Neera Tanden and Heidi Heitkamp: Trump Playing the Media, Again
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Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We got a two-parter today. In part two, it is going to be the muse behind the Pinto beanbag poster, former North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp. We'll give you that whole story. But up first, I'm just so tickled to be here today with Neera Tanden. She's the domestic policy advisor to President Biden, a fellow veteran of the great Twitter wars of 2016. And this is our first time on the Bullard Podcast. How are you doing, Neera?

I'm great, but I just really want to be clear that I'm a very, very, very reformed tweeter. I know.

We're going to be talking about that. But, you know, you put in the work, though. That's why I was a veteran. You're a veteran. I'm still on active duty. You're doing real serious policy work at the White House. And I want to talk to you about President Biden's Investing in America tour and what's happening this week and how that relates to the campaign and the accomplishments. But before we do that, we just we have to have one flash from the past.

Let's take a listen to Trevor Noah talking about Neera Tanden's confirmation hearing in 2020. Oh, man! Oh, man! Biden's nominations have to be approved by the Senate. And one of Biden's lesser-known picks has run into some trouble over her itchy Twitter fingers.

Consideration of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget is now frankly in jeopardy after more senators have come out against her. Republicans Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah all citing Tanden's past tweets criticizing Republicans. A Romney spokesperson called them "mean tweets." You wrote that Susan Collins is "the worst," that Tom Cotton is a fraud,

that vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz. You called Leader McConnell, Moscow Mitch, and Voldemort, and on and on. There are still nine pages of tweets about Senator Ted Cruz, for example. Read them! Read the tweets! Read every single one of those tweets!

There's nine pages left of Ted Cruz tweets. Neera Tanden, you were denied that role at the Office of Management and Budget by Republican senators who are upset with your tweets. Almost all of them, I guess, except Mitt.

are now supporting Donald Trump for president this time. Do you have any feedback to the senators that voted you down? I would say that that was a long time ago. And, you know, at the time, I found it somewhat perplexing that they were judging and reading my tweets very clearly and closely.

when perhaps in previous moments, they hadn't read tweets that much. But I would say over the last couple of years, I've enjoyed working with many of these senators on issues that put, you know, where we can focus on helping the American people. And, you know, that's like all in the past for me. I'm very happy where I am at the Domestic Policy Council. It's kind of where my heart is. So, you know, all is well that ends well. All is well that ends well. But I mean...

Really? They're trying to vote for Donald Trump this time? After saying Neera Tanden couldn't run the Office of Management and Budget, they're going to say Donald Trump can be president? I mean, we're really doing this, Lindsey Graham? If people want to look at that and think it's kind of odd that people who hadn't seen tweets for three years discovered tweets all of a sudden when they were mine, you know, and like, of course,

I hadn't said anything as harsh about some of these senators, the person that is the nominee today. But, you know, again, it's been a role where I am just like happy to serve and again, happy to let all that be in the past. Wow. You're just maybe a bigger person than me, Nira. That's all I got to say. I don't know. I'm a bigger person than you, Tim. We might be having a dramatic reading of the other nine pages of Ted Curtis tweets. Yeah.

That's the end of the podcast. We'll see. All right. Let's do business. Let's do business. So President Biden is out starting this Investing in America tour. He'll be out in the campaign trail later this week. Just talk about like the top lines of that and like the investing in America, what the big achievements are, particularly stuff you think are going to be most resonant out in those Midwestern states where he's going to be having events this week.

Yeah, so Investing in America really signifies the legislation the president passed, the infrastructure bill, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the investments made all across the country, blue states and red states, urban, rural, suburban communities. The president believes he's a president for all Americans. So he's going to highlight the impact on

Americans everywhere, family farms. He'll be making an announcement around solar farms and investments in energy that help family farms.

But this just signifies the kind of investments overall he's made. We have 800,000 manufacturing jobs during the course of this administration. We do see in the last couple of weeks that people are increasingly optimistic. It's still real challenges, but there is increasing optimism around the economy. And so I think the president is going to outline a key foundation of this administration, which has been

to create jobs for people everywhere in every community to ensure no community is left behind. You know, and I think that is a kind of a stark contrast from perhaps what you might see others in the political system talk about these days. Because, you know, he does believe that he should have policies for people who didn't vote for him. And you'll see that outlined. And of course, we're proud of the investments

that we've made and really believe that investing in these jobs, many of them union jobs, 80% of the invest in America jobs are for people who don't have a college degree. These are important policies, but also really signify an inclusive administration that wants to lead the whole country. We were talking to Senator Schatz in the pod about this yesterday. On the one hand, you have this stark contrast between the infrastructure half decade that never yielded any infrastructure with Donald Trump

And what we've seen with the chips, with the IRA and the investments going into these communities, including right community, including here in Louisiana. I mentioned that to my Republican friends in Louisiana from time to time. On the other hand, we also talked like there's, you know, obviously there's delays or permitting issues. There's work still to be done that the rural broadband, you know, maybe haven't seen the results that that had thought about initially. So how do you kind of think about that? Like, what's the work left to do on getting this stuff implemented?

