Sen. Cory Booker on Trump, Criminal Reform, & The Farm Bill

commit right away. Let's talk a little bit about the elephant in the room that just landed in New York City. Now in Washington, what is your feeling right now with everything with the Trump in Diamond? How much do you think this indictment is going to paralyze bipartisanship on actually getting laws pass in the next year because he Trump has a way of sucking the wind out of conversations. Yeah, and look in the Senate, I don't think it's going

to have much effect at all. You've heard miss McConnell's stay eerily silent. But I think this is a moment in American history that is pretty significant. Look, I believe deeply in democratic principles. I believe in the idea of the rule of the law, but we've had a nation that hasn't lived up to those principles all the time.

As Brian Stevenson says, who's this def penalty defender? He says, we have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty then if you're poor and innocent. And so for me, this is one of those tough moments.

Donald Trump has flaunted the rule of law for a significant amount of his career and did it in a bullying way, whether it was Lock her Up or even the exonerated five, the Central Park five, even after they were exerated, failing to acknowledge that it was a travesty of justice. So I think that the Senate is going to be fine. They're going to be people trying to

find compromise get things done. But I do think this is one of those moments where there's a thirty four count indictment that we have to wait and see what's in it. I think that there's a lot of rushing, uh to assume partisan positions in this. As a guy who believes in democracy, believes in the rule of law,

believes to due process. Let's let's see what happened. Okay, So then to that point of everybody rushing to choose aside, if that's what Republicans are saying publicly, they've even seen the thirty four countdar, what are they saying behind closed doors? You'll be is is there a cafeteria? What are they saying in the cafeteria? Like, man, you see that bullshit? Um, look, you forget this. But Trump has been on trial twice in the Senate, and he has had Republicans and Democrats

both parties. People were both parties voted to convict him. We didn't have enough to meet the threshold for conviction. But there are a lot of folks on both sides of the aisle that think that this is a guy who has caused so much damage to our political system. He's really shaking the foundations of our democracy. Ideas about our democracy we've we've taken for granted over the years.

He has really threatened. Who would have thought that you'd be sitting there at your workplace and you'd be overrun by people storming the Capitol, uh, raiving the Confederate flag, having T shirts, Uh, celebrating the Holocaust. Yeah. Not to mention Viking Hadson more so, this is this is this is a guy who has truly strained the very democracy of our of our nation, and we hope to hold him accountable for that. Um, he's under investigation in multiple jurisdictions.

This is a long thing to play out. I'm just one of these folks that came to Washington, UH to uh focus on criminal justice reform because we have this nation where we still have people. You know, look, one out of every three incarcerated women on the planet earth about are in the United States of America. We incarceerate people at levels here that are outragers. So he, to me, is not my central focus. Are not going to let him tear me away from the important work we need

to do in Washington right now? Okay, love that, so but some of that important word. Let's talk a little bit about police reform. Now, your friend, our friend, Senator Tim Scott. You know, all black people know each other. I know him, I don't know him, but they don't know what I don't know. He had a police reform bill that he was trying to get past, and it had a lot of the right things in it about

more body cameras, less chokeholes, more regulations. The Democrats filibusted the bill in a time where you need some level of meeting in the middle, and it feels like that police reform bill that Tim Scott was trying to put together was an attempt at meeting in the middle. Can we really show the American people in this election cycle

that nothing is better than something? Yeah. So, look, my experience in Washington has been getting big bills done, some of them with Tim Scott, whether it's criminal justice reform. We passed the first step back under Trump. We did another bill that has created billions of dollars of investment in low income areas. Tim and I wrote it together, called Opportunity zones. Heck, even things that people don't think about, like why is sickle cell anemia a disease that disproportionately

affects African Americans underfunded relative to other disorder? Yeah, that other disorders that affect less people. So Tim and I have a good track record, we have not found the common ground necessary to get a bill introduced. We're still working on it. We still are having dialogue literally as soon as most recent as last week, to try to find a way because we both agree and Tim has told compelling stories on the Senate floor about what it's like growing up as a black man in America and

having that disproportionate treatment. There's some foundation to work together. He and I. We're on different sides of the aisle, but we have a friendship and I'm hoping we can get something done. Last thing, you're a big advocate about nutrition, health, and you'd be eaten right say they said you was in Hohle Foods. She was in a produce department for forty minutes. I don't know how much detail you're looking at each orange before you put it in the cart.

But when we talk about food and health and the way that we have food deserts in minority communities, talk to me a little bit about the farm bill, and also why the McDonald shaped machine is always broken, whichever one you have time for us. One of the biggest crisis we don't talk about is why is there such a demand for healthcare in this country. We have a nation that one out of every three government dollars about is being spent on healthcare, and the majority of that

seventy eighty percent is for preventable diseases. The majority that is diet related diseases, and in our farm bill, which should have some relation to what we should be eating, only about seven to ten percent of our subsidies go to the things that nutritionist tell us eat the most of. So kids can walk up into a bodega or to a corner grocery store and find a twinkie product cheaper than an apple, not because it's the true cost, but because we subsidize everything in the twinkie or the happy

meal and not enough stuff fruits and vegetables. So you walk to another store, you find a bucket of salad cost fifteen bucks, but you can go down the street and get a dollar meal. So we've got to stop subsidizing so much of the empty nutrition, hyper processed, sugar filled food to get so much of our subsidies, and not enough of this farm bill to reflect what Americans should be eating by expanding access to fresh, healthy foods

that families want. Well, Senator, I wish you luck and trying to get a bill pass this year while that asshole takes up all the media cycle. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm grateful for you more than you know. It's as good to see you. Senatory Book Everybody. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show wherever you get

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