Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-D.J.) joins host Amy and T.J. Holmes to discuss the Diddy trial and the impact it has had on her life, and how she s found peace on her journey of healing.
00:01:07.980And on a recent episode of Just Heal with Dr. J., the incomparable Taraji P. Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey.
00:01:18.180I never let that little girl inside of me die.
00:01:20.660To hear this and more things on the journey of healing, you can listen to Just Heal with Dr. J. from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:02.960Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:02:09.800I want you to ask yourself right now, how am I actually doing?
00:02:13.240Because it's a question that we rarely ask ourselves.
00:02:16.400All of May is actually Mental Health Awareness Month, and on the psychology of your 20s, we are taking a vulnerable look at why mental health is so hard to talk about.
00:02:25.160Prepare for our conversations to go deep.
00:02:26.960I spent the majority of my teenage years and my 20s just feeling absolutely terrified.
00:02:31.960So this Mental Health Awareness Month, open the free iHeart Radio app, search the psychology of your 20s, and listen now.
00:02:53.280First of all, I'm really happy that you're here because I want folks to appreciate, Senator Klobuchar, the fact that you are one of the most productive.
00:03:14.680You look at so many people in the Senate and you just, you feel like, you know, it's a club and obviously it's, you know, it's, there's a lot of status.
00:03:23.660But you're often not necessarily affirmed that there's a lot of progress being made.
00:03:28.880But you are able to lay claim to a lot of progress, including just yesterday, President Trump signed a bill, the Take It Down Act, a bipartisan bill that you and Ted Cruz co-sponsored.
00:03:42.880So this came out of, which I know you're familiar with all this, but just what's going on in the Internet right now where there's no rules and you've got a non-consensual and AI-created porn.
00:03:54.360And one year, this is FBI stats, there were over 20 suicides of kids.
00:04:00.280They are courting a girlfriend or a boyfriend.
00:04:02.980They send a photo and then that photo goes all over their schools or there's some kind of threat or, you know, asking for money and they think their life is over and they actually take their own lives.
00:04:13.520So Senator Cruz and I, he is the chair of the Commerce Committee right now, we joined forces and introduced this bill called the Take It Down Act.
00:04:23.320It simply says the platforms have to take down these images, non-consensual images in 48 hours and then creates criminal liability on the people that put them on or extends criminal liability.
00:04:35.260So we got that through the Senate, but then we were stopped at the end of the year.
00:05:10.820I mean, and so a couple of things just to reflect on.
00:05:13.700And I want to go back to the inaugural because people were, I think a lot of folks wondering, why is Senator Klobuchar kicking off the inaugural festivities?
00:05:21.900And we'll talk about your unique role in that respect.
00:05:24.820But how about just the role of bipartisanship, the role you played and the role, it sounds like the first lady played, but also Senator Cruz.
00:05:32.200Is it, I mean, is this is an anomalous?
00:05:34.600Is this something to be hopeful about?
00:05:40.320Is there, was there incentives for good behavior?
00:05:42.900Have you gotten criticized for working on the other side?
00:05:46.660I think, first of all, I've always believed in working with people you don't always agree with, that courage isn't just standing by yourself.
00:05:53.260Courage is whether you're going to stand next to someone you don't always agree with for the betterment of this country.
00:05:58.400And I have done that in the Senate, working with everyone from Josh Hawley on antitrust issues to Chuck Grassley on biofuels.
00:06:09.700And, however, I do think the president, this incident aside, where we were able to work on this bill with him, when the rhetoric and the things that are said makes it harder to function bipartisan because he will go after people if they don't do exactly what he wants.
00:06:28.040And it's all part of how he's doing this.
00:06:30.640So, you know, in this case, I guess we got we got an exception.
00:06:37.500And my goal in life is to do what's best for the country.
00:06:40.300And as you know, sometimes you take grief when you work with people or take positions that not everyone agrees with.
00:06:47.620But I do think that we need more of that, not less of it, when it comes to governing right now.
00:06:54.700So I'm glad the bill got passed into law.
00:06:58.400I continue to, like most many Americans, you know, wake up every day and think, what did he do now?
