What Platner’s Exit Means for the Future of the Democratic Party (ft. Brian Tyler Cohen)

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In this week on Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I'm sitting down with Matt Freese, goalkeeper for the U.S. men's national team and New York City FC. We discuss how to prepare for one of the biggest moments of your life. You can hear it all by listening to Confessions of an Elite Athlete on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Raging Moderates, I'm Jessica Tarlev. Scott is still on the high seas, but we have an amazing co-pilot for today's episode. Brian Tyler Cohen, progressive YouTuber, political commentator, author of the new book, which is very exciting, I have read it the day after how to wield power in a post-Trump world is joining me. Brian, it's so good to see you. So good to see you too, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. You've raged with me before, but this is a little bit different. I think we'll be our longest rage session, and also a chance to talk about what's in your book, which is so applicable to all of the news of the day that we're dealing with and finally gives us a plan for what we're actually going to do, and hopefully we take power back, big dreams in that department. I want to start though with what's percolating right now, the biggest story in politics is definitely Graham Platner dropping out of the race to be a senator from Maine. I want to add, and I just saw this from an NBC reporter that apparently he hasn't filed the paperwork yet that he needs to to actually drop out. So we're saying he's dropped out the expectation is that that will be happening by July 13th, let's listen to a little bit of his 11 minute video that he posted announcing that he was leaving the race. This is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real. There is a reason that this is happening now. This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot. Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign. They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine. We did it the right way. We built a campaign. We engaged in electoral politics. We motivated people. We banded together. We did it the way that we were told we are supposed to make change, and we won. And now they are not going to let us have it. So, I was a little bit surprised that there was no conciliatory tone at all in this video. I know he's known for giving these, you know, brash and bold and big speeches and, you know, that's the crowd amped up, but, like, dude, you just got credibly accused of raping someone, like, and maybe have lost his chance at winning the most crucial Senate flip out there. Apparently, his aides did not want him to take this tone, and it was a condition that he would do this, that he got to say whatever he wanted him rail against the establishment. What did you make of it? Well, I completely agree. I mean, this was not a they did this to me. This was he did something to somebody else. I mean, that's, that's what this is all about. I, I understand and sympathize with his arguments writ large against the establishment. And in large part, that's, that is why he was so successful in this campaign, but this isn't the establishment. I mean, this is, this is, there was a credible accusation of rape, and so this is the consequence of that. And I think that certainly rubbed people the wrong way. I mean, I was looking at a lot of the commentary online and immediately you can see even more push back to the fact that there wasn't an ounce of a conciliatory tone. It was just him basically presenting himself as the victim. And so look, I think at this point, he's staying in or not officially withdrawing because he thinks he has some leverage to dictate who the next person is going to be. I think he is wrongly assuming how much leverage he has. I don't think he has any leverage in this situation. And frankly, if I'm not mistaken, there's either going to be a meeting of the 100 folks that are part of main Democrats. There's also the prospect of a caucus, but I think it's going to be the former. And if and when he drops out by the 13th, then there's going to be a process by which there has to be a replacement chosen by the 27th. So I think at this point, you know, this is him overestimating how much leverage he has to dictate the process moving forward. If he's not out by today, we're looking at tomorrow or the next day because again, I think that this process has largely left his hands at this point. Well, especially because no members of his team are on his side at this point. I mean, I tend to think once I heard that Bernie Sanders had called him, that that was the final nail in the coffin. And then all of his top strategists, like Morris Katz, came up to his house in Maine to kind of game plan this. I want to say something about how he handled the accusation before I talk about the specifics of the politics of it. I have never heard someone publicly react to an accusation like that without saying, I'm so sorry that Jenny felt that way. That's not how I read the situation. We've heard that a lot, right? And that seems like the appropriate thing to do if you believe that you are innocent of any sort of assault allegation to at least recognize the fact that there is a human being who you were in a relationship with, who thinks that you raped her. Yeah. Look, and I think your reaction is not dissimilar or is pretty much identical to the reaction of everybody else who watched this. If there is no willingness to take responsibility or to even show some human empathy for the situation writ large, I think that's what rubbed a lot of people. The wrong way. Look, there are going to be a lot of people who can exhibit, you know, the degree of fight that you want. