SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY Talks Loneliness Epidemic, Internet, Democratic Coalition

Summary

The Adam Friedland Show: Senator Chris Murphy Talks Loneliness Epidemic, Internet, Democratic Coalition

Date: October 22, 2025
Guests: Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT)
Host: Adam Friedland

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Adam Friedland Show features U.S. Senator Chris Murphy in a long, candid conversation about his personal background, changes inside the Democratic Party, political polarization, the “loneliness epidemic,” and the future of American democracy. With Adam's signature comedic and irreverent tone, the discussion spans from Murphy’s upbringing in Connecticut to structural issues within American government, the realities of fundraising, and how the party might address deep public skepticism. Throughout, Murphy advocates for moral clarity and populist economics as a way forward.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Senator Murphy’s Background and Early Career

• Murphy talks about growing up in Wethersfield, CT, the “Red Onion capital,” and the quirks of Connecticut’s culture and sports allegiances.
  • "I was a born organizer, right? So, like, I organized the, you know, touch football games in the neighborhood, and I, you know, organized the student protests against the dress codes." – Murphy [09:14]
• Adam teases Murphy about his public image (“hot dog aficionado,” Bruce Hornsby fan, enjoys walking across Connecticut), poking fun at how politicians get branded.
  • “I like. Here’s what I got on you: Hot dog aficionado. He likes walking around. And Bruce Hornsby.” – Adam [07:54]
• Discussion of Murphy’s early entry into politics and the public perception of “career politicians.”
  • "It’s definitely a strange life, right, to live, like, your entire life in elected politics...it kind of fucks with you to do this job. And only this. Only this job." – Murphy [09:54]
  • Murphy’s view on term limits: “I’ve always opposed term limits, largely because I think it’s...just this big act of surrender, like you’re giving up on democracy.” [11:11]

2. Gun Violence, Filibusters, and Trump Encounters

• Murphy recaps his high-profile 15-hour filibuster after the Pulse shooting, his work on gun legislation, and frustration with the path of congressional reform.
  • “It’s not a coincidence that since we passed that bill, gun violence has come way down in the country.” – Murphy [18:37]
  • The personal challenges and bizarre rules of Senate filibusters, including not being able to sit or go to the bathroom.
  • [Filibuster rules] “You can’t sit down or leave your desk...” [19:20]
• Adam presses Murphy about meeting Trump, especially in the context of mass shootings.
  • “For that 45 minute call, all he talked about was...what the name of the bill was gonna be. Didn’t want to talk about the substance of the bill...All he wanted to talk about for 45 minutes was the name of the bill.” – Murphy [22:44]

3. Authoritarianism, Party Dynamics, and Project 2025

• Murphy details how the GOP's approach has shifted from inefficiency and inexperience in Trump’s first term to a more systematic authoritarian threat, naming Project 2025 and broader anti-democratic impulses.
  • “[Trump] just was not ready to do, I think, what was in his gut in the first term...in the four year interim, the Republican Party kind of becomes dominated by two...dangerous ideas. One is that democracy is kind of outdated...The second idea...is that the left Democrats are like an existential threat.” – Murphy [24:52]
  • On Project 2025: “They have always envisioned using the DOJ in order to...hunt and silence their political enemies...But that clearly has been part of their plan.” [26:25]
• They discuss the erosion of the civil service and the “gutting” of agencies, even beyond the headlines.
  • “Some of these agencies are effectively gutted and ceasing to exist in functional form.” – Murphy [28:12]

4. Democratic Party’s Moral Identity, Populism, and Internal Struggles

• Murphy delivers his elevator pitch for what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for.
  • “The Democratic Party stands for the idea that everybody in this country should have the opportunity to succeed and that the economy today is rigged to favor billionaires and corporations over everybody else.” [32:05]
• The internal push and pull: Why hasn’t the party fully embraced populist politics? Why is there a disconnect from the base, especially on issues like Gaza and ICE?
  • “We over time became a technocratic party that advertised we could just run government well and we could make some adjustments to the market to make your life better, instead of being a moral party.” – Murphy [35:39]
• Murphy’s argument: Populism and antagonism towards market fundamentalism is what’s needed to win back working class and rural voters.
  • “Legitimate populists, people that are actually talking about plans to take power from the corporatists and give it to regular people. That’s the only way that you’re going to reach into Trump’s base and steal some of his voters...” [38:34]
  • “It is not a unfamiliar human emotion. Right. To be envious of somebody that is younger and perhaps smarter than you and perhaps being openly or subconsciously hostile...” [41:36]

5. Fundraising, Corruption, and Life in Congress

• Murphy talks bluntly about the corrosive effect of dialing for dollars and donor influence:
  • “It is just corrupting to be on the phone with billionaires and millionaires instead of being on the phone with, you know, janitors and...teachers.” [76:09]
• He now raises money only for protest organizations, not for his own campaign. [30:21]
• The bottleneck in reform: campaign finance is the root cause, but both parties are tainted.
  • “...the foundational reform is the way the campaigns are financed. And you’ve got to pass a constitutional amendment to do that.” [72:44]

