I truly believe that these midterm elections will decide
the future for this country. If Trump wins, I I think it's
game over. I don't think we can get this
democracy back. The slide into authoritarianism
will be nearly complete. These masked plain clothes ICE
agents without warrants or badges taking the lives of Alex
Pretty and Renee Good. That will be a pale preview for
what we are about to see. He also understands the
consequences of losing. I mean those Epstein files, you
know. The full report comes to light.
You just said it's the equivalent, essentially of
taking on the Nazis. People on the right really
object to the use of that type of comparison and language
because they say it diminishes is what's happened in the past.
How do you respond to that? Hello and welcome to Trump
World. I'm Anushka Astana in Washington
DC and I'm sad to say that my usual Co host Matt Frey is on
holiday. Lucky him.
But good news, I've got an upgrade.
Don't be offended Matt, I've got an upgrade.
Kieran Moodley. Welcome, Kieran.
Hello. Thank you for having me,
Anushka. And yes, those were your.
I'm just going to put it on record that those were your
words about the upgrade. Thank you for having me.
What are we going to be talking about today?
Well, I'm told it's 168 days until the midterms, incredibly
consequential midterms. And I've just had a really
interesting conversation with Beto O'Rourke, which we're going
to talk about. He was candidate to be senator
in Texas in 2018. Almost but not quite winning the
action against Ted Cruz. He also put himself forward to
be president in 2020. So we've had a very interesting
chat about the future of the party and Kieran.
We're also going to be talking about approval ratings.
How is Donald Trump doing right now?
Yes, well, in one word. Well, actually not one word. 3
words. Not very well.
Essentially he is now, according to the latest New York Times
polling, they've got him on 37% approval.
Now that's the lowest of his second term.
But then it get kind of gets even worse than that because if
you look into the individual topic, so if you take
immigration, which obviously is something that he's always been
strong at, he's only, he's got 56% disapproving of him.
And then when you come to the issue of the Iran war, which is
obviously, you know, still going on, he's sort of dithering once
again about will he strike Iran? Will he not being pulled back.
2/3 of Americans are saying they disapprove of the fact that he
went to war against Iran. And when you look at
independence, which I think you were talking about with Beto
O'Rourke, they 73% say that they disapprove of America going to
war against Iran. So it's really not looking very
good for Donald, Donald Trump when it comes to those numbers.
And you were talking to Beto about, you know, the upcoming
midterms. At the moment, we are, you know,
as you say, we are many, many months away.
But at the moment, we've got these primaries happening.
That's when, you know, the political parties, the
Democrats, Republicans are sort of finalizing who's going to run
in these House and Senate races. Donald Trump doesn't seem to be
that bothered really about these numbers at all.
And we we can see that because the way that he's going about
what he's doing with the Republican Party is essentially
he's not saying let's run on the cost of living.
Let's run on this issue or that issue.
He's basically trying to cement his grip on the party that he's
been doing for the last decade. We saw that at the weekend when
Bill Cassidy, senator in Louisiana for the past decade,
he lost his primary because Donald Trump said he didn't like
him because he actually voted to convict him in the impeachment
trial a couple of years ago. Donald Trump's candidate won.
And then today, we're speaking ahead of a really pivotal
primary in Kentucky, a congressional race there.
Thomas Massie, I mean, you've done loads of amazing work when
it comes to talking to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
Thomas Massie is one of the congressman who pushed through
that bill to release the Epstein files, the ones which the DOJ
has actually released. He's run on that issue of the
Epstein files, really criticized Pam Bondi, the former attorney
general. He's also been very critical
recently. It's a very interesting thing
going on where he's been criticizing the role of AIPAC,
that is the pro Israel lobby and the fact that they have
funnelled a lot of money against him in the primary, as has
Donald Trump, who's basically pushing to get rid of Thomas
Massie because he's causing to any problems.
So we started by talking about these approval numbers.
Donald Trump. I mean, I don't know about your
theory. My theory when it comes to
Donald Trump is that he doesn't really care about these
midterms. Really.
It's all about him. It's about him having executive
power. He bypasses Congress the whole
time. And he basically just wants to
be able to be the the big dog when it comes to the Republican
Party and have no one speaking out against him.
Yeah, I think both these sort of really interesting things are
happening. I mean, does he care he's not on
the ballot in the midterms, and if he sticks to the American
Constitution, he won't be on the ballot in 2028.
I mean, Republican strategists are really worried about it.
I mean, they're holed up in hotels talking to Susie Wiles,
the chief of staff in White House, and others, you know,
trying to work out what they do as a party.
And they know that people are, you know, turning against them
on the cost of living. Although, like you say that this
kind of interesting divide, yes, independents have really shifted
away from Donald Trump. He still has a pretty high
approval rating among Republicans.
I mean, really quite high considering, you know, the
economic pain that is being caused by the Iran war.
And as you say, like look at these Republican primaries, I
mean 1 by 1, any Republican who spoke against Donald Trump when
it came to Jan 6th, 2021 seems to be being picked off Senator
Cassidy, he mentioned is the latest one really comfortably
beaten by a Trump loyalist and in fact pushed into third
position. So absolutely fascinating to see
whether Tom Thomas Massie can actually, but that trend later.
