E (2:17)

All right.

A (2:17)

Okay. So I. And I really just want to welcome you. You're probably still not 100% sure how we convinced you to get on here. This is. This is.

B (2:30)

I just do whatever Sasha tells me to do, you know?

A (2:33)

Sasha, do you have any comments on that? Sasha, does that sound right?

E (2:37)

That doesn't sound right at all. I mean, that's not even close to right, but I'll take it.

B (2:43)

Sasha, my boy. I see you.

E (2:45)

There he is. What's happening?

B (2:46)

You got it, man.

A (2:48)

I'm gonna. Sasha, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go off script for a second. I wanna. And I don't know if Bobby and Ben are on yet, but, you know, I appreciate the hundreds. I like the fact that we're Both sporting the Hundreds gear today to show sponsorship. I think everybody on these Zooms should get free Hundreds gear. I think that's. That's the new rule. But I started these. I just actually counted, which I'm sort of surprised. This is the 15th one of these that I've done. And it started at the beginning back in Covid, when the lockdown happened, and actually did the first one with my father, who I think you crossed path was before Alan Patrikoff, who is probably on here somewhere. And then since then, we've had everybody from President Clinton to Kamala Harris to Cory Booker to Mark Cuban to Albert Woodfox, who's one of the Angola 3. So it's a broad section of people, and I'm really excited about the group of people who are listening as well, because they. And many of them could be interviewed as well. And it's whether it's entertainment people, it's finance people, it's people in Israel, London, New York, it's chefs, it's small business owners, nonprofit leaders. So there are a ton of topics that I want to talk with you about and get through because there's so many things that you can talk about. But I. I'd love. I know. I know you have a few things to say to start, and I'd love to kick it off that way and then get into questions.

B (4:22)

Okay, that sounds good. Well, hello to everybody, and thanks, Jamie, for inviting me here today. It's good to be with all of you virtually, I guess. I wish we were doing this in la. That'd be a lot more fun. But everybody, you know, stay safe, wear your masks, you know, do all the things we're supposed to be doing. What I'd like to do is maybe just go through kind of quickly what we're doing at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. There's a lot going on in our world right now, But I think the fact is that our work and the work that we're doing across the progressive ecosystem to support free, fair, and healthy elections is really extremely important. And I think this work has to go on. As the ground continues to shift beneath our feet. I think we all have to adapt to this new normal. I mean, I do these zoom calls all the time. I was in New York today. I'm actually in Washington, D.C. physically, but I was in New York today. I'm going to be in Kansas after this. And I think I'm in. I don't think in Europe, some. Something tomorrow. So zooms are positives and negatives over the Past three years, we built an organization at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the ndrc, that has a comprehensive strategy for tackling the problem of gerrymandering. And we got, by this point, a pretty good record of success. We've accomplished a lot. But we still have a long way to go to make sure that the next redistricting process that occurs in 2021, just next year, is a fair one. Now, gerrymandering is just plain wrong. It undermines the rights of people, the voting rights of people contributes to polarization and gridlock that frustrates so many of us. I mean, with gerrymandering and these safe seats, people on the right are pushed further to the right, people on the left push further to the left. There's no reason to compromise. In fact, compromise is seen as a weakness. People are concerned more about a primary challenge than they are about a general election. And that leads to polarization, gridlock, and then cynicism in our system of government. This is an effort for fair maps. This is not an effort to gerrymander for Democrats. I'm a partisan Democrat and I'm proud of it. But this is not an attempt to gerrymander for Democrats. Gerrymandering, I think, is just wrong. I think if we have a fair process in 2021, Democrats, progressives, will do, you know, we'll do just fine. We want to make sure that elections are decided by the voters and not by politicians who are drawing the lines to decide who their voters ought to be. So we're in a strategic long term fight for the health of our democracy. I think in 2020, in November, in a whole bunch of ways, our democracy is really on the line. And if we want to save this democracy, we have to focus obviously on an existential election when it comes to who the president is going to be. But we've really also got to look down ballot to make sure that we are focusing on those other races that are, I think, important in different ways. So we're using a lot of tools that we have at our disposal to fight against this map manipulation. We've got this comprehensive four pronged strategy that's focused on electing people, that is making sure that we're supporting Democrats up and down the ballot who are key to the redistricting process and will fight for fair maps. We ask anybody who we support to sign a fair redistricting pledge. Reform. We support reform initiatives around the country, including ballot initiatives that would create, as you have in California, these nonpartisan commissions that actually draw the lines Take it out of the hands of politicians altogether and let these commissions draw the lines. Infrastructure. We are making sure that the infrastructure is in place for redistricting next year, and that includes building and maintaining an aggressive advocacy campaign that is designed to empower citizens during the, during the process, as well as making sure that we have the technological capabilities to do it in the right way. In 2011, the last time we did it, we redistrict every 10 years. Republicans were focused on this, Democrats were not. And in addition to everything else, we got out technology, and we want to make sure that doesn't happen this time. And the fourth thing we do is litigation. We bring lawsuits in places where the maps have been drawn unconstitutionally, and we prepare for future lawsuits in states where we think malfeasance is going to occur next year. So that's just a brief outline of the strategy that we have for the redistricting process. But as you can imagine, we have to adjust our work to adapt to the reality that the pandemic has created. And so we are remaining vigilant in, in our ongoing fight against gerrymandering, but we're also adapting. So we watched what happened in Wisconsin and in Georgia, those long lines as people were trying to vote and doing in a way that was not necessarily safe. Long lines in the middle of a pandemic that makes absolutely no sense. And we can't have that happen again in the fall. So this is going to be a challenging time for our system and for individuals as well. But we just can't allow this pandemic to undermine the principles of our representative democracy. And that means, at base, making sure that people have the ability to cast a ballot and to do so in a safe way. So that's what we are focusing now. We've kind of focused on, you know, as I said, gerrymandering, but we've now increased what it is we are focusing on. The majority of the state legislative candidates who are going to hold a pen for redistricting next year are, are on the ballot this November and they're facing a lot of headwinds with regard to their fundraising. And so we've had to adjust our approach to supporting them financially. They're going to need support and they're going to need it earlier than they normally would have. And so we're also in a world where, you know, door to door canvassing and face to face organizing can happen. And we first saw this in Wisconsin. And to meet this new challenge, we're shifting our voter contact techniques to the digital space by acquiring new tools and refining our messaging strategies and working closely with other organizations that we invest in to make sure that voter contact strategies are adjusting as is necessary. Now, with regards to that infrastructure, as I was talking about, we have a group that's called all on the Line, and that's our national grassroots advocacy campaign. We launched this so that we would have volunteers email, call and to tweet their representatives in Congress and at the state level. So we make sure that we have robust funding in all the coronavirus bills are now being considered in Congress to ensure that the states have the necessary money to implement the reforms that are going to make it easier and safer to vote. And we so far have 12,000 volunteers who have participated in this campaign through our new digital tool we call callout. This tool allows us to track who's taking action where and then follow up with them directly to sign up. People to act as volunteers are all on. We also have people in states. We have state directors in our target states, and they're pivoting again to make sure that they have training programs that go in the virtual space instead of in person trainings. And we've already done this in North Carolina, Arizona, and in other states as well. And we're really encouraged by the pretty substantial number of signups that we've had in that regard. We're partnering with national and local organizations all over the country to promote a policy that will put in place the fixes that are necessary to protect the November elections at the state level. We're working with leaders there to begin preparations for again, safe and secure fall elections. And we're pushing for an expansion of vote at home measures. People call it vote by mail. I prefer to call it vote at home because that's really what it's all about, allowing people to cast a ballot at home in a safe way. We want to expand the ability of people to register to vote, making sure that for those people who want to vote in person, and that's particularly true in communities of color, that those polling places are healthy and they're safe for those who want to cast a ballot in that way. And then also making sure that we increase our voter education efforts so that people know all the options they have to cast a ballot. And then when it comes to litigation, we filed lawsuits in different parts of the country to make sure that we're expanding absentee balloting, changing restrictive voting laws so that people again can vote in a safe way. We have filed suits in Texas. We got two cases there in North Carolina as well, as in Minnesota, and we settled the case in Minnesota, have now done away with a restriction they had there that if you wanted to cast a ballot absentee, you had to have two people sign to indicate that you were in fact the person who was casting that ballot. We've now done away with that. So that's an overview of kind of what it is that we're doing and what it kind of looks like nowadays. It's, you know, we're really trying to make sure that we have, as I said, a fair process. And if we have a fair process, as, as I said, Democrats will do, will do just fine. Gerrymandering is what our focus is. It's the mission that we've been given. I'm working with President Obama on this. He's identified this as his chief political involvement in his post presidency. So he and I are working together in terms of strategy, fundraising. I've endorsed about 100 candidates in North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, a variety of other states. He will be making endorsements at the state level as well. The contributions that we make to candidates at the state level are relatively small for a state level or a state, state House, state Senate. They can be relatively small, but can have a really enormous impact. An endorsement by me, an endorsement by the president can also have an impact. Just to give you an example, we turn, we flipped 12 seats in Texas in the last cycle. In 2018, we did nine in Texas, this time in the, in the state House. And there then we will take over. Democrats will control the state House and that will give Democrats a seat at the table when it comes to redistricting in 2021. Governor and the two houses of the legislature are the people who will actually draw the lines. So we want to make sure that we are focused in a, in an appropriate way on those people, those bodies that will be in a position to do the right thing when it comes to the redistricting process in, in 2021. So that is a, that's a broad overview about what it is we, we're doing. I'd be more than glad to answer any questions about that or anything else that, you know, that people want to talk about.

