Senator Ron Wyden details his new book It Takes Chutzpah. Newly minted Governor of Delaware Matt Meyer examines his journey from teacher to governor in under a decade.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Jade Vance says the January sixth rioters who committed violence should not be pardoned. And I hate to agree with the Jade Vance, but he is correct. We have such a great show for you today. Senator Ron Wide and stops by to talk about.
His book It Takes Hotspa.
Then we'll talk to newly minded Governor of Delaware Matt Meyer about going from a teacher to a governor in under a decade.
But first the news.
Somali, California and then Los Angeles in particular is still under these fires. It's very, very sad to watch. And of course Republicans are playing politics with aid because it's a democratic state and that's when they play politics with it.
What do you see?
So I live in New York, but I feel very connected to Los Angeles because my brother lives there, my father lives in California, and my other brother lives in California. So I'm very connected there and I go a lot and I was just there and you know these fires. There are multiple fires all around the area of Los Angeles. They are catastrophic and they are you know, supercharged because of climate change. So there's really good Jon Denny an essay about the Almina wind and what the sort of historic significance of it and how it burned during the Watts riots. It's a real phenomenon in California that is not connected to climate change, but because it's so dry in the winter months, that is connected to climate change. So it's something made worse by climate change, but would not necessarily be only because of it, which I think is an important nuance. The other thing I want to say about the California fires is that the reservoirs were filled, but the water pressure was bad because calvinu is not ready for these kind of fid you know, they're ready for some fires, but they're not ready for these supercharged fires. And a lot of America is having this experience where we are ready for some hurricanes, but we're not ready for these supercharged hurricanes. And that's what we saw with Hurricane Sandy here in New York, and that's what we're seeing in North Carolina as we're ready for some weather, but not weather like this. And so even though Republicans are spending all their time talking smack about Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. And look, definitely, Karen Bass, there's a lot going on here, and for sure Gavin Newsom too. I mean there's definitely there were for you cannot have a response.
Like this and not have mistakes being made.
That said, this is a moment to talk about building more resilient cities, about how we're going to address climate change.
I think of New York, like after.
Sandy, we built a lot of things to mitigate our flooding problem. Right We're building a green zone around the city which will hopefully mitigate some of the flooding. But again, this is a question of like, are we going to spend our time blaming each other or are we going to move on and try to create more resilient America.
Now two things are happening right here.
Republicans are mad that a blue state is getting disaster aid. So Representative Warren Davidson from Ohio, which has never had an environmental crisis, I'm kidding, because they have had many. He sounded off about the problem with California's policies as a threat to withhold disaster relief aid from the devastated Los Angeles wildfires. This is super disgusting. It's also stupid because you know what California is. It's the fifth largest economy in.
The world, about to be the fourth, right, And when.
You start taking playing chicken with federal aid with the state that paid that raises almost all your taxes, that's crazy. And what I think Republicans can't to read the needle on is that there's a world in which these states say, Okay, we're not going to pay federal taxes if we're not going to get federal funds, and we're not so far from that, and that world will be catastrophic for those red states.
I mean, it'll be catatrophic for all of us.
It'll be like Brexit will ruin our economy, It'll make everything just a fiasco. But it will also be ultimately the states like Alabama that don't have the kind of federal money, that don't pay in the way California does, will be completely screwed. So I do think it's worth these people, if they could look at a map and understand what states they want, that they should just give California to the money they want.
Yeah, And it's almost like when you have a more progressive tax system that taxes people at the top, and they don't hoard their wealth. You have money to do things like this.
Yeah, but that's not what this is.
These Blues states just there's more business, there's more I mean, I also think it's interesting too. Davidson told Maria Bartaroma, honey, who used to be normal but is now Barry maga. If they want the money, there should be consequences where they have to change their policies. Davidson wants Hollywood to change its policies, right, I mean, by the way, like this is so stupid, Like California could just be like, Okay, you don't want our money, we won't pay in. And I think that's really a really stupid plan that Davidson wants to make California, you know who wants to make them anti choice or whatever.
It's stupid.
So in other not so fun news, Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department.
What do you see here, Molly, It turns out that Mary Garland is just as disappointing as you thought he might be. I think, look, the thing I think about this when I think about Merrick Garland is I think there was a sense in which there was a belief among a lot of us that Trump could be held accountable for doing crimes by these guys. What I think was a mistake on the part of the mainstream media, and I include myself in this is the idea that somehow these guys would be able to hold a very powerful, very wealthy man accountable. And we've seen through you know, I'm thinking about Enron. I'm thinking about all of these times when powerful people, even Jeffrey Epstein to a certain extent, where powerful people just continually got away with it.
The idea that Donald Trump was so.
Powerful and so good at politicizing things would somehow be held responsible was I think really a pipe dream.
And also, but beyond that.
