And, This Is Former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison On Fighting For What's Right

Transcript

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Speaker 37 This is Gavin Newsom. So we're talking a lot about the future of the Democratic Party, what the Democratic Party represents to people today, the brand that is the Democratic Party.

Speaker 37 No better guest than the former chair of the Democratic National Committee. This is Jamie Harrison.

Speaker 37 Yeah, we're jumping right in, brother.

Speaker 37 At our table, what was the, I mean, was the idea was just to sort of create a relaxing environment where people feel they can really engage around the table, have tabletop conversations or conversations you'd have at the kitchen table.

Speaker 37 Is that was the idea?

Speaker 44 Yeah, the kitchen table, because for me growing up, you know, I was raised by my grandparents. So at our table, all of the big decisions were made, but also all of the real conversations were had.

Speaker 44 And so when my grandfather said, okay, everybody sit down, let's sit down at the table, that meant something in our house.

Speaker 44 And sometimes, you know, at the end of each episode, I have this award I give. I call it the Sit Your Ass Down Award

Speaker 44 because sometimes my grandfather would say, Boy, you better sit your ass down. And like, you're a little too big for your britches.

Speaker 44 You're feeling yourself a little bit. And so

Speaker 44 at the end of every episode, everybody gets to present who they would present their sit your ass down award to.

Speaker 44 And it's been funny.

Speaker 37 So your grandfather was an outsized role.

Speaker 37 My grandparents.

Speaker 44 So, Governor, my mom was 16 when she had me.

Speaker 37 Yeah.

Speaker 44 And so, literally, my grandparents were my pseudo-parents. My mom often says she got home from the hospital with me.

Speaker 44 And, you know, in those days, you didn't have all those warnings that babies can't sleep in the bed with the parents.

Speaker 44 But she said, I slept with my grandparents as soon as I got home. And I was just, you know, know, their

Speaker 44 seventh child, I guess. And so when my mom left South Carolina to try to find work, she went to Georgia.
I stayed with my grandparents.

Speaker 44 And eventually my mom got settled and she, she wanted me to come with her. And I just decided to stay in South Carolina because I had created this.

Speaker 44 My grandparents, I had created this relationship. They didn't have a whole lot of education,

Speaker 44 but i was you know i was a gifted reader and i picked up stuff quickly so i would read their bills and all that other type stuff while they took care of me right so it was uh it was that type of relationship and so um

Speaker 44 they really were like my parents my grandma just passed away this uh right before easter on good friday uh and man that that hit me hard it hit me hard because we were really really close i love that what i mean did you ever were you were they they, I mean, the tutelage they gave you, was it about social justice, racial justice, economic justice?

Speaker 37 Was there sort of a prism of service that they instilled upon you? I mean, what was the journey from there to becoming the head of the damn Democratic Party?

Speaker 44 It was hard work, right? My grandfather had a fourth grade education.

Speaker 44 He paved roads and worked construction. My grandmother had an eighth grade education.

Speaker 44 She picked cotton, cleaned houses, uh and then took care of the family and so i mean those they were two of the hardest working people i've ever met in my life

Speaker 44 um

Speaker 44 i mean they they work i mean really fingers to the bone um and very very humble very giving even though they didn't have a whole lot themselves um if you ever came to the house

Speaker 44 you left with

Speaker 44 a plate wrapped in tin foil and you know that's just who they were.

Speaker 44 They love people and they love taking care of people and they would give their very last in order to do so. And so that's how I picked up,

Speaker 44 you know, I am who I am because of them. And it is, you never give up.

Speaker 44 You have tremendous faith in God, as my grandma would say.

Speaker 44 uh the lord will never put more on you than you can bear and um and so sometimes it may be hard sometimes you may have a plan, but that's not his plan.

Speaker 44 And so you just kind of focus on what you can control and

Speaker 44 what you can do. And you always treat people right.
You treat them the way that you want to be treated. And so, you know,

Speaker 44 they just encouraged me to just do better, right? Do better than they did.

Speaker 44 uh and they tried to do everything that they could to make sure that any opportunity that prevailed itself to me that i was able to take advantage of it. And so,

Speaker 44 you know, and then Governor, I'm blessed because I had some,

Speaker 44 I call them sort of guiding angels that popped into my life at the right moments.

Speaker 44 You know, of course, my grandparents are there and my mom was there, but

Speaker 44 there was one man, Earl Middleton. Tuskegee airman.
He was the first black man to get a Caldwell Banker Middleton real estate practice in the state of South Carolina in Orangeburg.

Speaker 44 He was a state rep for a long time. He was, you see, Mr.
Earl, he's this 6'2 ⁇ , 6'3,

Speaker 44 distinguished, sort of lanky guy, distinguished, always had a cigar in his mouth, either lit or not, or sometimes he would have a pipe.

Speaker 44 And I met him my senior year in high school because I was elected mayor for a day in my high school. And I got a chance to shadow the mayor of Orangeburg.

Speaker 44 And so in shadowing the mayor, we went to a Kiwanis meeting. And in the back, the mayor said, he pointed to Mr.
Middleton. He said,

Speaker 44 Jamie, do you know Mr. Middleton? I said, no, sir.
He said, I want you to meet him. You need to meet him.
And so I went in the back. I introduced myself.

Speaker 44 Mr. Earl was there with a cigar.
not lit, but it was in his mouth. And he shook my hand and said, young man,

Speaker 44 you seem like you got your head on right. He said, I'm going to give you my card.
And if ever anything I can do to be helpful to you,

Speaker 44 you call me. So I kept it, put it on my dresser.
Fast forward, Governor.

Speaker 44 I got in April 2nd, 1994. I got into Yale.
First in my family to go to college, mind you, right? Got into Yale.

Speaker 44 They sent my financial aid package, almost a full ride, with the exception of about $2,500.

Speaker 44 And, you know, nobody, $2,500 in my family at that time was like $25,000 or $250,000. I mean, it was

Speaker 44 the thought that we would get that is unbelievable. And so then they said, well, you can get a personal loan.
Your parents can get a personal loan. Well, my grandparents, their credit wasn't good.

Speaker 44 They couldn't go to the bank and get a loan. And so it got to the point where I didn't know where to turn and i saw that card from mr earl

Speaker 44 and i called him up and i said mr earl um i met you a few months ago jamie harris i'm at ow uh i got into yale but i am 2500 short and i don't know what to do and if i don't find it i can't go so he said i want you to bring your letter to my office tomorrow you come there bring your letter and let's talk about it.

Speaker 44 I did that.

Speaker 44 Come to Mr. Earl's office, cigar in his mouth, sitting back in his chair.
He read the letter. He said, young man, I'm proud of you.
He said, this is what we're going to do.

Speaker 44 You're going to work for me this summer. You drive me around and you do whatever.
I'll make sure that you have the money to send there.

Speaker 44 I'm also going to make sure you have a computer and whatever you need to start school. So, Governor,

Speaker 44 again, this is when, this is partly why I believe what my grandma said, that the Lord has a plan for you and things will happen when they need to happen and all.