A (15:20)

Thank you so much for that and thank you that you are committing your time and effort to that. It's, it's. I heard one interviews with you where it's, it's. I think you described it as wonky, key, but it's, there's a lot of different things obviously you could be doing right now. And that is obviously at the core of Every issue everybody on this zoom is focused on, but it's not the most exciting we have. Ironically, Stacey Abrams is coming on next week. And so there's going to be, I think this is unintentionally the voting week or voting rights. How do you, knowing that 2021 and gerrymandering is at the, is probably the most critical thing our country is facing. How do you not take your eye off the ball on that and focus simply on this election and voting rights and the issues that you, some of the things you brought up. How much of your day today now, I guess is focused on what's in front of us?

B (16:22)

Yeah, I mean, there's no question that the presidential election is of existential importance. I mean, Trump's gotta go. You know, my Justice Department has to be rescued. You know, the climate needs to be saved. But on a day to day basis, people's lives are determined really by what happens in state legislatures almost more than who is the president, whether it's, you know, the expansion of Medicaid or health care more, more generally, voting rights, criminal justice reform. We've been talking about that a lot, a woman's right to choose. These are, these are matters that are decided in state legislature. So again, focus on, you know, who's going to be president. But we've also got to focus on those down ballot races and make sure that when we draw the lines, we don't end up in situations like we have now in Wisconsin and we had in North Carolina where Democrats can get, you know, 54, 55, 60% of the vote and end up with one third of the seats. And then you have in like in Wisconsin, the passage of all of these laws that are inconsistent with the desires of the people in the state, but they're locked into a system that can't be made more fair. That's what we want to have to try. That's what we're trying to prevent. We've had a decade of that. We can't survive. We can't, this nation can't have a, another 10 years of the gerrymandered system that we've had. We can't survive another four years of Donald Trump. So I think that, you know, the Trump election is of existential importance. But I keep pulling on people, you know, don't forget, you know, support these down ballot races, make sure that everybody votes all the way, all the way through.

A (18:00)

Well, sort of get to the end of the zoom at the beginning. But what's one thing you would ask everybody on this zoom to do when they sign off at 2 o', clock, that's not just donate money, which everybody obviously should be doing. And yes, it's probably easy just to go to your website and help us figure that out. But if you could ask everybody to do one thing related to that topic, what would it be?