Really the worst person for this job was Merret fucking Garland. You know, there's a long line of people who have managed to completely not do anything, And I'm thinking about You'll remember Robert Muller, who did nothing, Merret Garland, who did nothing, Jack Smith, who now has resigned. And by the way, Jack Smith doesn't have to resign. He could stay. He could make Trump fire him. He could do that, but he doesn't want to do that because he doesn't want to have to fight with Trump. And I'm telling you, when you criticize these Republican senators like you remember Joany Arns said she didn't want them, but johny Arns didn't want to confirm Pete Hegsath.
She got a lot of pushback.
Maybe she was bullied into going along with Mega. We'll see during the hearings. We don't really know, but either way, so that's Jony Arns. Here's Jack Smith, a person who is also terrified of Trump right, who was also who could have stayed and made.
Him fire him and was like no.
At every point, we've seen elected and government officials be cowardly and it doesn't matter their party affiliation. They've all just been wildly cowardly. And it's really it's so depressing, I am to say. And we shouldn't be surprised.
Well, another thing we shouldn't be surprised about is when authoritarians rise to power that the people amongst them below them start fighting like dogs all the time. And now we have a fight between Steve Bennon and the tech pros.
Yeah, this is actually kind of fun.
I'm popping the popcorn.
This is sort of the best the best news of this whole cycle. So this is not the first time that Bannon has gone after Elon.
It's not I know, yeah he was.
He was no fan of him until he gave Trump a lot of money.
And even now he's still not a fan. So here's what's interesting about this. There are two things going on here. One is tech bros want H one B one visas. These are these visas for skilled workers. Tesla uses them, all the tech companies use them. It's a way to get really smart programmers and scientists into this country.
But Mark Zuckerberg Joe Rogan basically said, yeah, I don't care because we're going to get rid of those for AI.
So yeah, yeah, who knows. But these people are a lot of them are not white. Steve Bennon, you know, is very maga. He's very much very maga. Now I want to point.
Out, would you make the distinction though, that he's a very America first. It's now all these people fall under maga. Is that the distinction though, is it's like the America first versus the tech pros.
I mean, I don't know, I mean I want to reach you two things. This is the translated version. So it has been translated and now retranslated, so there may be some foibles and piccadillos with this translation. But two things here that we saw Bannon say about Elon okay, and I'm going to read them to you because they're kind of sort of mind blowing. This is a direct quote. So this is for Corierra dela Sera, the Italian newspaper. I will have Elon Musk run out of here by inauguration day. He will not have a blue pass the White House. He will not have full access to the White House. He will be like any other person.
Okay.
He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down. He is the richest guy in the world. So this is not just. I mean, this may not be as easy as Steve thinks before because he put mone I was prepared to tolerate it, but I'm not prepared to tolerate it anymore. Now I'm going to read another part of this interview, which I think is even more interesting and strange.
This is where the popcorn gets nice and buttery.
Yeah, Peter Theiel, David Sachs, Elon Musk are all white South Africans, A right, you're ready, You're ready.
He should go back to South Africa.
Why do we have South Africans the most racist people on earth, White South Africans. We have them making any comment at all on what goes on in the United States. Okay, let's stop here for a minute. Does this mean that Steve Bannon doesn't like racism? Like discuss and also let us pause for another minute here. These are the guys who are fighting for the H one B one visas. Mega doesn't want H one B one visas because it's bringing in people who are not white, right, A lot of Indian people, a lot of European people, a lot of Muslim people.
You're right.
So does he not like them because he thinks they're racist, or does he not like them because he doesn't want these H.
One b right? I mean, there's a real interesting.
Lack of consistency here, which I find fascinating.
You know, he's the richest guy in the world.
Steve is very very I mean, I again, appalling, but smart.
So we'll see where this goes.
But this is a really interesting tension that I think is going to define the Trump years unless Trump is somehow able to get rid of Elon, which is hard for me to magic.
Agreed. Sobody, let's talk about a Senator John Fetterman, who's caused a lot of controversy on the left of MO. We're talking about infighting on their side. I think a lot of people are weighing in a lot about Fetterman's recent actions. What are you seeing here?
So this is if Fetterman's an interesting case.
I wanted to talk about him, not because of some of the other controversies he's been involved in, but because of something else. So Fetterman says he's going to go down tomorrow Lago to visit Trump. A lot of people are mad about this. A lot of people feel that if you go to mar A Lago to visit Trump, you are obeying in advance. Now I agree that it's very bad to obey in advance, and I agree that Zuckerberg and Bezos and all of these people going back and forth to kiss the ring, giving millions of dollars to the inaugural Fund.
They're trying to curry favor.
