Why June 14th Matters More Than You Think | A Conversation with Congressmen Joe Walsh

to it. We'll talk about that phrase, what that means, the social contract, a social compact, and that got broken in America a long time ago, and understanding how it broke, why it broke, when it broke, is KTA understanding why we have a fascist in the White House, Because, as I pointed out early on in this at the beginning ten years ago, fascism rose in the nineteen thirties not because it was strong, but because democracy was weak. It was rotten, it was detained in the whine of republic.

We're lucky in America that we have a much stronger democracy, UH, with with much stronger foundations and a history. But it's being tested. And what Trump is, I think is is certainly clear. So we'll talk about that, the social contract, the social compact, talk about citizenship and the meaning of that.

We'll talk about what's going on in the news, UH, and we'll talk about specifically an issue UH that's in the news, which is presidential fitness, presidential coherency, and and very specifically let's talk about that with regard to Donald Trump, who is serially incoherent, uh, inco inconsistent, and and I think let's start with with with right now, when you look at this trip across the Middle East and you see the disrespect from the Trump cabinet officials before the

Article one branch of government, before the Congress, when you see the lion, when you see the law breaking, when you see the sneering, it leaves you breathless, and you sit there and you say wow. And I kind of lean back and say, these people really believe, truly they have a license to do whatever they want on the basis of forty nine point nine percent of the vote and a presidential election and the delusion about the stolen election,

and they are completely off the rails. And the idea that there isn't going to be an accounting for the epic law breaking, for the epic taking for the steering that we're saying is just mads to me.

the picture, right, she refuses to look at the picture. Bill. I've been backstage right as a staffer, and a lot of hearings, been on the presidential side, behind the behind the witnesses and Supreme Court confirmations and stuff. So, been on both sides of the room, and usually when that hearing is over, you don't go into the room kind of like huh, right, like where do we go from here?

And so if you're on the Democratic side and I'm trying to think, if I was the first person swallow wells he's backstage, I'd be like, great job, But honest to god, I'd be like around the table, I'd be like, so what, Congressman, what what the fuck do we do here?

What's the next round of questions? Like what's the what's the question right that you start asking them, Like, for example, do you start and say, uh, Mountam secretary, can you talk to me for just a minute or so about the article one branch of government and how you and how you see? I mean, what what's the leadoff question? That kind of starts to frame when these people are

up there. Some of the bigger issues right at the foundation of all of this that we got to figure out how to start talking about in opposition.

what is happening is is happening. And so the opposition has to be credible, It has to be decent, it has to be better. And I think there's going to have to be some new and decent faith is right that become synonymous with change in America, that emerge in a time of in a time of real crisis, and

I think we're just experiencing that right now. Is that you have a cohort of people that are in a dynamic inside the Democratic Party that are not focused on fighting back against Donald Trump so much as they are consolidating their position, their power, their authority within the Democratic Party. So example, you know with Chuck Schumer imposing litmus tests on Senate candidates that hey, you got to support me as the leader in order to run right for a

US Senate race in this state or that state. And that's wrong because these races should not be decided by the Senate leader from New York in Washington, d C. In these cloistered back rooms. And it's been a disaster for the Democratic Party. And so Democrats all across the country, Like you said, I think that you're going to see a wave of normal people, ordinary people, if passed his prologue,

get involved in campaigns at a congressional level. And I think the question is is how high does the tsunami wave come? And I think are there is there a chance to see some independent candidates running in Republican districts with no Democrat running at all, maybe leaving it blank, that might have some success, and they can be in a coalition with Democrats in Congress to oppose all the

insanity as need be. But you know, I think that there's going to be a lot of opportunity for there to be people lac Date who never thought they were going to be impiled. Takes four years ago, in about eighteen months.

of this money. I see the Democratic Party having kind of their own Tea Party movement. Look you know this, Steve, You're one of the smartest guys out there.

like that everywhere from just regular folks. There is a yearning out there right now for people you nailed it to. They want to see regular people. They don't want to see politicians. And again, they want to see people righteously angry. Some Democrats have gotten that. Most of them still go sound like some talking.

