Pod Insights The Ezra Klein Show The Opinions: Bernie Sanders and Ruben Gallego About this episode What will America’s story be after President Trump? My colleague David Leonhardt did a great series on that question this year, talking to a number of leading politicians. I thought two of those episodes, with Senator Bernie Sanders and with Senator Ruben Gallego, would be of particular interest to you.
And they’re great to listen to as a pair. Sanders and Gallego have strong views about where the Democratic Party went wrong and how it can win back working-class voters in particular — views that have a lot of overlap but also some interesting shades of difference. So I wanted to share both conversations.
You can learn more about our sister show “The Opinions” here — and subscribe wherever you find your podcasts.
Transcript 12,545 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Ezra Klein? My opinion colleague, David Leonhardt, has been doing these great interviews with Democratic politicians to ask, what is America's next story? And today, I want to share two conversations in a series that focus on the question of how Democrats can win back the working class, a question we've talked about a lot on this show. These are two very different views. The first is with Senator Bernie Sanders, and the second, it was Senator Ruben Gallego. And I think the ways in which these approaches converge and differ makes them particularly illuminating to listen to back to back. And if you haven't had a chance to check out our sister podcast, where these are from, The Opinions, you should. The show spotlights all sorts of interesting arguments and thinkers from the Times Opinion Universe. We will link to it in the show notes.
0:46 Speaker 01 This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
0:59 Ezra Klein? I'm David Leonhardt, an editorial director in New York Times Opinion. And this is America's Next Story, a series about the ideas that once held our country together and those that might do so again.
1:14 Speaker 02 We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union.
1:17 Speaker 03 Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
1:23 Speaker 04 That America is too great for small dreams.
1:26 Speaker 05 Change is what's happening in America. And we will make America great again. God bless you and good night. I love you.
1:39 Ezra Klein? Today, my guest is Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders has been talking about income inequality since the 1980s, back when he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont.
1:50 Bernie Sanders? In our nation today, we have an extreme disparity between the rich and the poor.
1:55 Ezra Klein? He's been railing against oligarchs since the 1990s, before Elon Musk made his first million.
2:01 Bernie Sanders? To a very great extent, the United States of America today is increasingly becoming an oligarchy.
2:09 Ezra Klein? Sanders started out as a political oddity, but his focus on inequality has turned him into one of the most influential politicians in America.
2:18 Speaker 07 You're about to hear a feisty conversation in which Sanders criticizes Democrats for not standing up for the working class, and I push him on what an authentic version of working-class politics might look like. He also offers his take on the abundance movement, and he sketches out a progressive patriotism that can take back the country from Donald Trump.
2:45 Speaker 07 Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you for being here.
2:47 Bernie Sanders? My pleasure.
2:48 Speaker 07 I have to start by going back to your days as mayor of Burlington and thanking you for bringing minor league baseball to the city, because I had family there and I would visit every summer, and we would pick a week when the Vermont Reds were home, and we would go every night.
3:00 Bernie Sanders? That was a lot of fun. We worked hard on it, and they turned out to be a great team. A lot of the guys who played, they ended up in the majors. So it was very good for the community. We had a lot of fun.
3:10 Speaker 07 My family were supporters of yours, and they got a big kick out of the fact that even though they were called the Reds because of the Cincinnati Reds, the one socialist mayor in America had a baseball team called the Reds.
3:20 Bernie Sanders? Yes, we thought that was kind of fun, yes.
3:23 Speaker 07 Okay, let's get into it. I want to go back to the pre-Trump era and think about the fact that a lot of Democrats in that era, I'm thinking about the Clintons, Obama, felt more positively toward the market economy than you did. They were positive toward trade, they didn't worry that much about corporate power, they didn't pay that much attention to labor unions. And if I'm being totally honest, a lot of people outside of the Democratic Party, like New York Times columnists, had many
3:49 Bernie Sanders? Yeah, I recall that.
3:51 Speaker 07 ...of the same attitudes.
3:52 Bernie Sanders? Some of them didn't actually, weren't supportive of my candidacy for president.
3:56 Speaker 07 That is fair. That is fair. I assume you would agree that the consensus has shifted in your direction over the last decade or so.
4:04 Bernie Sanders? I think that's fair to say.
4:06 Speaker 07 And I'm curious, why do you think those other Democrats and progressives missed what you saw?
4:15 Bernie Sanders? In the seventies, the early seventies, some of the leaders in the Democratic Party had this brilliant idea. They said, hey, Republicans are getting all of this money from the wealthy and the corporations. Why don't we hitch a ride as well? And they started doing that. Throughout the history of this country, certainly the modern history of this country, from FDR to Truman to Kennedy even, the Democratic Party was the party of the working class period. That's all you, working class. Most people were Democrats. But from the seventies on, for a variety of reasons, I think the attraction of big money, the party began to pay more attention to the needs of the corporate world and the
4:57 Bernie Sanders? wealthy, rather than working class people. And I think, in my view, that has been a total disaster, not only politically, but for our country as a whole.
5:07 Speaker 07 I agree certainly that corporate money played a role within the party. But I also think a lot of people genuinely believed things like trade would help workers. When I think about...
5:18 Bernie Sanders? No.
5:19 Speaker 07 You think it's all about money?
5:21 Bernie Sanders? No. What I think is, if you talk to working class people during that period, as I did, if you talk to the union movement during that period, as I did, you said, guys, do you think it's a great idea that we have a free trade agreement with China? No worker in America thought that was a good idea. The corporate world thought it was a good idea. Washington Post thought it was a great idea. I don't know what the New York Times thought. But every one of us who talked to unions, talked to workers, understood that the result of that would be the collapse of manufacturing in America, the loss of millions of good paying jobs. Because corporations understood, if I can pay thirty people thirty cents an hour in China, why the hell am I going to pay a worker in America a living wage? We understood that.
6:00 Speaker 07 I think that's fair. I guess I'm interested in why you think that members of the Democratic Party, not workers, why you think members of the Democratic Party and other progressives ignored workers back then, but have come more closely to listen to workers? I mean, if you look at the Biden administration's policy, if you look at the way Senator Schumer talks about his own views shifting, I do think there's been this meaningful shift in the Democratic Party toward your views, not all the way.
6:28 Bernie Sanders? Well, what we will have to see is to what degree people are just seeing where the wind is blowing, as to whether or not they mean it.
6:39 Bernie Sanders? In my view, working-class Americans did not vote for Donald Trump because they wanted to see the top 1% get a trillion dollars in tax breaks. They did not want to see 15 million people, including many of them, being thrown off the healthcare they had, or healthcare premiums double, etc., etc. They voted for Trump because he said, "I am gonna do something. System is broken. I'm gonna do something." And what did the Democrats say? "Well, in 13 years, if you're making $40,000, $48,000, we may be able to help your kid get to college, but if you're making a penny more, we can't quite do that. The system is okay. We're gonna nibble around the edges." Trump smashed the system. Of course, everything he's doing is disastrous. Democrats, "Yeah,
7:24 Bernie Sanders? system's okay. Let's nibble around the edges." Democrats lost the election. All right? They abdicated. They came up with no alternative because, you know what? They even today don't acknowledge the economic crises facing the working class of this country. Now, you tell me, all right, how many Democrats are going around saying, "You know what? We have a healthcare system which is broken completely. We are the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people." I've introduced Medicare for All. You know how many Democrats in the Senate I have on board? How many? Fifteen out of a caucus of 47. And you think Medicare for All is both good policy and good politics? Of course, it's good policy. Healthcare is a human right, and I feel very strongly
8:07 Bernie Sanders? about that. I think that at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality, you know what the American people think? Maybe we really levy some heavy-duty taxes on the billionaire class. I believe that. I think most Americans, including the Republicans, believe that. Hmm, not quite so sure what the Democrats are. I believe that you don't keep funding a war criminal like Netanyahu to starve the children of Gaza. That's what I believe. That's what most Americans believe. Overwhelming majority in the Democratic world believe it. Hmm, Democratic leadership. Hmm, maybe not quite so much. So, the point is that right now, with 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck, I don't know
8:49 Bernie Sanders? that the Democratic leadership understands that there are good, decent people out there working as hard as they can, having a hard time paying their rent because the cost of housing is off the charts, healthcare is off the charts, childcare is off the charts. Campaign finance system is completely broken. You know, when Musk can spend $270 million to elect Trump, you got a broken system. Our job is to create an economy and a political system that works for working people, not just billionaires.
