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- [00:00]
Rob Sand
Running a business means checking a lot of boxes.
- [00:03]
Simply Business Advertiser
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- [00:07]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Ugh.
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Rob Sand
Good thing Simply Business makes getting small business insurance fast and easy.
- [00:12]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Check insurance off your list@simplybusiness.com Republicans bury themselves with the most disastrous vote of Trump's term. And I've got three interviews. Raphael Warnock discusses Trump's attacks against the Pope. Elizabeth Warren talks about Senate Republicans blocking the War Powers Resolution. And Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob sand talks about the race being moved to toss up territory. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to no Lie. So we just hit attempt number four for senators to advance the War Powers Resolution that would finally return the ability of Congress to declare war and curb Trump's power to act unilaterally in Iran. And here's how that went on this motion. The yeas are 47, the nays are 52. The motion is not agreed to. The resolution was blocked by a vote of 47 to 52 in Republicans favor. Fetterman voted with the Republicans and Rand Paul voted with the Democrats. Otherwise, a completely party line vote. And that vote means that Congress has opted not to retain its own authority as it relates to this exceedingly unpopular war in Iran. So why is this important? Because now this war continues, yet again, completely unabated. Trump gets to continue spending roughly a billion dollars per day dropping bombs in the Middle East, India, in direct contravention to his campaign promise of no new forever wars in the Middle East. But here's the important part. Now it's not just Trump's responsibility. Remember, he can't do this alone. And he isn't doing this alone. He is doing it with a huge green light from his own party that is actively and affirmatively giving him permission to squander our money on this war that nobody wants. Like, according to recent polling, only 29% of Americans think this war is worth the cost. And a staggering 74% of independents disapprove. Those are. Those are nightmarish figures for the Republican Party, a Republican Party that has just decided to douse themselves in the stink of this thing. So the question becomes, why saddle yourself with this insane amount of baggage, especially in an election year? And the answer is the same as it's always been, because these people do not serve you. They serve Trump. It is more important for them to avoid the ire of Dear Leader and the inevitable mean tweet that would follow. And so instead, they hug Trump and they hug his policies, no matter how detrimental. I don't know how much closer you can get to a cult than embracing policies that may lead to your own ouster from office simply because your only priority is protecting a man who would never protect you. And the simple reality that I think Republicans and independents and Democratic voters are all realizing now is that both Trump and his party have zero intention of delivering for you. Which would be bad enough unto itself, but worse given the fact that if anybody understands the pain of high costs, it is the party that ran expressly on this issue. So they're well aware, and they were perfectly content to exploit that to gain power. But when given the chance to do something about it, remember what they opted to do instead. They chose to make it worse. When prices were too high, they all blindly lined up behind Trump's trade war and watched prices rise even more. When healthcare was too expensive, they all stripped Medicaid away from 17 million Americans and raised ACA premiums on 24 million Americans. When utility prices were too high, they engaged in policies that sent them soaring, including this war that sent the cost of gas to nearly its highest point ever. Like these aren't accidents. They are conscious policy decisions at the hands of a party that ran on the pain of high prices to gain full control of government immediately made all of those issues even worse, and then sought to change the rules of the game so that they would never lose power again. Like they're rigging the system because they know that they can't run on their record. So instead they've just decided to spend all of their time undermining democracy so that they can reward themselves with permanent rule. The only problem is that even their own voters are now defecting and voting for Democrats. Turns out, handing yourself tax cuts and green lighting new forever wars in defiance of your promises doesn't do wonders for your election prospects. Next up are my interviews with Raphael Warnock, Elizabeth Warren, and Rob Sand. No lies. Brought to you by Ethos. So unfortunately, I have dealt with some loss in my family recently, which unfortunately means I have to start thinking about some uncomfortable topics like life insurance. And obviously, if you don't know how to navigate this world, it's pretty daunting. But luckily I was able to get life insurance through Ethos. So here's the deal. If you Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy 100% online, you can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as 30 bucks a month and you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. Ethos has 4.8 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot with over 4000 reviews. So take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote@ethos.com BTC that's E T H O S.com BTC application times may vary. Rates may vary. I'm joined now by the US Senator from Georgia, Raphael Warnock. Thanks so much for joining me.
- [05:07]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Great to be with you again.
- [05:09]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So, Senator, we had some news this weekend about Donald Trump having not only attacked the Pope, but also presented himself on a true social post as Jesus Christ. So first and foremost, can I have your reaction to kind of this new tack that Trump is taking here where he's taking an overtly antagonistic posture against evangelicals and Christians.
- [05:31]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Let's be very clear, and this I've known for a long time. But this is just evidence. Donald Trump is not a man of faith. Contrary to what some of the loudest and most well financed Christian voices in our country would assert, he is not a person of faith. In fact, he has contempt for faith and for people of faith. It is language that he really does not understand. This idea that your life is centered around something other than yourself is a kind of foreign moral vocabulary to Donald Trump. And so not only do you see this image of him depicting himself as Jesus, as King of Kings, we shouldn't forget that just a couple weeks ago on Easter Sunday morning, as I was preparing to deliver my sermon to my congregation, the ether was penetrated by the toxic and ugly words of Donald Trump, literally dropping F bombs and threatening to drop actual bombs on civilians that he would bomb their utilities, their energy, their bridges, which is a war crime, which is deeply immoral. And then two days later, he said, a whole civilization will die tonight because he's having a temper tantrum about a problem that he unnecessarily created. This is not a man of faith. And look, I know people who are not given to any particular faith tradition, but they are people of conscience. They are people of moral courage. That's not who he is. He's the opposite. And it's past time, way past time for some of my Christian clergy colleagues to stop caping for this man who has deep contempt for everything that our faith represents.