00:07:04.400He just fired the congressional librarian, he's getting these Medicaid cuts, he's moving us backwards on clean energy, all these things that I think that actually gives our country a cutting edge medical research, we should be moving forward.
00:07:18.480So, but despite all that, I will continue to do what I think is best.
00:07:22.840And if there's a way to do things from permitting reform on where we can get things moving better, I'm game to working with Republicans.
00:07:30.480Love all that. I want to touch on all those things, but let me go back just a little bit to the origin story on how you were able to sort of smooth this bill over.
00:07:39.020I love that you said it was at the lunch and it was just engaging on the personal where the first lady actually followed up, took you, took very seriously your request to engage a few days later.
00:07:51.360But let's take us back to that inaugural.
00:07:53.320I mean, that was, that's an interesting aside.
00:07:55.920But what was the most striking part of that?
00:07:58.020You were there, you're the chair of a joint committee.
00:08:00.820A bipartisan committee in Congress that's related to the inaugural.
00:08:05.420Maybe you could talk a little bit about that role, but that role led you to give a little speech, remarks about enduring democracy, et cetera.
00:08:12.880I'm curious, though, what enduring memories do you have around those inaugural facilities?
00:08:21.400But, you know, it started out in the White House and I, with everyone, with the president at the time, President Biden and Vice President Harris.
00:08:30.720And then, of course, the Vance's and the Trump's, the Speaker of the House, Senator Schumer, you name it.
00:08:43.740And I will still go down in American history as the only person who has ever ridden in a car alone with Donald Trump and Joe Biden for about 20 minutes.
00:08:54.680One day I'll reveal that conversation was quite talkative.
00:08:59.100We I brought up the fires in California.
00:09:02.280I will say that that was one of my plans to do because I knew that the that President Trump was going out there and President Biden had been there.
00:09:11.240So I thought, OK, here's a common ground moment with the firefighters and the like.
00:09:16.380And we talked about many other things as well.
00:09:19.120And it was a very vibrant conversation.
00:09:22.660And then I spent the day, the inauguration and the like, and it's ends with the ended with that lunch.
00:09:30.380But I had my four minutes and I decided I wrote every word myself and I said, I want this to meet the test of time because I knew what was coming at us.
00:09:38.920The assaults on the rule of law, the economic uncertainty.
00:09:44.500And so what I said were these three things.
00:09:46.840Number one, our democracy is a hot mess.
00:10:47.380And we're still waiting for some of the Republicans in Congress to stand up.
00:10:51.340We only need four of them to stand up against, say, Medicaid cuts.
00:10:54.880The third thing and final thing was just that the power in that rotunda, despite all the billionaires that were in there, it did not come from in that rotunda.
00:11:03.020From a freshman member of Congress to the president of the United States, it came from outside of the rotunda.
00:11:09.080And to me, when you see people standing up, yes, activists, people who are angry, but you also see the quiet voices now of farmers, soybean farmers in the middle of Minnesota,
00:11:19.220who show up at a town hall, find themselves seated next to a woman who's holding a sign, I was there, this happened, that says this is not normal, looks at her, which is a common sign people are holding now at rallies, Democrats.
00:11:32.480And he says to her, what do you mean by that?
00:11:34.380And she said, well, this isn't normal what's happening.
00:11:38.580The reason I raise that story is the quiet voices, the people that don't usually show up, the fact that they're standing up right now and feel like they must talk to their governor or their senator or their mayor or their congress member, that matters.
00:11:55.460And we've got to keep that part of democracy alive and strong.
00:12:00.140And look, you talk about this notion of co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, the rule of law, the best of Roman Republic and Greek democracy, the founding father's vision being tested, the rule of law, this notion of the constitutional crisis that some have attached, at least as a tagline to this moment.
00:12:35.740And it's not like we didn't expect bad things to happen, given who some of the nominees were for some of the justice jobs, given that we had seen what he'd done before.
00:12:45.120And certainly January 6th, I also was there with President Biden and Roy Blunt when that all happened the day of January 6th.