Speaker 44 Because in every step of my life, there have been people like Mr. Earl that have stepped in.
It was Mr. Earl, it was Jim Clyburn.

Speaker 44 You know, I can come up with a number of folks along the road that have really like stepped in in those moments in which there have been nothing but despair or darkness.

Speaker 44 And I didn't had no clue what the next step was going to be. But guess what? there's a step forward.
And so

Speaker 44 I am blessed and highly favored. And I am so grateful

Speaker 37 to have been on this journey and to try to do the good things that i've tried to do god bless mr earl and uh for everyone listening i imagine those people like a mr earl that touched their lives and they're they're thinking about them right now i appreciate that what is you know when you got into i mean remarkable first in your family to go to college and here you are at yale uh which is next level i mean what uh when did you really start to feel the the the the public service bug in particular

Speaker 44 well i you know

Speaker 44 my interest in politics actually started when I was 12 years old watching Jesse Jackson speak at a 1988 convention.

Speaker 45 And

Speaker 44 it was not because I wanted to watch Jesse Jackson speak. It's because in my grandfather's house, you watch whatever the hell he has on the television.

Speaker 44 There was one TV, and if he's watching, you're watching the same thing.

Speaker 44 But I watched that, and the Rev was talking talking that night, he was specifically talking to young people about hope and making the world be what it want, what you wanted it to be.

Speaker 44 And I really felt like he was talking to me. One, to see a black man on that type of stage at that time

Speaker 44 was just, you know, it was mind-blowing, you know, particularly coming from where I came in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Speaker 44 And so that just planted a seed in me about exploring and learning more about politics.

Speaker 44 And then roll around 92 and Bill Clinton, this man from the South, the man from Hope, Arkansas, that same year, Jim Clyburn's running for Congress. The first black,

Speaker 44 he had the ability to become the first black man elected to Congress since Reconstruction, the 1800s here in South Carolina.

Speaker 44 And so I'm in high school. And I'm just so interested.
I mean, I think I'm assuming I was a sophomore in high school at the time. So I volunteered on the Clinton Gore campaign.

Speaker 44 I volunteered to try to help Clyburn. Then Clyburn wins, Bill Clinton wins.

Speaker 44 And I'm just enthralled. I mean, I'm really

Speaker 37 like,

Speaker 44 I caught the bug at that time. And then I just never stopped.
I invited Clyburn to come to my high school to speak.

Speaker 44 He actually was crazy enough to come.

Speaker 44 He said, if a sophomore or he is a young man from Orangebury Wilkinson High School who has the goal to invite his congressman to come and induct him as the president of the National Honor Society.

Speaker 44 He said, I wanted to meet him. And he did.
And

Speaker 44 I guess I was, he calls me the bad penny because he just hadn't been able to get rid of me because

Speaker 44 I asked him, I wanted, I said, Congressman, I want to work in your office one day. And he said, well, you need to go to college first.
And then he gave me an internship. And

Speaker 44 then, you know,

Speaker 44 you know, the rest is history. I

Speaker 44 went to law school and worked in his office at the same time.

Speaker 44 But I saw politics as the avenue to help people like my grandparents. It really was.

Speaker 44 When I thought about all of the people who were really fighting for folks like them, people who didn't have a big voice themselves, but worked hard every day and got screwed over by the system.

Speaker 44 I saw the political leaders in my community, Jim Clyburn and Earl Middleton and folks like that, who were the folks that were helping.

Speaker 44 And I saw that as the avenue to do something very similar. And so I was interested in it.
And then, you know, luckily, I found people like Clyburn who taught me along the way.

Speaker 37 Boy, you're, and, you know, we're going to talk more about Clyburn in a moment, but you brought me back to that moment in 1988. I think it was the speech where Jackson,

Speaker 37 I mean,

Speaker 37 one of the great speeches because he talked about, I mean, the campaign didn't work out the way he intended to. But he talked about, you know, how this campaign had not been in vain.

Speaker 37 And he said, if in my low moments where my grape has turned into a raisin, charge it to my head, not to my heart.

Speaker 37 I remember that. I'm like, oh, come on.
So good. So good.
Paint a picture, so vivid.

Speaker 37 And it was such a, it was, I love that you were inspired by that. I was, as I was as well in 88.
And of course, you know, Bill Clinton and that, that, that 90, 90, 92 campaign.

Speaker 37 So we're, I think we're aging, we're tracking

Speaker 37 similar times of life and state of mind, and I would argue, quality of imagination. And I want to get to that in a moment.

Speaker 37 But you found yourself at those moments being inspired by these leaders, by their example,

Speaker 37 and anchored by your grandparents and these mentors that came into your life at the right time.

Speaker 37 And

Speaker 37 the pursuit in politics you took in a pretty profound way. And I remember you coming on the national scene ubiquitously when you ran for the United States Senate.

Speaker 37 I think at the time, and correct me, please, if I'm wrong, but I think it was one of the most invested in campaigns in U.S. history.
It's like $132 million or something.

Speaker 37 Is that right?

Speaker 44 That's it. We raised more than anybody else in a regular campaign.
I think Osoff, with his, after

Speaker 44 the

Speaker 44 special elections and the runoffs, kind of topped that. But we raised it in the normal campaign $132 million.

Speaker 37 And what was it?

Speaker 44 And it's sinful.

Speaker 44 It is actually sinful that you need that amount of money to run for office.

Speaker 37 And we're going to talk about that in a moment because we're going to fast forward

Speaker 37 about

Speaker 37 what may,

Speaker 37 reflecting on the last few months and years, but in relationship to money and politics. But I'm curious, just in that campaign, what was it?

Speaker 37 Remind folks,

Speaker 37 what was your why?

Speaker 37 What was the burning desire to be in the United States Senate? But also, why do you think that race galvanized the country and became so nationalized?

Speaker 37 Why you? Why the moment? What do you reflect upon in terms of that Senate race?

Speaker 44 Well, it really is interesting because I,

Speaker 44 you know, yes, I was interested in politics and running for office, but I had no idea that that i would ever run for the senate and let alone not run against lindsey graham i i actually for a long time i actually thought of republicans lindsey was pretty decent right um like some of us i i think there are plenty of us uh that yeah we consistently are disappointed in that respect oh yeah and so it really wasn't i it really wasn't until the cavanaugh hearings um that the idea was planted and and you know my wife and i were watching my wife wife, who I married up way, way, way up, but

Speaker 44 who's a law professor at University of South Carolina. And she and I were watching hearings.
And you remember that moment when Lindsey Graham does his Oscar performance, which,

Speaker 44 my God, if you Democrats want power, so blah, blah, blah, blah. And I sat there and I was just disgusted by it all.
And I remember, you know, chatting with my wife.

Speaker 44 And we was like, we got to find somebody to run against this guy. And I remember the pause and it was like, well,

Speaker 44 aren't you somebody? And I don't know if she was joking or whatever,

Speaker 44 but it sort of planted a seed in my head. And I just started toying with the idea.
Well, maybe, maybe,

Speaker 37 maybe.

Speaker 44 And then eventually

Speaker 44 an exploratory committee came up because

Speaker 44 one of the things that I realized with Lindsay is that he had changed.

