And, This is Rahm Emanuel on How Crony Capitalism And Trump’s Tariffs Will Kill The “American Dream”

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Speaker 51 Today, I initiated a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of the people of the state of California, asserting that Trump does not have the unilateral authority to impose one of the largest tax increases in U.S.

Speaker 51 history.

Speaker 51 The impacts of these tariffs are disproportionately being felt here in California, the number one manufacturing state in America, a state that will be significantly impacted by this unilateral decision by the President of the United States.

Speaker 51 I'm looking forward to talking about that more with my next guest. We'll talk trade, we'll talk tariffs, we'll talk about what happened in the last election.
Is this 2004 all over again?

Speaker 51 Are Democrats ready for a big comeback? And what does the future hold to my next guest? Is he running for President of the United States?

Speaker 51 This is Gavin Newsom.

Speaker 51 And this is Ram Emmanuel.

Speaker 51 Ron, thanks for coming on the show. And before we get started, there's so many issues that I want to get to in a relatively short period of time.

Speaker 51 We'll talk obviously about the state of the Democratic Party, the state of our union tariffs, issues obviously related to your service and time in Asia.

Speaker 51 But top of mind this week is so much of the attention on Harvard University and their pushback, which

Speaker 51 generated a lot of interest, including from your old boss, President Obama, who tweeted out a very positive statement on behalf of Harvard, asserting that it's time to assert universities to assert themselves more aggressively as it relates to what Trump's trying to do.

Speaker 51 I'm just curious what your thoughts were on Harvard and moreover, what's happening with higher education in respect to the Trump administration.

Speaker 52 Well, I'm of a couple of minds on higher education. And one is,

Speaker 52 I mean, I don't think anybody's pointed this out, but, you know, Donald Trump started his kind of introduction into public life in one way or another with Roy Cohn, who is Joe McCarthy's right-hand man.

Speaker 52 And the attack on universities, infamous back in the McCarthy era, squashing both the role the universities played in our public life and also academic freedom.

Speaker 52 And that's one element.

Speaker 52 The second element is, you know, having been in Japan, but I knew this without going to Japan, the American university system, I mean, California, you know this firsthand, and its role that it plays from a research and development on cutting edge technologies, new entrepreneur, not only entrepreneurs, but new entrepreneurship, new ideas, new business models.

Speaker 52 I met somebody from Stanford the other day in the AI space who's now got a company. That's an example of what is so unique.
And people,

Speaker 52 Japan, Israel, I can give you all over the world and Europe all admire what we have built year over year over year.

Speaker 52 And not only is the political freedom happening, but we're actually now killing the goose that laid the golden egg for America's economic competitiveness.

Speaker 52 And then third, if you think of the future on the international level, as a battle, not of a Cold War in the sense of ideological Soviet Union versus the free world, but as a technological battle and competition between the United States and China, we are really

Speaker 52 unilaterally disarmed. And then fourth and finally,

Speaker 52 Governor, I take offense

Speaker 52 as

Speaker 52 an American and as a Jewish American, the idea that you're going to use anti-Semitism or what universities had as a culture, and I think there's a legitimate point to address that and reform that, but using anti-Semitism to

Speaker 52 literally destroy our academic institutions and universities. And that's how they're getting the goods through customs, so quote unquote, dealing with anti-Semitism.
And, you know,

Speaker 52 you and I are talking on Passover, the week of Passover. The idea that the Jewish community would find any comfort.
with one person's opinion as opposed to the rule of law.

Speaker 52 I got 2,000 years of history that tells you that doesn't turn out well.

Speaker 52 So I can go at this like five different angles.

Speaker 52 And

Speaker 52 I'm hoping Harvard and not just Harvard, but other universities, other law firms, other institutions. And I would say that to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 52 You're going to find out whether that black robe is a Halloween costume or you actually earned it and understand it because he's challenging you. There's nothing sacred.

Speaker 52 So everybody's going to have to decide

Speaker 52 and reach deep down. Harvard has.

Speaker 52 Other universities are going to have to do the same and decide that, you know what, there's something, a set of principles here that are more important than accommodation.

Speaker 51 And I appreciate the reverence on the rule of law, particularly as it relates to the Supreme Court. But I'm just curious, I mean, it's interesting, you sort of an origin story with Roquoy

Speaker 51 with Roy that I hadn't really considered.

Speaker 51 But what, I mean, is there something, I mean, you know, he talks often, Trump, doesn't he, about how highly educated people are. He's always impressed with people's looks.

Speaker 51 He's impressed with their education.

Speaker 52 Well, looks has nothing to do with how educated you are.

Speaker 51 No, no question about that. But what is it?

Speaker 51 I mean, so it's an interesting thing to me, just as an observer, someone who watches, obviously, Trump closely, this notion that higher education is some establishment plot.

Speaker 51 Is this a political agenda? Is this a 2025 agenda?

Speaker 52 They're getting their goods through customs here.

Speaker 52 First of all,

Speaker 52 the whole idea of tenure for professors was built coming out of the McCarthy era, so you could not be prosecuted for your political views.

Speaker 52 That's the origin of it. That's where tenure as a concept

Speaker 52 is nurtured, if I'm reading history correctly, that's where it comes from.

Speaker 52 And professors were given the ability to be protected professionally for and not being prosecuted for any political expression or views. And

Speaker 52 now, were there things that universities got way off track on? 100%. Were there reforms that were needed to be done? Yeah.

Speaker 52 And there's not a university president or a board member that wouldn't tell you that was true. 100%.

Speaker 52 Destroying the academic, not only freedom, but also the research elements and trying to coerce their behavior. Now we're going to the worst of McCarthyism.
And I don't think it's a coincidence.

Speaker 52 I think it's actually correct.

Speaker 52 Donald Trump's mentor in public life is Roy Cohn, who was also

Speaker 52 Joe McCarthy's mentor and sidekick. And so we're living in a period of time.
And

Speaker 52 I don't think I'm being dramatic or hyperbolic, but that's the period of time

Speaker 52 these institutions, not just Ivy League, but public universities as well, have a history of them having stood up, having their voices heard, and pushed back. And I know you want to stay in this area.

Speaker 52 And I just, so I just say this, I find it offensive that you're using quote-unquote

Speaker 52 anti-Semitism that was perpetuated on the universities

Speaker 52 to really deal with your political agenda. So let me just say this, like the student at Columbia,

Speaker 52 I disagree with his views on Hamas. I disagree with what happened on obviously what happened on October 7th.
You want to deal with him in some way.

Speaker 52 have him force him to do community service as an intern at the Holocaust Museum for a year.

Speaker 51 Right.

Speaker 52 Now, all he was, he was expressing his views, which I find abhorrent. And I think the American people will see it.
Killing 1,200 citizens because they were Jewish is not acceptable.

Speaker 52 Cutting a fetus out of a woman is not only unacceptable, it's a crime. Okay? And you want to identify with that.