- [07:39]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You know, Senator, I'm glad that you said that he's showing nothing but contempt because, in fact, as a response to him having posted a picture depicting himself as Jesus, Jesus, he doubled down and he decided to say that this was him being depicted as nothing other than a doctor. And so, you know, it would be bad enough if it was just the blasphemy, especially when he's pandering to a certain segment of the population for whom that is or should be disqualifying, but then to just lie to those people's faces. What did that say to you? That instead of seeking to. To remedy the situation or own up to it, own up to his own actions, he decided to just double down and lie even further by claiming that the picture very clearly depicting him as Jesus was just him as a doctor.
- [08:30]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Let me just say this to my MAGA sisters and brothers. We have different politics, but I do mean this. Whatever you think of my politics, I mean it sincerely when I call you sister and brother, a child of God, because I believe all of us reflect the divine image. Donald Trump is sending a clear message to his supporters. He thinks they're stupid. He thinks they're stupid, you know, to say, I thought I was depicting myself as a doctor. Come on, give me a break. We know that Donald Trump has not darkened the doors of a church much at all. But, I mean, you don't have to spend but a few minutes in. In any house of worship. You don't have to go to a house of worship to know depictions of Jesus when you see them.
- [09:23]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Right?
- [09:23]
Senator Raphael Warnock
And so I think, you know, it's one thing to lie, but he has such contempt for the. For his supporters that he's too lazy to even offer up a respectable lie. They should be deeply offended and embarrassed.
- [09:39]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You know, Senator, we'll see stuff like this happen. And I think that you can shine some light on this better than someone like me. And you and I have spoken many times in the past about this idea that I'm as secular as it gets, but I have trouble understanding how he could cross what I've been told are red lines and still be able to garner support from people for whom their Christianity is a guiding principle. And so can you help reconcile that idea? Where we see him commit, you know, these either contemptible behavior or outright crimes against women, where we'll see him disparage either the church or the Pope or the ideals of Christianity, and still there be, you know, perhaps slightly less support, but still overwhelming support. And so can you help reconcile those ideas for me?
- [10:38]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Well, what you are rightly pointing to is the deep chasm, the divide between faith claims and what people are willing to support if it, you know, serves their political purposes. And I would submit that the answer or the lens for understanding that is actually buried within the faith itself. There's a word for that. It's idolatry. Everybody's pointing to the blasphemous part of this. But what I mean by that is those of us who are people of faith, in my faith tradition, we're required not to put any God before God. Thou shalt have no other God before me. And I think that what gets revealed sometimes over time is that people say they're committed to something, but there's always something else that's competing for that. And I think that the rise of Donald Trump and the support that he receives is indicative of a long and sad history in our country where people are deeply committed to faith as a cultural identity. They're deeply committed, dare I say it, to white supremacy. They're deeply committed to the politics and the theology of domination. And so the religion just becomes one more tool in that effort. And the thing that they have to ask themselves is, are you putting some other God before the God who is the true God? Because when you do that, this is what you get. And so here you have a man that folks have talked about as if he's somehow God's messenger in this moment, really, as he takes health care away from 15 million people, as he doubles the health care premium of 22 million people, as. As he makes of immigrant communities something other than human beings in the midst of the cruelty that he's unleashed in our streets. Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars creating terror, havoc, death and destruction, both for citizens and non citizens alike. Do you not have any critique of any of this? Jesus is a victim of identity theft. I don't know who this hateful, homophobic, xenophobic Jesus is, who is okay with billionaires getting a tax cut while people in poor rural communities all across my state, in districts that didn't vote for me. And that's fine, because I'm going to keep showing up for those people. Those snap cuts that they put forward in that one big, ugly bill are hurting people in rural districts more than blue districts. Those are the places where hospitals are closed in a state like mine because our state leaders refused to expand Medicaid because they cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid. And somehow I think we've got to put forward a version of the faith, which is what I try to do, that centers our humanity. I pastored a church led by Martin Luther King Jr. There were people who claimed to be Christians. There were people who shared the same faith. On the other side of the debate about segregation. Dr. King's biggest adversaries, his biggest critics, were folks who went to church every Sunday, some of them members of the clergy. They clearly had a different view of the faith. There were folks who supported slavery and they used the Bible and they lifted up certain texts to justify their support of slavery. It just so happens that I have been shaped and nurtured in a countervailing tradition that was literally born fighting for freedom, literally born saying slavery is wrong. It was a voice against segregation. And I think in that spirit, in this moment in which we're seeing the rise of this nationalist Christianity that is mean spirited, that narrows the view even of what it means to be an American, let alone a child of God. I think there are those of us who are called in this moment, whatever our faith tradition, or whether we claim no particular faith tradition at all, to point to our common humanity and to send other people who are most vulnerable in a time like this.
