How to Stop the War, the Bill & the Trump Regime with Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Speaker 1 One thing I love about our listeners is how industrious all of you are. The stories we hear about you guys going off on your own and starting your own ventures like we did, it's truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 It's a big part of why NetSuite came to us as a sponsor. NetSuite offers real-time data and insights for so many business owners, and by that I mean over 42,000 businesses.

Speaker 1 NetSuite offers the number one AI-powered cloud ERP. Think of it as a central nervous system for your business.

Speaker 1 Instead of juggling separate tools for accounting here, HR there, inventory somewhere else, NetSuite pulls everything into one seamless platform.

Speaker 1 That means you finally have one source of truth, real visibility, real control, and the power to make smarter decisions faster.

Speaker 1 With real-time data and forecasting, you're not just reacting to what already happened, you're planning for what's next.

Speaker 1 And whether your company is bringing in a few million or hundreds of millions, NetSuite scales with you.

Speaker 1 It helps you tackle today's challenges and chase down tomorrow's opportunities without missing a beat.

Speaker 1 Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 1 The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 1 Netsuite.com/slash hard things.

Speaker 2 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We are so glad that you are here.
We are so glad to be doing this very difficult American moment alongside of you. Today,

Speaker 2 we are asking questions of Senator Elizabeth Warren. We have collected your questions.

Speaker 2 All of your questions were based around the things we are seeing happening in the news and what the plan is to stop this fascist regime from destroying our democracy.

Speaker 2 We are asking those questions directly to Senator Elizabeth Warren today. She has brought us a plan.
We're going to keep all of the questions we didn't get to to inform future episodes.

Speaker 2 And we are going to get these answers and live them out together.

Speaker 2 Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts and top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, is a fearless consumer advocate and one of the nation's leading progressive voices.

Speaker 2 Before becoming the first woman ever elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in 2012, Elizabeth led the fight to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established in the aftermath of the financial crisis to protect consumers from predatory financial practices.

Speaker 2 Elizabeth lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband Bruce and their golden retriever Bailey. Welcome to the pod, Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Senator Warren is here.

Speaker 2 How are you?

Speaker 3 Oh, wow. That's a loaded question.

Speaker 3 I'm very happy to see you, Senator. It's so good to see you.
I miss you. Oh, I miss you.

Speaker 3 I just wish there were 150,000 of you is what I wish.

Speaker 4 And same back at you.

Speaker 3 So, but that's why we stay in these fights.

Speaker 4 They are important.

Speaker 4 And we don't give up.

Speaker 3 We don't give up. We can do hard things.

Speaker 3 Senator Warren, we have asked you to come here today to talk to us in this terrifying time of chaos and corruption and the dismantling of our democracy because you have always been someone who distinguishes yourself from other leaders in not only talking about the crisis, but

Speaker 3 actually having a plan for that. And on behalf of a very

Speaker 3 scared

Speaker 3 community right now, we are just really

Speaker 3 hoping that

Speaker 3 we can hear and understand from you what our plan for that is to hold on to our democracy, what our leaders are doing, what we need to be doing so that the American experiment does not end on our watch.

Speaker 3 So our first question that we need to ask is

Speaker 3 something that has kept us up all night last night, which is,

Speaker 3 can you please tell us what is happening

Speaker 3 with Iran right now? Is this president going to drag us into Israel's war against Iran?

Speaker 3 Because it seems very scary right now with him basically saying it's Iran's fault for not signing the nuclear deal, even though Israel assassinated the lead negotiator that was working with us on the nuclear deal.

Speaker 3 And he's calling the attacks excellent,

Speaker 3 telling Tehran to evacuate. And that he says he's, quote, not really in the mood to negotiate with Iran.
Like, we're moving tankers and aircraft and additional warplanes to the region.

Speaker 3 So we have been assured by this man that he is never going to take us into war. Also, that he was going to end the war in Ukraine and the war against Gaza in day one.

Speaker 3 What the hell is going on? Is that a real risk that we will become part of this war?

Speaker 4 So as of late last week, we were firmly committed on negotiation. And Donald Trump was behind that.
Republicans were behind that.

Speaker 4 Democrats were behind that in the Senate, in the House, and pretty much across the country. So there was a path here.

Speaker 4 And then Prime Minister Netanyahu

Speaker 4 basically, right in the middle of these negotiations, negotiations,

Speaker 4 frankly, and

Speaker 4 just threw the elbow at Trump and threw aside the negotiations, decided to go ahead and bomb Iran.

Speaker 4 And Trump now seems to be

Speaker 4 doing cheerleading for that, but understand two things.

Speaker 4 First one is good old Constitutional Law 101, Only Congress can declare war. And Congress funds war.
That is where you get the money for all of the activities.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 he's got to come back to Congress. Now

Speaker 4 that's how it is on paper. There are also, that's part two.

Speaker 4 There are actions he can take to try to drag our country into a war in the Middle East. But here's a place

Speaker 4 where

Speaker 4 in the House, in the Senate, and in the country,

Speaker 4 we don't have a lot of difference between Democrats and Republicans on this. There are a lot of Republicans who are saying, I don't want to do this.

Speaker 4 And a whole lot of Democrats saying, I don't want to do this.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 this is the moment. for pushing back, for saying no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 And doing it by phone, doing it by email, doing it by text, doing it by showing up at a town hall and asking a question, doing it by holding a sign. Because this is the moment.

Speaker 4 Now, you and I, as we sit here right now, where it's kind of the ball is up in the air.

