Transcript of From Anti-Trump to Pro-Something (Live from Crooked Con)

But I want to talk about sort of what Democrats can do going forward to make sure that we keep the voters who gave us a chance and bring in voters who didn't, and looking forward. So the question now is, I think, what are Democrats going to offer as an alternative? And maybe we can start there. If a friend or a family member says to you, "Okay, I finally voted Democrat for the first time on Tuesday," what can I expect from you guys?

Senator, I'll start with you.

And we can begin to do that right now. So that's the number one deliverable. And look, if Donald Trump wants to tell the country that he is prepared to shut down the government in order to keep his illegal war going, that's something he can do. But we should not decide what we're going to do based on what he might do. And he should also consult with his vice president about why they lost the election, at least part of why they lost the election.

And so that has to be at the center of our agenda, in addition to ending this reckless war in Iran. But I think so many people have either come to the Democratic Party for the first time or have returned to the Democratic Party because two years ago this president broke his two central promises: that he was going to lower costs for the American people and end forever wars. And in both of those instances, not only has he ignored those issues, in some cases he's actively made them worse, starting new forever wars, fomenting new culture wars, and implementing policies that are increasing costs for people.

The modern Democratic Party is built on being pro-worker and pro-peace, and we need policies that center those principles and do not make the same mistake that Donald Trump made over the last two years, because they voted for us to focus on those two issues, to have policies that uphold international human rights and American interests abroad, that lower costs for the American people here at home.

And we have to make sure that we keep our focus on those two priorities so that we can not just regain trust, but solidify it as we head into 2028 and beyond, because we have the opportunity to fundamentally remake the map. That's what we saw on Tuesday. And we have the opportunity to ensure that that map is not just remade for one election, but for a generation to come.

I would like to force him to veto a data center moratorium or childcare and elder care for all. All of these are programs that we should be leading with as a vision, and the threat of a veto should not stop us from actually still putting that forward.

So the first thing you need to do is stop doing the things that are raising costs. And I would just say, for Congress, if I could give some just constructive advice, go get rid of those three things as quickly as possible. And if you want to add banning stock trading, you know, that would be helpful as well. All four of those things, from a strategic point of view, are important. And if the president vetoes them, he vetoes them. But essentially, the American public just told everybody in politics, we want you to focus on us and not on other stuff.

And the president did everything he could to make sure that they didn't believe that. And then yesterday he gave a finger to the country by making Stephen Miller the chief of staff. So that's the policy point of it. The politics part of it is, please try to remember that we have been here before. Eighteen months ago, we were in a much worse place. We're in a much better place today. But we're here today because it was an anti-Trump vote. And if you want them to vote for us next time, we have to secure the gains that we have. We have to start thinking about gaining more.

And we have to do things that get the public to say, now that I've given you responsibility, you actually delivered for me. Now, that can be a ton of different stuff, and we have an incredible bench to design that, not just on the federal level, but with governorships. And of course, you see this in state legislatures, à la Texas. So don't forget that. And remember, there's always an election next year, and the public is very fickle. And I would have to say there's a lot of fusion out there. People are not loving the Democratic Party just because we hated the Democratic Party, but we now have a chance.

And if we show up in places that we never showed up in before, you might be surprised to know that they'll be for us. And I would just keep the pedal down as far as we could go.

I wasn't surprised because he was somebody who really narrowed down what I think all of us kind of said in a different way up here, which is money in your pocket out of politics and Medicare for All. But that was a populist message, and that overcame all the fearmongering, including, of course, the last-minute switch of his opponent in the Democratic primary. I am proud to have been the first Democratic senator to endorse Abdul El-Sayed in that election.

And it should also remind us that that also probably means the reverse of that is that there are no permanently blue areas of this country, and that there are sort of two kinds of voters in our society right now. There are the types of voters who are like all of us. We're fairly partisan, certainly negatively polarized against the other party. And then there's a large group of voters who aren't as engaged in following every minutia of politics.

They aren't necessarily listening to crooked media yet. They're news receivers, not necessarily news seekers in the same way that we are. And what's clear in this election is that many of those voters switched overwhelmingly between parties in just two years. And so we have to recognize that as sort of negatively polarized as we are in this moment, as rightfully outraged as we are, there is a wide swath of voters who are just trying to make it through the day and whose allegiance to a political party or a politician is not the same as what you see online from either side.

And I think the results of this election really reinforce that. I think the other thing that the results of this election reinforce is that we can and must move past the factionalism that is perpetually seeking to parse every single data point to prove who has a leg up and who doesn't. Let's just have candidates authentically show up as themselves in their values, in their districts, representing the neighbors that they are seeking to serve. And in some instances, that's going to be deeply progressive. In other instances, it's going to be heterodox.