Speaker 52 We can handle that as a country without having to destroy either Columbia University, Harvard University, or a public university.

Speaker 51 Well said. So no, look, I appreciate that.
Of course, I'm, you know, I've served on the UC Regions Board as a lieutenant governor and governor.

Speaker 51 No more precious system from my perspective in terms of conveyor belt for talent for this country and the research and development component of that. And you're extending beyond that.

Speaker 51 I mean, the NIH grants and all the other efforts to really wreck the systems.

Speaker 52 Put the research aside. Could you reform it? Yes, the universities were skimming some dollars.
That's an easy way to reform, but don't throw out the goose that lays the gold in it.

Speaker 52 The second is, as it relates to academic, not academic freedoms, things that were done

Speaker 52 to Jewish students, Jewish culture, Jewish life on universities that would never be accepted to any other minority group.

Speaker 52 And that too had to be dealt with. And the universities being forthcoming about that would be helpful.

Speaker 52 But don't use anti-Semitism or the attack on the Jewish community at a university to as your way of getting your goods through customs to actually fulfill a political agenda that was articulated in Project 2025.

Speaker 51 Right beforehand. That's right.
So let's, you know, and just sort of segue from Harvard.

Speaker 51 I mean, there are a number of Harvard graduates that happen to be members of the Supreme Court, and you referenced the court.

Speaker 51 And obviously, another big story in the last few days has been referenced in the Oval Office visit with President Bukele of El Salvador and the conversation that was very publicly held in the Oval Office related to issues around the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision

Speaker 51 and and the defiance, apparently the defiance of Pam Biondi, the Attorney General, and obviously the president himself, including the president of El Salvador, as it relates to that ruling.

Speaker 51 I mean, how concerned are you?

Speaker 51 People have talked about a constitutional crisis. They talk about red lines.
They talk about the foundational principles of our founding fathers, three independent branches of government.

Speaker 51 When you defy or apparently defy a Supreme Court ruling, have we crossed that red line? Are we on the other side of this? Are we being hyperbolic?

Speaker 52 Well, I don't think you're being hyperbolic. Look,

Speaker 52 I think we're going to find out whether the black robes that the members of the court wear are a Halloween costume or they represent the dignity of the court and its opinion as a co-equal branch of government.

Speaker 52 They were not ambiguous as it related to the individual that the United States acknowledged they wrongfully sent to the El Salvador prison.

Speaker 52 Now, the court is either going to show that not the court's opinions are the final verdict and opinion now need to be executed by the executive branch.

Speaker 52 And if he defies them and they take no step, and that,

Speaker 52 you know, there's a lot of ways to deal with, I mean, you know, individual citizens that are held in contempt of the court. There's a lot of different ways to deal with this.

Speaker 52 And look, I go back to when

Speaker 52 Chief Justice Roberts

Speaker 52 was being confirmed by the Senate. He said the judges are like umpires.
That was his words. They call balls and strikes.
Well, you called this one.

Speaker 52 Now, either you're going to allow your opinion as an umpire, which I happen to think is a horrible metaphor, but you used it, and you're going to let your opinion hold the day,

Speaker 52 or basically it's a fungible opinion. It doesn't matter what you say.

Speaker 52 Now, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know if you are, governor, but I studied the Constitution.
I always understood there were three co-equal branches of government, not one above all others.

Speaker 52 We're going to find out something about the court, not just the president.

Speaker 51 Amen. The best of the Roman Republic, Greek democracy, independent co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, sort of fundamental principles we've been celebrating for 200.
40 plus years.

Speaker 51 Look, we've also been sort of reflecting in the last few weeks the years and years that Donald Trump himself, and back to, I think, the origin story.

Speaker 51 And I think it's really interesting and insightful how you began the conversation as it relates to Roy Cohen and the history of McCarthyism in relationship to this moment.

Speaker 51 And so much, I think, about Trump goes back to sort of indelible.

Speaker 51 ideological perspectives that he had for years and years and years.

Speaker 51 And I don't think we give enough credence to that, including on the issue that connects to you in a more modern term and your ambassadorial time in Japan.

Speaker 51 And that's the issue of tariffs, where Trump, I think it was in the 80s, put out a full-page ad, if I recall,

Speaker 51 around how unfair trade policy was and how Japan at the time was cleaning our clock. And here we are fast forward with all these tariff policies.
So are you surprised that we're where we are?

Speaker 51 Obviously, you have strong opinions about the recklessness of it. But from an historic perspective, of that perspective, of that prism, does it surprise you

Speaker 52 what he's advancing what he's advancing so let's deal with a couple things that i i think are all uh in there

Speaker 52 one is uh it doesn't surprise me either he said he was going to do the tariffs what surprised me is the erraticness because it was the one constant thing he said in the campaign one constant thing as he said in his in his public life and it's been the most erratic not thought through most uh i mean as opposed to kind of the project 2025 stuff that he didn't mention that's been unbelievably like there was a strategy book.

Speaker 52 Here is what he did mention, and it's just every day is a new day. Look, it's the largest tax increase in American history.
Full stop.

Speaker 52 Two, it's a corrupt system, because whoever goes to Mar-a-Lago gets a cut, gets a bad thing, gets a cut. As you're seeing on cards, you're seeing that.

Speaker 51 If I could pause on that, I think that's the most underreported part of this. The regressive tax side is one thing.
What this means for crony capitalism is another.

Speaker 52 This is the worst of crony. As I said, when he first got elected, but wasn't inaugurated here, he's going to turn the Oval Office into eBay and it's the highest bidder.

Speaker 52 And if it ain't nailed down, he's going to sell it, and it's crony capitalism. Here is my

Speaker 52 another P, and it's affecting the dollar, it's affecting this year 401k, but here's the other piece.

Speaker 52 20 years ago, China was on the rise, and America was seen as stagnating to decline.

Speaker 52 Xi does a couple things that is the worst economic damage any one person could do. And he did it to China.
He busts the housing bubble. He busts the municipal debt bubble.

Speaker 52 He cracks down on the private sector.

Speaker 52 Foreign investment flees. Foreign entrepreneurs flee.
Entrepreneurs in China stop. And the economy goes into what people are referring to as a Japanese-style deflation.

Speaker 52 And youth unemployment shoots way up.

Speaker 52 The United States is on the rise.

Speaker 52 Money is flowing in unemployment is down manu manufacturing is coming back

Speaker 52 united and china's strategy in that scenario is we're going to export our problems through manufacturing all across the globe chile lose its only steel plant south africa is about to lose their steel plant countries that are aligned with china brazil mexico file wto cases against china We're the safe harbor.

Speaker 52 We're the adult. That is the United States.
What happens? We do these tariffs that are erratic. And then all of a sudden China looks like a place of stability and we look like the chaos agent.

Speaker 52 Rather than China being isolated and the world aligning with the United States, the United States gets isolated.