Speaker 4 And Trump needs to be with the rest of America on this, with people in Congress. with people around the country.

Speaker 4 And I think Democrats are really strong on this, but I really want to say again, there are a a lot of Republicans who think it would be a mistake.

Speaker 4 Look, that election, everybody wants to talk about what was the election all about last November. But one thing I guarantee

Speaker 4 it was not about was how do we get America entangled in another endless war in the Middle East? And that's the reminder we need to give Donald Trump right now.

Speaker 3 Okay. Do you feel like, and there's so many domestic things we need to talk about, but do you feel like, because his MO has always been

Speaker 3 foment or manufacture or pretend there is a crisis, pretend there is an emergency, and then act upon some kind of emergency powers? We know that Israel cannot take out

Speaker 3 Iran's nuclear capabilities unless they use our capabilities. It's only our bunker busters that will do it.

Speaker 3 Is there a world in which he uses, because we know he goes beyond the scope and wherever he wants to,

Speaker 3 to do that without congressional power?

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 look,

Speaker 4 he is commander-in-chief. That's the consequence of the election last November.

Speaker 4 But there's going to be a lot of pushback on that and a lot of people in place to push back. But let me offer you one more thought here about part of what's going on.
Notice where you started this.

Speaker 4 You said we're all worried about this. It's classic Donald Trump.
He's losing in other places. He faces terrible problems.
So let's swing everybody's attention over here.

Speaker 4 Where were we just before this? We were all talking about what happened in Los Angeles, right?

Speaker 4 And violence and political violence. Where were we before that?

Speaker 3 The bill.

Speaker 4 Yes. And what's happening right now, I mean, literally right now, in the United States Senate is this, what he calls big, beautiful bill, this big, ugly bill is rolling forward.

Speaker 4 And this is the bill to try to reshape a key part of America and who we are. This is the bill that says, take away health care from more than 16 million people.

Speaker 4 Take away one of the programs that helps make groceries more affordable. Drive up the cost of your utilities.

Speaker 4 Why do all those things?

Speaker 4 To try to gather some resources so that

Speaker 4 he can give giant tax giveaways to a handful of billionaires. And so this is a moment where Americans are starting to tumble to what this big, beautiful bill is all about.
And here's the deal.

Speaker 4 When people hear about it, they are very much opposed to it. And that's true.
Democrats, Independents, and Republicans say, oh, nope, nope.

Speaker 4 Americans do not want to say that newborn babies will be denied access to health care so that Jeff Bezos can buy a third yacht.

Speaker 3 Was it half of American babies, half of the babies born in America rely on Medicare?

Speaker 4 Half. Half of those babies and and their mamas, and then as their little toddlers, taking that away.
So Jeff Bezos can buy a third yacht. Are you kidding me? Those are not American values.

Speaker 4 That is not who we are. And that's pushing back right now.
And by the way, I want to make sure, because I want to make sure everybody understands just how personal this is.

Speaker 4 It's about little babies and their healthcare. Anybody listening to us have a neighbor who needs a wheelchair to get around?

Speaker 4 A neighbor who relies on meals on wheels, a neighbor who relies on having a home health aide come by so that they're get some help so that they're able to live independently.

Speaker 4 That's another group that gets targeted. Taking away that help from people with significant disabilities so that Mark Zuckerberg can buy another Hawaiian island.
That's the trade-off.

Speaker 4 This is a transfer, a transfer from people that we've tried to help so they can grow up, these little babies, so that people with disabilities can live independently.

Speaker 4 Same kind of thing going on with nursing homes. About half the people who live in nursing homes across this country, they rely on the Medicaid program to pay their nursing home bills.
Why?

Speaker 4 Because they got nothing else. That's it.
They got their social security. It's not enough to pay for the nursing home.
Medicaid comes in and helps pay.

Speaker 4 They want to cut that. And what that will mean for these folks is: where are they going to go?

Speaker 4 Are you going to set them out on the street corner? Is your grandma going to have to move into the dining room in your house because there's no more space for her in the nursing home?

Speaker 4 That's the direct impact we're talking about on millions of people. And now I want to add another layer to it.

Speaker 4 Once you take take away that support for the health care, once you take away across the board this support, the rest of the system starts to crumble.

Speaker 4 So for anybody who's listening to us who relies on a rural hospital or a community hospital,

Speaker 4 boy,

Speaker 4 this is the bill. that's going to force a whole lot of those hospitals to close.
And when they close, they don't just close for Medicaid patients, they close for for everyone.

Speaker 4 Those little hospitals are running on profit margins that are that wide right now.

Speaker 4 So, if Medicaid gets taken away, so when that baby comes in to be delivered, when the mama comes in to deliver a baby,

Speaker 4 when the baby comes in with the ear infection, if there's no compensation for Medicaid, that's just known as uncompensated care for the hospital.

Speaker 4 Hospitals, they don't have the space to offer uncompensated care.

Speaker 4 So those hospitals close up and that means maybe you had to drive 14 minutes to get to the closest hospital from where you live. Now it moves to what, 52 minutes.

Speaker 4 And for some people, that's going to be the difference between life and death.

Speaker 4 This is about where people go when they have chest pains, where you take someone when the child on the playground fell and looks like needs 126 stitches, where someone is having a stroke.

Speaker 4 These are our frontline delivery of medical care to people all across this country. And

Speaker 4 all of that is now at risk for just breaking and falling apart. Just close it all up.

