Josh Marshall & Malcolm Kenyatta

Trump overplaying his hand with an unpopular agenda. Ben, we'll talk to the Vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, Malcolm Kenyatta about the drama inside the DNC and his vision for the organization. But first the news.

Second of all, this is a country where we don't arrest the people we don't like. Like, that's not how this works, or at least it's not how it's supposed to work. So we have all of these visuals of Ice just arresting democratic politicians, even if the democratic politician is doing something stupid. It makes Ice look terrible. And one of the things about trump Ism is that there are always these unintended consequences, right, things that they didn't

necessarily mean to happen. And this is such a great example of an unintended consequence. So now we're going to have a whole news cycle about Ice arresting Bradlander as opposed to anything else.

at least they have principles. Like Massy and ran Paul have said no, you know, they won't vote for trump Ism, and I actually think, I mean this is because they don't want to do regime change in Iran, which, by the way, I just want to pause from it and think about the many times in which America has tried to do regime change and how well it's worked out. There are some translators from Afghanistan who are being deported right now. And so I want to tell you we

are not a country that can do regime change. We can barely do our own regime okay change right, so should we be doing regime change? Abs fucking insane. You know, Massey goes with the Democrat that's in an effort to require congressional approval before Trump attacks Iran. This is one hundred percent. First of all, presidents should not be allowed to do this unilaterally. This is like a vestige of

Bush too. You know that they should go. And I'm sure there are somebody who listens to this podcast is going to tell me the stories of ways in which presidents have grabbed power from Congress. But this is another one. He should not be able to do this now. Of course it's Trump. So Republicans are even more cowardly than usual. Again, I don't know what Trump is doing, because no one knows what Trump is doing because Trump is so erratic

and crazy. But Trump's people have been sending out the word via the mainstream media that Trump wants to bring a Ran back to the table. Who even knows if that's what he wants, but that's what his people are pretending he wants yeah fun stuff.

But Senator Mike Lee has decided to leet the social media posts where he lied about the motives of a murder of a bunch of different legislators in Minnesota after he was confronted by both a letter from a colleague, Senator Tita Smith in person and reporters where he was such a coward he wouldn't even answer the reporters and he would not stand by this stupid based Mike Lee account where he constantly trolls and makes a mockery of our entire system.

really vile, disgustingness, and like so many keyboard warriors, when Tina Smith, who is a member of the Senate for the state of Minnesota, confronted him, he looked ashen and apologeic. I do not think he saw this coming. Then he actually deleted the tweets, which is okay, it's good that he deleted the tweets, But no apology. No, I'm sorry, none of that. No, let me correct the record. Just some tweets deleted and now running from reporters. Look, is it good to do the right thing? Yes? Is it

good to delete the tweets? Yes? I mean it's just ridiculous. This person is a ridiculous person and this has been disgusting. These people were murdered. There are two other members of the Minnesota House who are in the hospital, still in surgery. I mean the heartiest, the heartiest, Fuck that guy to Mike lay who it's actually not moment of fuck Ray, but I say it is.

Some of that's because we're still kind of in the post COVID era. But yeah, I mean it's we see that. I actually thought that that was something that was in the backdrop to what you just mentioned, his deciding to leave the G seven meeting. That in both Washington and Jerusalem right now and what's going on in Tehran is

its own possibly similar, similar world. You have leaders who you really don't know what their game is, and that creates a lot of a lot of uncertainty, even beyond the way that war is inherently uncertain.

saved us all from what could have been something terrible. Now, my theory of the case is that the grown ups in the room actually just saved Trump, like made him electable in a way that may reelectable. So like, in some ways it's possible that we would have been honestly better off had there not been any grown ups in the room.

more after the election. That one thing that you know, anti Trump people, Democrat, liberals, whatever, however, you know, wherever you want to draw the diagram missed about the Trump presidency is that because there were those I don't know, adults in the room, guardrails, whatever you want to call it, that if you just sort of looked away from politics,

you could say, what was the problem. You know, yeah, he was weird and all this, he did all this silly stuff, but the economy, again until COVID, remained pretty buoyant. If you're not focused on politics and you're just living your life, you could say, you know, that was just the sort of the Washington Show and it seemed fine. And if you're not tuned into politics, so you can say he kept the economy going well. Well, you know, I'm not sure he did it, but it did keep going well.

clearly is something with Israel here. That's a real cleavage, and not just because a lot of Trumpers are big time anti Semites, right.

