Maria Theresa Kumar & Garrett Graff

veterans left in England and Great Britain. The reason that that sort of matters to us right now, and why we feel it so deeply is that this is the generation that you know, stood up against fascism and authoritarianism, you know, saved Western democracies, you know, preserved the freedom

in the Second World War. And there has never been a major anniversary of D Day where democracy has felt so fraught and fragile in the world, both in Europe where we have a land war going on, as you know, Russia tries to end freedom in Europe's second largest country. Then here at home, where we're I think really struggling with this question of what are we here at home in the United States going to do with the legacy

that that greatest generation delivered for us. Are we as willing now to fight for democracy here in the United States as that generation was to fight in World War Two?

is closer to Reagan than Trump is to Reagan. Now, if you're on the left like Jesse and I, we don't love Reagan, but the idea that MAGA is its own special thing is a pretty disturbing notion.

transformation of D Day from history into American legend. And you stand there at Point to Hawk, you know, it is this moment of incredible bravery and heroism the two hundred and twenty American rangers who landed at the foot of those one hundred foot cliffs then scaled the cliffs to disable and capture a German gun battery in the opening hour of D Day. That in many ways is you know, one of the few central legends or even

mythologies of D Day. I think what stands out for me in listening to Biden's speech was that Reagan could have given that speech forty years ago, and Biden today could have given Reagan's speech from forty years ago. What has changed is all of the political context around them. You know, in some ways that speech feels like it should be the opening ante of American patriotism, you know, like we will stand up to defend democracy and freedom

against authoritarianism. That feels like the most basic pledge of civic virtue that a president can make. And he didn't have to mention anywhere by name in his speech, Donald Trump to know the contrast that he was drawing in Normandy last week by standing up and laying out such basic civic principles and honoring men that fought to defend freedom.

One of the things I write about it in the book is, you know, it's an oral history, so it brings together seven hundred voices from across D Day and that conflict to try to tell the story of D Day in the first person. And one of the things that really comes through is the D Day invasion is among the most noble causes humans have ever fought. It is an invasion, unlike almost any other invasion in human history, an invasion launched not to seize or to conquer, but

to liberate. You know, this was the Allies of the West coming together to try to free a continent from

Nazi fascism. Again, that doesn't seem like that should be that revolutionary of a cause for a president to endorse, but there is to be always this like very telling moment in Maga politics where basically any time any president or political figure calls out for decency, honoring freedom and American pie, Maga feels guilty because they know that the contrast is being drawn against them and in contrast to them.

To me, like the most remarkable part of Biden's homage at Point to Hawk last week was everyone in the world understood the incredibly basic contrast he was drawing, even though it should be, I would argue, the most simple thing in the world for an American president to endorse.

sixteen seventeen years old. I think it speaks to that age of civic virtue and the contrast now that we feel, I think so uncomfortable with of you know, are we as willing to defend this moment in democracy as that generation was back then. But even those people are in their late nineties or you know, turning one hundred right now.

to Hawk and Donald Trump can't is the contrast. And then you know, you sort of saw Biden follow it up by going to visit that World War One cemetery that Donald Trump didn't bother going to visit when he was in Europe as president because he said, you know, he thought it was filled by losers, the people who had actually been killed. He doesn't understand why people would sign up to fight in the military, you know, as

he has said, what's in it for them? The idea that there is ever any cause greater than sort of self aggrandizement and self gratific And it is just something that Donald Trump, you know, mentally and intellectually is unable to wrap his mind around. Again, this is like one of the most basic traditions of American politics and one of the most basic civic traditions that we celebrate and

honor as a country. And Donald Trump couldn't be bothered to go out in the rain to a cemetery to honor those World War War One veterans and Joe Biden again, you know, simply by showing up to do so, is drawing this very strong contrast between himself and what MAUGA stands for, which is not what America is used to standing for.

as well. They told us that they were the party of law and order, and that's a tradition that goes back to Richard Nixon. That's out the window now. And so you have the Party of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is now, you know, set to nominate a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser who hates the military to

be its standard bearer. For me, in my years of covering Republicans and Democrats in Washington, you know, the thing that I always thought was that there was going to be some principle that the Republicans would not be willing to compromise for money and power. And it turns out, you know, sort of year after year we get further down this road and the answer is there isn't that they will compromise every core belief in order to have

the brain melt that is backing Donald Trump. And I think to me, you know, speaking as a historian, one of the things that I think will be hardest to explain to future generations.

