult personal decision that a woman can make.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 I think that's something that the vast majority of Americans can agree on.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 3 aren't

Speaker 5 because radicals and extremists hijacked the political process and they're also,

Speaker 5 you know, they're running against majoritarian democracy. I wrote a whole column about this looking at Mike Johnson and the Mike Lee stuff.

Speaker 5 They think majoritarian democracy is the problem rather than the solution. You cannot overstate how dangerous and extreme that is.

Speaker 5 And so that alone is a 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.

Speaker 3 To me, that radical and extreme side is the same, because I'm for kind of if they're reasonable reforms, this isn't what's, you know, reasonable limits. Like, this is what is happening, though.
No.

Speaker 3 And for me, here's my one piece of pro bono political advice for you.

Speaker 3 In some ways, Mike Johnson, I think, is if district voters can be educated about him, might be scarier than Trump, you know, in New York.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And I think that that is going to be a very dangerous and scary element for a New York district.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Let's not have our religion drive our politics, which is also founding fathers' wisdom. But yeah, I completely agree with you because you can't separate the two.

Speaker 5 It just so happens that of the 18 Republicans who represent Districts Biden won, which this was in 2020, Lolota 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.

Speaker 3 You know, okay,

Speaker 5 not running away from that. You know, unlike Lee Zeldon, he didn't vote to overturn the democracy after the attack on the Capitol, or at least Defonic, you know, other New York Republicans.

Speaker 3 He didn't do it at Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger or any of those folks did either, though.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 I remember I interviewed Kinzinger and he said he hadn't gotten outreach from the Biden campaign. And it wasn't that he was feeling needy for attention.

Speaker 5 It was more sort of, guys, we got to build the broadest coalition right now. And so let's do that.
We just got to win.

Speaker 3 Adam might be a little needy. He likes getting texted.

Speaker 5 Hi.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 Is it the Scotch? Is it the power? What is it?

Speaker 5 What happened? So let me put all this in context for folks. So my actually first

Speaker 5 You know, you asked early 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 So doing something right there.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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,

Speaker 5 one of the most pivotal points in my life, and you alluded to it, one of the most defining moments in my life was 9-11. I was there when the towers collapsed.

Speaker 5 I wrote an essay about it that some people speak kindly of called The Resilient City that recounts what I was doing.

Speaker 5 But, you know, my team and I, I was chief speechwriter in City Hall at the time, and we wrote 343 343 firefighter eulogies.

Speaker 5 So if you want to obsess over Rudy, you know, that's the most formative moment of my life.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And what happened to Rudy, 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.

Speaker 3 I know. They would have renamed LaGlordia after him if you would have just shut up and drank red wine and just did nothing else.
It's really, it's just unbelievable.

Speaker 3 I do, I want to end with those eulogies, though, because I reread that essay this morning before this.

Speaker 3 It's moving. I just was hoping you could talk about that.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 I mean, so many.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 than we'd lost in the history. Right.
I mean, it was just 343 is unimaginable.

Speaker 5 The mere fact of the example they set

Speaker 5 in their death, running into the fire,

Speaker 5 is the most powerful

Speaker 5 example

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 You run towards danger to help people.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 in writing all those eulogies, you have an appreciation for one of the

Speaker 5 majesties of democracy, which is that we're a nation of, for, and by the people. And everyone's got the capacity to stand up when it matters most and do what's right.

Speaker 5 And that example then becomes eternal.

Speaker 5 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 that you automatically adjust adjust your perspective for something bigger than yourself.

Speaker 5 And even I'll never forget Terry Hatton was the captain of the rescue one, and his wife Beth Hatton was with her when the towers fell.

Speaker 5 We found out the night of the night before his funeral that she was pregnant.

Speaker 5 And little Terry is

Speaker 5 graduating at college about.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. And

Speaker 5 Beth lives in Dix Hills. She lives here in Suffolk County.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 5 when I drove by the other day, a fire station out on the South Fork, and very subtly there was a 343

Speaker 5 outside on a

Speaker 5 stone tower.

Speaker 5 And my son asked, What's that?

Speaker 5 And so you start to have those conversations. But I think it's so important

Speaker 5 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,

Speaker 5 and that while we can't wait for

Speaker 5 disasters, natural or man-made, to unite us as a nation,

Speaker 5 the fact that that's been strained at all, I think, speaks to how deep the rot has got.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And now, I believe, directing it towards defending our very democracy itself.

Speaker 3 Amen, brother. I really appreciate you sharing that with us.
John Avalon, he's running New York's first district, johnavalon.com.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 5 Absolutely, brother. And thanks to everything you guys are doing at the Bullwork.

Speaker 3 My famous last words

Speaker 3 are laying around

Speaker 3 in tatters,

Speaker 3 sounding absurd.

Speaker 3 Whatever I try,

Speaker 3 but I love

Speaker 3 you,

Speaker 3 and that's all that really matters.

Speaker 3 If this is goodbye,

Speaker 3 if this is goodbye

Speaker 3 bright shining sun

Speaker 3 would light up the way before

Speaker 3 you were the one

Speaker 3 made me feel

Speaker 3 like a fly

Speaker 3 and I love you,

Speaker 3 whatever is waiting for me

Speaker 3 if this is goodbye

Speaker 3 if this is goodbye.

Speaker 3 The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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