Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds and Ejen Carol may sue Donald Trump for a third time.
That would be peril three. We have such a great show.
Today, Senator Debbie Stabanaw talks to us about the complexities of Michigan politics and the presidential primary. Then we'll talk to Congressman Colin Alred about his run against Senator Lion Ted Cruz in the Great State of Texas on this third anniversary of the senator's trip to Cancun, Mexico. But first we have the Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampal.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Katherine Rampal, thanks for having me.
So I always want.
To have you on the podcast because I think you're really smart and a good writer, and also because you went to college with my brother.
That's true. This is true.
So basically, the thing that I always think about when people and really the mainstream media and especially the right wing media is demonizing migrants, immigrants, people coming in this country for the hopes of a better life, is that this is also a very financially unsound way to look at the world, and so you wrote just a really concise piece about that last week, just talk us through exactly why immigration is good for the economy.
Sure.
The reason I wrote this, just to back up for a second, is that I feel like both parties have accepted the premise that the fact that the United States is able to draw immigrants around the world is a curse. It is a bad thing, It is a problem to be solved, and I just think that premise is wrong. That immigration is a blessing. The fact that we are able to pull in and attract talent from around the world is just such a gift.
And this is one of the places where both parties are the same. Framing is actually correct because both parties have decided that immigration is somehow not the boon that it really is.
So I'm really glad that you said that.
Yeah, I mean, obviously the narrative is pushed mostly by Republicans, but I think Democrats have essentially conceded the point. So that's sort of where I came from with this piece. And to be clear, like there are lots of moral humanitarian reasons as well to accept people fleeing persecution and dangerous circumstances and to show you our light is the city on the hill or whatever, providing refuge to people around the world. But just from a like self interested
financial perspective, it is also a really good thing. So if you look at, for example, the Congressional Budget Offices recent new forecasts for the budget and for the economy, they put these out periodically, they were revised upward that the numbers for like how big the economy is and will grow, as well as other kinds of metrics along those lines have been redrafted, essentially revised to be much
more favorable. And a large part of the reason why is that we've had this surprise increase in immigration, which has led to more people in the labor force. At the same time that, you know, native born Americans, boomers among others, are increasingly retiring. The native worn population in the United States is aging, so fewer people as a
share of the populace are in the labor force. Meanwhile, immigrants who are coming here are disproportionately working age, they're very likely to work, and so that alone is a major engine for the economy. On top of that, you also have the fact that foreign born people in the United States are much more likely to start businesses. You know, they have higher entrepreneurship rates. If you were talking about skilled immigration, so people who are here on H one
b's it's a skilled immigrant visa category. You know, they're very highly productive. They start companies at high rates. They are responsible for issuing a lot of patents, so they generate a lot of innovation R and D in the United States. And this is not just me saying this. There's like tons of research that goes into all of this.
So there are a number of ways in which this infusion of new talent and new energy in the United States, both historically and at the present time, has been responsible for really strong economic growth and has put us at a much more advantageous position relative to lots of other developed countries that are not as dynamic in terms of people coming in, Like if you look at countries like Japan, which have historically made it much more difficult to immigrate.
Yeah, that's what I was just about to say, Japan.
But I wondered if you could even see this example really the most starkly when it comes to Brexit.
Yes, Brexit has handicapped the UK economy in all sorts of different ways, not only about the flow of immigrants, but certainly the fact that they've made it much more difficult for talent to come in for labor, for talent to come into the UK from around Europe has really
harmed the British economy. Not only like high tech jobs, you know, people high tech jobs, finance jobs, things like that, people who might have been more seamlessly moving from Germany and France and other parts of the EU to the UK, but even lower skilled jobs, people with less formal education, the canonical examples of the Polish plumber, not only that
particular example, but people who worked in hospitality. All of that was really critical to keeping a lot of industries in the UK going and has been challenging for the
British economy. And the other thing that I should mention in all of this is actually, since I wrote this peace that we're talking about, which you know, heavily talks about those CBO numbers, there was also a report that came out of the Department of Health and Human Services looking at the refugee in a PSI lee population, which people usually hold up as well, you know, like maybe it's true that those Indian born engineers who are here on H one B Visa's like contribute a lot because
they're you know, quote unquote high skilled. But all these people flooding over the border or coming in, you know, penniless as refugees, clearly they're not contributing anything. And actually that is not true in fact, even for that population
over a longer term horizon. I think that the HHS report, I forget exactly, I think it was like ten or fifteen years, found that including state and local and federal levels, these people also are net fiscal contributors, meaning that they pay more in taxes, and.
They pay into Social Security.
Pay into Social Security. So if we're you know, obviously I'm sort of talking about a whole bunch of different populations of immigrants here, but.
They are all unified by the fact that they are coming to this country, either legally or illegally, and that they are workers, which is the fundamental thing that an enormous country with an aging population doesperately need.