- [15:44]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Senator, do you think that whether it's the idolatry, whether it's the blasphemy, whether it's the examples that you gave, which are using funds that could go toward people's healthcare, people's food assistance, making their everyday lives more affordable, childcare, you name it, instead being sent to fund wars overseas, which bad enough unto itself, but even worse given the fact that this administration actually came into power promising not to do that. Have all of these things, either one or the other, created a vacuum that you have found is being filled by folks like you? What I mean by that question is in your conversations with voters out there, people who believe that this Republican Party or that Donald Trump was going to be a good shepherd of Christian values. Have you seen a switch? Given what we've seen during this administration thus far,
- [16:38]
Senator Raphael Warnock
I think we're definitely seeing buyers remorse. Donald Trump's poll numbers are in the dumps right now, and every day they seem to be getting lower and lower. I guess that's why he's trying to pass the Save Act. The Save act is certainly not about saving people's voices. It's not about saving our democracy. It's not about saving the country. It's about saving his power and his enablers in Congress. And so they're trying to change the rules, trying to pretend that this is some basic voter ID law. It is a law that they want to pass that will make it very difficult for people to register to vote. They are afraid of hearing from the voters come November, and they should be. They should be afraid of hearing from the American people come November because He ran saying he was going to lower people's prices, focus on their needs, and not get us into any new wars. And instead, he's taking us into an illegal war of choice in the Middle east on the heels of years of what felt like endless war in this country. And every day, gas prices are going up every day, and he's telling people not to believe their lying eyes even as they are seeing the price of gas and what it takes to fill their tanks and take their children to school. We intend to hold him accountable. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure the SAVE act does not see the light of day. They don't have 60 votes for it in the Senate. Donald Trump is so desperate that he's leaning hard on Republicans, trying to get them to kill the filibuster in order to save his political life. We're going to do everything we can to hold the line. We're going to keep centering the American people and giving them the power they need to hold Donald Trump's congressional enablers accountable come November.
- [18:42]
Brian Tyler Cohen
How do you reconcile those, those what, what may seem on the outside like conflicting ideals. This, this idea of mercy versus accountability? Because, you know, from my vantage, having seen what happened during the Biden administration, where you have Merrick Garland's DOJ that opted not to act aggressively enough, has kind of given rise to a feeling of lawlessness among Republicans. But at the same time, you know, there are critics of, of that approach. The, the, the approach that I would agree with, that say, you know, this is just going to continue to be a race to the bottom where both sides will attack the other. And so how do you think about that as we look toward, you know, a next iteration of the government, 20, 28 and beyond, if Democrats are lucky enough to take power once again?
- [19:32]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Well, you know, Donald Trump often says that he's the best at everything. You know, this is Trump talk. No one knows more about, you know, you name the topic than me. No one's better at this than me. Let me tell you the thing, the singular thing that Donald Trump really is better at than any politician in my lifetime, anybody I can think of. He is the master at dividing us. He really has a knack for that. I mean, look, look at the fact that even as we make our way towards this November midterm election, what has Donald Trump done? He called into the state of Texas, he said, I need a few more seats. And so we're going to do mid decade redistricting. And so you talk about the race to the bottom. We're in the midst of that right now because we can't afford to unilaterally disarm. Right. So I am a vocal critic of partisan and racial gerrymandering, and I've been a chief sponsor of bills in Congress to get us past this. But right now, we're in a moment where we have no choice but to respond in kind to the redistricting war that Donald Trump began mid decade because he's trying to rig the outcome of the elections. But I do hope that we will get past this, get to a place where there will be a reckoning. To be sure, if you commit crimes, you ought to be held accountable. But we will get to a place where, where we recognize not the ways in which we did prior to Donald Trump, because if the way we were was so great, we wouldn't be here. It set the context in many ways for where we are. Too many people were left behind prior to Donald Trump coming to power. And so we've got to paint a picture, pave a path for a new America that embraces all of our children. That's what I work on and that's what I pray about and I fight for every single day.
- [21:54]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Senator, last question here. You had begun your previous answer by saying that Trump presents himself as somebody who's always competent, who's always the best at something, and he does. But there's one thing that he kind of offers some concession on, and that is this idea that, that he's going, that he's not going to heaven. And I always found that so curious because there's nothing that he will say that he can't do. Right. He's the smartest guy in the room. He always gets the highest grades on every dementia test that he's given. He can build better than everybody else, he can govern better than everybody else. He can market and sell whatever it is. He's always the best. But he curiously concedes that he's not going to heaven. And so I'm curious from your vantage, what you attribute that to.
- [22:41]
Senator Raphael Warnock
I don't know. I can't get in Donald Trump's head. I tell you, as a preacher, I preach redemption every Sunday. So obviously I believe that there's a path for redemption available to every human being. I don't have a heaven or hell to put Donald Trump in, and so I'm not going to engage in that kind of eschatological guessing. Even if he does, I'm more concerned about the hell that he's creating here on earth the hell that he's literally putting people through as 15 million people have lost their health care, 22 million people have seen their health care premiums double the hell that he's creating in whole communities where because of his his version of a of an extreme and radicalized ice. There are whole communities in Georgia, in Minnesota, all across our country where children are in terror, afraid to go to school and their parents are afraid to go to work, whether they are citizens or not. He's creating hell for a whole lot of people right here on Earth and I'm going to do everything I can to save us from that.
