This is Gavin Newsom - October 03, 2025


And, This Is A Department Of Justice Under Attack With Attorney General Eric Holder

Hosted by
Gavin Newsom
Mentioned
Donald Trump James Comey Heavyweight Greg Abbott Barack Obama Madonna Martin Luther King Maggie Freeling Jessica Kranz Bridget Todd Russ Vogt Gregor Quincy Lava Letitia James Border Patrol Jimmy Kimmel Adam Schiff Mitt Romney Tom Holman and 15 more
And, This Is Gaming Culture & Gen-Z Nihilism With Content Creator Brandon ＂Atrioc＂ Ewing And, This is Trump's Invasion With JB Pritzker & Tina Kotek

Episode Stats


Length

58 minutes

Words per minute

176.25

Word count

10,266

Sentence count

622

Harmful content

Misogyny

23

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Eric Holder is the longest serving attorney general in the country s history. He is also the first black man to serve as attorney general of the United States and the first African-American to serve in that position. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about his life, his career, and what it means to be an attorney general.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 You never got a call from the President of the United States saying,
00:00:02.600 Mr. Attorney General, I want you to do X, Y, and Z. That never happened?
00:00:05.780 That never happened.
00:00:06.740 Every generation of Americans is ultimately called upon to defend democracy.
00:00:10.180 It really challenges who we say we are as the United States of America.
00:00:14.640 This is Gavin Newsom.
00:00:16.880 And this is Eric Holder.
00:00:21.380 Eric Holder, in his bunker, somewhere, on an undisclosed location.
00:00:26.160 An undisclosed location, exactly.
00:00:27.920 But, you know, I joke about that.
00:00:30.880 But, I mean, Mr. Attorney General, sir, American citizen, civic leader,
00:00:38.400 how are you feeling about the world we're living in?
00:00:40.300 I mean, we're on the eve of another government shutdown,
00:00:43.360 which is becoming more and more common.
00:00:45.460 But this one potentially could be very, very different and consequential
00:00:49.320 compared to the prior ones.
00:00:50.880 You're seeing all the weaponization of grievance across the spectrum, DOJ and elsewhere.
00:00:54.900 We'll get to gerrymandering and the incredible work you've been doing since 2017.
00:00:59.840 But, honestly, give me a temperature check.
00:01:01.960 How are you feeling about things and where we are at this moment in this country?
00:01:05.180 I've got to tell you, I'm extremely worried.
00:01:09.120 And if you would ask me that same question, you know, a year or so ago,
00:01:13.600 even with the possibility of a Trump election,
00:01:16.220 I would not have thought that we'd be in the place that we are now.
00:01:20.000 I mean, when you look at attacks on the First Amendment, you know, Jimmy Kimmel,
00:01:23.720 you look at the attacks on science, attacks on universities, you know, attacks on health care.
00:01:32.860 I mean, there are a whole range of things that worry me a great deal.
00:01:36.560 The politicization of the Justice Department, as evidenced by, you know, the Jim Comey,
00:01:42.180 in a whole bunch of ways, but I mean the Jim Comey indictment.
00:01:44.640 And I think our sense of who we are as a nation is being challenged.
00:01:51.420 And I think people need to understand that.
00:01:53.200 And I think it's been great that your voice has been a consistent one.
00:01:56.860 And I'm not just saying this, you know, you are well before Trump's election.
00:02:00.380 You've been out there and kind of ringing the bell.
00:02:03.560 And I think people are finally, finally, you know, starting to hear it.
00:02:08.040 This is an iHeart podcast.
00:02:09.300 Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
00:02:15.840 If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes,
00:02:20.240 then have we got good news for you.
00:02:21.760 Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time.
00:02:26.960 There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible ways,
00:02:31.320 disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards.
00:02:34.800 So check out the Stuff You Should Know true crime playlist on the iHeartRadio app,
00:02:38.720 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:42.360 Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose podcast.
00:02:45.980 Recently, I had a conversation with the one and only Madonna.
00:02:49.860 When I was broke and I had no friends, nowhere to live, I was held up at gunpoint.
00:02:55.300 I was robbed.
00:02:56.240 All these horrendous things happened to me.
00:02:58.020 I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York
00:03:01.760 is better than what my life was, so I'm not going back.
00:03:04.900 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:03:12.620 I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight...
00:03:16.040 And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.
00:03:20.660 A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old.
00:03:24.040 And a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago.
00:03:28.540 How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? 0.71
00:03:35.660 Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:03:41.920 The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years.
00:03:52.520 Until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. 0.67
00:03:59.380 America, y'all better work the hell up. 1.00
00:04:01.460 Bad things happen to good people in small towns.
00:04:06.700 Listen to Graves County on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:04:17.400 And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
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00:04:53.960 And I appreciate that.
00:04:55.980 And I also appreciate your sentiment because I think so many people listening,
00:04:59.440 regardless of their political stripes, I think must be feeling a similar sentiment about the world we're living in.
00:05:06.980 What, I mean, you, I imagine of all people, because you've seen firsthand, you've been on the inside,
00:05:13.640 you've worked so closely with presidents, and you've maintained a deep engagement in this country.
00:05:20.600 You must have anticipated Trump 2.0 in many respects to, you know, represent something.
00:05:27.360 But did you expect it to represent what it has?
00:05:31.780 Meaning, is this fire and fury?
00:05:33.800 Is this flooding the zone?
00:05:35.200 Is this rust void?
00:05:36.540 Is this deeper, broader, more impactful than you had anticipated even eight, nine months ago?
00:05:43.040 Yeah, I think it is.
00:05:45.060 You know, I think it's both deeper and broader.
00:05:48.760 And it has come at a more rapid pace than I think I might have expected.
00:05:53.620 You know, just the thing that I guess I'm most familiar with, you look at the Justice Department.
00:05:58.360 I mean, the notion that a president, not an attorney general or career people at the Justice Department,
00:06:03.960 make a determination as to who should be indicted.
00:06:07.460 And that's what the Jim Comey indictment is all about.
00:06:09.560 I mean, you know, you had a Trump appointee as a U.S. attorney who decided that there was not a case there,
00:06:15.040 so they fired him, bring in an insurance lawyer who has never tried a criminal case,
00:06:20.680 and she does the president's bidding and brings a case that barely got through a grand jury. 1.00
00:06:26.920 You know, that notion that a president's making these kinds of determinations that an attorney general sees the Justice Department,
00:06:34.400 not as the lawyers for the people, but as lawyers for the president,
00:06:38.980 these are all the kinds of things that I would not have expected and worry me, you know, a great deal.
00:06:46.840 This really challenges, it really challenges who we say we are as the United States of America.