Well, implementation is a huge issue. And I do think that, I mean, the president has been focused on ensuring that we don't just pass the bills, but implement them well. And there are important things like speeding up building. I mean, we have a big housing agenda, speeding up building permits. We just announced a set of policies on that a few weeks ago. You know, it's important not to just pass the legislation and put the money out there, but to create the infrastructure for it. And we have found in some places that

We need to address roadblocks and roadblocks. And so that's why, you know, we didn't just put on money for housing or have a big housing agenda, but we have to take the sort of additional actions around speeding up building permits. And some of these issues are relatively nonpartisan and, you know, we should be able to address them.

Let's talk about the vice president. I mean, obviously, she's been a partner with the president on a lot of what you guys have been doing over there, but you have a unique seat there as a domestic policy advisor. So I'm just I'm wondering, what did you see firsthand as far as things that she was particularly focused on or, you know, things you got to work together on? I mean, there's an anecdote or story, something people might not know about about her work on projects you've been involved in over the last few years.

Yeah. So, I mean, now that you've rehashed all my wonderful OMB nomination issues, I'm reminded of one when I was during transition, when I was OMB nominee, we were hashing out the economic plans of the president and vice president. And thematically, she really focuses on the impact on real people. I know that that sounds like everybody does that, but I've worked for political leaders who really think about, you know, what is the macroeconomic impact of something and

Well, as walks can focus on that, she was particularly focused on, you know, how was money getting into people's hands quickly? How would they access the money? You know, she was very practical in thinking through the real direct consequence of policy on people's lives. And of course, she's been a significant champion of issues like child care, paid leave.

And, you know, has a particular perspective on those issues. You know, it was it was a case that the women in the economic team and the vice president really led the charge for including those proposals.

So, you know, my experience with her, I've worked with her on voting rights issues, on civil rights issues, on AI issues. And my experience with her is that she's, you know, she's really kind of a practical leader. She's very focused, again, on how do the policy decisions we make in Washington affect actual families?

Because, you know, she was an AG, she was a prosecutor. She really sees how Washington can get far removed, how you can lose sight of the actual impact of things and really pushed us pretty hard on those issues. And again, you know, you can pass a bill, but she'd want to know when it was going to get implemented. Which, you know, is a kind of baseline question. But sometimes a lot of political leaders don't ask questions like that. They really will just, you know, sort of take it.

take it at face value, you know, that it will affect people eventually. So that's been my experience with her. It's like really just focused on, you know, how we're making progress for people and who can be cynical about the impact of things and really do rely on these programs or policies. Just kind of thinking about that and her style. And obviously you'd worked so closely with Secretary Clinton and having been an advisor to her and just kind of thinking about that.

like the challenges like of her now doing this thing again about you know being a woman leader and having to deal with the opportunities but also the challenges that deal with that i just i wonder if you've has anything been learned from that did you have any advice for her on that or is there any perspective you have about kind of how she's been doing now you know through the context of of what y'all went through in 2016 well i feel like what's excellent about this podcast is that i

I'm reliving every wonderful memory I have. This is a list of your, some of your childhood traumas here. And so hopefully we're going to get to that. If you don't stall too much on these, we go from the nomination to the 2016 election, which was, I didn't,

And in every way. When you start a podcast, you can interview me about Jeff. You can interview me about... You know, that's the motivation. Now I'm going to start a podcast just to do that. So, look, I really did feel firsthand. I worked for Hillary for a very long time. And I worked for her in the 2008 campaign. I worked for her in 2000 when she ran for Senate. I worked for... I was an advisor to the campaign in 2016. And...

I mean, in that very long journey I have seen, I do feel that women candidates are judged very differently. And, you know, I mean, in a way, like we all have sort of unconscious biases. And I just think some of those, there's just ways in which, you know, I think people traditionally think of leaders and then how they see women and super complicated. It's not, you know, just everyone is misogynist or something, but I just think it is,

These are very hard metrics. Having said that, I think that the vice president, Kamala, is handling it really well. You know, I mean, she's talking about what she would do as a leader. She's not shying away from the fact that she's

Kind of history making and has left it to other people. Obviously, you know, Hillary talked about her in the convention in her convention speech as historic. But obviously, everyone can see the change that she would bring and who she is kind of on face value. So I think it's smart that she's she's focused on these issues. And I think also people kind of forget that.

Hillary was really kind of vilified as a kind of an establishment person or attacked. I shouldn't say vilified, attacked as super establishment. So I think, you know, there are reasons for her to emphasize how different it would be to have a woman leader. And so I sort of think that this is just a different time. I also think we live through the Democratic Party lived through 2016 and is really just a lot more on women.

about kind of sexist attacks and other attacks. And, you know, I think she's handled the overtly sexist and racist attacks she's gotten from, you know, the other side from really well. I agree. Like the brush off with Dano was pretty good. It's only more challenging from here, though, having to be next to him on stage. I agree.