- [23:58]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, Senator, I appreciate the time and I think I've mentioned this to you just about every time I've spoken to you, but there's at some point in my life I feel like I need to just sit in a church and listen to you because, you know, secularity notwithstanding, it is always an honor to listen to the poetry that is hearing you speak. So I appreciate you taking the time today. Thanks for the work you're doing.
- [24:24]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Bless you, dear brother. Take care.
- [24:29]
Brian Tyler Cohen
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- [26:05]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Oh, it's good to be with you.
- [26:07]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So we have some big news from the Senate where you all just voted on a war powers resolution to rein in Donald Trump's basically free pass to continue these military, I would say, incursions, but apparently their excursions in Iran, that effort failed. And so can you explain why that failed, especially in light of the fact that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of this war?
- [26:31]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Right. It failed for exactly one reason. Republicans, virtually all of the Democrats are lined up and say, look, we've read the Constitution, we get it, you have got to reel back in on bombing in Iran and starting your own war. But the Republicans once again have just blocked it. They're just fine with Donald Trump spending a billion dollars a day to blow up stuff halfway around the world. Even while people here at home are paying more for groceries now, paying more for gasoline, they're going to be paying more for anything that gets transported in a truck. And on top of that, because of his other policies, his tariff policies, his energy policies, they're paying more for housing. You know, this is the man who said he would lower costs on day one and he would not start foreign wars. And he has gone back on exactly both of those.
- [27:36]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, you know, the Republicans are all pretty aligned in coming forward and saying we have to do this because, you know, Iran has been a threat for 47 years. And, and the only thing worse than this would be the impending nuclear attack that would happen at the hands of a nuclear armed Iran. And so what would be your response to those folks?
- [27:56]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
You know, look, if the real problem was Iran getting a nuclear weapon? And I want to be clear, I do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Barack Obama's team had negotiated a deal with Iran. There were inspectors on the ground. It had limits on what Iran could do. Donald Trump comes in and he tears the deal up quite dramatically. But here's the thing really gets to me. He tears it up, and do you know what he gets in return for turning Iran loose from these constrictions on getting a nuclear weapon? Nothing. Zero, not a thing. So he tears the deal up just because it had been negotiated by Barack Obama.
- [28:37]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Right.
- [28:38]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
And so then Iran starts developing more nuclear capacity and spinning out nuclear materials and so on. And so Donald Trump tells us, when was it, six months ago, that US Bombers had completely obliterated Iran's capacity to develop a nuclear weapon. Okay, so Trump puts back in motion their ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Then he says they completely obliterated it. And now that's the excuse for having bombed in Iran starting 46 days ago, is that somehow Iran was on the threshold of developing a nuclear weapon. Look, Brian, in a sense, you're dignifying these ideas that they keep throwing out. Oh, this is a reason. Well, if that didn't work, maybe this is a reason. Well, how about this other thing is a reason? This is not only pretextual, it's just totally upside down in terms of how it fits with reality.
- [29:43]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, well, also, I mean, this has been. This has been a long standing pattern where, you know, you have these neocon warmongers who conjure up some, you know, some. Some counterfactual that's impossible to prove otherwise. And they say, well, if we don't do this thing that I've decided I want to do, you know, and this goes back to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I mean, if you don't do this, then we're gonna be in imminent danger. And of course, it's impossible to disprove because, you know, there's no way. Because it's just a threat, a promise from these people. And there's always gonna be some rationale like that where, you know, if you listen to these neocon warmongers, there's always gonna be some impending risk. And again, they can say they can kind of put you in the bucket of, okay, if you don't agree blindly with heaping money onto some military interventionism or adventurism in the Middle east, then you're gonna be responsible if and when everybody dies as the result of our inaction.
- [30:45]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Yep. You know, the Republicans have been able to do two things in this century, and this is when Bush is president and when Trump is president. And that is they cut taxes for rich people and they start wars in the Middle East. And that doesn't make America better off. It doesn't make the world better off.
- [31:03]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So on that point of this not making America better off, you had mentioned that this is costing a billion dollars per day. I'm curious from the folks that you've spoken with your Republican colleagues in the Senate. I mean, these people are not ignorant to what's happening in the political zeitgeist right now. They're not ignorant to how unpopular this war is. They're not ignorant to how much everything costs. They're not ignorant to the fact that this administration's failure to deliver on its America first promises is kind of wreaking havoc at the ballot box on all of their colleagues and all of their Republican candidates. Is there? No. I mean, I'm not asking you to get in the heads of these people because that would be, you know, I think, increasingly difficult. But is there no ability for these people to reconcile watching what's happening to these Republican candidates who hug Trump and the increasingly unpopular MAGA agenda while also enabling that very agenda by virtue of votes like these?
- [32:01]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Yeah. You know, you put your finger on it, but it's the question we've been asking for a year and four months now. Is there no place that these Republicans in Congress will draw the line? You know, Brian, the whole U.S. constitution is set up. We all talk about the separation of powers, but there's an unspoken part to it, and that is that the president will protect the powers of the administration, the courts will protect the powers of the courts, and Congress will jealously guard the powers of Congress. And the moment we find ourselves in now is that the Republicans in Congress know exactly one action, and that is bow down to Donald Trump.