They think they can manipulate him into getting what they want. They've forgotten the truism that everything Trump touches dies. But I want to point out that a Democratic senator going down tomorrow a lago to talk to Trump, well, he may not get what he wants. And who even Fetterman is wild, so it's hard to even know ideologically what he wants. But I have to ask myself, like, do I think that Fetterman going down tomorrow lago to talk to Trump is obeying in advance?
Now I think he's trying to go and talk to Trump. Do I think it's going to work? No?
Do I think that ultimately Trump will have some ridiculous picture of Fetterman, you know, with the thumbs up, and he'll use it to try to troll Fetterman one hundred.
That's always what happens.
Well, we basically have a repeat of Mitt Romney in a New York steakhouse with Donald Trump.
Yes we will, Yeah, we definitely will.
But I don't think that trying to talk to Trump before he's in office. And again this is the whole idea, like, should Democrats be cursing Trump when he hasn't.
Done anything yet? I think no.
I think that it's much more important to push back on the policies when they happen versus when you think they are going to happen. So I think that just getting hysterical about everything is not going to serve us, and I think that it's much more important. Will all of this offends my sensibilities, Well, all of this is not what I believe. While all of this is not who I am, I do think that it's important to distinguish between what is distasteful and what is really absolutely an ending block for American democracy. What are the things that are our red lines? And so I really do think that getting mad There are plenty of reasons to be mad at John Fetterman, let me tell you, but him going to mar A Lago, in my mind, is not one of them.
Let me ask you this. I think a lot of people also are forgetting that around twenty sixteen, one of the things that tactics just for Democrats to see reasonable to independent voters is they kind of did this thing of like, okay, we'll see what happens. We have an open mind here about some of these policies. It seems like that is what some of the Democrats. I don't know necessarily Fetterman is doing here.
Yeah, and so just think it's okay to try to strike a deal with him. It has never worked before, but you know, he's not in office yet. And something that happens every four years or sometimes eight years when incumbents are able to stay, though who knows that that will ever happen again, is that people sort of come to the new administration with all of their fantasy and hopes about what this new administration will do, even if it's not necessarily their party. You know, there's a fantasy out there. I do not engage with it because I have a memory that somehow Donald Trump will cut through some of the government red tape and you know, fix some of the problems in the federal government. Now, I happen to know that for a fact, that these people want to make the government fail so that they can make even bigger tax cuts for billionaires.
And that was what they were installed to do.
But it's okay to be hopeful, and it should end by January twenty first. Senator Ron Wyden is the senior Senator from the great state of Oregon.
I Senator Wyden, welcome to Fast Politics.
So tell me why you decided to write this.
Book, Mollie. I decided for a couple of reasons, the first of which most political books are sort of canned and very predictable. Somebody in Congress starts out and they talk about all the wonderful things they did for the American people. They passed this bill, they passed that bill, they did this, they did that. And after the kind of bragging is over with, they usually say, you know, I'm being asked frequently to think about running for president. And then they feign interest and they said, well, you know, maybe I'll think about it some data. Right now, I'm thinking about my family. And then the next and third point is usually well, here's my presidential Exploratory Committee, and you can contribute to the following twenty two sites to support my exploratory Committee. And I said that I'm doing public service for a very different reason, and I believe that HUTSPA in particular is the indispensable instrument for doing well and doing good in America. And that's what I wanted to right about. Then, this book is for somebody who might be interested in public service. It might be for a person who's thinking about trying to ask their boss for a promotion, and it's going to take a little bit of hoodspeed to work up the nerve, and it might be somebody who's a small business person or a teacher or a firefighter who's looking for a chance to make their world a better place, and they've got to have some nerve and speak up and out.
So talk to me about what it is like right now in the Senate. Democrats have turned over the Senate to the Republicans. There is a majority the new leader. I think of you as a Democrat who's famous for working really well with Republicans and doing a lot of bipartisan stuff. Have you worked with John Dune and what are your feelings about him becoming majority leader.
First of all, he's been a member of the Finance Committee and I have worked with him on a number of occasions. The central issue, though, is there is a very clear difference of opinion on some of the central issues of our time. And let's just take taxes. I mean, what the Republicans want to do is supersize the twenty seventeen tax break and just look at all the billionaires in the cabinet. You know what a surprise. And I'm very concerned that we got two tax codes in America. One is for a teacher and a firefighter. They pay taxes with every paycheck, and the other is for the billionaires who can sort of heay what they want when they want to. So there's no question that the differences are very stark. And I will tell you Donald Trump always campaigns as a populist who's going to be for the working person. And he said I'm going to help waiters and waitresses and all kinds of people you know who are serving in restaurants. And then when he's out of the campaign, then he automatically gaws off and gives the goodies out to the billionaires, forgets what he said for the typical working people. And in this case, I mean he did that in his first campaign, but in this case he didn't even wait a month to walk away from his effort to take on the big food monopolies and throw in the towel on trying to hold grocery prices down.