B (18:20)

You know, I would say that you all are a people of influence and I would ask you to use that capacity to try to foment the kind of change that I think brings us all together here today. For those of you who are in California, you're in probably the place of sanity in this country. You might think, well, what is it that I can do? You know, through our all on the line program, we have people who in California, in the last cycle, in 2018 and 2019 elections, we had people in California making phone calls to voters in Virginia in 2019, other states in 2018 to make your voices be heard, to make sure that people are elected representatives, know that you are engaged. I think the American people tend to underestimate the power that we have as citizens. And engaged American citizenry is extremely powerful. I mean, I've seen it in my lifetime. The Vietnam War didn't end because we achieved our military objectives. It end because popular support for that war ultimately collapsed. Women didn't get the right to vote, not because it was time. It was because women organized, took to the streets and made sure that that right was there. So again, focused American action can have great results. And so I would urge people to get involved in, in any way that you can in supporting people down ballot. And as I said, if you're in a state that is, you know, in, in good shape, get in touch with us and we can come up with ways in which you can be engaged in states that still need, still need a lot of work.

A (20:01)

But can we send a text, make a phone call?

B (20:03)

What can we do?

A (20:04)

Literally what one is a specific thing we can actually do. I mean, what's an easy thing to do?

B (20:09)

I think manning the phones. You know, I think that's a huge thing. It's a huge thing to pick up a phone. You know, you're not going to always get somebody who A is going to pick up the phone or B, who's going to be receptive. But you know, over the long haul, we have seen that that has a pretty dramatic impact to have people talk, talking to other people. Sometimes they are interesting conversations, sometimes they are, you know, adversarial ones. But that interaction in the polling that we have done tends to, tends to move People.

A (20:40)

All right, everybody, everybody heard that. And one of the things I've been doing pre the Zoom is, you know, doing more research on the Attorney General job than I've ever done before. I think as a joke I sort of made. I don't think anybody actually knows what the Attorney General does or. And what that job description is. That being said, everybody on the Zoom, one of the definitions is the chief law enforcement officer and chief lawyer of the United States of America. So since he just requested you to do that, I think you're obligated to phone bank.

B (21:09)

Now,

A (21:11)

what is this?

B (21:11)

I still have friends at the FBI and for those people, I've got all your names, I got all your numbers. If you don't do anything, you will get a knock on the door. I'm just saying, I'm just saying before we move forward. What's the. Kidding. I'm just kidding.

A (21:26)

What's the. My 14 year old daughter and me my 12 year daughter on your. What's the. The one line recruiting. What is the one line job of the Attorney General?

B (21:37)

The lawyer for the people. And that is something that Bill Barr that.

A (21:43)

By the way, I didn't think this was a comedy zoom. I mean, the lawyer for the people.

B (21:48)

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's the way the job is supposed to be run. You're not supposed to have as your primary client the President of the United States. Your primary client is supposed to be the people in the United States of America. And the way Barr has interpreted the job, the way in which he has used the power that he has, has obviously been to subvert what the true mission of the Attorney General, the Attorney General is.

A (22:12)

Should the Attorney General not be appointed by the President?

B (22:17)

Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting thing. You know, I tend not to want to legislate or draw regulations on the basis of, you know, negative experiences. Because the reality is as much I might have as I might have disagreed with ags in, during the Bush years, you know, they. On policies, I could disagree with them, but they didn't lose in a fundamental way the way in which Barr has that which an Attorney General is supposed to do. I actually think that having an AG who understands what his or her job is and the primary responsibility they have to the people, but also is involved with the President and the President's cabinet, it's a way in which you can effectuate the policies that a particular Attorney General might want to put in place. You know, when I was the ag, you have the ability to pick four portraits of your predecessors to put up in the big conference room on the fifth floor at the Justice Department. And one of the people I had up there was Elliot Richardson, a Republican who understood that there is an ultimate responsibility that the AG has to be independent. And when a president tries to push you out of that independent space, you've got to give up. You know, you have to be prepared to lose, lose your job. And he was there to always remind me that as much as I might have liked the job, as much as I might have thought I could make a difference, that it was only a job and that there were principles that were more important than the job job itself. And I think that typically, typically, there have been instances in the history of the Justice Department where that has not been followed. Awful examples, and we're in the middle of one right now. But typically, I think AGs have been. Have hued that that line you said

A (23:55)

in that MSNBC interview in April 2019, you were disappointed by Bill Barr, but hopefully, what do you have to say

B (24:05)

now that's like, you know, you know, you're writing a letter to your younger self and, you know, well, if I was writing to that much younger Eric, I would assume you're being. Are you. Oh, my God.

A (24:20)

Yourself, Please mute yourself, everybody. Please make sure you're on mute.

B (24:24)

Thanks. Okay.

A (24:25)

Sorry.

B (24:26)

No, I would have, I would have written to that 2019 Eric and said there's no reason to be hopeful. What you see is, is what you get. And actually, Eric, 2019, it's going to get worse in, in 2020. He has been the worst Attorney General of my lifetime. And now I lived. I saw John Mitchell, you know, and Richard Kleindeans, and there is no question that, you know, he's, he's the worst.

A (24:54)

All right, well, then I'm going to. Now we're going to go to another of your, another favorite, everybody on here. You also said in that interview that Donald Trump is in jeopardy of being the worst president in the United States history. Where would you place that now, today?

B (25:13)

Well, let's just put it like this. James Buchanan is a happy guy. Wherever he is traditionally thought of as the worst president in the history of the United States. He, he no longer is. You know, Buchanan can move over. Trump is now the worst president of all time. His inability to handle the pandemic, I mean, where do we start? You know, the requests for foreign assistance in our domestic elections, the latest one, you know, the inability or the lack of desire apparently, to do anything with regard to Russia placing bounties on the lives of our Servicemen and service women. I mean, it's, you know, the list goes on and on and on, and no president faced with a, a disaster of the magnitude that we're now seeing or something close to it, has failed so miserably as, as Donald Trump has divided the nation, you know, racially, ethnically, you know, by, by region. He is, he's a complete failure. He is the absolute worst person to have as president of the United States at this time. I mean, you would be hard pressed to come up with somebody who could be, who could be worse.