killing Arabs basically, or in this case, killing Iranians. And I think we're you know, where you have some of that cleavage is that most American Jews, to the extent that they are attached to Israel, are attached to a very different version of Israel, and a version of Israel that to a significant extent has been eclipsed over the last twenty or thirty years. And the part of Israel that the Trump folks are very attached to is the part that they are uncomfortable with. That's a whole you know,

that's a whole thing. But one of the pioneers of political anti Semitism, sort of not a hall of fame you want to be in, is this guy who is the mayor of Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth twentieth century. His name is I think Luger, I can't remember what his first name was. In any case, was

sort of the pioneer of populist anti Semitism. There's a funny thing because in his own life he had Jewish friends dine with Jews, and so there's this famous story where he gets asked one time, you're the big Jew hater. Why do we see you having, you know, dining with Jews and your friends are Jews, And he has his famous line he says, I decide who's a Jew? And Trump is I think like that, right, He'll decide who

the Jews are. And you see that even where Asaurus is bad because he's you know, he's a bad Jew, and then they're good Jews.

You gotta have even a pinochet, you can't. It doesn't work with an al Gore.

a Donald Trump did. Do you think the humor tricks constituents into going along with stuff or do you think that it just is irrelevant and that they're in a cultive personality.

style that is very effective. And one of the things about Trump is that he has these moments of self awareness and even kind of self criticism in a way, not self criticism exactly, but awareness of some of his craziness. And I, like many other people, have given a lot of thought to this. It's almost something that is not susceptible to discoursive thought in the way that you might write down in an academic book. It's a little more like jazz in a way. You get a feel for it.

But I think all of those are part of it. And when we talk about a cult of personality, the humor, all of those things are part of it. Probably many of your listeners have seen this too, that Mike Lee, senator from Utah, the sort of the very degenerate senator from Mutah, is maybe in a little trouble now because one of the senators, Senator Smith from Minnesota, kind of

called him out about these terrible tweets. And one of the many things that that episode shows is that people play these online personas and it becomes a separate world. And so we all have some experience of that, of the performative nature of these things. In some ways we

live in that world. And Donald Trump is like a master of that world, of creating this kind of distracting alternative reality that is always on the move, always taking things in another direction, is entertaining, distracting, mesmerizing, and that thing, very hard to capture, is really central to his power. Even though it seems sort of silly and distracting and stupid and is all those things, it's central to it. And yeah, that is at the core of his power. And it's a weird thing to understand.

will absolutely not fucking tell you anything. Right, it's a superpower.

of it is kind of stream of consciousness. Now, most of his stream of consciousness is nonsense and just making things up. It plays as a kind of authenticity for people. I want the next Democratic leaders to be on social media a lot. Oh yeah, that was you know, one of the things about not even his first presidency, but his first campaign was everybody else is like, okay, should we put out a press release for this? And he's just going on Twitter.

York of the nineteen eighties. It's not an accident because that is where that is sort of where our current media culture was born, the beginnings of electronic media, the tabloid culture, all of that stuff. And so it makes sense that, you know, all the ability to just kind of like, I'm going to keep in the news and going to keep doing stuff that people have to react to. And it's just critical for people who care about politics to understand why he is powerful in that way.

and sent to a gulag in El Salvador. So things that seem very silly and fluffy translate into real power and real violence.

back to state legislature. You became a vice chair of the DNC along with David Hogg. Now catch us up on what happened next.

and back in February she filed that challenge to the election results. And because unlike this authoritarian administration, the Democratic Party actually believes in due process, there was a process where she got to file a complaint we had a number of days to respond to her complaint. The committee had a number of days to hear that complaint. Already people's eyes are glazing over. But ultimately what happened are I know, I'm in it. My eyes are glazed over.

But what ultimately happened was the Committee decided to hould the election again, you know, which I did not think was you know appropriate. I called it at the time, you know, a slap in my face. But in this moment, with everything going on, with a president that is so lawless, so out of control, and so willing to throw away all of the modern safety net so that they can stuff the pockets of the wealthiest people the world has

ever seen, we need a strong democratic party. And a part of what we need in this moment is not for everybody who's ever been frustrated with Democrats to walk away. I've been frustrated with Democrats. I'm chief among them. But the question is what do we do with that frustration. I decided to go into the building and try to fucking change it.

to twenty fifth, where Ken Martin our new chair. For folks who don't know Ken, Ken was the guy after the twenty sixteen election who led a lot of the reforms in the DNC around minimizing the power of superdelegates, trying to get the party out of the you know, the gilded ages where people in smoke filled rooms picked our nominees, and he laid out a series of like twenty I think it is reforms to the party, including

officer neutrality. A month later, David Hogg announced that he was going to do this primary thing with leaders we deserve.

to Quipple over that. But at the minimum, there was a perception that the party was not even handed in that primary. And what we must all endeavor to do is to make sure or that never happens again.