00:12:53.760Was, you know, Mike Pence and me and Blunt walking down that pathway to the House, walking over broken glass at three in the morning with the last of the electoral ballots, including California's in that box.
00:13:09.920And then we were with Biden on the stage.
00:13:11.720That aside, I didn't predict they would go this far with, you know, just dismantling USAID, dismantling people's hopes and dreams with all kinds of cuts and things they've done on cancer research and the like.
00:13:26.860Their willingness to even just take on independent bodies like the Consumer Protection Agency, which recalled 150 million bad products and saved Americans from lead poisoning and dangerous pool drains and the like.
00:13:41.900Just their willingness and the president's willingness to bully people and whether it's journalists or universities and then the other flip side of it.
00:13:52.340Now I'm going to get to my silver lining here is just that the courts have been standing up over 200 times with judges appointed by Bush and by Trump himself and by Reagan.
00:14:05.520And I didn't even know those judges were still out there, but they are and they and they, along with the Democratic appointed judges, have been making courageous decisions.
00:14:57.700I started the first weekend after that inauguration.
00:15:00.360I found myself at the container store in suburban Minneapolis.
00:15:05.180And I had this cart and I had all these like Marie Kondo like plastic things because I decided I was going to reorganize my coffees and teas.
00:15:13.780And the stranger comes up and goes, Senator, I know why you're here.
00:15:16.740And I go, well, I just it's Saturday morning.
00:15:18.440I just I'm going to organize my kitchen.
00:15:20.760She goes, no, you're here because you feel like your life is out of control in your job in Washington.
00:15:25.500And you're trying to control things you're doing.
00:15:28.640And I went there two other times and then I got to work.
00:15:31.500So the point is, is that we have all been through this.
00:15:34.380But the answer, when you look at some of these court decisions, when you look at some of the Republicans who've been so timid.
00:15:40.820But when you look at what they're starting to say on Medicaid, that if you give up now, it's the worst.
00:16:13.040We sort of challenged and I appreciate your point of view on this, whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis, the issues around rule of law.
00:16:19.960But you did imply and you've been very vocal on this and I'm really grateful you've been one of the leading voices, keeping the focus and the attention and not getting distracted on the fundamental issue of these tariffs, which I personally believe he has no legal authority.
00:16:36.380And, of course, California filed a lawsuit along those lines, a dozen other states joining that under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.
00:16:44.480But the question of the tariffs, it's remarkable to me how, you know, that's it's it's still dominant in our lives, but not necessarily in the media in the last week or so.
00:16:57.560Back to this notion of, you know, I guess we can get to the big, beautiful bill.
00:17:01.300We can get to this notion of distractions, et cetera.
00:17:04.220But the impacts you've highlighted, the impacts of these tariffs that continue to this day, 30 percent in China, obviously tariffs to our big trading partners, north and south.
00:17:14.480In Canada and in Mexico, but impact to small businesses.
00:17:18.480And you've called it out in your own state and you're seeing a state of anxiety and uncertainty all across the United States.
00:17:25.520Is that fair or unfair, overstated, understated?
00:17:28.840No. And it is to me the driving problem right now with the economics.
00:17:34.440And I want to thank you for bringing that suit and showing such leadership on this front, especially with your major economy, the fourth biggest in the.
00:18:42.000And while he reduced those tariffs, they're still at an inordinately high level as opposed to using the clout of the United States of America,
00:18:50.460this incredible economy to negotiate more targeted things.
00:19:50.740She's not invited by the Treasury Secretary to J.P. Morgan to go into the meeting in New York City.
00:19:56.160She doesn't know what's going to happen.
00:19:57.980So it also creates an inequity in the economy where these small businesses that have been just incredibly important to the next big development.
00:20:07.840I look in Minnesota, Target started as a dry goods store and 3M started up in this little place in Duluth.
00:20:15.980I mean, these companies start small a lot of the time.
00:20:19.820And then we're just messing around with capitalism is what he's doing.
00:20:24.540He's trying to do like a controlled economy from the White House instead of allowing capitalism to unleash the kind of new ideas that we've seen.
00:20:34.280What happens when we come face to face with death?
00:20:40.400My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine.