Right And on the point about paying taxes, ironically, on some metrics, you could imagine that those who are here unlawfully are the biggest net boon fiscally, you know, to budgets, because they are paying into the tax system, but they are not eligible for virtually any social safety net benefits by virtue of the fact that they are not here legally. There are some exceptions to that, like in California, if you're an undocumented woman and you're pregnant, you can get
access to certain kinds of prenatal care. But other than that, these are people who cannot get food stamps, cannot get Social Security, cannot get Obamacare tax credit, things like that.
So they're paying in but not taking out, which is actually the opposite of the lie that all Republicans say, or at least a lot of Republicans shop, this lie that people are coming to this country and taking your stuff, but in fact, they are coming to this country paying for your Social Security and not getting anything.
Yes, at least those who are here off the books, that is certainly the case. It's kind of ironic because the United States has this serious long term challenge with the funding of entitled programs, you know, sort of safety net programs for the elderly, and one of the reasons why we haven't hit the crisis point yet is that we have brought in so many working age immigrants who
are paying into the system and keeping it solvent. And meanwhile, the population, who in general is most averse to that influx of people, tends to be older, more consertive, few.
I mean, I don't want a general but they do tend to be benefiting from these immigrants.
Correct.
It's such a really important point, and I would love you to just talk about what happens to an aging economy, like, for example, I think about Italy.
I think about.
Countries where, you know, the people in the economy get older and older and there aren't workers coming in to replace them. I mean, what happens is Japan too, Like what happens that economy when you can't get people to work?
Yeah, And look, I'm not suggesting that we should force older people to work up until their deathbed.
I am no, I'm no, no, no one's suggesting that.
But the economy can only survive if there are people there to do the jobs.
Right.
It is very challenging for a number of reasons. One is, of course, if a country has promised various kinds of safety net benefits social insurance benefits to people in their older age, not like I pay into social security, and then there's like a discrete account that has my money in it, and it stays like in a private account. I mean, George W. Bush tried to propose things like this, but that's not how it actually works, and that it's there for me when I retire. It's like a Pazi scheme.
It's like, I pay in. The money that I am paying in is funding the benefits of the people who are retired now, it's not funding my benefits directly.
Right.
Money is fungible, so it's like, doesn't really matter. But you have lots of countries where there are these very large promised benefits for the elderly that must be paid for, and if nobody is paying into the system, that's challenge
number one. Challenge number two, of course, is that you need people working, not just for the benefit of the tax revenue to go to fund those safety net benefits, but also because you need people to run the restaurants and the other companies and keep the infrastructure going and invent new technologies and all of the other parts of the economy that don't have to do with just sustaining the living standards of elderly people. It's a serious challenge.
You've seen major productivity slowdowns as a result of that you have. What's economist tomographer is often reverred to is like the old age ratio. You know, an increasingly large number of retirees per working person in many of these countries, and it is a real challenge and again part of the reason why the United States has not had such a tough situation. I mean, there are a lot of
things that set the US economy. Part one is that we have had higher fertility rates than most of these other countries, which means that our demographic skew is not quite as bad. But we are below replacement rate right now, meaning that we are not having enough kids basically to replace the existing population. And so our fertility rate alone is not going to prevent this fiscal time bomb from going off.
Even with flat Musk having all those children.
You know, he's doing his part.
Also, I think we should both agree that people should not have children just for the economy.
I mean, maybe they should.
Nor anyway, as someone who has three children, you know, it is quite expensive and it is like the leading indicator of bankruptcy right is having children. But anyway, but the point is, I mean, you need people to grow your economy. So one of the things we had Hannah Dreyer on this podcast, and she's incredible and what she had this unbelievable reporting about child labor. And it was a couple months ago, so no one remembers because we're
the United States of Indonesia. But around that time there were also stories about red state state governors like Sara Hakkabi Sanders signing signing bills that would make it less expensive, make the fines less expensive, and make child labor legal lure. I mean, clearly this means that children are working in a lot of these jobs.
It's just so bizarre to me. Like we have we have this obvious solution, two way problem, which is we have a lot of job openings going begging.
A tight, tight labor market.
Right exactly in a lot of industries where Americans don't
want to work, they're low paid. And rather than saying, huh, we have this pool of people who really want to come here and take those and you know, work in those jobs and support themselves again because they cannot qualify for public benefits despite misconceptions, rather than saying, yeah, let's plug those people who want the jobs into the jobs, we're like, you know what, like have some thirteen year olds go and work in that you know, meat processing
plant or whatever instead. It's just it's so bizarre to me. It's like, this is not that hard of a puzzle to fit together, and yet we're like searching for all sorts of other ways to deal with labor shortages. And I want to be clear, poorly managed immigration flows definitely cause stresses to the economy, particularly to local economies. Like if you look at you know, you and I live
in New York. If you look at the number of migrants who are coming to New York largely being bussed by the governor of Texas without any coordination with the FEDS or with the State of New York or with the you know, with city officials in New York. Yeah, that causes lots of stress on the local economy. And we have a broken immigration system that doesn't adequately or
sufficiently quickly process people who are coming here. All sorts of problems with that, and that causes severe stress, you know, on the housing system in New York, among other places. None of that is good. And I'm not trying to suggest that there is no problem here, but there are much more creative ways to deal or to take advantage of the fact that lots of people are trying to come here, rather than throwing up our hands and saying, I guess we can't. I guess we just need to
like try to get these people out. There are so many more compassionate, humanitarian ways to handle the demand of people to come here and to match them up with
very real economic needs that we have. And by the way, on your point about the child labor laws, you know, one of my favorite or least favorite, I guess comments that has been made about this, you know, border crisis issue, is that Mike Collins, who's a representative Republican representative from Georgia, tweeted the other day import the third world and become
the third world. And it's like, okay, well, first of all, if anybody's trying to turn the United States into the third World, which I think is a term we don't really use anymore, the developing country, it is not immigrants.