00:06:53.280 Eric, I'm curious, you know, a lot of people on the other side would hear that and say, come on,
00:06:58.640 you know, this is the way it's always been.
00:07:00.960 Now it's perhaps a little bit more in the open.
00:07:03.660 Fair's fair. It's tit for tat.
00:07:05.340 We saw that weaponization coming from the last administration.
00:07:09.160 They would go back even to prior administrations.
00:07:11.720 But maybe you could, without breaking confidence, sort of pull us in.
00:07:15.680 I mean, you never got a call from the president of the United States saying,
00:07:19.620 Mr. Attorney General, I want you to do X, Y, and Z.
00:07:22.100 That never happened?
00:07:23.300 That never happened.
00:07:24.480 We had what's called a contacts policy that describes the people in the White House who can talk to which people
00:07:31.260 in the Justice Department, and it was really like two on either side.
00:07:35.600 You know, I had interactions with President Obama.
00:07:38.680 He never, ever, ever raised with me how he thought the Justice Department should conduct itself in a particular matter.
00:07:45.940 Now, on national security matters, that's a different deal.
00:07:49.300 There, I was part of the national security team, and I was just one of many people sitting in the situation room
00:07:55.180 trying to figure out, you know, what is it we could do with regard to drone strikes.
00:07:58.680 But when it came to, you know, the criminal law, the enforcement of the antitrust laws, filing civil suits,
00:08:05.720 civil rights, you know, protections, I never, ever heard from the president on that.
00:08:11.540 Now, let me tell you just a really quick story.
00:08:13.620 I made the determination not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA.
00:08:19.160 Internal Justice Department determination, I say we're not going to do it.
00:08:23.660 I was at a Super Bowl party at the White House.
00:08:25.740 We were going to announce this to the world, I guess, the following Tuesday, Wednesday.
00:08:30.040 And I told President Obama, look, I've made the determination we're not going to defend DOMA. 0.67
00:08:34.280 And I wanted him to know so that he would read about it in the newspaper.
00:08:37.200 And he said to me, this is at the White House, he said, boy, I'm glad you've made that decision
00:08:42.460 because that's where I wanted to go.
00:08:43.860 But I didn't think it was appropriate for me to share with you what you should do.
00:08:48.120 And that's the truth.
00:08:50.180 And so that gives you a sense of how Barack Obama and Eric Holder thought the Justice Department
00:08:54.600 should interact with the White House, fundamentally different than the way Pam Bondi and Donald 0.81
00:08:58.380 Trump think those two institutions should be interacting.
00:09:02.380 And when it comes to line staff, when it comes to this career staff that you're frustrated with,
00:09:07.680 you're governing, you're managing, they're not the political staff.
00:09:10.540 They're the folks that are sort of the clay layer that have been there. 0.99
00:09:12.540 And they'll be there well beyond your tenure in your respective roles.
00:09:16.780 I mean, how did you manage those disagreements?
00:09:19.180 I mean, obviously, the president, as you noted, fired someone he disagreed with and then
00:09:23.540 installed his own person, quite literally his personal attorney, to do his bidding.
00:09:28.160 But what's the tradition in terms of how you manage those disagreements in terms of moving
00:09:36.020 or operating in a way that at least is directionally along the lines that you wanted to achieve or proceed?
00:09:41.800 Yeah, I mean, you know, I was the head of the Justice Department, and so I had to make ultimate calls.
00:09:48.880 You know, I started my career as a line lawyer in a thing called a public integrity section
00:09:53.640 that looks at official corruption cases that the Trump administration has just decimated.
00:09:58.720 It used to be about 30 lawyers there.
00:10:00.000 I think there are about four there now.
00:10:01.860 They don't care about official corruption.
00:10:04.040 And we used to say, when I was a line lawyer for 12 years, we used to call the political appointees tourists
00:10:09.100 and say, you know, they come and go, but we're the people who stay.
00:10:13.380 And so when I came back to the Justice Department as attorney general, I always wanted to interact with the career folks,
00:10:20.960 but everybody understood that if there was a disagreement, I, as the attorney general, had the final say.
00:10:27.240 And within the Justice Department, you know, that's fine.
00:10:30.700 None of the career people ever thought that the president had the final say on what the Justice Department was going to do.
00:10:37.260 Post-Watergate, the independence of the Justice Department is something that every administration, I think, valued.
00:10:43.360 And that, you know, to the consternation sometimes of the people in the White House.
00:10:47.680 When I decided that we were going to look back at how the Bush administration had conducted itself with regard to these enhanced interrogation techniques,
00:10:55.980 a lot of people I knew in the White House didn't want me to do that.
00:10:58.380 And yet I had the independence, the ability to do it.
00:11:02.000 When you reflect on what happened to Comey, reflect perhaps under different circumstances what happened to Bolton in relationship to the quote-unquote raid on his home.
00:11:18.420 I mean, what's most alarming about those instances?
00:11:22.480 I mean, what was your sort of internal conversation, not only with yourself, but with others around you as it relates to those actions by this administration?
00:11:31.200 Well, I mean, the Comey case is one that we can pretty much understand based on the reporting that the media has done.
00:11:38.400 And there's no case there.
00:11:39.820 I mean, here's the deal.
00:11:40.780 Put a pin in this.
00:11:41.920 Jim Comey is not going to be convicted.
00:11:44.360 I mean, the case may not get to trial.
00:11:46.660 The case may get dismissed by the judge after the government presents his case.
00:11:50.940 If it gets to a jury, there's no way he's going to get convicted.
00:11:53.440 So, you know, put a pin in that.
00:11:55.160 Replay this, you know, at some point.
00:11:58.100 And so there's that component.
00:12:00.260 And then you have the president in that truth social post where he says kind of, dear Pam, and basically is telling her to go after, you know, Jim Comey, Adam Schiff, Letitia James.
00:12:13.700 And, you know, all of these things.
00:12:15.260 I mean, no case, direction by the president to bring the case nevertheless.
00:12:18.960 And then the obeisance of the people in the Justice Department to do that, which the president wanted to do.
00:12:24.440 Again, Republican as well as Democratic administrations.
00:12:28.440 This just doesn't happen.
00:12:30.140 I mean, this is just not normal, folks.
00:12:31.840 We've got to understand that.
00:12:32.900 This goes.
00:12:33.700 This is inconsistent with the way in which DOJ's Justice Departments and attorneys general have, you know, conducted themselves.
00:12:40.440 With regard to line employees, I mean, there's two trains of thought.
00:12:45.020 People saying people should stand up on principle, resign.
00:12:49.040 People should sort of stick it out because if their voice and their eyes are not there, my gosh, the folks that come behind them could really lock in and institutionalize this aberrant behavior, this normalization of deviancy.
00:13:02.000 Where are you on that in terms of the conversations I'm sure you've had with some of those career staff, people that you've developed relationships with over time?
00:13:11.800 Yeah, it's a really good question.
00:13:13.280 And one of the things, my position, you know, everybody's got to make their own determination.