Speaker 3 Is it going to pass?

Speaker 4 Ah,

Speaker 4 so.

Speaker 4 I know, I know you. Let's go back where we started.
We have a plan. Okay.
This bill has not passed. It passed the House by one vote.
One vote.

Speaker 4 That means, and by the way, not a single Democrat voted for it. Okay.
So you got all these Republicans who voted for it. One vote.
You persuade one

Speaker 4 Republican to flip from a yes to a no on that bill and it stops dead.

Speaker 4 Right now, the bill is over here in the Senate, but understand, it'll have to go back to the House because the two are not going to match.

Speaker 4 But we're in the Senate, and it's even more up in the air in the Senate right now. We've got multiple senators on the Republican, Democrats are easy.
We say

Speaker 4 we are not taking away health care from people to help Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. We're just not doing that.
But even Republicans are saying, whoa,

Speaker 4 this bill is a real problem. Taking away health care is a real problem.
There are already some Republicans who said, I can't vote for this. So, what we're down to now is this is the moment.

Speaker 4 This is the moment for us to make those phone calls, to send those texts while it's all still up in the air. It's this week, next week.
maybe the week after, but now is the period of time.

Speaker 4 And for anybody who's listening to us and says, oh, but I already did that,

Speaker 4 do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again. Because here's a story I want to remind everybody of.

Speaker 4 2017, it was summer, just like this, and the Republicans came after the Affordable Care Act, taking away health care for millions of people. You remember this?

Speaker 4 The House passed it. And then, I don't know if you remember, they go over to the White House.
Donald Trump is president. The Republicans are in charge.

Speaker 4 They pass around around the Brewskies, right, and celebrate, because what's not to celebrate about taking away health care from millions of Americans?

Speaker 4 Bill comes to the Senate, and the Republicans had an even bigger majority in the Senate then than they have now, right?

Speaker 4 Everybody says it's going to pass, but here's the deal. People made those phone calls.
People sent those texts. People showed up here in Washington.

Speaker 4 My personal favorite were the littlest lobbyists, little babies with complex medical needs whose mamas pushed them through the halls here in Congress.

Speaker 4 Some of them were pulling wagons, I still remember, with the special breathing equipment and the special feeding equipment, because these were babies who have real challenges and who rely on Medicaid.

Speaker 4 There were wheelchair brigades here who showed up in Congress. Lots of people showed up to say,

Speaker 4 Healthcare for all of us is worth fighting for.

Speaker 4 And you may remember, came down to the floor of the Senate. A lot of people remember John McCain famously holding up his thumb and nobody knew how it was going to go.
I couldn't even sit down.

Speaker 4 I was so nervous. And he ended up voting no on the bill.
And that saved health care for tens of millions of Americans. But understand this.

Speaker 4 It wasn't just John McCain thought this up in his head. It's that we created the weather together that put him in a place to make that decision.
That is exactly where we are today.

Speaker 4 So yeah, I got a plan. And the plan is now is the time to put the full court press on your senators.

Speaker 4 I don't care if they're Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, make sure they're hearing from you.

Speaker 4 And get your friends to do that, particularly your friends that you went to school with who now live in states that are represented by Republicans.

Speaker 4 Get them to call, get them to text, get them to show up at the senator's office.

Speaker 4 Now is the moment when you could have not only a dramatic effect on whether or not millions of people keep their health care,

Speaker 4 you could be the one to create the crack in this Republican wall.

Speaker 4 The crack that lets us save our democracy, the crack that shows we are still government by the people and that the people's power ultimately matters.

Speaker 2 So at the end of this, we're going to put who to call, what to say, that is what we're going to do. We're going to use our agency, put the pressure on.

Speaker 3 This show is sponsored by MIDI Health. For way too long, we've been told that we just have to power through the symptoms of menopause.

Speaker 3 That hot flashes, mood swings, sleepless nights, exhaustion are just part of the natural order of things.

Speaker 3 It's no wonder why 75% of women who do seek help for perimenopause and menopause end up getting no treatment at all. 75%,

Speaker 3 zero treatment. A friend of mine was talking about this just a few weeks ago.

Speaker 3 She'd been dealing with constant perimenopause symptoms and said just trying to find a doctor who actually understands menopause felt impossible.

Speaker 3 Researching specialists, figuring out insurance, waiting forever for an appointment, it's all too much. So I told her, skip all of that nonsense, go straight to MIDI.

Speaker 3 She went online and got an appointment the next day. With MIDI, you can meet one-on-one with a perimenopause trained clinician online from wherever you are.

Speaker 3 They'll actually listen to your whole story and build a plan around you. That could mean hormone therapy, lifestyle changes, preventive care, or all of the above.

Speaker 3 They even send prescriptions right to your local pharmacy. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script?

Speaker 3 Visit joinmitti.com today to book your personalized insurance-covered virtual visit. That's joinmitty.com.
MIDI, the care women deserve. This show is brought to you by Alma.

Speaker 3 I want to start with a truth I've learned the hard way. Taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time decision.
It's a daily practice.

Speaker 3 And even when you know you want support, the hardest part is often just figuring out where to start. For me, finding the right therapist changed everything.

Speaker 3 But getting there was kind of overwhelming. Endless searches, phone calls, dead ends.
It's wild that the thing that's supposed to help you can feel so hard to reach. And that's why I love Alma.

Speaker 3 Alma, A-L-M-A, takes all that chaos out of the process. It's a simple, easy-to-use platform where you can search for licensed, in-network therapists who actually feel like the right fit.