It's going to be all over the map. But if we have candidates who are true to themselves, if we have candidates who are unapologetic in what they believe, and if we have candidates who, I think, in large part summon the values of my favorite philosopher, Ted Lasso, by being curious and not judgmental towards the voters that they are seeking to earn the support of, I think we can solidify those results. And I think we have a lot of victories on Tuesday that reflect that approach.

I think populist politics won across the board. And when populist politics wins, that's an indication that when we are speaking authentically to the things that voters actually care about, when we are speaking authentically to the fact that the economy is broken, the economy is rigged against working people right now, and an honesty about our own party's failure to meaningfully address that in the last couple of decades, that earns you a certain level of trust with voters that they say, OK, you can call it like it is, and I can trust in you to actually try and fight for it when you get in there.

I still think this is a massive electoral project that we have to engage in, right? These wins are going to be really fickle unless we actually do something to deliver with some meaningful results here. But I do think that this is a mandate from voters that are saying their number one issue is corruption. Their number one concern is that Democrats are actually going to address that corruption within our own party as well and actually deliver some meaningful results. And so it was shocking, without question. But I also think it's an indication that there is a very specific path forward here that we really need to unite on and work towards.

That's corruption, I think. And we're going to have different ideas about how to do that. I want publicly financed elections. But there are ways for us to go in that direction that can actually speak to the populist politics that won.

And so I was overjoyed to really see the country find herself again this weekend. And that gives me great joy and hope. But Sarah hit this right on the head. From my travels and my discussions, most Americans do not see themselves as a Republican, a Democrat, or Independent, or whatever. They just don't identify as much as all of us do who are in the political realm. These are just regular folks who are trying to go to work every day, make sure they have a roof over their head, can make their rent.

Some people are worried about whether they get a flat tire, because if they do and they can't fix their car, they're going to lose their job, or whether or not they have to choose between eating, paying for health care, or getting their kids the tools they need to go play soccer, et cetera, et cetera. And they're worried about that. And they feel left out and they left behind. And essentially, they feel like that the promise that we made to each other, to of them, one that we all come to the table of democracy as equals, was now being overtly challenged by the president and the vice president and ick like Stephen Miller, thinking that some of us are better than others because of how we looked on the day that we were born and whether or not we really meant that and whether the covenant of America, which is stated simply, is that if you are here, you're going to get a job that can pay for what you need and your kids are going to have a better life than you.

And back around 1980, that promise began to deteriorate. And most people don't think that their kids are going to have a better life than them. And they think the system is rigged. And they want somebody to change it. They just said to Donald Trump, you're fired. But cautionary note, this is just the beginning of the beginning. I guarantee you that if we don't show up real and authentic and right and centered, then we're not going to make the day, because they will fire us too.

However, and this is the thing that excited me the most about it, with all this hateful rhetoric going on around the country, this anti-Muslim sentiment, the anti-Semitism, the racism, the genderism, all of that stuff, if you think about the people that got elected last week, America stood up very proudly and say, really, out of many, we really are one, and we mean it.

But we shouldn't stop with simply reversing the damage from the Trump administration. One of the biggest pain points for families all over the country is the fact that medical bills are going up and up and up. Premiums are up. Copays are up. Everything's up. We have a broken health care system. And we need to tackle it. And my view is we should get to Medicare for All. But if we can't immediately get a consensus on that, we need at the very least, for goodness' sakes, to create a public option and begin down that road.

I'm for Medicare for All, and I'm fine having a vote on it. But let's just start with the principle, which I think Americans all over the country agree with, which is that the health care system is not working for them. It's become a money-making system, not a health care system. It puts profits before patients. And that is why I'm for Medicare for All. But for God's sakes, we've got to be able to address this issue where hedge funds, insurance companies, and hospitals are all making buckets of money at the expense of health care for the American people.

So I think one of the topics for conversation is, what does a specific proposal look like that might come before us? But I think there are absolutely opportunities for bold, aggressive economic policy that already have wide consensus across the ideological factions of both the Senate and the House caucus. The leader put me in charge of our caregiving working group for our affordability agenda. And we already have the muscle memory as Democrats of voting in favor of universal paid leave, of universal child care, of historic investments in home care and elder care that make it actually affordable and a reality for that sandwich generation to care for both aging parents and their young kids all at the same time.

And I believe that that actually has to be at the center of our economic agenda as well. I've been thinking about, what does our agenda look like, not just over the next two years, but as we hopefully look toward a Democratic trifecta in 2029? And I think there is no question that at this moment we are at an economic inflection point for our country that doesn't just pose real, immediate, urgent needs for individual workers and families, but poses existential risk for our democracy.