00:13:17.660 When I've been asked that by people, I say stay around, stick around, because the reality is the people who they'll pick to succeed you will not be nearly as idealistic, will not adhere to the traditions of the Justice Department.
00:13:29.160 And so I'd say, look, you stick around, and if they fire you, you know, there's not much, I suppose, that you can do.
00:13:35.660 You'll have, you know, employment appellate rights, and you can go to court to try to get your job back.
00:13:40.640 And that effort is even enhanced by having them fire you as opposed to resigning.
00:13:46.040 And so I think, you know, make them push you out as opposed to you deciding that you want to resign.
00:13:53.540 I appreciate that perspective.
00:13:55.400 Could not agree more.
00:13:56.400 I mean, I appreciate the principal's stand of saying I can't be part of an administration that's party to this kind of injustice, but at the same time, the consequences of walking away.
00:14:07.160 Let me ask you, as it relates to walking away, it seems that we have a completely supine Congress, that there's no system of checks and balances, that the majority, Speaker Johnson, has completely abdicated any oversight.
00:14:20.840 As it relates to that, and it relates to this moment as we're talking, we're just quite literally hours away from a midnight deadline on that government shutdown.
00:14:30.540 I mean, vis-a-vis that, having experienced a little of that, understanding what it means, what it doesn't mean, a government shutdown.
00:14:37.460 Where are you in terms of where the Democratic Party should be, where the leadership of the Democratic Party should position themselves at this moment?
00:14:44.980 Is Jeffries and Schumer right to now sort of stand firm on protecting Obamacare and its subsidies or else?
00:14:53.540 Or should we right now be outside knocking on the Oval Office saying, Mr. President, we still want to negotiate?
00:15:01.060 No.
00:15:01.440 I mean, I think, yeah, we still want to negotiate, but these are – this is a principal stand that we're taking. 0.87
00:15:07.160 We want to make sure that Medicaid cuts that were in that big, stupid bill are not put into effect, that the Obamacare subsidies will continue, and so health care premiums will not rise. 0.90
00:15:19.300 No, we've got to stand firm and say, this is who we are. 0.99
00:15:23.020 This is who we are as Democrats.
00:15:25.180 We stand with the people, with the interests of the people, not with the special interests, and we're not going to allow you to ram through things that are going to harm the American people.
00:15:36.860 You know, make health care – put health care out of reach of substantial numbers of people to folks who qualify for Medicaid to make it more difficult for them to get health care.
00:15:47.400 I mean, this is a basic kind of governmental thing, and I think the position that they have taken is both principled, it's consistent, again, with who we say we are as Democrats, and they've got a whole firm.
00:15:59.180 They've just got a whole firm.
00:16:01.480 Where do you – play it out.
00:16:02.580 Where do you – I mean, you know, this thing, the last government shutdown under Trump was among the longest that we've experienced.
00:16:09.300 The consequences, they felt more intense, we colored them in in the short run, then they sort of unpacked from GDP perspective and getting people back their paychecks, et cetera.
00:16:20.700 Where do you – what's your gut in terms of how this plays out?
00:16:24.880 I think my gut is that if this goes longer than a week, it's going to be long.
00:16:30.100 I get the feeling that, you know, this could end up being, you know, a really substantial shutdown.
00:16:39.020 And my hope is that, you know, Russ Vogt and, you know, his people don't use this as an excuse to fire even more federal employees.
00:16:48.740 That adds another dimension to this, you know, to use what is a policy difference to deny people their right to work.
00:16:59.060 And further harm – further harm the government.
00:17:01.860 But my sense is that, you know, in Trump too, where he's kind of, you know, Donald Trump unbound and surrounded by the zealots who make up certainly the White House staff and people in the cabinet,
00:17:15.480 that this is something that could go, I think, for, you know, an extended period of time.
00:17:19.120 But, you know, I understand that.
00:17:22.700 I still think that Democrats have got to hold firm to the positions that we have taken.
00:17:27.840 This is – you know, we're standing up and we're pushing back.
00:17:31.200 And I think that's what the American people, you know, want to see.
00:17:35.580 I appreciate that.
00:17:36.820 What – I mean, what's your over-under?
00:17:38.580 I mean, people – if you game this thing out and we've seen it, it's – I appreciate the reference, the OMB director, Russ Vogt,
00:17:44.860 in terms of what he's done.
00:17:46.540 And for those that are not familiar, that's the Architects of Project 2025.
00:17:50.520 He was the OMB director, people forget, in the first Trump administration.
00:17:54.680 But he learned his lessons and now is more unbound and obviously more surgical in terms of what he's trying to achieve.
00:18:01.620 And there's a lot of speculation about serious and significant cuts that he's prepared to make in pretty short order, particularly to the workforce.
00:18:09.840 But also in that respect is a tendency now, it seems to me, in the Senate, particularly with Leader Thune, we talk about nuclear options.
00:18:20.360 We talk about the filibuster.
00:18:22.700 Is there a scenario where he moves forward if there's stubbornness and we no longer have that 60-vote threshold on appropriations?
00:18:33.700 You know, it's entirely possible.
00:18:36.200 I mean, if they get that directive from the White House, given the track record of Congress in this administration,
00:18:44.480 it wouldn't surprise me if they made the determination that, all right, we'll just blow up the filibuster altogether
00:18:50.520 and then pass this on – you know, pass – put into place, you know, what the president wants to do on purely party lines.
00:18:58.960 It would be in some ways shocking but not surprising.
00:19:03.020 You know, I mean, in some ways you always think those two words go together.
00:19:05.960 But it would shock me.
00:19:07.840 But, again, based on the way in which this Congress has done everything – and I mean everything – that, you know, the president wants them to do, it wouldn't surprise me.
00:19:18.820 Yeah, and I'd submit – I mean, I asked the question – I'm curious your opinion, of course,
00:19:23.360 but also it's a question I think we need to ask ourselves because I think that outcome, I would argue, is more likely than unlikely considering.
00:19:31.920 I mean, those two words you just said, shocking but not surprising, is – I mean, if there's no phrase,
00:19:38.140 probably been more uttered in the last eight months than that phrase.
00:19:41.280 Look, one of the things that was uttered was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, and I'm grateful for this opportunity.
00:19:46.520 And that was the words that came out of Donald Trump's mouth when he reached out to Governor Abbott in Texas, and he asked for five seats.
00:19:55.660 It's important for folks listening as it relates to midterm redistricting and moving forward that Greg Abbott initially was reticent.
00:20:04.080 Greg Abbott expressed not just privately but publicly that he wasn't necessarily convinced it was, quote-unquote, the right thing to do or the timely thing to do.
00:20:12.980 He was quickly disabused of that when Trump circled back, saying he's, quote-unquote, entitled to those five votes.
00:20:19.560 The rest in Texas is history.
00:20:21.140 But you have a history in this space, going back to 2017 as a champion for independent redistricting.