protection racket. My job is not to re elect incumbents. My job is to elect Democratic nominees that are chosen by Democratic voters in their districts. That's our job, full stop. And unfortunately, the election challenge that was filed back in February, and Ken calling profice in neutrality back in March, you have so many people still to this day are saying that this is somehow payback for David and now saying that he would not Abuie by officer neutrality back in April,

that timeline just doesn't work. And I've said this constantly, but you know, a li will get around the block while the truth is putting its shoes on, and so I decided to put my shoes on tell the truth about what's happening.

player in the game. And the DNC. Our job and what we're doing is building the infrastry structure so that when our candidates come out of those primaries they have all the tools they need to be successful. And that means that we have to invest and rebuild our state parties. I was just in Mississippi and all of you know, our last Democratic nominee, Mike Best be there.

you know around excuse me, media and communications. There are a bunch of different things that we need to do that the Democratic Party is investing in. And so our job is to build infrastructure so our nominees win, not to try to pick our nominees. And that does not mean that we don't want robust primaries. If you are listening to this podcast and you're thinking about running for office,

run for office. I'm not trying to stop you. If a running office, run for office on whatever platform you have, run for office, talk to voters in your district and go out and win. And when you are the nominee, sign me up to do whatever event I need to do to make sure you beat whatever authoritarian supporting Republican is on the other side.

We won pretty handily. And throughout my work in the one hundred and thirty days or so before the election, you know, I traveled twenty one thousand miles to a nine states, did three dozen events, fundraisers, the list goes on and on to try to build this party, and I was confident that I would have the votes to win again. David made a decision to focus his work on leaders we deserve. I said it at the time. You know, I really wish him the best. There is

nothing wrong with robust primaries. We have folks in organized labor who endorse different people. We have you know, Emily's List, Run for Something, which is an incredible organization that supports young people running for office, Collective Pack Victory Fund, so many different organizations. We're going to play in primaries, and they should, and I'm going to be waiting for those primaries to be over to support them. However, however we can at the DNC.

their decision to step back. But I think the only question that I think we really need to answer is what are we going to do for working people and working families to make their lives better. And you heard me say this over and over again. Even Fox News said they're sick of me saying yeah. But I think the Democratic Party has a singular mission and ultimately a

singular message. We have to make life better and a part of that equation obviously is making sure that people get a fair wage, that they get the benefits and dignity they deserve on the job. And no, you know, there are very few people who have fought as hard for those changes and for those rights and earned benefits then Lease Honders and Randy Weingarten, So you know they're

taking a step back. I absolutely respect them, but I know where I'm going to see them on a picket line on some fight for justice, and they're going to be fighting arm in arm with the Democratic Party to elect Democratic candidates who care about those values. But I think as a party right now, we are going to be focused not on the past, but on what our party must be. And I think you know, if you want to get on TV right now, Molly, you know it. You just say Democrats suck, write an op ed, it

gets published. You can be an a blog of any show you want to be on and you know that's all well and good. I think enough op eds have been written about what the Democrats did wrong. I'm sick of that shit. I think it's our responsibility to talk about what we're going to do next, to tell people who we are going to be and what we've been. And so that's why I go all across this country talking about how we're going to make life better for

working people and working families. And I have no doubt that those two leaders are going to continue to do that work, no matter what their role or title is.

the Democratic Party values. And when Democrats take the House back in twenty twenty six, we better get about the business of passing the pro forcing the Senate and the President to be against making it easier for people to

organize on the job. You know. In a now viral video where I work in Harrisburg, after a speech that I gave about the minimum wage, the Republican leader gets up on the floor and says, every job shouldn't have a living shouldn't be a living wage because he's such a you know, a jerk, you know, in an asshole. He does not think people should be paid a dignified wage.

That's what we're up against right now. And Randy and Lee are going to definitely be in the trenches helping us do that work, you know, and we respect their leadership. But now we have to move forward and do the work that we must do, making sure that everybody hears about how the Democratic Party wants to make life better for working people and working families.

have the most on the line. I mean, listen, I'm not even thirty five yet I'm asking every single day, am I gonna be able to breathe the damn air and drink the water? Or me and my husband may the start a family to live in a community that's safe. And if we had kids, are they going to grow up in some authoritarian, right wing maga QAnon regime? And so I think invariably you are gonna have people who understand the impact of this moment, including a bunch of

young people, step up and run for office. And they should. People should step up and run for office. But we shouldn't also so not continue to give Republicans a pass here. And I think what often happens is, well, we assume Republicans are bad, So why even talk about the fact

that they're bad? The big bullshit bill, which is what I call it, passed because Republicans want it to pass, because they do not give a damn about kicking fourteen million people off of health care, because they don't care about ripping food out of the mouths of kids, because they don't care about shutting down critical research that helps us deal with issues like cancer and HIV, because they don't care about people being kicked out of their homes.