00:22:05.360First of all, are you here to testify in the Diddy trial?
00:22:08.620Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise based on her first-hand knowledge.
00:22:13.400From her days on making the band as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be opposite of the glitz and glamour.
00:22:20.940It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real.
00:22:28.440Listen to Amy and TJ Presents, Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy trial on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:22:37.380I have a question for you, and I want you to be honest with me.
00:25:31.140Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:25:38.900And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:25:46.420And Senator, you know what's most insidious, and I love that you brought her up.
00:25:59.720We had the opportunity to visit with her on the podcast, and she talked about how she was inspired by her newborn, and now she has to look them in the eye and say, honey, we may not only lose the business, we may lose our home.
00:26:13.920Because she's leveraged her home in the mortgage to get a line of credit because she just made a deal with, you referenced Target, and Walmart to expand the business.
00:26:23.920And now her house is on the line, not just her business, in her future.
00:26:28.520And looking her kid in the eyes and having him tell them that, it's so important to highlight those stories and to highlight that example.
00:26:41.940Because the bigger companies I'm also concerned about, honestly, they're a big part of our economy.
00:26:46.540We have in Minnesota like 15, 16 Fortune 500 companies.
00:26:50.360And a lot of them do work overseas and a lot of ag companies and the like.
00:26:55.840But these little companies are just going to be roadkill because they don't have the margins, as you just pointed out, about this woman leveraging her home.
00:27:04.280Or as I mentioned, the soybean farmer.
00:27:06.300They already lost a bunch of their market to Brazil during the last Trump tariffs.
00:27:11.240And now they've gone down to like 20% of that total soybean market in China.
00:27:16.220And now they're going to go even less.
00:27:17.520So I just, he inherited an economy that we know there was inflation.
00:27:23.240We should never embrace the status quo.
00:27:53.100And we, I mean, it's been said over and over again of, you know, headlines in The Economist, headlines in The Wall Street Journal.
00:27:59.960The envy of the world, the United States, America's economy, despite inflation was beginning to cool, the economic output, growth, productivity, unemployment for women, African-Americans, lowest unemployment in 60 years.
00:28:12.420And as you suggest, the economy now contracting 0.3 percent in Q1.
00:28:17.840But I think the most interesting thing, and Senator, I'm curious your take on it, is this whole notion on the tariffs.
00:28:22.980The predicate on the tariffs was small businesses don't pay.
00:28:29.140And then, out of nowhere, Trump this week says, wait, hold on, eat the tariffs, he says, to Walmart, which suggests perhaps someone does pay on the other side of the border, consumers and or businesses.
00:29:15.920We should be the security alliances that we built around standing up for democracy in Ukraine.
00:29:22.820We, like, woke up from this slumber, I think our country did, woke up from the pandemic and said, wait a minute, we've got to get more secure relationships with some of these other countries.
00:29:34.060And that also means economic relationships.
00:29:36.680And he's just taking us backwards, hopefully not in Ukraine.
00:29:40.300I hope that some peace will come out of this that will work for Ukraine.
00:29:43.940But he's certainly taking us back economically.
00:29:46.940And so, the one other point you raised, Governor, was just this destruction thing.
00:29:51.960And it's so hard when you hear this, because he does some really bad things, I believe, so that no one will focus on the other things, like bright, shiny object.
00:30:02.620About a week ago or so on a Friday, Stephen Miller brought up, works for Trump in the White House, brought up habeas corpus.
00:30:10.080And so, I happened to be on a Sunday show after that.
00:30:13.680So, he brings up habeas corpus, and the president has no power under the Constitution to take away people's rights to contest detention.
00:30:30.520And I finally was able to say what I've always wanted to say, which is, he knows very well the president can't do that under the Constitution.
00:30:38.220And Senator Barrasso, who'd been on before me on the same show, had said it's not on their agenda.
00:30:43.140They're not going to spend weeks on this, and it's not going to pass anyway.
00:30:46.640Many conservative commentators are against this.
00:30:49.760So, I said, he brought it up, so you'd ask me about it right now instead of asking me about tariffs.