And I guess the question then is if he has control of the
Republican Party, but he's still losing independence, what does
it mean for the midterms? Clearly, the money would be on
the Republicans losing the House, less so probably on them
losing the Senate. And that will be really
consequential. But in the meantime, we're
seeing all this redistricting, aren't we?
I mean, opponents of Donald Trump would basically say he's
trying to rig the vote to make it more likely that he has a
chance in the House or his party has a chance.
What do you make of it all? Donald Trump has a stranglehold
over the Republican Party, so he gets to choose his candidates.
We've been through this before in 2022 in the midterms there
where Donald Trump had, you know, all these candidates he
endorsed Carry Lake in Arizona, etcetera.
And they all lost. Because basically, as you say,
you know, you can get your Republican MAGA base come out
and, you know, ensure you have the right candidates.
But when it comes to the actual election, when the Democrats are
going to come out and force against you and independents are
against you. So the Democrats obviously, as
you say, feel really confident. But as you say, the
redistricting issue is the real big concern for them because
that comes down to what's happened recently with the
Supreme Court decision. So you've been in bum, bum, bum.
You've been in Memphis recently looking into this issue.
So I mean just explain what this redistricting issue is about
Anushka. Well, I think there's like,
again, two things happening. So there's redistricting
happening all over the country. It began with Texas.
It's deeply partisan. Donald Trump began it by asking
certain states to go ahead and try.
And redraw their. Political maps in a way that was
going to benefit Republicans. Democrats have been pretty
punchy in response. We've seen pretty big attempts,
for example, in California to redistrict in favour of
Democrats. The the argument they make is
you've got to fight fire with fire.
You know, lots of people would say it's all pretty egregious
and we should have a fairer system, full stop.
But something in the middle of that, quite different has
happened. And that is that Supreme Court
decision that you mentioned. It has this conservative
majority that he has made sure is on.
It has basically gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
That Voting Rights Act was there because so many things were
happening that were trying to disenfranchise Black voters.
I mean, really stupid things like you've got to guess how
many Jelly beans are in this jar in order to be able to vote.
There were also poll taxes and so on.
And it tried to make things fairer.
And one of the things it said a Southern state or any state, but
particularly this was happening in Southern states, couldn't do
is take a black majority area and cut it up in every different
direction in order to dilute the impact of the black vote.
The Supreme Court decision earlier this month basically
said we're no longer going to assume that that is a racist
act. You've got to prove it's racist.
So if Republicans say it's not racist, it's just partisan, they
can go ahead and do it. Is Donald Trump involved in all
of this? Of course he is.
He rang up the governor of Tennessee.
And Memphis was the first place in the country to be targeted.
And so, yeah, I went there. And I have to say, Karen, it was
one of the kind of most amazing places I've visited in America
because every single bit of that city is steeped in history.
We went to Mason Temple, where Martin Luther King gave his
final speech, which is the famous mountaintop speech, where
he talks about looking over the mountain and seeing the promised
land. And basically, it's quite
prophetic. He says he's not sure that he's
going to be there with people to get to that point, to that point
where racism would be banished in America.
And we went to the place that he was killed.
And, you know, this is a place where preachers, you know,
marched, were jailed and died for the civil rights cause.
And it is the first place where they're trying to unwind it.
I did speak to a Republican there, one who'd come to the
vote in the state capital with a Trump flag wrapped around him.
And he argued strongly, it's not about race, it's about politics.
And, you know, I think it is true that Democrats shouldn't
assume that black people are going to vote for them.
But. But do you think when you look
at this, that it's kind of an egregious step backwards in
terms of voting rights? For those who don't know
American history and the civil rights movement, or perhaps what
they were told at school is, you know, when it comes to the civil
rights movement, there was always a clear narrative going
from, let's say in 1954 when you had Brown versus Board of
Education, when the Supreme Court ruled regarding the
integration, the need to integrate schools within the
South. And then you had from 54, you
then had the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Then you have the Freedom Rides. And then you come up to 64, the
Civil Rights Act and 65, the Voting Rights Act.
And that was the narrative of the civil rights movement that
you were talked about the struggle which went through
those years. And obviously it went on for,
for, for decades before that. And the Voting Rights Act was
this pivotal piece of legislation which finally gave
black people the ability to vote freely and fairly at a time when
they couldn't. And the, and I think the thing
which needs to be addressed for the audience is the idea that in
all those history books now they almost have to be ripped up
again because that Voting Rights Act has basically been shredded
so much, not just by this recent Supreme Court decision.
There was another one, Shelby versus Holder about a decade
ago. And and that's the point here is
that those things you you were taught about, which was that
struggle which Martin Luther King talked about getting to the
mountaintop, you get to a point where you feel like progress has
been made, has completely gone backwards.
It's interesting you talk about learning that history because I,
I wasn't taught that history at all at school.
And now that I've moved here to the US, it's kind of interesting
that I feel like 50% of my children's education here is
basically, you know, the history of civil rights.
My one of my sons has gone to Mount Vernon.
Today we were talking about, you know, how as a major plantation,
it had so many slaves just before he left.
So yeah, it's quite, it's quite different.
And and that's one of the things I found incredibly enriching and
moving in Memphis was speaking to, you know, you know, people
who had been part of that civil rights movement for their entire
lives. And I was really taken by the
fact that so many of them were pastors, church leaders.