alliances or partnerships with allies. But then I think the other thing which I think we need to reflect upon a name, is the white nationalism that underscores and undergirds so much of the modern Donald trump Ism, Maga far right politics, which is so much of I think this isolationism also stems from, you know, these white nationalist politics of you know, preserving America as a white Christian nation. And I think you see that in the anti immigration

border politics. I think you see that in the trying to sort of lock down America for Americans. And I think you see that very explicitly in the sort of whole ideological underpinnings of you know, what they call America First, which is the only thing that America should care about are the white Christian Americans.

go with the child and leave the dad behind. And so what President Biden did was say you no longer have to go back and wait for your paperwork. You can parole in place and continue thriving with your family. It's a big deal because again, it is fixing a clerical error, and it changes the lives of five hundred

thousand people overnight. It allows mommies to breathe more easy, and it lets children, American children not have to worry with this anxiety of will mom be back when I will mom be here when I get back home from school?

It's the same thing that's happening in the Latino vote. And I will share with you just to level set. We just came out of the field two weeks ago with the most comprehensive two thousand Latino voter analysis where in five battleground states where we learned exactly this that if the vote were to be held today, fifty nine percent of Latino voters would vote for Biden and thirty nine would vote for Trump. It becomes sticky, however, when there is a third party candidate that is on the ballot.

In that scenario, Molly, seventeen percent of Latino voters go to a third party candidate and twelve percent of them go overwhelmingly to RFK specifically. So the danger right now is people going and moving to more of the left of Biden, and it's disproportionately Molly Latin now women. And that's what was surprising to our work. I mean, we've

been doing this for twenty years. It's spoke to us when we said, wait a second, doesn't make sense that people that were so adamant about Bernie Sanders just five years ago, all of a sudden would go so extreme. And sure enough, what we're learning is is that it's they are going more left of Biden through undefined candidates.

And so when we talk about the importance of what the Biden administration just did with the executive order, it allows the Latino voter to finally differentiate between a Republican and a Democrat. Because for a long time, the Republicans were separating families and the Democrats. All they had was rhetoric of what they would do if they were in power. And now this becomes material because now if you were to ask a Latino youth what they deeply care about,

they deeply care about protecting their families. In fact, it's always one of the top to top three issues, number one being the economy, number two being abortion, and number three always how is the president going to provide protective status to my mom who's been here for twenty thirty years. And so this changes the game because now we're able to say, not only did the president do the decent thing to do, but he did the politically astute thing

to do. Because it's not only the family members that are who are voters believe this is a good thing. Seventy five percent of independent white voters, even in Pennsylvania recognize the decency in allowing a family to stay together.

an international issue. It's a Western hemispheric issue, and it is really a result, Molly of the United States not having a Latin American policy for the last forty five years, and it's increasingly I want to alert to you know, to your listeners, is that it's increasingly while we have not been investing, China and Russia have and so there is mobility coming down in the southern border where there

is absolute chaos coming from their countries of origin. And until the Biden administration, and we've seen it already with the Vice President going down there to Central America trying to find resource is from business to start stabilizing those countries. But this really is an issue that Congress needs to help solve through appropriations and really coming up with what is our Monroe Policy Marshall Plan for Latin America for the nine, ten, fifteen years, because you've better believe that

Russia and China already have it in place. And so what the Biden administration is so definitely doing is really divorcing these two issues. That is international on one scope and then domestic immigration policy of the people that have been here for twenty thirty years. And that is really important to differentiate because when you pull and this is you know, you and I talk about this all the time. This is what happens when you have people pulling and

not asking the right questions. When you ask every American should our border be safer? Every single American is going to agree with that, because we do want to know who's coming in and who's coming out. We do want to know that we are playing by the worlds, but more importantly, that we are being humane on how we're

processing it and that we're being clear. But if you take a voter then and ask them, well, what do you think about your mechanic who's been here for twenty years, that's part of your community, all of a sudden that person says, well, Jose's a good guy. I know him. He coaches my daughter's soccer team. I think that you should figure out some sort of relief. And so with the Biden administration is finally having this conversation that we've

been waiting for. How do you divorce an international crisis and issues that's impacting not just the United States but all of South America and abroad and the same time get our house in order at home so that people that have been paying taxes that are entrepreneurs that take care of us, that feed us, that are our teachers, finally are able to demonstrate that they have some sort of relief, especially in the case of there are bad actors who are constantly trying to divide America based on

this idea of who is American or not. And this provides us with this opportunity to say we're actually creating smart changes to the law that are common sense and that are fair.