And the reality is that time and time and time again, we are ignoring the advice that comes from a very unexpected place. If you ever saw the show Silo, I don't watch Silo. My husband watched Silo, and if I want to sit in the fucking living room, I apparently aren't have to watch Silo too, and so and so and so. One of the characters on Silo said something

that I felt was so impactful. She said, we have to figure out how to be angry with each other and not at each other, because in this moment, the things that we're even defending, I don't think even enough Democrats know that this is something we did. Medicare, Medicaid,

social Security, these are programs that are deeply popular. The Affordable Care Act programs that are deeply popular that Democrats passed, and we have to get back to the business of talking about how we're going to do that again, how we're going to make life better and if you hear me again, Hey, Malcolm, should young people run for office? Yes? Yes, yes, they should run for office. Al Roker did a whole documentary about my run for office called Do Not Wait

Your Turn. You can go watch it if you're bored. Okay, So I'm all about this, but I just want to be crystal clear that voters are going to decide who those nominees are and I'm going to support them.

before the vote. I know that a lot of people liked him, but I just am curious, like basically what I heard from people because I asked them why they would elevate him instead of AOC because he was battling throw cancer, was seventy six and also just was not as good a communicator as AOC. And you know, you can like him or love him, but he was not a politician who broke through. Particularly so when I asked people about why they were voting for him, they would say, well,

it's his turn. And I wonder, whose responsibility is it to tell somebody in their seventies who's got throw cancer that they can't be ranking member, Like obviously there's a failure of leadership here, or doesn't it seem like if I had a company and I were running a company and you know, we just had And I don't mean to push you on this because I really like you and we're friends, and I have enough elected who are mad at me.

you know, fire in the belly. To meet this moment and treat this moment like it's the five alarm fire that it is. Treat this moment like we have an authoritarian in the White House who's sending the military against its citizens. We have to treat it with that, with that seriousness. But I want to be very clear with folks.

I want people to think about this for a second, which is why I'm being careful you know, I chose to run for a specific gig within the Democratic National Committee, and there are a lot of people who look at me and say, Malcolm, you always talk about, you know, don't wait your turn, your young guy running running running for office. The reality, though, is this, we do not want officers of the DNC trying to make all of these decisions. We don't want that. We don't want that.

And people think they want that right now because because there's somebody who you think agrees with you, who's there. But Malcolm's not going to be by sheriff of the DNC forever. And what if the next vice chair of the d NC says, know what, the progressives are the problem with everything in the in the party, and we're gonna do everything we can to get them out of the party. You know that's wrong. I want to see a party that is run by the people, and the

people are making their their voices heard. People are stepping up every single day to run for office. I mean, I saw a run for something talk about the amount of people who've signed up with them to run for office. And I think the best thing that I can do is to say, in no uncertain terms and repeat to folks that if you want to run for office, you should step up and run. I think these conversations are,

you know, conversations that we that we should have. If we're going to make life better for people, we certainly have to be willing to have tough conversations as Democrats. But I should not be trying to dictate those those conversations, you know. And it's very rare that you have political leaders that don't think they should be in charge of everything. I don't think I should be in charge of everything.

I think that I should be listening to what voters tell me to do, and what voters want me to do right now is to make sure that we can win. And a part of why the Democratic Party is not one, in my view, is that we've treated ourselves for too long like we exist to throw a big party every four years and just elect a president. And we've changed that. We're investing a million dollars a month in state parties, the single largest investment out of DC into state so

we can do year round organizing. We started this program like the Blueprint, so every day at ten am, we're prebudding all of the lies that are going to come from the john S Brady press room where this lady gets up with her cross and then says everything that Jesus would despise, and the list goes on and on. So I have a job to do, and my job is to build the infrastructure so Democrats can and can win.

I want to make sure they win. I want to see younger leaders step up to run for office, and I want to see leaders who have fire in the belly to step up for run for office. And I want all of them to be talking about my three words on how they're going to make life better for working people and working families. I think that's what voters want to hear it too.

reproductive rights, legislators don't because they're all Republicans. So instead of doing what the voters wanted with the ballot initiatives, and we saw this in Florida too. Right in Florida, they wanted to restore voting to felons and the government was like, no, fuck you, we're not going to do it, even though you voted for it. So that's what's happening here. Missouri is going to try now to pass a ballot initiative which will overturn the most recent ballot initiative. This

is like yet another Republican's hate democracy moment. Right, they lose, they don't care, They just cheat. When you realize that trump Ism is an extension of this, when you realize trumpsm doesn't happen in a vacuum, that the party that jerry manders, that the party that does not accept losing a ballot initiative that that party. Trump Ism is the natural progression of that party.