- [32:46]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [32:47]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
No matter what Donald Trump says, no matter how counterfactual it is, no matter how much damage it is doing to the people of the United States, no matter how much it's driving up costs, no matter how much it breaks the law, no matter. No matter. No matter if Donald Trump says it, the Republicans in the Senate and the House bow down and say, yes, Master,
- [33:13]
Brian Tyler Cohen
what could we do domestically? And I feel like I'm going to ask you a question that Donald Trump himself in 2024 could have best answered here. But what could we be doing with the more than a billion dollars per day that Republicans are currently spending dropping bombs in the Middle East?
- [33:30]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Well, for openers, we could make sure that all the people who got pushed off their health care because of that one big, beautiful bill. You remember you and I talked about that big tax cuts for the billionaires and pushed 15 million people off their health insurance. We could actually make sure people have health care and health insurance that they can actually afford. We could be making those investments right now here at home. We could be making the investments in child care so mamas and daddies can go to work and know that their kids are in safe, bright, cheerful places and their childcare workers are being paid a fair wage. We could be making investments in helping people deal with student loan debt. We could be making investments in making college and technical training after high school more affordable for people. We could be making investments in us, in the people of the United States, and instead literally blowing that money up. A billion dollars a day halfway around the world. Wow. That is not America.
- [34:45]
Brian Tyler Cohen
First, I want to talk to you about a different topic, and that is the new Live Nation Ticketmaster ruling. So can you give an update on what that ruling just was and what you expect to see now moving forward?
- [34:59]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
That ruling was watching a little street justice in action. You know, this is the case. Remember Live Nation? There's the whole Ticketmaster. I assume many of the folks here have had experiences with Ticketmaster. And the big problem is how this company has just grown bigger and bigger and bigger and musclier and musclier and how they've used that position to drive up prices, to drive down services, and not to innovate. And it appears this came out during the trial, the antitrust trial here. It appears that their business model was rob your customers blind. I mean, this. This literally came out in their emails back and forth. And so the Trump administration, Justice Department, they settled out, little slap on the wrist and said, you boys go ahead and do whatever you want to do, but I want to give a big shout out to some of the state attorneys general. They were also in the lawsuit, and everybody thought they just cave in. Instead, they stepped up in short order and said, we'll continue this trial. So it ended up in the hands of a jury. And by golly, that jury listened to the facts and said, yep, that, that one is, is a monopoly. And they're using their monopoly power in a way to take advantage of American consumers. So this is a big deal. I mean, this is like, boom. Right. But the best part is what comes next. And that is, what's the remedy going to be? Because what I'm looking for here is, in antitrust law is not just like, make them pay money. It's you can actually break these companies up.
- [36:52]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [36:53]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
And you could make 10 companies where there used to be one. You could make three companies where there used to be one. And the importance of that is then there's competition. So, you know, they're competing to be the one that sell you the tickets. They're competing to be the ones that book the acts and the venues and where it all goes. And that is supposed to be the magic of our economic system, is you get competition, and that's how you get lower prices and a lot more innovation and a lot more focus on. On the consumer and making the consumer happy. So, you know, this is a good day on the antitrust front.
- [37:37]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You know, we have so few instances of good news on the antitrust front. And admittedly, it's not the sexiest topic in the world. I think, you know, people's eyes tend to glaze over when you talk about antitrust, but it's something that impacts people probably more than anything. I mean, as you have fewer and fewer companies that are delivering goods and services as the Amazons of the world and the Apples of the world and, you know, whatever it may be, continue to consolidate. That's why we're contending with higher prices, which is the principal issue in all of these campaigns that we're seeing right now from 2024 right up to today. And so I guess the question is, did even the Biden administration go far enough in their pursuit of enforcing antitrust law? And what do you hope to see in the next Democratic admin administration as far as enforcing antitrust law is concerned?
- [38:29]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
So I love the question because with the Biden administration, we always have to put this in context. For basically 40 years before that, there was almost no enforcement of antitrust law. Not zero, but pretty damn close. And the consequence is the big just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And Lina Khan came in as the head of the ftc. Jonathan Kanter headed up the antitrust division over at the Department of Justice. Justice. And they took the United states basically from zero enforcement to 50. And God bless, because, boy, that is the hard part. They got the rock rolling, right? Trump administration comes in and whoa, if you're friends of the Trump administration, now it's headed back down. But here's the thing. The genie is out of the bottle. And on many of these antitrust laws, people have begun to discover. Wait a minute. The state attorneys general also have the legal right to intervene and be part of this. That's what's happened just now in the Live Nation case. So now you got more enforcers. You got enforcers. Rob Bonte out in California, go. You know, you've got enforcers around the country, including there have been a couple of Republicans jump in on this. So now you're starting to see more. Plus, I'm just, just a little bit private enforcement. If you're one of the competitors or potential competitors who got knocked out, you're one of the customers who got cheated. You also have a right under some of these laws to be able to come in and to push on them. So I think of this as a moment that the fire kind of blazed up during the Biden administration. We got it started 0 to 50. Now we need to get to 100. It's gone back down at the federal level. But, boy, there's more out there, more talk about it. You talk about it, I talk about it. And I like to remind everybody the things that really make you grind your teeth when you're left on hold forever. When Live Nation, when they charge you a fee for this and then a fee for that, and then while you're checking out, you have a fee for checking out for the fee. Right? All of those kinds of things. When your cable bill just keeps going up and up, almost always lift up the curtain and look just a little bit, and what you see behind it is usually a violation of antitrust laws. It's one or two big companies that own the whole thing. And I think we're in that moment now, maybe a little like the wizard of Oz. The curtain is starting to come back. More people are engaging on this issue and not willing to just say whatever some giant company wants to do, whatever Amazon wants to do. Thank you, Amazon. But instead to say, what the hell, and start getting some pushback. So this is a moment, as you say, we don't get a lot of good news. It's good news today. But overall, I'm feeling better about how things are looking in this area.