And I've been thinking about, what have Democratic proposals looked like at those previous inflection points? And the two most analogous examples of bold Democratic policymaking were the New Deal and the Great Depression. And in both of those instances, those proposals fell into essentially three buckets. The first were new social programs that addressed financial insecurity for a population that was increasingly living in poverty. In the '30s, that was Social Security. And in the '60s, that was the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

I think today, those new social programs that we can conceivably adopt through reconciliation, achievable with broad support among the Democratic caucus, is universal paid leave, universal child care, and historic investments in home care and elder care. The second bucket for the New Deal and the Great Depression were workforce programs that put people to work and helped to build the infrastructure of the future in those days. In the '30s, that was the Tennessee Valley Authority. It was the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration.

In the '60s, it was Vista and AmeriCorp. Today, I believe that we should make historic investments in building the trades workforce that we need to build the homes of tomorrow to make homeownership within reach, because even if we have investments and policy change to build new homes, we will not be able to build them at scale and at speed without the workforce necessary. And that is a workforce that will be increasingly immune to the technological revolution that we are about to experience, which gets me to the third bucket. The New Deal and the Great Society imposed important regulations on industries that presented existential risk for society.

In the '30s, it was banking. In the '60s, it was addressing pollution. Today, it has to be meaningful regulation of big tech, especially AI, to protect the safety, the health of our workforce and our democracy.

Medicare for All is a very important part of that. And nobody should be afraid of taking a vote on that. I would simply say that if you have a way to get to that and it takes you a little bit of time, it would seem to me to be counterproductive for people on our side to say, I'm not going to do that because it's not exactly what I want. I think that we make the mistake sometime on our side of insisting on ideological purity on all of these issues. I can promise you, I'm a local government guy. I was in the legislature for 16 years. We've had all of these issues in Louisiana before.

Sometimes you have to grab the ground that you can get, hold on to it, move on to the next thing. Because if you don't respond to what Sarah was saying earlier, to the initial concerns of dealing with cost, this is the one universal, almost unanimous concern of the American people. You have to do something to lower my cost. And if Congress doesn't work on that first, no matter what else we work on, no matter how much time we spend on whatever issue it is that you think is the most important thing in your life, then they're going to throw us out of power.

And if you don't have power, you don't have the ability to do the next thing, which is to get us to 2028, actually have the presidency too, which you need in order to not have a veto or to override the veto, and then get us at some point in time to where health care being a right for the American people is a realization that we always have.

Whether or not that's Medicare for All, whether that's some other kind of form of it, whether it's a transitionary period where a public option is a part of it, that's totally fine for all those things to be discussed. And in fact, I think we have to have that debate so we can actually get through all of the data to figure out what that transition looks like. But like you said, that North Star has to be that every single person has access to that health care. I think the political path forward is one that has to be centered around where the populace are. And they support Medicare for All.

And in fact, most of our voters, 80% to 90% of Democratic voters, want Medicare for All. And so our job is to not figure out what's doable within the political path as it exists right now. Our job is to chart a path forward to accomplish what the voters are demanding of us to achieve. And so what I will say, though, as far as what my pitch has been to a lot of folks that have been nervous about the idea of really dramatically fighting for Medicare for All, Medicare for All to me is how we Trump-proof our future, how we MAGA-proof our future.

Donald Trump, in some way, shape, or form, will disappear, right? In some way, shape, or form, he will be gone one day, right? That being said, MAGA will not disappear. Someone will step into Donald Trump's shoes, and they are going to be just as charismatic, just as telegenic, probably a lot smarter and more effective at actually destroying our institutions, which is a terrifying thought to think of right now. But this is not as bad as it could be.

It could get worse. And if we take back the House, which we will, the White House in '28, right, we'll have a trifecta in '29 without question. The problem is going to be what kind of trifecta do we have? If it's not a trifecta that is willing to pass Medicare for All, if we have the power to do so, if it's not one that is willing to pass things like housing first and universal child care, what we're missing here is the political will. Because if we accomplish that in '29, in that administration, we'll get to 2032. Whatever sycophant wants to take Donald Trump's role, we'll try and wage a fight against the Democratic Party, but we'll get to a point and say, we just deliver universal health care.

We'll be able to say that we canceled all medical debt. We'll be able to say that we broke up big medicine and drove down those costs so that it could be an effective and efficient health care system. We have to be able to point to something in order for us to be able to make the case in 2032 why we need to be able to keep that power, or else the pendulum will swing back, and we cannot afford another MAGA fascist administration to take power.

And there's a debate going on about that. There's some also provisions in the National Defense Authorization Bill that need to be pulled out of that bill because what they would do is permanently couple US defense production to the government of Israel. And I think that would be a mistake. My view is we should end the open American taxpayer checkbook to the government of Israel, given everything that's happening.

But then we do need to have a commitment to ambitiously address the kitchen table issues and end political corruption. So end political corruption. We need to pass the Disclosed Act, no more secret money. We need to get rid of what I call the Elon Musk loophole, where he spends $450 million in this election cycle and gets billions of dollars in federal contracts. I also believe that we need a public finance system.