Speaker 3 You don't even need an account to browse, and you can filter by what matters most to you: their background, specialty, therapy style, and more.

Speaker 3 And here's the part that really matters: this isn't just about checking a box, it's about real connection. 97% of people who found a therapist through Alma say they felt seen and heard.

Speaker 3 And that's the heart of good therapy: someone who gets you, not just your symptoms. Better with people, people, better with Alma.

Speaker 3 Visit helloalma.com/slash we can to schedule a free consultation today. That's hello A-L-M-A dot com slash W-E-C-A-N.

Speaker 3 We Can Do Our Things is brought to you by Bumble, the app committed to bring people closer to love. I went through it in my first marriage.

Speaker 3 I was desperately in love, and then in a whiplash of a moment, it was gone. I felt abandoned, betrayed, crushed.

Speaker 3 A while out from the the divorce, when a friend asked me whether I was ready to date again, I said, listen, I love men, but I also love hamburgers.

Speaker 3 And I just had the juiciest burger and it gave me food poisoning. And I don't even want to look at another burger for a very long time.
When I was ready to look, I was terrified.

Speaker 3 How in the world do you put yourself out there after that?

Speaker 3 I don't think there are a lot of people more courageous and cool than those folks who have been through the depths of heartbreak and are brave enough to reveal their their heart again.

Speaker 3 It starts with that first step, a shaky voice inside of you that says, I want this even more than I don't want that.

Speaker 3 I want to share life and this beautiful banged up heart with another beautiful banged up heart. These days, that first shaky step often happens online on a dating app.

Speaker 3 In celebration of you brave ones, we want to tell you about Bumble. What I love about what Bumble is doing is they are making that first step feel a tiny bit less scary, more possible, more human.

Speaker 3 They make you feel more safe.

Speaker 3 New Bumble users have to add multiple layers of verification, like mandatory photo, phone number, and ID verification so you can feel more confident that the people you're seeing are who they say they are.

Speaker 3 Plus, profiles aren't just about photos. They highlight personality, interests, and passions so you can get a sense of whether you will actually connect with someone.

Speaker 3 You can be shaky and scared and show up anyway. You can start again.
Bumble helps people do exactly that. Start your love story today on Bumble.

Speaker 2 I want to ask you a question that is in so many of our hearts and minds right now. This is a question that came to us from Julie.
She says, what can be done about cutting U.S. military aid to Israel?

Speaker 2 I'm a Jewish Massachusetts resident and love Elizabeth Warren, but I'm heartbroken we are funding and enabling the war against Palestinians. Julie uses the word war.
I respect that.

Speaker 2 I use the word genocide based on what so many humanitarians are saying right now. How many innocent people have to die before we hold our government accountable? Many thanks, Julie.

Speaker 3 What's the plan for that?

Speaker 4 Julie, let me start by saying

Speaker 4 I'm grateful to Julie, even in the midst of everything else that's going on to continue. We've got to not let this slip out of our line of sight.

Speaker 4 Look, I have voted repeatedly for what's called the joint resolution of disapproval for sending offensive weapons to Israel that Israel can then turn around and use in Gaza. We don't have a majority.

Speaker 4 And so we've lost those resolutions, but we keep fighting and we keep bringing them up with the armed shipments.

Speaker 4 Overall, we know where we need to go. We need to stop the violence.
It needs to stop.

Speaker 4 We need to get humanitarian relief into Gaza.

Speaker 4 And we need to push the parties toward the negotiating table. I know that sounds like it's so far off, but we've got to remind people there is a way to resolve this.

Speaker 4 We need to get the parties to the negotiating table and

Speaker 4 to work out a solution

Speaker 4 where people can live, different people can live side by side

Speaker 4 with respect, with security, with self-determination. Those have to be the key goals.
And

Speaker 4 I repeat this every chance I get

Speaker 4 because I worry that we just slip into a, there's nothing we can do. I get that we don't have as much power as we want, but that's not the same as having no power at all.

Speaker 4 So I'm going to stay with the joint resolution of disapproval on the arms sales, but I'm also going to stay with the very specific things we need, and that is to call on Prime Minister Netanyahu every chance I get to open up humanitarian aid.

Speaker 4 How? And we let it go forward, that there are people who are not getting food, clean water, medical care.

Speaker 4 Open up and let the humanitarian aid flow and then sit down and negotiate with the Palestinians who are in Gaza, with all of the Palestinians.

Speaker 4 And the United States, our best role here would be to keep pushing, pushing, pushing toward negotiation. So thank you, Julie, for the question.
And we stay in the fight.

Speaker 2 I heard you on the first one, what we can do. We can call, we can say no to the big, beautiful bill.
We can say no to the war in Iran.

Speaker 2 We can push so much pressure on those Republican Congress people that they feel more pressure from us that they might lose their jobs than they do from MAGA. That's the whole ballgame here.

Speaker 4 That's the idea.

Speaker 2 Okay, what do we do? I heard all the things that you said, but what do we do as citizens who are outraged by what is happening to innocent Palestinian people on the ground? What do we do?

Speaker 2 What do we say to our congresspeople when we say no to the bill, no to war in Iran?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think it's this is why I try to talk in very specific things like joint resolution of disapproval or humanitarian aid.

Speaker 4 That the general i hate what's happening there it's deep felt i understand that

Speaker 4 but asking for something specific in all of these cases in all three of the things we've talked about today saying specifically do not go to war in iran that's not what anybody in this country wants.