It is people like Collins himself, you know, by relaxing child labor laws, not to mention supporting the return of a would be dictator and gutting the safety net and gutting clean water standards and all that, like the reasons why they're fleeing those developing countries with their poor institutions
and their poor quality of life. The reason why they are coming here is that we do have various kinds of institutions that are much better than those in their home countries that people like Mike Collins are now trying to degrade.
I mean, these people are trying to elect an autocrat.
So yeah, you know, if we're going to talk about countries that are undeveloped, like going from democracy to autocracy is generally thought of as a step backwards and not a step forwards.
When it comes to like civil rights and economic metrics and every possible measure well being.
Yes, yes, so I think that's really important with Brexit.
One of the things that I always think about is my husband always says, is they sanctioned themselves. And when I think about like America and part of that, you know, there's certainly a group of people in this country who believe in secession, right, who believe that it's too big and we don't have enough in common with people, you know, the white supremacists in Iowa, right, the groups that are
trying to separate themselves. Can you explain to us just quickly quickly, Why it's so that that is so bad for the economy.
I think it matters more for democracy than for the I mean, I think I would prioritize the consequences for the republic as opposed to the economy. Look, we are an integrated, an economically integrated nation. We have a lot of institutions in infrastructure that are dependent on the free flow of commerce among the states, and it's in our constitution, and so certainly that would be very unhelpful depending on
who's seceeding. If we're talking about lower income states seceeding that red states that are disproportionately subsidized by the tax revenue of blue states. You know, I'm thinking about a lot of like lower income for capita states like in the South, that rely on a lot of tax revenue and federal borrowing to keep money flowing into the state, whether it's through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or anything else. Yeah, certainly worse for them, probably than for a high GDP
per capita a state like New York. But again, I would emphasize the consequences for the United States as an idea and as a democracy ahead of the consequences for the economy, which would be poor as well.
Catherine Rampal, thank you so much for joining.
Thanks for having me.
Did you know Rick Wilson and I are bringing together some friends for a general election kickoff party at City Winery in New York on March sixth. We're going to be chatting right after Super Tuesday about what's going on, and it is going to probably be the one fun night.
For the next eighty days. If you're in.
The New York area, please come by and join us. You can go to City Wine His website and grab a ticket. Debbie Stabinow is the senior senator from Michigan. Welcome too Fast Politics, Senator stabnaw.
Well, it's great to be with you, Mollie. I appreciate all of your efforts, and we are certainly in a rough and tumble time, that is for sure.
Yes, I'm really excited to have you on for a number of reasons, but also you are leaving the Senate.
You know.
It's a funny one. I actually got involved in politics and public service a long time ago. I was a grad student and took on Republicans at a county commission trying to close a local nursing home. I was very engaged in healthcare and ended up winning. And turned out I lived in the district of the guide trying to close the nursing home, and one thing led to another. People urged me to run. I was really mad at him.
I didn't know anything about politics, was really mad, and I ran and he called me that young broad, and the young broad meet him, and so that actually started me saying, hey, I think I can actually do something on a bigger picture in terms of making things better by being involved in politics. So County Commission, State Legislature, US House four years and then ran in two thousand
for US Senate. I didn't know when I ran in two thousand that a woman had never beat an incumbent before, but I did win, and it's been a wonderful journey and a tough but you know, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I mean, if you really want to make change happen, you've got to have a lot of patience, tenacity, stubbornness and right values. But you can make change happen. And that's why I've done it. And so end of
the year it's done for me. I think that there is a point where you need to pass the torch. I always said to folks, you know, I was the first. This the first that the first woman sharing the State House of Representatives, A first woman from Michigan from the Senate doesn't count unless there's a second and a third and a fourth. And I think it's in my time to pass the torch.
You know, it's interesting because it's like you've done twenty four years.
I have a very.
Warm feeling in my heart for Michigan because we have sort of the best of young Democratic women in legislature and then the best of older Democratic women in legislature. And it sounds like that was very intentional.
No, very much so. And you know, I have to say, I mean I went into the State House. When I went in the State House, there were eight women in the House, none in the Senate, none statewide. And I had this committee called the Constitutional Visions and Women's Rights Committee, and they wanted to put everybody on that committee, and I refused it. I'd been sharing a board of commissioners, I built a jail, I judged the lake. I'm not going to serve in that committee. But that kind of
was where we were. And now not only myself having served for twenty four years in the Senate. But we have a great woman governor, Attorney General, Secretary State, and we have the first state Senate majority leader when he branks. We also, by the way, have a great Speaker of the House who's the first African American, first African American
lieutenant governor. I mean, we have been profoundly changing Michigan, and I have been laser focused on that and organizing Michigan and doing the work over and over again to get us where we are.