Speaker 52 And we have turned, we had China and they knew it. They said it.
This doesn't require interpretation.

Speaker 52 China said, you're isolating us. We took advantage of China's on goal.

Speaker 52 They did to themselves economically through their mercantilism what their wolf warrior was on the diplomatic front and we used it strategically better than we actually assumed we could do and we just committed the worst on goal and snapping the literally ripping the victory from the jaws at the feet and now we're the isolated party and what's worse and let me say this as a father

Speaker 52 with two children,

Speaker 52 one full-time and the other reserve, enlisted in the armed forces.

Speaker 52 1979, governor, was the first time the United States deployed a sanction. It was on Iran and used its economic power and the power of the dollar so we didn't have to do something kinetic militarily.

Speaker 52 We refined this and really become experts going through the war on terror.

Speaker 52 And we had built up the capacity. One of the things that China and Russia hated was the United States through the dollar could economically punish you

Speaker 52 in a way that it didn't have to require the U.S. military to do it, but we could use our economic power and our power of our dollar.

Speaker 52 We have destroyed, destroyed, not

Speaker 52 inhibited,

Speaker 52 one of the most important tools we have developed over 50 years to punish an adversary without putting men and women in the United States uniform at risk.

Speaker 52 This is,

Speaker 52 as my grandfather would say, a Shonda. It's a crime committed against ourselves.

Speaker 52 It is ridiculous. Now, most importantly, the American people, I give them a lot of credit.
It took them, they didn't go to Harvard. They didn't go to Columbia.

Speaker 51 They didn't even get a four-year degree, most of them.

Speaker 52 They knew that a tariff was a tax on day one, and they knew they were going to get hosed.

Speaker 51 That's right.

Speaker 52 Figured it out without going to business school, knew it upfront, rejected it. And he is showing the political peril of his own position.

Speaker 51 Yeah, well, he completely betrayed them, right? I mean, by definition,

Speaker 51 day one, bringing down prices. Number one promise.

Speaker 52 Look, the one, look, we have our own problem as Democrats. We'll get to that in the rest of this podcast.
But the one thing you can say about Donald Trump, he'll betray you and stab you in the back.

Speaker 52 And he's doing it all. And the American people are going to punish the Republicans for this.
And you saw it in the election.

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Speaker 51 So let me, and I, and I definitely look forward to talking about the political implications, but let's just talk about the practical.

Speaker 51 I mean, because you've, I mean, you've experienced firsthand up close

Speaker 51 our efforts, particularly during the Biden administration. And I really applaud those efforts, particularly with Japan and Korea in relationship to China.

Speaker 51 You were very vocal, very vocal, more than any ambassador, which took some courage, I thought, against China.

Speaker 51 You've seen this sort of geopolitical shuffle. I mean,

Speaker 51 what are they saying?

Speaker 51 You know, Trump's now saying we're respected around the world. What are they saying in the halls with our allies? I mean, how consequential is this to trust?

Speaker 51 And how long is this wound going to fester?

Speaker 52 I would say to you, Governor, first of all, in 80 days, he's destroyed 80 years of credibility of the United States.

Speaker 52 A big hit on our credibility. You can look at Indo-Pacific, you can look at the Middle East, you can look at Europe, you can look at Africa.
No one region

Speaker 52 outweighs another. The most important thing post-Donald Trump is somehow restoring trust and credibility to the United States board.

Speaker 52 People are ridiculing the United States, not just in word, but also in deed.

Speaker 52 I work tirelessly,

Speaker 52 and I give the president and the national security apparatus credit with my colleague in South Korea in the historic coming together at Camp David between the president, the president of South Korea and the Prime Minister of Japan.

Speaker 52 We all three countries have a complicated history.

Speaker 52 We came together, saw the future as more important than the past, and embraced it and shaped it.

Speaker 52 Two weeks ago,

Speaker 52 China brought together the foreign ministers of Korea and Japan with them.

Speaker 52 They announced an economic partnership that they're going to develop.

Speaker 52 Korea, that was essential to our export controls against the semiconductor industry in China, Samsung, the shining corporate semiconductor company in Korea, announced an agreement with a Chinese company.

Speaker 52 Now,

Speaker 52 nobody's respecting the United States. Nobody's trusting the United States.
They're looking out for their own self-interest.

Speaker 52 That meeting between China, Korea, and Japan never would have happened on the kind of level it happened with the outgrowth that happened.

Speaker 52 Had we not committed and isolated ourselves with a tariff policy that hit ally and adversary with equal force.

Speaker 52 It's a non-gulf. There's no other way to describe it.

Speaker 51 Would you extend? I mean, obviously, there's a lot of talk now in South Korea about the prospect of a Korean peninsula where everyone is a nuclear power.

Speaker 51 Obviously, there's now renewed conversations, which is remarkable to me. You would understand it better than anyone in Japan, even.

Speaker 51 I mean, do you think that's an outgrowth of this moment, or is that a more complicated question that may predate the recklessness of Trump's tariff announcements.

Speaker 52 So

Speaker 52 one is everybody used to say, oh, about non-proliferation. It was expensive what we did.
You're about to get sticker shock on proliferation.

Speaker 52 We spent a year and a half. I was more on the sidelines on this one of convincing Korea not to go nuclear, but to abide with the United States in a whole process of that.

Speaker 52 Fast forward,

Speaker 52 what happens is I think Korea is going to look at the United States as an untrusted ally, and they're going to make a decision with North Korea's possession of nuclear capacity, China's capacity.

Speaker 52 They're going to go nuclear. And they're not going to put their faith in the United States anymore.
And if Korea does it, Japan will do it. So just close your eyes.

Speaker 52 Pakistan, India, China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan, all in that region will be nuclear. What could go wrong? It's insane.

Speaker 52 I want to go double back on something I skipped, and I want to say something about the tariffs you had asked. If I could, Governor.

Speaker 52 we're treating textiles toys and technology as equals

Speaker 52 and I don't the idea that we're going to see technology or semiconductors and I'm not saying they're more but they are slightly more valuable than a t-shirt from our economic capacity and strength so if you're going to have a policy on

Speaker 52 making sure that America's own economy is secure and slightly more self-sufficient than where it was, you don't treat toys manufactured in China, textiles manufactured in Southeast Asia, and technology like semiconductors as if they're equal economic capacity.

Speaker 52 And lastly, what's also lost in this base, almost 45%

Speaker 52 of all imports into the United States are things that go into our own manufacturing base.

Speaker 52 We're going to affect manufacturing, but not the way that Donald Trump said. It will have an impact on manufacturing.

Speaker 52 It will actually lead to unemployment in the manufacturing. I don't know if you know this, and I'm sure you do because you have your own industrial base in California.

Speaker 52 There's 500,000 manufacturing jobs today with a help wallet signed around it.

Speaker 52 Yep.

Speaker 52 We're short workers.