I mean, I don't know. He seems really freaked out by her. So, I mean, I don't know. He might just melt down in person because, you know, he is he is a lot better looking than her. So, I mean, that's just going to be hard for him to not just naturally feel how much better looking he is.

Because he's definitely like talking about his looks relative to her looks. And it was kind of a weird thing to focus on. So who knows? Maybe she will. I'm looking forward to the debate. I mean, it's very anxiety producing these debates, but I'm looking forward to it. The other side of her history making, I'm just curious if you have any insight on. I mean, obviously she's biracial. And thanks to Donald Trump's discussion about how she turned black, there's been a

I guess some commentary on how, you know, her mother's of South Asian descent as you are. I just, I wonder if there's, I don't know, it's like an excitement in, in that community at all. Are there other challenges, Robert? Yeah. Any perspective on that? There's incredible enthusiasm and, and,

You know, I think people in the South Asian community can also actually see that a person can be both South Asian and black. I don't know. It's weird. It's a concept. Yeah, there's incredible excitement. And look, I just think it's like a fascinating, you know, it's a fascinating moment. Like, I thought the vice president did a fantastic job in her Democratic Convention speech where she really actually talked about her full biography as both black

incredibly different from a traditional president, right? Both her parents are immigrants. Her mother, you know, made this long journey to America to be able to have a full career in science research and breast cancer research. And at the same time, you know, they struggled and, you know, she lived in a very working class environment.

community in Oakland. And I mean, I just thought that the way she weaved together what some people would think of as, you know, extraordinary or unusual, I should say, background to, you know, kind of the basic story of America, I thought really resonated with me. But also, you know, I think like having a president who's had that experience, I've talked to the vice president in the past about, you

Strong Indian moms and how they can use healthy competition with other people to make sure you do better. And, you know, I mean, her mom just does seem like a strong,

You know, just a strong immigrant mom who, you know, journeyed a very far way to, you know, have a dream, which I think is kind of a cornerstone principle for, you know, in our great crazy country. It was a cornerstone principle until Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Exactly.

We'll be a cornerstone principle again because we're not going to let them define what America or American is. We're not going back. I noticed you pointed out recently that there's this asymmetry in the media sometimes and how Donald Trump admitted on Fox News over Labor Day weekend that he believed that he had every right to try to interfere with the election. A lot of people weren't talking about that. So we're in the media now. We should talk about that.

It is insane. The whole thing is like, hey, there's like the media criticism element of this, which is noteworthy. But there's also just the straight outrage of it all. Like, yeah, we have gotten to desensitize to how insane something like that, that admission like that is.

I find it really mind-boggling. And I note that you read one of my tweets. But I do want to say I'm overall a very reformed tweeter. But, you know, I feel like we had a lot of post-2016 analysis about...

how the media mishandled covering Trump and didn't take him seriously or literally. And then, you know, felt all this regret during his presidency when he did all these things were that were pretty harmful. And now we have a, you know, kind of similar thing, which is like, there's just so much he does that, um,

It feels to me that there's some editorial decision that we can't cover everything because then it would feel very out of balance. Because I don't know if in the middle of her interview with Dana Bash, if Kamala Harris had said...

If I win, I get to have an insurrection or an insurrection would be justified, which is a little bit what he was thinking about jailing political autonomy. I feel like we would be talking about it for like seven days straight. Right. And I mean, I think this is the thing. Like sometimes it feels like Donald Trump gets like a super wide berth for the cray cray and Democratic candidates or whether it's

Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris are judged from every nuance because people are just assuming they're they're saying, which is legitimate. But then you should judge him on the same standard, like just factoring in that he's crazy and people are bored with crazy. Doesn't seem to me to be the right approach when what it ends up doing is saying,

He basically adopts strategy, which is to say cray cray all the time because you cannot actually hold on to any particular cray cray. And having been played by him for eight years or I don't know, played may be tough. Having been like, you know, possibly manipulated by his strategy. I would just wonder if people are not thinking they should play.

No, we're on the same page. I mean, there's so much of it, right, that you could grab onto anything. You grabbed onto the admitting he interfered in the election with Marco Vinn. I was making the same point via his Truth Social tweets about like, you

you know, how we need military tribunals and all this sort of stuff. All of his opponents in jail and orange jumpsuits. I'm like, imagine if Kamala just randomly one morning, like started tweeting about how after she gets in, she's going to have military tribunals targeting Donald Trump. Literally everyone would be like, drop the race right now. Right. I mean, it's just, I think this is the thing that's weird. It's like,

They don't know how to cover him, so they just don't. And then they learn to cover when he actually is in office doing the terrible things. So it strikes me like, you know, on the fourth time, maybe they should figure out the rules. All right. Last question for you. J.D. Vance has had a series of comments lately, some of them about how women who have passed the biological period where it was possible to have children are miserable. Obviously, he's had his comments about childless cat ladies.

I'm asking you for this one minute to embody the 2015 era that sent nine pages of tweets about Ted Cruz. What do you think, 2015 era, about J.D. Vance's thoughts on miserable women?