00:30:55.920And I think that's a lot of what they do.
00:30:57.820And as people who care about our rights and the world, we have to take stands and make clear where we stand on this.
00:31:04.700But we cannot let people get fooled by them into spending their time screaming at the TV, and they can't even hear you anyway, or screaming at a podcast about things that when what really matters right now is that their budget, which we still have to get to,
00:31:22.180is going to take 13.7 million people off of Medicaid and their health care, or it's going to raise the cost for 20 million, or that these tariffs are going to mess up our entire economy and the way we do business around the world and send us pell-mell down.
00:31:40.540And I just think those points is what matters the most to people and what we, I just judge from this crazy place I work in, has the most chance of getting Republicans to say, wait a minute, because we already saw them do it on Canada.
00:31:54.080Two senators bordering Canada, Murkowski and Collins, and then the two in Kentucky who never agree on anything, McConnell and Rand Paul, agreed with Tim Kaine and me that there was no emergency at the Canadian border.
00:32:07.240And maybe they did it because of Kentucky bourbon, but I don't really care why.
00:32:11.080I appreciate it. So let's contextualize. You talk about our kids, you talk about this tax cut, a tax increase, excuse me, with the tariffs, which are nothing more than a tax increase on, in a regressive tax that hurts low income and work and middle income Americans more than anyone else, but also a tax generationally as it relates to attacking working families in particular in the next generation.
00:32:35.780But we have this Build Back Better, beautiful, whatever the heck they're calling it, the big, beautiful bill.
00:32:41.320Trump is on the Hill. Trump was just, you may have seen him walk in the halls just seconds ago, Senator.
00:32:47.000He's out there and he was just out there on press conference saying that, you know, do not, and dare I say, I'll say it.
00:32:55.380He says he's don't quote unquote around with Medicaid, meaning he completely denies what you just suggested, that 13.7 million people may lose their Medicaid.
00:33:07.560You suggest Democrats are suggesting that's not the case.
00:33:12.340So this bill is truly a betrayal of the middle class.
00:33:15.520There are so many things he could have done, right?
00:33:18.360He could have increased taxes on billionaires and the biggest corporations.
00:33:22.380Even you do a one point every 10 years brings in $150 billion on corporate tax.
00:33:29.400And he could have gotten us to like a middle ground on that.
00:33:46.560He may have said that in that session to them, but they just are voting out of the committee.
00:33:52.380On a budget, that there is no other way, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that you can get to that point with where their cuts are.
00:34:00.500What happens when we come face to face with death?
00:34:07.080My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine.
00:39:42.660We'll be impacted through our Medi-Cal, our Medicaid, just in California alone.
00:39:48.380The impacts across the spectrum from the issues around Planned Parenthood, the impacts on our hospitals, not just rural hospitals, but hospital fees, what we refer to as this MCO tax, all of these other components that they have promoted and are poised to now approve.
00:40:04.400The devastation is actually outsized, profound, and extraordinary.
00:40:09.540It will also increase the national debt by a minimum of $3.3 trillion.
00:40:15.320Talk about saddling the next generation.
00:40:17.960So we do tax cuts to people literally who are not even asking for it.
00:41:04.480They want to put that over on your budget and on Minnesota's budget.
00:41:07.660I saw that, depending on how they do it, if they're at 10% or wherever they are on the cuts over to state budget, Texas alone would be like $500 million.
00:41:17.580And 40 of the 50 states have balanced budgets amendments.
00:41:20.860So they can't even add this while grocery prices are going up, energy prices up, all of these things.
00:41:27.140So that's what they're looking at to pay for these billionaire taxes.
00:41:29.440So if they pass this, which it's still very unclear, but if they do this on a party-line Republican vote in the House, it comes over to the Senate.
00:42:14.920And this is going to be the moment, I would hope, because Democrats are going to be united against this thing.
00:42:20.720And we will be doing everything to force votes and push them on it.
00:42:24.500But it is a time where people are going to stand up because he is really focused on this.
00:42:29.920And there's a bunch of Republicans in the Senate, including Josh Hawley, of all things, who have basically said on Medicaid, I'm not going to do this.