And I asked one person why Bill, Bill Adkins, doctor Bill Adkins,
he was called and, you know, he was in the room for the Martin
Luther King speech. He's marched with Jesse Jackson.
He has had Barack Obama at his church.
And I said, why is it always coming from the church?
And I was told two things. One, because the pulpit is the
one place where they felt the black man is free to speak.
You know, no one can stop a black man from speaking from the
pulpit. And secondly, black people
weren't allowed into white churches.
So the churches were the place where they were able to organize
and talk and fight for equal rights.
And I have to say, while we were there, we heard some really
moving comments from people who have been through all of this,
both from people who were there from the start and from, you
know, young black politicians whose hopes now of getting to
Washington, DC, to get into Congress are massively
diminished because the District that they could have won no
longer exists. Every awakening thought of mine
now is filled with contempt for what has been done to us.
I'm extremely angry. I never thought I'd see this day
return in America. I grew up as a child riding on
the back of a bus, drinking out of water fountains marked for
colored or white people. I live that life as a child.
That's why I demonstrated. That's why I marched.
That's why I fought. They're trying to bring that day
back. It's like a declaration of war.
The truth of the matter is they cracked our district into three.
Now, I'll only technically be representing 1/3 of Memphis, but
wherever I go, I'm representing Memphis.
And actually, Beto O'Rourke now is working for an organization
that is trying to to get the vote out in Texas because that
is 1 state that has gone to huge lengths to try to make it
difficult for people to vote. Let's have a listen to my
conversation with him. Thank you for joining us.
Can I just start with the kind of broad state of play?
How do you think Trump 2.0 compares to his first term?
Well, I think he's been more reckless.
He's introduced more chaos into this country and into the world.
And we know for a fact that he is less popular now in his
second term approaching this midterm than he was in his first
term approaching the midterm in 2018.
And that presents an extraordinary opportunity for
Democrats and really any American who cares about this
country and believes in democracy and a government of by
and for the people to take this country back.
I, I truly believe that these midterm elections will take
place this November, will decide the future for this country.
If Trump wins, I, I think it's game over.
If he if he retains control, the House and the Senate, I don't
think we can get this democracy back.
The slide into authoritarianism will be nearly complete.
If Democrats win, however, I think there will be a reckoning
for Trump's crimes, corruption, these reckless wars that he has
begun, including the war that we are currently in in Iran.
And there will be accountability and justice for his his fellow
cabinet members and oligarchs and the crimes that they have
committed. Those are the stakes of this
election, and I think the president understands that.
I think Democrats are beginning to understand that, and I think
as the American public begins to pay attention to this election,
they're going to understand that as well.
I mean, you say they'll be accountability.
This is a president who has been impeached.
This is a president who has faced multiple charges, who has
been accused of, you know, sexual harassment and who
despite all of that, was voted in and not just voted in with
the Electoral College voted in, you know, on national vote share
in 2024. I mean, how did we get to that
point? What did Democrats do wrong to
allow Donald Trump back that way?
I don't know if there's enough time in this program to list
everything that Democrats did wrong and could have done
better. I mean, if you go back to the
2024 election, the fact that there was not more of a
reckoning within the Democratic Party to choose a nominee, not
the then current President Joe Biden, who did an extraordinary
job serving this country in that role, but had no business
running again. And I think most people who are
close to him knew that, didn't share that with the rest of the
party or the American public. Shame on our party for failing
to reckon then, but we should reckon now and make sure that
the candidates that we present, whether in these midterms or in
the 2028 election, are reflective of the urgency of
this moment, of the value shared broadly by the American people,
and are vigorous, aggressive, relentless in pursuing the goals
that will make their lives better.
I think those are the lessons that I've learned certainly from
2024 and other mistakes that we've made.
But look, we we have an extraordinary situation right
now where in Texas, for example, one of the key battleground
states going into this midterm, you have for the first time in
50 years, a Democrat running for every State House seat there,
150 of them in Texas, every congressional seat, all 38,
every open state Senate seat, there are 16 of them.
We are literally fighting on every front, lessons learned,
lessons being applied, lessons that I think once executed will
lead to victory in these critically important midterms.
And Texas might not only be able to give Democrats power in the
House, but in James Tallarico's race for the United States
Senate against the Republican nominee, it'll either be John
Cornyn or Ken Paxton. You have Anishka, potentially
the 51st vote in the US Senate. So we we have some lessons to
learn. I think we've learned them.
We are now applying them. When we win, we've got to keep
that going. And we've got to use that power
aggressively for the benefit of the American people.
I mean, there's so much there I want to unpack and I'm going to
come to it. But just before we go on, you
said if Trump as well, if these midterms, you know, swing back
to the Republican side and they retain power, it's game over.
What does Game Over look like? Well, I think that here in
America, and I think most of the rest of the world is watching as
well, we are seeing an unprecedented slide into
authoritarianism, into fascism, into corruption being conducted
in broad daylight at the highest levels of power in including the
president, should his party retain control of Congress in
the House and the Senate. And mind you, he already
controls the United States Supreme Court and many state
houses and governorships across the United States.