A (26:31)

I did, I didn't mean to laugh there, because there's nothing funny about that. But the James Buchanan line, I'm going to go to my father, who has a question who likes to raise his hand like this as opposed to pushing the raise hand button in zoom. So I asked, dad, are you there?

F (26:49)

Yes. I have no raised hand, but. Eric, hi, nice to see you again. I want to ask you the question that everybody, without my knowing them all, has got to have in their mind. We are all frightfully afraid of what Donald Trump can do if, in fact, he loses the election and doesn't want to leave. And I think a lot of people have on this call just to hear what you can, you know, not necessarily comfort, but what are the steps he could take. And there was a, there was an article in Newsweek a week ago which was, if that didn't frighten you, nothing would. A scenario. I don't know if you agree with what was said there, but he went through, the writer, went through every single step that could happen, one leading to the next, to the next. And the ultimate was that he absolutely could stay there. So I'd like you, if you would, share with us your thoughtful insight as to what could he do and how could it be stopped?

B (27:51)

Yeah, I mean, that article was really frightening because it was not one that you could just totally dismiss and say, this is a bad novel, bad film. You know, given all the way in which Trump has conducted himself, he, in essence, I mean, in essence, what happened was he threw the election into the House of Representatives. And then because there are more Republican states than Democratic states, he was voted back into office, though he didn't win, you know, the popular vote. And it's a frightening, It's a frightening thing. I don't think that's a likely scenario. I also don't think. I've been on Bill Marshall a few times. He's always concerned about Trump not leaving. I don't think that's going to be a problem. Come January, when, know, 20th. I'm actually more concerned about the, the period between his defeat in the election and January when the new, when Joe Biden would be sworn in. He will have full presidential power between November and, and, you know, the end of January. What will he do then? And I suspect at a minimum, you'll see pardons, you know, going all over the place, I suspect. You know, I, I remember I talked to Lawrence with Donald, and I remember he, he raised with me once that Trump will pardon himself. And I thought that's ridiculous. And now I think that's not only not ridiculous, I think it's almost likely, you know, no one's ever envisioned that. I think you can't do it, but I think you'll probably see something along, along those lines. But I, I really don't think that's why I think that, you know, we've got to fight like hell between now and November to make sure that the result is as clear and as resounding as we can possibly make it. I'm heartened by the polls that I've seen publicly released that are consistent with the polls that we have been doing that shows a close election in states that should not be close, traditionally red states that in the battleground states, Joe Biden is doing quite well. I mean, I wish we could hold the election today. I wish we could hold it today. You know, November is still a fair amount away, but I also think we're suffering from a bit of 2016 post traumatic stress. If we had not had the 2016 experience and we presented with these numbers, I think we would all feel pretty comfortable in saying that it's extremely likely that Joe Biden is going to win. But we had 2016, and so we got to work like hell to make sure that those results are as clear as they possibly can be. And then, you know, to the extent if there are shenanigans or things that Trump tries to do, we've got to be prepared to respond, both legally and then ultimately, I mean, you know, if it comes down to it, we got to take to the streets. I don't think it's going to come to that. I really don't think it's going to come to that. I think at the end of the day, the election will not be as close as I think people think. And I also don't think that with his defeat, he will necessarily have the support of what I think is going to be a pretty shattered Republican Party. And so I think that he'll be gone come January 20th and we'll get about the business of rebuilding our democracy.

A (31:09)

I'm glad you assuaged our fears in that Newsweek article. I put that link to the article in the chat, if people want to see it. What should we be most concerned with when it comes to voting in this election in November? I mean, what are the, I mean, there's a lot of different factors out there, but what are the most significant concerns that maybe we can even help fight back against? But what should we be most concerned about?

B (31:37)

Yeah, I mean, I think the good news is that I think we have an energized American electorate and I think we're going to see record turnout, you know, all around the country. And I think if people are allowed to vote, Democrats will do just fine. Just fine. And so the question you ask, I think is a good one. What should we be worried about? And I think what we need to be worried about is voter suppression. You know, the techniques that have been used to try to keep people of color away from the polls, these unnecessary voter ID laws, the purging of the polls that have, have occurred, you know, the closure of polls in communities of color so that you have these extremely long lines. I think that, so that's, that's certainly what I would have been worried about before the pandemic. And now you couple those concerns with the new ones that we have. And that is a concern that people are not going to be allowed to vote at home, not going to be allowed to vote by mail, although that is overwhelmingly popular. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all support, support the notion of keeping people safe while they are casting a ballot. So that's my new concern that, you know, the, the Trump thing about if you have too many people voting by mail, that will hurt Republicans. You know, all the studies show that voting by mail, voting at home increases turnout, but it also increases support equally for Republicans as well as for Democrats. But my concern is that as they typically do with their more traditional voter suppression techniques, they will come up with ways in which they don't adequately fund vote by mail. And people there, that's a way in which they will try to suppress the vote. So voter suppression is the thing that gives me the greatest concern.

A (33:25)

What my 14 year old daughter Riley asked me today, why she said, I just looked online. I can't volunteer on election day to work at a poll place. I'm not old enough. What, what stops everybody from just volunteering on election day and going across the country and spending more money on voter by mail? I mean, what are the now not to get into the weeds of this. But what's standing in the way?

B (33:53)

Well, you know, each we have a series of, you know, state elections. And so the processes, the requirements, the qualifications for people who want to help at the polls, I mean those are all determined by, you know, by state law. My daughter who just graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she was a poll worker I guess in 2018. And so, you know, Eric Holder's daughter is a poll watcher in Scott Walker's Wisconsin. I mean I don't, I don't know how they let that one get through, but somehow, you know, she managed to do that. And so yeah, I mean that's another thing you're talking about. What can can people do? You know, to the extent that one of the other concerns, you know, the Republicans have said they're going to have 50,000 poll watchers. They're going to be deployed around the country. Now I'm not sure they'll get to that number, but I can also. My concern is that these will not be benign poll watchers, that they'll be there and challenging people who come to cast a ballot and they'll probably be disproportionately in places that are Democratic generally and more specifically in communities of color. So you know, if you're in a state, a battleground state, a contested state, a red state, no sign up to be a poll watcher, get it. You can get involved that way to try to make sure that things are, are going to do well at the polls. That's one of the things that we're doing through our advocacy program, trying to get people involved in just, you know, the logistics of voting, you know, on election day and also on those early vote days, those early vote days as well.