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to embrace the politics that you want. But I think that this is also indicative of character in large part. And if you can't do the bare minimum in response to these allegations, I think that that is what people view as disqualifying. And what landed us in this position here, where he has been abandoned by not only what I assume will be the vast majority of the electorate, but even his own team. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it begs the question. And I've been processing this a lot for myself in the last few days of whether I was clear enough about how lacking in character this person was to get a one of 100 job, right? Like one of the most important jobs that we have in the country. And I know that our party is going over that. How Trumpian, I guess, we got about it, where we said, okay, well, this is what the voters of Maine want. Like, should it have been the Nazis had to? Should it have been the domestic violence accusation? And then, yes, of course, thank God we got to a real line in the sand. Yeah. I mean, look, you could make the argument that any one of those things should be a line in the sand. And I think you're right about the fact that politics started to look a little bit different because you have the Trump phenomenon in effect, where it's like, okay, what matters is that this person can win moral failings, notwithstanding your history, notwithstanding the things that you've said and done, notwithstanding. If this person can be a fighter and win an election and be a dynamic charismatic candidate, then forget all of that. At least we've got what we need in our corner for this election. But I think that that mentality, that Trumpian mentality, while it might be really successful on the right, is still coming up against a wall on the left. And we have seen numerous candidates not be able to overcome that hurdle on the left. Swalwell, just a couple of months back, is another testament to that. Meanwhile, it's clearly not a hard line on the right, it's not a line in the sand on the right. And you'll continue to see these candidates not only come forward and get the nomination but be embraced by the entire party, the same people who are right now trying to jump on the bandwagon and twist the knife against Graham Platner, the people that you see on these cable news shows and these right wing pundits who are exhibiting this like cognitive dissonance. that would be impressive if it wasn't so disgusting where the Republican party's Twitter account can come out and continue hammering away at Grand Platinum and the Democrats who allowed him to get to this point while that party is led by someone like Donald Trump, while they all embraced Roy Moore and Herschel Walker and all of these people who have such disgusting histories doing something just as depraved as what Grand Platinum was accused of doing. Yep, and Max Miller said a gone reason that we're not even talking about people at work. I say Max Miller and they're like, who? I have had this fight many times on cable. It is deeply frustrating and disturbing, but I guess it's really a testament to just how far the pendulum has swung that there's been almost lobotomies essentially on the right about who they support and the fact that their party is now just cast as this godlike figure at the top and then everyone falls in line with it because the people who don't fall in line now are basically like working at the bulwark or Chris Christie, right? It's not that many folks who haven't at this point. What do you think about the process to find a new nominee? I mean, you mentioned this a little bit. It sounds like there's going to be the 600 person nominating convention with delegates selected from all 16 counties around Maine. I am very fearful of a 2024 Redux where voters, especially voters who are very aligned with Platner politically and also maybe are a bit salty about this and think that he should have stuck it out because there are people out there who think that that the demo establishment came to get him and he was their guy, he was their hero. What are you thinking about the process and do you like anyone who's maybe in contention? Troy Jackson, I know, is getting thrown around a lot as a top pick. Yeah, I think right now from a very shallow view of things that would probably be my pick, but yeah, am I worried? You have to be worried that in the aftermath of 2024, look, a lot of these subsequent elections, you attempt to at least fix some of the immediate problems that you contended with in the previous election. Maybe we don't nominate someone who's 80 years old. Maybe we try to make it as democratic a process as we possibly can. Of course, if we have a situation where suddenly we have another election where primary voters made their voices heard and then something happens where now we're thrust into a process where somebody can be chosen. Look, it's not a back room, but so to speak, people are going to perceive this as a back room. And so, yeah, of course, I'm worried. But at the same time, I think that we're all watching this process play out. I think there is an understanding even among the most progressive voters that, these were extenuating circumstances and the alternative to choosing somebody by