I think that the slip or the slide that we are seeing will
inevitably result into a different form of government
altogether in this country. I can imagine a future in the
not too distant future where a Republican majority Congress
rolls out the royal red carpet for a third Trump term, or at
least a term for his MAGA chosen successor without free and fair
elections in the United States. I think these masked plain
clothes ICE agents without warrants or badges who are
rounding up immigrants, U.S. citizens alike, taking the lives
of Alex Pretty and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year
that that will be a pale preview for what we are about to see.
There are 10s of billions of dollars, for example, in new ICE
detention funding passed in that so-called big beautiful bill.
You have record low levels of inbound immigration into this
country, the lowest, in fact, in in American history.
We have record high levels of deportation.
Who are these 10s of billions of dollars of detention capacity
cells being built for if not for the president's political
enemies? We have seen this film play out
before. And so the onus, the the
responsibility is now on all of us as Americans to meet this
challenge as we have before going back 250 years.
Whether it is defeating the British Empire to ensure that we
would never again bow to a king, Whether it's defeating the
armies of the Confederacy to ensure that never again could
one American own the life of another.
Whether it's defeating the Nazis in World War 2 or importantly.
And I know that you were just in Memphis, TN.
And so you understand this history well, in the 1950s and
the 1960s, it was everyday Americans who defeated the armed
and elected thugs of Jim Crow S to ensure that we could have a
Civil Rights Act in 19, 1964, of Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Both of those ushered in by the protesters, everyday citizens
and the first US president from the state of Texas.
So I know we're up against some strong challenges right now, but
I believe that we can overcome them because we have overcome
them before against arguably even greater odds.
But I mean, what you're comparing Donald Trump to there,
it's pretty massive. You just said it's the
equivalent essentially of taking on the Nazis.
People on the right really object to the use of that type
of comparison and language because they say it diminishes
what's happened in the past. How do you respond to that?
Well, to be clear, I didn't call Donald Trump a Nazi, nor nor are
his supporters Nazis. In fact, I think one of the
lessons learned for Democrats is that we have to be open to
everyone and we can afford to judge nobody based on their
party preference, based on the presidential candidate that they
voted for last time, based on any meaningless difference
between us. This is a time, especially given
how divided and polarized our country is to come together.
So look if. If but do you but do you see the
scale of the? Challenge on that level.
Absolutely. This is existential, no question
about it, for the United States of America.
Again, if Trump retains these majorities in Congress, I think
this government of, by and for the people is over.
I, I don't believe that we will get it back.
And Anushka, just to remind you, the last time that his hold on
power was challenged and overcome in the 2020 elections,
he incited an insurrection attempt that nearly stopped the
peaceful transfer of power from 1 presidential administration to
another. And he recently mused to the New
York Times that he wish he had asked the National Guard to
seize the ballot boxes and voting machines and regretted
that he hadn't done that before. So past performance is perhaps
the best predictor of future conduct.
And I think we know exactly what this president will do if he has
all levers of power in his hands again.
He also understands the consequences of losing.
I mean, those Epstein files, you know, the full report comes to
light all the details of his crimes and his corruption and
those of his cronies, family members, the Democrats.
Had that information before, Yeah.
What's that? You know, there was a democratic
government before this one which sat on that information and
didn't put it all out there. Absolutely.
And there's there's no defense for that whatsoever.
I just want to make clear that when it comes to the Epstein
files, justice has to be served, especially for the victims, the
girls and the women who are trafficked and raped by Epstein
and other powerful men in this country and from abroad, as we
know from from Prince Andrew's conduct.
And whether that justice means that it's Democrats and or
Republicans, the wealthiest, the most powerful, the most
connected, it doesn't matter. No man Porta, everybody has to
face justice in this country. No one above and no one below
the law that that's the the genius of America.
We've never fully lived up to it, but we are so far from it
today and people demand it. So again, Democrat or
Republican, doesn't matter. We all deserve justice in this
country. You sound like someone who wants
to run. No, I'm someone who's in the
arena, though. You know, I haven't run for
office since 2022 when I when I ran for governor here in in
Texas, but I lead an organization called powered by
people comprised of thousands of volunteers.
I'm one of them across the state of Texas who in a state where
there's no online voter registration of automatic voter
registration of same day voter registration and you have the
worst forms of voter suppression and voter intimidation.
We're out there meeting those voters and future voters where
they are, getting them on the rolls, staying in touch with
them and making sure that they can vote.
My feeling, Anishka, is that in a democracy, there are no
sidelines. None of us get to just witness
or or hang out in the stands and pray and hope that that our
side's going to come through. We have to be involved.
We have to take action. It's the antidote to the to the
despair that so many are tempted to feel right now, and I believe
it is the key to victory. Can I like, let's talk about
the, you know, the victory that you're seeking, the victory that
your party is seeking. You know, we talk about approval
ratings and they are low. But when I look at the breakdown
of these approval ratings, I sometimes think.
You know, is it wishful? Thinking among Trump's opponents
because the reality is he remains very popular among
Republican voters. And even his war, which is
obviously impacting on Americans finances in a way that no one
thought was coming, remains quite popular among Republicans,
remains wildly popular. Amongst MAGA Republicans.
That's true. But if if you if if you step
back a little bit and, and get a little more perspective on this,
his approval among the American people on the whole is at 37%.
This is a new low, not just for him, but for any president in
the history of modern American polling.
He's very unpopular amongst independents.
And so you're correct, while he he retains that strong support
from his MAGA base, he has lost the rest of the country.