But finally, when it comes to these key kitchen table issues, we need to do something meaningful on health care beyond reversing the damage. And also, John, I would say that we haven't talked about taxes here, but we have a tax system that is completely stacked in favor of people who make money off of money and against people who earn a paycheck through hard work. We need a commitment that we're going to change that.

I have actually proposed something that would provide working Americans with tax relief, funded by imposing a surtax on people who make more than a million dollars every single year. And so let me just close with this. I agree with I think there's a consensus here, I think, that the current labels that get thrown around in Democratic politics and politics are outdated. I mean, it's always are you left or right, are you progressive, moderate, or conservative?

My question is, just tell me what you'll do. What do you stand for? And if there was a lesson coming out of these elections, just look at Texas, where we have a great new governor and a new senator. I do believe that populism was the message. It's not left or right. It is the fact that we have an economy that's rigged in favor of very wealthy people at the expense of working people. And so it's not left or right. It's this other paradigm that does unite people.

Donald Trump has spent his time in office trying to divide people against one another. Their economic woes are because of the immigrants or the people of different faiths. That has distracted everybody. We need to unite together and tackle the big issue that didn't start with Donald Trump. It's been made worse by Donald Trump, but people's economic pain is a structural economic problem. We need to go straight at it. That is a populist message, and that is what we need a commitment to do, the direction to take bold action and not say we're only going to decide what to do based on whether or not we think Donald Trump's going to veto or something.

We should do what's right for the American people. He can tell people whether he still stands with the billionaires, which I'm sure he probably does, or whether he stands with the American people. But we should not be calibrating our every move based on what Donald Trump decides he wants to do. He just did give the American people a big finger. He kicked them in the teeth by putting Steve Miller in the cockpit. We should do the right thing. We should listen to the voters and move forward. That is my real purpose of making sure we have a commitment in the Democratic Party in the United States Senate to move in that direction.

That is the reality of being in charge of a caucus of 215 people. That will be the reality of being in charge of a caucus with 260-some plus. I have had a front row seat to Leader Jeffries' effectiveness in that role, not just internally within our caucus. But the reality is, over the last two years, in a majority party controls institution, the House, House Democrats have successfully taken over the floor and gotten our priorities voted on on the floor more than any minority in history since the 1930s when the rule that allows that was put into place.

I have had conversations with our leader, and I am convinced that he is in favor of a bold transformational economic agenda for our country and that he is in favor of our party putting that forward. I also think he's put forward positive proposals for, I think, a necessary shift in US foreign policy, including and especially when it comes to the US-Israel relationship. It might not be where everyone in this room would like him or others to be, but it has shifted, and he's outlined some priorities that I believe our caucus should absolutely vote on in a majority, including ending the violence, the terrorism, and the illegality of settlement expansions in the West Bank and Israel, and actually being willing to leverage the US government's funding and diplomatic efforts to achieve those goals.

He is also a historical figure. He is the first Black leader of our caucus. He would be the first Black speaker of the House of Representatives in American history. And he just presided over the single largest landslide for House Democrats since the 1970s. And so all of us will have disagreements. And members should absolutely have those conversations with leadership. I have had a front row seat.

It's why Representative Ocasio-Cortez is supporting him. It's why our caucus, as far as I can tell, is broadly united, because we don't want to start this Congress as well in the same place that Republicans have started their Congresses, with dysfunction, with chaos, with it looking like despite having a historic majority, at least in recent times, that we can't even turn the lights on. I think let's focus on getting past that vote and beginning in that moment when we have the nation's agenda, fighting for them, fighting for bold policy, not fighting amongst ourselves for who gets which chair.

It has to mean something for the Black community. It has to actually turn into tangible things, the speakership. And when I think about the speaker of the House, this is the person who, in effect, is supposed to speak for the people. And the people have made it clear that they want us to root out corruption. The people have made it clear that they want us to address the health care crisis. The people have made it clear that they want us to be the party and the country of peace and stability.

And in order for us to reach those goals, there has to be a bold agenda that comes with it. I've not been sold just yet that there is a bold agenda on the table. And I'll just add, too, I really think it's important that there is some kind of public concession on that front because it is abundantly clear that the American people are unhappy with leadership right now. They do not believe that leadership is poised for this moment to take us in the direction that our party needs to go, take the government in the direction that it needs to go right now.

And I think there is a certain level of trust that you earn from voters by just saying, I hear you. What we put forward maybe isn't enough. Here's what we're going to do to actually address the concerns that the American voters have. My vote is something that's still up in the air right now because I need to see that agenda, and I look forward to having those conversations with leadership because, again, we have the mandate of the people right now, and we cannot squander this. There has to be a bold agenda that we put forward.