I mean, we've been negotiating with the White House for three and a half years I mean, to be frank, We've been negotiating this specific execative action a form of it since Obama, and so finally, a decade later, we are able to go back to our community and say, look, you you are not wrong that the difference between the

Republicans and Democrats is the contrast of policy. The Republicans twice impeached candidate wants to double down on family separation, create a cottage industry of detention centers around the country, targeting people who don't look quote unquote American, meaning if you're not white, you can be caught in that drive day.

eighteen that may qualify because of their parents. That is a family value, keeping families together. And so up to I will tell you there are all our pulling. Latinos

were starting to lose faith with the administration. They were saying, all the Democrats are promising is that they're going to do something on immigration, but they don't understand the anxiety, the heartache, and the microaggressions that we have to face every single day, not knowing that if a Row agent is going to pull me over, that my family may not see me again. That's real. And now we can know you voted, you mobilized, and now we are able to deliver results on that. And you know what we

need you to do again. If you want to finish the job on immigration, if you want to finish the job on protecting abortion care, we need to mobilize and

organize and outvote just like you did last time. Because we're in this weird world, Molly, that you know, we see so many Democratic donors kind of letharging and saying, well, I don't know what to do, and I'm just like we actually have coalitions of organizations that know how to mobilize our voter And what we need you to do is to double down on us because we know how to do our work. And don't take my word for it.

But in twenty eighteen, we put our heads down. As soon as Trump got into office, we put our heads down and a coalition of us made sure that we won. In twenty eighteen, we won, in twenty twenty, we won in twenty twenty two. Let us do our work so that we could win again in twenty twenty four.

credit where credit is due and read Hoffmann. But why do you think that all of these Loreen Powell jobs of the world are actually really involved in giving money and not in this like cheap fast Donald Trump need to keep the tack Scott.

Trump represents. If we were to take the helm again, we have under his tutelage, I guess, I mean, I hate to say leaders but against you know, under his platform a promise to eradicate women's access to our agency, not just through abortion, but through IVF. They are trying to upset public education in this country in ways that

become unrecognizable that you start privatizing them. The Republicans are trying to lower the working age for children now to work in factories until four or five o'clock in the morning. And I think that these women understand, because all of them have dedicated their philanthropy from the very beginning. They're true north to addressing women and girls, and women and girls are absolutely on the agenda, the most marginalized are

absolutely in the agenda. And by its core, the Republican Party is trying to redefine what a fair, free democracy means where it's not where meritocracy, you know, can rise up to the top. It's whoever actually kisses the ring of an effective dictator. And when you when I talk to folks, you know, these billionaires talking about how you know, they're afraid of their taxes. It's almost as if they

don't understand how a bill becomes a law. Right, It's like, this is a platform and you need to have a coalition, you actually need all branches of government.

became billionaires. It's because they lived in a free, democratic society that had a thriving middle class, where the roads were already built, their workforce was educated, where they didn't have to worry about food in their belly, and they were able to think big because they didn't have government cronies trying to take money off the top from them. I had this really curious conversation, Molly, where someone was like, well, you know China has more billionaires now, I said, yeah,

but think about Jack Maw and Ali Baba. Ali Baba was supposed to be the competitor to Amazon. It still is. His founder, Jack Maw has gone into the sunset because no one knows what happened to him, because he got too big for China. And that's an example for us.

so that you can do it? Because that's what happens in Latin American democracy, right.

institution of democracy. That is where it thrives. The moment that you allow this evil corruption, it doesn't stop there. And then all of a sudden, who wants to invest in a country if you don't know if your savings are quitte, you know if your investments are actually going to pialize because you don't know who the players are anymore. This way, we actually have codes of condact for conducting business exactly.