00:20:30.060 And I want to walk back to that and walk back to the reasons why this was so important to you,
00:20:36.120 reason why it was so important then to President Obama, who was a big part of the why you were tasked to do this.
00:20:42.000 At least that's what he asserted to me, that he was the one who directed you to do this.
00:20:46.340 Maybe you could clarify that.
00:20:47.860 He's directed me to do a whole bunch of things over the course of the last 10 years or so, you know, or a long time.
00:20:52.860 Amen, amen.
00:20:53.860 We're not going to argue with the president.
00:20:55.260 This is true.
00:20:55.840 He said, Eric, you need to head up the NDRC.
00:20:58.440 And so what was the idea?
00:20:59.500 Give us the origin story of the NDRC.
00:21:01.520 Yeah, I mean, as I was leaving office, he and I sat down and talked about, all right, let's kind of look back and see what is it that we didn't accomplish
00:21:12.420 and what were the reasons why we were not as successful as we might have been.
00:21:16.700 And we looked at a variety of things.
00:21:18.200 And, you know, we kind of talked about, well, why, why, why?
00:21:20.580 And we really came to the conclusion that gerrymandering was a problem that prevented him from getting in full his agenda, though he had significant accomplishments.
00:21:31.600 And now as we looked more, we said, you know, and a lot of the stuff that's coming out of the states is unpopular and nevertheless gets passed.
00:21:39.280 And that was also as a result of gerrymandering in state legislatures.
00:21:43.440 And so we said, all right, let's go after that problem.
00:21:45.940 And so we formed up the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in January of 2017 to really promote fairness in the redistricting process.
00:21:55.020 Republicans had put together through a thing called Project Red Map in 2011 gerrymanders in a whole variety of states that have endured,
00:22:04.920 endured through the course of that whole decade and put in place measures at the state level that, you know, people didn't like.
00:22:12.320 But nevertheless, Republicans did it and didn't suffer any political consequence because of the gerrymanders.
00:22:18.660 And then we had a gerrymandered House of Representatives.
00:22:21.640 And if you look, when we started out, Democrats had to overperform by about 22 percent in order to get to 50-50 in the House of Representatives as a result of what we've done.
00:22:31.560 That number is now just about one and a half percent, something like that.
00:22:35.480 We can actually, you know, actually handle that.
00:22:37.080 And so we've promoted fairness and that is fairness has almost been like a weapon for us.
00:22:42.640 We use that word.
00:22:44.080 People like the idea that citizens ought to choose who their representatives are as opposed to politicians picking their voters.
00:22:51.900 And so that's why we have been engaged in this in this fight.
00:22:55.280 Mr. Attorney General, so much of what you tried to achieve and pursue in 2017 had a little bit of its origin story and what happened with the Shelby County decision in the Supreme Court, a 5-4 decision in 2013.
00:23:11.460 Remind everybody what happened at the Supreme Court in 2013.
00:23:14.420 2013, the Supreme Court, as you said, in a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice Roberts writing for the majority.
00:23:22.900 And he stated very famously in his majority opinion that America has changed.
00:23:28.260 And as a result, they used that as the basis to take from the Justice Department the ability that it had to pre-clear changes that states wanted to make when it came to all kinds of electoral things, whether it was how lines were drawn with regard to certain districts, where polling places should be open or closed, where voter purges should be allowed.
00:23:53.900 It took away from the Justice Department the ability to challenge states when they tried to do these things, and that has had a really negative impact.
00:24:02.400 We have seen poll closures all around the country.
00:24:05.840 It's one of the reasons why you see long lines in certain states.
00:24:09.280 We've seen voter purges that disproportionately occur in communities of color, in places where Democrats are perceived to live.
00:24:17.260 A whole range of things has happened since the Shelby County case.
00:24:21.860 It's taken the Justice Department, not off the field, but certainly taken away from the Justice Department a lot of the tools that it once had.
00:24:29.180 And so in, you know, in an effort to sort of push back, you've been, you know, a big part of your organization is also highlighting some of those purges as it relates to the voting rolls, highlighting some of what is just overt voter suppression activities as it relates to reducing the number of polling options in places.
00:24:47.580 What, you know, what, you know, and it led to a lot of victories, and I think what I'd love to highlight is not just the problem, but some of your success in terms of what your organization has been able to achieve, and I want to get back to Prop 50.
00:25:00.820 I want to get back to what's happening, not just in Texas, but across this country at this moment, but talk to me a little bit about what you were able to achieve with the organization in 2018, 19, 20, over the course of the last decade or so.
00:25:13.180 Yeah, I mean, you know, if you look at the work that we have done since 2017 by, you know, focusing, using a state-based strategy, different strategy, you know, depending on the state, by supporting candidates who would stand for fairness, by challenging laws that were put in place or procedures that were being used in a variety of states, by raising the consciousness of people about the importance of fair redistricting,
00:25:38.560 by standing for independent commissions and trying to get those in states wherever we could.
00:25:43.820 And it's interesting, wherever we tried to get an independent commission, whether it was a red state or a blue state, people overwhelmingly supported them.
00:25:51.460 We got them in Missouri, we got them in Utah, and then Republican legislatures, you know, did things to the efforts that we had, but the people always supported them.
00:26:00.560 And so that's what we have done, used those different tools.
00:26:04.620 And as a result, we ended up with maps in 2024 that a lot of analysts, as well as the New York Times, said, produced the fairest maps, you know, in generations.
00:26:15.220 Now, fairest, but not totally fair.
00:26:17.840 There are still states that are still gerrymandered.
00:26:20.520 If you look at Texas, if you look at Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, there are still places that are still gerrymandered and are still a focus of our work.
00:26:32.220 And a big part of just the gerrymandering, and just to sort of unpack this a little bit more, the racial dimensions cannot be understated, or at least even overstated.
00:26:41.820 I mean, so the impacts, the Black community, Hispanic community, talk a little bit more about how that manifests in many of these different states.
00:26:49.800 That's a really important point.
00:26:51.860 Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
00:26:55.480 If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then have we got good news for you.
00:27:01.620 Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time.
00:27:06.560 There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible ways, disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards.
00:27:14.160 So check out the Stuff You Should Know true crime playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:27:22.100 I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.
00:27:28.780 How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? 0.71
00:27:36.000 And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.
00:27:41.160 And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.
