Former Maryland Governor, Former SSA Administrator Martin O'Malley discusses his pitch for the DNC and understanding the electoral map. He speaks with Bloomberg's Kailey Leinz and Joe Mathieu.
Martin O'Malley, the former administrator of the Social Security Administration, former Maryland governor, is making a run for share of the DNC and it's.
Great to see you. Thanks great to be to break your message to us here.
You're trying to strike a tone of optimism and what a lot of Democrats see is a dark time.
How do you do it well?
I have been talking to so many people all across the country, and everyone's trying to figure out what can we learn from this, Where are the places where we actually got it right, and how can we change so that we can win elections, because when we lose, everybody loses. So these are the conversations I've been having. And we have to do two things at the same time. We have to rebuild our party and we have to reconnect with the working people across America who are experiencing a higher cost of living. That's what we need to do. That's always been the core of our party since FDR. It's really acknowledging that the most important place in America is a family's kitchen table, and became a little bit untethered from that at the national level. But our politics is not the politics of fear. Our politics is the politics of hope, of making sure that working people can can feed their kids, can send them to good schools, can retire with dignity and grace. So those are the issues that we have to get back to when we do we win. Let me give you a few examples. Since we're doing and thank you for calling it. What did you call it? The This is not a post mortem. We are not dead.
We are going to call estion analysis post election analysis, the after action.
Our candidates left it all out on the field, and in some places we were successful. You know, I was talking to Sharif Street in Pennsylvania. I know they just called Senator Casey's election or he conceded. And at the federal level Pennsylvania, we were you know, we were disappointed. We lost that state by two points. But at the state level, they kept all of their gains from these years past, so they didn't suffer any reversal in their state house. I was talking in the chair of Alaska. They flipped both of their legislative chambers in Alaska, and if the Hakim Jeffreys and his caucus were able to gain six seats in the House. So when we talk about jobs and opportunity and connect the dots in clear ways so that people can see we are making choices that make their families future a thing to prefer rather than a thing to dread. Then we win elections, and that's what we need to do.
So it sounds like what you're talking about might just be populism, if I could generalize. It's something that Donald Trump has really tried to seize on it, and I wonder if that means populism is really the only thing that is going to win elections in this modern era.
You know what I would call it. I would call it an economy that works for all of us.
And what's the difference between those descriptions?
And when we have an economy that works for all of us, the democracy supports it. It's very popular, So I guess the difference is this. As a Democrat and a lifelong democrat, I believe that our economy is not money, it's people. It's all of our people, And the greatness of our country comes from investing in our people and the hope that we see in the eyes of our children, and making college more affordable instead of making income more inequitable. When our country worked very very well and was the envy of the globe. It was because we were investing in a stronger and growing middle class.
But we came away from that over.
The last forty years, and now I hear the incoming president talking about money and bitcoin when instead what the American people want us to talk about is them the reality around their kitchen table. I am a kitchen table progressive. If we don't deliver the goods of the republic that make a republic worth having, then our party has lost its way.
We heard from so many voters during the campaign who told us that it was the kitchen table they wanted to talk about them.
So Democrats had veered.
Into identity politics and at least they knew Donald Trump had a good economy in No New Wars. Those are the two lines that we kept hearing.
How do you respond to that?
Yeah, I think the I think people across our country actually have a lot more curiosity and interest in talking about our economy and how it works and how it can be made to work better for their home and their kitchen table than a lot of the pundits or the media consultants give them credit for. For example, when I was running for reelection in Maryland as governor. My own consultants told us, people don't want it. They're still feeling bad. We're not all the way out of the recession. Don't talk about the economy because they're not feeling great. Just run scary negative ads about.
The other guy. And I said, hell, no, we're not going to do that.
We're going to talk about the things that people care about. And I made the We made the economic argument about the things we're doing to make our schools number one in America, about making college more affordable, all the kitchen table issues, stopping foreclosures, and so you know, when we engage in an economic debate, people are actually with us. And interestingly, you know, in a state like Missouri, get this Missouri up and down their ticket. They have elected officials who are Republicans, and we're elected. And yet at the referenda on election day, their people march the polls and they voted for reproductive freedom, they voted for an increase in the minimum wage, and they.
Voted for paid family leave.
So we have to be the party that makes life more affordable for hard working people who have been worked over for these last forty years by this false economics of concentrating power, concentrated monopolies, concentrating money in the hands of the few. Our economy is not money, it is people. And that's what we need to speak to.
A party well, and the party is comprised of all sorts of people. We've obviously spent so much time in the last decade talking about the way in which the Republican Party has morphed in the Donald Trump era, and how there are divisions within that party of those who do follow him, and maybe more defined is on the hard right. But we're seeing some of that in the Democratic Party as well, especially as everybody does this post election analysis, if you will, and so I wonder, as you're making a bid here to lead the party forward, how you fit those pieces back together again so that there's enough cohesion to be able to stick together as a unit.