And to your earlier point about the fortunes of the Democratic
Party and the lessons left to be learned by our party, we're
still ahead by 11 points in what is called the generic ballot.
If generic ballot were presented to the average American, you
know, 11 points difference for, for Democrats over over
Republicans. So the, the thing though, is
that understanding this, Trump and the Republicans are changing
the rules of the game and changing the map on which that
game is being played right now. And they have a chance through
the redistricting that follows the recent Supreme Court
decision in Calais and the gerrymandering that's taking
place in Tennessee and other states of the former
Confederacy. They may have a 10 point
additional or I'm sorry, A10 seats additional advantage going
into these midterms. So it's really going to be
close. It's going to be neck and neck.
If we had been operating under the old maps, slam dunk
Democrats are going to win under these new maps.
It's really going to be coming down to the wire at the end of
the day on March, I'm sorry, on November 3rd of 2026.
And so we Democrats have to do everything we can.
It means talking to, listening to every voter, and not every
likely Democratic voter, but every independent voter and yes,
every Republican voter as well. We all need each other at this
moment of truth or we're not going to come through.
I think in many European countries where Trump's
popularity is really rock bottom and they kind of look at America
in shock at what's taking place, they simply can't believe that
10's and 10's and 10s of millions of people still support
him. Which is why I guess I find some
of those polls very interesting despite the approval rate being
quite low. I mean, you talked about
redistricting. Obviously, what Republicans will
argue is Democrats are at it as well.
But as you mentioned, I have just been to Memphis and it was
quite something to see Republicans target a place so.
Steeped in history first since the Supreme.
Court ripped up the Voting Rights Act.
They've split Memphis into 3A. Black majority seat has gone.
Now there are three black minority seats.
Do you think that that's a racist act?
It is in, in a long history of racism in our politics, in our
elections and in our redistricting.
You know, if you go back to the era before the Civil Rights Act
in in the Voting Rights Act, you had a very similar situation
throughout the Deep South. You have literacy tests, you had
black voters challenge to count the number of Jelly beans in a
jar before they were allowed to register to vote.
And in my home state of Texas from 1923 to 1944, you have the
all white primary where in black and white and state statute it
said if you're black you will not be able to vote in Texas.
So it's important to know that we have been here before and
it's just as important to know that we have over become this
through Supreme Court victories like Smith versus all right,
which in 44 ended the all white primary in Texas or after the
Civil Rights Act was passed, Martin Luther King junior Andrew
Young visited then President Lyndon Baines Johnson said, Mr.
President, thank you for civil rights.
Now it's time to allow our fellow Americans to vote.
And Johnson is reported to have said to them, look, I'd like to,
but I just don't have the power to get this done.
Doctor King, Andrew Young, others left that meeting and
said we've got to get that president some power.
And Anushka, as as you know from your knowledge of American
history, in 1965, the next year there was a March across the
Edmond Pettis Bridge that ensured that the country
understood the stakes of what was happening in America.
It shocked our conscience, allowed LBJ, the presidential
power that he had been missing, to get the Voting Rights Act of
1965 passed into law. So we can overcome these
challenges today because we have overcome them before against
even greater odds. So it's not going to be.
Easy. Are we back at that moment?
I mean, I stood at the Mason Temple in Memphis where where
Martin Luther King gave his final speech where he talked
about seeing the future and seeing the promised land.
Many saw it as an future envisioned where racism didn't
exist in American culture anymore.
It it sounds like you feel like they've turned the clock back.
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there's this,
this line often, I think, misinterpreted from Doctor King
about the arc of the moral universe bending towards
justice. I think many of us in this
country just assumed for so long that it would bend on its own,
that we were making progress, perhaps too slowly, on expanding
rights and access and ensuring that this country fully lived up
to its promise to ensure that all of us are created equal and
therefore will be treated equally under the law.
A beautiful concept never fully realized in America, but we all
thought we were marching towards it until the era of Donald Trump
in 2015 and 2016. And what you're seeing right now
is a natural culmination of Trump ISM and MAGA ISM and also
this strain that's been part of America for the last 250 years,
where some will use their power to deny access to power to
others. And it's the civil rights
movement and the voting rights movement that overcame that
before. We need to call on that heritage
in that history and remind ourselves that that struggle,
that sacrifice, that service that has come before has made
this moment possible. We are the errors to all of
that. And what we do with this
inheritance is going to define us in the eyes of history and
will determine what is possible going forward for this country.
So we cannot be found wanting at this moment of truth, and I just
want to make sure that my fellow Americans meet this moment with
the urgency that it demands. If we do, we are going to come
through just like we did before. But for all that low approval
rating that we're talking about, the president seems to have
extraordinary control over his party.
We've seen a senator in Louisiana lose a primary, one of
the few Republicans who actually voted to.
Impeach Donald Trump, who seem to be being picked off 1 by 1.
We've got a whole load of other primaries going on today.
One in Kentucky, where Thomas Massey, who's been such?
A critical vote? Thomas Massey, who's been such a
vocal critic of Donald Trump being primaried by, you know, a
Trump loyalist. Has the Republican Party changed
forever? Because of Donald Trump.