00:27:46.740 And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.
00:27:51.500 Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism.
00:27:57.160 We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time.
00:28:00.580 Being more able to look people in the eye.
00:28:02.480 Not always hide behind a microphone.
00:28:03.920 Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:28:19.460 All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie.
00:28:24.220 For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved.
00:28:34.260 Until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. 0.86
00:28:40.700 I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know.
00:28:44.020 A story that law enforcement used to convict six people.
00:28:48.180 And that got the citizen investigator on national TV.
00:28:51.640 Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. 1.00
00:28:59.020 My name is Maggie Freeling.
00:29:00.800 I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
00:29:09.460 I did not know her, and I did not kill her.
00:29:11.520 Or rape, or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all said. 0.88
00:29:14.460 They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. 0.98
00:29:18.340 They made me say that I poured gas on her. 1.00
00:29:21.640 From Lava for Good, this is Graves County.
00:29:26.120 A show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
00:29:33.120 America, y'all better work the hell up. 1.00
00:29:35.280 Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
00:29:40.520 Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:29:50.320 And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:29:55.860 Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the Unpurposed Podcast.
00:30:06.600 Recently, I had a conversation with the one and only Madonna.
00:30:10.760 When I was broke, and I had no friends, nowhere to live.
00:30:14.100 I was held up at gunpoint.
00:30:15.900 I was robbed.
00:30:16.880 All these horrendous things happened to me.
00:30:18.520 I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York is better than what my life was.
00:30:24.380 So I'm not going back.
00:30:26.340 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:32.580 The internet is something we make, not just something that happens to us.
00:30:36.380 I'm Bridget Todd, host of the tech and culture podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet. 0.95
00:30:40.100 There Are No Girls on the Internet is not just about tech. 0.86
00:30:42.680 It's about culture and policy and art and expression and how we as humans exist and fit with one another.
00:30:48.400 In our new season, I'm talking to people like Anil Dash, an OG entrepreneur and writer who refuses to be cynical about the internet.
00:30:55.640 I love tech.
00:30:56.700 You know, I've been a nerd my whole life, but it does have to be for something.
00:31:00.340 Like, it's not just for its own sake.
00:31:01.900 It's a fascinating exploration about the power of the internet for both good and bad.
00:31:06.520 They use WhatsApp to get the price of rice at the market that is often 12 hours away.
00:31:11.200 They're not going to be like, we don't like the terms of service, therefore we're not trading rice this season.
00:31:16.000 It's an inspiring story that focuses on people as the core building blocks of the internet.
00:31:21.060 Platforms exist because of the regular people on them, and I think that's a real important story to keep repeating.
00:31:26.500 I created There Are No Girls on the Internet because the future belongs to all of us. 0.94
00:31:29.800 New episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
00:31:31.900 Listen to There Are No Girls on the internet on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0.97
00:31:36.520 This gerrymandering is done on the backs of people of color, and one only has to look at what's going on in Texas now.
00:31:45.980 They get their, they think, five seats.
00:31:49.460 I think they're being a little optimistic.
00:31:51.680 But they get whatever it is they get out of this gerrymandering that they're doing at the expense of people of color in largely urban areas, largely Hispanic, but African Americans as well.
00:32:05.180 We see them breaking up districts in Austin, Texas, and San Antonio, and drawing these really weird lines so that you really decrease, dilute the power, the electoral power that communities of color have in Texas. 0.69
00:32:21.320 Now, they'll try to say, this is only partisan, these are only partisan things that we have done, as if that somehow makes it better, you know.
00:32:28.900 We're not racist.
00:32:30.400 We're just doing things, you know, that are inconsistent with our sense of who we are, inconsistent with our Constitution, but it's only on a partisan basis.
00:32:38.260 But if you look, it almost always comes down to making it more difficult for people of color to vote and then taking away from people of color, communities of color, the political power that they've long sought and tried to hold on to.
00:32:57.180 So California is one of those states with an independent redistricting commission.
00:33:00.540 It was a commission that, when I was mayor, there was an effort to repeal it that I publicly opposed because it long supported the idea of independent redistricting, and it's a point of pride that this state has been one of the leaders.
00:33:14.860 What happened, however, in Texas changed the equation, and I'm curious, just from your prism and your perspective as a champion of independent redistricting as well, what does Texas represent to you?
00:33:27.440 And first, if I could just unpack a deeper question, why do you think President Trump made the phone call to Greg Abbott?
00:33:36.420 Why do you think he even pursued this mid-decade redistricting strategy in the first place?
00:33:44.120 Well, before he picked up the phone, he looked at his desk, picked up some papers that said, these are your polling numbers, Mr. President.
00:33:49.780 And he made the determination that unless we cheat, unless we come up with more safe Republican seats, we're in real danger of losing our majority in the House of Representatives.
00:34:02.300 And that would really establish a really huge obstacle to doing the kinds of radical things that they have done in the first eight months and want to continue to do over the course of the next three years or so.
00:34:15.720 And I think that's the thing that generated the call from the president to the governor in Texas.
00:34:23.320 And it's an interesting thing.
00:34:24.200 You know, when he called, when the president called those folks in Georgia and said, I need 11,780 votes when it came to the 2020 election, Republicans in Georgia, you know, Secretary of State Raffensperger, a person who I don't agree with on a whole bunch of stuff, you know, they at least had the guts to say, no, we're not going to do that.
00:34:41.480 He called Greg Abbott and he expressed some, you know, a little concern about it at the beginning, but at the end of the day, did exactly what it is that, you know, the president asked him to do.
00:34:52.080 You know, we've always thought of the California Independent Commission as the gold standard.
00:34:56.460 It's something that as I've campaigned around the country for fairness, I've always pointed to California.
00:35:01.820 And I think the system in California is a great one.
00:35:04.720 But I think the determination that you made and other Democrats in California was exactly the right one, given what they did in Texas and what they're doing in other states as well.
00:35:14.480 We couldn't simply disarm.
00:35:17.020 We had to respond to that.
00:35:19.340 And what I've said, you know, I thought about this long and hard before I said, you know, this is something I think we ought to do because I've been fighting.