they have usually followed epically terrible presidents. And with Trump, we have the worst president in American history and the most abusive by the time, by the time we get to the end of this, and so I think that there needs to be a reform and renewal era of American politics where people are able to understand that we live in a big country, that we want to have the right to disagree, we want to have the right to dissent, and that we have to work together because

we share some things in common. And we have an idiotized society that is going to pay the price. And we'll see how costly the catastrophe it come is going to be. But no question in my mind that we are headed for big trouble. I want to talk to you about the Tea Party because I want everyone to

understand who watches this, who's a Democrat. The Tea Party, which I was never supportive of, right as an element within the Republican Party, was always misunderstood in the media, and the Key Party was cast as a reaction to Barack Obama, when in fact it was a reaction to the Bush presidency within the Republican Party, and it was a reaction to the failed wars, to the excesses of the military strategy, to excessive spending, to all of these degradations.

Right to what true conservatives believed in that had in this moment of the Bush presidency all gone up in flames.

And so there's this moment in the Republican coalition. I'm a moderate Republican right by birth, by temperament from New Jersey, Christy Whitman, Tom Kane, left edge right of the of the Republican Coalition, from a moderate state that the Republican Party was, the was the good government part of the coalition was was pro choice, and there is a pro choice tradition in the Republican Party, and it was a it was a big tent. And what breaks that during

the Bush presidency is the Terry Schivo decision. If you recall, this is a comatose woman that the governor of Florida, right goes to federal court, the federal court intervenes, and then Congress acts to intervene an end of life decision, and the President of the United States boys, I'm from Texas, really to state the social conservative wing of the Republican Party. And that totally blows apart the coalition, all the moderates,

all the libertarians. And so when you come in into two thousand and nine, this key party coalition which the media covers as well. This exists to be against Obama is really, in its foundation a rebuke to the Bush administration and to the Republican leadership, and that is played out on Fox News, and what you're seeing now all over the country is a real breach that exists between

the powers of the Democratic Party in Washington. And I think real voters that are very angry at Chuck Schumer are very angry at all the appeasement that you pointed out, such as the fact that all these people in their confirmation here and say, hey, you know, I can't tell you who won the election, right, it was President Biden, and right, I'm still going to vote to confirm you. Right.

So it's an incredible thing to witness. But I just want to get you to talk about that Tea Party in terms of that it's a rebuke to its own side, and that's how that starts out.

for Trump. When I look back on the Tea Party, I primarily think it was mostly driven by matters of governments too big, damn it.

But when we didn't deliver, like when I got sent to Congress and we didn't do shit about government spending, that's right away when the base got pissed off and Trump tapped into those uglier elements of the Tea Party A few years later.

did not tolerate it. Mitt Romney sought to take advantage of it, right, And I can I can go back right through twelve fourteen years of Donald Trump on the scene and all of the people that have tried to ride the Trump tiger right and have wound up inside, you know, with with Mitt Romney being one of them, you know, withdrawing from public life talking publicly about his

fear of Donald Trump. And so in the in the end, you had a guy who was over and over over again right on these television networks talking about the President of the United States doesn't have a birth certificate, right, And it's all nonsense, I mean and again, I ran the McCain campaign, right, And so if you run a presidential campaign, right, if you're involved in politics and campaign at any level, right, every type of crazy story that you can imagine about your opponent is going to be

rung into your phone right by by someone. It's on point, right, And and the first time I ever heard the Obama right, wasn't wasn't born in the United United States? Right? I you know, I said to a guy, right, he was like the guy that you have on a presidential campaign, like on the movies. Right, You're like, huh right, obviously right, this this would be a big deal. Right, Is this trick or not? And they go out and they look and come back, this is absolutely not true. Right, you know,