I personally think when you read all this, like fundamentally, there is a weird extreme world vision here where women's equality is just a direct threat to men's manhood. And I mean, this is what he's channeling. And I fundamentally think that is true.

like super backwards and kind of crazy, but also just, you know, like, I think, I think women should recognize that what is really driving this group crazy is the fundamental equality of women.

And vote accordingly. Good way to leave it. The director, Neera Tanden, domestic policy advisor to President Biden, previously staff secretary at the White House, served in the Obama and Clinton administrations. Thank you for coming by the Bullard podcast. I hope to see you in person soon. I hope so much. I don't regret this. You won't. People love it. You'll be getting stopped in Whole Foods. I promise you. All right. Thanks so much, Neera Tanden. Up next, Senator Heidi Heitkamp.

Bye.

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All right, we are back with Heidi Heitkamp, former Democratic Senator from North Dakota. She's the director of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, a contributor to ABC News and CNBC, and the founder of One Country Project, which helps facilitate Democrats engaging rural America. What's up, Heidi? It's so good to be on with you, Tim. And good to see Tyler this morning and know that your girl is off to first grade. Man,

Time flies. Time flies. Time flies. Yeah. For folks who don't know, my husband used to work for Senator Heitkamp in our office. And, you know, that might have something to do with the pinto beans and the hat I'm in. But we're going to save the gossip till the end. Okay. We're going to save the gossip till the end. Get right to the meat of the issue.

We're not going to do that, actually. There's a fun little story that I feel like, you know, it's the morning kind of warm us up a little bit. Mark Robinson, you heard of him. He's run for governor of North Carolina. Here's a story out yesterday. Mr. Porn. According to Lewis Money, who worked in several of Greensboro's windowless 24 hour video pornography stores, Robinson came in as often as five nights a week.

to watch porn videos in a private booth five other sources say they saw the same i mean hey at least he had a hobby that is so gross though it is so gross i mean who goes to those places you know even back then you could get a video i mean really dude five nights a week

You know, I forget who is the sociologist who wrote about the loss of third places. He needed a release. What do we say? They said that men really need to have a third place to go to, you know, a bowling alley, an Elks club. We've lost some of those. And for Mark Robinson, his third place was the porn store, apparently. A different kind of man cave.

It does shine a different light on some of his comments. He's called gays, maggots, flies, filth. He said that the woman NFL player Ray Rice beat up was brought the whooping on herself.

It seems like maybe there's a little bit of, you know, some personal issues that he's dealing with, I guess, the more we learn. You know what? And I hate to say this behind every person who is that concerned about other people's behavior. I always go, what is he into? What does he do? And here it is. Here it is. I mean, you're busy trying to tell everybody else how to live because you have guilt about how you live.

Well, it's not really for me or I do some on the ground reporting from Greensboro, but I guess we'll just kind of let this let this one go. Not that the Republicans haven't been recruiting their best for some of these. But, you know, to kind of put this in political context. Yeah, I think North Carolina is definitely in play because this guy is at the top of their ticket as a gubernatorial candidate and MAGA endorsed.

along with Cary Lake. I mean, Arizona and North Carolina are definitely two places where if Joe Biden were still in this race, he wouldn't be focused on, but they definitely are in play now. No doubt that the map has expanded. Let's talk a little bit about that. So it was interesting, maybe last week, I think it was in Politico, Quentin Fulks, who worked for Warnock, who's on the Harris team, one of the leading strategists on the Harris team, was talking about

basically a lose by less strategy in rural America and how Georgia, he was talking about Georgia, but it's also true about North Carolina in particular, how the maps kind of opened up there as they're going to have Harris and Walls campaigning, you know, not just in the metros, but out in the rest of the state. And that's something that, you know, you've been pushing for with one country. So talk about that and what, you know, what is a worthwhile use of resources there, you know, and what isn't?

The whole point of this is everybody says, oh, well, it's never going to become Democrat. And you want to say, that's right, but you can't lose by 70-30. If you lose by 55-45, let me tell you, you don't need to worry about what all is happening in these campaigns. That's

Think about Wisconsin, huge rural population. Michigan, huge rural population. Pennsylvania, I would say Arizona, Native American. North Carolina, huge minority rural population. You pick up 10,000 votes in rural America in each of those states.

completely doable because we used to do it less than 10 years ago you win those states and that's what I've been saying everybody is you know if you think about mining you know it's not the richest vein of ore but definitely can produce a lot of value if you pay attention to it and that's why I

you know, started one country to say, look, you can't keep losing rural America 70-30 and think you're going to be a majority party. You're not going to. You've got to start talking about things that matter in rural America and most importantly, show up. And that's what Tim Walz has done. He has basically said the Democrats are willing to show up in rural America.

Do you get to know him at all? I was kind of thinking that you have your hot dish podcast feels like you guys might have had a hot dish together at one point overlapping neighboring states. Tim called, you know, back when he was being considered, you know, in the very early stages and said, Would you do some national interviews for me? You know, the Times is calling, they want people who know me. And so I did a lot of

media before he was selected. And a lot of my friends were like, oh, it's got to be Josh Shapiro. It's got to be Josh Shapiro. And I said, no, I mean, let's get somebody who has more appeal beyond, you know, just Pennsylvania. Now, I may live to regret that statement.

given how close Pennsylvania is. But I would tell you that for me, for somebody who has dedicated their life to, as I say, reintroducing the Democratic Party to rural America and rural America did the Democratic Party, he is manna from heaven.