9:17 Speaker 07 So the key to you is the Democratic Party needs to tell a story and implement policy.
9:22 Bernie Sanders? I don't know. You're talking about the Democratic Party, David. Who are you talking about?
9:25 Speaker 07 I'm talking about the leadership of the party in Congress.
9:27 Bernie Sanders? Who are the leadership? The leadership of the party right now. I mean, this is the struggle that I had when I ran in 2016, right? What I said is, open the bloody doors.
9:36 Speaker 07 Meaning?
9:37 Bernie Sanders? Meaning let working class people in with all their flaws. They may have said something 28 years ago, they regret saying, open the door. Open the door to young people. Open the door to people of color.
9:47 Speaker 07 As candidates, you mean?
9:48 Bernie Sanders? As candidates, as participant. Do you know that I was in West Virginia, I don't know if you know this. Went to West Virginia, I don't know, two months ago.
9:56 Speaker 07 Yep.
9:57 Bernie Sanders? I went to a county in West Virginia, which voted for Trump. Okay. We had hundreds of people coming out, unbelievable what I heard, decent, hardworking, good people. Did you know there is no Democratic Party basically in West Virginia?
10:11 Speaker 07 The party's given up.
10:12 Bernie Sanders? Yeah. It's only West Virginia. It's state after state after state. Democratic Party has abdicated, given up. They're not fighting for the working class. And what the Democratic Party has been is billionaire funded, consultant driven party. Way out of touch with where the working class of this country is.
10:34 Speaker 07 Let's talk about what a true working class politics might look like. So I think clearly a part of that is a much bolder economic policy.
10:41 Bernie Sanders? Yes.
10:41 Speaker 07 Right? And you've made that much of your life work. I do think there's another part of it. And when I look at your career, I see that. So your old colleague, Pat Leahy, once said that you appealed to an anti-establishment strain in Vermont that is not necessarily liberal. And when I think about what a true working class politics might look like, I think about the fact that in your history, you spoke positively about hunting and you got support from gun owners. And you really did better in rural Vermont than a lot of other Democrats. And so to me, I mean, just to think about Vermont for a minute, you sent the signal that you were not from one of the fancy Vermont towns like Charlotte, but that you actually understood the interests of people in less affluent rural Vermont.
11:23 Bernie Sanders? I am one of those people. I grew up in a three and a half room rent controlled party. It is not those people. Those are my people.
11:34 Speaker 07 And part of that, I think, is being willing to defy the Democratic Party orthodoxy, not only on economic issues, but also on some social issues. And you did that. You did that on guns, for example. And I'm curious whether you think that a true working class politics needs to incorporate the views of working class people, not only on economics, but also on issues where many working class people just have different views than the faculty lounge at a fancy university.
12:03 Bernie Sanders? I mean, I think there are certain basic, I think, you know, I have spent my whole life believing, not a radical idea, that women have a right to control their own body. We've got to end sexism. We've got to end racism. We've got to end homophobia. Very, very important. You know, I'll tell you a funny story. Way back when, I can't remember the year, in Vermont, there was an amendment, there was the constitutional amendment for women's rights. Do you remember that?
12:28 Speaker 07 Uh huh.
12:29 Bernie Sanders? Okay. And it turns out that a lot of, a number of people voted against that who voted for me. In other words, you've got to have a tolerance. I believe, again, women have a right to control their own body. There are people who disagree with me. What am I supposed to do? Throw them out? Discard them completely because they disagree with you? In this country today, in one sense, there is a lot of disunity, clearly, and a lot of people divided. But on the basic issues, is healthcare a human right? We're pretty, pretty much, most people think, yes. Should the rich stop paying their fair share of taxes? Yeah. Should we build low income and affordable housing? Yeah. Is the campaign finance system currently corrupt? Yeah.
13:12 Bernie Sanders? In the richest nation on earth, should elderly people be able to retire with security and dignity? Yeah. So got to be tolerant. I mean, so what? You don't agree with me on every issue. What am I going to do? All right, we're going to work together and come up with the best plan that we can.
13:28 Speaker 07 We want to play a clip of an interview you did with Ezra Klein, who's now my colleague, but at the time he was at Vox, and it's about immigration.
13:35 Speaker 08 But I think if you take global poverty that seriously, it leads you to conclusions that in the US are considered out of political bounds. Things like sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up to the, up to a level of open borders, about sharply increasing.
13:51 Bernie Sanders? Open borders? That's a Coke Brothers proposal. The idea, of course, I mean, that's a right wing proposal, which says essentially there is no United States.
14:01 Speaker 07 Can you say more about your views on immigration?
14:03 Bernie Sanders? Look, when there are people who want cheap labor coming into this country, the lower wages, no question about it. Where we are right now is we have, we think, about 10 million undocumented people in this country. The overwhelming majority of those people came to this country for the same exact reason as my father, came from Poland without a nickel in his pocket, to create a better life for themselves, and many of them actually brought their little kids here. They fled violence, they fled poverty. The overwhelming, overwhelming majority of these people are working hard during COVID. Those were the people in the meatpacking plants. Those were the people who were coming down with COVID and dying. They were keeping the economy going.
14:48 Bernie Sanders? The failure of both the Democratic and the Republican Party in the last number of decades is we have not developed a comprehensive immigration reform, and in my view, a path towards citizenship for those people. And I think what Trump is doing right now is disgusting. It is what demagogues always do. You take a powerless minority, maybe it's the Jews in Europe during the 30s, maybe it's gypsies, maybe it's gay people, maybe it's black people, you name the minority, and you blame all the problems of the world on those people. That's what Trump is doing with the undocumented. My view is very, very different. I think we've got to move toward comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship for people who are by and large working very hard and are a very important part of our
15:33 Bernie Sanders? economy.
15:34 Speaker 07 So Trump is clearly doing outrageous things that deny people their civil rights and that violate their basic humanity right now. There's no question about that. I also think it's fair to say that the Biden administration's immigration policy did essentially reject the views of a lot of working class Americans. And they looked at it and they said, that's just too open an immigration policy. And I think their discomfort with it was consistent with your longtime view of immigration.
16:04 Bernie Sanders? Well, what I do think in terms of the Biden administration, so long as we have nation states like the United States of America and Canada and Mexico, you have borders. And if you don't have any borders, in a sense, you don't have a nation state. And Biden tried to make some progress at the end of his tenure. You know, you saw the pictures in Texas of just all kinds of undocumented people.
16:28 Speaker 07 Yep.
16:29 Bernie Sanders? And that does not resonate, and it's not right. We need to have an immigration policy, but you also need to have strong borders for it.
16:36 Speaker 07 The reason I'm pushing you on this is I do think there is greater demand for a true working class politics in this country than many Democratic elites have often acknowledged. It's a kind of working class politics that really could involve moving economic policy in the direction that you want. But I think for people to win, and when you look at people like Ruben Gallego in Arizona, who's won, or Marcy Kaptur in Ohio, or you in Vermont, when you first got elected there, it wasn't a solidly blue state. It is not enough to be populist on economics. Democrats also have to show some basic respect for working class views and be authentic, rather than just saying that they're tolerating views on things like immigration or on guns.
