Top Democrat drops nightmare news for Trump, Republicans - Brian Tyler Cohen

[TexasTowelie]

Interview with Josh Harder (D - CA, 9th district)

Transcript:

i'm joined now by Congressman Josh
Harder thanks so much for joining me
thank you for having me so we are right
now in a moment where we are watching
the Republicans wage this broader attack
on on Medicaid you were elected back in
2018 back when we saw a very similar
situation playing itself out as the one
we're seeing right now and so what is
your reaction to watching Republicans
having lost 41 seats uh back in 2018 the
the biggest uh the biggest margin um in
the House in modern American history be
on the backs of their efforts to
dismantle the ACA now do the exact same
thing with Medicaid where they're you
taking an axe to uh to right now it was
$880 billion but there's the possibility
that they can make deeper cuts so that
it's palatable for some of these
Republicans who wouldn't even pass uh
vote for the first iteration of this
reconciliation bill so your reaction to
watching them play this playbook again
where really it it it hurt them so so
deeply in 2018 i think it's a tale as
old as time and in many ways the
Republican party only exists to cut
people's health care to pay for tax cuts
for billionaires and millionaires across
the country that's what we saw happen
under Reagan happened under Bush it
happened as you highlighted under the
first Trump administration which is why
I got into politics we see it happening
right now and it's amazing that they
still haven't learned this lesson that
this is not what the American people
want and most importantly this is going
to do huge damage to our economy and
most importantly to the folks who are
going to be affected half my district is
on Medicaid and and as you said I got
into this work because in April 2017 my
member of Congress voted to repeal the
Affordable Care Act my brother was born
10 weeks premature spent two years of
his life coming in and out of the
hospital and would have lost his health
insurance along with 100,000 other folks
in our area uh if that bill had become
law and so I tried to do something about
it we ran against the guy uh beat him
and have been working to try to protect
healthcare ever since but we're seeing
deja vu all over again where once again
they're trying to do this same playbook
that is only going to result in people
losing their chance to see a doctor and
paying higher bills and to what end just
to give Elon Musk and other billionaires
a bigger tax cut you're one of the few
Democratic representatives now after
this past election s you watched your
district swing 15 points to the right
you're one of the few Democratic de
Democratic uh uh members of Congress who
are in a Trump district right now and so
as you're talking to your constituents
even folks who may have voted for Trump
how does what we're seeing right now
these attacks against health care these
attacks against food stamps uh Medicaid
um veterans how is that playing itself
out for the folks in your district who
you know look these these this is a
district that's ripe for the taking for
Republicans and yet now I'm presumably
shooting themselves in the foot i think
right now we're in a transition where
people are pretty disappointed and
concerned by what they've seen over the
first couple months of the Trump
administration what my district wanted
more than anything was lower cost of
living uh a better standard of life
that's why a lot of folks in our
district voted for Trump and why he
flipped my district and what have they
gotten they've gotten trade wars that
have turned their 401ks into 2011ks and
only raised costs on every American and
now of course they're seeing their very
health insurance at risk to pay for you
know massive tax cuts so I think people
are disappointed that doesn't mean that
we can win them over on our side we
still have a lot of work to do to regain
the trust of working-class voters across
the country and the way to do that is to
show them that we really do care about
the economy we care about health care
and we're going to put those items first
in 2024 I think folks heard more about
you know issues that weren't all that
important to them in an area like mine
and not about how we're going to lower
the cost of care how we're going to make
sure people can you know live across the
street from their parents instead of
down the stairs because they can't
afford to buy their own house and how
are we going to like make life better
for most Americans if we hit that
message we can regain a lot of these
voters that Trump is alienating at
record speed and I do want to talk about
that in a moment but I just want to
stick with this this failed
reconciliation bill for a moment uh this
wasn't palatable for a lot of a lot of
these Republicans because of the extent
to which it would add to the deficit and
so that would pretend that maybe we're
going to see even deeper cuts to some of
these programs look the your Republican
colleagues are they're politicians first
and foremost they understand it's not
like it's it doesn't escape these people
the the the ways in which this would
this can jeopardize their party
politically speaking and so what are you
hearing from these people maybe behind
the scenes about the prospect of even