Tim is. And so I know Tim very well, not as well as Joel does. And you know, my brother, Joel, he's been on Joel's radio show lots of times. And they're kind of the same people, right? Hunter, fishermen, you know, Vikings fans, you know, unapologetically Vikings fans. So they're kind of the same people, only in different states.

Yeah. I'm interested in how you think about this, about like kind of policy versus cultural, you know, kind of appeal and maybe, and maybe appeal around issues that don't have like that much of a partisan valence because you're more moderate than Tim Walls is, or at least, right. I think voting record is. And, you know, like when some of us never, Trumpers looked at him, we're like, Oh,

you know, some of his Minnesota policies were pretty progressive. So I talked about how you can appeal in rural America and more conservative America in a way that's not necessarily like left-right, but that's more, you know, kind of about values. Well, it's about culture. And what's interesting, Tim, is that

My daughter called me. She lives in California in the Bay Area. And she got just really excited because she saw all of his videos with his daughter, fixing the headlight on the car, going to the state fair in Minnesota, just the dad thing. And I think it's interesting because his appeal is beyond rural America.

But, you know, I think it's interesting because one of the things you hear all the time, and it's true on both sides, actually, if you look at polling in rural America, they don't think anyone knows their life.

But, you know, you take a school teacher from a rural Nebraska town who taught in rural Minnesota, he knows your life. So it's a matter of how do you get him out there? How do you get him energized in kind of that dad, rural union vibe that I think is all important to carry some swing voters?

Is there anything else? And if you're, you know, if the campaign was calling you, if he was calling you and it's like, what are some other things we should be talking about? Like, what are the most effective things we should be talking about when we're kind of out in the rural industrial Midwest or, you know, kind of outside of the big metros? Yeah. Why hasn't the host passed a farm bill? Yeah. The House of Representatives, they have a majority. They can't get a farm bill across the finish line because at least 20 to 30 Freedom Caucus members in the Republican Party will never vote for a farm bill.

As your husband can tell you, because I'm sure he still watches the markets, things are not what they were the last two years on the farm. People are struggling a little bit more. Commodity prices are down. Weather patterns have taken a hit. Some of the crop in Minnesota didn't get in. Some of the crop in North Dakota didn't get in because it was too wet. And so I would be talking about where's the farm bill?

And I would be going to all these farm shows saying, look, you know, we've been reliably, the party reliably giving you a farm bill. They've always been reluctant on the farm bill. And now you see it because we'll probably have to go to a second extension during a time when farmers are struggling economically.

So we've been talking about, and I think the convention, Kamala Harris did just such a good job kind of reaching out to the broadest part of the country with focusing on these themes of kind of patriotism and these sort of traditional Americana themes and how Tim Walz is trying to do that in rural America. I think it's understated how little Trump is doing on this point. This really jumped out at me yesterday. I was listening to his interview with Lex Friedman, and I want to play this clip for you on how the other side is trying to reach out to the left. Here's Trump.

In the spirit of unity, you used to be a Democrat. Setting the politicians aside, what do you respect most about people who lean left, who are Democrats themselves or of that persuasion, progressives, liberals, and so on? Well, look, I respect the fact that everybody's in there. And, you know, to a certain extent, life is what you do while you're waiting to die. So you might as well do a good job.

I think in terms of what's happening now, I think we have a chance to save the country. This country's going down. And I called it with Venezuela. I called it with a lot of different countries. If we don't win this election, the election coming up on November 5th is the most important election this country's ever had. Because if we don't win it, I don't know that there'll be another election. And it's going to be a communist country.

Okay. Well, Heidi, what do you think about that outreach to the left?

You know, everybody's got their art of persuasion. The art of the deal. Right there, the art of the deal. I mean, Tim, I have to say, I have said repeatedly, I could have written his acceptance speech at the Republican convention that would have won him the election. And he just, he can't get out of his own way. I mean, you know, this is still an incredibly close election. All he has to do is show some semblance of normalcy and

to maybe take away the fears that a lot of people have. And he just can't do it. He cannot do it. And it's like, dude, really? I mean, you don't have to change who you are. You just have to, you know, kind of move over a little bit and talk some sense. And he can't do it.

He's also just a megalomaniac. And I just, I think about the Obama speech, I was kind of moved by Obama's convention speech, just the part where it was very Obama, but it was the kind of stuff that, I don't know, maybe in the pre-Trump era felt a little politician-y, but like now, just given how we all have these experiences where Obama's talking about, you have this person in your life.