So that segue is really into what I was going to ask. It's like a state filled with contradictions. Right, you have this incredibly amazing team of women running the state, and then you have the Michigan militia.
Like I mean, it's very weird. So talk to me about how I mean.
I think there's a lot of Democratic anxiety about Michigan because of the war in Gaza, and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how Democrats can come back from that politically.
There is understandable concern in our sides. And as someone who has been honored to represent the Airban community and the Jewish community, in fact, we have over two hundred and seventy five different nationalities in Michigan, which make us stronger. It's really hard. You know, people are losing family members, and it's whether it's a Palestinian baby or Jewish baby
or families. It's so, so, so hard. All I can say is that we have got to listen and respect and work as hard as possible to be able to bring the hostages home and to be able to stop the violence on innocent people. And I know that is what President Biden and his team are doing. By the way, it's just not always visible because so much of what they are doing is behind the scenes to push although it's becoming more visible.
Yeah, the temporary ceasefire.
Yet yah, who should you know? My mind should be gone and come ons not now. Both should be gone and we should be focusing on hope and opportunity, you know, and safety for the future. So it's hard, and I think you can't push people. You have to listen. They have to have time. And so that's what's happening and
will continue to happen as we move forward. And so it's all I can tell you is that, you know, on the other side, I remember when Trump came in an proposing ban, and we were all standing at the airport protesting, and so in the end, it's going to be a really stark choice about our future for the country, and it's it's very real, it's very serious.
Yeah, I think that there is time to meet legislators. I mean, Rashida Tilly represents her constituents, and I feel like there is time for Democrats to be able to make I mean, obviously you can never make right civilian death on this scale, nor can you make rite any of it. But I think there's time to reach out. Do you feel there's a concerted effort towards.
Us I do. I think there is a concerted effort now. I think given the immediacy of everything that was happening, it could have happened faster, for sure. But I do think that's happening and has to happen, and people have got to listen and respect each other's pain and anger, and that's how we move through it.
So Michigan is a really interesting state.
Besides what's going on there, there are just a lot of different You have really rural, you have cities, you have what is the outreach to black voters?
Look like in Michigan, and do you feel like that's landing.
Well, we always have to work hard, and we have to work early. And let me go back, just wind the clock back for a second, because it relates to what we're building on right now. After Trump was elected in sixteen, I felt I could either jump off the highest building, which was a real pot, or going and reorganize the party. And I chose to do that. And we started with organizing the fact that Trump was trying to take away the Affordable Care Act takeaway health care.
First big rally in the country was done in Michigan with Bernie and Chuck Schumann, I mean, a whole bunch of people, and we started building building, and then in eighteen I was up for reelection. Governor Whitmer was the ballot. All of our great people and we doubled down and the first doors we hit knocking on doors were in Detroit. Congressman and Brenda Lawrence and I led this effort because everyone would say, you don't come talk to us till October.
Nobody's paying attention, so we said okay. At June one door won in Detroit and started a concerted effort there that resulted in we took back the state, and then I kept my campaign manager, took him over to the party to keep it going. I talked to Reid at the time, who you know, did year round organizing at
the party, and okay, Harry, how'd you do that? But my point in saying is we at twenty twenty biggest you know, voter turnout for a presidential then we kept going twenty twenty two biggest voter turnout for non presidential. Now we have to keep that going. And so it's complicated. There's so many different messages people are getting coming out of COVID. People are feeling so many different kinds of
things that it's hard. People on the you know, one hand, say I want to know what the president has done for the black community, and then you talk about the fact that it's the lowest black unemployment ever, more African American small businesses led by Black women, by the way, which is really cool, and we can go on and on about it, and then folks say no that you know, no, that's not enough. And I don't say that the numbers not enough. It's like we need to do different things,
more things talk about Trump. Some people say we should lean in more on Trump. Other people say more on the president.
Right, everybody has a suggestion.
Yeah, And honestly, I think it's all the about. So there's just now, you know, the presidential primary is coming up, and African American communities absolutely critical, always has been, and there's outreach going on that's just going to have to continue all the way through the election in the fall.
I really want to go back to what we were talking about with talking to Harry Read about organizing, because that really is you know, we see this again and again. Democrats win when they organize right, and they lose. I mean a great example is this special that just happened New York three. That was the seat that was a
Democratic seat. Everybody kind of forgot about it in twenty twenty two, and we had a sort of governor who wasn't as popular as other democratic governors have been, and so it ended up being that the just people didn't get out there and we ended up with George Santos in Congress.
So I think what you're talking about is great.
This idea of focusing on it seems like that is a really like something that you sort of started, and that what Mirror has and that those three ladies have sort of kept going. Do you feel like that's true and is there voter registration that's continuing.