deeper cuts to to Medicaid in a
political environment where that's
really a death nail for for midterms
they're doing a really tough balancing
act right now uh but ultimately I think
so far we have seen moderate Republicans
more afraid of Trump than the
implications that this bill will have on
their actual constituents there's no
question as you said that folks that are
going to lose health insurance are in
Republican districts as well as
Democratic seats in fact Medicaid is
disproportionately in red-leaning states
and red districts across the country as
well as SNAP benefits and many other
essential care that is being cut in this
bill so they're under a lot of pressure
i think ultimately the right thing for
them to do obviously they're not doing
it uh is to try to reach towards the
towards the middle uh there is a world
here where we could actually achieve a
much better reconciliation package that
Democrats could vote for for that would
lower the deficit that would get the
American economy back on track what
they've decided to do instead is a
partisan endeavor that is going to hurt
the folks that they're actually
representing and they're doing it I
think because right now they're more
afraid of Trump than the alternative
right and and is there some sense among
these Republicans that I I understand
why they were afraid of Trump in the
beginning because he posed the immediate
existential risk for them right like if
if if you see that dreaded Trump tweet
where he starts to promote uh a primary
opponent from the right then that's it
then you're then the prospect of you
remaining in Congress uh grows dimmer
and dimmer but now I mean forget what
Trump might say forget what what
candidate Trump might recruit in the
future if you've got 700,000 people who
who aren't who the majority of whom
aren't going to vote for you because of
what you're doing then that becomes a
more immediate existential risk for
these members of Congress and so are we
seeing that shift happen at all where
it's less about you know some some tweet
where Trump tries to recruit somebody to
primary them from the right and instead
it just becomes an immediate issue of
are you even going to be able to stay in
your job because your own constituents
don't want you there
i completely agree uh somebody came up
to me recently and said you know find
somebody that loves you the way that
Republican members of Congress love
massive tax cuts i think the reality is
this is what the Republican party is all
about this is why they exist and that's
why we see this playbook happening time
and time again uh the only major bill
that Trump got passed and signed into
law in the entire four years of his
first administration was the 2017 tax
cut that was all that was it that was
the only major bill they did in all four
years and so I don't think it's a huge
shock that the only major piece of
legislation that this administration is
working on in their second term is again
the exact same playbook how do we
actually lower um you know get give get
tax cuts by actually kicking people off
of health insurance so you know I think
it's a combination of they're afraid of
Trump and also this is what they got
elected for in the first place to get
you know these tax cuts passed paid for
by everybody else's healthcare right i
mean we we saw the whole song and dance
about how they were going to um do an
infrastructure upgrade how they were
going to pass a middle class tax cut how
we were going to see a jobs boom how we
were going to have a healthcare plan
that was cheaper and more comprehensive
none of that happened all of their
political capital to your exact point
was used on a tax cut that
overwhelmingly favored uh millionaires
billionaires and corporations and then
he runs the same playbook in the second
term where he goes goes on the campaign
trail promising to lower costs for all
Americans talks about the price of eggs
of groceries of housing of rent and then
gets into office and not only doesn't do
anything to actually focus on those
issues but exacerbates the very problem
that he won exploiting and so now
everybody's paying more for all of those
things but I guess uh we should we
should uh feel fine knowing that uh at
the end of the day he's he's uh secured
some $400 million jets for himself and
uh and so I guess we're all whole at the
end of that talk to me about the Build
America Caucus that you're the chair of
yeah I think the core idea here is how
do we learn the lessons of the some of
the challenges and and frankly failures
of the Biden administration i passed and
and voted for the the bipartisan
infrastructure law i was really excited
about the roads and bridges that that
was going to unleash across the country
now four or five years later we still
haven't seen that i've been to a lot of
ribbon cutings but I haven't actually
seen enough new bridges built across the
country in California we've had
high-speed rail that has been delayed
for now decades where $30 billion of
taxpayer money has gone and not a single
passenger has gone on a train people are
frustrated and this breeds cynicism and
apathy about the political process when
somebody votes for somebody to fix a
pothole and they don't actually see that
pothole fixed for decades it's going to
lead to people feeling like the entire
process is broken and that's why they