one of these processes that may be viewed as less democratic is to keep in place a candidate who now has a credible rape accusation against him. And so, I think there's this understanding that, like, look, is it ideal? Absolutely not. But the alternative is way too risky. And so, we have to just engage in this process that, frankly, nobody wants to engage in. Luckily, there is another progressive candidate that you just named. And so, I think that now we'll dig into him in his past and make sure that, you know, he's perhaps more palatable. Clean enough, yeah, perhaps more palatable than Grand Platinum was. But look, of course, the whole, this situation sucks. There's no doubt about it. I don't think anybody, anybody is glad that this is happening. But, you know, hopefully, hopefully we can just suck it up and get somebody who is dynamic and charismatic and has a progressive agenda on the ballot and rely on the fact that this is going to be an environment where Democrats are going to overperform. And hopefully that's enough to get us over the finish line. Susan Collins is a formidable opponent. You know, Sarah Gideon had all the money in the world in 2020 against her. And the polling was looking so favorable for Sarah Gideon. She was outpolling Susan Collins by like 10 points on average. And, of course, Susan Collins was able to pull that one off. But I do think this is even more of a favorable environment for Democrats. And Susan Collins has some extra baggage, like the fact that she voted for and does not regret voting for Brett Kavanaugh, even as abortion rights have been gutted, which is especially popular in Maine. So, you know, there are certainly some things that are hurting Democrats in this cycle, but there are also going to be things that are going to be hurting Susan Collins. Yeah, I think so. I mean, a D+14 environment, which I think is what it is in Maine right now, is a big help. And I believe it was Politico reported this morning that the Collins team is not happy about having a ringer candidate. That they had an expectation that they would get to run against a very vulnerable candidate and Graham Platner, the entire time, and they had all this op-o ready to go. Well, apparently so did everybody else. I think op-o against Graham Platner was in no short supply. No, it was all over the internet. We haven't seen all the tattoos of one of the Democrats who takes Graham Platner's place is going to be. Yeah, I think low-level chance that Troy Jackson has a swastika tattoo hiding under there. I wanted to note about him, which I think is really interesting, is he has all these progressive bonafides in our revolution, Bernie's organization. It's backing him, but he was also president of the Maine Senate for a decade. So he has a lot of establishment experience or institutional experience, I should say, which I think is a good thing. I want to move on to the war, but what do you think the status of the mainstream Democratic Party versus the DSA or progressive left is now, because this is obviously a big knock against them. Incidentally, the qualifications for vetting candidates, like that Dan Morath, Leanne Fan, and Morris Katz. I mean, apparently there was a a dossier. They hired a research firm to do research on Platner. They didn't find the reddit posts about the Totten Coff about his tattoo, and they didn't do exhaustive interviews with him either. So I would find it very hard to take these people seriously with the next candidate they get behind. Yeah, look, I can't say one way or the other. I think obviously the vetting was lazy here. I do think we're going to be in a position as we have candidates who are younger, where they have way more vulnerabilities, and there's going to be way more of a digital footprint to figure out what they've done. I remember when I was in college, I remember how bummed I was my last year because people started getting smartphones, Instagram started blowing up, there was dating apps, and I was like, "Man, I'm going to miss out on all of this with a bummer." We didn't even have cameras in our cell phones, and then I left college, and I'm like, "Oh, every part of your life is online, and you're no longer able to do anything in anonymity. You're not able to have fun with your friends. Every picture, everything you do is basically going to be memorialized forever," and how lucky I was, in effect, that we didn't have everything plastered online that we could just have fun. I think that as candidates get younger, certainly as we have Gen Z candidates, we're going to be dealing with stuff like this a lot more. Now, obviously, when you have accusations of sexual assault or rape, that's an entirely different story. Politics is going to change in terms of what is disqualifying and what is just normal stuff that is going to be embarrassing or whatever it may be. In terms of the broader DSA versus establishment, I think that we've got candidates on both sides who have done very stupid shit, or who've done stuff that's outright disgusting and illegal, or criminal. I don't know that there's necessarily some divide between, "Okay, you have a candidate here because they are of a certain political persuasion," or somewhere on the ideological spectrum that they're a bigger risk, because you can point to any number of establishment candidates who've had assault allegations leveled against them in very much the same way Graham Platner has. But I do think that there will be a lot more of this kind of thing coming out because now everybody's lives are entirely online. There's