- [41:34]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Right. And I think to your point that you made before, I mean, this isn't even necessarily a right versus left issue. This is a top versus bottom issue. And that's going to be especially important in building up a coalition to fight against this stuff. So with that said, Senator Warren, thank you so much as always, for staying on top of these issues and for taking the time today.
- [41:51]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Thank you for staying in this fight.
- [41:55]
Brian Tyler Cohen
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- [43:10]
Rob Sand
Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it.
- [43:13]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So we have some really big news in an unlikely state, the state of Iowa. And that is a major ratings change just took place by the Cook Political Report. Can you explain a little bit about what that update was?
- [43:24]
Rob Sand
Yeah, they moved it from lean Republican to a toss up race, which is the second time they moved it in this race. They actually had it ranked as solid Republican in the day that I announced that I was running for governor, they moved it through likely Republican all the way to lean, which is a pretty unusual move on their part. But you know, I've already been elected twice statewide as state auditor. Prior to that, chief public corruption prosecutor in the state, I uncovered the largest lottery rigging scheme in American history. So when I got into the race, I was already bringing, you know, a body of work that a lot of Iowans knew and had seen and were familiar with and were supportive of. And the truth is that I feel like they're kind of late to the game and moving it to a toss up. Can I say that? I just did. Like, I think most people now are looking at this race and saying that we've got all the momentum. And I think that it's that. That's right. We absolutely have a winnable race here.
- [44:18]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So Rob, what do you attribute that move from, I mean again, to go from solid Republican all the way to a true toss up in a state that Democrats have been ch for quite a long. If I'm not mistaken. Was, was Obama the last one to win Iowa in 2008?
- [44:32]
Rob Sand
He won it in 12. So he won it twice.
- [44:34]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Okay. Yeah. So it's, it's been, but it's been a minute. So what do you attribute this, this trajectory to?
- [44:40]
Rob Sand
So a few different things. Like I said, it helps to have already won statewide twice. So I'm the state auditor, chief public corruption prosecutor prior to that. I think that makes a lot of a big difference. That A lot of people don't necessarily appreciate, but I have been going to all 100 county seats in Iowa every year. I tell people before I come to town that I'm actually going to show up. And so if they want to, you know, throw a tomato at me, they get a chance to do it. Whatever it is, I give them an opportunity. And I think that matters for a lot of people. I think the other thing that a lot of folks don't appreciate is how much is happening in Iowa right now, where the leadership, the same people have been in charge for so long that they have totally lost touch with what Iowans want to be focused on. The easiest way to understand that is we are, over the last three years, 48 for personal income growth. We are number one for cancer growth. And they're spending their time in the capitol building figuring out how to make it harder for the state auditor to find misspent tax money. We uncovered a record amount of tax money misspent in my first year or my first term, and they changed the law after that to make it harder for us to do it. They now state agencies can hide misspent tax money and hide documents from the auditor's office. This is wrong in the average Iowan.
- [45:58]
Senator Elizabeth Warren
It.
- [45:59]
Rob Sand
You can, like, see their face twist and disgust when they talk about it. They're. They're upset by that. They're upset by a school vouchers program that has no accountability. They're upset by the idea of the use of eminent domain for a carbon capture pipeline. There's just a lot of stuff where, you know, people feel. Oftentimes, I think, in both parties, voters feel trapped into voting for one party that they're not particularly excited about. And they've been ticking them off enough up there by doing things that don't help ordinary Iowans, that I think they've had enough. And then they look across the aisle at me and they're like, he seems reasonable.
- [46:33]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah. Well, it's worth asking here. You know, while we're on the topic of. Of policies that don't work for Iowans, can you talk about how the Iran war and especially the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has. Has kind of hit your state particularly hard?
- [46:50]
Rob Sand
Yeah, absolutely. It's been brutal. I mean, we're in planting season right now. Farmers need fertilizer, and a huge chunk of the world's fertilizer goes through the strait. And so the fact that it's all tied up in knots there means that they're not getting access to it. It means that prices have skyrocketed and prices were bad to begin with. There's really only, there's less than a handful of sellers of fertilizer. It's a heavily concentrated near monopoly market. And that's already bad enough for growers and producers in the state of Iowa. And I think the big difference is, you know, I think a lot of these folks, they're sick of having somebody piss on their leg and someone else tell them it's raining. You know, they know that these tariffs are terrible for Iowa. But Republican elected officials are so blinded by their party allegiance that they're not willing to say the obvious truth of what's happening to Iowans. And what they do instead is they try to pitch Iowans on the idea that, oh, there's this golden age right around the corner when we are seeing, Brian, a raise in bankruptcies and suicides among farmers. It's kind of offensive, honestly, the unwillingness of elected officials who were supposed to represent this state instead just doing anything that their party leader tells them to.