Maybe they're voting for Trump, but they have these traditional American values that we all appreciate. They worked hard and they wanted to get by and they're responsible. It's not that hard to just

like acknowledge the humanity of people that disagree with you politically. And dude is just totally incapable of doing thinking about anybody's humanity except himself. And, you know, as a former communications guy for Jeb Bush, I mean, think of the targets

rich environment you would have had to fashion a very statesman-like speech for his acceptance. After he'd just been shot. He was too busy worrying about the audience in front of him instead of the millions of people watching at home who wanted to see, has he changed? Has this horrific event changed him? I said, I would have started the event saying, there is no room for political violence in our country.

We need to cut it out. And, you know, to the extent that we, you know, and the Republican Party have had any part in this, it ends today. We are going to have a conversation about the future of America without demonizing each other. Think of what would have happened for him politically if he had given that speech.

And he could have done that. We're not going back. Right. That Kamala ended up taking this right. Like we lived through political violence before and like we're not going to do that. I'm a unifier. I was a TV show. Like he used to be a Democrat and Lex put it on the tea for him. I know that people listen to this podcast, obviously, because we all have Trump derangement syndrome. It's hard for us to wrap our heads around this. But in 2016, a lot of the people that voted for him did kind of see him as unifying. Right. Because they saw like Clinton's is like this.

old divisive partisan thing and like Trump like wasn't as crazy conservative as Ted Cruz and some of these social conservative guys and he just he just can't fucking do it that's what it goes on to he's just too flawed of a person

You know, he doesn't have an ideology. He only has ambition. And that made him less scary because he wasn't an ideologue, but it made him more pliable. Right. Does that make sense to you? For sure. No, absolutely. And so as a result, he is led the way, honestly, in terms of dividing this country. I mean, he is at the kitchen table fighting.

in so many households on a regular basis. And one of the things that I will tell you, which isn't widely reported, but those of us who live in Trump country, who can tell you what the landscape looked like in 16, and then again in 20, 20 it was crazy, like Trump flags on the back of pickups.

You don't see it. You don't see the red hats like you used to. Doesn't mean they're not voting for him, but they are not like exuberantly voting for him. They're like, OK, we don't like her. So we're going to go with the other guy. Are you getting yelled at in public? I do think of some of my cowardly former Republican colleagues who don't, you know, who kind of use this as an excuse to not come out against Trump. But you don't like when you're back in North Dakota, you're not taking any shit from people, are you?

Well, I mean, you know, it's not like I've changed who I am. So, you know, what I just think it's just so, well, well, well, well, they made a nasty comment about me. Don't read them. Yeah.

Do the right thing. Be an ad in the world of John Kelly, who, you know, said what he said, but is somewhere in a bunker. I don't know. You know, be an Adam Kinzinger, be a Liz Cheney, step up, step up for our democracy. I mean, it just infuriates me. It's like somebody might write something mean about me. Really? Welcome to my world. I mean, the thing that I,

think is so interesting is all of these people who have existed in blue states or red states, politicians both, who have never had any challenges except, you know, maybe the progressives won't like me today, you know, get over it. Get over it. I mean, Tim, when I was running for governor in 2000, I got breast cancer and people always ask me, how did getting cancer change you? I said, losing an election changed me.

I mean, I stopped caring so much about what people thought and started thinking about what's the right thing to do. Get over it. I mean, as Trump rightfully said, we're just waiting around until we die. Yeah, right. Very astute. We're all just sitting around waiting to die. Unclear what that means. Yes, yes.

But, you know, there's some truth to that. And, you know, you don't know tomorrow what's going to happen. I think all those generals, you know, and they think, oh, I said it once. Well, this is not chain of command in the military. This is a campaign. It's politics. And the mother's milk, as you know, of communication, political communication is repetition.

I mean, you got to say it over and over and over again, and it's got to come out of your mouth and not in an ad with quotes. I want you to take off your rural hat for a second, put on your finance hat, your CNBC hat. We discussed yesterday, Pat Toomey, former senator for Pennsylvania, not going as far as

I would want and I'm sure you would want to endorse Kamala, but he's clearly saying he's actually going to endorse Trump. And that got Joe Kernan, your sometimes sparring partner on CNBC, a little flustered. And I want to play a little bit of Joe Kernan talking about this. And it's almost like we got a secret audio tape between two guys arguing at the club, like two finance guys arguing at the club listening to this. So I want to listen to it as kind of an anthropological document. Let's listen.

Okay, 28% corporate taxes, 45% capital gains. I get it. So the answer to that is Republican control of the Senate. And that is absolutely essential. If the other side runs the table, then Katie, bar the door. They will repeal the filibuster, and they will be dragged by their left wing, which clearly is in charge now. And I think Kamala Harris proved that with her vice presidential election. And it's huge tax increases. It's...

probably some version of Medicare for all. It might even get to an expansion of the Supreme Court because there will be no breaks. But the good news is, I think Republicans are going to take the Senate. Perhaps, but...

There's plenty of OK. There's plenty of regulatory moves, as we've seen from from Biden. There's sort of executive orders. There's plenty of things that even if the Senate does. Well, yes, that is that there is damage that will be done there. However, a Republican Senate can mitigate that also by its power of confirmation. Lots to unpack there. I'm curious your view on both.