Brack Obama was born as a United States citizen. It is all a conspiracy, and it was all nonsense. It was always nonsense, but no one ever called it out. And so you go back to January sixth, you go back to the moment he came down the escalator. Everybody's position about Trump, right, over a period of time, reveals itself in that moment in time, right, And you know when there are moments when people say, whoa right, this

guy just did something right. And so what we have to have happened in the country now is we got to get a lot of people back right that fall into the category of they voted for Hillary, they voted

for Trump. Right, and they voted for Trump a second time and are going to be disappointed, Or they voted for Trump, they voted for Biden, they voted for Kamala right, and you want to keep them engaged, or in some type of combination where you have a Trump vote and a Biden vote right, or a Hillary vote, a Trump vote in a Biden vote that's split either two one

or one two. In the last three elections, you want to try to get those voters who have wobbled back to Trump back over, and you have to have some grace to them if you're Democrats with regard to the anger, and I feel anger, but I have it for the people that manipulated and lied to ordinary people, right it

went out and sold them a bill of goods. And I'm also deeply unhappy with the with the with the with the small group with people that were responsible right for defending the Republic against all of this insanity, who failed into defense when the stakes were very was very high. You know, I want a lot more political campaigns than I lost during my days. I have lost them, but for you know, I was saying to someone, for Christ's sakes when I lost the presidential election, right, as part

of the team on it. We lost it to Barack Obama, right, you know we didn't. We didn't lose it to associate pathic felonious great criminal. Right. So there's a big, big difference, and that's we got to talk about that.

you're right. I don't right, like, who are you apologizing to? Right, You've been a consistent voice ever since the guy walked into a meeting, he pulled out his country in Finland with Vladimir Putin and right, sometimes, right, you got to look at someone and say, wow, you know, right, you got. There's a lot of courage to say that, like you you you, you went out and said, wow, you know I was wrong about this guy. So I don't you know,

I don't think you owe anyone in an apology. But but I but I, but but I say that because we got we got fifteen hundred people on right now, and I want to I want you all to understand is when you talk to people over the coming months, as as as times get tough, Right, the accountability isn't right like to be paid by the truck driver, right, the accountability is to be paid by Elon Musk and Marco Rubio and Christy No. Right, not for the people.

Right that you know looked at for example, that a million people died of opioid overdoses and they never ever, ever, ever right heard about it being discussed on on national media. Right and FDR understood this. He talked about invisible man talked about forgotten man, right, are a lot of forgotten people in the country. And and what the Democrat Party has to understand is that the voters don't have to

meet the Democrats on the Democrats' terms. The Democrats have to meet the voters where they are out in the country.

And so I think that humility right in our politics, that says, hey, we want to have a big tent that welcomes all people, right, raise the flag high, and say we got some fundamental rights that we got to reassert again because we have a gangster in the White House that thinks like whether we get to speak out, whether we get to sing a song about him, whether we get to burn him in effigy or not as a criminal matter as opposed to a matter of conscience.

And that's what we got to agree on. That's what we got to stand together on right now.

a fucking big tent. Be a tent that's big enough for an AOC and a Joe Walsh at this moment in time to save this democracy. The Democrats Steve need to decide if they want to be that.

because he's politically incompetent. But in this moment, like tomorrow, at what time tomorrow is the is the Democratic senators coming out to hold a news conference where where they talk about the three biggest things that we got to talk about tomorrow, that is produced with excellence, that has video that is delivered to the American people, that the abuses of power are called out too. There's a fundamental issue that that I just I don't I don't give

a fuck. Wehear of polls, right, and and when the more people who know about it, the hire it's in a poll. Right? How what is the ship that Elon Musk took with regard to our data? Right, A full accounting of what these those teams did, what they have, where it is the status of it immediately, right? And and so out of that right, what is the plan for oversight hearings with the Democratic majority in the Senate and the House? What is the what is the plan

for hearings around the country? What is the plan for investigation? What is the plan for audit? What is the plan for criminal referral and prosecution? Right? Because there must be accountability for all of this. And by the way, Donald Trump asserting a pardon power right after the fact, but I pray the premeditation of a crime I think is challengeable by the next president asserting the same powers that Trump has abused. For a season of accountability before there

is a long, long season of presidential restraint. And so there has to be a plan. And then finally, finally, the last thing is to say, what is the use of power right that we that we have right now that we intend to use right to slow this down, to stop it, to demand concessions. What's the plan, right? And so we're going to use our power right to make this stop. And somebody's got to enunciate that from a position of leadership in the House and Senate. And I just like, why is nobody doing that?

were engaged in their unconstitutional, fascist bullshit. So I don't know why they weren't ready from day one. They should be ready now they need captivating messengers. I don't see anybody on Capitol Hill like that. I think the voices have got to come from out in the country.