00:35:25.880 I've been fighting against gerrymandering, either by Democrats or Republicans.
00:35:30.840 But I think that what's happening in California makes a great deal of sense.
00:35:37.380 It is something that kind of meets this three-part test of mine.
00:35:40.740 It's got to be responsive.
00:35:42.040 And so it's certainly responsive to that which happened in Texas.
00:35:44.380 It's got to be responsible.
00:35:45.640 Didn't go crazy.
00:35:47.360 Just came up with a way in which you try to come up with additional seats.
00:35:50.960 And it's got to be temporary.
00:35:52.020 You know, I want to get back to this whole fight for fairness and the way in which it's crafted in California, in addition to having the people ultimately vote on it, which is not what happened in Texas.
00:36:02.940 It only will exist until after the next census.
00:36:06.900 No, and I appreciate this.
00:36:08.400 And, you know, so your evolution was mine as well as someone that believes in the principle of independent redistricting as well.
00:36:14.340 So it was an immediate response, frankly, was in response to outreach by legislative leaders in Texas that said, well, hey, California, you know, have our back.
00:36:26.140 And we thought it may be a rhetorical play just to support them and say we're watching, we're paying attention.
00:36:31.680 But realizing the consequences of these five seats and how that can tip the balance and rig the next election in the 2026, we were able to fashion a process that, as you say, is temporary, transparent and democratic.
00:36:46.620 It's the only maps that are now being presented to the voters themselves.
00:36:50.380 They will decide for themselves in the most transparent way and in a temporary way that ends, as you suggest, after the 28 and 30 and into the 32 census will revert back to its original form, again, only in response to Texas.
00:37:07.600 But I want to ask you to respond.
00:37:09.320 It's not just Texas, is it, Mr. Attorney General?
00:37:12.360 We're seeing this in Missouri just this week.
00:37:15.360 You're seeing activity in Indiana, conversations that are happening in Florida.
00:37:20.860 There's different conditions and criteria in Ohio and Utah.
00:37:24.460 Maybe you can give us a lay of the land more broadly.
00:37:27.980 Yeah, I mean, you hit just about all the states where this is still being considered.
00:37:31.080 You know, Texas has already done it.
00:37:32.740 Missouri has already done it.
00:37:34.080 But those other states are certainly considering it.
00:37:37.280 And, you know, Ohio has got to redraw their maps because of a constitutional provision there.
00:37:41.980 But the question is, what are Ohio Republicans going to do?
00:37:44.960 There is, within the Ohio Constitution, a prohibition against partisan gerrymandering.
00:37:50.540 So we'll see what they do in Ohio.
00:37:52.920 What are they going to do in Kansas?
00:37:54.340 What are they going to do in Florida?
00:37:55.540 There's a whole range of other states where they've made the determination that they're going to really kind of cheat.
00:38:01.100 And that's what it is.
00:38:01.680 You can talk about a whole bunch of different things.
00:38:03.280 It's cheating.
00:38:03.860 They're going to cheat to try to hold on to the majority that they have in the House of Representatives.
00:38:09.620 And it really comes on the basis of fear.
00:38:12.520 They're afraid of the people who they say they want to represent.
00:38:15.860 They're afraid of the legislative agenda that they have tried to put in place.
00:38:20.640 They're afraid of the administrative things that they have done.
00:38:23.340 They're afraid to be held accountable for, you know, taking a whole bunch of good people and a whole variety of government agencies around the country and simply told them, you know, get out of here.
00:38:33.980 You're fired.
00:38:34.860 They're afraid of trying to defend that which Elon Musk and his doge bros did.
00:38:41.320 It's all a political fear that is driving what it is that they are doing.
00:38:47.360 And it's fundamentally un-American and it's unpatriotic. 0.98
00:38:50.300 You know, it's cheating, but it also goes against that which we do and which makes, I think, this nation exceptional.
00:38:58.540 We trust the people to make determinations about policy and the direction of the nation.
00:39:03.440 And they want to cut the people out of the process.
00:39:07.020 Yeah, I mean, they've de facto eliminated oversight with Congress, a co-equal branch of government, increasingly, particularly with this utilization of the shadow docket at the Supreme Court.
00:39:17.000 That's another podcast, just the shadow docket and the abuse and use of the shadow docket by the Supreme Court itself.
00:39:23.740 By the way, for those that are wondering what I'm talking about, that shadow docket is allowed for racial profiling, not just in relationship to the conversation we're having around voting,
00:39:34.240 but racial profiling of people on the basis of their skin color, on the basis of where they congregate, on the basis of their language that has given ICE free reign to terrorize our diverse communities under no other pretext than is the basis of those simple profiles.
00:39:52.000 And I just never thought I'd hear that in my life, and that was afforded under the shadow docket by the United States Supreme Court.
00:40:00.680 I'm curious, Eric, just the broader issues around voting.
00:40:04.900 I mean, how concerned are you not just around the issues of fairness with this redistricting fight, issues of vandalization of fair and free elections as it relates to what happened with Shelby,
00:40:16.560 but what's happening as well with the National Guard being deployed in American cities?
00:40:22.920 Are you concerned that's also part of a larger agenda that may actually impact potentially or create a chill around Election Day as well?
00:40:31.940 Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
00:40:35.720 If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then have we got good news for you.
00:40:41.860 Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time.
00:40:46.800 There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible ways, disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards.
00:40:54.400 So check out the Stuff You Should Know true crime playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:01.940 I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.
00:41:09.020 How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? 0.71
00:41:16.240 And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.
00:41:21.500 And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.
00:41:26.980 And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.
00:41:31.240 Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism.
00:41:37.400 We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time.
00:41:40.820 Being more able to look people in the eye.
00:41:42.720 Not always hide behind a microphone.
00:41:45.520 Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:51.900 All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie.
00:42:05.120 For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved.
00:42:14.100 Until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. 0.86
00:42:20.960 I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know.
00:42:24.260 A story that law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got the Citizen Investigator on national TV.
00:42:32.300 Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. 1.00
00:42:38.640 My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
00:42:49.700 I did not know her, and I did not kill her. Or rape, or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all said.
00:42:54.960 They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. 0.98
00:43:00.840 From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.