Yes? Absolutely. In fact, you know, I set up what we call the one campaign for Michigan, and even before you know our primaries, I guess so even before the governor was elected or the training General Secretary of State, all our great people, we were on the ground setting up things so that when they won the primary, the offices were open, things were happening, and that they could just go and our wonderful candidates could win. But what
is additionally important is that we kept it going. As I said, my campaign manager from twenty eighteen went over to run the party in nineteen and twenty, and frankly, when COVID came, as we all remember, and the Michigan primary was in March, we changed on a dime to all virtual and kept it going, and we used the tools we had. We had passed new reforms. Contrary to what's happened in other states, we actually have more voting. You can sign up permanently to be on the absentee
ballot list now. So in nineteen and twenty, actually it was in nineteen we knocked on eighty five five thousand doors to sign people up to be on the permanent absentee ballot voter list. So we have been using the tools now this year. I mean in the last election, we added nine days of early voting that started Saturday. First day, sixty five hundred showed up. Next day it was another like four thousand. We've had over six hundred thousand people vote absentee so far for the February twenty
seventh election. But it's about building and using the tools, using the issues. Choice is obviously huge for us. I mean, we put on the ballot and passed a change in our Michigan constitution in twenty twenty two. People got signatures, they worked hard, we got that passed. And now we know that if Trump is reelected in Republic and Congress and they pass a national abortion band, that all goes away.
Nothing that we put in a month matters. And people are suddenly going, oh my goodness, I mean, we have to do this, yes, we have to do this again.
So let's talk for a minute about abortion. I mean, the fact that they took the federal right away from us is just infuriating. I think a lot of women continue to be furious about it. When you talk to voters, I mean, do they understand that a second Trump term will be in a federal abortion.
That they do, although it's something that people are just beginning to really understand. I think for all of us, we work so hard, and in twenty twenty two, I mean twenty twenty two, it was the number one reason that young people came out to vote. I think the last voter if you're in line at eight pm, you know you can vote on less night. And I think the last voter was like one am in the morning
in Michigan and Michigan State. And we won that and we put it in the constitution, and then we elected for the first time in four years, not only a Democratic governor, but Democratic state House and state Senate, the trifecta for the first time in forty years. They went in and repealed all these other laws that related anti choice laws and so on. And so we think in Michigan people have felt like, hey, we're good. You know,
we're good. And there's twenty two states that have done, you know, some form of what we did in Michigan, And so now we are saying to folks and people know, but I don't think everybody knows yet. So this is going to be a major focus for US going forward that it doesn't matter what states have done, the federal ban will take away all of that. So between now and the election, believe me, people are going to know.
Yeah.
I mean, I have to say, the reporting of the New York Times this weekend about the architect of SBA, the Texas van which did functionally overturn Row, with him fantasizing about using the Comstock Act to make it so that you can't send the pill in the mail, was pretty terrifying.
Well, and if a pristone, you know, the Supreme Court has a case before them that they'll have to deciding, you know, before they leave in June. And essentially, you know, the majority of early abortions and the for several weeks are done through medical you know, through methi pristone, through medicine, and so that becomes another way. They have a band. They're not going to give up. They are not going to give out. That's why we got to take back
the US House. We got to hold the Senate. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have got to get re elected. Donald Trumps you know, at some point we'll be going to prison, I predict, and then we move on. So that's the way we protect this.
In some ways, we've come so far as women and just generally is it more progressive society, And in some ways we're just right back there with Roe. I mean, it must be really just a sort of tough thing to sort of make sense of.
Oh yeah, I mean, it's totally is I mean, I was in college and Roll became law and it was like, oh my god. I mean, and to see this, you know, we make step forward and then the opposition pushes back. And that's always been the case, always been the case, and that's what's happening now. For every positive reaction, your action,
there is a reaction. And a wonderful woman, doctor Carol Anderson, has done several books, one called White Rage, where she talked about every positive step forward on race, there was a reaction, you know, I mean, and we elect President Barack Obama and then the reaction is Donald Trump. It's back and forth and back and forth. And the key is that we keep moving forward even when it is hard, and we're probably being tested now more than certainly anytime
in our lifetimes. There are other moments in history, but for us, this is it. We cannot give up, we cannot try to ignore this, and hopefully it's going to go away. So we've just got to do what needs to be done. Lack in leaders that are going to stand up for our freedoms, including a reproductive freedom, and then just keep moving.
Yeah, I'm struck by where we are in technology right now. Is the technology has not respected local news and has really kind.
Of crushed it.
Do you think there's a chance that Congress, if there is a Democratic Congress Senate, that there is any way that electeds will sort of take a step back and sort of regulate social media.
In any way or you think that's never happening.
Well, I think that will happen if we have a democratic majority. There has to be guardrails, parameters. We've seen so much change, and honestly, you go back to Nugenrich and the Republicans in the House, and I think it was nineteen ninety six when they did a way with the fairness doctrine. Remember if you ask somebody, you got equal time, and that went away, and the guardrail around how much media one company or a person could own went away. And ever since then, it's got worse and
worse and worse. And then you add on top of that social media and the explosion on all of this, and we all know that, you know, they create algorithms, they want to keep you on by keeping you man and so on. So this we have to we have to have accountability around this. I think more than anything else, this has created the explosion of people's anger and hate and distrust of one another and so on. So we have to get arms around this.