Yeah, our party is a party that has an enormous amount of diversity, and in fact, our diversity is our strength. But our strength when it comes to winning elections again is to speak to the national interests that we share. And there's nothing more important to the national interest than allowing families to be able to make a better tomorrow for their kids. So that's the thing that unites all of us. You know, all of us have to all of us, all of us have to eat, all of us have to work, all of us want to give our children a better future than the one that we've had. I mean, how sad is it? And what does it say about our country that, you know, when unemployments at an all time low, that white male suicides are at an all time high. There's an enormous fear of change and fear of the future that's gripping our country. And in moments of fear, you know, as Donald Trump said in the past, they once asked after the last selection, how did you win? He said, I looked into the eyes of those blue collar people and all across you know, Pennsylvania and Michigan. I saw their fear and I tapped into it. So we should not be the party of fear? Are the leader of our party in modern times said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. This is a time of enormous economic opportunity in the world, the beginnings of a third Industrial Revolution, the dawn of a third American century. We need to stop fearing the future, race it. But we need a strong government that actually works, that delivers, and that has our back. What you're going to see, mark my words, is this administration is going to break a lot of things that Americans that Americans.
Thought, arguably what people voted for is.
Well, we will see. I don't believe that's true. I believe that Americans when they heard the message defend democracy, that they heard status quo. And I believe that when they see I mean, if this administration starts breaking institutions that they had come to rely on and thought could never be broken, whether it's Medicare, whether it's social security, whether it's the infrastructure of our nation, they are going to cry out for a government that actually works and has their back. And the Democratic Party is going to have the backs of the working people of this country when they come out of when we come out and emerge out of these next two years. But in the meantime, as a party, look, we need collaborative leadership. We need leadership that has experience in bringing people together, but also in orchestrating change, managing our way out of this as a better and more professional party, but also also focusing on the next battle front. Jakim Jeffries is the general in that battle of the midterms, but in state offices, you know, state legislators all across America, county offices. We have to reconnect our national party with those men and women who are experiencing tremendous success in a lot of state houses all across America.
Voters who are not experiencing tremendous success. You talk about those scary ads, A lot of them works, especially those that highlighted transphobia. And there's a Democrat from Massachusett's who we talked to you pretty often here named Seth Multen. He made big headlines saying that Democrats went wrong by leaning too far into identity politics. You may agree with him or not, but what does your DNC, if you get this job, look like when it comes to protecting or looking out for marginalized communities like trans.
You know, we will make no compromise when it comes to our principles, and those core principles are our belief in the dignity of every person and our belief in the common good that we share as Americans. As I looked at the ads that were being run, it seemed that it was actually the other party that was obsessed with trying to divide us and trying to belittle transgendered people. It's the other party who came back to Congress and their very first act was about bathroom bills and an arrow when most when so many places have unisex you know, restrooms. What are unisex restrooms or not have to do with putting food on your table, or educating your kids or keeping a roof.
Over their head.
We have to not allow ourselves to become juked, distracted by the politics of division and fear. Our politics is the part as the politics that says we are one, our cause is one. We have to help each other if we are to succeed, and we need to build an economy and a country that works for all of us, not just for some of us.
Well, obviously, right now the US economy and everything that has been built in large part has been underpinned by a growing deficit and debt problem, which it felt like in a lot of ways neither candidate was really willing to outwardly talk about on the campaign trail, and part because there's just things you can't touch politically, like Social Security, which obviously are intimately familiar with, and Medicare, defense is hard to touch as well. And I just wonder, no matter what party is in charge in the years to come, if you see a way in which the country can find itself on a more sustainable path.
Sure.
I mean, one of the things that's happened in our country for the last I mean thirty years or more, has been a great reduction in the amount of income tax that our highest earners pay, or to merely return.
To a level that was.
What we had as a nation during the first term of Ronald Reagan. I mean, a lot of those things would start to be addressed, and would be addressed over time. Let me say, as before I talk about Social Security, that I am here in my personal capacity. I am not here in my capacity as Commissioner of Social Security. However, I do know enough about that math to be able to tell you social Security does not contribute to the national debt. It is a pay as you go system, which means that as Americans pay into Social Security, those of us that are still working age, we pay out the benefits like an insurance company.
So last year one point.
Three to five trillion came in from people working one point three to seven trillion went out to people who were retired and beneficiaries, and the difference came from the surplus reserve that was built up to cover this era of the baby boomers. That reserve is running out sooner. That surplus reserve is running out sooner than anticipated. And the reason is of income inequality. In other words, in nineteen eighty two, they thought they were setting a level of Social Security cap that would pat capture ninety percent of earnings in America. Instead with all of the things that drove income out of most American homes and into the hands of the top six percent.
That also reduced the bracket, if you will.
So they on it only applied to eighty percent of income in America. So a simple solution to that is to ask people who make more to start contributing. Again, there's no cap on what people contribute to Medicare, and social Security is off. I mean, it doesn't contribute a dime to the national debt. It is a self sustaining program. That doesn't mean that this new crab can't break it. If they want to break it, they can break. But that's not what eighty percent of Americans want. They want social Security expanded and strengthened so that it's there not only in their lifetimes, for their kids and their grandkids, which is also the same hopes and dreams they have for their nation.
All right, sir, thank you so much for joining us. Martin Andmalley of course no Social Security very well, but he is also running to be the next chair of the DNC. Appreciate you joining us here in our Washington, d C studio