00:43:13.340 America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happen to good people in small towns.
00:43:20.780 Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:43:30.600 And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:43:35.780 Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the On Purpose Podcast.
00:43:46.820 Recently, I had a conversation with the one and only Madonna.
00:43:51.020 When I was broke, and I had no friends, nowhere to live, I was held up at gunpoint, I was robbed.
00:43:57.140 All these horrendous things happened to me.
00:43:58.900 I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York is better than what my life was,
00:44:04.560 so I'm not going back.
00:44:06.400 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:44:13.420 The internet is something we make, not just something that happens to us.
00:44:16.560 I'm Bridget Todd, host of the tech and culture podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet. 0.95
00:44:20.340 There Are No Girls on the Internet is not just about tech. 0.86
00:44:22.940 It's about culture and policy and art and expression, and how we as humans exist and fit with one another.
00:44:28.640 In our new season, I'm talking to people like Emile Dash,
00:44:31.220 an OG entrepreneur and writer who refuses to be cynical about the internet.
00:44:35.940 I love tech.
00:44:36.940 You know, I've been a nerd my whole life, but it does have to be for something.
00:44:40.780 Like, it's not just for its own sake.
00:44:42.320 It's a fascinating exploration about the power of the internet for both good and bad.
00:44:46.700 They use WhatsApp to get the price of rice at the market that is often 12 hours away.
00:44:51.440 They're not going to be like, we don't like the terms of service, therefore we're not trading rice this season.
00:44:55.980 It's an inspiring story that focuses on people as the core building blocks of the internet.
00:45:01.320 Platforms exist because of the regular people on them, and I think that's a real important story to keep repeating.
00:45:06.760 I created There Are No Girls on the Internet because the future belongs to all of us. 0.94
00:45:10.420 New episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
00:45:12.420 Listen to There Are No Girls on the Internet on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0.97
00:45:16.720 See, I think you pointed out something that's really important here, because I think there's a long-term play here.
00:45:22.760 This is, you know, it's cast as something that is anti-crime, you know, it's pro-public safety.
00:45:29.960 It doesn't obviously work.
00:45:31.880 I mean, you know, these people who serve in the National Guard, you know, I admire them, great respect to them.
00:45:38.120 But they're not crime fighters.
00:45:39.560 That's not what they do.
00:45:40.560 But I think the long play here is to desensitize people to the sight of troops on our streets.
00:45:49.820 And I see them, I can see them trying to deploy troops around the 26th election.
00:45:55.580 And again, you don't have to do much just to just deploy them in certain cities and in certain neighborhoods.
00:46:00.760 And it'll have a chilling effect in certain communities.
00:46:03.980 And they hope, you know, suppress voter participation in those communities.
00:46:08.540 So I think it's actually a long play.
00:46:10.980 I mean, there's an authoritarian component to this that I think is who Donald, that's who Donald Trump is.
00:46:16.580 But I think it's also, as I think you're correctly pointing out, a long-term play to help them get, again, another way in which they can cheat when it comes to the 26th election.
00:46:29.440 Yeah, I thought it was interesting, and people may not be familiar with this.
00:46:32.500 We still have federalized National Guard in the state of California.
00:46:36.480 It's not just a conversation that's being held in Portland or places like Chicago or Memphis, for that matter, Washington, D.C.
00:46:44.360 It's still the case that we have federalized troops.
00:46:48.840 And they were intentionally, from my perspective, not, well, could have been coincidental, but they were announced as extended through Election Day.
00:46:56.800 And to reinforce that, Eric, this is important as well for folks, when we announced our efforts on this redistricting, Proposition 50, this special election, to push back and fight back against Trump's efforts, when we announced it, it was in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles at the Democracy Center.
00:47:18.680 And at the same time we announced it, the Trump administration sent out masked men that surrounded us, surrounded and created that chill, literally intimidating people that were walking into the rally, walking event.
00:47:34.340 By the way, that included a dozen representatives from Congress, two U.S. senators, hundreds and hundreds of community leaders.
00:47:42.740 And also, for me, was a preview of things to come.
00:47:46.760 You have now the largest domestic police force in the world, arguably, particularly with a big, beautiful bill, as they describe it, an additional 10,000 potential staff that increasingly appear.
00:47:58.600 And this may not be fair, but I don't think it's deeply unfair or hyperbolic, that increasingly appear to have taken an oath of office to Donald Trump and not the Constitution in terms of how they are conducting many of their activities.
00:48:12.280 And that, to me, would be exhibit A and the conduct that was deeply unbecoming of the men and women of ICE and Border Patrol at that Democracy Center rally.
00:48:23.060 Yeah, and I think this is the kind of thing that you'd expect to see in a third world country, you'd expect to see in Russia, you know, so-called banana republics. 0.97
00:48:31.560 I mean, the opposition is holding a meeting to announce a position that it's taking, inconsistent with what the power, those who are in power and government are taking.
00:48:40.720 And what do they do?
00:48:41.420 They surround, they surround that place.
00:48:44.280 You know, I mean, people, we need to think about that.
00:48:46.920 What does that mean?
00:48:47.660 And then you end up with an interior police department that is, you know, greatly expanded.
00:48:53.280 Again, that's another authoritarian move.
00:48:55.120 I mean, people need to understand, ICE is going to be substantially larger than the FBI.
00:48:59.960 I mean, substantially larger than the FBI, than the DEA.
00:49:02.720 I mean, this is, and this is unheard of.
00:49:05.120 ICE, you know, has an important job, but they have never been the size that they're going to be at the conclusion of all the hiring that Trump and Tom Holman want to do.
00:49:14.680 Eric, I'm just curious, and, you know, I'm sensitive, again, to your relationship to confidentiality and just the dignity of your prior roles and the dignity of the office of citizen that you hold today.
00:49:30.900 But you must have had some pretty chilling conversations with some of your colleagues, maybe former attorney generals, leaders in these, quote unquote, power ministries of the FBI and DOJ and other, even the IRS.
00:49:48.620 I mean, can you sort of, is there a composite picture you can paint in bipartisan terms, in sort of universal terms, in American terms, of those kind of conversations that you uniquely are positioned to have had conducted?
00:50:04.900 Yeah, and I think they operate on a couple of levels.
00:50:07.060 One, I talk to a lot of folks who've been in the Justice Department for, or law enforcement, federal law enforcement, for FBI, for, you know, extended periods of time, and they talk about the shock that they have felt as a result of, you know, the things that have been done.
00:50:24.760 Morale is just really, you know, it's in the toilet when it comes to, you know, federal law enforcement.
00:50:30.900 A lot of people are afraid.