Speaker 44 He was no longer the person who was focused on improving the lives of the people in South Carolina, no longer the person who was focused on working across the aisle to try to get things done. Because

Speaker 44 that's what the Lindsay that I knew from working in Jim Clarberman's office.

Speaker 44 That if anytime we needed to work with a Republican in the delegation, we could always work with Lindsay in order to get something done for South Carolina. That was the magic that

Speaker 44 Strom Thurman and Fritz Fritz Hollins, who were our two senators before, always had. That yes,

Speaker 44 they would fight to see who could do more for South Carolina. Even though they were Democrat and Republican, they would fight to see who could get more done.

Speaker 44 And so, but that Lindsay was no longer.

Speaker 44 This was a Lindsay who was so focused on his own power and his own stuff that he had forgotten the fact that in this great state of ours, you know, we have 15 of 46 counties with OBGYNs that in this state, because Republicans refuse to expand Medicaid, five or six of our rural hospitals have closed, that there's no broadband that was in many of our rural counties.

Speaker 44 And the question is, well, who's actually going to go to Washington, D.C. and stay in the Senate and fight for those people?

Speaker 44 Not fight to get in front of a damn TV camera, but actually fight for the people to improve the quality of lives that these folks have.

Speaker 44 Because we got a governor, and you'll find this as you come to south carolina more there's an area in south carolina called the court of shame

Speaker 44 think about that think about having a whole area a group of counties mostly black uh majority black counties that's called the court of shame where the schools are falling apart where the the water is not clean um and and so

Speaker 44 We needed somebody in DC who was going to fight for us. And we weren't getting that from, we got it from Jim Clopbern in the House, but we were not getting that equivalent in the United States Senate.

Speaker 44 And I decided, you know, if not,

Speaker 44 if not me, you know,

Speaker 44 I just needed to step up. And so that's what I did.

Speaker 37 And what did, did you take away anything, something indelible, lessons learned in that process? What did you, what was, if you distilled sort of the essence of that experience?

Speaker 37 Does it come down to a single sentence or does it come down to sort of a thought?

Speaker 44 Well, well, Governor, there was,

Speaker 44 you know, I reflect on that race a lot. I mean, there were so many curveballs.
One, COVID,

Speaker 44 which really

Speaker 44 upset how we did the campaign. We wanted to put together the largest field operation in the history of the South Carolina Democratic Party.
And we had the resources to do it.

Speaker 44 But because of COVID, we didn't want to expose people,

Speaker 44 we weren't able to do that. So we had to do all TV and all that.
And that's not the way I would run a campaign. Um,

Speaker 44 and then the October surprise when RBG passed away, Justice RBG Ruth Bader Ginsburg, uh, that then gave Lindsey Graham the opportunity to chair the appointment, so that was my October surprise.

Speaker 44 We had him on the defensive, you remember, he was crying on Fox News: oh, y'all, please uh send me a contribution because they're killing me down here.

Speaker 37 We literally literally, and people listening, literally, yes, yes.

Speaker 44 I mean, I mean, we would, we were kicking his ass. I mean, on the debate stage, on everything, every metric, we were outdoing this guy who had been in the U.S.

Speaker 44 Senate for a long time, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Speaker 44 But then, when he got that opportunity to chair that hearing, it changed, it put me on the defensive and it changed the dynamics of the race. Because now, here he's being a champion of conservatives.

Speaker 44 He's getting this conservative woman on the court.

Speaker 44 And it literally, we saw it in our polling, like it swap.

Speaker 44 So,

Speaker 44 but the thing that I took from that is that, yes, we ended up losing,

Speaker 44 but

Speaker 44 governor, we ended up getting 1.1 million people to turn out and vote for a Democrat. That has never happened in the history of South Carolina.

Speaker 44 The most before was Barack Obama, and he got about 800 and some thousand folks to vote.

Speaker 44 We came 50,000 short of the vote total that donald trump got four years prior when he beat hillary clinton by 13 points um

Speaker 44 and so

Speaker 44 you know we put some cracks in that wall and we gave people hope and particularly i think if the kids in south carolina could vote i i would be the senator right now um

Speaker 44 because most kids parents come up to me in the airport and they say my son or my daughter absolutely loved you because they saw all your ads on YouTube.

Speaker 44 But we gave people a hope that

Speaker 44 we could actually send somebody to Washington to fight for them.

Speaker 44 And so much so now that some folks are calling me now and saying, well, why aren't you running against Lindsay or why don't you run for governor?

Speaker 44 But, you know, one of the things that I have also learned is that you also have to put your family first.

Speaker 44 And for six years, I have been running hard to help a lot of folks, you know, two years running for the Senate, four years as DNC chair.

Speaker 44 And then sometimes you realize that you also need to spend some time at home. And raising two black boys in this type of atmosphere, it's really, really important.

Speaker 44 My dad was not there in my life. And so it's just really important for me that I'm there for my boys.

Speaker 37 I love that. And I want to talk about your family.

Speaker 37 in a moment, but let's talk about this larger family, the Democratic Party. Yes.

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Speaker 37 You know, so you referenced, you went from the Senate, and that opened up. So all of a sudden, sudden, once a mind is stretched, never goes back to its original form.
You've nationalized your name ID.

Speaker 37 You're ubiquitous on TV. I remember every damn night you were on some, I mean, literally, when I say every night, forgive me, on every cable network, there's that Harrison guy again.

Speaker 44 Big round head.

Speaker 37 Unbelievable. Really? Another $3.
I got to send this guy.

Speaker 37 It wasn't even three. I think you were calling for real, some

Speaker 37 more significant numbers from folks like me. But you decide to jump, put your hat in.
Was this, again, your inspiration? Was it your family?

Speaker 37 Was it your wife again saying, Come on, Jamie, let's not give up.

Speaker 37 Let's get to DC by another route. Let's run for the DNC.
How the hell that happened?

Speaker 44 Well, it actually happened the night of my election.

Speaker 44 President Biden called me and they had called our race probably about eight something, whatever. And I give this call undisclosed, and I'm getting ready to move to go to concede to Lindy.

Speaker 44 And I'm driving over to

Speaker 44 the place where we're having our after the election party. And there's this number and I pick up and it's Joe Biden.
And he says to me, he said, Jamie,

Speaker 44 we don't know what tonight we'll end up on the presidential level, but I wanted to call you about your race. And I just want to say, one, I am proud of you.
I'm grateful that you ran.

Speaker 44 And I want you to know when we pull this off,

Speaker 44 I need you to be a part of my team. He said, I don't know what it is, but I need you to be a part of my team.
And I was so heartened by that.

Speaker 44 You know, my heart was broken because of losing my race, but I was so heartened. And again, that's classic Joe Biden and why I love Joe Biden as much as I do.

Speaker 44 Because here's this man who is focused on, he doesn't know whether or not he's going to win or not, right? He's still waiting to see the results.

Speaker 44 But he is so focused on seeing other folks and saying, you know, I'm not going to leave you behind. I want you to be a part of my team.
If I'm there, you're going to be there with me.