Speaker 4 Saying specifically, vote no on Trump's big beautiful bill, do not cut health care so that billionaires can get a handout.

Speaker 4 And asking people specifically to vote against sending offensive weapons that are used in Gaza and open up for humanitarian aid. We have not forgotten.

Speaker 4 I think asking for the specific at least puts some muscle behind what we're trying to do.

Speaker 3 Senator, we had so many questions, and I would say that...

Speaker 3 a majority of them stemmed around this idea that and i'll read you a couple flavors from some of them but this perception that we are hearing a lot of

Speaker 3 Trump is bad and we hate what he's doing from Democratic leadership, but we don't have the sense that there is a plan.

Speaker 3 We don't have the sense that there is other than this is a real shame, he's crazy.

Speaker 3 that the Dems are united with an actionable plan to fight fascism.

Speaker 3 So I'm actually just wondering, you know, Kelly says, we just want to know what is happening that possibly we can't see because these are horrendous times for everyone.

Speaker 3 How are we supposed to stand it for the next three years? Jill from DC says, my members of Congress are all Democrats.

Speaker 3 They say they're doing all that they can do to fight back, but we don't ever hear or see evidence of that outside of their newsletters. What can I do to encourage more action and accountability?

Speaker 3 Ana from Denver, what is the party doing to regain lost ground? Why does it feel like there's no unified strategy among the left to fight fascism?

Speaker 4 Okay. There are two answers simultaneously.
Okay.

Speaker 4 One answer is

Speaker 4 it's all hands on deck, thing by thing,

Speaker 4 and exactly the things we've been talking about, right? Thing by thing.

Speaker 4 So right now, it's all hands on deck on this tax bill. And the reason for that, this big, beautiful bill, is because people are gonna lose their health care, right?

Speaker 4 Millions of people are gonna lose their health care. Groceries are gonna be more expensive, and that means there are gonna be some people who are gonna go hungry, some kids.

Speaker 4 So it's an all hands on deck. Democrats are completely united on this.

Speaker 4 And our plan here, here we go, our plan here, the best way to describe this is

Speaker 4 when people learn about what the Republicans are up to,

Speaker 4 they hate it. That's what I was talking about earlier.
It's very unpopular. The problem, only one out of every four has heard about it.
So what is our plan? Our plan is to make it two out of four.

Speaker 4 And if we can get to two out of four, it's to make it three out of four and four out of four, because that's... It's like a weather system.

Speaker 4 You make it stronger, you make it bigger, you make the wind blow harder. That's how we're most likely to have impact.

Speaker 4 And what's Donald Trump's countermeasure is, let me see if I can get you off on something else. Of course.
And look, some of it is outrageous.

Speaker 4 Of course, we've got to stop and pay attention to what's happening in Iran. Of course we do.

Speaker 4 But the point is, we've got this thing we need to drive and we've got to also cover what's happening in Iran. And we've got to cover what's happening in Gaza and, right? And.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 So that makes it hard to see the plan, but it really is.

Speaker 4 We are fighting the biggest battle, is the legislative battle right here in Washington, because this is the one where the ball is up in the air and Donald Trump doesn't get to decide it all by himself.

Speaker 4 And if we can peel off some Republicans here, I think that's a huge crack in the dam. And that has profound impact.

Speaker 4 So that's the most immediate. But I said there were two answers simultaneously.
The other answer is November of next year.

Speaker 3 Yeah, mid-channel.

Speaker 4 So we are a year and a half out, right?

Speaker 4 Well, from the election, less than that now.

Speaker 4 We

Speaker 4 are pushing these issues now. We're trying to have everybody organized on accountability so that it's completely seamless as we roll in to the election.
This is it. This is not a drill.

Speaker 4 This is the moment. You want to save your democracy.
Let's work on the legislative part right now because we can.

Speaker 4 But by golly, we got to make these Republicans understand that they cannot follow Donald Trump and the voters will just vote for them again and again.

Speaker 4 Remember, everybody in the House of Representatives will be up for reelection and more than a third of the Republican senators will be up for reelection.

Speaker 4 And that is, I'm not doing my math fast in my head, what will that be 15 months from now?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So the work starts today. That's how I would describe it.

Speaker 3 Every year, I tell myself I'm going to live in the moment during the holidays. And then I blink and it's over.
The wrapping paper is gone, the tree is shedding.

Speaker 3 And if I want to relive any parts of it, I have to go the photo app of my phone. That's why I love Aura frames.
They make those moments live on without adding another project to your life.

Speaker 3 I just upload photos of unwrapping gifts, cookie decorating, all of the best parts of the holiday, and now they pop up on the frame all year long. Setting it up was ridiculously easy.

Speaker 3 You just download the Aura app, connect to Wi-Fi, and add unlimited photos and videos. You can even preload pictures before it ships.
And so when someone opens it, it's already full of love.

Speaker 3 And it comes in this beautiful gift box. No wrapping, no stress.
They nailed it over there. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Speaker 3 It's like a frame that looks like it's just like got a picture in it, except all of your pictures rotate through it all year long without you even like making a fancy album.

Speaker 3 For a limited time, visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code hardthings at checkout.

Speaker 3 That's a uraframes.com promo code hardthings. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year.
So order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout.

Speaker 3 Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 1 I don't know about you, but mornings in our house can feel like a marathon before 9 a.m.