Thank you so much, Senator, my pleasure.
Congressman Colin already represents Texas's thirty second district and is a candidate for the United States Senate.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Colin.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me, mel I really appreciate it.
Well, you're back on a very special anniversary.
Do you want to talk about the anniversary the one year anniversary of a very special day?
Well we're three years.
Three years.
Sorry, you could tell him, laser focused on what matters. The three year anniversary of the day that Ted Cruz went to Mexico.
It's a remarkable anniversary because still every text I come across knows exactly where they were and what they experienced during the statewide freeze. It's that they could just sear it into our minds. And this is in the moment that Ted Cruz decided it was a good time to go on vacation to kan Kum. And since then he has just joked about it. And he just joked about the other day saying, when we had our freeze at Texas, it gets too cold, you can join me in kang Kum.
And there's nothing funny at all about this. And I said on TV during the crisis that I was shocked at how arrogant and callous he was behaving. Our governor was going on TV blaming renewable energy when that that
wasn't the cause of what happened. I couldn't believe just how arrogant the folks who were supposed to be responsible for trying to help Texans get out of this we're behaving when hundreds of Texans died, millions more didn't have power, thousands more were forced from their homes or had enormous damage that are homes from pipes bursting, causing all kinds
of damage. It really is a remarkable thing, and I think it's an example of what happens when you have left the officials in place, like Ted Crews, who don't really care about the folks that represent.
Texas is a really interesting state because your power grid is not on the national.
Grid because of deregulation.
Right, explain to our listeners exactly why Texas, an enormous state that is bigger than many countries, has these energy problems. And then also, I would hope you might talk about how Texas this summer at least was saved by renewable.
It's a paradox that we are the energy capital of the country and I think in some ways of the world, and we've been having enormous issues keeping the lights on. And that's because of as you mentioned, we are not a part of the national grid network. There are parts of Texas, like Opasso that do get some of the national grid, but most of the state is not on the national grid. And so if we have something and that.
Was a decision made by Republicans.
Right, Yeah, And the idea here was that they didn't want to have to comply with the regulations that would
be necessary to be a part of that. We had a similar kind of crisis that wasn't quite as bad a few years before this statewide freeze in which the federal regulators made some suggestions about what should be done to prevent this from happening, but they couldn't enforce it, of course, because we weren't part of the national grid, and those suggestions were ignored, and then what happened was actually quite a predictable outcome if you have a kind
of a unique situation, but not one that was unforseeeable, where you had almost the entire state under a freeze and you had multiple gas lines frozen, multiple forms of thermal energy offline. It was a predictable outcome, and it's one of these things that also I think shows when
you have irresponsible leadership in place, what can happen. Because we were on notice that this is something that we could have happened in our state, and as you said, this summer, actually every summer, we're going to set a record for killawatt power needed. Every summer's for US is going up in terms of hotter summers, but also we have more folks, so we're rapidly growing states. So every summer we are setting a record in terms of how
much energy we need. And the only reason that we kept the lights on this summer was because of dramatic and really substantive supplies from wind and solar. In some cases, we are the number one wind energy state in the country. We're number two in solar. Our energy mix is actually quite diversified, and that has been not a result of
our state politicians. Has actually been a result of those renewable sources being so competitive and so cheat that they were able to play a role in keeping the lights on.
Yeah, basically, Republicans didn't want right now, so they left the federal power grid.
They then found because of global.
Warming, because of the lack of regulation, the temperatures were so high or so low that you wouldn't have the gas or the energy to power your grid that was not attached to the federal grid. And then now that renewables are so cheap, Republicans are sort of unable to stop them.
Well, yeah, I mean that's the thing is is that a lot of our energy companies have already seen the benefits of renewable energy can provide, and they've moved in this direction on their own. The market has moved in that direction, and I think some smart investments at the federal level, like the Inflation Reduction Acts, which for folks who don't know what that bill is, it's really just the biggest green energy bill in the American history. Have
I think added to that just in recent months. But this is because these sources of power are really good and they are an important part of our mix, and so I've always advocated for in all the above approach. In Texas, we're energy steak. We're always going to be an energy state. Our energy mix is changing, but we are adding jobs in the energy sector by having renewable
as part of our mix, not taking jobs away. And that's an important distinction because I think we have a lot of folks here who work at energy and this is a growing part of our economy.
Right It's important because it shows that ultimately renewables are cheap enough so they will hopefully save us if Republicans can, so.
I try to stop them.
So talk to me about what Texas looks like right now from those of us in the outside. For Democrats, certainly, Texas has been a heartbreak. Tell us why it's not going to be a heartbreak this time.
Well, listen, for us, this is about the future. This election that's coming up, and it's also about a senator who hasn't been doing the job that any a senator I think could be expected to do, which is to try and pass legislation, to help his constituents, to be concerned about the lives of its constituents, to actually care.