And I think that what Bernie Sanders is saying right, and what AOC is saying right about the inequality of wealth, about some of the insiderism inside the Democratic Party, that all of these issues about the connection between corruption and autocracy, between fundamental reform and free enterprise. That you know, the person who has the capitalist position in the debate right now is Bernie Sanders. If you believe like I do

that FDR. You can debate all day long the economics of the New Deal, whether it was successful or not. But what the New Deal did do is give confidence to people both in the economic system and in the political system when they needed to have confidence at a time where the collapse of confidence led to fashism across Europe. Right, So, so we're seeing a collapse of confidence in the economics system.

That's an increase and at the same time that collapse of confidence that that is started and stoked by Trump increases. Trump will is to be asserting political power that is necessary to deal with the loss of confidence and all the issues that come from it on the economy side. So it is a it is a dangerous set of tides that are all coming together now where Trump right

is clearly searching for pretext. You look at the overreaction on the seashells and COMI let's lock them up, right, the National Intelligence Director on the slightest pretext to use power, the economic disaster that's now coming and will worsen, and the dis desire right to deploy force. Like, I think all of those things are on the board right, pretty predictable that they're bearing down.

they're afraid to say that. You can't be afraid to say stuff like that. I think the biggest failure of this old Trump era has been the failure of imagination. Like we didn't. We couldn't have imagined thirty years ago that somebody would lose an election and try to overthrow it.

somebody say the worst is yet to come. Yes, the worst is yet to come. This is the cornerstone of the society. Right, that we pick our leaders, that we choose our leaders. The art that surrounds the Capitol rotunda, one of the most famous pictures is Washington bowing to Congress, subordinating himself, laying down his command when he could have been a caesar, right, draping his military cloak on the biggest chair in the painting, the unseat upon throne. And

so this is all fundamental to to who we are. Right. It's like a family of cops that one day Dad comes home and he says, hey, now we're in the bank robbery. Right. I mean I don't right. So it's a total departure, right from every aspect of what we believe. And as soon as it became mainstream to talk about it with indifference attached, it was a crisis.

national party because it is disenfranchised and disinvested from forty states that are in the United States. Right, So like we can't we can't treat North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma like their suriname Eritrea right and Nigeria right. These are these are places in the United States and filled with Americans who are being failed by MAGA governments at

at an epic level. And if you don't have outreach, if you don't meet people where they are, if you have a politics of ignoring and disdaining and condescending, right, it triggers the voter response of go fuck yourself. And it happens one hundred percent of the time. And so you have to have a rest duration of connection. And that's number one. Number two, the Democratic Party needs to have a plan to set things right, which means fundamental reform, corruption, ethics,

all of these things to be dealt with. A recision of presidential authority and power or return to regular order. How you pass an appropriations bill, how you pass a bill, fundamental change campaign finance law. There has to be some type of consideration given to appropriate public content and media in a free society on public airwaves. There has to be a change in a libel law that that does not permit the full on smearing and assault on the on the truth. UH. There's a lot of things that

have to be done. There has to be a confrontation with concentrations of power and money, breaking up big companies that have grown far too powerful, privacy legislation, medical legislation, anybody who has gone through customs with the UH with the AI driven face scanner. Right, this this part of our future. We have to the American people have to take control of it. So so there has to be a comprehensive thinking through of a freedom agenda, right that

has privacy as a prosperity component. And that's what Democrats have to be, right. They have to be the freedom party, right, and they have to be the human being party, and they have to be the party that has tolerance for a broad coalition, and they have an empower and strain that runs through the party that is anesthetical to the achievement of those goals in a two party system. So, right, this is the place we're at, right, And that's that's what we got to figure out.

is burned to the ground. Inside, inside the federal government, what fractured. So right, when Democrats come to power, there's going to have to be an assessment of what happened, who did what, accountability for law breaking, but also how do you deliver a service that delivers a dollar value for a dollar spent? Does the program that reaches the

poor kid deliver a service to the poor kid? Because what was burned down that existed pre Trump is gone, it's gone, right, and so what will come after it has to be thoughtful, has to be sustainable, has to be able to deliver a service and make the delivery of that service is popular. If you're the party that stands for the proposition that government can do things, then you have to be the party that demands competence from government.