A (35:31)

I mean, get some more questions. But I want to go back to one thing you said. We talk a lot about partisanship on this zooms. And I really love the fact that in what your guys work is doing, it's not about Democrat or Republican and it's really just about being fair. And I wish that could be a sort of mantra for the whole country. Do you think if, knock on wood, we are fortunate and we not only take the presidency but all houses, do you think that there is a responsibility to try and enact laws that are in essence fair to all Americans as opposed to we just got to take advantage of this opportunity where we control all three houses and get as many Democratic ideas and laws passed as possible?

B (36:22)

Yeah, I mean if the result of the work that I've been doing was that Democrats did what you've just described. I would have considered my work a failure. I mean, all that I've tried to do was to say that we just need to have a fair system. But for those people who are, you know, partisan Democrats like myself, I said, look, you have faith both in our candidates and in the policies that we, that we stand for. America's with us. And if people are treated fairly and given opportunities to vote for candidates who they support, and the system is designed to reward those people who get the greatest number of votes, we will do just fine. I've stood against Democrats in New Jersey who wanted to. Again, they have trifecta control there. And I guess about 18 months or so ago, they were trying to go through a whole gerrymandering thing. And with a Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, we said, no, that's not what we should do. We can't do that. I'm proud of the fact that in Virginia, as a result of the work we did there in 2019, Democrats took over trifecta control and used that power to undo the Republican voter suppression laws that have been passed earlier in the decade to again make the system more fair. And have also indicated the Democrats in Virginia that they are going to support a constitutional amendment that would put in place an independent commission to draw the line. So Democrats will be giving up power. They've now got the power to draw the lines to favor Democrats, to gerrymander for Democrats, and they've given it up and said that we'll let a commission actually draw the lines. That's what I think we've got to do. And if we have that power in Washington, I would hope that HR1, the bill that came out of the House of Representatives, which is very fair, talks about a whole bunch of ways in which we can make our democracy just more fair, make it better. I think that's the kind of legislation that a newly empowered Democratic majority should stand for. But is it going to mean that there's going to be a tough question? Because I suspect we won't get 60 seats in the Senate. Question is going to be, are we going to do away with the filibuster? Because I think that's probably the only way we're going to get the progressive legislation passed by the House that a president would be willing, President Biden would be willing to sign. To get it through the Senate is to probably do away with the filibuster. And that's going to be. That's going to be a tough one. But I think it's something that we have to do.

A (38:48)

Well, I hope you're right and hopefully everybody follows suit. I'm going to go to Sasha has a question. That was a little bit earlier, but I want to get back to it.

E (39:00)

All right, first off, Jamie, thanks for organizing this every week, man. It's great. And it's really great to have it. And Eric, of course, thank you for being here.

B (39:10)

Is our show getting picked up now? I don't know.

E (39:13)

I don't know. There's probably, there's probably a few people on this call that could pick it up. So we'll pitch it when we're done here.

B (39:19)

Main Justice. It was a great show. We did a pilot. Let's pick it up.

E (39:24)

You mentioned you were talking about saving the doj, and it makes me think, given the mass exodus of a lot of DOJ career employees and the forced departure of a lot of these employees, assuming Vice President Biden wins, how easy is it to get ethical, reasonable, moral folks back into the doj?

B (39:51)

Yeah, you know, it's an interesting question, Sasha, but the factual premise is not quite right. There has not been a mass exodus of people at the career level. Now, there's certainly been some high profile people in charge of, you know, the Stone case and, you know, other things that Barr has interfered with. Who prosecutors who've left there. But in terms of the core at the Justice Department and in the various divisions, civil division, criminal division, civil rights division, those people have stayed. And that's a big concern, though, if Trump were to win, I mean, people have held on. You know, people have held on. I've had conversations with people, you know, done zooms very quietly. People have, people have stayed. There has not been a mass exodus. But to the extent that people have left, a new attorney general, a new administration does have the ability to do a certain amount of hiring. And so one of the things I would want to do, especially in an agency, a department that is as distressed as doj, is you can't fire people who have civil service protection. So to the extent Barr has put some ideologues in the relatively few positions that have been made vacant, I would want from the president an increased ability to do more hiring. And in those, which is what Barack Obama gave me when I came in. And so we really staffed up in the civil rights division and in the environmental and natural resources division and the antitrust division, those three divisions, we did a lot of hiring because we went to OMB and said, you know, we had a plus up DOJ and give Eric the ability to hire additional, additional numbers of people. And that's what I did. And then again, following civil service rules, making sure that people who would move up to the career supervisory positions are people who have the mission of doj, you know, in their hearts, in their minds, you can move people out of these supervisory positions. So if Barr has left ideologues as section chiefs, those people can, in fact, be moving again. We did that, you know, when I came back in 2000, in 2009. So a lot of the lessons that we learned in 2009 will have to be applied in 2021, I think, probably actually to a greater degree than we had to deal with back then. But there's not been a mass exodus, not so far. If Trump were to win, I would really be concerned about that.

A (42:13)

I want to turn to criminal justice and policing. I have. Becca Neustadter has a question. She works on police reform nationally and is executive director of the University of Chicago's Health Lab. Becca, are you unmuted?

D (42:29)

Yeah.

B (42:29)

Hi.

D (42:30)

Thank you so much for your service, Attorney General Holder, and a pleasure to be able to participate in the conversation today. I think many of us are paying very close attention to the national discourse around policing today. And I'm wondering if there's anything that you would do differently if you are launching the President's 21st Century Task Force on Policing today.