And that's what makes this I think a different election, is that Ted Cruz is somebody who, as we just talked about, does abandon us thirty million Texans are freesently and dark, but also who votes against every piece of legislation that would help our state, whether it's the Chips Science Act that John Cornen helped pass and Crews vote against, or just recently this effort to try and help secure the border and have some reforms to the asylum system,
and Ted Cruz opposed it not because of the policy, but because of the politics. You know, he wanted to run the problem. And so that's made him be in this situation where he is not the most vulnerable Republican senator in the country, but also where most Texans are
just ready to move on from him. I have a very different story, one that has rooted in being four generation Texan, being raised in Dallas by single mom, playing at Baylor, being captain the football team there, making to the NFL, going to voting rights, and serving the Obama administration, and serving in Congress in a way that has shown
that it's possible to actually bring folks together. And I'm proud that I've been the most part partisan member of the Texas delegation while also being one of the leading voices for democracy and civil rights, you know, I think in the coingris And so this election is one that's going to be incredibly important for the future Texas. We are experiencing what a total ban on abortion or near total ban on abortion looks like. And the only way that we can resolve this is at the federal level,
because our state is not going to do it. Our state courts are not going to do it, our state legislature is not going to do it. The only way for us to restore these rights to Texans, Texas women, to Texas families, to restore access abortion and just medical care, we'll be at the federal level by codifying Roby Wade. And that's something that I've goted to do in the House, but we have him be able to get through the Senate. When I'm in the Senate, we will.
Texas would actually be Democrats really their closest to pick up opportunity. You know, I think so much about like in previous cycles. I remember having a candidate for Senate on this podcast and everyone said I was crazy because the polling showed him about eight points behind in the state of Wisconsin. He ended up losing about like half a point. So I'm hoping you can like just talk to us about why Texas is bluer than we think.
I don't see us in terms of red or blue. I do see us in terms of a weirre state that hasn't had enough folks voting, and we've been a non voting state. That's been our biggest issue, and it's in the millions, the numbers that we're talking about here. We had nine point five million registered voters who didn't vote in the last election, so the numbers are staggering.
Now we are a big state, so those numbers can be big, and our task in every election has to be a chip away I had that and try to get more of our fellow Texans involved, both for fairer elections but also just for our democracy. I mean, you just can't really have a representative democracy when that many
folks are not involved in it. But the other part of it is, you know, there are a lot of folks out there who are looking around and saying, you know, listen, I'm a Republican, but I'm not that kind of Republican. In fact, I had an event last night. Several folks came out to me and said, you know, I've never supported them Prey before. This is the first time done. I cannot sport ted Cruz and where things are going.
This is a very real phenomenon. And this is part of how you know, I got elected to Congress by a lot of folks who were big supporters of George W. Bush and felt like the party had changed beneath them. They no longer recognized it. And you know, and I certainly want to run a campaign, and I certain have tried to serve in Congress in a way that can be inclusive enough for folks like that to feel like
they can also be a part of our movement. If you accept election results, if you believe that we should stand up to Vladimir Putin and not try to let him take over countries and kill political dissidents, If you believe that we shouldn't try to undermine all of our fundamental institutions in this country, whether it's our court systems or in the way that we process and count the votes after an election. Then you're part of my coalition
and I want your vote. And there are a lot of folks out there who are like that, and a lot of folks out there who look at Ted Cruz and say, you know, you really should be trying to actually get something done at some point. And that's why we're in this situation where we're going a very close
race right now. It's going to finish as a very close race, and I need folks help, need them to get involved, go to Colin alread dot com, help us out and make sure that who we are actually as sexans is represented.
On November fifth, it does seem to me like Ted Cruise has gone really full maga.
Yeah. I think that's probably true. And I think it's surprising because of how personal the attacks were on him by Donald Trump. Apparently there's no level of debasement that's low enough, you know. I mean, I know how I would respond if somebody, you know, talked about my family that way, and it certainly wouldn't be to try and overthrow an election for them just a couple of years later.
But that's the choice that's been made. Obviously. To me, the real issue, though more so than whether or not he's got a full MAGA, is that he is completely incapable I think of being a functioning United States senator for US. You know, he is not serious about the work. I come across so many people who there's an issue. They know they can contact me, and they're in my
congressional district that they can contact John Cornyn. They know they can't contact tecers because he's not going to do anything for them.
So that's on the constituent services.
Side, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, but also it's big businesses. I mean, it's not just you know, folks who need help with you know, their tax returns. I mean, this is across the board. It's an attitude and an arrogance that I think leads Hooks to feel like we really don't have two senators right now. And you know, we see have a guy who's podcasting three times a week, which Molly, you know how much time that take.
You know, he is but a humble podcast.
I was hoping you could talk about Ted Cruz's he found a Biden whistleblower, and the whistleblower turned out to actually be lying, and now that was a blower has been indicted. I haven't seen a lot of or any miacopa from Ted Cruz.
Can you talk about that.