major digital footprints. I think the firm has to do some deep introspection here that this stuff existed and that all of it was missed, and thank God it was found at this point where we still have all of a week to have him off the ballot, but obviously this is going to be a recurring theme, I think, moving forward. So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves, lifestyle's a priority, motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. Many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialists. That is just not the case. Yeah. Yeah. They are embracing candidates who are offering new bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jamfaza. joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. - It's not rocket science, and this is, you know, I keep saying like, young voters aren't that complicated after all, it's pretty simple. - Catch us every Saturday on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. - AI panic is everywhere. - We do not want a data center in this county. - AI models are becoming superhuman in their ability to break in and out of computer systems. - The clock tamers where I hate those things. - But where is that panic really coming from? According to a poll from the New York Times and Sienna, less than 1% of voters listed artificial intelligence or data centers as their top priority in this year's midterms. - I'm an old school person. I don't care about AI. I say that doesn't register for you. - And sometimes I wonder, do they care about AI in so-called real America? - What people in my district are saying is, we think the risks outweigh the benefits. - This week on America actually, I'm talking to Michigan congressional candidate Will Lawrence on why he shaped his entire campaign around confronting the AI revolution. - Really it's about control, I think above all. Who decides? 'Cause people feel like they just are not really given any say so in the whole matter. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. - I'm Phoebe Judge, and for more than a decade, I've hosted the podcast criminal. Telling stories about people who've done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. But while I was starting one of the very first true crime podcasts out there, I was also taking phone calls from my sister, from prison. This fall, I'm going on tour, and I'm telling a story I've never told before, my own. Get tickets at thisiscriminal.com/live. I wanna shift gears, we're back at war. Second consecutive night of attacks being traded between the US and Iran. They came in the midst of Trump saying that the three-week-old ceasefire is over. I have argued that ceasefire never exists, but that's just me. Apparently the US is preparing for a multi-day or even multi-week exchange of fire with Iran over the street of Hormuz. It says the US official. We're going to slap them a bit, so they understand we're not fucking around. I thought we had obliterated everything, so I think we're a bit past that. I also saw some reporting that the defense department, which gets funded at a trillion dollars, is almost out of cash, and they're going to be coming hat in hand for some more appropriations. - I think there's 350 billion dollars extra. - Yeah, just some pocket change. I found a five in my jeans pocket, so it's like same-same for the DOD. What do you think the most likely outcome of this is? - Man, I can't say what the most likely outcome other than I think a continuation of Trump's inability to actually negotiate anything. I think the reality is Iran knows that they have a lot more leverage than I think Trump does. First of all, this is very much like when Putin thought he was going to level Keeve in like five minutes, and here we are several years later. This is all, the fact that this is all still going on when we have like a major military advantage over Iran, I think is a huge embarrassment, a huge black eye for this administration, but I think more broadly, we have elections in the same way that Iran doesn't have, and so the IOTOLA can outlast Donald Trump because what do they have coming up? What does he have to contend with? Some midterm elections? I mean, he is in power in perpetuity, but Donald Trump knows that there are elections coming up and that this war is increasingly unpopular. And so I think if you consider the fact that the war itself was something that Trump promised would never happen and yet is happening, if you look at the costs that Americans are contending with right now as the result of this war, we have higher prices, we have higher inflation, we have higher gas costs, all of that stuff is bearing down. And not just Trump, but the rest of the GOP is on the ballot come November. And so there's gonna be a lot of pressure on them to shitter get off the pot. And as of right now, nothing seems to be changing, and so I think it's only gonna get worse. - Yeah, I think that you are right about all of that and especially the long game that Iran gets to play and when Trump says President Xi, he's so lucky, like he never has to deal with an election. You know, there's a reason that he's jealous of these guys. And I saw as well that there's reporting that Tehran is deliberately holding back its full military firepower as they tighten control over the street of Hormuz because they know that we don't have time and we also don't have the oil that the strategic petroleum reserve is now just 19 million barrels over a minimum operating level. - Which I thought was a big flashpoint issue for Republicans when they were using the