B (42:54)

I think I'd be bolder. You know, I think the nation is in a fundamentally different place than perhaps it was back at the end of the Obama years. I mean, I think the 21st century policing task Force and the guidelines that it produced, that's a really solid foundation for what policing should look like, how you can re establish the trust that's necessary between communities of color and people in law enforcement. But I think, you know, I hear defunding the police, I think I don't quite understand that, but I don't support that. But this notion of reimagining the way in which police policing is done in this country, I think this nation is ready for fundamental change. I mean, I've described this as kind of a generational racial awakening, and I think we need to take advantage of that. We certainly have a moment right now, and the question is whether or not that moment can be translated into something really tangible. I mean, it's very significant that people are on the streets, but the question is what tangible things will result from that energy that has been displayed. So I think I would go, I'd be bolder. You know, certainly bring back the notion of pattern and practice investigations of police departments. I mean, really emphasize that, you know, going holding individual officers is obviously important and you need to have greater accountability. But we also need to look at the cultures of police departments. You know, give more a greater statutory ability of the civil Rights division of the Justice Department to get involved in these cases. The standard of proof now is extremely high. You have to prove a willful. Now I'm just getting into weed. So you have to prove a willful violation which is as high as you can go. What I've said, and with, I think, Vice President Biden, I think this is public now. I hope it is. He says that he wants to lower that standard so that the Justice Department can get more involved in these cases and serve as a real good backstop for inadequate state action. So, you know, I'd also increase funding for training dealing with the biases that police officers that we all have and that we bring to, you know, all the jobs that we, that we have. I would go for testing. I don't think it was emphasized enough in that testing of people. You can be a great person and you can be a smart person doesn't necessarily mean you should be a cop. And so, you know, testing with people to make sure that given your Constitution, your makeup, the body biases that you have, you know, whatever, to make sure that only the, the right people become, you know, become police officers. So there's, I think I would just enhance that, which I think was a pretty good, pretty good work product.

A (45:50)

I, I, you know, defund the police. I, I don't think it's fair to criticize any of these extraordinary groups that are out there fighting on the front lines from poor marketing. But it is arguably the worst marketing slogan of all time because of the fact that what it's at seems to be at its core, everybody can really get behind. When you think about reimagining the police, but defunding the police, nobody can really support fully abolishing the police for what it sounds like it stands for. We got to this, but if you could wave a wand and you were, I don't wanna say the president, but you were the dictator of our country, what would be one change you would make in the police? Police today and also criminal justice. Is there why? It's fair to say one thing, but is there one thing that is so glaring, big or small, that you just think has to be changed?

B (46:44)

Well, that's a tough one. One thing I think is that people, we look at the criminal justice system and we find racism there. It's like, oh, my God. Well, really, we find racism throughout our society. And so if you look at any one component of it, we should not be shocked to find that there are. That race is inappropriately used there. And we see it in our economy. We see it when it comes to education, in housing, financial things. And so I understand the criminal justice system deserves special attention. The state has the ability to take your property, imprison you, take your life. And so we need to be extremely careful there. But we're not going to fix the problems in the criminal justice system unless we really attack the larger problem, the larger race problems in the nation. And that's why, you know, saying that Black Lives Matter is something that is not just a criminal justice slogan, that is for. That needs to be considered, you know, across, across the board. And so I would hope that somehow, magically, I would have this nation focus on the issue of race in a way that we have been unable to do since 1619. We're expert at avoiding racial conversations. And I get that. I mean, they're painful, they're awkward. But if we really want to make progress, we're going to have to focus on that. We're going to have to have these conversations, and then we're going to have to have, you know, concrete actions based on. On those, those conversations. So race, I'm not sure exactly what, but race would be the thing that I would. I would focus on societally. But if, if you're going to restrict criminal justice, that in policing, I think if you, if you are effective in dealing with, with that issue, a lot of the problems that we have seen in this nation when it comes to policing would disappear.

A (48:48)

Well, it's interesting you say that, and I hate to keep referring to this MSNBC interview because I happened to rewatch it this morning as I was cramming for our interview. But you said something, and I feel kind of naive for not thinking about this, but I see, I still hold judges in a regard that sort of higher than. Higher than normal society. I don't know if that's naive of me or that's what I should. But you said something in that interview where even judges, when they come and they sit in that courtroom and they see a defendant talking about Manafort was in the interview, and they see a certain defendant, you know, and it's, you know, that they have their own biases that they bring to that courtroom. And I don't know why it didn't cross my mind, but I think that goes right to your point of race and that being at the core of everything, really.

B (49:43)

Yeah. When I announced the Smart on crime initiative in 2013, to really kind of look at this whole question of criminal justice reform, one of the shocking statistics, we found federal criminal justice systems, which is the best system we have in the country. I mean, it's adequately funded. Problems with it, but it's the best one that we have. We looked at black defendant, white defendant, charged with same crimes, same criminal history, so the same criminal backgrounds. And we found that the white defendant got a sentence that was 20% lower than his black counterpart. And this is what these federal guidelines, which kind of mandate or restrict the way in which federal judges are allowed to sentence, they can only sentence within certain bans. These judges dropped, got around those bands. And again, I think that's just a function of these. These biases, these unconscious, implicit biases that. That people have. And the reality is, you know, that we all have them. I mean, it's just not. It's just not white folks who have them. Black folks have them as well as we are looking at ourselves. You know, it's. So this is. This is. This is a. This is something that has afflicted this nation for. For far too long. And that's what this moment, I think, gives us the opportunity to finally address. If we were to solve all of the problems in the criminal justice system and that's all that we did in connection with this moment, that would be a significant, historic, unbelievable achievement. But it wouldn't be enough. It won't be enough. The reality is we've got to do more than that. I'm actually hopeful and cautiously optimistic, and in large part because I look at this younger generation, we don't have as much racial baggage as people in my generation have. And so I think that given the opportunities here, if we put in place or try to fool around with the structures that presently exist, I think that given the demographic changes that we are in the process of undergoing as a nation, and that this new generation, we could get to a better place and finally get on the other side of this negative racial barrier that we've had for too long.

A (52:01)

President Clinton was really hopeful and talked about the same things you're talking about, which is great to hear. Another thing you said, and I've had this thought recently, America is still a pretty new country. And in addition, you said that when. When did democracy really start in our country? And it was around 64, 65. And you even said that there was sort of a. We have a second set of founding fathers talk about that for a second.