need to elect somebody like Donald Trump
and so this caucus is trying to fix it
it's a bipartisan effort across you know
progressives moderates blue dogs
Republicans trying to figure out how do
we actually get America working again so
we can build more housing and lower the
cost of living in America how do we
build the infrastructure for for what we
need and how do we actually get clean
energy up and running across a country
that desperately needs it to go faster
if we're going to be able to hit our
climate goals those should be messages
that are the core of anybody across the
country Democrat or Republican and
obviously this intersects quite quite uh
well with the the whole abundance um
discourse that that's uh that that's
come as a result of Ezra Klein's book um
is is there some appetite for I asked
this question because someone brought up
a good point to me and they they said
that if if California if the Cal like
Democrats control California completely
on the state level and so if we wanted
to get this done so that it actually
worked they would get it done and so it
would suggest then there that there's
some that there's some you know internal
mechanism preventing us from actually
doing the things that that we campaign
on or or you know highspeed rail to your
exact point and that there is really
nothing standing in between California
Democrats who have full control
supermajority control in this state and
yet the fact that we still can't get
something done still can't make
highspeed rail go from LA to to uh to
San Francisco and and even the paired
down version from like Merrced to Bakers
field isn't a a sure thing either that
if they really did want to do this
there's nothing standing in their way of
actually doing it and so can can can I
just get your reaction to that is is
there the political appetite to really
make this stuff happen because it's not
like we're contending with uh with you
know um uh Ronda Santis figures it's not
like we're contending with Donald Trump
here in California it's Democrats run
the state we we can make it happen and
California and New York and New Jersey
and Colorado and other blue states where
there's Democratic supermajorities that
we these states should be shining
beacons of how great life looks like
when you elect Democrats and if we're if
we want a majority across the country if
we want to control the White House and
Congress then we need states like
California to look a lot better you know
Trump campaign saying we don't want the
rest of the United States to look like
California and a lot of Californians a
lot of folks in my district agree when
they see the cost of housing when they
see the homelessness and all of the
broken promises on our infrastructure
over the years but what I I disagree is
I I think I I sensed a little bit of
fatalism in in what you were saying
which I think is absolutely untrue
because the bottom line is the voters
the people the general public
desperately wants things to work and
what we have constructed is a set of
processes that are you know letting the
perfect be the enemy of the good that
are essentially geared towards stopping
bad projects which was you know
certainly important decades ago and
still is important in certain cases but
we're letting the processes that allow
0.1% of people to block projects that
the 99.9% of people want to move forward
happen again and again and so we can fix
that and most importantly we have to fix
it both because of the good that's going
to be unlocked when we can build the
housing the infrastructure the energy we
need but also because that's the only
route towards political legitimacy
nationally is to make California and New
York and these other states look like
they're supposed to when you elect folks
who believe these values that we agree
on and and what are you able to do from
the federal level because I would
presume that a lot of the the issues
that are blocking all of this stuff from
actually coming to fruition happen at
the state level yes and no i I think
certainly there are a lot of local state
county regulations in in states like
California but there's already a lot of
folks that are working on that this is
to create a national hub which I think
can elevate this issue and make sure
that more folks are talking about it and
thinking about it and also there is a
whole lot of federal red tape that
compounds the problem at a state and
local level right uh again think about
highspeed rail where there's a lot of
federal permits that are required uh
think about the fact that we passed a
bipartisan infrastructure law that was
supposed to build electric vehicle
charging stations across the country and
frankly didn't that should be a failure
and again it was a Democratic president
a Democratic House and Senate that voted
for that uh we should own those
challenges and and those failures and we
have to be able to do better otherwise
we're not going to be able to earn folks
support and most importantly we're not
going to be able to actually achieve our
goals whether they're climate or whether
they're making sure that people can
actually afford the standard of living
that they deserve right perfectly put
well grateful for you bringing these
issues to the forefront and for the work
you're doing congressman appreciate your
time thank you