Speaker 44 And it's part of the love that I have for Joe Biden because he's a very special person.

Speaker 44 And so really it was that, you know, that was the seed. And then, you know, Clyburn asked me, he said, you know, the president told me he called you and this and that.
What do you want to do?

Speaker 44 I said, well, whatever he wants me to do.

Speaker 44 And so he's, you you know, I had run for DNC chair back in 2016 after

Speaker 44 the Hillary loss.

Speaker 44 And I didn't, of course, I didn't win, but I helped Tom Perez prevail. So I had already been the associate chair of the DNC for four years.

Speaker 44 And so,

Speaker 44 you know, I said, well, you know, I can do the DNC. I know how to do party building.
And so that just became sort of the avenue. And the president and his team asked me to do it.

Speaker 44 I think it was that December or early January. And,

Speaker 44 you know,

Speaker 44 when the president calls, as you know,

Speaker 44 the only answer is yes.

Speaker 37 And so, you know,

Speaker 37 it's a hell of a journey to be on, to be the head of the Democratic Party. And for those that are wondering, I mean, the DNC, the National Democratic Committee, what is it?

Speaker 37 I mean, are you de facto, because I get this question all the time.

Speaker 37 Who leads the Democratic Party?

Speaker 37 And people say, was it the DNC? No, is it Jeffries?

Speaker 37 Is it the ex-presidents?

Speaker 37 I mean, what did you, your position at the time, positioned with the support of the president, the incoming president of the United States,

Speaker 37 is he the head of the party? Is Jamie Harrison the head of the party? What is the DNC? Explain it to people, what it means, and what it's not, perhaps, too.

Speaker 44 Well, Governor, the DNC is different. And the role of the DNC chair is different when you have the White House and when you don't have the White House.

Speaker 44 It is almost like two different organizations, and the responsibilities for the chair are also very different. When you have the White House, the president is the head of the party.

Speaker 44 I mean, and you are an able lieutenant. It's almost, you are, the DNC is seen.
Now, the question is, should it be seen like that? And that's for another discussion.

Speaker 37 Well, we're going to talk about it today, Jamie, because I want to discuss that. Yes, because I think it's an interesting question, but keep going because this is

Speaker 37 really important. Really important.

Speaker 44 Well, the DNC traditionally has been when you have the White House is an extension of the White House. It is a political arm of the White House

Speaker 44 because the president is seen as the head of the party.

Speaker 44 And so, you really, as the chair, you get your mark. And it's very similar to the cabinet secretaries, right?

Speaker 44 Where the folks in the White House make decisions and then they call and they pick up the phone and they tell the secretary, well, we're going to do this.

Speaker 44 And so, that means for the secretary, you got to do this. It's also the same thing at the DNC.

Speaker 44 You know, the folks at the White House make the call in terms of where the major expenditures go, what we're doing in terms of party philosophy. That is not to say that you don't have any input.

Speaker 44 And depending on the White House, how much input you have changes, right? There are some White Houses that lean very heavily on their DNC and the DNC chair and

Speaker 44 weigh the input. And there's some who don't, right? Who don't see the DNC as much to invest in and they do other things.

Speaker 44 And so,

Speaker 44 you know, my role was to make sure that the trains keep running in terms of all the things that the DNC really is responsible for. And that gives folks a sense.

Speaker 44 You know, the DNC is one slice of a pie in the Democratic Party ecosystem. Just one slice of the pie.
We don't control all things that are Democratic Party.

Speaker 44 we only control that sliver of the pie that we have and that is influenced by the white house in terms of what we do with that sliver that we have uh so the d triple c which is the democratic congressional campaign committee focuses on the house the dsc senate campaign committee focuses on the senate and they all have chairs the dga which you are a part of is the governors association they have their own chair and so all of those and every other little position mayors lieutenant governors attorney generals, secretaries of state, they all have their organizations.

Speaker 44 And we try to work together as a collective.

Speaker 44 I used to try to convene a meeting of what I call the sister committees, and that's the big

Speaker 44 the DGA, the D TRIP, and the DS. And then the cousin committees, which are the more junior ones, right?

Speaker 44 So that we could align ourselves in terms of message and direction and to let each other know where we're going on certain things to try to iron out any things that happen.

Speaker 44 That is not something that is mandated, but it's something that I wanted to do as DNC chair. So I got a sense of where

Speaker 44 the ecosystem and what the pie looked like.

Speaker 44 We had in our four years, the Biden administration was

Speaker 44 the president was probably one of the most pro party presidents that we've had in a long time. Interesting.
Believe fundamentally in investing in the parties.

Speaker 44 And that's why we invested probably, uh i not probably at that time we invested more than any other dnc had in terms of state parties and trying to rebuild the organization and that's because of joe biden and i give him full credit for that now some of the people in his universe at the white house uh did not always make it easy in terms of doing the things that i thought we should have been doing in order to strengthen the party to rebuild the party's brand

Speaker 44 to really engage in the social media aspect There are a lot of plans that I had early on, governor, for, you know, I wanted to create

Speaker 44 a YouTube channel that I call DTV that would have been focused on the Democratic Party and having us tell our own story, our own, highlighting our successes,

Speaker 44 getting different people that showcase the diversity of the party out there on social media where people are getting their information from. But I was told

Speaker 44 that's not, that's not a big priority right now, right?

Speaker 44 I had a study on rebuilding the brand of the Democratic Party because, as somebody ran for office myself, I saw that our brand was broken, right?

Speaker 44 But they tarred me as somebody who believed in defunding the police. When my grandfather was,

Speaker 44 my grandfather on my stepdad's side was a police, was in the police department for 30 plus years in Detroit. I'm the last damn person that would defund the police, right?

Speaker 44 Because I understand the importance of policing in our communities and good policing right right but that

Speaker 44 i was tarred with that even though that was not my position that's

Speaker 44 basically when your brand's broken they can put whatever the hell they want on right uh and so i wanted a study and i didn't want I did not want political people to do the branding study.

Speaker 44 I actually tried to get people who from the nonprofit and the corporate space who understand brands like because, you know, their livelihood and their money is built on a good, positive brand to come in and look at the political brand and give a different set of eyes on it i was told no we're not going to spend time on that so and it wasn't from the president it's some of the people sometimes in the president's bubble who think they know better but in essence um probably should just listen to some of us that are on the ground but i'll leave that for another day There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

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Speaker 37 It's interesting.

Speaker 37 So, I mean, because we can fast forward and talk about the brand, the democratic brand today is more, some have argued and people don't like the word toxic, but when you see 27% approval in early this year in an NBC poll, 29%, which was a high water mark at the time and a CNN poll, and people feeling we're out of touch, we're weak, we're not quote unquote focusing on their priorities, we're focusing on the elites, or we're focusing on being more quote-unquote politically correct.

Speaker 37 It's interesting to hear you reflect on aspects of that that you were battling prior.

Speaker 37 But again, as sort of an incumbent party with an incumbent president, your role in relationship to the White House is radically different than being out of power.

Speaker 44 Because

Speaker 44 the expectation is for you to focus on the president, on the White House, and everything else

Speaker 44 sort of falls by the wayside.