00:42:39.060We're not going to do these kinds of cuts as of other.
00:42:53.440It takes only four of them in the House and four of them in the Senate.
00:42:57.660If only three of them stand up, then good old J.D. Vance can come over and break the tie.
00:43:03.820But if four of them stand up, then they can't pass it.
00:43:07.540And so that's what the numbers are in the Senate and in the House.
00:43:11.400So, and look, I appreciate the point you're making, that we still have agency.
00:43:18.020We're not bystanders as it relates to this, and we can still save the future.
00:43:22.560But that said, we heard over and over and over again today, yesterday, this last week, failure for these guys is not an option.
00:43:30.720And of course, Trump showing up today on the Hill, making that point only reinforces symbolically and substantively what's at stake for the speaker and ultimately will be at stake for this country.
00:43:43.480But what, I mean, this notion of waste, fraud and abuse, this idea that you're not cutting 13.7 million people off of Medicaid, that you're just asking them to work, Senator.
00:43:57.400You're just asking them to reapply every six months, not every year.
00:44:01.520It's hardly draconian, and it really is about waste, fraud and abuse.
00:44:41.400So, you've got to look at the population you're dealing with for both the SNAP programs and Medicaid in terms of what you're talking about when you talk about making it harder to apply or creating more red tape and the like.
00:44:53.380So, this is, I think Trump has some notion that this isn't very popular.
00:44:59.640That's why he keeps saying he doesn't want to cut Medicaid.
00:45:02.520I think that should be the proof point that maybe their argument isn't working.
00:45:06.000The other proof point, by the way, when it comes to economics here, is only 37 percent, that is very close to the MAGA base, only 37 percent people think he's handling the economy well.
00:45:17.660So, a number that I'm hot off the press sharing with our caucus today is that when people are asked, well, what do you think we should do to make the budget better and get to a better thing with the deficit?
00:45:29.260Only 14 percent of them said cut health care and cut nutrition, those things.
00:45:35.08068 percent said tax the billionaires and the wealthiest more in order to make sure that people aren't hurt by this.
00:45:44.900So, I think they're in a very bad place here.
00:45:47.460And you've got the midterms coming around the corner.
00:45:58.280And so, the key is that despite the despair of what he tries to make people just feel like nothing is good when they look at politics, despite all that, you've got to look at some of the things that are going on in the states, like your lawsuit on the terrorists.
00:46:13.740You've got to look at the fact that people of our country are going to work every day, working hard despite all this, and looking out for each other and looking out for their neighbors, that this is still happening in America, no matter what he says or what he does every morning or what he posts on social media, and that we, as a country, have to keep standing up to this because it's either some of it's worked in court, so we fight it in the courts, we fight it in Congress, and this is going to be the big test.
00:46:40.660Are those four Republicans going to stand up, and we're going to make them vote on a bunch of stuff in the meantime?
00:46:46.220And then the third thing is our constituents, and that's just my plea to everyone that you've engaged so many people with this podcast.
00:46:53.460It's incredible that they remember that.
00:46:56.060I appreciate it, and I also just appreciate the essential nature of this moment, just focusing on this tax bill and focusing on the tariffs and doing our best over the course of the next few weeks.
00:47:07.420I'm not talking about the fact that the Timberwolves beat the Lakers and the Golden State Warriors.
00:47:40.580I've got two kids that are still in bed. They have not recovered, so I understand, trust me, how serious this stuff is.
00:47:46.500I also understand how serious the anxiety, and I just want to get to three quick topics with you, and I'll just jump right in.
00:47:56.940Where the hell is Elon Musk? What happened to him?
00:47:59.560What's your assessment of everything that has happened in the last few weeks, fire and fury signifying something, nothing, Doge?
00:48:07.900He's trying to get Tesla back on track and doing his job. I just was just the way I was in Wisconsin, by the way, on that Supreme Court situation there, and not with him with the cheese head, but I was there, and I just saw how people reacted to that, and they care about their own state and their own judicial system.
00:48:31.700They don't like that this billionaire is coming over to Green Bay, and I think that the way he handled that, there are ways, and you know this, to make changes in state or federal government.