Well, one, the Pat Toomey's assessment of what the Democrats would do if they got 50 votes in the Senate. And then secondly, when you're talking to folks that are making the Joe Kernan argument, but 45% capital gain, like what is...

What's the best pushback that you have on those points? Number one, she can't do any of those things unilaterally. It's going to take, you know, a lot of compromise, a lot of, you know, what I do with Kamala suggested she would do with taxes. No, you've got the Supreme Court that is not going to allow taxation. I think of unrealized capital gain, but she walked into that space and shouldn't have.

To me, you know, Pat is overstating what a Democratic Senate would do. There's no way. I mean, if Jon Tester returns, which seems essential to the majority,

He flat-ass told people, I am not allowing you to tax capital gains that are unrealized. And so there are a number of people in the Democratic column who disagree with a lot of these policies that Pat's talking about. But think about this. If Trump gets in, he says, I'm going to put a 10% tariff across the board on every import and then 40%, I think, on China. Let

Let me tell you, if Pat Toomey thinks that democratic policies will cost middle America something, he knows what those tariffs are. Those tariffs are a direct tax on American consumers. And if I had been on with Pat, like I was supposed to be because we ran into a technology glitch yesterday morning, I would have said, Pat, you and I co-sponsored

legislation to roll back the presidential power on tariffs. So in Trump, never mind all of this stuff that you're saying Kamala Harris is going to do. And I'm not a what about this guy, typically, but campaigns are about differences.

You know that Trump's policies, especially on tariffs, which he can do unilaterally. I mean, people don't realize that the president has incredible power to unilaterally impose tariffs on imports. Those will cost middle America and will be highly inflationary.

So what are you doing to prevent that? Of course, he's not a Trump supporter, in fairness. And I think, Pat, he might have voted for one of the impeachments. He did the second one. Yeah, Pat, I actually like Pat Toomey. When we agree, he's an excellent partner on anything that you want to get done. And the bottom line is he's predictable. He has an old club for growth. That's where he came out of, if you remember. He ran the club for growth.

and then became a senator, he has a true philosophical, ideological kind of direction that he wants to lead the country. You may not agree with it, but it's predictable. It's principled. You know, it's principled disagreement. And, you know, what he's telling you is that he's not voting for Trump.

Yeah, which is good. What would you say to your buddy, though, if he calls you and starts talking about how I just like this whole principle that the left is running the Democratic Party is like taken as like just this accepted gospel, you know, among the Joe Kernan crowd. What is the evidence of it? Like the progressives win no primaries. Cori Bush has lost.

Recently, her primary, Jamal Bowman, lost his primary. There's no examples of DSA candidates. And if you had listened to AOC's speech at the convention, you said, if you were a Democratic socialist, you said, sell out. She's selling out. Yeah, exactly.

It's a matter of what people see as left. Paid family leave, is that a leftist policy? Is the Affordable Care Act and expansion of Medicaid, is that leftist? Everything that they consider leftist is pretty...

pretty popular policy in middle America. I mean, Tim Wall is doing something about daycare, reducing daycare costs, you know, a child credit. All of these things are incredibly popular and they want to redefine what the middle is. Let me tell you, the middle is more left than what people want to define it as. We're going to hope that Bob Casey closes his ears when I say this to you, but maybe you can just call up Pat Toomey and just like, hey, Pat,

Endorse Kamala and McCormick together. It helped Kamala and it would help McCormick because it would give both of them credit with the middle. You don't have to admit that you're going to do that, but maybe just send him a little text. Just send him, that's my suggestion. Why not? You know he doesn't want Trump. Why not just say it? Pat Toomey for Kamala could help us. Yeah.

What is amazing is the gutless Republicans who want Kamala to do their dirty work and get rid of Trump. Guess what? Trump's not going away anytime soon because you guys basically built a foundation on him. Instead of opposing him like they did in 16, now they have all capitulated. They're all appeasers. Yeah.

you know, in their own party, and they just want him to go away. I mean, think about what Mitch McConnell just said about Ukraine. I mean, he said it wasn't Democrats that stopped Ukraine funding, it was Republicans, you know, which is pretty remarkable for Mitch to call out his own party. But

And Mitch was clearly not on the Trump bandwagon until he thought it was essential for a Senate majority. We'll see what happens. You know, the Senate was always going to be challenged in this cycle. Joe Manchin, this is my cycle. This is the class that I came in with in 12. And, you know, there were two people who dodged the 18 bullet that Claire and I and

And Joe Donnelly didn't. Mark Pryor. Mark Pryor was the year before. That was the year of the Marks. I always say Mark Pryor, Mark Baggage, Mark Udall. That was the beginning of the challenges. And that was during Obama's second term, his second term, midterm, where we really lost big. So any advice for those guys, Tester and Sherrod this time? Or any feelings about those races?

you know, Tester's race, 10,000 votes could change the nature of the Senate. If Tester wins, we win the Senate, in my opinion. I think Sherrod's in, he's in a state that's plus four.

plus four or five for Trump. So it's easier to rely on some swing voters. Tester is what, plus 15? And that's big headwinds. He's got to convince a lot of people. That isn't easy anymore. When I ran in 12, I was able to convince 22% of Romney voters to vote for me.