exact same thing against Biden. - Like news flash, they're a bunch of liars. But that killed me. I was like, we had to talk about this over and over again that Biden misplayed the strategic petroleum reserve, et cetera, and then you didn't think day one, maybe you should fill it up. - Well, and it's not just that. I mean, the principle contention that Republicans had against Biden was that inflation was surging. Joe Biden left office with inflation at 3%. Now it's at 4.2%, or 4.1%. So it's 33% higher than when public enemy number one, Joe Biden left office. Not to mention the cost of everything else, the cost of groceries. I mean, Trump spent so much time talking about the price of an egg and now eggs are even more expensive. Housing is more expensive. Republicans handed Donald Trump a housing bill on a silver platter which would be a huge win. All he had to do was sign it and he couldn't even take that win. And so I think on issue after issue, it's becoming clear that all of the things that these people had complained about when it came to the 2024 election and the Democratic Party, they've not only failed to fix those things, but they've all been exacerbated. Costs are higher, inflation is higher. Healthcare is less accessible. Food assistance has been gutted. You know, this idea of endless wars in the Middle East, there are more wars now. And of course, the Epstein files, which was one of the biggest issues that they ran on, has not only not been released, but Republicans are engaged in a government-wide cover-up right now. So I mean, it puts the hypocrisy on full display. - I actually haven't thought about the Epstein files in a while, and I'm sure that there are millions of Americans who are still sitting there saying, like, you told us that this was going to come up. - I mean, Todd Blanche is going to be testifying for Congress in just a few days, I believe, on Tuesday of next week. He is in that position because he's willing to be Donald Trump's errand boy when it comes to the continued suppression of these files. I mean, we still don't even know why Glein Maxwell, after her meeting with Todd Blanche, was moved from the prison that she was in in Florida to a low-security prison in Texas. We just never got any of those answers. And they tried to play off the departure of Pambondi as if all of the Epstein issues left with her. There are still three to three and a half million files that haven't been released, and we're just supposed to accept the fact that even though the Epstein File Transparency Act was signed into law in November of 2025, and the deadline to release all of the files was December 19th, that we're just never going to get those files and somehow that's okay. - Yeah, it's a tough pill to swallow, but there's just so much, I mean, this has always been the theory of the case, right? And what Steve Bannon said, like, if we just throw enough stuff at the wall, they won't be able to pay attention to anything. And if you're in a Middle Eastern war, and if you have elections coming up, that you're not going to be able to follow each of these plot lines. And I very much feel as well that what's going on with immigration enforcement in this country has fallen into that bucket, too, where we don't talk about it as much. And obviously, Mark Wayne Mullen is not Kristi No. You know, he doesn't draw attention in the same way, and Tom Holman, who came in after Alex Prattie and Renee. Good work killed is a calmer force than a Greg Bavino, for instance. But just in the last few days, there have been two ice involved shootings, including one in Houston on July 7th, where an ice agent fatally shot a Mexican national without legal status. It feels like this is going to be ramping up again, and that it's probably by Stephen Miller design. - Yeah, I mean, look, you would know better than anybody about the whole issue of taking immigration and making it a central theme as we have an election incoming. I mean, how many times did Fox talk about migrant caravans in the lead up to some election? You know, come September or October, it was migrant caravans, migrant caravans, migrant caravans, because that is an animating issue for the right. And so, you know, I think in terms of Tom Holman taking over and Mark Wayne Mullen taking over for Greg Bavino and Kristi No. Kristi No, Greg Bavino didn't dictate this policy in a vacuum. Like they are guided by the person at the top, and that was always Trump, and that continues to be Trump. And so the cruelty of this policy doesn't change with no more Bavino's departure. It just has a different face. And maybe a little bit more subtle, maybe a little less flashy. Certainly it's not difficult to be less flashy than with Kristi No. in office as she tries out all of her different Barbie personas. But I think the reality is like the fish rods from the head. And so when you have somebody like Trump in charge or by association Stephen Miller, Who's-- dictating all of these policies. You can put in place different people beneath you, but they're still gonna espouse the same cruel policy. And so I'm not surprised that this is ramping up again. But look, I think even in the aftermath of Renée Good and Alex Predie being killed, we saw how aggressively unpopular this was, even among Republicans. And so I think that they, it may be some degree of like groupthink or maybe even just Stephen Miller recognizing, hey, I'd rather at least be talking about immigration crackdowns, brutal immigration crackdowns than the Iran war, which Trump promised he would never engage