17:17 Speaker 07 They genuinely have to have views that are different than really affluent Democrats tend to have on social issues.
17:24 Bernie Sanders? Uh huh.
17:25 Speaker 07 Okay. You think that's fair?
17:27 Bernie Sanders? Yeah.
17:28 Speaker 07 Okay. I think it's really uncomfortable for the Democratic Party, because I think it...
17:32 Bernie Sanders? Again, you see, when you keep, David, talking about the Democratic Party, when I ran for president, you know, one of the things that I learned is there ain't much of a Democratic body. There are people on the top. When I think about a party, I think about the involvement of large numbers of people at the grassroots level. You understand what I'm saying?
17:53 Speaker 07 Yep.
17:54 Bernie Sanders? That's my, when I think about a party, people disagree, they yell and shout at each other, as people have said, democracy is kind of messy. But I think sometimes when people think about the Democratic Party, thinking of these cocktail parties in New York City, where LA, where wealthy people mingle with consultants, mingle with the leadership, that's not much of a party, that's really kind of an elitist institution. So one of the things that I have, that I believe if the Democratic Party is to survive, maybe it will, maybe it won't, the transformation has to be to open the doors, to bring in millions of people, to hear what they have to say, to have them start running for office, etc.
18:30 Speaker 07 Let's talk about Trump. You are turning out tens of thousands of people across the country for your Fighting Oligarchy tour.
18:38 Bernie Sanders? Well, over 300,000, but who's counting?
18:41 Speaker 07 I was thinking of individual events, but that's fair, total audience. Fighting Oligarchy is also the name of your book. I'm curious why you chose Fighting Oligarchy as opposed to something that was more Trump specific, like, say, Fighting Authoritarianism. Why do you think oligarchy is the root cause of how we got to Trumpism?
19:03 Bernie Sanders? That's a, that's a good question. Obviously, I'm working day and night trying to defeat this guy's effort toward moving us to an authoritarian society. I think the two go hand in glove, by the way. But I think what I wanted to do, what we did in the rallies and what I wanted to do in the book, is ask the American people to start looking at some very uncomfortable realities. You know, it's very easy when I could say, oh, in Russia now Putin and his friends, that's an oligarchy, and I got a handful of zillionaires running that country. Oh, in Saudi Arabia, you got a billion dollar family, I think. All over the world, you got these really wealthy and powerful oligarch types, but not
19:48 Bernie Sanders? in the United States. Not true. In America today, we have more income and wealth inequality we've ever had in the history of this country. Over the last 50 years, you have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. You have a political system. Which is dominated by the billionaire class, right? That's what Citizens United was all about. That's what super PACs are about. So you got Mr. Musk, able to contribute 270 million, right? To elect Donald Trump and Democratic billionaires playing a role. You know, obviously, I'm strongly supporting Azran Mamdani. And it was just amazing to me how upfront the oligarchs were in New York City. One guy says, wow, we're gonna spend whatever it takes.
20:32 Bernie Sanders? You know, we're landlords, we're the oligarchy. How dare this guy come in and upset the apple cart? Quite open, that's what really sucked me. So you got an economy dominated by the very wealthy, a rigged economy. You have a political system dominated by billionaires. You have the media, corporate media, having a huge impact. You add it all up, what do you call that country? You tell me, is it fair to call it an oligarchy?
20:56 Speaker 07 I think, I absolutely think there are oligarchistic aspects to our country.
20:59 Bernie Sanders? Oh, you're sounding like a New York Times reporter here.
21:02 Speaker 07 I'm not willing to say that we are already an oligarchy, but I'm worried that we're very much moving toward that. And so I think there's a huge amount of your diagnosis that I agree with. To some extent, I'm not pushing you on the oligarchy notion. I'm accepting it. I'm asking, in this moment, should we be paying more attention to the authoritarian threat?
21:20 Bernie Sanders? Okay, they go together, all right?
21:23 Speaker 07 I agree they do.
21:24 Bernie Sanders? All right. The point is, what is very rarely discussed. You know, I've been on 48 million television shows, and nobody has ever asked me, not one person has ever said, Bernie, are you worried that so few people in America have so much wealth and so much power while working class people are struggling? No one ever asked me that question.
21:44 Speaker 07 I bet you make the point anyway.
21:46 Bernie Sanders? I do. I say, thank you for your silly question. Now I'll give you the answer to the question that you didn't ask. All right. But what do the oligarchs want? When you hear people like Peter Thiel talking about, I don't know if you followed this. When Peter Thiel, who is a billionaire actively involved in AI and robotics, you know, he refers to his opponents, not as, you know, people he disagrees with, the Antichrist. Did you see that? Literally, the word was Antichrist, a religious critique, because these guys have the divine right to rule. And when Trump gets elected in his inauguration,
22:27 Bernie Sanders? and he has all of these multi-billionaires behind him, A, these guys are doing phenomenally well, they love Donald Trump, no doubt. But B, what do they want? Do they want to pay taxes? No. Do they like unions? No, they want to break unions. Do they want any form of regulation in AI and robotics? No way. You're an Antichrist. You're immoral. You're a devil, literally, if you try to interfere with us. They like oligarchy. They like authoritarianism. They like authoritarianism. Because people like Putin gives the oligarchs in Russia, right? Opportunity to do anything they want. That's what, that's what Trump is doing right here in this country.
23:12 Speaker 07 I would say Russia's made it to full oligarchy, by the way.
23:14 Bernie Sanders? Yes. But let me tell you, there's some people on the right now who are beginning to refer to the United States Congress as the Duma. People blabbing all day long, powerless, Trump has all the power.
23:26 Speaker 07 You mentioned Zohran Mamdani.
23:28 Bernie Sanders? Yeah.
23:28 Speaker 07 New York is obviously different from the rest of the United States in a whole bunch of ways. What lessons do you want Democrats who are from swing states or red states to take from Zohran Mamdani?
23:39 Bernie Sanders? God, you keep sounding like a New York Times reporter.
23:41 Speaker 07 Well, I am.
23:42 Bernie Sanders? Oh, okay. All right, get over something.
23:46 Speaker 07 Okay.
23:46 Bernie Sanders? Okay. I grew up in Brooklyn, is very different than West Virginia.
23:51 Speaker 07 Yes.
23:51 Bernie Sanders? Different than Maine, different than other states. But at the end of the day, and I say this not, you know, to be sweepingly rhetorical.
24:02 Bernie Sanders? The overwhelming majority of Americans are working-class people. And what Mamdani is talking about in New York is people cannot afford the outrageous cost of housing. You know what? It's true in Vermont, it's true in West Virginia, it's true in virtually every state in this country. He's talking about affordability, talking about childcare. You know what? Childcare crisis in almost every state in this country. Don't use the word red state or blue state. When I hear red states, to me, it's an abdication of the Democratic Party in fighting for the working-class people. Have no alternative, and they vote for the Trumps of the world. If we are bold, and we've got to be really bold, in demanding that in the wealthiest
24:45 Bernie Sanders? country in the history of the-- you tell me, you tell me, why in the richest country, all of our people cannot have a decent standard of living? There is no excuse for that, other than the greed of the billionaire class, who have so much power, and the acquiescence of the political class in allowing that to happen.
25:05 Speaker 07 I mean, this ties together our conversation nicely, because I agree that Mamdani's message on affordability can resonate in the entire country. But when you look at the Democrats who've won in places it's harder for Democrats to win than New York, they sound very different from him on something like policing. Very different, right? They appear in their ads with police officers, they talk about the border. There's basically no counterexample of a Democrat who's won a tough race without doing things like that.