Speaker 44 But luckily, you know, again, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they really wanted to extend that bubble out some.

Speaker 44 But sometimes the people in the universes that you are dealing with, because you're not always dealing with the president and vice president, because they got much bigger fish to deal with.

Speaker 44 But the people who are that layer between you and them, sometimes they're constantly getting you back to focus on just that and not on the greater universe.

Speaker 44 And what I believe needs to happen in terms of reforms is that the DNC can't just focus on the White House, has to focus on the entirety of the party.

Speaker 44 And it has to be all the time, not just, and that's not to say that you do less for the White House. No, I'm not saying that whatsoever.

Speaker 44 But what I'm saying is you can't put everything you got on just the White House.

Speaker 44 Because if you lose state houses, if you lose governor mansions, if you lose attorney generals, we all see how important those roles are now when you don't have the White House, when you don't control Congress, right?

Speaker 44 That is the front line in terms of defense for democracy and the livelihood of so many Americans right now.

Speaker 44 And if we had not spent some time and energy and resources on that right now, we really would be up Shit's Creek, right? But,

Speaker 44 you know, and I'm grateful to the president and the vice president for pouring the resources in so that we could be helpful to the other entities, the other parts of our party.

Speaker 44 But I think we could even be in a much stronger situation had we done even a little more.

Speaker 44 And I think, you know, going forward, there needs to be some buffer between the White House and the DNC to allow the DNC to really flex that muscle fully

Speaker 44 and to invest across the ecosystem and not just focus on 1600 Pennsylvania.

Speaker 37 I appreciate it. So you reflect, I mean, you inherited an incumbent, I mean, in this case, you were tapped by a president-elect.

Speaker 37 You inherited that mantle of sort of incumbency, different mindset, different relationship to the White House, different relationship in terms of the expectations, particularly staff had in terms of how their agenda was being reflected in your agenda at the DNC.

Speaker 37 I reflect, you know, Howard Dean, a 50-state strategy under President Obama, the OFA sort of played a role.

Speaker 37 And,

Speaker 37 you know, you just, for those that are watching, you saw, you said thumbs down.

Speaker 44 The OFA is, and I think President Obama would tell you this. That was one of the worst decisions that administration made because what it did was it crippled our state parties.

Speaker 44 You know, when I became, under Howard Dean, and I sort of see myself as a Dean acolyte, the 50-state strategy was brilliant. And And it was not an idea of Howard Dean.

Speaker 44 It was actually created by the state parties who forced Howard Dean to adopt it when he

Speaker 37 bottom up. Bottom up.

Speaker 44 Bottom up. And so, but it was brilliant because what it did was it invested resources in state parties.

Speaker 44 It invested in organizers on the ground in these places, people who could disseminate the message and connect with the grassroots operations across the country.

Speaker 44 And as a result of doing that, we won and we won big. In 2006, I was the ED of the House Dem caucus in the House of Representatives.

Speaker 44 And Jim Clophon was one of the few members of leadership that supported Howard Dean and the 50-state strategy. That year, Dean and Rah Emmanuel went at it.

Speaker 44 Rahm Emmanuel cursed Howard Dean out, told him to cut the fucking check,

Speaker 44 write the damn check and this and that. Like he wanted $5 million from the DNC.
But Dean stuck to his guns and kept that money flowing into the state parties.

Speaker 44 That year, year, we picked up seats in the House that was not on the DCC

Speaker 44 target list, but what were seats in Kansas and other places that we never thought we would have won, but we did because we had the money on the ground and invested.

Speaker 44 And I thank you, governor, because you understand that. You have been investing in red states across the country, and that is so key for

Speaker 44 the next phase in the battle. We have to grow.

Speaker 44 We have to stop ceding territory to the Republicans.

Speaker 44 And we got to start growing the pie and the only way you do that is in investing places even if you don't win right now it's about a long-term investment and you see that and i want to applaud you for that because it has been so helpful i go to some of these states and they tell me governor newsom my party here in south carolina we want to thank governor newsom for his investment uh he sent out an email that raised them you know x amount of money arkansas they're thankful for you i mean i can go down the red states the old old Confederacy, thanks you, governor, because you have been investing in those states.

Speaker 44 And that's what we need more of in this party for people to see the long-term value of doing that. But that's what Howard Dean did.

Speaker 44 That is not what happened during the Obama administration. I give Tom Perez credit because he tried to go back to that once he became DNC chair.
But you see, the difference is Tom,

Speaker 44 well, going even before, Ron Brown,

Speaker 44 Howard Dean, Tom Perez were all DNC chairs without the White House.

Speaker 37 Yeah.

Speaker 44 Right.

Speaker 44 But when you have the White House, it's very different.

Speaker 44 And so part of the reason why we were able to beat back the red wave was because we did something that traditionally does not happen when you have the White House.

Speaker 44 We invested significant resources on the ground a year ahead of time.

Speaker 37 in many of these states over you're talking about just so people

Speaker 37 and jamie just you're talking about so people understand you wildly outperformed as dnc chair the biden administration as an incumbent president

Speaker 37 in that midterm uh you broke with all i mean historical trends and and and you're saying that was not just a fluke that was not just happenstance that was because you did what again that's because we invested unprecedented resources on building ground operations we had the largest voter protection program in the history of the dnc um uh in that midterm election.

Speaker 44 I mean, we literally had laureates all across the country being prepared because we knew

Speaker 44 the hijinks that were going to happen with Republicans.

Speaker 44 We did voter registration for the first time in 20 years. The voter registration had been outsourced out to

Speaker 44 C4s instead of being in-house at the DNC, right? So we did that. We put boots on the ground in all of the battleground states a year ahead of time.

Speaker 44 North Carolina and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada. And as you saw, we won almost, I think we won almost all of those governor's races.

Speaker 44 I think we won all of those governor's races that year in all of those battleground states. Katie Hobbs in Arizona.

Speaker 37 Yeah. We just said we struggled in Nevada.
Nevada was the exception.

Speaker 44 Yeah, Nevada was the exception.

Speaker 44 And so we just outperformed. And it was the best midterms election for a Democratic incumbent, I think, since the 1930s, when you take a look at it.

Speaker 44 And we worked hand in glove with our friends at the DGA, at the DCCC, at the DSCC.

Speaker 44 And I think I would even go on to say that part of the reason fast forward in 2024, that we didn't get wiped out in some of those other in those same battleground states, right?

Speaker 44 Even though the vice president lost the presidential race in Arizona, in Nevada, in Michigan, in North Carolina,

Speaker 44 we still won Senate races there. We still won down ballot races there.
And you know, normally if the top of the ticket loses, everybody loses.

Speaker 44 But the question is, why did we, yeah, North Carolina's a perfect example.

Speaker 44 Why did we lose the presidential North Carolina, but we won the governor's race, we won the lieutenant governor's race, we won attorney general, we won superintendent of of public instruction.