B (52:32)

Yeah. I mean, you know, our nation was formed imperfectly. You know, we have these. These unbelievably stirring documents. You know, all men are created equal, and yet all we had, you know, an enslaved people in, you know, primarily in. In the South. And we lived with that. That original sin up until, you know, 1865. And then from 1865 until, you know, like, the late 1960s, we had a system of American apartheid where, you know, black people in the south had separate and unequal facilities. And so what I meant by that was that America was essentially reborn as a result of the civil rights movement. And the nation that existed before the civil rights movement in some ways is almost unrecognizable to the America that existed after the passage of the 64 Civil Rights act, the 1965 Voting Rights act, the housing legislation that was put in place. You know, you saw a different nation and the people, the founding fathers and mothers. And that civil rights movement, I think, should be seen as. That they gave birth to, you know, a new and better and better nation that is still not a perfect one, but a different one. It's why I keep, you know, close to my heart. Now, John Lewis, who was in, obviously, a serious struggle now with cancer. He's the last person who spoke at the 1963, you know, March 1st, Washington. And with his departure, we will then have lost all of those. All of that generation. But that's what I meant, that we need to recognize those brave people, men and women, some of them obviously very well known to us, so many of them unknown to us, who sacrificed, who gave their lives so that the nation might be, you know, might be. Might be better.

A (54:33)

Yeah, I. I'm embarrassed. I haven't watched Good Trouble yet, the John Lewis documentary, which I'm really excited. Excited to watch. I. Okay, we have only five minutes left. I'm going to try and get a couple of questions. Charmaine Jefferson, I'm going to go to you now. Sorry.

C (54:55)

Hey, how you doing, Eric?

B (54:57)

Bam. Fine. How you doing?

C (54:59)

I'm fine. Garrett was just sitting right here. Here's my three quick questions to you, and I'm going to say them really fast. One, it seems to me that there ought to be a rule in place that whenever there is a crime that is under investigation with regards to the president, that that always should be an independent counsel, so. So that it's not up for debate. Two, I'm wondering what you would think about the idea that if we could somehow or another go in and say that whenever There is the possibility that a pardon is associated with a crime potentially committed by the President, that the President is not permitted to grant such a pardon, and whether we could get that through the House. And then the third is, do you want to sit on the Supreme Court?

B (55:48)

Let's go the easy one. Supreme Court. Hell, no. I was a judge for five years, and I always thought of judges, and my colleagues when I was on the bench didn't like this. I did a Washington Post interview when I said this, that I felt judges are like referees in the middle of a game where I still wanted to be a player. I'd rather be a player than a referee. So, no, I wouldn't want to be on the Supreme Court. And beyond that, I'm too old. You know, you got to be like 17 to get on the Supreme Court now so that you can serve, you know, 60 years, which is one of the changes I think we need to make in terms of court reform. Supreme Court justices, I think should serve about 18 years. So that, that's one thing. Yeah, I think we should limit the pardon power of the President. You'd have to probably do something constitutionally. I'm not sure you can do it simply by statute. But to restrict the ability of a President to pardon people like he just did with Robert Roger Stone, I mean, that is, that's a cover up, you know, in plain sight. You know, this guy's got information that you don't want shared, and so you will commute his, his sentence. Although here's the deal. I think the next ag, the next Justice Department ought to think about putting old Roger in a, in a grand jury. If he, you know, if he claims he's got a Fifth Amendment privilege, let's give him immunity and let's ask him the questions that you want to have answered. He would not have the ability to take his Fifth Amendment privilege, and he would. The pardon, the commutation wouldn't affect a perjury charge that you could bring against him for lying to the grand jury. So I would, I hope that the next Justice Department, in light of the really, really naked thing that Trump did here, would, you know, would consider doing those kinds of things with regard to anybody who got, got a, got a pardon. You know, if Manafort is sprung from jail, all right, let's put him in a grand jury and as I said, ask him the same questions and if necessary, immunize him and see if they're willing to go to jail again for the new crime of perjury.

A (57:45)

I can keep you all Day I'm going to ask. Everybody has to go through a couple of fun questions at the end just to keep us sane. So I'm curious, are you having a chance to, since we are in Hollywood, watch anything interesting or watching TV shows? Do you watch Netflix? What do you do?

B (58:08)

Yeah, I like Billions. You know, I'm sad that we only get half a season here, so I'm a big Billions guy. I watched the Spike Lee movie on the Five Bloods. My wife is Spike Lee's cousin. So all things Spike have to be watched, watched here. I'm looking forward to the Tom Hanks movie. I'm a World War II guy, so I want to see what. See what A greyhound. I want to see what that's like. You know, it's interesting. I've been looking, I guess in some ways you find comfort in. At least I do in movies from another time. And so I've been really big on 70s movies. I think that was kind of a golden age, you know, for, for film. Godfather, I think greatest movie of all time. I, you know, I love that movie. Interestingly, I, I watched the movie, I guess a couple nights ago, the Best Years of Our Lives, which is again, one of my, one of my favorite movies, you know, post World War II. So I've been looking back in terms of films as opposed to kind of looking forward. The same thing with music. I've been really kind of in the, in the 70s, like when Garrett and I, when we were in college, you know, Marvin Gaye, you know, what's going on. All those, you know, that, that genre of music. I've been, I spend my working days in the present. And it's not, not that, you know, not that much that I find hopeful about it, although cautiously optimistic when it comes to policing stuff. So I've been looking, as I said looking, looking back.

A (59:39)

I have a new show that's just an HBO called I Know this Much Is True, it's not Looking Back, but I, I can recommend it. And also Ryan Fleck, who was with Becko, asked a question, is one of the people behind Mrs. America. So if you haven't seen that yet, that would, that would fit your looking back topic. So music you're listening to, that's if you're going in the car or by yourself or you're working out, you're putting on 70s music these days.