My question is more like, will soon be a traditionalist?
Like we have of these confirmation hearings coming there is some of these people are really scary. I'm thinking about cash but now adding the FCI, I mean, do you think that the Senate will do its Article two job or do you think that soon is gonna give Trump's people a pass. I mean, remember Trump had used about Reci's appointments. I mean, do you what's your sense you are on the ground there, Mike.
My sense is a lot of Senate Republicans, and we've seen this now for several years, are frightened of Trump. You know, he always plays the same card. He says, well, we got a primary, so and so they didn't stand for MAGA or whatever.
You know.
I think that one of the reasons John Thune was elected the Republican leader is that a number of these Senate Republicans who really are, in my view, frightened of Trump. We're sort of hoping that somebody who'd been a little bit more independent would be the leader.
But isn't he more independent than the other choices? I mean, the other choices were Rick Scott, who was Trump's s guy, and also John Cornan, who I mean, isn't doing the most sort of independent of those of that group.
Fine and large, I think that's right. But the bottom line is that the Republican Senate Caucus is very much tethered to Trump in terms of their political well being. And the big thing is is whether or not they're going to give John Thune the ability to be independent and speak up. And I think you saw already in the House that a lot of those members were kind of reluctant because they weren't supportive of what Trump was talking about and didn't want to put their political careers on the line. They were far right.
Right now, there's like a lot of discussion in DC of whether it should be so Trump has two things he wants to do, right or he says he wants to do. Who even knows what he really wants to do, but he is advertising wants to fix immigration whatever that looks like, probably nothing like what he's saying, and then wants to make sure the taxes stay low for the very, very wealthy. There's a lot of talk about whether there should be two bills or one. Do you think the Democrats should be pushing for it to be two bills. She's sort of making the case that if Donald Trump really cares about immigration, he would do an immigration bill right now, and as a way to sort of force his hand to delay the tax cuts, or do you think it's not even worth trying.
I'm for making sure that the American people have the kind of transparency and openness to know what's going on in American government. Let's take immigration, for Republicans and Democrats tried to pass a bipartisan immigration bill last year, but then Donald Trump barked and the Republicans went back on the deal. So Trump is now responsible for that mess. And I want to see what the details are of his immigration you know plan is he focusing, for example, on law binding and Americans and folks who came here as kids just because they're easy to grab up, or is he talking about people who might actually be a danger to our communities. I mean, what we have seen in the in the past is Donald Trump takes a lot of detours when it becomes getting into details, and we're not going to let him get away with it.
So do you think that that bill that he refused to let Republicans pass earlier could still pass.
He's not interested in that anymore. I mean, what we wanted to do, we had a big bipartisan group, Amali. We wanted to get it on the floor, and we wanted, you know, for example, to get a fair shake for the doctor kid, the kids you who wanted a brighter future in the country. And you know, I think when you talk about these topics. You have to say, is Trump even beginning to keep his promises? And on taxes? You know, I mentioned the fact that he made all these promises. We don't see any sign that, you know, he's doing it. On immigration, I mean, he put the Congress in this mess of a position here in the last few months when we could have started to buy partisan bill.
Andy walk yesterday Matt I decided they're not going to fact check anymore. We've really seen tech companies have refused to provide any kind of regulation.
Of themselves at all.
They're mad at Democrats for even trying to hold them account, but to some amount of account. Do you think there's any world in which you could get Republicans to work on a bipartisan kind of regulation of some of these tech companies or do you think that door has just closed right now?
You know, big tech has been dumping money in the Trump coffers for just about everything in sight. I mean, there is no question, for example, on privacy, that elected officials are going to have to step up and say whose side are you on? You know, we have seen these data brokers, for example, Molly and you and I have talked about this, you know, running wild with people's personal information. Folks at six hundred planned parenthood sites saw their information, their geolocation information gobbled up. Of course, Republicans ought to be supportive of efforts to do it, but they're not even using the example I just cited. They're not even for planned parenthood in the first place, let alone then privacy for folks.
You think it's unlikely that any kind of tech regulation is going to.
Get passed, well, I think that when you have these really outrageous examples. And I'll give your listeners one. I'm sult Typhoon this question of the Chinese. You know hacks, I mean our phone records, and some very conservative senators have recently said that's been the biggest hack in American history. They were supposed to be protected twenty years ago, and they weren't. And I'm pushing right now and I hope I'll get some Republicans to fill those gaps. And I'm going to introduce a peace of legislation that says the Congress is now going to do what it was under legal requirements to do twenty years ago and protect people's phone records. Because salt Typhoon has basically been one of the biggest hacks in American history, if not the biggest, and there have been cybersecurity problems with people's healthcare records. These are the kinds of scandals that people are going to pay attention to, and I hope the Republicans, when I put them out there these proposals will sign on.