The Republican Party today is Donald Trump, and I think that
bodes well for Democrats. It bodes well for the elections
in in November. With his approval rating at 37%,
having every single Republican on the ballot tied to him is
exactly what Democrats want. Now, to be clear, it is not
going to be enough just to be against Donald Trump.
As alluring as that strategy might be for some, Democrats
must also offer a compelling alternative to the the chaos,
the corruption, the criminality of this current Trump regime.
But Anushka, I like the fact that, you know, Senator Cassidy
was just knocked off in in Louisiana because of Donald
Trump, that those state reps in Iowa who held strong against
Trump gerrymandering have been knocked off.
That party is fully owned by Donald Trump and tied to him for
the foreseeable future. Democrats have to make the most
of that, and if we do and offer a compelling alternative to his
failed governance, we are going to win these important elections
in the midterm. Although have you got a
compelling narrative? Who is the person who's leading
that narrative? We have a situation at the
moment where establishment figures like Chuck Schumer have
tried to block what many see as exciting new candidates, for
example in a state like Maine. Yeah, You know what?
I I think this is actually a positive thing for Democrats,
for there not to be a defined national leader.
We had a defined national leader coming out of the 2022 midterms,
and that was Joe Biden. And the lack of competition for
ideas and experience and vision for this country really hobbled
us going into the 2024 presidential election and the
congressional elections down ballot.
So this fierce competition going on right now between, as you
mentioned, you know, Chuck Schumer, leader of the old
guard, the Minority Leader in the US Senate, and someone like
Graham Plattner, who is this insurgent candidate in Maine who
offers us one of our best hopes of a majority in the US Senate,
is exactly what we need right now.
And that's playing out all across this country, down to the
county commissioner level in local elections, up to
congressional and Senate elections.
And out of that, I am confident we're going to see the leaders
that we need going into the 2028 election.
So this is kind of a laboratory for Democrats and for democracy
all across the country. It's the kind of competition
that we need to select the winning candidates, the winning
messages and the winning connections to the American
voters in order to prevail in 2026 and in 2028.
I mean, you say if Democrats take back, you know, the Senate,
maybe the House, the big change will come.
But isn't Congress very weakened at this moment?
I mean, we've seen use of executive power like we've
almost never seen before. Well, to to put a point to it,
we are illegally at war with the country of Iran right now.
There is a clear law that says within 60 days of the
commencement of hostilities like those that we are in right now,
the president must come back to Congress to either approve that
war or to end military operations.
I mean. You say that, but I stood in a
briefing room the other day listening to Marco Rubio, who
said we don't think the War Powers Act is constitutional.
And you know, we'll, we'll nod to Congress, but we don't need
to do anything more than that. That's government by Fiat.
That's that's the the president and in this case the Secretary
of State saying what the Constitution will allow them to
do or not do versus Congress, which is vested with that power
in the first article of that Constitution exclusively with
that power to be able to declare war or to end hostilities in
this case. And if we need a referee to
decide the outcome, that is for the courts.
But to your point, this Congress, which is led by
Republicans, has been absolutely servile, has has done nothing,
has not lifted a finger when the president has destroyed
congressionally chartered agencies like USAID, which has
dismantled departments also created and funded by the United
States Congress. And, and in its most solemn and
important responsibility, going to war.
You know, the taking of of the lives of others, putting
American lives at risk and and losing them as we have so far in
Iran. It has been absolutely crickets.
But but, Anushka, I think you have seen that.
I think the American people pushing back on this have begun
to awaken the will and the conscience of members of
Congress. You have Republican senators
joining almost every Democrat, with the exception of Senator
Federman, to try to stop this president's illegal war in Iran.
So, you know, never count the American people out in the
public sentiment, as Abraham Lincoln said, is everything.
And public sentiment in America has been awakened, and we are
about to see its full force felt by the president and those in
power. And just on Texas, I mean, there
was a lot of excitement around your run in 2018.
You were the kind of great hope, the great future.
You did really well, but you didn't win.
Is Texas unwinnable for Democrats?
Texas is very winnable. You know, as I mentioned, we we
have candidates at every position on the ballot for the
first time in half a century. That's huge because those
candidates in the far-flung 254 counties of Texas will bring in
new voters who otherwise wouldn't participate.
And those candidates may not win the local State House election,
But those voters will send their votes up to the top of the
ticket to ensure that. James Tallarico is the first
Democrat elected to Senate from the state since 1988 and the
51st vote in the US Senate. Donald Trump is more unpopular
today in his second midterm that he was when I ran in his first.
And his party is mired in so much corruption, so many crimes,
so many unpopular policies like cutting people's health care,
tax breaks to billionaires, wars in Iran, wars of choice that are
costing this country 1 to $1.5 billion a day.
There's going to be a reckoning for this.
There's going to be an accounting.
And as long as we are fighting on every front, giving this
everything we have, I believe we're going to come through.
He's really going for James Talarico.
I mean, it's going to feel very personal.
It's going to be very difficult for him, isn't it, personally?
You know, I think it's because the president and the
Republicans in power understand the stakes of this.
So they're going to do everything they can to stop him.
You've seen when he went on Colbert, when he later went on
The View the president's team and Cabinet officials tried to
shut down those programs and revoke their FCC licenses.
So you're absolutely right. And that's just the beginning.
That's just the the, you know, the ante to the game.