That is the same thing everybody up here said. And just so that you don't think this is just a magic trick, you don't usually have this level of consensus that's going on. And as I said when I began, I assure you that the differences on the Democratic side right now are so de minimis in comparison to what's going on with the other side that we should take notice of that. Secondly, I want to affirm what all of these smart folks have said, that when you're out there campaigning, all right, the voters are very fluid right now.

They are not loving the Democrats and/or the Republicans. They gave us a chance, and they are absolutely clear that they are not ideologically bent in this regard, that it is really not, as Chris said, because he's very astute, left, middle, and right. There's some of that, but the world has changed now. And if we don't feel this shift, then we are going to miss the boat, that it's an up versus down thing. Most Americans that voted the way they voted feel that they have been left behind, that the system is rigged, they're getting screwed, and nobody's focused on them.

And that's what they're demanding, which is why they're just grabbing everybody's face and saying, I told you that I need you to concentrate on the things that are making me worry about whether I can make a living from day to day. And I would just say to our team that we have to stay focused on the things that are going to help us win because if you don't have power, you can't get anything done. And to make the final point, Focus Group, New Hampshire, white guy, 38 years old, voted for Trump straight down the line, Trump voter, until he heard about the big beautiful bill and the Medicaid cuts.

And he said, I have a special needs kit. He said, I cannot believe that somebody that I voted for is going to give a tax cut to a trillionaire and take money out of my pocket so that I cannot care for my kid. And he switched. And so did a whole bunch of other people across the aisle. And I think, again, to your point, if we stay focused on that and don't get stuck on the perfect versus the enemy of good, and then making sure, by the way, that we earn their votes because they don't trust us right now either. And we have to prove to them that we see them, we heard them, and that we're actually going to take concrete action to make sure that they're seen and we actually get stuff done.

Whatever that is, whatever fits into that bucket, I would go run wild and get there as fast as you can.

At least Trump isn't. Miller doesn't care about politics. How are you all feeling about the next time? I mean, I know there's a CR in December 11th, but let's kick it down the road to the new year when there's a new Congress. How are you all feeling about a showdown with the Trump administration where the government potentially shuts down for a while and voters are like, OK, we sent Democrats to Congress and they're fighting, but also now they're fighting with Republicans and the government's not working and it's shut down and are they going to get anything and what are they actually fighting for?

You can say we shut it down over Medicaid cuts. We shut it down over the Iran war. We shut it down over ICE. This seems like it's the first moment where Democrats are united now, but what's the message to the voters going to be when that comes to a head?

And if Donald Trump wants to tell the country that he is going to shut down the United States government in order to keep the war in Iran going, which he said he would never start, and that would also bring down prices, which he said he would do, if he wants to shut down the United States government to keep his war going, that is his choice. And he'll have to explain it to the American people and, as I said, to his vice president, who recognizes that the Iran war was a critical issue in this election.

So we don't have to wait till January. We should really do that now.

But this president has no ideological core, right? The only commitment this man has is to self-enrichment and seeing his name in lights. And I think as he enters a lame duck period, final two years of his presidency with large Democratic majorities in both caucuses or in both chambers, the reality is he doesn't need the sort of Milton Friedman carcass of the Republican Party that he had used as a vehicle to win the White House.

He's going to be a free agent. And for instance, on the Medicaid cuts, he was warning congressional Republicans that they were going to be incredibly unpopular when they were pushing them forward, but he knew he needed to include them to get the votes of the Freedom Caucus to get what he really wanted, which were tax breaks for billionaires and ICE funding. So there are a lot of things where he's not really committed ideologically or personally to harms that congressional Republicans inflicted on the country.

I don't think he cares about the harms, but I don't think he's going to be willing to die on some of those political hills to defend them. And so I think there is a lot of opportunity over the next several months to extract concessions, to reverse those cuts, to put forward really bold policy. I mean, does the president want to veto paid family and medical leave, which is supported by like 80% of voters? Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't because he just doesn't care, and he'd love to see his name on a policy that would afford every worker in this nation paid family and medical leave for the inevitable challenges of life.

We don't know how he is going to respond and engage. And so let's just do what we want to do and fight for what we want to fight and let the chips fall where they may.

They don't care about the politics, and that is his only passion project. And so I do wonder what those of you in Congress think about handling that. How do you think about handling that over the next year or two? Because to me, that is one of the scarier things as we head into the last two years. Congresswoman?

And I think the same would be the case here with ICE. And I think part of it also has to be about presenting our own vision. For too long, immigration has been used as a political football between both of the parties, despite the fact that there are so many common sense proposals and reforms that are on the table for us to address the immigration crisis that I think there could be some serious bipartisan support here for us to get it across the line. And like Sarah said, we have to try. We have to actually put these things forward and force the Republicans to say whether or not they're on board with these things. But when it comes to ending the paramilitary, rogue, just blatant violence that is being inflicted on the American people right now by this agency, I would absolutely be in favor of supporting a government shutdown in order for us to hold the line there.