We spend a lot of time talking about what it would look like to resist trump Ism in this second Trump term, and to be sort of thoughtful about pushing back. There are certain things he's going to try to do we think that will crush norms and institutions and certain things that are just a bostic language with the hopes of sort of getting maybe some trade negotiation. How are you personal dealing with this with Trump two point zero and the new challenges opposes.
Well, you know, we're trying to get ready for basic rule of law, you know questions. I mean, for example, if he tries to invoke, you know, rules that don't respect posse comatatis statutes and decide to walk all over the rights of the American people, you know, we're going to We're gonna step in. And I think that that's part of what has concerned a number of citizens in the last couple of days, looking at all these you know, pronouncements, I mean, Trump's trampling on even relations with with allies and no evidence that there's going to be any kind of legal framework for it.
It does seem like all of this like he's going to take over Canada, He's gonna, you know whatever, take over Greenland. I mean, this stuff seems like a pretty clear distraction from the you know, not being able to make egg prices cheaper. And do you think that's what it is or do you think he really thinks that America could somehow buy or take over Greenland from I hope you're right.
I mean, to me, he'll change his mind every ten to fifteen minutes if he thinks he's got some hypothetical to kind of distract people. But what we're focused on. I tell people, Molly, I've had eleven hundred town hall meetings at home, and people say, what do you do at the meetings? And so we talk about issues where the second word is almost always bill. It might be medical bill, it might be housing bill, it might be food bill, it might be insurance bill. Trump said he was going to work on those things in this campaign. What I talk about in this book is having the nerve and the guts to take him on and do it regardless of political party.
Do you think that there are possible things that you can do with Trump that could actually be productive or.
Now I've had people, you know, talking about Oregon. You know, the federal government owns most of our land. We've got a place, the awahis that are called Oregon's you know, version of the Grand Canyon. And we've got environmental folks who care about wilderness, We've got farmers who care about agriculture. I'm talking to those who are going to be in key positions about the possibility of advancing those kinds of issues. The question of states rights is going to be really huge, because what I'm concerned about is if the state is really doing the right thing in terms of curtailing emissions, whether here in Washington, d C. Trump is going to leave them alone and let them continue to do it.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I'm wondering if you can talk about you know, we spent so much of the last couple of months talking about what happened and what Democrats can do to win. I can what do you think Democrats need to do to win.
I think Democrats really need to laser in on those kinds of issues that give people a sense that they're going to have a better future. For example, I'm working on a housing package molley young people today. We saw some of them over New Year's They are having trouble paying the rent right now, let alone being able to get a starter home. So I've got several tax proposals as a senior Democrat on the Finance Committee that deals with taxes, something called like TCH low Income Housing tax credits, but in particular, a lot of those families care about something called MIKECH middle income Housing tax credits. So what people are looking for is are you going to respond to things that they talk about in their kitchens and living rooms. And they felt in this campaign that Trump would just break the door down to do things for him, that he was all kind of loud and pushy, and maybe they didn't agree with them in terms of some of the things he said in the light, but they thought he was tough and he thought it was strong, and they felt, for a variety of different reasons that Democrats didn't bring that kind of strength to the game. And we're going to change that. Healthcare housing, and an economy that works for all Americans, not just billionaires, would be the three things that I'd say really get you in the direction of a winning agenda for Democrats.
Do you think Democrats should be more forward facing?
There's no question you know about it. I mean, you pay healthcare, something I've been working on for some time since I was director of the Great Panthers. I think, talking about forward thinking, I think Democrats ought to be thinking about getting rid of the for profit insurance department and having nonprofits who will have no incentive but to keep your prices down and make sure you and your family are as healthy as your doctor in hospital can make you. That's the kind of priority approach I'm hearing about, and you know looking you know, particularly at get getting rid of the for profit insurance sector and having a different approach where you replace nonprofits so there's no incentive to rip people off.
It's the way to go.
That's really smart.
Tell us one thing that people will be surprised about in this book, well.
I will tell you. I had some discussions over the last couple of days with young people, and they said, we've never seen a political book that basically wasn't just some congress critter, somebody with an election certificate bragging about themselves. You were giving us ideas that we could use to help build a better and stronger future. And I finally said to one of the young people was asking me a question about it. I said, you know, when you look at it, so much of what has happened in America since our very birth has been people showing hutzpa.
You know.
That was what the founding fathers did. That's what Abe Lincoln did, That's what doctor Martin Luther King did. People who are willing to show nerves and take risks and say we're going to not necessarily march to where the odds makers were going, but do the right thing.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you, Senator Widen, thank you.
To be continued, Mollie, thank you.
Matt Meyer is the governor of Delaware.
Welcome to fast politics. I'm not going to call you governor or Matt because that's bad, but governor Meyer. But it feels like governor Matt is like a pretty good.