in, and the subsequent high prices, which Trump promised he would solve. So maybe they're just trying to figure out something that's better than that. And frankly, anything is better than that. But I think that if they think these ice killings are gonna be more favorable terrain for them, they're probably barking up the wrong tree here. - I agree on the way ice is behaving. I have an addendum and I don't think we've actually ever spoken about this. And this is a facet of the disconnect between the left and the right and how they talk about immigration and certainly how they shape policy around it. And that's the role of angel moms and these flashing red light cases, like Lincoln Riley, which has happened with Sheridan Gorman in Chicago. And I was particularly disturbed watching Jessica Gorman, whose daughter Sheridan was killed by someone who was here illegally, who had a rap sheet. She was testifying on Congress and Representative Jayapal said basically I'm bored. Right, like this is the fourth hearing that we've had about this. And looking at the face of a mom whose kids should be here. Like there is no justification on any planet for anyone murdering anyone, let alone someone who's here illegally. And the immigration issue used to be his best. Now he's under water on it. But moments like that, I keep people in the Republican camp on an issue like immigration because it still doesn't feel like Democrats totally get it. And that you have to say, like sanctuary cities need to turn over the criminals who are here illegally. Like to my mind, there's no question on that. Like you give them to Tom Holman at this point. - Yeah, I agree on that point. And I think that is, I think that's completely appropriate. I don't think that we should be in the business of protecting violent criminals, whether they are foreign born or American. Look, I think that the difficult part is you can get in there and explain that foreign born citizens or permanent residents, whatever it may be, are actually safer. Their communities are safer than in communities with native born Americans. You can do all of this explaining. I think the onus is on us to make those points over and over and over again. That's not to say that these arguments like the Lake and Riley argument aren't still persuasive. But I guess my pushback is it is a tragedy when that happens. It's a tragedy when it happens at the hands of anybody. I don't wanna give a pass to a murderer because that person is a white American born here in the United States, but committed some violent crime. It's not worse when it happens at the hands of an immigrant. It is just as tragic every time and we should be working to stop that whenever we can in all of those situations. So I think that like, you know, it's just the onus is on us to make that argument that all of the data bears out this point that immigrant communities are actually safer than American born communities. - Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. You know how I love a good data dump. I'm just saying. - So I'm curious, like in your experience, what has been most effective at pushing back against these emotional arguments that do, like in my mind, they do weirdly seem to give a pass to white murderers, like by only focusing on brown murders and as if their immigration status is what makes the violent crime unacceptable? - Well, it's tied to usually a set of policies that allowed that person to remain in the country even after they committed a crime on American soil. So not just the crime of crossing the border, which is just a civil infraction, but people with rap sheets here, right? Who are known to the police and in many cases where ICE has not gotten cooperation from blue city governors, governance, I should say, not the governor, but the mayor or the prisons, for instance, to take those folks out. That's what happened with Kate Steinley, which was the big case and there's a Kate Steinley law, there's Lincoln Riley law and I'm sure there will be something for Sheridan Gorman. So I find what's most effective and I see this really as one of those 80-20 issues where Democrats just got to say like a transgender woman has a biological advantage if she has gone through puberty before starting hormone therapy or having gender affirming care in competitive sports, I see this similarly where you say, the city's have to cooperate because then you get to the policy that we all agree on, which is we should deport people who are not a net positive to our communities. And then you make the mass deportation people look like the evil folks that they are, right? The ones who say, no, keep going to Home Depot and pick up people in churches and have screaming kids by the side of the road as they take away their mom who's worked as a housekeeper or a home health aide for 30 years. Like that is to my mind and from what I've noticed in making these arguments with my colleagues, that's what's most resonant where you just say, this is the easy stuff and then we get, you will be shown for who you truly are. You will either be someone that agrees that these people who come here for a better life and work hard who often have American kids serve this country in a lot of cases, like the guy who worked at the car wash in LA who had three sons that all served. Like it's much more effective to be able to call them out when you just give that little bit that we all agree on anyway. Like who, the guy who killed Sharon and Gorman, I don't want him here, like he's not one of the good ones. - Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think