Speaker 52 You know this, and I know this is going around. I used to have CEOs come through here.
I talked to them in this

Speaker 52 today. You do too.

Speaker 52 Biggest item, besides this regulation or that tax, biggest item,

Speaker 52 a workforce that they can't fight.

Speaker 51 That's right.

Speaker 52 So, if we started at home, we would be actually there's 500,000 manufacturing jobs. Today, we could have done something about with that before we hit the tariff chaos.

Speaker 51 No, look, I appreciate it. Also, speaking of kids, I've got four kids and they still love toys.
I think 80% of the toys under the Christmas tree come from China. They've doubled the cost of that.

Speaker 51 Obviously, if you're

Speaker 51 got your 401k, as you said earlier, and I think the focus on 401k more than the markets i think even carville brought that up in a recent op-ed i thought was very wise uh and connects with people in a more um

Speaker 51 a much more personal way but i i want to highlight what you just said california is the biggest manufacturing state in america people forget that California is number one in two-way trade, number one in direct foreign investment, and number one manufacturing state in America.

Speaker 51 40% of the goods movements in this country come through two ports of entry in California, about 50% of that from China itself.

Speaker 51 No state has more to lose, more to gain as it relates to ag, as it relates to all of these industries and tech, as you noted, AI, et cetera.

Speaker 51 So that's, by the way, why we just filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. We did it on, I think, very sound grounds.
And

Speaker 51 it's an interesting lawsuit for many different reasons.

Speaker 51 But we've got to push back much more aggressively on the consequences of this.

Speaker 52 Let me say this without trying to go into a witness protection plan.

Speaker 51 Which, by the way, is hyperbole, but not necessarily in this day and age. So I appreciate the category.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 52 Do you know a lawyer? Before I know.

Speaker 51 By the way,

Speaker 51 none at Scatten Arbs, none of Paul Weiss, none of all these firms that have capitulated. You brought that up at the top.

Speaker 52 Here's the thing: is

Speaker 52 the analysis

Speaker 52 that we have a problem where America did not invest in America or Americans, and it led to our economic independence

Speaker 52 being adversely not only affected, but it also affected our civic life because people lost confidence in America by Americans. That is not a wrong analysis.

Speaker 52 Going about that tariffs are the most beautiful word in the English language and hitting everything, ally and adversary, the same, not thinking it through strategically, not understanding the difference between toys and technology from an economic standpoint is actually the cure is worse than the illness, and it's going to be affect people's family budgets, it's going to affect their employment, it's going to affect a whole host of things

Speaker 52 and their economic security, their retirement security, their education for their children. And so, to me,

Speaker 52 your first question kind of was: I get

Speaker 52 the analysis of what ails America, or one of the things that ails America, it's not wrong,

Speaker 52 but like all things Trump, he makes the problem much more severe than address it.

Speaker 51 There you go. Yep.

Speaker 52 In every aspect.

Speaker 52 Take the academic institutions. Were there things that they had done over the years that got them off kilter? 100%.

Speaker 52 But using anti-Semitism to execute a political strategy to silence

Speaker 52 universities and academics, no.

Speaker 51 That's exactly right. And so I know I'm with you.
And what you're saying is you're not an anti-tariff absolutist. You believe in targeted tariffs and along the lines of what.

Speaker 52 No, I didn't say that. Actually,

Speaker 52 no, I want to be, I want to speak.

Speaker 51 But are you, but you've been, but you've been, you haven't been opposed to tariffs in the past. I mean, you've, you know, the Biden administration tripled them on Chinese steel and aluminum.

Speaker 52 Here's my thing is, if we've got a problem, what does it take

Speaker 52 to address and build an industry? Now, look, my analysis, going back then as ambassador, China is the one that came up with self-sufficiency as an economic model.

Speaker 52 That's why they're exporting their mercantilism and crushing all these countries around the world. They've decided how to isolate themselves from the world rather than interact with the world.

Speaker 52 And it's only on China's term.

Speaker 52 If you want to apply a tariff, my view is: okay, what are the things that we are going to do that tariff give us a window of time? What are our investments? What's our training?

Speaker 52 What are we going to do from a research standpoint in semiconductors, in steel, or pick your industry? I'm not for tariffs.

Speaker 52 They are a tool in a toolbox, but tell me what we're doing with all the tools in the toolbox so you have an integrated, cohesive, comprehensive strategy.

Speaker 52 If we don't train the workers for the 500,000 jobs, I don't care what tariffs you do. Yeah.

Speaker 52 Okay. And if you're not going to fund some research, take a look, you know, I'll just say this.
Fracking as a technology came out of our universities.

Speaker 52 Look, we're now, we went from a $400 billion import to a $45 billion export. That's a big swing.
Tell me what we're going to do.

Speaker 52 And now people are thinking of using that hydraulic technology to do geothermal.

Speaker 52 Tell me what we're doing,

Speaker 52 where's the end line, and what are all the pieces that fit into that? We're just going by gut instincts of one guy who failed seven businesses.

Speaker 51 So what you're saying, I mean,

Speaker 51 to be more clear than

Speaker 51 the basis of that reaction, targeted tariffs with an industrial policy, with a policy to back it up, with a rationale to use it as a tool for strategic national security issues or for legitimate questions around imbalance of trade or unfair practices.

Speaker 52 There are people like the Secretary of Commerce and the President who believe tariffs are the economic toolbox. Yeah.
They're not.

Speaker 52 They are a tool in the toolbox, but you tell me each sector, what is the strategy? What are we going to do for training? What are we going to do for infrastructure?

Speaker 52 What are we doing for research and development? How are we going to take certain U.S. companies and build them up or invite foreign investors to build those up? And I'll give you an example.

Speaker 52 Take the shipbuilding industry.

Speaker 52 Japan and Korea, unbelievably capable of coming in and investing and helping build that domestic industry in the United States. Are they banned?

Speaker 52 Are they part of that? Are they allies that we're going to invite in to help us jumpstart something that we've lost our muscle memory on?

Speaker 52 That's a strategy. I want to, I just, what it is we're going to do.
What's the roadmap here so everybody knows how to contribute and knows what the goal line is or what the end point is.

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Speaker 24 It's the gaming event of the year featuring T-Pain's Nappy Boy Grizzlies versus Neo's Gentleman's Gaming.

Speaker 27 It's a 4v4 matchup featuring Call of Duty, Tetris, Track Mania, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 Plus 4, and Tekken 8.

Speaker 33 Season Zero of the Global Gaming League is live streaming on YouTube and Twitch.

Speaker 35 Head over to globalgamingleague.com.

Speaker 36 Com.

Speaker 3 No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping.

Speaker 7 Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd.

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Speaker 11 Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists.

Speaker 14 With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts.

Speaker 18 Head into Ulta Beauty today to shop our early Black Friday event, Ulta Beauty.

Speaker 22 Gifting happens here.