00:48:42.560You've got to look at agencies, just like any business person would do, what things, what line of business isn't working, what do I want to change, how do I want to do it, and boy, I want to keep some of my new vigorous employees instead of firing everyone that's just been there less than two years.
00:48:56.900That may be the dumbest thing, and I want to keep veterinarians at USDA. I want to keep cancer researchers. I don't want to turn off all these great employees. They are the key to this, of making all this work so we can get medical devices approved, and the way they handled everything was just this slash and burn approach, which then turns off other people that they didn't even fire, that makes them want to leave, and pretty soon, who's going to be looking at the electric grid?
00:49:21.720So this is going to affect the economy with how he's handled this. There are things that they could do and can do to look at this in a rational way, and that's what I think why he became just such a burden on everything because of the way he went up.
00:49:38.620Not necessarily the idea of reform. People don't want to own the status quo. They want to see changes to the government. It's just how he did it and how he mocked these people, many of whom have devoted their lives to doing work that not everyone wants to go out and fight fires all the time, right?
00:49:56.240Not everyone is putting themselves in the line or looking at doing the kind of research that you need. They're not going to sit in a lab all day, but there are some devoted Americans that do that every day, and he's making them want to go work somewhere else. So I think that's what happened, and that's why he's back, and hopefully he gets Tesla back on track.
00:50:13.860Yeah, no, and as someone that's invested as a taxpayer, not just as an elected official supporting the growth of the alternative vehicle industry, I appreciate the sentiments about Tesla because of the energy and entrepreneurialism that defines that company, or at least has in the past, and our ability to compete for the future.
00:50:36.900You make a point about the issue of snap and the cuts to food and food security. By the way, Trump made another Orwellian comment today in his press conference around the food cuts, around the snap cuts, saying it will actually lower the cost of food. Only Trump could actually assert that as he went on to say something about the cost of eggs.
00:50:58.840But also, there's a part of the three-legged stool of what they're also assaulted we didn't bring up, which is on the green energy side, and the fact that we will quite literally, you talk about the future, and I appreciate you brought it up, Senator, four or five times. It wasn't lost on me.
00:51:13.960You talked about that formula for success. You talked about the research and development. You talked about the foundations of what make this country great and how we built the world's largest middle class.
00:51:24.900It's because we had a formula for success and academic freedom and investments in science and health and discovery and entrepreneurialism, the ability to get the first-round draft choices around the rest of the world, the best and the brightest to come to America, and rules for risk-taking but not recklessness.
00:51:43.180You talk about the importance of permitting reform and addressing aspects of what Ezra Klein has referred to as the abundance agenda, which I completely embrace.
00:51:52.220And Democrats, we need to own that, and we need to own up to our own performance.
00:51:56.240But I want to just briefly talk about something, if I may, Senator, that is very personal to you and personal to all of us, but more personal to you, because I've been struck by your own history with your family, your own personal health, obviously now President Biden's health.
00:52:14.600And it's so topical this week. I saw you on the Sunday shows, and I don't want to necessarily get to the past, per se. We're going to have plenty of time, and on this podcast, we'll talk a lot more about the past.
00:52:27.940But in relationship to the present and the future, just your relationship with President Biden and his relationship to this moment as it relates to this advanced prostate cancer.
00:52:38.580Right, exactly. So when you think about it, it was the cancer moonshot, when you go back to Biden after he lost his son, who I know you knew, and him.
00:52:50.020And it was something that, of course, changed his whole life.
00:52:54.380And I was there when President Obama signed that bill, because I had some things in there on eating disorders, other things that we'd passed, that we got in that bill, and also some of the work on cancer.
00:53:05.040And I remember President Biden, who was vice president at the time, standing by Obama's side when he signed that bill into law.
00:53:13.620That research at NIH and the like has continued with bipartisan support for 11 years in a row, increasing research.
00:53:20.500And now, as you know, a lot of the works in your state, some of it's in mine with the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, and just kind of the incredible moment we're at.