Speaker 44 We won a Supreme Court race. It's partly because of the resources and the infrastructure and a great state party chair, Anderson Clayton,

Speaker 44 that we were able to invest in those areas so that it's not so much just reliant on that presidential race, but Democrats can have their message, we can organize,

Speaker 44 we can disseminate. And so we saw that across the board.
And I think part of that is build infrastructure, Democrats.

Speaker 44 If you build infrastructure, it can outlast whatever you have, the dynamics you have on the presidential level. And you can still have Democrats win and be successful on a local level.

Speaker 37 And you also had Democratic values on the ballot that were successful. I think one of the most interesting to me is Missouri, where I think it was plus 20 Trump.

Speaker 37 Don't quote me, but I think it was plus 20. But we won Amendment 3 on abortion.

Speaker 37 We won the $15 minimum wage, that same ballot that went plus 20 for Trump, won abortion, one on $15 minimum wage, and one on paid sick leave, which begs the question around the party's challenge with positions versus messaging.

Speaker 37 There's this notion that, well, the reason they're so unsuccessful from the swing state and national perspective is that we're not aligned on the issues. Do you reject that? Was Missouri an anomalous?

Speaker 37 Were these down ballot issues just because of your successful infrastructure investments, but one off one time? Or do you think the party's party's positions are still majoritarian positions?

Speaker 37 Or do you think we need to reflect on what just occurred and begin to truly have a forensic on where we stand on

Speaker 37 a majority or even just even if it's a minority of key issues

Speaker 37 facing the American people?

Speaker 44 Well, Governor, I think

Speaker 44 part of it is On the issues, and I think we've always been there. I think the American people are where the Democratic Party is as it relates to issues, as it relates to education and healthcare,

Speaker 44 equality for all. I think those are,

Speaker 44 our values are mainstream values as it relates to that. I think the disconnect is that people don't are not always associating those issues with us or our candidates, right?

Speaker 44 And I think that's part of the party brand. I think what you have been hitting on and what you have done so well on is to show show that,

Speaker 44 because what people are looking for, they're looking for somebody who's going to fight for them. They're looking for somebody who's going to fight for them and their family and their community.

Speaker 44 Somebody who is not scared to roll up their sleeves and get a little dirty, right? Somebody who is not afraid to give as good as we get, right?

Speaker 44 And this is part of the brand issue, particularly, and I saw it with, you know, people say, well, you didn't see the black men and the Latino men.

Speaker 44 I've been ringing that damn bell for four years, four plus years, because as I went to barbershops, as I crisscrossed this country and I sat down with Latino men in Florida or black men in Milwaukee, like

Speaker 44 the things that they don't like about our party right now is they see us as soft. They see us as weak.

Speaker 44 They see us as not standing up. And they, even though they disagree with Donald Trump on the issues, they see him as strong in that sense, willing to fight and to roll up his sleeves.

Speaker 44 And I've been saying this for now four years. And you can talk to some of my staff, and they'll be like, yep, the chair's been talking about that.
But governor, that is what we have to change.

Speaker 44 Nobody is going to give you their vote if they think you are just going to lay over and allow somebody to run over you.

Speaker 44 um anytime they'd rather just stay home right they'd rather not and it wasn't it so much that people were going out and voting for trump sometimes they just like i'm not going to vote for either one of you because i don't like where trump is like he's an ass and y'all are weak as hell so why why am i going to stand up and vote for you right

Speaker 44 we we got to get out of this academic cerebral thing that we get into in our party and understand that most people when they go and they go vote they are not thinking what is the policy i i didn't read the policy paper from the democratic party or the republican people don't give a about that it's about people vote with this and this it is the heart and the gut right it is do i feel like you actually have heart enough to fight do i feel in gut that i trust you to fight right it is not uh i'm doing this policy analysis and this chart to see which one is the best one and which is rational and and all that.

Speaker 44 No, people don't, average people aren't doing that.

Speaker 44 And so what we have to do as a party is to find our spine again and to fight to fight for folks so you pushing back against donald trump that is that is a demonstration to so many people like on this redistricting like hell if you're gonna go this way i'm going this way if you want this to be a street fight well damn it i'm gonna pick up my shoe or brick or whatever i have to do because i'm gonna street fight this is gonna be a street fight and yeah i might get my ass kicked but guess what people are gonna look at you and say well you got yours kicked too right like we got we got to get into that because that's what people want right now and i think when we give people that man we're going to blow out all of these elections because we're right on the issues we just got to be tough enough to fight for them

Speaker 37 i love it and and it just i i by the way just full disclosure could not agree with you more I mean, this notion of weakness goes to trust, goes to character,

Speaker 37 goes to our conviction.

Speaker 37 It's foundational. And it's so, it's, you know, you remember the old, I thought Bill Clinton summed it up beautifully when we got shellacked in one of those midterm elections.

Speaker 37 I can't remember which one. He said, given the choice, given the choice, the American people will always support strong and wrong versus weak and right.
Yes.

Speaker 37 And this notion of strength is so important. And you see that reflected in the Democratic brand appearing to be weak.

Speaker 37 And so I could not agree with you more, the importance, the imperative of demonstrating demonstrating strength, showing it, strength of conviction, having the courage of our convictions.

Speaker 37 And no longer, to your right, just the cerebral, here's our 10-point plan, as opposed to where the hell do we stand

Speaker 37 on these issues. It's Archimedes.
Give me a place to stand and I'll move the world.

Speaker 37 And I think the Democratic Party needs that. And I appreciate you had the dirt road Democrats.
You were focusing on that framework around rural votes. You've been out there.
It's interesting.

Speaker 37 People don't know that about your tenure

Speaker 37 as chair of the party. But I think picking up that mantle right now is essential.
So it begs the question. Ken Martin's in there.

Speaker 37 You've probably given him a lot of advice, given public advice, but probably sparingly. But you've certainly given him private advice.
Tell our listeners what it was, Jamie.

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Speaker 44 Yeah, you know, Ken has been a dear friend for a long time. He and I became state party chairs around the same time.
He got in, I think, a year before me.

Speaker 44 So he understands what state parties need right now

Speaker 44 in order to move forward. You know, my advice to Ken really is, sis, it is,

Speaker 44 you know,

Speaker 44 stick to your guns in terms of investing in state party infrastructure, infrastructure because that it is how we won in 06. And I believe 06 is echoing 20,

Speaker 44 2026 will be an echo of 06.

Speaker 44 I really do believe. I believe that you remember in 2004, we got our

Speaker 44 teeth kicked in.

Speaker 37 They won the kids. John Kerry lost.

Speaker 37 Lost the popular vote. We lost both houses.
Yep. We were toast.
Everyone was talking about going to Applebee's or something.

Speaker 37 It was over. It was, you know, we all needed it.
Yeah.

Speaker 44 And mean it was that we were too elite we were too this to that 100 that's exactly right and what happened then is we got republican overreach and you see that right now george w bush tried to privatize social security you saw backlash in terms of the iraq war uh people did not feel good about the direction that republicans were taking us i think you see reflections again an echo right now Republican overreach on the redistricting, Republican overreach in terms of the big bastardized bill that he just passed.

Speaker 44 Like you see moving forward in a way that the American people don't like.