it would, I think that would be a smart way to take away, to kind of neuter their biggest talking point against what's happening. - We're trying to neuter and spay all Republicans. - Yeah. (upbeat music) Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. Delta mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Just clump to a hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York. - Maybe it's Mabelie. - We are forward thinking about what happens next for the party and our governance. And that's what your book is all about. Again, it's the day after how to wield power in a post-Trump world, it comes out next Tuesday on the 14th. There's a lot being batted around about a potential project 2029, right? They had a full road map. We seemingly have some bullet points I've heard. We haven't gotten to see them yet, let alone the 900 pages. How are you thinking about our approach to governance once Trump is gone and the spotlight is on us? - I think Trump has been really instructive in showing that a lot of the barriers, processes, institutions, norms are not a sacrosanct as we were led to believe they are. Now, he's barreled through a lot of those obstacles for his own personal benefit, for his own enrichment. I mean, the fact that he can just bulldoze the East Wing of the White House, show that maybe what Democrats would view as like, you know, a commission and all of this stuff that would probably take years and Trump can do it in five minutes has shown that perhaps we are a little bit too deferential to norms and processes and procedures, but I think we have to do it in a virtuous way. Which look, I don't think there's anybody on the left who is looking to barrel through these institutions so that they can also gain billions of dollars and build a shrine to themselves on the other side of the White House. I don't think that's gonna be a problem anyway, but just being in government not to protect the institutions of government, but to deliver outcomes for people. I think has to be our North Star. And so whether it's on combating climate change, whether it's on expanding healthcare, so that everybody has healthcare in this country, whether it's on expanding voting rights or everybody has the right to vote, even as that right seems to be shrinking right now. Or even on delivering some accountability for the blatant corruption that we're seeing on a daily basis right now. My argument here is that Democrats have to finally learn to wield power in a way that we haven't before because we've seen Republicans abuse it and we've seen Democrats shy away from it. And so that asymmetry is so vast that it puts us in a position where Merrick Garland doesn't get an appointment on the Supreme Court because they've changed the rules for a year only up until the point that Amy Coney Barrett gets appointed to the Supreme Court while votes are being cast. And so we need people who are willing to actually exercise power, not be so deferential to institutions that in effect, We just entrenched the same status quo that so many people showed up to vote again. in these last few elections? - Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect timing to be talking about how we wield power as we all wonder what is going on with Mitch McConnell. Right, who is an incredible example of ruthlessness in politics. I'm curious, Trump's done a lot of damage, obviously to our institutions. I mean, you talk about the ballroom. That is institutional, also cosmetic. But what are the areas that you think, he's damaged the most. And maybe something that you feel is underappreciated that has actually been destroyed or at least severely damaged in the Trump era. - Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is the extent to which he has used the federal government to enrich himself. I think that is what denigrates trust or erodes trust the most in our institutions and in the ability for the government to serve its people. I mean, Trump is basically using our taxpayer dollars and the US government to curry favor in negotiations with other countries like UAE and Qatar and any other country that's gonna invest in world liberty financial or buy his crypto or meme coins or stable coins or open up Trump golf courses on their properties. And so contending with that is gonna be the most important thing so that people don't just lose trust entirely in the government's ability to serve its own constituents. I mean, right now, I have zero doubt that Trump is not acting in the best interest of this country that he's acting in the best interest of his own finances because there's been nothing done to quell like this windfall of money that he gets by, again, using us as his negotiating tactic to get what he needs. So I think that is gonna be something that we have to really focus on. In terms of the second part of your question though, what is something underappreciated that he's taken like a cudgel to? I think just the idea of what the DOJ. What he's done with the DOJ, I don't know that everybody's really fully grasped what it looks like to have a fully weaponized Department of Justice that does not go after anybody who is politically aligned with this president or his political party. And instead, you have all of the resources of the federal government going toward destroying the infrastructure of the left, making, you know, turning any democratic officials or just democratic aligned figures into warnings for what could come for the next person. They're using them as a way to chill free speech. I