I would not be surprised, and you shouldn't be either, if the
president sends federal ICE and Border Patrol agents to polling
stations in October, in November, if he again tries to
cancel mail in voting, which he's already attempted to do, If
he questions the voting rights of naturalized citizens,
something that we can anticipate and other things that we may not
be able to predict, like using the United States military or
the National Guard to interfere in free and fair elections.
So all of that may be coming our way.
So we've got to give everything we can to overcome that, doing
what we can with what we have, wherever we are in America, in
our case right here in Texas. What do you say to their
argument that what's wrong with having to show ID elections?
You know, why should people be nervous if they have every right
to vote? And there's nothing wrong with
it. In fact, in Texas, you're
required to show an ID. I show an ID every time I vote.
I have no problem with that. What The problem would be if the
president seeks to intimidate people who are peacefully and
legally trying to vote by purging their names from the
voter rolls. This has happened before.
Naturalized citizens, meaning people who are not born in the
United States, but it become citizens, naturalized here
trying to vote, being purged from the voter rolls and having
to prove their citizenship, perhaps in front of a Border
Patrol agent at the polling location.
We can imagine our fellow citizens saying, you know what
the hell with that? I'm not going to go through this
challenge. I don't want to risk being taken
away by a Border Patrol or ICE agent because it has happened to
other U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents in this
country. So the the attempt to
intimidate, the intent to suppress the vote, it's not a
matter of if this is going to happen, it's going to be a
question of the form that it's going to take.
And we have to be ready for it. And that's again, why so many of
us, including the volunteers in our group powered by people, are
organizing all over the state and not waiting till October and
November. We're doing it now and May.
We've been doing it all year and the year before that.
This is the election of our lifetimes.
The stakes could not be any higher.
Do you do you think that what they've done with ICE has put
off Latino voters across Texas? Do you think it has had an
impact? Because obviously there was
quite big support among that community for Trump in 2024.
Absolutely And and this has been documented in polling, the
president's support amongst Latino voters that is melting
away, but it's also initiative been demonstrated in recent
elections. We had a special election in
Tarrant County. Tarrant County is the home to
Fort Worth, TX, and it is referred to as the last large,
reliably urban district in the United States of America.
Trump won Tarrant County by 17 points in the 2024 election, but
a Democrat just won Tarrant County by 14 points.
It's a 31 point swing from the end of 2024 to the beginning of
2026 in Southeast Texas and Brazoria County, another very
red Republican. MAGA County, a Democrat,
Democrat Quentin Wilts, just won mayorship of Pearland, TX in
Brazoria County. That just happened a couple of
weeks ago. So in the polling, in the actual
elections where voters demonstrate their preference and
overwhelmingly in those constituencies, Mexican American
Latino voters are voting for the Democrat and not voting for the
president's party. Now, we can't rest on that.
We can't assume that that trajectory will follow all the
way through to November 3rd. We have to go out there, fight
for and earn every one of those votes, but again, I'm confident
that if we put in the work, we will win.
You think James Talarico is going to win?
I read a report that suggested you might be Pete Green with
envy about him. Is that fair?
No, I'm so excited for James Talarico.
I've been excited for the guy for as long as I've known him,
since he was elected the same year that I was running for U.S.
Senate to the State House, where he beat an incumbent Republican,
A guy who had no business running in the 1st place, and he
won. Through hard work and his genius
at connecting and communicating with voters, he's bringing that
to bear in this U.S. Senate race.
He's electrifying the country and he's giving us our best shot
in Texas, not only in having a Democrat represent us in the US
Senate, but literally saving the country by being that 51st vote.
So I will continue to do everything I possibly can to
make sure that he's successful, that he wins and he's able to
deliver for Texas and for the country.
And you sound like someone who's really thought about this moment
in time that believes the Democratic Party needs to have a
reckoning that has, I think, from the sound of what you're
saying, some of the answers. I know you said you're playing
your part right now. Do you still have ambitions to
run one day? Could we see you as a name in
2028? You.
Know I'm going to continue to try to do whatever I think is
most useful and helpful for the country right now.
That's a volunteer leading powered by people.
If if it means being a candidate and put my name on the ballot,
I'm happy to do that again. I just strongly believe that
this moment calls for each of us to do whatever we can with
whatever we've got, wherever we are in in the country.
And so the form really doesn't matter to me.
It's putting in the work it's coming through and also
understanding to to the. Must matter a bit.
I mean, you've got ambitions to be president.
We know that it must matter a bit.
I mean, it does make a difference whether you're the
volunteer or. The guy in the White House.
You know what, as as long as I'm in the arena, it really doesn't
matter to me the the form that it takes.
You know, you mentioned that the Senate race that we ran against
Ted Cruz in 2018, where we got so close, I did not win.
But I think because of the effort on the part of all the
Democrats who are running in Texas that year, there was a sea
change in our state. I mentioned James Talarico won
in that year, but so did 11 other insurgent Democrats who
defeated incumbent Republicans for the State House. 17 Black
women won election to judicial positions in Harris County, home
to Houston, TX, the most diverse city in America, literally
changing the face of criminal justice.
And from our efforts those years, you've seen candidates,
volunteers, campaign managers, people who are working on these
critically important elections right now.
So that was a lesson to me that the work matters no matter the
short term outcome. We've got to be in this fight
for as long as it takes. And knowing what we know of
American history, that fight will never end.