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Speaker 50 Selection varies by location while supplies last.

Speaker 51 This is an opportunity to pivot a little bit, but pivot with a little bit of self-reflection. And one of the things I've really appreciated.

Speaker 52 Oh, that's going to be hard for an Emmanuel.

Speaker 51 That's well, I don't know. You've been pretty.
I was about to compliment you as an Emmanuel.

Speaker 52 I've been doing self-reflection on the podcast, too.

Speaker 51 Yeah, no, I mean, well, you know,

Speaker 51 we could get in a deeper conversation. Yeah, all two of your two other brothers.

Speaker 51 Yeah, we could talk about mom as well. You already think you brought up the family in the context of what was the word you used? Wasn't mishagash.
What was it?

Speaker 52 Shanda. It's a sin.
It's an embarrassment. It's a Shanda.

Speaker 51 I like it. I'm going to steal that.

Speaker 52 It's Yiddish. It's half sin, half embarrassment.

Speaker 51 It's good. It fits the moment.
But let me talk about a different moment. I mean, and you were part of it.
And frankly, I think all of us were. A lot of us were parroting it to be candid.

Speaker 51 You know, as I sort of a Clinton Democrat back in the day, NAFTA, the WTO.

Speaker 51 You know, people talk a lot about the WTO sort of as a point

Speaker 51 of emphasis that sort of led to this point, not just an op-ed in the 1980s or an ad by Trump as it relates to his positions on trade.

Speaker 51 You know, what do you make of the Democratic Party and our culpability for this moment and the hollowing out of our industrial base and the need to jumpstart?

Speaker 51 I mean, what just take their arguments, the Bannon arguments, take the arguments of Trump and the acolytes around him that it's time to reindustrialize. It's time to bring those supply chains home.

Speaker 51 It's time to really start focusing, yes, dare I say it, on America first, Rom.

Speaker 52 Yeah, no, look, I don't

Speaker 52 so i agree with that on both america and americans first

Speaker 52 as the person who

Speaker 52 first city to ever create free community college and make sure high school wasn't the end point of a public commitment to education and so governor here's what i would say and i'll talk to both both naphton and wt and wto meaning china getting to wto and they're

Speaker 52 slightly different but of single spirit

Speaker 52 the mistake it's a mistake and we owe an apology to the American people, is we allowed La Crosse, Wisconsin, Peoria, Illinois, Youngstown, Ohio, Saginaw, Michigan, or Battle Creek, Michigan, or Terre Haute, Indiana, to navigate the world market on their own against China and much bigger forces.

Speaker 52 We didn't, if you go back to NAFTA, President Clinton had proposed a billions and billions of dollars of investment that was turned down by Congress.

Speaker 52 Ended up with like a job training program, like a voucher, and basically said, here, you're on your own.

Speaker 52 And the truth is, you and I and our kids, we're going to get the rewards of the system that we built. But that's not true for everybody.

Speaker 52 The American dream is not, has been unaffordable and inaccessible every year after every year. And it's down now to about 10% of the children of American families have access.

Speaker 52 All American people want is a simple thing, a shot at the American Dream, and they got the shaft. And we left communities

Speaker 52 unprotected against China. Peoria is not set up, and the people who live in Peoria to fight China on their own.
And that's just an observation, that's just a fact.

Speaker 52 And while trade had benefits, the benefits were not equally shared, and the risk was not equally shared. And that's a fact.
And for too long, it was ignored as a stream in a yellow.

Speaker 52 And you can explain something of Donald Trump in that. Now, on WTO,

Speaker 52 same analysis, analysis, except for I would say one caveat.

Speaker 52 When China was brought in, it was part of

Speaker 52 in the same way that Russia was brought into NATO and Russia was brought into the G7.

Speaker 52 There was a theory of the case, and it's a kind of a 60-40 issue. It's better to have them in the 10 pissing out than outside the 10 pissing in, to use an LBJ term.

Speaker 52 It's not, you know, this is a governor. I know this is mayor, as a chief of staff.
Nothing's 100 to zero. That's what you have AI for.
These are judgment calls.

Speaker 52 It was better to think that you can make China and invest it in the system we have.

Speaker 52 By 2012,

Speaker 52 when Xi becomes president of China, it's very clear they go from strategic competitor to strategic adversary. Much different.

Speaker 52 And it was actually also very clear, and I say this as a congressman representing many companies and as chief of staff dealing with CEOs.

Speaker 52 China's intellectual property theft and economic espionage is core to the business model in a way that patents and rule of law are core to ours.

Speaker 52 And in 2012, we held on strategic competitor, ignoring things that we knew were happening.

Speaker 52 And they went to strategic adversary and core to their idea. You have Google based in California.
Only one country was stealing AI secrets from them. And it's called China.

Speaker 52 They do it all over our universities. They do it all over our companies.
It's core to them. And we ignored it.

Speaker 52 Now, in 2012, we should have blown the whistle, called the game and said this is a different game

Speaker 52 and we the only thing i would say is that we woke up on wolf warrior the economic coercion 10 years earlier than china expected us

Speaker 52 and we started making use of that time so was it a mistake in 1999

Speaker 52 I got to be honest, it was a 60-40, 65-35 call.

Speaker 52 Do you let them stay out or you bring them in? And when they started changing and not playing by the rules they agreed to, they should have gotten called out earlier and not just called out.

Speaker 52 The whistle should have been blown and they should have been forfeited the game and being dealt with differently. They're not a developing economy.

Speaker 52 They were cheating and stealing their way to economic secrets. And not only cheating and stealing, we permitted American companies to give away research and development to get access to a market.

Speaker 52 Well, I'm sorry, taxpayers pay for that research and development. We own that as much as any one company owns that R ⁇ D.
When we give you a tax credit, we're an equity investor.

Speaker 52 We gave away our family jewels because a bunch of company CEOs, all of us did, DR, both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, governors, everyone, because they wanted access to the market.

Speaker 52 And the biggest mistake, we commercialized our foreign security and national security policy. We commercialized it.
The business community had way too big a vote. A big mistake.

Speaker 52 And now we have to make up for that lost time. We were in the process of doing that.

Speaker 52 And I think what we're doing, treating allies as if they're adversaries, adversaries is that one day they become allies and is a total mistake because we don't know friend from foe.

Speaker 51 You're here. And you say we, we'd start, and this is segued then to the Biden years.
And, you know, I've been very vocal. I thought it was a masterclass of policy making.

Speaker 51 I thought it was extraordinary legislative accomplishments, $369 billion in the IRA, 52.3 in the Chips and Science Act, $1.2 trillion, I think $550 billion more net new in the infrastructure. I mean,

Speaker 51 the punchline aside of Trump, I mean, literally 300 weeks of infrastructure bloviation and the Biden administration delivered, seemed to me an industrial policy that was worker-centered to begin to substantively address these trend lines and address these headlines of today.