- [48:05]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I mean, that's the elected officials. Is there a recognition by voters and citizens in Iowa who, you know, despite the fact that these elected officials are gonna, you know, blindly defer to Trump and the administration and, you know, take his side on all of this, are the voters recognizing the reality of what's happening?
- [48:25]
Rob Sand
Yeah. Yeah, they are. I mean, we actually just had an announcement that an additional 15,000 jobs had been lost in Iowa. We just put out a release on that today. And I think that Iowans across the board are hurting. You know, there's, we've got an affordability crisis in this country, but it's worse in states where personal income growth has been so slow and that's where, where Iowa is. At the end of the day, affordability is a two part equation. It's, number one, you know how much money they have and number two, what's it cost? And if you don't have a lot of money because your personal income growth is one of the laggards in America, then it's worse here. And I think Iowans see that and they know that. And when people try to tell them something else and try to tell them it's it's a sunny day out there, then they know two things. Number one, it doesn't change what they're going through financially. Number two, someone's lied to them about it too.
- [49:16]
Senator Raphael Warnock
Right.
- [49:16]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, you know, look, running in a state like Iowa, as is the case with where Democrats are trying to be competitive in other red states, is Gonna require support from independents and Republicans. And so on that front, how has it been for you? How has it been on the donor front? How has it been, you know, anecdotally speaking, with voters who may have cast their ballot three times for. For Trump or Joni Ernst or any of these other Republican officials statewide?
- [49:42]
Rob Sand
I can give you anecdotes, and I can give you a number, too. I'll start with a number. This blows my mind. And I'm genuinely curious if this has ever happened anywhere before. We have more registered Republican donors to our campaign than any of the five Republicans have who are running for governor on the other side of this race. Yeah, like that.
- [50:02]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [50:03]
Rob Sand
We didn't and we didn't. We. We never set out like we weren't targeting them. It just happened. And I think that that's an indicator of just how frustrated people are. But honestly, Brian, like, a big piece of this campaign is. Is. Is also. It's acknowledging, I think, what we all know, which is that our democracy is run by two private clubs, neither of which are particularly good at solving our problems. And the fact that we say that out loud, I think a lot of people confine themselves a home right there where they're sick of Democrats and Republicans. But when you acknowledge, as I do as a candidate, that, yeah, I don't know why we only have two options, I think that resonates for a lot of people. But another really fun story is I met a guy recently who. He had some tough stories to tell about his parents political views. And when I had a chance to meet him after that, you know, I was like, oh, I'm running for governor in Iowa. And I'd be curious to hear, you know, if they've. If they're familiar with our campaign at all, because we tend to get a lot of supporters from across the aisle. Because our message inherently is. Well, shoot. I mean, our campaign slogan is not redder or bluer, but better and truer. And the guy's like, there's no way. Like, they never support you. You got deep behind your name. I'm sure you're dead to them.
- [51:22]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [51:23]
Rob Sand
And I get a text message from him, like, maybe two days later. I talked to my dad. He knew who you were. He even donated to your campaign last year.
- [51:31]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [51:33]
Rob Sand
So we're bringing people together. You know, we're making Thanksgiving fun again. That's another slogan that we like to throw around.
- [51:39]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Rob, you had mentioned something at the top that I. That kind of caught my attention, and that was that you were responsible for taking down the lotto rigging scheme, the largest lotto rigging scheme that we'd seen in this country. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [51:53]
Rob Sand
Yeah. In fact, if you sitting underneath my laptop, one of the books is actually the book that I wrote about it, the Winning Ticket. If you like True Crime Stories, I'd recommend reading it. I know you would expect me to say that you should read it, but the Washington Independent Review of Books actually said it was a favorite read of the year, the year it came out, which is 2022. So, I mean, bottom line on this thing is this was something that happened. I was an assistant attorney general as a prosecutor, There was kind of this mystery of this unclaimed lottery ticket for 16 million bucks. And then it kind of got claimed at the last minute. They didn't pay it out, and lots of questions about who was connected to it and why. And my boss retired, and one of the last things he did was hand me the case as he walked out the door, which I was not happy about. But he said, like, well, you're the youngest one in the office, so, you know, all the. All the unpleasant stuff goes to the people with the least experience.
- [52:50]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You get. You get saddled with the. The lottery.
- [52:53]
Rob Sand
Exactly, exactly, exactly. But, you know, look, I did my job. I worked at it. I had some great helpers in the form of some law enforcement officials, Don Smith and Matt Anderson. And we ended up uncovering this case. We had a trial in the Polk county courthouse when we only knew about the Iowa ticket. National media, the day that we picked a jury, said that they thought that the defendant would get acquitted because they didn't think I had the goods. We got two guilty verdicts, and the case grew from there. So. Oh, and my goodness, I have to mention there are Bigfoot hunters involved in the case, like people who go out into the woods to look for Bigfoot. So, yeah, if you're not a true crime fan, maybe that'll make you want to.