That there is no victory that is final.
The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Roe versus Wade, the
the idea that we have a representative democracy.
We, we can never rest on previous victories.
We always have to be in the struggle.
We always have to be in the fight, and the sooner we
understand that and accept that, then the more joy that we can
bring to the work because it will never be the expectation
that we're done with it. This is just what we do in
America if we want to preserve what Lincoln called the last
best hope of Earth. And that's exactly what we're
doing right now. Beto, thank you so much for your
time. Thank you.
So that was Beto O'Rourke, and I have to take care.
And it sounded to me like he's a man who might want to run for
president again. I mean, just on that, but also,
you know, he was arguing. It's fine that the Democrats
don't really have a leader and that they're disagreeing about
stuff at the moment. But doesn't it leave a bit of a
vacuum when it comes to taking on someone like Donald Trump?
Yeah, potentially and I and I guess the the the concern always
with with a kind of primary like that is if if there are all
these voices and there isn't a clear, you know, front runner,
you then have a party that is completely, you know, engaged in
those of infighting. But I think actually the way I
might look at it is also possibly in a better O Rourke
way, which is that, you know, there is this theory that the
the Democrats have never really had a proper presidential
primary where voters have felt they've had a real say since
Barack Obama. Because if we think about it,
since Barack Obama when he, you know, came, came out of nowhere
and defeated Hillary Clinton in 2008, you then had 2016 where
Hillary was essentially the the anointed 1.
You know, even though many people wanted Bernie Sanders and
many people thought, you know, it was Democratic Party, it was
going back to the old days of, you know, men in, you know,
closed offices with cigars deciding who became the nominee
like they used to do. So they chose Hillary Clinton.
And Biden came along in 2020 and he remember he lost the first
couple of primaries. And then there was this real
push from the establishment to give, to make Biden be the one.
And then you have Kamala Harris in 2024.
There was no primary because Biden dropped out.
So that I do agree. But I wrote that it really feels
like the Democratic Party, which is which has been going through
so many shifts and twists in the last decade that there was a
real sense amongst their the grass roots, they haven't really
had a say on where they want the party to go.
And I think those discussions, you know, when people like James
Tallarico in Texas are offering in some ways the Bernie Sanders
model, but slightly different. Because I think that's the
problem with the Democrats. You know, ever since 2016 when
Bernie was kind of shifted aside and you had this real fight for
sort of, you know, working fast Midwestern American votes, which
Donald Trump always managed to get, you know, that idea of
having the sort of Bernie Sanders, you know, the
billionaires tax the rich. What we've seen with Mamdani
Talarico offers that, but, you know, not with the same sort of
socialist by but more, you know, with the sort of Christian
cloak. So I think that could actually
be really positive for Democrats and where they where they want
to go. I guess for you, though, do you
think Beto as someone who you know, was seen as sort of the
darling of the Democrats when he almost beat Ted Cruz and then
went for presidency and then completely failed?
Is he, does he really think he wants to come back after all
this time? I.
Mean, he didn't say, yeah, sign me up.
But, you know, he was basically clearly someone who felt like if
the moment came and he feels like that's the most helpful
thing to do. I mean, he was trying to
basically say there's no real, you know, I want to be involved
whether I'm in the White House or whether I'm a volunteer in
Texas, which is obviously, you know, masking some of the
ambition that we know from his previous attempts.
He definitely sounded like someone who thought he had some
of the answers that he could put forward, but also someone who
was being very clubable. So very positive about James
Talarico, very positive, for example, about Graham Plattner,
who is the, you know, candidate now in Maine for Senate who
really came up against his party's establishment.
They didn't think he could win. I mean, you know, when you
mentioned like the way Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and then
Kamala Harris were chosen, I feel like one thing voters can't
bear, And I think this is actually true in the UK and a
risk probably for an Andy Burnham as it is here in the US
is they can't barest sense of entitlement.
And they, you know, trust in politics is absolutely rock
bottom. And, you know, I think where I
definitely think it's right is the idea that there wouldn't
have been a primary, that there can't even be an argument about
who gets to stand. Just seemed too much of A stitch
up in back rooms. I mean, the debate remains
though, and where politically a party has to be in order to win.
And, you know, there are obviously those on the centrist
wing of the Democrat Party, Democratic Party, who think
that, you know, those on the left can't win.
But I think that you can almost divide that into another two
sections, which is those on the left who may be arguing about
identity politics, for example, which Donald Trump is attacking
all the time. And those who bring a kind of
populist left wing economic idea, which is, you know, if you
listen to Graham Plattner, for example, he's talking about
organized labour. And and it's interesting you
mentioned how James Talarico has the cloak of the church and you
know, that that makes him a kind of acceptable candidate, I
guess, in the eyes of Republicans.
Or many might argue, you know, Graham Plattner in, you know,
similarly former military. And I guess they're all kind of
grappling for how you get this right.
The problem is, I think most people think they can't afford
to get is it wrong because the stakes are so high?
Yes, democracy or bust, as Beto O'Rourke said to you,
essentially. Democracy or bust.
I think you've just like summed it up in 3 words, which feels
like a good moment to head off. I will be back here in
Washington, DC next week, Kieran.
Thank you very much for having me.
Thank you for coming on. Bye for Trump World.
We'll see you next week.