mean, we have the FCC that's being wielded against anybody who expresses some dissenting views or opinions on this administration. And so that stuff, that's like the, that's the plotting bureaucracy of our law enforcement agency that's gonna have such deep impacts. It's already having deep impacts, but I think that is the kind of thing that's gonna take a lot of time to unwind. If we're even able to unwind it at all. I mean, we're seeing the consolidation of the media. That's kind of like a similar aspect of this. You really can't unwind what's happened to CBS. You can't unwind what's gonna happen to CNN. And so this is the kind of thing that I think is gonna have a really long tail and may not be as sexy as like Warren Iran or ICE agents shooting and killing somebody in the street. But it's gonna have long-term ramifications. - Yeah, I mean, another helpful plug for independent media, right? Though, obviously there's been weaponization against independent media as well. I mean, you've been on the receiving end of that too. - Yeah, you go to whitehouse.gov. I'm on their media offender's list. So Trump basically puts together an enemy's list and slapped a YouTuber's name on it. I mean, if that is both an indictment of this administration and their quote unquote free speech stands, their anti-censorship stands. But it's also a testament to the fact that independent media is effective enough that they have a need or feel a need to do this in the first place. - And how obsessed they are with ratings. - Yeah, by, I mean, you're not just any YouTuber. You have many millions of subscribers. Last thing, I mean, there are so many aspects of the book that I wanted to get at. And because you were on the DOJ track, I'm curious about how you see law fair in the post-Trump era. Because I think that they're going to be, there was accusations that we did all the law fair. It's pretty clear now that they are doing unprecedented levels of law fair, right? Skipping grand juries if they can and just continuing to hammer, right? Like my Johnson's going for something like to ban pregnant women from entering the country that will wind its way through the courts. All of that. Do you think that there is any chance that the left having lived through a decade of Trump like this and kind of seeing what results you can get if you abuse systems is going to take on some of it? 'Cause I mean, a central argument is like, it can't be-- - It's going to have like a Trumpian feel. - Yeah, I mean, I don't, that sounds to evil, frankly. But that, you know, and you say it and it's a central promise of the book, right? That like, we can't just, we don't want to go back to business as usual. Like the Biden argument in 2020 would not work now, right? It didn't even work in 2024. That was like half Biden and half-comma. That's a whole, you know, whole other episode. But there are going to be people who say, like, have we learned nothing, right? About what to do. And we have very good lawyers like Mark Elias wrote the forward to your book, you know, got it. - Yeah, no, I think we have, like, look, there are lessons about, again, not being so precious about our institutions that we have to take into account as we move into 2026 and 2028. Especially as we move into 2028 and beyond. But I think more broadly, yes, like if we rely on just entrenching the same status quo that people voted against, we're going to be doomed to repeat the same thing, the same failures that we had during the Biden era. I mean, Merrick Arlen's whole thing was he wants to act to prevent the optics of politicization. And in fact, I mean, he actually did politicize the DOJ more than not because he basically said, if you have an R next year name, you get a free pass because we don't want to give the optics of politicization. But I think that you need to do this. I mean, if there is no deterrent effect for this criminality and corruption, it's only going to happen more. Trump 2.0 is a response to the Biden administration's inability on their unwillingness to actually hold these people to account. And so I think you absolutely need to engage with this stuff. Of course, you're going to have people that say, "Oh, you're doing the same thing that Trump did." And you can't do that. I mean, there is enough legitimate corruption that we're seeing right now that you don't have to engage in the same bullshit that Donald Trump is engaging in right now, where he just tries to indict anyone and everyone because they have a de-next to their name or because they've been overtly critical of him. But I firmly believe that if we don't engage with some of this corruption, if we don't take this out, if we don't prosecute, investigate any of this stuff, it's only going to continue. I mean, again, the fact that it's happening right now is a direct response to our collective unwillingness to hold these people to account when we had the opportunity to do so. - Yeah, I have a lot of feelings about Mayor Garland and slow-walking some things, especially saying Jack Smith emerged for his first big interview. Brian, this was fantastic. Make sure to follow Brian everywhere at Brian Tyler Cohen, new book The Day After, How to Wheel Power in the Post Trump World out July 14th. It was so good to have you. - So good, so good being here. Thanks, Jess. - Yeah, of course. (upbeat music) - Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new, grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all-day comfy grip. Try new, grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. - Maybe it's Mavily.