- [53:35]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, I was gonna say that's got, like all the. All the. All the. All the buzzwords you need for, like, for very 2020, you know, post 2020 story. You know, I think. I think this is resonant because, you know, in large part, this Republican Party came into power on. On this pretense that they would be the ones focusing on, you know, fraud or waste or abuse. And in fact, we've. We've seen the opposite. I mean, we've. You know, there. There are these announcements every day where somebody gets rich because they've bought you know, positions five minutes before those announcements come out. I mean, this is just a recurring theme, the rampant corruption that we're seeing right now to the point where it almost feels like crime is legal. And so have you heard from folks that you've spoken with in Iowa where there is a disillusionment over that point in particular? And I mean, that's a role that you can fill in a way that nobody else can, given your past.
- [54:32]
Rob Sand
Yeah, yeah, I, I think that's a good point to make, and I do think that that's right. I haven't heard many people other than Democrats make the point that you made, but I think it's out there in the ether. And I think the thing that we all need to keep in mind is that right now we are at a point where people are so divided that sticking your neck out to suggest that there might be something wrong with someone that you voted for for is just going to get your head chopped off. It's either going to be by the people who are, who voted for that same person and call you a traitor, or it's going to be by the other people who say, well, you voted for this. Because there's so much scorn in our politics right now, it's really hard for people to do that because we haven't been willing to give each other any grace, which it's there in the ether. And that's part of the reason that one of the first things that we've done, our first plank actually, for our platform that we just rolled out last week, is accountability for all. And it has to do with doing things like banning stock trading for elected officials, mandatory prison time for people who steal from taxpayers. Yes. Age limits. Yes. Cognitive tests. People who are in positions of trust and power, we should be making sure that they deserve that trust and power. But there's a couple things that we're doing that are bigger than that, too. And I think, Brian, these are some of the reasons why our campaign is on fire. We are actually creating opportunities for people to feel welcome to have a real political conversation. At 100 public town halls last year, we had people actually applaud for the attendees of the opposite political party. After we acknowledged that we disagreed, the people in the room together, we sang the first verse of America the Beautiful. And then this year we've been doing events that we're calling democracy revivals, where we sort of pre select. We have, we have people sign up in advance. And so we try to make sure we have an even distribution of Democrats, independents and Republicans so that we can have balanced conversations. And it's not me in the room being a candidate, but it's the attendees leading conversations where part of what you're going to be asked to do is you introduce yourself to some people who are in the opposite political party and you're going to have to say something that you like about their party or something that frustrates you about your own. And by doing that, we give people just this little bit of space where they can meet in the middle and say, all right, maybe the problem isn't my neighbors. Maybe it's this two choice political system that wants us to hate each other because then we're easier to control.
- [57:01]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Rob, I want to finish off with this. You know, there are going to be people who take a look here and recognize, okay, we've, you know, we've got limited resources. We got to focus our attention on where we have the highest likelihood of winning. And the reality is that in Iowa, there are more, more registered Republicans than Democrats. And so what do you say to those people who write off any hope or desire to win Iowa as just wish casting and kind of cast aside the ratings changes or polls or whatever it may be?
- [57:35]
Rob Sand
Yeah, I mean, number one, like, yes, the Republicans are the larger political party in Iowa, but when you combine independents and Democrats, the Republicans are dwarfed. And so there's a lot of people in this state who haven't affiliated with either political party who are ready for change. The other thing is that I think that there's a lot of people in this state who are registered either as Democrats or as Republicans who want to participate in primaries because we have closed primaries. We tell independent voters in this state wrongly, that they are less equal, that their vote doesn't count. Right. And so you'll find people who are signed up with a party who, that doesn't mean that they live and die by that party. They've done it because they want to be enfranchised. But the other piece of this that I think I just, because you do hear this in Iowa, and I really want to push back in this way, your party affiliation is not your destiny. And the idea that you can't vote across party lines is just bizarre. Right. Laura Kelly was elected and reelected as the governor of Kansas when Kansas went for President Trump by substantially larger margins than Iowa did. Andy Beshear was elected and reelected as the governor of Kentucky when Kentucky went for President Trump by sometimes three times the amount that Iowa did. And there's a tremendous number of people in this state who are frustrated with the status quo and who are ready for change. And when they find someone who genuinely wants to bring people together and look past disagreement to places where we can agree, they're willing to they're willing to cross the aisle to do that.
- [59:12]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Rob, for folks who are watching and listening right now, how can they help your campaign?
- [59:15]
Rob Sand
Ah yes, thank you. Robshand.com R O B S A N D Calm.
- [59:21]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Awesome. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description for folks who are listening on the podcast. I'm going to put it in the show notes Rob, your campaign has been stellar. It's super exciting to watch, really grateful for you taking the time today and best of luck on the campaign trail.
- [59:35]
Rob Sand
Thanks Brian.
- [59:37]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Thanks again to Raphael Warnock, Elizabeth Warren and Rob Sand. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday. You've been listening to no Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graeber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicoterra. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me ryanteller Cohen on all of my other channels. Or you can go to briantylercohen.com to learn more.
- [60:09]
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