Speaker 51 Do you agree with that?

Speaker 51 And I'm not looking at you as a former ambassador to the administration, it's difficult to, you know, I'm not looking to create any wedges, but it seemed to me a pretty robust response to the concerns around the working class, to the concerns around what's happening in the heartland.

Speaker 51 By the way, the heartland includes California,

Speaker 51 which again, largest manufacturing state that has more hunting jobs, more fishing jobs, and more forestry jobs, not just ag jobs than any other state.

Speaker 52 So, Governor, I would say to you,

Speaker 52 Look,

Speaker 52 it started dealing with the fact that both of industrial policy and key sectors of the economy that were going to produce both jobs and economic independence,

Speaker 52 we started to make investments in America and making up for what we just the other question, which is things that we didn't invest in.

Speaker 52 I mean, we allowed the market the freedom of the market to take place.

Speaker 52 And it affected both our competitiveness and, most importantly, the American people and their confidence in America because we lost pace with them.

Speaker 52 I do think there's, you know, it was robust,

Speaker 52 but what was one of the principal things that undermined the president was inflation. And that was an outgrowth of the robustness of the first act,

Speaker 52 which is, and how big it was.

Speaker 51 Which I neglected to reference. I referenced three of the activities.
So my point is,

Speaker 52 was the infrastructure.

Speaker 51 And not exclusively that. I mean, it was partially.
I mean, to be fair, you had international

Speaker 51 supply chains, the war in Ukraine, issues, and obviously international inflation that impacted the globe, but yes, partially impacting America more than the first bill.

Speaker 52 Everybody was, oh, it's big and bold. And look, I can say this.
I mean,

Speaker 52 a lot of it was, oh, we were going to show President Obama, you know, about the competitiveness. We were going to show President Obama the right way to do this.

Speaker 51 You think, meaning that Obama's bill wasn't big enough, your bill, and we needed to show we could go bolder and bigger.

Speaker 52 Look, I always, now you're going to deal with, talk about self-awareness nobody ever offered an amendment to make it bigger

Speaker 52 everybody that's rewriting history you know some of us were there nobody offered an amendment for a trillion dollars it wasn't gonna pass okay and right so nobody offered it everybody that's walking around oh it was too small too timid okay what was your amendment calling for a trillion dollars

Speaker 52 okay nobody did number two It was big, it was bold because we were having a problem. But part of it was all there was a political piece to this.

Speaker 52 And we should just be honest, it was to show that, oh, we were different than the timidness, which I don't think was timid.

Speaker 52 President Obama dealt with on the heels of having just dealt with part of what President Bush passed and signed, implementing that, but also the Recovery Act.

Speaker 52 That was what the political system could bear. Now, the inflation that kicks off under President Biden.

Speaker 52 is one of the pieces, not the only, but it is a result that big and bold came with a price, not just economic, it came with a political price because inflation kicked off.

Speaker 52 And it was known at the time it would.

Speaker 52 Warrant.

Speaker 52 But there was something, considerations done where politics was, to be honest, more valuable.

Speaker 52 And I think sometimes also, if I put in the rewrite,

Speaker 52 less is more. It became a giant appropriation bill rather than a strategically thought through.

Speaker 52 And you can, that criticism also applies to certain things we did under President Obama's first bill also,

Speaker 52 the recovery bill, which became too big

Speaker 52 of a

Speaker 52 funding bill rather than a strategic approach to either the recession and or post-COVID, President Biden's decision.

Speaker 51 So, Rah,

Speaker 51 is your point then that it then clouded over some of the accomplishments on those other bills, the sort of three-legged stool that I was arguing were not insignificant, the Chips and Science Act and the infrastructure bill and in making those investments intentionally in the IRA uh that have benefited disproportionately rural and red parts of this country but there's no look it

Speaker 52 look you got three or four there's a in my view

Speaker 52 there's

Speaker 52 telling people that the economy is great when they're feeling stressed yeah as if you're like tone deaf that's one two that's on the politics okay yep yep second

Speaker 52 people ready breaking news people like order versus disorder you're talking to the guy in clinton white house who put put together Operation Gatekeeper on San Diego, and the border looks totally out of control.

Speaker 52 I think American people are actually more receptive on immigration, but they don't like the law being broken and being so flagrantly disregarded. And we allowed it to happen.

Speaker 51 That's right.

Speaker 52 And then third,

Speaker 52 our party, and I've spoken about this, got into a cultural cul-de-sac. You know, look, we weren't good on the kitchen table issues.
We weren't really good on the family room.

Speaker 52 The only room we really did well in the house was a bathroom. And I don't know if you know this, governor, but the bathroom is the smallest room in the house

Speaker 52 and that's the only place we were good okay and my view is we not only look like we were on the cultural periphery we look like that's what was front and center for us yeah and i'm i'm i'm sorry i've written about this i've talked about it stop

Speaker 52 the bathroom the locker room it's not more important than the classroom And the kitchen table, a lot of things get discussed at that kitchen table. Like what's going on in the neighborhood?

Speaker 52 Who are the kids hanging with how does it how does technology affect our children's isolation they're in the basement i can't get them off the off the telephone there's a whole host of issues that happen they happen at your kitchen table they happen at my kitchen table and they and they go from the kitchen table to the family room to a night when you have five minutes to talk to your loved one and your partner about what we're going to do so we actually

Speaker 52 got totally sidetracked into a discussion. Now, as a party, we're an accepting party, but we started becoming advocates.

Speaker 52 And I'm sorry when two-thirds of our kids can't read at grade level, the worst in 30 years, two-thirds of our kids can't do math at the worst level in 30 years. That's the priority.

Speaker 52 You make it for your own children. And we didn't make it for the American children.
And

Speaker 52 this really, like, yes, I was in Japan. I couldn't have been happier.
But I was like, I was watching America from just, I said.

Speaker 52 Have we lost our mind?

Speaker 52 This is a part of our, the Democratic Party is about the American dream.

Speaker 52 Owning a home, saving for your retirement, saving for your kids' education, and making sure that grandma wasn't one noodles away from the chapter 11 and moving into the house.

Speaker 52 You wanted her blocks away, okay?

Speaker 52 And the American dream is not accessible. It's not affordable.

Speaker 52 That is what should motivate us as Democrats to speak to. Now, the opportunity for us, if I can go on in a tirade here.

Speaker 51 By the way, you sound very much like I have lately, so keep going, Ron. Keep going.

Speaker 52 Well, the Democratic Party, look, between now and 2026,

Speaker 52 there's going to be a referendum on Donald Trump.

Speaker 52 And there's going to be a lot of energy. It's not going to be about us.
It's going to be about him.

Speaker 51 But you're not arguing for that. You're arguing for something bolder and bigger beyond that.

Speaker 52 But here's what I'm arguing. Because with the day 2026 is over.

Speaker 51 Yeah, got to turn that page.