And so perfect example of this is in California, many many billions of dollars has been spent on high speed rail for twenty five years. There's not one foot of track that exists, that's been laid down billions of dollars, right, and so why would anyone defend that? Why would anybody defend that? And it's ridiculous to have to defend it and feel like you have to because of a magic letter next to your name. And that's what has to be thrown out the window. All of it.

Democrats kind of ignored the issue. They didn't even talk about or look the other way when it came to the border. So even on that issue, Steve, a lot of regular Americans said, I'm going to vote for the guy who's lying to me about immigrant He's lying to me about these migrants because the other party doesn't even acknowledge that this is an issue we need to do something about.

the issue. Here's what the issue was, as that that I thought reasonable people could could could sit and come together on this, which was this at the time, was we have about eleven million people in the country illegally, and the reason that they're here illegally is because our economy function and with them, not without them. So we tolerate this, We've looked away. So why are they here?

They're here because of us. So if you want to do something about this and secure the border, right, okay, right, And what the votes existed was to basically say, you people here illegally got to pay a fine. You've got to go to the back of the line. You may be eligible to get a green card like fifteen years from now and become a citizen seven years after that. Right, I love going to new citizen ceremonies, right, I think

they're an incredible thing to go to. But that compromise fell apart because when the Republicans were in charge, Democrats didn't want to give them a victory. When Democrats were in charge, Republicans didn't want to give them a victory, and everyone played politics, and over time, right, the issue lost all nuanced, and so the choice became we're either going to have no border or we're gonna have right,

I guess ice Barbie and mass deportations. And so in the choice between no border and ice barbe and deportations, I know what side wins that to be, and it's the ice bar beside. It's the well, we're going to kick everybody out, right, because we can't have this. And so what Democrats have to be able to do is to meet the American people where they are and to appreciate that everybody who's voting in an election is an American citizen and whether their third generation Hispanic or second

generation Hispanic or from wherever. Just like everybody, the majority of the country wants the immigration laws enforced, and they don't like the abuse that Trump's doing. But the alternative to what's Trump doing is not an open border, it's a humane enforcement of a sane border policy. And that's the bar that Democrats have to meet in order to ask for power to govern the country and to have a remedy for this. I mean, it's as simple as that.

What Democrats have to ask for is power to make things stop it shouldn't be happening, which does not mean getting a green light to do things that are reciprocal of this that no one wants to see happen on the opposite side of the coin. And I don't know what else to say beyond that.

every issue. He and MAGA are so extreme that if Democrats can just nudge a little bit over here on every single one of these issues, they can grab most Americans.

We caught him earlier today. Right, this is Trump's guy here, right, Hannibal Lecter, and that Trump was talking about with the cats and the dogs, and'd be like, here's the great thing about America, right, there's two great things right that we got going for us in our time of trouble. Right, right that even Hannibal elector here, he gets to stand in front of a judge. Right, he's got that going for him. And if he gets kidnapped by Somali pirates,

the Navy seals are coming together. Right, those are two things we have going for us right as a people. And so Hannibal elector or not, he gets to stand in front of a jury, right, he gets to stand in front of a judge. He gets to stand in

a courtroom, and he gets due process. And we don't have people who go on Fox News, right, who are the national Intelligence director or the national director of this that or the other, the FBI director or the Homeland Security Cabinet secretary and say, oh, that person should be in jail because Trump hates them.

speaking up to this? And at the end of the day, we're what we're witnessing in our Salvador, right, it's really important to talk about is that we're we're gonna have to talk about this as a society, right and and there's gonna be somebody sitting on CNN he says, well, it's time not to talk about this today or it's the wrong time, right.

the United States. And so what we're seeing is an active evil and it's happening, and it's being done in our name, and it is illegal under American law, it is illegal under the UN Human Rights Charter. We are involved and engaged as a nation and illegal and inhumane activity that the people in this administration are willfully, knowingly and premeditatively engaged and with full knowledge that it's against America's treaty obligations, against America's law because they say they

are above the law. And so this election in twenty twenty six is a profoundly important one because of the fact that we're gonna put a check on him, right or we're not. But the failure to put an overwhelming check on Donald Trump will mean for Donald Trump that he's going to be able to assert power in ways that are a nightmare for three hundred and fifty million people who think they live in a free country.