25:32 Bernie Sanders? Well, I think the world is changing, by the way, and I think you're going to see more of that, and I think you're seeing candidates right now running. And by the way, in terms of the police, one of the reasons, you know, I was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, a few years ago, 1981. You know who endorsed me? The Burlington Patrolmen's Association, that was the police union. And you know who endorsed me two years later, because I did good things in reforming the police department? The Burlington Policemen's Union. And two years later, oh, Burlington Policemen's Union. And two years after that. I understand that being a cop is in fact a very difficult job. Enormous responsibility when you have a gun on your hip. Scheduling is crazy. Divorce rate among cops is very, very high. They live under a lot of stress. All right.
26:16 Bernie Sanders? Treat them with the respect that they do doing a very, very difficult job. Can we tolerate racism within police departments? Not at all. Is there brutality? Absolutely. Do we need reforms? Yes. But police play a very important role and they should be respected.
26:31 Speaker 07 Look, that's, I think, the kind of message that can resonate with a huge number of Americans. I don't think it's the message a lot of Democrats have always given, but I think that's part of what interests me so much about your politics.
26:40 Bernie Sanders? By the way, I am an independent.
26:41 Speaker 07 I know. I know. Let's talk about another debate that's gotten people excited, and I'm really curious about your view. The abundance debate, which is this idea that one of the things that government needs to do and progressives need to do is clear out bureaucracy so that our society can make more stuff. Homes, clean energy. What do you think of the abundance movement?
27:03 Bernie Sanders? Well, it's got a lot of attention among the elite, if I may say so. Look, if the argument is that we have a horrendous bureaucracy, absolutely correct. It is terrible. I brought in over the years a lot of money into the state of Vermont. It is incredible, even in a state like Vermont, which is maybe better than most states. How hard it is to even get the bloody money out? You know, she has so many, oh my God, we have 38 meetings, got to talk about this. Unbelievable. I've worked for years to bring two health clinics into the state of Vermont that we needed. I wanted to renovate one and build another one in this.
27:42 Bernie Sanders? You cannot believe, you cannot believe the level of bureaucracy to build a bloody health center. It's still not built. All right. So I don't need to be lectured on the nature of bureaucracy. It is horrendous.
27:57 Bernie Sanders? And that is real, but that is not an ideology. That is common sense. Any manager, your corporate manager, your mayor, your governor, gotta get things done. And it in the bureaucracy, federal bureaucracy, many state bureaucracies make that very, very difficult. But that is not an ideology. It's good government. Sure, that's what we should have. Ideology is, do you create a nation in which all people have a standard of living? Do you have the courage to take on the billionaire class? Do you stand with the working class? That's ideology. Breaking through bureaucracy and creating efficiencies, that's good government.
28:33 Speaker 07 But it would be a meaningful change if states were able to reduce bureaucracy. It may not be an ideology, but it, but it doesn't happen today.
28:40 Bernie Sanders? Get things done.
28:40 Speaker 07 And you think, you agree that we should do more of that? We should have policy changes to simplify things to deliver.
28:45 Bernie Sanders? I did my best when I was mayor to break through our own, you know, we're a small city of 40,000 people to break through the bureaucracy to, and I was a good mayor. Yes. So there's no question that you have people who it seems to be their function in life is to make sure things don't happen. You know, we should not be paying people to do that.
29:03 Speaker 07 Right wing nationalism, and this is where I want to end, is ascendant in much of the world.
29:08 Bernie Sanders? Yes.
29:09 Speaker 07 And it is extremely dangerous in many ways as we are seeing in this country, as we're seeing in Europe, as we're seeing elsewhere. I'm curious what you think is a, an effective progressive response? Is there a version of progressive patriotism that can counter right wing nationalism? Is there something that is more than a sum of smart policies, but instead becomes a narrative and a message and something inspiring that people can say, we want that rather than this really reactionary nationalism?
29:44 Bernie Sanders? Good question. Look, as you've indicated, if you look at not only the United States and the, and Trumpism, if you look at France, look at the UK right now, the leading candidate is a right wing extremist. You look at Germany and often, as you indicate, immigration is the issue.
30:07 Speaker 07 Yes.
30:07 Bernie Sanders? Okay.
30:09 Bernie Sanders? What demagogues, as I mentioned earlier, always do is you take a minority who are powerless, you blame them for all of the problems. And I think what we have got to see is that in America and in many parts of the developed world, what's been happening over the last 50 years, especially in rural parts, is the rich get much richer and zillions of people get left behind. All right? Real inflation accounted for wages for the average American worker has been flat for 50 years. Okay. So people are angry.
30:45 Speaker 07 Yep.
30:46 Bernie Sanders? All right? So I think you need an economic agenda that says to people in England, France, Germany, throughout Europe, throughout Latin America, that with all of this technology, we can create a new world in which all of our people have a decent standard of living. And that doesn't solve all of the problems, but I think absolutely at this time of growing income and wealth inequality, when the oligarchs are trying to destroy democracy all over the world, that's an important part of the antidote.
31:16 Speaker 07 My worry is that a sort of whole world message falls flat. I think of you as a patriot. I don't know if you think of yourself as a patriot.
31:23 Bernie Sanders? Absolutely.
31:24 Speaker 07 Do you think patriotism within this country is an important part of that story?
31:30 Bernie Sanders? Look, when I was at Trump's inaugural, I actually got pushed into the front row for whatever reason. And sitting behind them with the three wealthiest guys in the world behind them, billionaires Trump had nominated to run government agencies. And honest to God, what I thought of when I was there looking at that scene, I was thinking about Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg after that terrible battle to help end slavery in America. Lincoln gets up and says, "These thousands of soldiers did not die in vain. They died so that we can maintain a government of the people, by the people, for the people." So you want a nationalism? You want a patriotic nationalism? That's what it is. People fought and died, not just in the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, World War II, died to defend democracy.
32:14 Bernie Sanders? And we need a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just a handful of wealthy campaign donors. That's your nationalism. We love this country, you know? My father, in a million years. You know, he came from a very poor family in Poland. Anti-Semitism, poverty, came to America. Never in a million years. He was so, I mean, you know, you can talk about it. The fact that his two kids were able to go to college. Unbelievable, unbelievable. And that is the truth of millions and millions and millions of people in this country. This is a great country, has given so much to so many people. And we're going to do everything that we can to make sure that Trump does not divide us up, does not move us into an authoritarian society.
33:05 Speaker 07 Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you so much.
33:07 Bernie Sanders? Thank you very much.
33:13 Speaker 01 If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Basaka Darba, Christina Samulski, and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Alison Brusick. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabaro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amen Sahota. The fact-check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulski. The director of Time's Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.
34:10 Speaker 01 This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
34:23 Speaker 07 I'm David Leonhardt, an editorial director in New York Times Opinion. And this is America's Next Story, a series about the ideas that once held our country together and those that might do so again.
34:35 Speaker 02 We, the people, in order to form a more perfect human.
34:39 Speaker 03 Ask not what your country can do for you, you ask what you can do for your country.
34:45 Speaker 04 That America is too great for small dreams.
34:48 Speaker 05 Change is what's happening in America, and we will make America great again. God bless you and good night. I love you.
35:05 Speaker 07 Today, I'm talking with Senator Ruben Gallego. He was a rare success story for the Democratic Party last year. He won a Senate seat in Arizona, even as President Trump was winning that same state. Gallego has a clear diagnosis about where Democrats have gone wrong and how they can start winning more often by telling a different story. In our conversation, we covered a lot of ground: what he has learned from Rosa Parks, what he admires about Zohran Mamdani, why he likes to talk about big-ass trucks, and why he still gets emotional when he thinks about his own family's journey.
35:46 Speaker 07 Senator Gallego, thanks for being here.
35:48 Speaker 09 Thanks for having me.