Speaker 52 And if you want the American people to give you the keys to the car, you got to know how to drive. Yep.
You got to know that

Speaker 52 you have a Google map to the American dream, that you know how to steer that car, not get it off onto the shoulder of the road, and you know how to take it so not just the Newsome children and the Emmanuel children can one day own a home.

Speaker 52 You have kids graduating college with $35,000 in debt, and they're living in the basement till they're 35.

Speaker 52 This is not. how you and I grew up.

Speaker 52 Then you got grandma living upstairs where the kids used to live because she can't afford to live on Social Security and Medicare and she's skipping medication and you're skipping doctor visits.

Speaker 52 This is insane. And if we're going to get the keys to the car between 2026 and 2028, we got to tell people you're not going to get the shaft anymore.

Speaker 52 And I may not solve this problem and I may have my tongue hanging out of my mouth at the end like a dog racing.

Speaker 52 but I am going to work every day to make sure that more and more American children and more American families have access to that dream.

Speaker 52 And it has been, and the reason our politics are where they are, and the reason we have Donald Trump is that trust between the American people, the American dream, and those of us who are stewards of it has been broken.

Speaker 52 And we need to repair it. And that's our number one goal.

Speaker 51 Well, I appreciate everything you said. And I also appreciated your courage of saying, which

Speaker 51 I was right there with you calling our party brand, which was not very well received, at least with my inbox, when I called our party brand toxic. I mean, when you're 27%,

Speaker 51 you know, we have a high water mark at 29% on a CNN poll, only to see 27% a few days later an NBC poll, where people don't trust us.

Speaker 51 They don't think we have their backs on issues that are core to them, which are these kitchen table issues.

Speaker 52 It is both the kitchen table issue and the family issues.

Speaker 51 And you mean family broadly defined in what context?

Speaker 52 Let me say a couple things. Now,

Speaker 52 I'm a product of my experiences.

Speaker 52 President Clinton is infamous in the 92 election for

Speaker 52 the economy, stupid. But there were a set of issues coming on the heels of both Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and then Dekakis,

Speaker 52 where he talked about ending welfare as we know it. A shorthand in your state coming out of the Rodney King sister soldier moment.

Speaker 52 that he was centered on a set of values that all of us collectively had a consensus around so that the economic message about the middle class first could be heard.

Speaker 52 And for President Obama, it became dealing with Father Wright, his pastor, who has made some very ugly comments.

Speaker 52 For President Kennedy, it was going to Texas to give a speech and say, I'll be a president who's Catholic, but not a Catholic president.

Speaker 52 There were threshold issues that were important on the cultural front.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 52 that allowed the rest of what we had to say, a permission slip, to get heard. Now, that's a political analysis.
And I would say to you, the kitchen table and the family room are of one piece.

Speaker 52 And we got stuck as a party in the bathroom,

Speaker 52 which I say jokingly, but it's serious. It is the smallest room in the house.

Speaker 52 And we're not going to be heard on a set of issues. And you say 27%,

Speaker 52 sometimes we earned that 27% the old-fashioned way. We turned our back on the American people and they had

Speaker 52 hope in us. They put their confidence in us.

Speaker 52 And we walked away from that contract with them.

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Speaker 27 It's a 4v4 matchup featuring Call of Duty, Tetris, Track Mania, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 Plus 4, and Tekken 8.

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Speaker 36 Com, com. Global, global, global, global,

Speaker 3 No, it's not too soon to start holiday shopping.

Speaker 5 Ulta Beauty's early Black Friday event is happening now through November 22nd.

Speaker 8 Shop $10 beauty minis from brands like Mac and Too Faced.

Speaker 11 Take 30% off Lancome and Touchland fragrances and body mists.

Speaker 14 With new offers dropping every week, our associates can help you find the perfect gifts.

Speaker 18 Head into Ulta Beauty today to shop our early Black Friday event, Ulta Beauty.

Speaker 22 Gifting happens here.

Speaker 37 Every holiday shopper's got a list, but Ross shoppers, you've got a mission.

Speaker 38 Like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows, and PJs for the whole family, dog included.

Speaker 1 At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more, it's about giving more for less.

Speaker 40 Ross, work your magic.

Speaker 43 Want Black Friday prices without the crowds?

Speaker 44 Loece gets it.

Speaker 45 Shop their early Black Friday deals and beat the rush.

Speaker 47 $99 is all you need to grab a select seven-foot pre-lit artificial Christmas tree for the holidays.

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Speaker 43 That's how Lowe's celebrates Black Friday early.

Speaker 50 Selection varies by location while supplies last.

Speaker 51 Ron, what you just said, I think is really powerful and important. And because in order for people to hear the other message,

Speaker 51 they had to hear that

Speaker 51 what you, I mean, they had to hear that we were connected on some of those other issues, meaning it's not just an economic message. I mean, that was, I think, Biden's frustration.

Speaker 51 He was talking about Build Back Better. He was talking about an economic message.
He was talking about his worker-centered industrial policy.

Speaker 51 But it wasn't necessarily breaking through because we couldn't break out, as you point, of the bathroom debates, the pronoun debates, and all these other debates.

Speaker 52 I've said this before, so I'll say it here. In his last state of the union, if my theory of the case is right, in the last state of the union,

Speaker 52 when he was not reading off script, he said, when he went off script, he said

Speaker 52 illegal immigrants.

Speaker 51 People didn't like the word illegal.

Speaker 52 All of Washington's immigration groups started yelling at the White House and they went to undocumented. Now, to me, that was the slowest pitch over the center plate.
Yeah.

Speaker 51 And he should have said, look, no one's illegal. I remember it.
I remember it well.

Speaker 52 And he

Speaker 52 switched to

Speaker 52 the voices on K Street of Washington.

Speaker 52 And to me, that was the easiest way of showing, as I showed Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama had different footprints on this

Speaker 52 area of what I call a cultural landscape, where he could have said, look, uh-uh, I said what I said, I'm sticking by what I said. If you don't like it, you can use whatever term you want.

Speaker 52 And this is, I find, ironic, from a bunch of people yelling at you.

Speaker 52 When you say, don't say, defund the police, you say it doesn't mean what it says. Well, don't use the English language then.

Speaker 52 Okay? If it doesn't mean I use the English language, convey what I mean, not what I don't mean.

Speaker 52 So to me, we put ourselves in a position where we're not seen or heard by the American people because we disappointed them.

Speaker 51 And I look, I appreciate the specific example as it relates

Speaker 51 to Biden

Speaker 51 in that. particular moment as it relates to illegal immigration versus undocumented.

Speaker 51 But broadly, how do you sort of reflect there's a lot of dialectic within the party or not within the party within punditry. More broadly that it's the weaponization of grievance.

Speaker 51 The other side's so much more effective at making CRT, DEI, ESG, IRS, you know, DOJ, anything with three letters the issue of the day, and that they're able to surround sound Sinclair media, not just Fox Newsmax, not just One American News, not just the Bogosphere and the Manosphere, but their ability to shape-shift.