00:50:32.900 I mean, these are people, you know, thinking that they want to spend their careers, you know, working to support the mission of the Justice Department, the mission of the FBI, regardless of who was the president, who was the attorney general.
00:50:46.220 And so there is that.
00:50:47.960 I also talk to people here in Washington, D.C., on the political side.
00:50:51.660 And, you know, what really strikes me is that, you know, you talk to Republicans and they're not in front of the camera.
00:50:56.820 They're just talking to me.
00:50:57.680 We have relationships.
00:50:58.500 And I'm not going to say this is a huge number of people, but they understand that what's going on is wrong.
00:51:04.700 But they are politically afraid to come out and say something against that which this administration wants to do.
00:51:11.580 I thought it was really interesting that Mitt Romney, in his book, when he was talking about, you know, people making up their minds, how they're going to vote when it came to both impeachment and whether or not President Trump would be convicted after January the 6th.
00:51:25.500 And he talked about people being politically afraid on the Republican side, but also being physically afraid for themselves and for their their families.
00:51:35.840 And I also have heard that as well.
00:51:39.140 And so, you know, both in terms of the political class, as well as, you know, the career folks at the Justice Department, you know, they're they're dealing with things they didn't have to they didn't expect to.
00:51:49.940 And the folks on the legislative side have not necessarily shown the degree of courage and independence that that you would hope.
00:51:57.440 So just on that, as we close, Eric, what you know, in terms of the frame around courage, the frame around conviction, standing in into the void in the absence of of leadership and oversight and the kind of accountability to expect with people in positions of power and influence and in in the House or Senate and elsewhere.
00:52:17.340 I mean, what what what what what what what can shape some optimism as we close in terms of what we can do, what we can achieve?
00:52:24.940 Obviously, Prop 50, I believe, is foundational on that.
00:52:28.540 And we'll sort of jumpstart the 2026 election and taking back the House of Representatives.
00:52:34.920 But in that spirit, in that space, what what what what what can we be doing more of and what gives you some confidence and hope about the future and how we can shapeshift things?
00:52:44.240 Well, first, I'd say that Prop 50 has got to pass.
00:52:47.880 I mean, that is kind of a foundation upon which I think this country will regain its sense of its of itself.
00:52:54.800 This is an important, important vote.
00:52:56.560 It's crafted in a way that I think is is absolutely responsible.
00:53:00.900 And again, it's temporary. So I think that has to pass.
00:53:03.380 What gives me optimism, though, is also a knowledge of our history.
00:53:07.460 You know, if you look at the great social movements in this country, they were launched against overwhelming odds.
00:53:13.240 I mean, you just go to the civil rights struggle.
00:53:15.280 I mean, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Diane Nash, they had to think, can we rip down young people, young black people and young white people?
00:53:24.080 Could we rip down a system of American apartheid?
00:53:26.920 I'm sure they must have had doubts at times, but they fought through those doubts.
00:53:30.720 They showed an unbelievable amount of courage and ultimately were successful.
00:53:35.520 Same thing with women trying to get the right to vote. 1.00
00:53:38.000 You know, suffragettes at the beginning of the 20th century, they showed remarkable courage, pushed through those doubts.
00:53:47.520 And that knowledge of history makes me think that in this awful moment that we will demonstrate that same courage.
00:53:55.160 Every generation of Americans is ultimately called upon to defend democracy, whether it's on the beaches at Normandy, the fields of Gettysburg.
00:54:02.280 You know, now is our time.
00:54:04.920 We can't be the first generation of Americans that is unsuccessful in the defense of our democracy.
00:54:10.120 And I'll say this.
00:54:11.340 I say it a lot.
00:54:12.240 You know, Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
00:54:16.920 But the deal is it doesn't bend on its own.
00:54:19.260 It only bends when people like us, like you, Governor, like me, like regular American citizens, put their hands on it and pull it towards justice.
00:54:27.780 And I think that's what each of us has to ask, you know, what is it that I can do?
00:54:31.600 What is it that I can do to pull that arc towards justice, to save our democracy and to keep this nation, you know, keep this nation exceptional?
00:54:41.240 I'm optimistic because of that history that I shared.
00:54:46.640 And I think that, you know, optimism breeds engagement.
00:54:51.540 Pessimism breeds resignation.
00:54:53.680 And so I think we can't afford to be pessimistic.
00:54:55.800 We have to be optimistic and we have to be active, active and engaged.
00:55:01.160 I love it.
00:55:02.020 Well, it's a wonderful way to close this notion of active, not inert citizenship.
00:55:06.920 This notion that we have agency, we can shape the future.
00:55:09.820 It's decisions, not conditions that will determine our fate and future.
00:55:14.140 Eric Holder, it has been an honor to have you on the podcast.
00:55:17.220 Thanks so much for joining.
00:55:18.860 Thanks for having me.
00:55:27.800 Hi there.
00:55:28.440 This is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
00:55:31.120 If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes, then have we got good news for you.
00:55:37.020 Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time.
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00:55:50.080 So check out the Stuff You Should Know true crime playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:55:57.320 Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of the Unpurposed podcast.
00:56:01.260 Recently, I had a conversation with the one and only Madonna.
00:56:05.400 When I was broke and I had no friends, nowhere to live, I was held up at gunpoint.
00:56:10.380 I was robbed.
00:56:11.500 All these horrendous things happened to me.
00:56:13.260 I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York is better than what my life was.
00:56:19.000 So I'm not going back.
00:56:20.840 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:56:27.180 I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight.
00:56:31.300 And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.
00:56:35.920 A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old.
00:56:39.300 And a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago.
00:56:43.820 How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? 0.71
00:56:50.940 Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:56:57.200 The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years.
00:57:07.580 Until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. 0.67
00:57:14.640 America, y'all better work the hell up. 1.00
00:57:16.700 Bad things happen to good people in small towns.
00:57:21.960 Listen to Graves County on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:57:32.700 And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:57:39.880 I love that you created this system that revolves around you creating pockets of peace.
00:57:46.860 World Mental Health Day is around the corner.
00:57:48.640 And on my podcast, Just Heal with Dr. J, I dive into what it really means to care for your mind, body, and spirit.
00:57:56.020 From breaking generational patterns to building emotional capacity.
00:57:59.960 I'm going to walk away feeling like, yes, I'm going to continue my healing journey.
00:58:04.120 Listen to Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:58:13.580 This is an iHeart Podcast.