Name means the name to matth here.
Yeah, So I'm so excited to have you. You are the governor elect of Delaware, a tiny but super important state that many of us have spent a lot of time in recently. Talk to me about you have a I think a bold vision for your state.
Yeah, well, it's an exciting time. It's a new time for Delaware. As of when we're recording right now, the only delaware enever to serve as President of the United States is still the president. There are also a lot of great new leaders coming up with a new vision for what we think a blue state can be, and we're excited about it. We have the for you know, for every day that Delaware has been a state for I should know two hundred and fifty seven years. I think it is there's been a white man representing us in the US Senate. That changed earlier this month with least the Rochester is the I think the fifth or sixth black woman ever to serve in the US Senate, along with Angela Also Brooks was sworn in. And it's not just she's an incredible individual with a vision for our state. Sarah McBride, of course, is our congress woman, the first individual identifies as transgender ever elected to the United States Congress, and I in a few days and we sworn in as governor I in ten years have gone from me in the sixth and seventh grade math teacher to one of the fifty governors in the US. Obviously, I'm being sworn in at the dawn of the Trump err Trump two point zero. I'm trying to find silver linings or We're going to make sure that Delaware ins are protected. We're going to make sure we have a bold vision to move things forward. We're going to show that a lot of core democratic principles, when put into practice in a small state like Delaware, can make a world of difference and produce the kind of society and communities that we want.
So let's talk about what Trump two point zero looks like. One of the things I love about your story is that you were a middle school math teacher and then you decided to get into politics. And were you spurred on into politics because of Trump?
I was spurred on because I was a pissed off math teacher. I was initially in a program called Teaper America. Oh I know it well, yes, in DC public schools in Anacostia. Ended up going to law school and was a diplomat in Iraq for a year fourteen years ago, embedded with on a US Army base and most Iraq as a diplomat. I came home and decided what I really wanted to do was go back to teaching, and so I taught in one of the highest poverty middle schools in our state. And I was just pissed off that it was shocking to me that things really hadn't changed that much here since my childhood, that there was no sense of urgency, and there certainly was a sense that our public education system was deteriorating. And I felt like that was no way to build a community or a country. And so I eight years ago, in twenty sixteen, I was fully expecting it was the last year of the Obama administration. I was inspired in part by Obama and his vice president Joe, and thought we could do things differently here in Newcastle County, which is the largest county of Delaware. I ran for a position called County Executive. I was the outsider. I was this kid with no political experience, and I won, and we've had a good run for eight years. As of last week, I'm no longer than County Executive, and we have a Bowld vision for lean ar State forward. Now at the heart of my political service is making sure that our schools are the best in the world, and so I think Delaware is a great laboratory to do that. It's a small place. We have just over a million people. It's urban, suburban, rural, coastal. We have a diverse mix that somewhat mirrors the diversity across our country, and we think if we can make it work here in Delaware, it's a great model for the country.
Yeah, so let's talk about I'm married to an ed tech VC, so we spend a lot of our personal time. Our hobby is talking about how to make American education better.
I do feel I have a horse in this race.
I'm wondering if you could talk to us about sort of what it looks like in Delaware is really small, so you have an opportunity there to really get into it. And also it's a pretty wealthy state, right.
Yeah, it is. Delaware has a few unique attributes. One is because of DuPont, we were kind of we're not as much anymore, but we were basically we call it Daddy DuPont here. We're basically our whole state was kind of a company town for a century, and because of that legacy, of advanced chemistry. We, depending on how you measure it, have among the highest rate of PhDs per capita in the country. It's a well educated community. We also, based on recent testing scores, OURK twelve public schools are rated forty fifth forty six in the country.
The fifth or sixth that's not good.
Yeah, it's sort of a case study of how public education has been deteriorating even in a community that does value education, but just the attention and the thought and the appropriate investments have not been made. Our platform is mostly about nuts and bolts. It's probably, to be honest, Molly, not a whole lot. But an ed tech VS there's some stuff in there, but not a whole lot that an ed tech VC will get terribly excited about. It's about making sure that more money than ever gets directly to classrooms, cutting some of the fat out of that education budget. Not cutting the budget, but making sure that there are less people sitting in offices and more people in classrooms. Making sure the data we take is really good to understand where the shortcomings and how do we make sure we have quick responses to reallocate monies to address the needs that children are truly facing and also making sure that our curriculum continues to stay relevant in a workforce and in a world where if you teach in the same curriculum that you had twenty thirty forty years ago, you're probably not preparing kids for the workforce the communities of tomorrow.
So there's a layer of people in education who are not who make a lot of money. Are you in a position to be able to cut that layer down or are those people protected?
You mean protected by merit rules and various government rules.
Yeah.