Speaker 51 And constantly, we're on the defensive defensive in that respect. And they color things in.

Speaker 51 And even if we're trying to run away from those issues, we don't even want to indulge in those issues, we have an almost impossible time in that media landscape of breaking out and getting back on our message.

Speaker 51 How do you reflect on that? Is that a component part, or is it still we're not victims and we need to take more accountability?

Speaker 52 Look, they do have a very powerful ecosystem,

Speaker 52 but

Speaker 52 you know, even with the ecosystem, they lost Wisconsin,

Speaker 52 they lost every special election. So, I mean, one of the things you and I both know this,

Speaker 52 don't

Speaker 52 over-inflate your opponent's power and don't underestimate it either. So, does it have a powerful ecosystem? Yes.
Do we sometimes are we our worst marketers?

Speaker 52 Latinx, 100,000, you know, defund the police. I can give you chapter and verse of terminology.

Speaker 52 You know, I'm not, I actually appreciate the spirit, okay? So, don't get me, I appreciate the spirit of those those that are going around on protests calling oligarchs. You're all over California.

Speaker 52 How many people in your and you've been the lieutenant governor, governor? How many times has somebody come up to you and said oligarch?

Speaker 52 Rather

Speaker 52 or big, big, big, fat, special interests, okay? Why don't we use terms that people at the diner?

Speaker 51 I don't understand.

Speaker 52 Okay, well, I didn't know we were applying for our tenure position, okay? Give me a break. So, are we our worst? Are we our worst victims? Yes.
Do they have a more sophisticated ecosystem? yes

Speaker 52 do people like his tariffs no did we win in wisconsin yes did they lose iscombia county where pensacola is and it's 14 percent veterans double the national average first time since five decades a democrat won that in a national election trump won it by 19 we won it by three

Speaker 52 yeah so i don't overestimate the power of it i think I like to have that ecosystem and I'd like to be more strategic and more sophisticated about how we talk about what's core to us.

Speaker 52 I wouldn't want to be a better talker about

Speaker 52 the locker room in the bathroom.

Speaker 52 I'd rather be a better talker and be have a good ecosystem about this is what we're going to do to improve reading scores. Here's how we're going to make sure that kids can do math at math level.

Speaker 52 Here's how we're going to deal with the chronic absenteeism rate. So I'd like to have that ecosystem if I was focused on the right things.

Speaker 52 If I was saying, you know, and I just not to tout it, but, you know, we created universal pre-K in Chicago, never had it. Universal kindergarten, never had it.

Speaker 52 Free community college for B students, never had it.

Speaker 52 So I'd like to have the ecosystem that tells that story and why it's important that two-thirds of the 20,000 kids that went to college for free, community college for free, were the first in the family that ever went.

Speaker 52 That passport, that education, that's your visa and your passport to the future. Now, I think there's other ways to do it.
So I want the ecosystem and I want the way to talk about

Speaker 52 what we're doing in a strategically focused way. Not that makes me feel better about me, but makes them feel better that I'm actually in there, sleeves rolled up, like a beaten dog working for them.

Speaker 51 Rob, are you,

Speaker 51 we'll segue a little bit off that.

Speaker 51 You had deep experience with all things tactical and political, particularly not, and you've had a remarkable career and so many remarkable roles, working for three presidents, two in sort of more elite and established status.

Speaker 51 But the Congressional Committee, you were running that, what, in

Speaker 51 2006, right?

Speaker 51 And I bring up 2006 in this context. Because after 2004, I remember everybody, we got shellacked.

Speaker 51 They won the popular vote, the electoral vote. Democratic Party was toast.
Everyone was running saying we ought to go to Applebee's, read, you know, what's wrong with Kansas.

Speaker 51 This is before Hillbelly Elegy, the whole thing. And, you know, we're too elite.
We're too out of touch. And then all of a sudden, two years years later,

Speaker 51 you successfully win back the House overwhelmingly, somewhat by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. And in 2008, you guys win with the biggest landslide since 1964 with 53% of the vote.

Speaker 51 And all of a sudden, you're on transition team and chief of staff of some guy named Obama. Is this 2004 all over again if we do it right?

Speaker 51 Or are we in a deeper, darker wilderness at this moment, from your perspective?

Speaker 52 So, I'll tell you one

Speaker 52 anecdote.

Speaker 52 So the day after we win 06, you'll appreciate this.

Speaker 52 This is the day of

Speaker 52 President Trump, President Bush, rather, given that press conference said we took a thumping.

Speaker 52 I'm in my

Speaker 52 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I love this story.

Speaker 52 And it's President Bush.

Speaker 52 And he called to say, I want to to congratulate you on a great race, you know, the race you ran, et cetera, et cetera. And

Speaker 52 I said, Mr. President, I said, I want to thank you.
And he goes, what do you mean? I said,

Speaker 52 we did everything we needed to do, and you did everything we wanted you to do. And that was, he wouldn't fire Rumshall.

Speaker 52 It was also that, you know, he goes, you know what, Ram, you're as big a prick as they say you are. We started laughing our asses off.

Speaker 52 I said, here to serve, Mr. President.
And we were, actually, we were very respectful because, you know, two years later, as you said, I'm chief of staff, et cetera. I think

Speaker 52 this gets back to what I said to you. Between now and 2026, it's all about Trump and it's a referendum, him and the Republicans.

Speaker 52 But we better do the intellectual work right now on that window of time between 2026 and 2028. It's going to come fast and furious.
And we're not going to be living off the fumes of Donald Trump.

Speaker 52 We got to be living. We're not going to just fight Donald Trump.
We're going to fight for America. And I'm spending my time intellectually.
What is that fight for America?

Speaker 51 I love it. So, Rob, so it's a simple question.
It's the last question. And I don't want any bullshit from politicians.
I don't like this political plan.

Speaker 51 Are you or are you not running for president of the United States, Rom? I want to know right now, none of the BS. Whatever they make of it.
The American people will decide. What is the answer?

Speaker 52 Here's the answer, which is if I think I know the answer to that question, which is the question I said, which is, what is the fight for America? And I have something to contribute to that.

Speaker 52 I'll throw, I'll deal with that but if i don't think i have something that over yourself governor my governor here or other governors that i think they're doing what i would do and enunciating that because being anti-trump ain't going to get you squat in 2027.

Speaker 52 if i have something to say and i've never been shy about saying it and i don't think anybody else is saying it and i've thought through in my head how to do it i'll deal with that I got to offer something first that I think the American people need to hear.

Speaker 51 Well, we heard a lot today, and I really appreciate it.

Speaker 52 I like the record of the show, Governor.

Speaker 51 You were the first to swear on this show not me i don't what bullshit's not even a swear word jesus i mean come on

Speaker 51 i love you talk to you soon see you brother bye bye

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