00:53:31.640We've mapped the human genome. Now we're moving into personalized medicine, and the use of AI, if harnessed and put the right rules in place, it's going to take our country to this level of leadership.
00:53:43.240But to do it, you need, yes, some rules in place. And when Elon Musk says that there should be some rules on AI, maybe we should listen to them.
00:53:50.400Secondly, and Congress needs to act. Secondly, we need to keep supporting this research, and the fact that these attacks on these universities, and I'm so glad they're joining forces now, because that's one thing all people who listen to your podcast have got to think about when you join forces, and you're not alone being attacked.
00:54:09.720It's worked better for journalists, for law firms, you name it. So that idea that we could continue this research at this moment and get, continue to get in the workers that can do the research with legal immigration reform and the like, to augment the people we have here.
00:54:26.880And that, to me, that, to me, is our golden moment into California sunshine thing, where we can really go to this next level of our economy.
00:54:38.140And that's what one of the saddest things about what's going on when I've heard in your own state and in mine about research projects that could be brought to places like Australia, because they just, they don't know if they're going to have the certainty of doing them here.
00:54:53.120Right at this moment where this technology and know-how is reaching this pinnacle where America has like kind of our next great breakthroughs with rare diseases, which we never thought were possible to solve.
00:55:06.620And in my case, yes, the breast cancer that gets like, they detect it, you have a simple apectomy, you've got radiation in five days, and you don't miss a vote.
00:55:16.800And you literally get back on a commercial flight or back for that vote and never miss anything.
00:55:22.940I don't say that's perfect for most people. But what I say is that are these advancements has allowed our economy to function and been a leader.
00:55:30.460And we don't want to move back on that. And I know that was something President Biden cared about.
00:55:34.760I know it's something you're devoted to. But the point is, is that Trump, we still could go in the right direction, but he's got to stop this assault on the things that are literally the innovation that's key to America's economy.
00:55:50.340We want to be a country that makes stuff, invents things and exports to the world.
00:55:54.460Senator, just in closing, do you, you know, and I appreciate, I think, you know, this notion of an economic vision, a journey that everyone can be on together and they see they feel seen and included in that is critical for the Democrats and our comeback.
00:56:10.780And not just as it relates to the midterms, but even beyond, where are you on sort of the spectrum of reflecting on where our party is, where was, where we are today and where we're going and just sort of three or four things that you think we should be doing more of right now in order to get back.
00:56:31.820Where I think the American people, the majority of them, I believe, want us to be.
00:56:37.920Yeah, I think we can't be stuck in the status quo of the past.
00:56:41.780And just because Trump is going on this all out assault doesn't mean that our answer is, no, we like everything the way it was.
00:56:48.380That's not where the American people are. That's not where we should be.
00:56:51.840So that's the first thing. In addition to focusing on the economic mistakes he's making and the assault on people's, basically, their right to pursue opportunities by making it harder and harder for them and small businesses, we have got to have our own agenda.
00:57:09.080The second thing is we shouldn't just go where it's comfortable. We should go where it's uncomfortable.
00:57:13.140You know, I visit all 87 counties in my state every single year, just came back from a 19 county tour in rural Minnesota and go to other parts of the country as well that are more rural.
00:57:25.260I just think listening to people because they're on the first line that's getting attacked by these tariffs and the like and making sure that we have an agenda that works for them.
00:57:34.120The third thing, bring down costs, bring down costs, bring down costs.
00:57:37.660That's going to mean more housing and getting through some of this permitting muck.
00:57:42.860And that's part of the whole abundance Ezra Klein agenda.
00:57:47.560Childcare, there's incredible public-private partnerships that we could engage in.
00:57:52.380Bringing down health care costs, being willing to look at that in a different way, take on these pharmaceutical prices.
00:59:42.360Where Diddy's former protege, television personality, Danity King alum, Aubrey O'Day, joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation.
01:00:00.620Listen to Amy and TJ Presents, Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:00:14.060And on a recent episode of Just Healed with Dr. J, the incomparable Taraji P. Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey.
01:00:24.260I never let that little girl inside of me die.
01:00:26.760To hear this and more things on the journey of healing, you can listen to Just Healed with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.