And I asked them why. And one of them was, well, these raids are pulling everybody off of all the construction jobs, and we can't build houses so people's costs have gone up. But it was also the week, if you remember, where two individuals were killed, one of them in Houston and then another gentleman in Maine who was shot in front of his three-year-old child. And they were enraged as most people because, as you may recall, Trump said we're going to close the border and then we're just going to get rid of the worst of the worst.

They forgot to tell everybody they were just going to kill American citizens and that Stephen Miller was going to go on the south lawn of the White House and say you actually have immunity for doing whatever that you want. Nor did they tell you, for example, that they were going to pull grandmothers off of their lawns when they were gardening and throw them into a van with masked men and put them in a hole and not give them due process. And so these fluid voters who were for closing the border were not for inhumane treatment, and they saw themselves in a way that they went, that is not what we voted for.

ICE is out of control. ICE is a paramilitary organization. It has got to be reined in, and it has got to be changed. ICE now has more money than almost every other agency. And by the way, ICE is new. ICE has not been with us forever. I mean, ICE wasn't around before 2001. So this idea that it's some kind of sacred institution, they're hiring people that are not qualified. They're hiring people that are not trained. They are supervising people in a way that their supervision doesn't matter because they have been given free rein to do things that are extra constitutional.

And that organization, however it is that you find a way to do it, it needs to be changed. We can be tough and smart. Now, I'll end with this. On Sunday, what's today? Two days ago, I thought to myself, wouldn't it be wonderful that Trump got the message? Because there are actually some really wonderful things we could do with immigration reform and housing, two things that you could just roll up on the same thing on universal care, especially if you put Trump's name on it. And wouldn't it be great if he got religion and heard the American people and decided that he was actually going to work through, as Sarah has said, trying to get to a good place?

And then he appointed Stephen Miller. I'm just going to tell you, it's like Lucy with the football with Charlie Brown. Every time you think this guy maybe has an iota of humanity, he comes and reminds you that no, he does not. And so I just don't think you can bring a knife to a gun battle. And I think it's going to be very, very difficult to negotiate how to go forward. And we're just going to have to figure out the best pathway and still stay true to our principles and be strong about it.

So talk about your thought process, your decision-making process as you kick the tires or whatever the cliche is that everyone says about maybe running for president. How are you thinking about it? And why do you think that you might have the unique abilities to lead the country in 2028?

And it's my belief that we need to change the way we look at how we tackle the biggest issues in our country, political corruption and the broken economic system that flows from it. And I am someone who fundamentally believes we need to change the structure of our economic system, which is stacked in favor of people who make money off of money and against people who earn a paycheck for hard work. We do need Medicare for all.

And I'm going to close with this point. We don't need more of the finger-in-the-wind stuff. We were just talking about immigration. I remember early in the Trump administration when the Trump folks abducted off of the streets of Maryland a guy by the name of Kilmar Brego Garcia in complete violation of his constitutional rights, went down, sent him down to a gulag in El Salvador. There were a lot of Democrats back then who criticized me for going down to El Salvador and saying we need to bring him back.

I expected the pushback from the White House. What I did not expect was the pundits who were essentially sniping from the sidelines. And I think the American people stood with standing up for our Constitution in that instance. And I'll just say one more thing, John. And this started with the Biden administration. We did, as a country, look the other way while our taxpayers were used, taxpayer dollars were used by the Netanyahu government to drop bombs that have devastated Gaza.

Just take a look at the pictures. Civilians killed, complete destruction of Gaza. We've allowed our taxpayer dollars to be used to deepen the occupation of the West Bank. I've been to the border of Egypt and Gaza twice. The first time I went in, the city of Rafah was still standing. The second time, after President Biden said he's going to draw a red line and prevent the destruction of Rafah, when I looked in, it was gone.

I have been fighting from day one to make sure that U.S. foreign policy aligns with our values. We've had a lot of votes in the United States Senate and Congress on this. It was very lonely. There are only very few of us who are willing to stand up for principle early on. Now the country is clearly in a different place, but I will conclude with this, John. I do think, to the point we've made, people will disagree with us.

And whether it was free trade or open trade and the hollowing out of our neighborhoods in the country, people started feeling disassociated and alienated from each other. And because of September 11th and the forever wars and then the Wall Street debacle that we had and then the election, the conditions that elected Donald Trump, American people turned on each other. And two things happened. One, it gave rise, Congresswoman, as you said, to this MAGA extreme, which, by the way, had existed in the South for a long, long time.

