NTK: The Democrats Urgent To Do List Before and After the Elections
The DSR Network
In this episode of Need to Know, David Rothkopf and Jen Rubin discuss urgent actions Democrats must take before and after the upcoming elect
Key takeaways
- Democrats must prioritize winning control of at least one chamber of Congress before focusing on policy.
- Congress can leverage its power of the purse to defund unconstitutional or harmful initiatives, even if it risks a government shutdown.
Main topics
- Democratic electoral strategy
- Congressional power of the purse
Notable quotes
"You have to win. You have to win at least one house." – Jen Rubin
Conclusion
The episode concludes with a call to action: Democrats must win electi
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:04) 9, 12, 10, 28, 2, 53. Speaker 3 (0:17) This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our super-secret studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of SNARK in Washington, D.C., and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Speaker 2 (0:34) Hello, and welcome to DSR's Need to Know. I am Speaker 3 (0:37) David Rothkopf, the host, and each and every week we try to talk to somebody. who can help us make sense of what's going on. And this week, we've got with us somebody who I actually know can do that. It's Jen Rubin. She's the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Contrarian. She's the smartest person in Washington. Regularly, on a regular basis, I read Jen Rubin, not to find out what's going on, but to find out what I actually think. Because she's always there before I am, which is a little creepy, but... I'm super grateful for it. So hi, Jed. Speaker 1 (1:13) I feel exactly the same way about you. I feel like we are the only two sane people in Washington. Speaker 3 (1:19) Yeah, that's true. That's our new podcast, The Last Two Sane People in Washington with Jen and David. Jen, you had a really good piece in The Contrarian. You have so many good things in The Contrarian, but you had a very good piece in The Contrarian about what it is that the Democrats could actually get done if they win. And I thought this is good because... You know, we're constantly in a state of emotional flux based on everything that's going on. And everybody's got a long list of. We got to do this and we got to do that. But of course, there are a lot of those things that we can't actually do, particularly within the parameters of what might actually happen in November. You've talked about what we can actually do, and I wish you would share some of those ideas. Speaker 1 (2:06) The first thing you have to do is win. You have to win at least one house. I am increasingly optimistic we'll win not only the House, but frankly, the Senate. Speaker 2 (2:16) You Speaker 1 (2:17) look at the polling. The number of seats that Democrats are leading in is really fairly impressive. Now, I don't want to spook it. I don't want to jinx it. So throwing salt over my shoulder, spitting three times, what have you. But first, you have to win. And I don't want to just jump over that because Democrats have a way of taking their eye off the ball. They find things to pick at each other about. to criticize one another about, to find fault with other Democrats. But the mantra between now and November is, as the great Nancy Pelosi once said, win, baby, win. Because nothing happens unless you win the gavel. Now, let's say Democrats do win the gavel in the House and maybe the Senate as well. The two big powers that Congress has are the power of the purse and the power of oversight. I'm going to have a big piece later this week on the power of oversight, what exactly they can do, what that can accomplish, why the naysayers, I think, have it wrong. But the piece that I think you're referring to that I did today on Monday. concerns the power of the purse. It's not just the power to spend money. It's the power not to spend money. And that means the power to defund things you don't like. Top of the list, defunding an illegal, reckless war. We don't have to pay for any more fighting in Iran. We don't have to pay for the continued misalignment, misdeployment of our forces. Congress has the power not only to declare war, which they should have or should have refused to do, but the power to authorize funds. So they can defund things like that. They can defund all of or some parts of ICE, of border. protection and control. Not a day goes by, David, where we do not see one horror story after another. Since I wrote the piece last night, we've had the story of little cages at Alligator Alcatraz in which prisoners were kept. Speaker 3 (4:57) We Speaker 1 (4:57) have a story about lawless searches by DHS on an hourly basis, we get more evidence of lawlessness, brutality, cruelty. This does not need to be funded and it should not be funded. And what Republicans scream, bloody murder, you're allowing criminals to run the streets. The answer is we would be happy to fund operations that focus on criminals and serious criminals. But in fact, only about 4 % of the people they are picking up have criminal records at all. They're using that money to harass workers, grandparents, little kids. That money should end, as should money to pay for the misdeployment of federal guard troops or federalized guard troops or borrowed guard troops in U.S. cities. Speaker 2 (6:00) So Speaker 1 (6:01) all of that can go. But I have my eye on an even bigger target, David. As you know, in the slaughter case, the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, Speaker 2 (6:12) decided Speaker 1 (6:13) that the so-called unitary executive theory means that the president can fire anybody he wants who has been on what we had thought were independent commissions and boards. Things like the Federal Trade Commission. The big exception, because they can't bring themselves to do it, is, of course, the Federal Reserve. Mind you, there's no legal distinction that they can come up with. They just can't bring themselves to do that. So they spared the Federal Reserve. But you know what? Congress doesn't have to pay. for Mickey Mouse boards and commissions that don't operate on a bipartisan basis, that no longer feel bound by the rule of law. And you know where they can start? They can start with Brendan Carr and the FCC. We don't have to fund it. If you're going to have rogue commissioners, rogue board members who are misusing the power of the federal government, to harass, to intimidate, to censor. Why should federal dollars, your taxpayer dollars, my taxpayer dollars, be used to fund it? They shouldn't. Congress can just say no. Well, you say, wait a second. What if they don't have both houses of Congress? Doesn't matter. The House doesn't have to agree. Well, then what happens? The government will shut down. Oh, well. I guess the government shuts down and the Democrats would have to explain to the American people that the reason the government is shut down is because they're not willing to pay for an illegal war. They're not willing to pay for a rogue, lawless ICE. They're not willing to pay for an FCC that harasses and censors people. In other words, they can explain themselves to the American people. I think that would be a fine approach. Now, all of that requires they communicate. All of that requires discipline within their ranks. Speaker 3 (8:24) Are Speaker 1 (8:25) they up for it? I hope so, because if that's what we got, that's the only thing that we're going to have between now and the 2028 election. So that, in a nutshell, is what I'm proposing. Speaker 3 (8:39) Look. This is a great proposal. I'm behind it 100%. I'm behind anything that holds them accountable, that uses the powers Democrats have, that plays the game the way the Republicans would play the game. I'm behind taking action. So this is great. I got two problems that I see potentially with it, and I'd like you to address them each. Okay? Sure. So the first problem I see with it is Trump doesn't care about the law. And he seems to make up new rules for how he can spend money all the