Speaker 44 I think the other leg of that stool was an investment in state parties like we never saw before with Howard Dean's 50-state strategy.

Speaker 44 Canada just announced what I believe is taking what I did and putting it on steroids. I mean, small states like South Dakota will get $22,500 a month.
from the DNC starting this fall.

Speaker 44 That's a game changer for a state. I love that.

Speaker 37 That's great to hear.

Speaker 44 And then the last component of that leg is a massive, you know, focusing or two other legs, focusing on the culture of corruption. We see that culture of corruption right now.

Speaker 44 Nancy Pelosi talked in 06.

Speaker 44 I got tired of hearing that phrase, culture of corruption. She hit that

Speaker 44 bell.

Speaker 37 And by the way, we thought it was bad in 06. Give me a damn break.
This is next level corruption. I mean, it's unprecedented in U.S.
history.

Speaker 37 The graft, the corruption of this president and his family, what's going on is jaw-dropping.

Speaker 37 Jaw-dropping.

Speaker 44 So again, it's another echo of 06. And the last component is, if there is a blue wave to be built,

Speaker 44 you can't win a big wave if you don't have somebody to ride it. You've got to recruit people in every seat.
And I don't care.

Speaker 44 All 435 districts in Congress should have a democrat running for it i don't care how hard it is every single one every governor's race should have a democrat running for it i don't care if it's a state that we haven't won in 25 years we need to have somebody we need to give people an option and then we got to recruit candidates that are fighters we got to recruit people who were willing to roll up their sleeves and said yes you know this is david versus goliath but guess what David won, right?

Speaker 44 So let's do that.

Speaker 44 And if we do that, governor, I believe we will take back the house we will have a shot at the senate we'll win some governor's races that people like oh what the hell happened because

Speaker 44 it will be too much for them to to try try to play like they're going to be playing whack-a-mole because all of a sudden the american people are going to explode and said we want change we want something different we are tired of the republicans and so i've told ken focus on those things Make sure you invest in state parties.

Speaker 44 Make sure you really get the state parties to recruit up and down the ballot. Don't leave anything open because even the down ballots can help the top of the ticket, right?

Speaker 44 Now you got somebody running locally, you add a few hundred thousand, you know, a few thousand votes here, a few thousand votes there.

Speaker 44 You close the margin on a statewide basis and you give the top of your ticket a shot. So,

Speaker 44 you know, if we follow the recipe and we look back to our history in 06, I think it really could give us

Speaker 44 a roadmap for winning in 2026.

Speaker 37 It's really interesting. So let me unpack this a little bit.
Then I want to stress test it. And then I want to challenge you on

Speaker 37 a couple

Speaker 37 of small but significant issues. It's really interesting.
We're about to pick up Virginia's governor's race. So we're going to have net one there.

Speaker 37 We're going to hold with great, by the way, two extraordinary Democratic candidates in... in not just Virginia, but also New Jersey, which I think is a proof point to this moment.

Speaker 37 I think about 04 a lot because I couldn't agree. I love that you brought it up and you said it in the context of 06.

Speaker 37 But it's what happened in 04 that you may have omitted, but not intentionally, because you laid out brilliantly everything that was done from the DNC and from the Democratic Party infrastructure.

Speaker 37 But there was a lot of also civic infrastructure. You had Democracy Alliance that emerged.
You had Center for American Progress that really started to get more muscular and emerged.

Speaker 37 You had media matters holding folks to account that were also principled and part of this. And all of a sudden, someone by the name, because we forget at the time, she was potent.

Speaker 37 She was precious to all of us out here. She was in my district, Nancy Pelosi, but she became Speaker Pelosi in 06.

Speaker 37 And out of nowhere, some guy named Obama wins the presidency in 08 with 53% of the vote, more than any other presidential majority since 1964. That all happened.
after 04.

Speaker 37 And instead of rolling over, instead of giving in to fear, cynicism, and anxiety, we started that rebuilding All of us, not just the party, but we, the people, and these civic organizations started organized.

Speaker 37 So I say all that because I love what you just said. It reminds me that we should maintain our optimism and our discipline at the same time.
But part of the discipline is also, Mr.

Speaker 37 Chair, reflecting on some lessons that we may not have learned. And I think you talk about, I love that you talk about the barbershop and what you were hearing about young men.

Speaker 37 You reflected not in terms of young men, but you talked to men in terms of men of color, African-American men. You talked about losing a little bit, Latino men.

Speaker 37 Young men, generally, we lost and we lost badly. I want to talk about that.
Two, we lost people on immigration. We may have taken from the midterms the wrong lesson on immigration and border.

Speaker 37 And I'll tell you, a lot of Democrats, including Democratic border state governor, like myself, there was a lot of frustration. And that was expressed very pointedly to the White House.

Speaker 37 And we paid a price for that. Dare I say, there were some cultural issues, and

Speaker 37 I'm going to stand tall. When they talk about anti-woke, they're talking about being anti-black.
I'm sick and tired of these guys rewriting history, censoring historical facts.

Speaker 37 The groat racism sickens me to my core. That's exactly right.
But there were issues that were tougher. And look,

Speaker 37 I've gotten a lot of criticism on this, and I don't want to emphasize this because it's playing into their frame.

Speaker 37 But the tougher issues, you know, know, on just sports and fairness, you know, on trans sports, and it's not a lack of love for the trans community, quite the contrary.

Speaker 37 And I have a record that can prove that.

Speaker 37 But there were some issues there that I also think we talked about where we're right on issues like minimum wage and sick leave and child care and issues that I think define the best of our party and healthcare, et cetera.

Speaker 37 But there are some issues where we're not necessarily where the American people are.

Speaker 37 In fact, we may be way off in terms of where the American people are.

Speaker 37 So unpack that a little bit, your own reflection on that. No, I.
Young men,

Speaker 37 where do we start to lose our way on some of these issues? Did you see them as DNC chair? Did you raise them with the Biden administration?

Speaker 37 Are they legitimate issues? Am I off? Do we have to give voice to those concerns today?

Speaker 44 No, Governor, I think, you know,

Speaker 44 one, I did raise, I often tried because I was out there on the ground and, you know, people in DC are in the bubble, right?

Speaker 44 And all they're doing is reading politico and seeing what MSNBC and CNN is talking about.

Speaker 44 But I'm actually like in the union halls or in the churches or in the barbershops and talking with real people and you're ringing the bells like.

Speaker 44 Folks, I am telling you, this is what we're, this is what I'm hearing. This is what I'm seeing from folks on the ground.
And I think what we have to do as a party is get less in the polling stuff.

Speaker 44 Well, the polling says, blah, blah, blah, blah. Actually go out and talk to folks, right?

Speaker 44 Because pollsters can ask questions in different ways and get whatever they want to get to to support the theory that they already have, right?

Speaker 44 But there is nothing like getting the real raw sense of where folks are and how they feel about certain things.

Speaker 44 And one of the things that we have to understand as a party is that we have to go to where people are, not where we want them to be, but where they are, right?

Speaker 44 And then that's not to say that we can't lead and help get people to a certain space. I mean, look at the issue of marriage equality, right?