This is not anything new to us. But it's the first time that it actually made it in the halls of Congress with a Confederate flag on January 6th and into the White House. And now Stephen Miller being the chief of staff is the epitome of putting power in the hands of an individual that does not believe in the promise of America. J.D. Vance gave a speech not long ago talking about this nation not being a credo nation. In other words, we're not here because of the idea of America. That is exactly why we're here, because America is the greatest idea that it has ever had, which has simply stated that we're all created equal and that we come to the table of democracy as equals with equal opportunity and equal responsibility.

That very notion is being challenged by the greatest powers that ever were right now. And if we lose that, we do not have a country that we all say that we know and we love. And I think that we can't let that stand. I think that that has to be the fight of the future. The second thing is that the American dream, the covenant that we made with each other, is that if you really work hard, your kids are going to have a better life than you. You're going to be able to support your family. That American dream is gone because the system is, in fact, rigged.

And if we don't relitigate those two things, then I think we're going to have a challenge. What yesterday or the other day demonstrated to us is that the hope and the dreams of America are still alive. The seeds of freedom are still there. And in 2028, no one else, irrespective of who runs, however many people do, think about how America is going to recapture winning the 21st century because we're behind now. We have been given a chance to govern. We have the responsibility to do it well. And that's why so many people are thinking about now lending their voice.

And from my perspective, the more the merrier, the better, because it seems to me that if we get it right, nothing but blue skies ahead of us. Thank you.

And they were willing to vote with their feet. And number two, they want a new generation of leaders that looks different and works harder. And then lastly, they want big and bold ideas to support those economic dreams. So somewhere in there with some much more anodyne, boring language, I would brief a foreign leader.

I would start with healthcare and prescription drugs personally. And then if the president wants to veto those things, let him, in front of the American people, as a populist, go ahead and veto. Number two, we need to have accountability for violations of the law and abuses of taxpayer dollars. And to do that, we should look at these signature cases, right? You can't make it your whole personality.

You have to actually show that you're helping the American people because their pocketbooks is just such an obsession for people, rightly, right now. But these signature cases, think about the reflecting pool, think about the abuse of taxpayer dollars to enrich people, things that violate the law. You have to have these signature cases. And then third, much less sexy, you have a group of folks who are focused on how do we Trump-proof the government so no other president, Democrat or Republican, can ever do what this man did.

So those are the three things.

But no one is above the law. And so it's not just about going after cabinet-level officials or the president. It is also about saying if you're going to abuse taxpayer dollars and violate the law on behalf of this president, you too are going to be held accountable.

That's the sentence. Donald Trump said on election night something to the effect of wanting to work with Democrats. Then the next day, he appoints Stephen Miller, or the next few days, Stephen Miller to be chief of staff. Medicaid cuts are coming on January 1st. Government shutdown looms. I think when Trump says he wants to work with Democrats, I think he'd like to show Hakeem Jeffries the ballroom. There is a tension, right, between investigation and the potential of Donald Trump's signature being on, say, a repeal of Medicaid cuts.

How do you think about that tension?

So I don't feel that strong of a tension. And if you're from a swing state, if you're from the middle of the country, we live that, right? I've never won my town. I've never won my precinct. I've never won my neighbors. I live in a rural red town. But I still work with my town supervisor. He was my plus one at Trump's inauguration because I couldn't get any Democrat to go with me. And he's a fanboy. And so you see what I'm saying? We live with that tension, but it has to be about helping the people you represent.

If you want to help people's pocketbooks, those are the three things in the mop-up job portion of the work that we need to do.

So you don't get to slip out of it. You don't get to say, well, I was this voice of dissent that I don't have agency. You're the vice president of the United States, and you made this decision to go to war. Own it, okay? And either you couldn't stop it because you're so weak and have no voice with the president, or you supported it. Those are your two choices. But you don't get to write some sort of speech afterwards to try to save your own future presidency while you've sent men and women to die on behalf of this country. So I took offense to it at just a sort of a primordial level as someone who's did three tours in Iraq.

And I think what it says is there are clearly deep divisions within the White House, within the MAGA movement. I mean, we've all had that moment where we've looked at Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet and we're like, why do I agree with that tweet? So I think it's fair to say things are shifting. But I think at the end of the day, if these people are truly populists, they have to have heard the message that was sent on Tuesday night.

They have to understand that the American people are so fearful about their ability to see their kids do better than them, that it is driving them in some cases in places like Kansas and Iowa to vote for people that they've never voted for Democrats, some of these people. So we need to hear that. And by the way, not overinterpret the results that somehow people love Democrats again, okay? Let's not make that mistake.

That for me means like, look, if he wants to be a majority leader, what is your plan for the first 100 days? How are you going to do things differently so that Democrats get their shit together? And if you can't produce that, I'm not voting for you. And he needs a quorum to hold a vote, even if he's the only person who runs. And I personally don't think people should be giving him that quorum if he hasn't had to come to the caucus and say, look, I've heard what happened.