an airplane, throwing them in an El Salvador jail. Listen to how pissed off, righteously pissed off you.

they're progressive or they're conservative or this. They either have fighting spirit or they do not. They're either faithful to the US Constitution or they are not. They're either going to lift the flag up higher they're not. And they're

either tolerant. Right for all the rest of us who are with our hands out saying hey, we'll fight with you against these people who want to take away power, want to take away rights, We want to take away the fundamental blessings of liberty from from our fellow Americans. And we won't. We won't tolerate it. And so that's that's the calling of this moment, is to say that we won't tolerate this. Uh, we won't abide it, and

we're gonna we're gonna oppose it. And I want to I want to turn over to you for that, and I want to talk about one last thang, whige is this military parade, and then we'll wrap it.

tragic day, Flag Day. Of course, it's the birth of the United States Army, which is turning two hundred and fifty years old, and so this is a year of for Found anniversaries. We kicked off the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary cycle of the country with Paul Revere's Midnight

Run with the battles of Lexington conquered Bunker Hill. We have the anniversaries of the US Navy, the Marine Corps of the US Army, and the Washington assumes command and the Army is formed a few days later two regiments, and that is going to be turned into a dear Leader parade. Right the greatest force for liberation in the history of the world, the American Army, and the American Army is going to be desecrated on June the fourteenth, as you see American soldiers forts to participate in this

most un American spectacle. How do you think about it on June the fourteenth, Well, we're going to see how should people feel about this? I feel like it's a desecrative event, a shameful event, a dishonorable event. The soldiers who are forced to march in it or not. Service in the military is not They serve the Constitution, not

a man. But what needs to be said about this as we get ready to witness this, because there's some important things that need to be said around this event, which is at every one of those men and women wearing the uniform of the country don't serve the president. They serve the American people, and they wore an oat to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump. And that's what's special about the United States. I can't I think we've lost you here on the mute.

nationwide protest day. It's a no King's protest day, and there are going to be again millions and millions of Americans out in every city and community in the country protesting against what this guy is in the White House and just embracing that basic principle that we don't have kings in America. So June fourteenth is also going to be a big protest day.

It's an act of it's an active speech. And in this country, on this night, when Donald Trump is threatening Bruce Springsteen and Fance and threatening Bono and Oprah and anyone who dared oppose him, trying to intimidate dissent, well I want to say to all of you, don't let it intimidate you. You're an American. Rights are not privileges. Their rights they don't come from Donald Trump. They come from the air you breathe them in when you took

your first breath on American soil. And you are an American, and you are free, and you are free to assert your conscience, to assert your rights, to speech, the petition the government, to worship as you please. And when you see the jackbooted government thugs of this administration trampling on people's rights, when you see it being done to the least of us, appreciate it's being done to all of us.

When you see it being done to the most prominent of us, like Bruce Springsteen or Oprah, appreciate that it's being targeted at them, because if it can be done to them, it can be done to any of us. And so when you see people targeting the least of us and some of the people that have the most fearlessly, with arrogance, unrestrained, take it seriously, but do not be afraid of it. Appreciate that there is nothing they can do against all of us together, that they are a

small minority. And that's what this thugocracy is. Donald Trump is sustained by a court of thousands and an inner court of hundreds, not a movement of millions. And so the American people are going to be woken up. The American people are going to be stirred. The American people are going to have to face the danger. And we

have always done that. Whinston Churchill observed about us before I give it over to Joe to take us home, that Americans in the end usually do the right thing, although we'll wait till the last possible moment to do it. So with that, let me go over to Joe Walsh and ask you to bring us home tonight and say good night to everybody, and thank you so much. We can find you again on substack at the Social contract.

In the social contract in America has always been this notion that we hand it off a little bit better, a little bit stronger, to the next generation to keep on keeping on with the work of perfecting the union. So that's what the work of America has always been. That's what the Social Contract has always been. Joe Walsh a great champion of it, an important voice in this moment, and it was great to have you on tonight, Joe,

and please say goodnight to everybody. We have two thousand people and then many more see it in the in the aftermath, and so you know, give them the final word if you would.