35:49 Speaker 07 You've just dropped one of your kids off at daycare.
35:51 Speaker 09 That's right.
35:52 Speaker 07 You just had a new baby.
35:53 Speaker 09 That's right. Thank you.
35:54 Speaker 07 Congratulations. And your oldest kid is here with us today in the studio.
35:56 Speaker 09 Yes, he's on break, so he's going to tag along with Dad for a bit.
36:00 Speaker 07 Let's go back to college.
36:01 Speaker 09 Oh, God. Okay.
36:03 Speaker 07 You went to Harvard in the early 2000s.
36:05 Speaker 09 Yeah.
36:06 Speaker 07 And back then, as is still the case, the most popular things to do coming out of Harvard included tech and finance and consulting. You did something different. You went into the Marines.
36:16 Speaker 09 [laughing]
36:17 Speaker 07 Why?
36:18 Speaker 09 Well, it wasn't much of a choice. I was a reservist. And I had always intended to serve my country, one way or the other. And I joined about a year before September 11th. And after that, I went on a series of activations. And when I got out, I had basically one and a half years left on my contract. I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they told me if I joined that I would be sent to Iraq. And, you know, to be honest, I hated the war. I hated that we had gone to war, but I also felt very... Conflicted that if I didn't go, someone else is going to take my spots. And so I went and unfortunately, it was a very hard activation.
37:01 Speaker 09 By the time I was done, you know, the war had changed me a lot to the point where I just couldn't go and do the finance work, the other types of work. I needed to do something that had some meaning and drive in my life because the war really took a lot out of me.
37:17 Speaker 07 And so you moved to Arizona and you get involved in politics.
37:19 Speaker 09 Yeah.
37:20 Speaker 07 You're in the state legislature and then you're elected to Congress. And then you run for US Senate. And let's go to election night last year because you must have had mixed feelings. I mean, you win and you are going to the US Senate at a pretty young age.
37:33 Speaker 09 Yeah.
37:33 Speaker 07 And you also realized that Donald Trump is going back to the presidency.
37:37 Speaker 09 Yeah.
37:37 Speaker 07 What was that like when you realized that you were going to win, but Kamala Harris was going to lose?
37:42 Speaker 09 And we knew on election night, when the numbers came in from two big counties and one rural area, that there was basically no way for us to lose at that point. But seeing the numbers that the vice president hit was, and she was leading, but knowing how kind of votes break out, we knew that that wasn't going to hold. It was hard because I wanted to jump for joy. My family had sacrificed for two years to run for office. And, you know, we were proud of the, you know, as a family that, you know, we hit an amazing American story, you know? We didn't come from a lineage of senators. But then, of course, you have Trump and you're realizing that that's going to be a very hard situation.
38:24 Speaker 09 I was hopeful, to be honest, that maybe things would be better than they are right now, but they're not.
38:31 Speaker 07 How do you diagnose why you won Arizona in particular and Kamala Harris lost it?
38:36 Speaker 09 We were very real about what was actually happening on the ground and we didn't lie to ourselves. I think a lot of Democrats running, and it wasn't just Vice President Harris, that they wanted to talk about the things they were comfortable talking about. They didn't want to go to where the voter was.
38:53 Speaker 07 So they wanted to talk about abortion and democracy?
38:55 Speaker 09 Basically, yes. And sometimes there are some voters that want to talk about that, but what we were seeing on the ground in Arizona- Was that people were worried about being able to make the rent. They were worried about border security and they were worried about, you know, what is truly happening to the American dream. And for a place like Arizona that was known to be affordable, had always been affordable, for the first time in, you know, anybody's memory, it became a very unaffordable place very quickly. And we sounded extremely out of touch that we weren't talking about that. Now, my campaign, we did talk about it. So it's all we talked about. We talked about the cost of everything. And we did it in a way that that wasn't an economic message. It was like an emotional message, right?
39:37 Speaker 09 I talked about how I grew up poor and I understand how frustrating it is. And I remember those days to work and work and work and then look up and you're still underwater. And that is what was dragging down a lot of people in Arizona, especially working class Latino men who, you know, have a mentality that I can keep working and get myself out of the situation. But for the first time, I heard this desperation that I had never heard in my, you know, 45 years of being a Latino man, that they just felt that they weren't going to make it. And we talked to them because I understood what they were going through. And I think a lot of Democrats did not do that, certainly not in Arizona, but I think also across the country.
40:20 Speaker 07 I think if we had a member of Vice President Harris's campaign team here, they might say, hey, look, we tried. We criticized Donald Trump's tariffs as being a tax on the American people. We talked about her focus on lifting people up. And so I do think they tried. I'm interested.
40:35 Speaker 09 I think they did try. I just think it's, there's a lot of, there's ways to do it that probably weren't able to connect.
40:40 Speaker 07 Yeah. And I mean, what's interesting to me about this is it plays into, I think, this broader critique you've had about the Democratic Party, which is that how it talks to people.
40:47 Speaker 09 Right. And how it treats people, too.
40:49 Speaker 07 And how it treats people, too. And you got a whole bunch of attention a few years ago for banning your staff in Congress from using the term Latinx.
40:56 Speaker 09 Yeah.
40:57 Speaker 07 Which you said is mostly a term that white liberals use and Latinos and Latinos think is silly. And I'm interested in your critique of how Democrats talk about the economy.
41:05 Speaker 09 Yeah.
41:06 Speaker 07 Because I think often the economy is an issue in which Democrats feel like, hey, we're comfortable on that issue. It's not like. Immigration, it's not like gender, we're comfortable in the economy. But you've said, actually, basically, the Democratic Party still talks, say, too much like Harvard professors and not enough like Marine Corps members to use your life.
41:21 Speaker 09 Yep.
41:22 Speaker 07 And so specifically, you've said this idea that Democrats should talk about the American dream in terms of prosperity, rather than, quote, "a nebulous message about justice."
41:35 Speaker 09 Yes.
41:35 Speaker 07 Can you be more specific about that?
41:37 Speaker 09 So, I mean, a lot of times, especially in the last couple of years, what I've heard coming from the Democratic side, my friends, is that they talk about economic equity. They talk about these ideas of essentially trying to equalize capitalism to lift people out of poverty. And that's just not how people think. And it's also this assumption that the Democrats themselves, the actual base voters, don't want to be prosperous, they don't want to be rich, they don't want to be successful. And so we have this situation within Democratic talk where we kind of shy away from that because we feel like that's somehow icky, right?
42:20 Speaker 09 You know, I'm surrounded by working-class Democrats. And the reason I speak the way I speak is because no one in my family's involved in politics. Half my families are in union, but the other half are very working-class. I have one sister who's a doctor. I live in a working-class neighborhood in Phoenix.
42:40 Speaker 09 No one there talks about economic equity. What they talk about is, "I want to be able to buy a home. I am starting a business, I want to make money, I want my kids to do well. I want to be happy." And when we have these nebulous positions that people just can't put their finger on, then Democrats are kind of losing an opportunity. Because if we're the party of opportunity, if we're the party that's going to give you a real chance of the American dream, you know, buying a home, starting a business, being able to go on vacation, for God's sake, the things that people used to be able to do, then people will say, "That's the party that I want in there to fight for me." But when we're just...
43:21 Speaker 09 Kind of like nebulous blah group of people that is going to protect this idea. But we don't actually ever really do anything about it. They're going to go off to something else shinier and the shinier has come with Donald Trump.
43:33 Speaker 07 Um, this is the point where I have to ask about big ass trucks.
43:35 Speaker 09 Yeah.
43:36 Speaker 07 In an interview.
43:37 Speaker 09 Troquitas, yes, yeah.
43:38 Speaker 07 In an interview with the New York Times.