Speaker 1 And I am just used to powering right on through, which always left me dragging by mid-morning. Cachava has completely changed that for me.

Speaker 1 It's a plant-based superfood meal shake that actually feels like real nourishment, not some chalky health drink.

Speaker 1 With over 85 superfoods, nutrients, and plant-based ingredients, cachava is a whole-body meal that supports your strength, energy, digestion, metabolism, cognition, and immunity.

Speaker 1 And best of all, it's the taste. They really understand that we need to be motivated by actual flavor here.

Speaker 1 I have more steady energy, fewer crashes, and I am not rummaging through the pantry at 10 a.m. for snacks.

Speaker 1 It's become this little anchor in my day, something easy and good I can do for myself, even on the most chaotic mornings.

Speaker 1 If you've seen me recently, I'm probably sipping on their new strawberry flavor. They use real freeze-dried strawberries, and you can really actually taste the difference.

Speaker 1 You've never tasted strawberry like this. Go to cachava.com and use code we Can Do Hard Things for 15% off your next order.
That's cachava. K-A-C-H-A-V-A dot com.

Speaker 1 Code WeCanDoHardThings for 15%

Speaker 1 off.

Speaker 3 As the air turns crisp and the holidays draw near, comfort becomes the best gift of all. That's why I love Quints.
They deliver layers that last.

Speaker 3 Think sweaters, outerwear, and everyday essentials that feel luxurious, look timeless, and make holiday dressing and gifting effortless.

Speaker 3 Right now, I'm obsessed with their camel double-faced merino wool trench coat. It looks straight out of a designer showroom, but costs a fraction of the price.
The quality is honestly incredible.

Speaker 3 Warm, structured, and so elegant, it instantly feels like you are wearing something very much on purpose.

Speaker 3 I have so many items from Quince layered underneath, like button-ups and sweaters, but the coat is my current fave.

Speaker 3 And Quince really does have it all: 100% organic cotton cardigans for under 50 bucks, oversized blazers, classic denim, silk tops, and fleece hoodies, down outerwear, everything to make you look chic, and most importantly, be cozy this fall and winter.

Speaker 3 Step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished, and last from Quince. Perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself.

Speaker 3 Go to quince.com/slash hardthings for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in canada too that's q u i n c e dot com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash hard things

Speaker 2 Senator Ward, what is different about the work? This is just from me. It's not from a writer.

Speaker 2 But as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking the definition of insanity is doing things the same way over and over again. We've been told get to work.
We've been working. We've put our jobs aside.

Speaker 2 We have been in the streets. We have been knocking on doors.
We have been doing everything that the Democratic Party has told us to do, and it has not been working. So, what do we do? We trust you.

Speaker 2 What do we do differently this time as we prepare for midterms that might bring us a different outcome? And we don't see clear leaders emerging. Who are those people? What do we we do differently now?

Speaker 4 So let me give you a couple of parts to this. Don't say it's not working.
I get it hasn't worked as well as we would like, but don't say it's not working.

Speaker 4 What the Republicans want us to do, Donald Trump wants us to do, is to say, none of this works. I'm putting a blanket over my head.
I'm turning off the news. I'm doing nothing but...

Speaker 4 just my little corner of the world. I let him do whatever he wants to do with my country.

Speaker 4 That's what not working looks like.

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 Katie bar the door. I mean, he's off and running.

Speaker 4 We have put up resistance over and over and over and over. And again, I don't want to overstate here.
No, we have not won all these, but you know what? Watch what's happened in the courts.

Speaker 4 Just start there.

Speaker 4 In the first month, we lost, what, a little over half the suits. In the second month, we won around half.
I read that in the month of May, we won more than 90% of our suits in the court.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 that

Speaker 4 matters. It matters a lot.
Doge came through with the chainsaw, right?

Speaker 4 Look, we organized and they were going to close down a bunch of social security offices. Remember that? They were going to fire half the people at the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 4 They claimed Social Security is riddled with fraud and they were going to cut off a bunch of Social Security payments.

Speaker 4 We pushed back and proved that that was all just lies, that it was not true.

Speaker 4 They haven't closed those Social Security offices. Indeed, right now, they're trying to hire people back to Social Security to get it functioning again.
That's not a giant headline.

Speaker 4 It's not saving everything in our democracy. But boy, you're a senior who relies on Social Security.
That's a big damn deal. And you got a problem and you need some help getting it fixed.

Speaker 4 The fact that they didn't shut down the phone lines and they didn't shut down the office near you, that is a big deal. And it's piece at a time.

Speaker 4 We got our toes on the line to win in the Veterans Administration, to keep them from privatizing. the VA.
We're not quite all the way there, but I'm liking our chances, right?

Speaker 4 So I want to remind us, I'm trying to think, it's like following somebody who's running through a giant department store.

Speaker 4 We're on the first floor where all that breakable stuff is, and he's just breaking stuff right and left. And we're picking stuff up as we go along behind.

Speaker 4 And it feels like, gee, we haven't stopped him from breaking stuff. It's true.

Speaker 4 we haven't he finds new things to break that hadn't occurred to us he was going to break this is why we can't have nice things exactly

Speaker 4 can't have nice because he breaks them we have to take them away exactly but that's what we're doing right now we are doing this at different places and sometimes we have better tools to land it's social security was nothing but the people who listen to this podcast and other people around the country.

Speaker 4 We have no separate tools. VA is nothing but the vets and people who care about vets who've gotten out and organized to push back.