Unheard of, right? In today's politics. When I ran again, it was only four. Romney's people hadn't even heard of it. I remember being in Boston that night, like late at the night, sitting next to people and they're like, who is Heidi Eikamp? Heidi Eikamp is going to win in North Dakota? It wasn't even on the radar. It was obviously for the Senate committee people, but like the presidential campaign side, that race wasn't even on the radar.

Well, it was funny because recently I did an interview with Nate Silver on his new book, On the Edge, which is really an interesting book. It is. Anyways, in Chicago and, you know, I always tease him because we did ABC together. He used to be with FiveThirtyEight, started FiveThirtyEight, and then he was in ABC, did FiveThirtyEight.

commentary for ABC. And so I said, hey, you know, what made his reputation was the 12 election where he called every race right but mine. So of course, I always have to twist the knife a little bit.

But, you know, that tells you something about whether Tester can overcome the odds where people can get to know you. But the sad thing, Tim, and people out there will wonder, it used to be when you were Kent Conrad or Byron Dorgan or Tim Daschle, you know, all you had to do was do right by your state and people would overcome their tribalism and vote for you. I did everything that I could. Your husband, Tyler, knows that. I mean, we sweat.

bullets for rural America. We did incredible work for the state of North Dakota, and it didn't matter. In fact, people would say that, yeah, she'd been a good senator, but I'm a Republican, and I'm voting for a Republican Senate. It's the local news. I could have a longer thing about this, but that's really what this comes down to fundamentally, is when people are getting most of their news,

from local news farm radio radio then they heard more about the substantive things that the politicians were happening now not everybody obviously but most of the people that you're talking about that you need in north dakota are getting most of their news from fox conservative talk radio their facebook feeds and maybe they're also getting you know and if they're actually farmers are also getting farm news like they're you know maybe they watch the local news at night too but

The balance is totally flipped and you're being demonized, you know, and that's, I just don't know how to, how to unwind that. Like that's the toughest thing to unwind.

Well, you got to show up. I mean, one of the pieces of advice I had for Vilsack when he took over at USDA is every morning for an hour, get up early. You're in the Eastern time zone. Doesn't have to be that early. Call into early morning talk radio in rural America and talk about what you're doing. Answer questions. Take some call-ins. I mean, you know, show up. Hello, show up. I mean, you aren't going to get everybody, trust me, but you're going to get people talking.

About, oh, the reason why we have that rural hospital that's still functioning in rural America is because the expansion of Medicaid into rural America. The reason why farmers can afford health insurance. Guess what? It's subsidies on the Affordable Care Act.

The reason why we have mental health coverage, the reason why we have the local grocery store. You've got tons of pieces of good news that aren't being heard. I told this story in Chicago. I said, Vilsack told me this once. He went to an event. It was a ribbon cutting for a business that was started in rural America. And the business owner came over to him and said, what are you doing here?

He goes, well, you know, we basically guaranteed the loan to the bank that you got. And so this whole project is basically guaranteed by the federal government. And the business owner said, no, it's not.

And you're like, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I mean, they don't know how significant the investment in rural America, what that means for rural America and how vulnerable it is if they continue to vote just one way.

All right. Well, the most common question I get, Heidi, is not, you know, about my really funny lines about emotional support cougars or my past as a Republican or anything. It is, what is the deal with the Buxton, North Dakota Pinto being bagged behind your head? We get it. We get it.

Literally everyone that has ever lived within 100 miles of Buxton, I think, has emailed the info at the Bulwark line with this question. So why don't you tell people, why do I have the Buxton Pinto bean bag poster? Because your husband fell in love with the logo when we were doing a site tour in Buxton of the bean plant.

You know, this is a place where you clean beans, bag them, and ship them out. I've known to a lot of people, North Dakota is number one in a lot of edibles. By that, I mean pintos, black beans. In fact, we're a huge exporter of black beans. Not gummies. No, no, not gummies. I mean really protein-rich beans.

you know, plant-based edibles. And so Tyler picked it up and I didn't know that he had framed it until I saw it behind you. And I'm like, yay, that is so great. But we're very, very proud of the role that we play in feeding America. And it's not just wheats, corn and soybeans. I think as the market grows for more and more plant-based protein, North Dakota is well positioned to expand that market.

In fact, my brother-in-law is harvesting edibles as we speak. We call them edibles. I know. That is so old lady, right? Edibles. I don't mean gummies. I don't mean gummies. I love it. Well, our friends at the Central Valley Bean Co-op did send me some North Dakota chocolate-covered ruffles as a thank you for having it on. Yeah. And those are yummy. So we'll have to get up there to do it. They're really great.

They're really great. Thank you so much for doing this, Heidi. We'll have to bring you back soon. I appreciate you so much. Anytime. And everybody go check out One Country. Go check out the Hot Dish podcast. And we'll be back tomorrow with friend of the pod, David Frum. See you all then. Peace.

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