43:40 Speaker 09 Yeah.
43:40 Speaker 07 You said that, um, what Latino men want is to own a big ass truck. Which is connected very much to what you were just saying.
43:46 Speaker 09 Yeah.
43:46 Speaker 07 And I assume you would say the point is broader than Latino men. It's men and women.
43:49 Speaker 09 Men and women, it's everything.
43:50 Speaker 07 Asian, black and white Americans.
43:52 Speaker 09 I mean, I did, I said that mostly just to kind of break through this because I've heard it so much like, our Latino men go this way. I'm like, well, Latino men want things. There's a lot of Democrats and the kind of the more liberal side that would hope that, that Latino men are more reflective and look, look and vote like, you know, white liberal men. They don't, they're different. They're entirely different. They have a totally different experience and they're not like black men either. Right. They have entirely different experience. And so to kind of break through like, you have to keep it simple. You know, they want security. They want economic security and they want physical security for their family. And their wants are legitimate. We shouldn't just shy away from, or ignore it because it puts us in an uncomfortable spot.
44:33 Speaker 09 So the troquita, you know, the truck, it's symbolic because it really is a status symbol that you have succeeded in this country. It means that you can afford a brand new, nice truck, that you take that truck to work and that work brings dignity to your family. It helps you pay the bills. You get to load your kids on there. You get to go on vacation. It involves this whole symbolic gesture to your community that you are leading your family and that you are bringing them into the American dream. That's what it really represents. And I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable about that, but that really is as simple as that.
45:08 Speaker 07 Also, trucks are fun.
45:09 Speaker 09 Trucks are a lot of fun.
45:10 Speaker 07 Yeah. So I think to me, that's a version of you saying the party needs to talk more about prosperity.
45:16 Speaker 09 Yeah.
45:16 Speaker 07 And less about things like equity and justice.
45:20 Speaker 09 Look, I think there was a lot of thoughts post Obama that if we focus on equity and justice, then that somehow would be the unifier of, you know, the, the Democrat coalition. It ends up. The biggest unit for our Democratic coalition, you know, black, white, Latino, immigrants, Asians, everybody else, is the personal checking account. That actually is what unifies our coalition. And when we walked away from that because of pure political convenience, our coalition started eroding more and more and more, and we're seeing it all the time.
45:49 Speaker 07 Look, I didn't predict that Donald Trump would get increasing support over his political career from Latino and black and Asian Americans, but the fact is, he has.
45:59 Speaker 09 Yeah.
46:00 Speaker 07 And it feels like Democrats made this fundamental misdiagnosis, which is that people think of themselves first in terms of racial or ethnic groups. And it turns out that doesn't seem to be the case.
46:10 Speaker 09 Depends. That's the other thing. It's like, when does it happen? When there is a, that racial group feels like they collectively are under attack. Like, I'll tell you right now, the Republican Party is going to lose badly with Latinos come 2026, because they moved beyond, hey, we're going after criminals. Now there's racial profiling in the streets, right? You know, originally, I'm from Chicago, as you know, I have a lot of friends and family there, varying degrees of politics and who they support. And I would say, I did see Latino men, especially in Chicago, moving away from the Democratic Party. That's not happening right now.
46:45 Speaker 07 I promise we'll get to immigration in a couple of minutes.
46:46 Speaker 09 You don't have to. I talk about it too much.
46:48 Speaker 07 We will, we will. Let's stay on trucks for a minute.
46:51 Speaker 09 Yeah, trucks.
46:51 Speaker 07 So you said big ass trucks. And then the writer, Matthew Iglesias, took that and coined this term, big ass truck abundance.
46:57 Speaker 09 You're right.
46:57 Speaker 07 Which plays into this policy debate on abundance within the Democratic Party. And so I'm going to overgeneralize a little bit, but the abundance crowd, which includes my colleague Ezra Klein, basically says the Democratic Party should focus on getting rid of bureaucracy and making more stuff, right? Houses, transportation, clean energy. And then there's another part of the debate, which is more associated with the progressive wing of the party, Bernie Sanders, AOC, that says, no, economic and political power is the issue. And we can't be naive, and we have to focus on cracking down on corporate power, and we should be creating universal government programs for childcare, which I know is an issue you deal with in your own personal life.
47:34 Speaker 09 Yeah, just today.
47:36 Speaker 07 Just today. So, do you think you're more on one side in that debate, or do you straddle the two sides?
47:41 Speaker 09 There's a really good commercial for taco shells, and the, you know, there's a debate of whether they should be soft or hard. And at the end of the commercial, this, you know, really cute Latino little girl says, ¿Por qué no los dos? Why can't it be both? We should be able to mix both of this, right? We should be building things fast, as fast as possible, especially housing. And the same time, we should be making sure that monopolies don't control markets that are driving up prices. We should be able to build roads fast and the same time make sure that there's ways for us to have affordable childcare for working class America.
48:25 Speaker 09 I don't understand why everyone seems to be in these corners because the American people aren't that way. If we make their lives better by both means, then we get the net benefit, which is their support and their vote.
48:38 Speaker 07 And so you're saying you can be both pro-abundance and you can be a populist who wants to take on corporate power?
48:44 Speaker 09 Absolutely. It doesn't mean that everything's a fight. It doesn't mean like every corporation is bad, but there are some bad ones, right? It doesn't mean that every regulation is bad, but there are some bad regulations. And I think we, as policymakers, as the actual people that vote and are leaders, we have to be able to pick and choose when to use the tools, right? So maybe sometimes it is abundant. Sometimes it is going against, you know, our monopolies.
49:11 Speaker 07 It's interesting because I think the answers you just gave on abundance could also have been given by Zohran Mamdani, the New York politician.
49:18 Speaker 09 I've heard of him.
49:19 Speaker 07 I'm sure you have. What do you think of him?
49:21 Speaker 09 Look, I think he really struck a chord. And when I talk about big ass truck policy, and that's how I got a lot of people to vote, like the man's talking about affordable rents, right? And, you know, be able to afford a, I don't know, for New York, like an apartment with a second bathroom or something.
49:39 Speaker 07 A medium ass apartment.
49:40 Speaker 09 Yeah, medium ass apartment, right? He talks about affordability. I disagree with some things, like I don't think they should have government-run grocery stores, but I guarantee you, there's a lot of New Yorkers are like, yeah, you know what? I don't agree with that, but at least he's talking about it. At least he has some ideas. At least he's pushing something. And I think there's a lot of Democrats that are missing the boat. Like, we don't have to support him on everything. We could disagree in some areas, but the fact is that, that he talks about affordability. He talks about trying to make people's lives better.
50:14 Speaker 09 That's resonating. And now, we may not agree how he's going to get there, but let's not ignore the lesson that he's showing.
50:21 Speaker 07 I do think there's this interesting question about the attention economy today. Zohar Mamdani is clearly on the left part of the Democratic Party.
50:28 Speaker 09 Yes.
50:28 Speaker 07 And I think what we see today is that it often feels easier for people who are making arguments and drawing contrasts, and their critics would say are at the extremes, to get attention.
50:39 Speaker 09 Yeah.
50:39 Speaker 07 You're much more moderate, and sometimes moderation can seem boring, if we're being honest.
50:44 Speaker 09 Yeah.
50:44 Speaker 07 But you figured out a way to break through in Arizona. How do you think about how someone with your politics doesn't just come off as boring and technocratic in this day and age of social media and attention?
51:00 Speaker 09 I think what happened with us in Arizona was that we used some smart ways to kind of get into people's feet, right? We did boxing matches, we did car shows, truck shows, a lot of that stuff. Hey, I reached out to white suburban people with pickleball tournaments, too, right? So, we did everything we could. But the reason it resonates is because while I was using them to get their attention, I was talking to them about what they were really worried about right now. And the ability for any candidate or elected official to talk in an authentic way will carry through. It will. The problem is, we have, and on the Democratic side, we have less and less of us that actually can speak about the personal checkbook and economics of a family in an authentic way.