Speaker 3 Public schools, thank you for doing that.

Speaker 4 Yes, our schools, our public school teachers on this. So I get it.
Oh man, do I get it? I live it every single day.

Speaker 4 This is hard, but do not tell me, do not tell me that what you've done hasn't mattered and hasn't had any effect or any impact. By golly, you've had a lot of effect.

Speaker 4 And that means we got to build on this and keep ramping up. Let me tell you one other quick story to remind you.
In 2017, Donald Trump tried two legislative initiatives.

Speaker 4 The first one was the ACA that I was telling you about, and we stopped him on that. The second one was the tax battle.
There, the tax battle was separate from the health care battle.

Speaker 4 Second was the tax battle. We lost that fight.
We mobilized, we raised hell, we, you know,

Speaker 4 set off fireworks, did everything we could, and we lost the battle.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 we made the Republicans pay for it. We made them own it.

Speaker 4 We made them have to admit that, yeah, they had given what was then about $2 trillion in tax breaks, mostly sucked up by millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations. And what happened?

Speaker 4 When they ran for office 15 months later, not a single Republican around the country ran on, and I got tax breaks. In fact, they all ran against it.

Speaker 4 The tax ads were run by Democrats who said, that's what that jerk did. And do you remember what happened? We took back control of the House.

Speaker 4 We improved our position in the Senate and put ourselves in a place where in 2020, we had the House, the Senate, and we knocked Donald Trump out of office.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 the winning battles and the losing battles, I don't want to lose any, but I'm just saying even the losing battles can give us the muscle memory, the jet fuel to mix my metaphors here, so that we are ready to go in the midterms.

Speaker 4 And now we're talking about real accountability. So we have power.
Our only mistake here would be the failure to pick it up and use it.

Speaker 2 Damn, you're good, Senator Warren.

Speaker 3 You're so good. The goodest.
We are so thankful for you. Thank you for using your life in this way.
It's a deep honor to be with you and we continue to just send you all of our energy.

Speaker 3 Thank you for using your life in this way.

Speaker 2 In our phone calls. In our phone calls, in our texts.
We're going to send them to you like the kids send energy to their little video game things. We're going to send them to you.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Senator Warren.

Speaker 3 I'm so thankful that Elizabeth Warren exists.

Speaker 3 That's all I need. You have no response for that.
Okay. I bet you're pausing dramatically.
I do do that a lot. You do that.

Speaker 2 A lot of dramatic pauses. I don't know when the hell I'm supposed to jump in or just honor the pause.

Speaker 3 Honor the pause. No time for pausing.
Clearly, you heard the woman.

Speaker 2 How about blink twice if it's a dramatic pause?

Speaker 3 Okay. So, you know, what's so wild about this is that I get all the anger at the Democrats because it's like, what the hell are you all doing? I have a job.
And I wake up every day and I do it.

Speaker 3 And I can't just be like, well, damn, my boss sucks. So,

Speaker 3 guess there's nothing I can do. I can be like, my boss sucks and I still do my fucking job.
So I get that anger. And also, I think what I am hearing from the senator is that they are doing things

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 even the things that don't come out the way that we need them to, our job is to use that as accountability. for the future to not let people forget or rewrite the future and that it really is

Speaker 3 as much as we want it to be someone else's job,

Speaker 3 it is our job as citizens to reach out and to put the pressure on.

Speaker 3 And it really sounds like beyond these calls that we need to make and need to continue to make and need to encourage our people to make, which we will give you scripts for in just a moment, that the whole ballgame is on midterm elections in November.

Speaker 3 If we don't win those, I don't know,

Speaker 3 honestly, that we're going to be able to withstand

Speaker 3 two more years after that with

Speaker 3 unchecked power. So we need to start getting a plan together for that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And it makes sense, you know, I understand the feeling of there's a deep fear beneath that.

Speaker 2 call to action in even because many of us feel like that is predicated upon that there will be free and fair elections. And what a big fear is, is that they are dismantling that as well.

Speaker 2 And yet, it feels that what I heard Senator Warren saying is

Speaker 2 all of these people

Speaker 2 who, if you think they represent us, or you think that they represent their own interests and their own desire to stay in power, Either way, what works is them feeling like there are more people who want one thing of them than people who want the other thing of them, right?

Speaker 2 Whether they're trying just to stay in power or they actually believe in their duty to represent the people and to honor the Constitution. Either way,

Speaker 2 what will work is so much pressure that they feel like if they don't do what we the people want, they will lose their job.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Even if they're utterly self-interested and that's their only interest, we have to make it work for us.

Speaker 3 Well, if you're worried about free and fair elections, which I understand and we all should be, that is all the more reason that we need to get super mobilized behind shutting down the so-called big beautiful bill, because we didn't talk about this with the senator.

Speaker 3 But what is further terrifying about that bill is that when it was passed by the House of Representatives, it included a provision that, you know, this is supposed to be all about spending, right?

Speaker 3 It included a provision that limits judges' ability

Speaker 3 to hold the administration in contempt for violating court orders. It's unconstitutional, the provision of the bill, right?

Speaker 3 And then when it went into the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee changed it to not only say not holding them in contempt, the Senate Republicans revised the language to limit the judges' authority to even issue injunctions and restraining orders against the government.

Speaker 3 So there is a constitutional redraft in this bill, and the courts have been the only ones who have been able to hold the line and keep

Speaker 3 the administration from doing patently illegal things thus far during the second term.