Speaker 44 Eventually folks got, we know during when Bill Clinton, you know, the most we got to at that point was don't ask, don't tell. But think about how quickly things evolve over time.

Speaker 44 There was an evolution in terms of thought. And now it is the mainstream where most folks.
believe that marriage equality that everybody should be.

Speaker 37 In full disclosure, despite the fact the Supreme Court may revisit it,

Speaker 37 which is the concern we have about America in reverse and the regression that's going on with Trump and Trumpism. But suffice to say, you're 100% right.

Speaker 37 That's a proof point of progress and remarkable progress across party lines.

Speaker 44 And we have to celebrate progress, right? Because again,

Speaker 44 I had this wonderful conversation this week. It's Aaron at our table, our podcast with Sarah McBride.

Speaker 44 And we talked about, and I told Sarah, I said, part of, I think, the difficulty, and we saw that trans ad that the Republicans ran against

Speaker 44 the Vice President Harris. I said, part of the problem is that a lot of folks don't want to be offensive.
The Democrats don't want to be offensive, but don't know how to talk about it, right?

Speaker 44 So either they don't talk about it at all, or they talk about it in a way to be less offensive, but then it's so

Speaker 44 it is so

Speaker 44 like lab tested that it's not authentic, right?

Speaker 44 And so one of the things that, if we're a diverse coalition, one of the things that we have to understand is that people are in different places on different things, but it's incumbent upon us who know better or know more to educate folks and to help create a space where people learn and evolve.

Speaker 44 But it's also important for you to

Speaker 44 other folks to hear where we are and to understand that, right?

Speaker 44 I just think part of our problem in our party is that we have gotten to the point where we don't want to offend so much or that we automatically are offended every single time that somebody isn't 100% on the dial where we are.

Speaker 44 And we won't be a party if we continue down that road.

Speaker 37 Could not agree more. I mean,

Speaker 37 I grew up in my dad's party, my grandfather's Democratic Party was a broad coalition, conservative Democrats, liberal Democrats, you know, hardworking folks.

Speaker 37 And, you know, we can talk about, you know and i love you know and jamie we'll close on a few of these points because i i you've you've not been you you you get into it i mean you got into it

Speaker 37 you clap back i mean because bernie talked a lot we we lost we weren't focused on working folks and you you you disagree with that you you called him out on that well tell us more well it's because

Speaker 44 Listen, governor, I don't believe, you know, I told one reporter the other day, I said, you know, it's like having a shiny brand new car and every day you throw mud on your car, right?

Speaker 44 And then after three months, you're like, well, why isn't my car as shiny as it used to be? And I sort of feel like that's what happens to the Democratic Party.

Speaker 44 I feel like people throw shit on the car all the time. And then they wonder why the brand's so bad, right?

Speaker 37 But

Speaker 44 this party is, when we talk about walls and brick walls, we are the only brick wall. We are the brick wall that is holding back the flames of chaos.
We are the brick wall that's holding back fascism.

Speaker 44 We are the brick wall that is saving American democracy as we know it. And if we falter, the whole damn thing goes.

Speaker 44 And so we can't afford for them, the other side, to be taking away bricks off of our wall. And at the same time, on our side of the wall, we're taking things away too.

Speaker 44 In the end, that wall is going to falter.

Speaker 44 chaos is going to reign and there's going to be nobody there in order to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

Speaker 44 And so that is not to say that we can't criticize our party, but there are moments where the critique is important.

Speaker 44 And then there are moments in which we have to rally together and say, yeah, we have not done the best that we can here, but here are ways that we can get better. And let's rally together.

Speaker 44 You know, as my grandma said, you attract more bees with honey than you do vinegar, right?

Speaker 44 And so, you know.

Speaker 44 I don't like folks to say, well, Democrats haven't done anything for working people. That's bullshit.
That is literally bullshit. When you look at the fact that we save pensions for the Teamsters,

Speaker 44 that happened because of Democrats. A president that actually crossed the, I mean, that supported, got on a picket line.
When has that ever happened in history?

Speaker 44 Every major bill, Joe Biden, every single time he got up, he talked about how every bill from the American Rescue Plan to the Inflation Reduction Act to the bipartisan infrastructure bill was a good

Speaker 44 bill for union workers, right?

Speaker 44 Unprecedented. So that is bullshit when you say that.
It is bullshit when you said that Kamala Harris wasn't fighting for working people. It is literally bullshit.

Speaker 44 $25,000 for first-time home buyers, $50,000 in order to start a business, right? Helping people in that sandwich population right now who have families in nursing homes. So it's crazy.

Speaker 44 Do you want her? Would you have wanted her to do more? Say that.

Speaker 44 Yes, it would have been nice to add these aspects, but don't go and negate the good work that has been done in this last administration and say that it didn't work.

Speaker 44 You know, I'm about to call my good friend Ro Connor, also who

Speaker 44 I saw something online just the other day. He talked about the Teamsters.
The problem isn't with the Teamsters, it's with the Democratic Party. Come on now.

Speaker 44 come on now like

Speaker 44 let's stop beating up on our party like this because there are a lot of good democrats who work hard for this party every single day and when they hear our leaders just on us all the time, it's disheartening.

Speaker 44 Why the hell am I fighting so hard if all you're going to do is tell me the things that I do to fight this hard for this party and for the people of my party is worthless, that I'm not doing a good enough job to do it, right?

Speaker 44 That is not how you rally the troops. And the one thing that I want folks to know, particularly who are running for president.

Speaker 44 If you're running for president, you're not going to be just the head of this party. You're going to of the nation.
You're going to be head of this party.

Speaker 44 And to be the head of the party means that you have to rally us. You have to give us hope.
You have to give us faith. You can't shed on us all the time.
You can't tell us how bad we are.

Speaker 44 And that's a problem that Bernie had. People weren't going to rally the Bernie Sanders.

Speaker 44 Yeah, you want to be the head of our party, but you can't, you're not, the party isn't even good enough for you to say that you're a Democrat. Come on now.

Speaker 44 Right?

Speaker 44 Come on.

Speaker 44 You, it's not good enough for you to join. Come on.

Speaker 44 So, I mean, that's the problem problem that I have. And as you can see, I no longer have a White House, so I'm unfiltered.

Speaker 37 I'm going to say whatever the hell is on my mind.

Speaker 37 Jamie Harrison, former head of the Democratic National Committee, Future

Speaker 37 of, well, I mean,

Speaker 37 that was a campaign speech, brother. I'm trying to figure out where you're what you're running for.

Speaker 44 Well, just tell people to go to At Our Table so they can subscribe.

Speaker 37 Well, I know you're right now.

Speaker 37 You're running back to your podcast booth,

Speaker 37 at Our Table Podcast host, Jamie Harrison. Jamie, we didn't get to RFK Jr.
Marion Williamson. We didn't even get to Dean Phillips.
We didn't get to Information Superior. We have so much more

Speaker 37 to talk about.

Speaker 44 You can come on at Our Table Podcast and we'll do part two of this.

Speaker 37 I love it. Thank you, brother.
That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 44 Thank you, Governor. Take care.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

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