51:46 Speaker 09 And that's why you could get on TV as much as you want, you could go on podcasts, you'd do your Instagram lives, and it's not going to catch.
51:54 Speaker 07 It's really interesting because whether you're coming from the left or closer to the center, both Mamdani in New York and you in Arizona, your messaging really emphasized those economic issues.
52:05 Speaker 09 Yeah.
52:05 Speaker 07 So, he didn't talk in his mayoral campaign about ICE or about Gaza very much.
52:10 Speaker 09 Correct.
52:10 Speaker 07 He emphasized the same things you're talking about.
52:12 Speaker 09 Right. Because that's what voters care about every day.
52:14 Speaker 07 Yeah.
52:14 Speaker 09 You get reminded about it every week. So, you know, I have three kids, you know, we have a family of five, but we go grocery shopping every week. So, I see that grocery bill. And I'm very lucky, my wife and I make a good salary, so it doesn't impact us that much. But I noticed that price. And I still have poor boy mentality. When you grow up poor, it's hard to get out of that mentality, so I'm still kind of watching all this. If I'm seeing this, I can't imagine what a family is thinking every Saturday and Sunday when they go shopping.
52:44 Speaker 07 Yeah.
52:44 Speaker 09 Right?
52:44 Speaker 07 Yeah.
52:45 Speaker 09 And, um, yeah. You know, it hits, it just hits.
52:48 Speaker 07 So we've touched on immigration a couple of times. Now let's really dig in on it. One of your early forays into politics in Arizona was you helped lead a recall campaign against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
52:59 Speaker 09 Yeah, I got very close too.
53:00 Speaker 07 Who was this, as I'm sure many listeners remember, was this cruel, anti-immigrant sheriff?
53:07 Speaker 09 Yep.
53:07 Speaker 07 And more recently, I think your image on immigration has changed. In your campaign, you criticized Joe Biden's open immigration policy. You co-sponsored the Lake and Riley Act, which calls for the detention of undocumented immigrants who've committed certain crimes even before the court trial has happened. How would you describe your own personal evolution or not on immigration?
53:29 Speaker 09 It hasn't actually been that much of an evolution. You know, why was I trying to recall Sheriff Joe? And then he was racially profiling Americans. He was racially profiling Latinos because we were brown. He was pulling them over while driving brown. Nothing to do with immigration, nothing else like that. Number one, that's, and then I'll do it again, should that ever happen again. Number two, I think the Democratic understanding of immigration and illegal immigration has always been pretty basic. And then it went awry, which is, we're for border security, we're for humanitarian immigration reform, and we're for reforming the visa worker permit.
54:10 Speaker 09 Something happened where all of a sudden, now we were also supposed to be extremely liberal when it comes to asylum seekers.
54:19 Speaker 07 When do you think that happened?
54:21 Speaker 09 It's sometime happening between Trump and Biden. And I think there was this overall reaction to Trump in his first term, that a lot of people just assumed that this is where the new conversation went and that policy went. When there was some of us that grew up You know, both on the border, one way or the other. I also lived in Mexico for a little bit and, you know, have family in all levels of immigration going on through my whole life. When that started happening, a lot of us were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not what we want. But nobody wanted to listen to us. And what happened was that a lot of policymakers started listening to some more liberal people about what was happening at the border.
55:01 Speaker 07 Liberal people who claimed to speak for the Latino community.
55:04 Speaker 09 Latinos, correct, yes.
55:04 Speaker 07 And in many cases, liberal people who themselves were Latino, the ones getting a hearing in the administration.
55:09 Speaker 09 Yes, essentially. And because they were in their little bubbles and, you know, without any personal experience, the administration just basically listened to them. And for us that had always had the same position, right? My position has not changed. I am for border security. I am for immigration reform, sane immigration reform. If you're a criminal, you should be convicted and deported, right? That's never changed. The problem is, we went totally to an area where a lot of Democrats weren't. And so my position, I think, is where traditionally Democrats have been. If you hear what Hillary Clinton was saying, if you hear what Barack Obama was saying, hear what Bill Clinton was saying about immigration, that's been the traditional place.
55:50 Speaker 09 What happened the last four years was absolutely out of norm of where Democrats are and why we lost, because I don't know where most Americans are. And now, if you see what's happening right now, most Americans are very unhappy with what's happening with immigration right now.
56:04 Speaker 07 Yep.
56:04 Speaker 09 Because they liked that the border is secure, and I get yelled at all the time because I say, you know, it's a good thing that the border is secure.
56:10 Speaker 07 Meaning Trump has secured it.
56:11 Speaker 09 Yes, exactly. That's a good thing. It's a value to this country that we have the lowest amount of illegal immigrants crossing the border right now. What I want them to do now is, let's do immigration reform. Stop racially profiling. Stop deploying National Guards to patrol these streets that supposedly are dangerous. And really invest in a smart way of dealing with a broken system.
56:33 Speaker 07 So I think that's what some Democrats who are in a little bit of a different place than you would say, which is, there will be a time to debate the finer points of immigration policy and a time to vote for a bill like the Lake and Riley Act or not vote for it. But this isn't that time. We've got federal agents in masks picking people up off the street.
56:50 Speaker 09 Right.
56:50 Speaker 07 We've got the president deporting people to a horrible foreign prison without due process. We've got the president and his administration racially profiling Latinos.
56:58 Speaker 09 You have to do both.
56:59 Speaker 07 And speak. And so...
57:01 Speaker 09 You have to, because here's why you have to do both, David. If you give the voter the option of saying either we're going to have security that's way too strong or no security at all, they're going to give the more security side the benefit of doubt. So the Democrats, we had to have a position that is a position that Americans can gather to and say, you know what, I totally disagree with what this guy is doing, you know, with the roundups, the deportations, everything else like that. What I want to see is what the Democrats are proposing and what they're proposing is where I am. If we're only oppositional and just saying, no, no, no, we're going to end up losing this argument in the end because people generally want to be secure.
57:43 Speaker 09 And if we don't give them some type of idea of what we're bringing, they're going to go to whoever is giving them any type of security.
57:50 Speaker 07 Let me read you what Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois recently said. He said, "This is exactly the moment for people to stand up. And do I see enough people doing it? No, I don't." Did you disagree with that?
58:01 Speaker 09 I think this is the moment to stand up. I think there are people that are moving into the fight. This is not a very easy situation for, I think, a lot of people in your everyday American, you know? Why? It's not that they want an open border. It's not that they want people deported. There's just a lot of stuff going on in their lives right now. There's just a lot of stuff. And, you know, from talking to my family that's still in Chicago, they're afraid. I mean, this is the first time that-
58:33 Speaker 07 They're being picked up.
58:34 Speaker 09 They're afraid of being picked up. They're afraid for their country. You know, asking for people to take action right now, it's not as easy as it sounds because people are generally afraid of what could happen. And that is part of this, I think, decision making that's happening right now. But it's not like, you know, we're going to be able to protest like we used to back in the day because people are generally afraid for their personal safety.
58:55 Speaker 07 I think I've also heard you suggesting that Democrats need to be strategic about this. And you probably wouldn't put it this way, but not always stand on principle. So after-
59:05 Speaker 09 I would never put it that way.
59:06 Speaker 07 Well, I know you wouldn't, but that's why I want to push you a little bit. It feels fair. So you, I read an interview where you were discussing Trump's deportation of alleged gang- Members to El Salvador and you said it's important to defend due process. And look, you've criticized Trump as you're doing here, but you also said Democrats shouldn't, quote, "Just jump and automatically assume that number one, that the person you're advocating for is someone that people can empathize with."