I'm meeting with every state legislator, hopefully before I'm sworn in in a few days. There are sixty two of them here in Delaware, and what I tell them is everything's on the table. If there are rules that are a barrier, the state legislature and working being concert with the governor can change those rules. But what we're doing, I don't take a machete to existing budgets. I take scalpels, so we it's sort of like not cutting out entire layers. I think that to some extent, it seems like that's what they're trying to do at the federal government. And what you find is there are all sorts of unintentional sometimes intentional hazards that you end up having kids who are literally starving on the street or don't get lunch or breakfast. We're not going to do it like that, but we're going to be smart about reducing the people in offices, get getting resources to teachers, and also making sure our teachers are paid really well. As somebody who was in Teach for America who taught in three different high needs, elementary and middle public schools, it was always shocking to me that teachers in the highest needs schools with some of the hardest jobs in public education in the country, trying to educate some of the most challenging students really in environments where all sorts of data indicates that it's very challenging to ever get kids into college, ever to get them appropriate job training, ever to get them out of a cycle of violence and cycle poverty. The people who are on the front lines of that battle are often made the least in communities. That doesn't make sense to me. It's in our platform to try and create one hundred thousand dollars for high quality, experienced teachers who are willing to go to the highest needs environments, making sure that we're sort of paying people to be on the front lines and to address our most urgent needs. We think there are some basic things we can do, probably not that different than what vcs do, and looking, how do you allocate resources to where it's needed most, and how do you incentivize people properly to address the most pressing concerns. And we think that will at least start to bend the curve.
Yeah, that's correct. So I'm curious.
Trump and a lot of Republicans have for a long time wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, which of course came up this week because of the Carter funeral. Carter was the person who created the Department of Education. Explain to our listeners why the Department of Education is good and why Trump should not get rid of it. I'm sorry to ask you such an incredibly stupid question.
But I just reflect for a minute and say, I hope we don't spend four years playing defense. I understand you have to ask the question. We need to be ready as a state. What I see is in our communities here in Delaware, there are real problems across the world. There are real problems. We need American leadership, and I hope, you know, maybe pray is a better word, but I hope that we find a way to move things forward. The Department of Education is about a lot of things, like Department of Education. My guess is most Americans, I haven't seen a poll, but if you ask them what they think of this department or that department, that sort of bureaucratic speak, that doesn't mean much. The Department of Education is about making sure that poor kids, that disabled kids, that kids who are treated wrong in a school environment are treated equitably and have real opportunity. And so when you get rid of the Department of Education, when you say get rid, are you saying we're going to get rid of the Title I program and replace it, hopefully replace it with blocker.
Explain to our listeners what Title one is.
It enables kids in poor communities to get to get educated.
Yeah, it also does pelgrants that's right.
For kids to go to college. And so if you look across our society and think that working class Red states, yeah, red states, blue states, urban suburban world, you think that working class people aren't getting the shot that they deserve, you get rid of the Department of Education. That problem is going to get ten, fifteen, twenty five times worse, not better. Right, And that you see when you see these big billionaires who are taking all the resources, that problem is going to get worse, not better. And you say, a workforce that you know is having difficulty competing, so all these the large corporations want to import foreign workers. That problem is going to get worse and not better. And that's what the elimination of the Department of Education is going to the federal Department of Education is going to mean the Delawareans and across the country.
So here we've hit this really important moment in this interview. We're talking about all these things that you and I both know are real democratic values. Right, Department of Education started by Carter, FEMA started by Carter. Right, government should be there a disaster. Government will need to be there because we're about to have many more climate disasters because of climate change. Right, Like, all these things are nuts and bolts of democratic politics. Right, Republicans want to cut the federal government because they want tax cuts, they want unfettered capitalism.
We have already seen huge.
Wealth inequalities, and like we're already seeing the results of unfettered capitalism. So explain to me why Democrats, for whatever reason, can't explain to voters that they just elected a guy who is basically committed to making his rich friends richer.
I think that there are a number of key points in recent history you can point to that led us to this moment, and one of the most important for me and what I've learned. I heard people say it before I ran for office, but I really understand it now and especially watching the national election, is citizens united. Is that you can have a couple billionaires who come together and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on media that can convince people of almost anything. And so when you have that dynamic, I think people who are making trying to make informed decisions to vote are making them based on the information they get, which is from these commercials which are almost entirely supporting a specific political agenda, and that the conservative crowd is playing that game better than the Democratic crowd. I think if you look at the Biden actual accomplishments like turn off the commercials and get in and like read what's on websites and information is being put out about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, about the American Rescue Plan Act, about expenditures in the Cares Act, and you look at who supported those things and who didn't, as Biden says, you didn't vote for it, but you're showing up at the ribbon cut. We are desperate in Delaware. We are desperate for infrastructure investment right, for investment in roads, for investment of transitioning to a green economy, for infrastructure that's fair in communities that historically have been underserved and not treated equitably in today's America. And the reality is that the Biden administration did that. If you don't look at the shows, look at what actually happened. Those investments are being made today. But we just haven't done a good enough job branding that. It's challenging. People don't want to get into the details of stuff. They're looking for people who can give, I guess, the most entertaining speech or you can get the you know, one hundred million dollar donations to make the best commercials. That's that's one aspect of it that I think really really hurts us.