B (60:02)

Yeah, yeah. You know, Marvin Gaye, Luther Aretha, like Sinatra a great deal. Always like, like him. Nat Cole, those are, that's kind of. My wife is much more conversant with, you know, contemporary stuff. And she's like, he's such an old man. I'm like, hey, you know, this is. This is. This is classic stuff, you know. I mean, you can't get better than Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra, you know, that's. You know, that's. Those are generational talents, you know.

A (60:30)

I couldn't agree more. And able to read any books recently?

B (60:37)

Yeah, I read a book, 1944.

A (60:41)

45 Countdown 1945. Different one?

B (60:45)

No, no, this one. This is an interesting book, 1944. It looks at. It's supposed to be 1944, but it focuses on Roosevelt and what was happening with him, but also focuses on knowledge of the Holocaust. And this notion that it kind of was sprung on us when the troops got into the camps is fundamentally shown to be not true by this book. It really kind of demonstrates all the things that all of the events and things, the knowledge that existed both in government and in the general public about. About the Holocaust. So I thought I would recommend that book and another one, Slavery by Another Name, by a guy named Doug Blackman. He won the Pulitzer Prize for it. And it looks at the period from the end of the Civil War to about the 1940s, 1950s, and examines the way in which although the south lost the Confederacy lost. Slavery was in essence, reimposed by the passage of these. These laws where we free blacks who have, you know, political power. So we're going to take them down. We pass laws that say if you are convicted of a crime, you can't vote. All right, Therefore, we'll pass those laws and then we'll arrest a whole bunch of black people. And then once we get them in the criminal justice system into prisons, we're going to then rent them out to big corporations and use their labor. And it's an interesting thing. When a person is enslaved, you are property and you are to some degree protected. When you are rented out to a big company and you're working in a turpentine factory or you're doing mining or something like that, you know, you're just a body and you just worked until you can't be worked anymore, and then you just put in another person. It's a really graphic and disturbing book, but I would certainly recommend 1944 and slavery by 11 8.

A (62:48)

Those are great. I. Sorry to jump in there. Chris Wallace, who was a guest on one of these zoos, just wrote Countdown 1945, which is about 116 days from when Roosevelt dies and Truman takes over. Before they drop the Book Bomb, which

B (63:03)

is great book I just got from Amazon. That's what I'm about to start now. The Accidental President. It's about. It's about Truman.

A (63:09)

Oh, wow. And any. Any podcasts?

B (63:16)

I've been on a few. I always wonder, I mean, I've done them and I wonder, like, does anybody actually listening to this? I mean, I, you know, I. So yeah, I've done. Done a few. I guess I did the New York Times one that I guess is the largest subscribed when I do that. So I, I've done. I did that. I think it's about six months or so ago.

A (63:33)

And final question. I normally start a big intro about food because I love food and that's my passion, not my day job. Are you cooking at home, ordering food, or what's your sort of go to meal?

B (63:46)

Well, we're doing a lot of calling in. My wife's actually a very good cook and she experiments a lot. Everything from, you know, great fish dishes to beef dishes. You know, we're. She's always trying something and she does, you know, she does it extremely well. She's a very accomplished doctor and a very accomplished chef as well. So she. We're trying not to put on the COVID 19 here, you know, so I've been doing more. I've been exercising a lot more than I had before we went into quarantine.

A (64:17)

If you were ordering in for yourself dinner tonight, what would you order?

B (64:24)

I don't know, probably some kind of fish, some kind of salmon dish, something like that. You know, I think with some kind of, you know, some. Something. I'm not. I'm feeling a little healthy tonight. That's probably what I do. Salmon and something, you know, he's nice and green.

A (64:37)

All right, all right, great. Well, thank you so much for your

B (64:39)

time in this way. You know, first, I want to thank you all. Jamie, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to all these folks. And Sasha, thanks for joining, setting this up. You know, the question you asked at the beginning, I think is one that we should focus on at the end is what is it that you all can do? And there are specific things that you should focus on and do that which you're most comfortable with and where you think you are going to be most effective. But I think the deal is we've all got to do something, you know, positive change. I talked about the New Founding Fathers, the end of the, you know, segregation. That stuff again, just didn't happen. It's because people committed themselves to make that change. Happen. We can't expect. We can't wait for the cavalry, because we are the cavalry. We're the ones who are responsible for our fate. You know, Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe is long and it bends towards justice, but it doesn't bend on its own. It only bends when people like you, like us, put their hands on that ark and pull it towards justice. And so I would ask you to ask yourselves, what is it that I can do? I have this little thing that I do, and I mean, I really do this on Sunday nights around 7, 8 o'. Clock. It's pretty quiet. I look at the week that I've had and ask myself, what have I done? And I look at the week that is to come, and I ask myself, what am I going to do? And it doesn't have to be, you know, something huge, something big every week. It can be involvement in a. And a program for, you know, young kids who are starved for the kind of attention that adults can, can give them. It can be something that is, is political. But if you graft that, that, that civic thing, that societal thing onto your lives, it won't be easy because you've got important professional lives, you've got, you know, personal lives. It won't be easy necessarily to give up that one, two hours a week. But trust me, you're going to feel better about yourself if you ask yourself that question on Sunday, like I do, and the nation will be better for it. This is, as I said, a moment. But we have to take advantage of this moment. And unless we are all involved in trying to transform that energy into concrete action, into concrete action, this will have been for naught. As I said, I'm cautiously optimistic that we are going to seize this opportunity and make this nation better. So get out there. Let's change the world.

A (67:08)

That's great. I think Cory Booker, who was a friend and was on this, said something that I think is so critical, which is don't let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something. And I think that's the. You just hit the nail on the head there. And so we're all going to make phone calls, everybody's going to donate money to the NDRC and other places and. And we're gonna all go do something. So thank you so much for your time and thank you for everything you've done for this country and your service, everything you do going forward. We owe you a great deal of gratitude.

B (67:43)

We can do this.

A (67:44)

Yes, we can. Thanks a lot.

B (67:46)

Yes, we can. All right. Don't boo vote.

A (67:51)

All right, now we got those quotes away.

B (67:52)

There you go.

F (67:53)

All right, bye. Thanks a lot.

A (67:55)

Okay, bye.