It's just been ir remarkable. Yeah, there's the kind of the again, the arrogance of you know, well, if that didn't work, and then we'll just ignore it. This is what he's interested in, the culture wars, the fake political fights,
not actually doing any big substance in for Texans. And when you grow up like I did in Dallas and you're raised by a single mom, and you go to our public schools like I did, and you rely on your community, yeah, I think you get a much more kind of grounded perspective of how important it is that you know, these kind of ladders of opportunity be in place for folks. That's why you know, my bipartisanship isn't
a function of that. I'm trying to just have like a stat that said I'm trying to get something done anything through a Congress that's incredibly difficult to get anything passed, because I know there are oaks out there who are working two jobs or three jobs, and they're hoping they're elected officials working as hard as they are, and Ted Cruise isn't right.
They really wanted to impeach President Biden really because they thought it would help Trump, which is really not high crimes and misdemeanors.
I mean, that's not how any of this is supposed to work.
I mean, just the perversion of our democratic norms, that's just so insane.
Well, we just had the I guess it's like the you know, the Seinfeld impeachment of my orchis, you know, because it's about nothing, right, I have to say, just in my now, my sixty year in Congress, the stunts have taken over, like the tale is fully bagging the dog. To be honest, we have to have a correction here in the selection where we send a message as text and certainly as Americans that we need serious people in public office, that we can't just have all these clownish
stuff going on. I don't want to go too much into it because I'm part of the Foreign Afairs Committee and I'm brief done these things. But the Russians are doing very real things, Chinese are doing very real things. We have a rash of coups in Africa. We are seeing democracy on the run in some ways around the world.
Everybody is looking to the United States to be that central point that can stand strong in a storm and say we're going to make it through this and we're not going to fall into some kind of global conflict again or some kind of era of human rights being taken away instead of expanded for the first time in
fifty or sixty years. And this is a time that the United States has to be there, and we are failing in that because of our political dysfunction, because of these extremists who just want to have something that can tweet out instead of something they want to actually pass legislatively.
And it wasn't always this way. Friends with a number of my Republican colleagues who are no longer in Congress because they've been driven out, and it just wasn't that long ago that we had a fairly substantive Republican Congress that even if I disagreed with what they were trying to do, that they actually had something they wanted to do. And folks like tech crews are responsible for this. They
put us into this ridiculous era. And if it's such a message for us and such a self correction for us to be able to urse that here really true.
I think it would be amazing if you could just sort of give us, like what do people need from you?
I mean, is it door knocking? Is it? I mean if you were able to flip the seat.
I think it would mean so much, not just for like Texas, but also just it would mean a real rejection of MAGA and burn it down principles.
Yeah. Well, I always say this is going to be about Texans talking to Texans in neighbors, talk at neighbors. So this is going to be about us here in Texas. But we could use a lot of help in terms of making sure that our fellow Texans can be engaged in this election. And to me, that comes down to there's no easy way to help help a voter or to turn a maybe voter into a voter. It's just hard work. It's just you know, ten twelve fourteen interactions
with that individual. And I've done it as a voting rights lawyer before I ever came to Congress, and I've done it now. Of course, it's a candidate running in districts where we needed to get more folks out to vote in order to win, and so it's incredibly labor intensive. You know, it's also something that does take resources. So I'm asking folks if they can to get involved with us.
Text Texas to nine zero six seven eight. Find out how you can get involved, whether that's phone banking or door knocking or contributing, or telling your friends in Texas how they can be involved. This can be an effort that can be such a positive for Texas and for our country. You know, when I ran in twenty eighteen, I rank It's a twenty two year incumbent Republican who had been unopposed in the previous selection. Nobody thought he could be beatn he was the chairman of the rules committee.
He was like the furniture. We couldn't get rid of them. And we beat him by nearly seven points by mobilizing new voters who'd ever been involved, and by reaching across out and getting independents and principal Republicans to come over to our side. And we can do that here though we need chell us help.
Yeah, thank you, Colin.
Okay, thank you so much, Molly. I appreciate you.
They're no moment full Jesse Cannon.
You know Middog first. Many times we are guests that when we say things are going to get bad. But the second Trump term really looks like it would be the Handmaid's Tale. Just like everyone was saying.
Yeah, incredible stuff here out of Politico. This is what we talk about when we talk about the steaks as opposed to the odds, right like, instead of a million Nate Silver pieces about the odds of a Biden re elect, what we really need are these steaks of a Trump reelect.
And here we go.
Among some of the top proposals for second Trump admin end surrogacy. Okay, they're going to end having a surrogate to carry your child, which has provided children for all of these childless couples.
And no fault divorce, which was by.
The way, signed into law by communist Marxist liberal Ronald Reagan in the state of California. It has been a huge boon for women's empowerment, and it has cut the numbers for domestic violence way down. So you bring that back, you're going to see more women murdered by their romantic partners. Invoke the Insurrection Act to stop protests. He's already talked about it. We know that's coming insects, ad in school. No better way to get teen pregnancy going than to
endsecx AT and stop policies that subsidize single motherhood. Spoiler, there is no subsidizing single motherhood in this country.
And with the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children and citing the Bible in an opinion, I think we could see here they're not joking about this.
Yeah, so Chrysto fascism here they come. And that is our moment of fuckery.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every mon Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
And again, thanks for listening.