Yeah, it's just horrible to watch.
So you said this thing about not playing defense earlier. Can you explain to us what you think Democrats should be doing.
On Tuesday a few days ago, I end in my eighth year running Delaware's largest local government, Newcastle County Executive. Rob was in charge of parks and libraries. I was in charge of a police department, a nine one one system of paramedic service. My job for the last eight years has been to answered nine to one one calls as quickly as we can humanly answer them and get a quality paramedic police officer well trained to your door to save you grandma, your sister, your brother, your spouse, your child. I like to say that if we do that and do that well, whoever we're serving, it doesn't matter if they voted for Trump or Kamala Harris or Biden. If we do it well, they're going to support me, and if we don't do it well, they're not going to support. My job is sewards, keep in the sewage out of your basement. Right. If we do that and keep your sewer fees low, people are going to support And so I think what my advice to my governor colleagues, and particularly my Democratic governor of Couse is let's be a shining example during this very challenging time for our country and when, quite frankly, a lot of Delawares and a lot of Americans wake up in fear because of who they love or how they love, or their gender identity, or sometimes their race or nationality. Let's be a shining example of what government can be, of what American can be, and that starts with delivering, with delivering, making sure we're delivering the highest quality services. It's hard for me to stand up and talk credibly as a governor who's leading the way when our schools are the fifth, sixth, seventh worst in the country. Right to make sure we're showing that by making strategic and smart and efficient public investments. While the Republicans are out there saying cut everything and privatize everything, we're saying no, if you make smart public investments that bring people together, this country can work. And it starts in my community and in my state.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you'll come back.
Definitely, Thanks so much. Thanks for your work. It's a lot of us out of here are following you and learning from you.
No moment.
Jesse Can Somali, this is a pet subject of mine that I have often. I was just saying to you, and you were calming me down on Friday that I was worried about people moving out of LA and what that could do for our electoral prospects. But what we've actually seen in data rather than just my antidotal feelings, yes, which is abundant, is that young people are getting out of and plan to get out of states that are enacting these crazed abortion laws and these red states, and they're going to move to states that do not have them.
Yeah.
I mean that was a weird anxiety you had on Friday where you were like, everyone's going to move out to California. I thought it was very good about explaining to you why.
Well, you and I have for nearly five years had a mutually beneficial anxiety comic relationship of a two way street of it. And you definitely padded my head very well the other day, and.
Well, I'm glad to hear it.
So basically, these abortion bands and I would say, I mean, look, this is a really important paper we should put in that, you know, if we're going to go through scientific pates, we should also talk about that was the hottest Twenty twenty four was the hottest year on record. YEP, that was another bit of you know, hottest year on record.
Wait, I'll just read it to you.
Ocean temperatures reach record highs, ocean temperatures crossed into an average sixty six point five to grease fahrenheit, almost a half a degree higher, and then last year that will mean more hurricanes, less fish and published in a magazine that many of us read, Advances in Atmospheric Studies.
Did you even know that was a magazine?
The study revealed that the global mean temperature in twenty twenty four reach nearly sixty six point five de grease fahrenheit, could have devastating effects on the ocean ecosystem, ocean heat continent changes for the upper So anyway, the point is we are just cooking ourselves. But let's get back to tens of thousands of young people, single people in particular, have left states with total abortion bands. This is a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Another one that you and I both have.
We get the apps, Yeah, I actually just subscribe to it so I can play the spelling game. A nonprofit economic research organization estimated population changes by analyzing address change data collected by the United States Postal Service. By the way you want to hear the worst fucking thing. You know who's still the head of the post office?
I know Lewis to joy Lewis to joy.
That fucking guy, and that since the fall the twenty twenty two fall of Roby Wade, the states with near total abortion bands thirteen at the time of the analysis, appears to have lost thirty six thousand people per quarter. Single person households would typically skew younger. We're more likely to move out of the states with bands. Our results show that reproductive rights policies can significantly alter where.
People choose to live.
Researchers wrote, and I don't think any of us should be surprised about this. The loss of young people has particular implications for states economic trajectory. States with abortion bands may be used challenges and attracting and retaining worker, especially young workers who represent future economic potential. These population flows in demographic shifts could affect a wide range of economic factors, from tax spaces to housing markets to the availability of workers in key industries. You did it to yourself, Republicans. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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