Speaker 3 So they are using this bill to basically say that the courts don't have the power to stop the administration from doing whatever the administration wants to do.

Speaker 2 Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is,

Speaker 2 in addition to all the reasons that Senator Warren just told us to call our congresspeople and oppose this, quote, big beautiful bill,

Speaker 2 if what we are concerned about is also the chance

Speaker 2 to elect different officials who will undo all of what they are breaking, we also must oppose the Big Beautiful Bill.

Speaker 3 Well, if you're concerned about any check on power

Speaker 3 of this administration, the courts have been the only effective check. So

Speaker 3 if you're concerned about upholding the Constitution and the balance of power and

Speaker 3 lawfulness,

Speaker 3 which is all that the courts are doing is enforcing laws and enforcing what the Constitution says, If you're interested in any of those things,

Speaker 3 this bill needs to be destroyed because it is an end route around

Speaker 3 the constitutional balance of power and the idea that an administration is subject to the laws of the United States.

Speaker 2 Okay. Do you have any idea when this vote is? When is the big beautiful bill decided upon?

Speaker 3 Well, it has to go through like all the reconciliations. So there's not firm date so far as I know, it's going to take a couple weeks for it to go through these processes.
So it'll be in the Senate.

Speaker 3 Then because the Senate bill will be different than the House bill, it has to go back to the House. So it's like they've got to all agree on the same thing.
So it's going to take a minute.

Speaker 3 So we have a couple weeks to put the pressure on and we need to.

Speaker 2 Amanda, tell the pod squad, if they're with us on all we've talked about today, what should they do today?

Speaker 3 So we have three calls to action. We have three things

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 we can ask our representatives to do. So our first thing that we are going to do, if you need to know your representatives' phone number, ways to contact them, you are going to go to Congress,

Speaker 3 C-O-N-G-R-E-S-S dot gov slash members. You're going to go to congress.gov slash members.
There you can type in where you live. You can find your representatives.

Speaker 3 You can find your senators and your congresspeople and their phone numbers. When you have that,

Speaker 3 there are three things that the senator talked about. You want to tell your people that you want them to say no to war on Iran.

Speaker 3 to say i expect you to vote to not bring america into war and in fact to do what you need to do to prevent American involvement in war.

Speaker 3 Number two, I expect you to vote no on the so-called big beautiful bill. I'm going to walk you through a script on that one specifically in a moment.
Number three,

Speaker 3 I need you to vote to stop sending weapons to Israel that are being used against civilians in Gaza. I want you to vote to open humanitarian aid to Palestine.

Speaker 2 Great. Can I say this back to you?

Speaker 3 Yes. Okay.
I'm going to say the website again: congress.gov/slash members.

Speaker 2 I'm going to find my congressperson. I'm going to call the phone number.
I'm going to say, My name is Glennon Doyle. I'm a resident of blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 I am a constituent of blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 I am calling you to say, vote no on American involvement in the war with Iran.

Speaker 2 Vote no on the big beautiful bill.

Speaker 3 Vote no on

Speaker 2 providing weapons to Israel and vote yes on opening all humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Speaker 3 Correct. Correct.
And if you want a more specific one on the big, beautiful bill, and you can add the other two to that. I got this from Indivisible San Francisco.

Speaker 3 I personally use Indivisible for a lot of things that I need to find out in my local chapter. But you would say, hello, my name is Amanda.

Speaker 3 I am a constituent of yours or of Representative so-and-so, Senator so-and-so. My zip code is, give your zip code.

Speaker 3 I am calling today to urge the senator or the congressperson to vote no and to speak out and strongly condemn

Speaker 3 the Republican reconciliation bill that will prevent court injunctions against this administration from being enforced. You can say that.
You don't have to say that.

Speaker 3 You can just say vote no on the Big Beautiful bill. If you want to say the following, you can.

Speaker 3 This bill will take health insurance and food assistance away from tens of millions of people, makes tax cuts for the rich, and includes clauses shielding Trump and his administration from the consequences of violating court orders.

Speaker 3 I expect you to vote no. Great.
So that's what you can do. I have an idea.

Speaker 2 And I like to propose this to the pod squad. We have been sold for a very long time these wellness projects or these routines.

Speaker 2 Follow me on my morning routine as I put serum on my face and I hold plunge and I do my 12-minute meditation and all of that.

Speaker 3 And get ready with me.

Speaker 2 Fucking individual wellness program. So let us add a collective wellness moment to our morning routines.

Speaker 2 I recently saw this cool interview with Cheryl Crowe, where she said that every single morning she calls her representatives, but that is part of her morning routine.

Speaker 2 Let us add a moment of collective protection that will protect our wellness and safety, I might dare say, even more than the serum.

Speaker 3 Oh, don't be crazy, Clinter.

Speaker 2 Let's just call our representatives every effing morning as part of our morning routine.

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 3 God.

Speaker 2 Okay, we love you, Pod Squad. We're going to be bringing you lots more information and lots more things you can do with it.

Speaker 3 Okay?

Speaker 2 Thanks for doing hard things with us. Thank you to Senator Warren.
Thank you to everybody who is showing up.

Speaker 2 See you next time.

Speaker 2 If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things?

Speaker 2 Following the pod helps you because you'll you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode.

Speaker 2 To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow.

Speaker 2 This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful.

Speaker 2 We appreciate you very much.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wombach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey.

Speaker 2 Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren Lograsso, Allison Schott, and Bill Schultz.