59:27 Speaker 09 Yep.
59:28 Speaker 07 And so I'm kind of interested in, in, you basically said, "Look, that was an unjust deportation, but it's not the fight we want to have."
59:34 Speaker 09 Yes, it's, look, you gotta be smart about this. You know, there's very perfect examples, you know, throughout any type of movement. You know, I'll give you a good example. When Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to go to the back of the bus, it wasn't coincidence that it was Rosa Parks. They had purposely, you know, vetted a lot of candidates to who would be the best example of this horrible segregation system. If we want to point out how awful this deportation system is, what it's doing to families, we should do it in a smart way. Let's find the most caring person, the person that people can empathize with, the person that says, "I want that person to stay in our country," right?
1:00:17 Speaker 09 Don't rush to a fight that someone's already set up because these guys, you know, and I think a lot of people don't quite understand, Donald Trump's people are smart. They set up traps of this nature all the time and they love nothing more for us to just run in there and just get into it with them and they have all the advantages. You know, they've already set up the field to fight in, they have all the information and we're just, you know, playing catch up. If you want to win, and I think that's the ultimate goal, let's be smart about actually doing this, right? Why not use, you know, the people that can actually connect with this issue?
1:00:47 Speaker 07 And this is a podcast series about what America's next story should be and what you're saying is be smart about the story that the Democratic Party is telling.
1:00:54 Speaker 09 Absolutely. We have to want to win and we have to plan to win. Those things don't necessarily happen in Democratic politics and I've seen it over and over and over again. I've, I've never lost a race every time I run. And the reason I've never lost a race is largely because I don't Bring any political perspective, I bring a marine perspective to this. The Marines, they teach you, everything is about mission objective first. And then you build your whole campaign, your whole plan, your whole battle plan around mission objective, and you're agnostic about it. And so when we ran for, you know, the House, for the Senate, you know, I figured out, what did I need to win? Put the plan together and go. Democrats sometimes try to stumble into victories.
1:01:39 Speaker 09 And that might be fine, but this really means people's lives are in danger. Democrats not winning in 2024, in 2016, really cost us a lot of our positions and values that are going to be in danger for quite a while.
1:01:53 Speaker 07 And I would say that I think sometimes Democrats confuse the story that they want to be the winning message with the one that actually is going to be the winning message.
1:02:01 Speaker 09 Yes, because it makes them uncomfortable. Then why are we doing this? Right? We need to win. With us not winning, we don't have the Supreme Court. We won't have the Supreme Court for quite a while. Us now picking up a couple of Senate seats for the last couple of years puts us out of potentially holding power again in the Senate. All the victories we avoided because we were afraid of these conversations, these icky conversations, look what's happened to this country now.
1:02:23 Speaker 07 And there's a class aspect of this, which is the people who often find these positions and conversations icky tend to be more affluent and more educated. And in working class neighborhoods, actually, people are quite willing to engage in these conversations for the most part.
1:02:36 Speaker 09 And they do all the time.
1:02:38 Speaker 07 And they do all the time.
1:02:38 Speaker 09 Like going back to big ass truck. Everyone's like, oh, you look down, you're looking down on Latino men by saying, oh, they want some big ass truck. Like, quite the opposite, actually. The problem that happens in kind of elite Democratic politics is that we don't think that the voter is that smart. We believe that we have to dumb things down, when like, the voters are fairly sophisticated. They not use sophisticated language or anything else of that nature, but they know what they're feeling. And they know when we're throwing bullshit at them, and they will vote in their own interests. Until we're willing to accept that, until we're willing to actually have real conversations, we're going to be finding ourselves still on a declining support level.
1:03:22 Speaker 07 Let's end by connecting your personal story with what you think the country's next story should be. So, as you mentioned, you grew up in Chicago. You grew up poor with a single mom and three sisters. And it's the kind of story in broad brush that I think used to feel more typical than it does today. There's less upward mobility, and I think a lot of Americans are understandably angry about a lot of things.
1:03:43 Speaker 09 That's right.
1:03:44 Speaker 07 And yet, you made optimism absolutely central to your campaign. Here are the opening lines of the ad that introduced you to Arizona voters last year.
1:03:54 Speaker 09 Growing up poor, the only thing I really had was the American dream, an opportunity. It's the one thing that we give every American, no matter where they are born in life.
1:04:05 Speaker 07 I think for a lot of people, it's an incredibly inspiring story.
1:04:09 Speaker 09 It is.
1:04:10 Speaker 07 Whether it's one generation, or whether it's three generations.
1:04:12 Speaker 09 Each generation, whatever it is, yeah.
1:04:13 Speaker 07 And it's often connected to the immigrant experience. And I guess I have to ask, do you still think we give that opportunity to every American?
1:04:20 Speaker 09 I still think that we can. I think that the things that used to exist, the infrastructure of hope, of opportunity, is kind of slowly eroding. I think what we need to do as Democrats, as Americans, is put that back together. So for me, you know, for me, it was, I had a decent school. My mom was a secretary, wasn't great pay, but wasn't horrible pay. We had an affordable apartment. Yeah, I slept in the living room, but we stayed in that apartment. It was in the same school district. I had support all around me. I knew that if I got good grades, I could afford to go to college. I could get a scholarship. There
1:05:01 Speaker 09 was, there was this idea that my, my sacrifice, my family's sacrifice, was going to have an end result. What I hear, and this is why the campaign started the way it is, is because, especially from working class people, they don't feel that anymore. And the future of America has to go back.
1:05:29 Speaker 09 Back to the future of where Ruben Gallego felt comfortable and believing that the American dream was possible, right? We have to be able to be able to tell, you know, the kid in Kentucky or the kid in California, yeah, you're poor, yeah, you know, life sucks, but if you do this, this, this, you're going to be fine, right? And until we actually not just talk about it, but put back the policies and in the, again, the infrastructure of how to become successful, how to get out of poverty, people aren't going to believe it.
1:06:03 Speaker 07 Can I take a crack at telling you what I, what I think you think America's next story should be?
1:06:07 Speaker 09 Sure.
1:06:08 Speaker 07 So it should be one part, call it Rosa Parks moderation, respecting voters, meeting them where they are.
1:06:14 Speaker 09 Yeah.
1:06:15 Speaker 07 I think it's one part populism. You talk about taking on the rich and powerful. I mean, you've said it, if you're in Congress and you're spending more time with the powerful than the powerless, you're doing the job wrong.
1:06:23 Speaker 09 Right.
1:06:24 Speaker 07 And I think it's one part optimism. It is about the American dream. Is that fair?
1:06:27 Speaker 09 It's very fair. Plug it. Honestly, I think if you, if I had to say what the future is, is the American dream. It's, it's a thing that's, that's driven us forever. It's what drove us to the shores here. It's what drove us west. It's what drove people from all over the world to come here. It's what drove me, you know, some really, really hard days. Like, I remember like just being very angry as a young man. And it wasn't because of the situation that I was in. My anger was the idea that I'm going to work so hard and I may not succeed. And I just don't think I want to have any other young man or woman have that feeling.
1:07:07 Speaker 07 Senator Ruben Gallego.
1:07:09 Speaker 09 Thank you.
1:07:10 Speaker 07 Thank you so much.
1:07:10 Speaker 09 Thank you so much. All right, you got tears out of me, David.
1:07:14 Speaker 07 All right.
1:07:15 Speaker 09 Fuck you. Oh, sorry, son, don't use that word.
1:07:30 Speaker 01 If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:07:37 Speaker 01 The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Vaschaka Darba, Christina Samulski, and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Alison Brusick. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabaro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amen Sahota.
1:08:00 Speaker 01 The fact-check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulski. The director of Time's Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.
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