Here's what I'm going to do differently. And if you can't do that, you don't deserve someone's vote.

But also part of the job of a Senate leader is to kind of take the arrows, right? And like at the end of the dark night, he's not the leader we want, but he's the leader we deserve. How do you separate that? How do you separate the way in which it's a thankless job and the ways in which he has not done the job you want him to do?

What I think we need to sort of process is that what Tuesday night told us is that the country is interested in different ways of using power, different ways of pushing back. We're in a new era now. It is not the era of 30 years ago in the Senate when the strongly worded letter meant something in this town. And so I am interested in working with people and working as a team across ideological lines, working as a team to exert power in different ways, to exert a message in different ways.

And I want a leader who can do that, who can say, look, I've read the room, and we need to think differently about the voices we push forward, the things we go for. We can't just have it like 56 different CEOs who are all doing their different thing. We need to play as a team. And I'm interested in anyone, especially my freshman colleagues, my sophomore colleagues with me, who are interested in a different way of exerting power.

Why don't you run for Senate Majority Leader?

At the time, your father was ill and his doctors were Arab and Muslim American. And so before we get to the politics, I'm curious what the impact of what had been a very contentious campaign, a campaign in which you've had both Republicans and outside groups like APAC running incredibly divisive ads, and what it felt like on the ground in Michigan, the impact of that.

We are the first delegation where neither of us has ever taken corporate PAC money, which is new for the Senate. And actually, on the age thing, we just figured this out today that Abdul's age plus my age is still younger than Chuck Grassley. So there's a different tone, a different vibe. But I think.

And so I think there's a lot of interest, I think, in both of us in making that a reality coming off of a very divisive and difficult election cycle.

I talked about this with Brad Lander, who's an incoming freshman. I talked about this with Abdul. And what it looks like for Democrats to shape a policy that's not just about stopping what is clearly not working, but shaping something that is a positive view. How to use our leverage with Israel towards both a solution, but also the dignity and human rights of Palestinians.

How do we change that to right-size it for a very different moment in our history and a very different moment in their history? And Bibi gave a speech about this. I mean, it's interesting to me that it's happening on both sides of the ocean. And I think that that is right. I think that for me, what was different last April or two Aprils ago, maybe, was the literally weaponizing of humanitarian aid.

And as someone who served three tours in Iraq, who watched the US military up close and personal, I understand what is a violation of the law of war, what is the use of military force, excessive use of force in a way that the United States would never be able to do in a war zone. So that, to me, kind of broke me. And that's why I voted the way I did and have since then.

But I think the kind of overall message is the country wants something different. And we need to hear that and need to use that leverage appropriately.

And they see a lot of rising antipathy towards Israel. There has also been antisemitism on the left. And that makes them really anxious. It hits something really personal and deep. And then I think, well, what's causing all of this? And I think, well, there's this big missing piece, right? That should the concern be directed at people with criticisms at Israel, or should it be directed at pro-Israel politicians and organizations that are just banking on some old assumptions that don't apply anymore, that America has always been an ally to Israel, when there's a whole generation of people that have only known Israel as a wealthy and powerful country, that have never heard anyone make a case for why we have this relationship, especially in the wake of the Iran war?

And it does seem like there's been an absence of leadership of people that claim to be pro-Israel explaining what a moral, righteous version of that policy could ever be. Joe Biden was incomprehensible by the end of his administration, to be honest, and was so lockstep with Bibi that people found it enraging and incomprehensible in the policy. And so I'm curious how you see your role going forward as someone who has tried to build a relationship with communities that have deep concerns about Israel correctly and with the Jewish community, what you see your role is going forward in finding that new kind of a consensus.

That's not made up. That's not hyperbole. And I think that certainly in the Jewish community, there's so much fear that people are approaching discussions about Israel and Bibi Netanyahu and the bad behavior of the military. They're approaching it from a defensive crouch. And they don't want to say publicly anything negative because they're worried that that will reverberate.

And they're so worried about their own security that they don't want to let in any crack of criticism to add to that pile. And I think that just is something we're trying to work through. And I think that our Muslim communities are struggling with threats on their institutions and worried about what's happening in their communities. And so I'm trying to see how, as a leader, I can try and bring those conversations together.

And you have to reassure people that, first and foremost, we're going to do everything for their security at home in Michigan. But we need to be able to have an honest conversation about the behavior of Bibi Netanyahu and the military in Gaza. You can have those two separate conversations.

And my experience in general with elected leaders in Washington is that a lot of them are running the circa 1997 presidential play, right? You write a book and then you go to this and then you do this.

We should accept it, people, right? How many years have we been told we need to winnow it down? It's going to be big and messy. And that's fine. And that's fine. And just we should demand of people, we should demand of people, what are you going to do? It can't just be a vibes election. What are you going to do? Tell us those big and bold ideas and how you're going to lead.