6. Loneliness Epidemic, Culture, and Government’s Role

• Loneliness and disconnection are growing, affecting both health and the texture of American political life:
  • “The thing that matters most to us when it comes to our happiness is not our job or our career, how much money we make, but our relationships. And it’s a little weird to me that we spend no time in government talking about how our policies...make it hard for people to find companionship.” – Murphy [62:38]
• Murphy proposes government should pay attention to policies fostering connection, not as a Minister of Loneliness, but an office thinking about social and emotional well-being.
  • “I had more feedback to that article than maybe anything else I had written...especially parents, are seeing how catastrophic it is that we spend...50% less time with friends than we did just 30 years ago.” – Murphy [64:04]
• The effects of smartphone culture, the pandemic, and market ideology on loneliness, and why meaningful connection is the real bulwark against political extremism.
  • “A lot of those folks who showed up on January 6th were pretty lonely, lonely people.” [64:37]

7. Structural Reform, Institutional Decay, and Rebuilding Trust

• Murphy is honest about the dysfunction of Congress:
  • “Much more of my life now is about critiquing the other side than sitting down and actually passing things that make people’s lives better.” [69:04]
• He argues the Senate should ultimately move toward simple majority rule, and campaign finance reform should be a first priority. [71:41]
• Murphy is unflinching about how public cynicism is justified and why authenticity is newly valuable:
  • “This job does mess with you, right? Because especially if you started before Trump...it’s a hard pivot, like...don’t say anything unless it’s been vetted by 16 communications professionals, to say whatever the hell you want, even if it’s not popular or not PC, because people want to see the real you.” [80:03]
• Murphy ties his personal motivation to his children’s future and an increasing moral clarity about the threat posed by current politics.
  • “I could sort of see both arguments in terms of, like, what the strategic direction should be for the party. I don’t have that gray any longer. Like, I see this guy as a present threat. And I believe that if we don’t draw a moral line in the sand right now, we’re screwed as a nation.” [50:49]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Filibustering and the Human Limits of Senate Rituals

  • “You can’t sit down or leave your desk. There are rumors that when Strom Thurmond...he was leaving regularly to go to the bathroom and come...But no, for mine, I had to stand at the desk for 15 hours.” – Murphy [19:20]

• On Trump’s Attention During Gun Violence Negotiations

  • “All he wanted to talk about for 45 minutes was the name of the bill.” – Murphy [22:44]

• On the Democratic Party’s Identity Crisis

  • “We over time became a technocratic party that advertised we could just run government well and we could make some adjustments to the market to make your life better, instead of being a moral party.” – Murphy [35:39]

• On Political Fundraising

  • “It is just corrupting to be on the phone with billionaires and millionaires instead of being on the phone with...janitors and...teachers.” – Murphy [76:09]

• On Policy and Social Connection

  • “It’s a little weird to me that we spend no time in government talking about how our policies increasingly make it hard for people to find companionship.” – Murphy [62:38]

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Important Timestamps

• [09:14] Murphy describes his upbringing and how he was always an “organizer.”
• [17:26] Discussion of gun violence, Sandy Hook, and Senate filibuster.
• [22:44] The Trump phone call: focus on branding not substance during crisis.
• [24:52–28:12] Project 2025, the GOP’s anti-democratic turn, liquidating the civil service.
• [32:05] Murphy’s “elevator pitch” for the Democratic Party’s values.
• [35:39] Murphy on the party’s drift from moral clarity and failure to connect with the base.
• [62:38] The federal government’s failure to address Americans’ growing loneliness.
• [72:44] On campaign finance as the core structural malfunction in America’s democracy.
• [76:09] Murphy explains the demoralizing effect of constant fundraising.
• [80:03] Authenticity in post-Trump politics.

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Tone and Style

The episode is characterized by an informal, often self-deprecating and humorous tone, with Adam poking fun at Murphy’s persona, habits, and staff. Murphy is game for the banter, but turns serious on issues of democracy, political reform, and the country’s future. The dialogue is candid and, at times, surprisingly raw about the personal costs of public life and the challenges facing the American left.

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Closing Thought

Senator Murphy closes with a call for a Democratic Party that is “aggressively populist,” morally clear, and fundamentally devoted to re-balancing economic and political power away from entrenched elites. The conversation, though laced with humor, does not flinch from the high stakes and existential questions facing American democracy.

Transcript

[Adam Friedland]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Am I correct in remembering this? She said she didn't want to retire because she wanted a female president to replace.

[Chris Murphy]

I don't remember that. Maybe there were reports that she said that behind us.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

How little was she? I mean, we don't hang out with the Supreme Court, but you see her

[Adam Friedland]

at the State of the Union.

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, she's got. But I wasn't like measure. I wasn't like she was like three

[Adam Friedland]

five, maybe three six. That's what it looked like.

[Chris Murphy]

She's taller.

[Adam Friedland]

I hated those T shirts, though.

[Chris Murphy]

Oh, they're still out.

[Adam Friedland]

The Notorious rbg.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

What the hell are they talking about? She's just some lady.

[Chris Murphy]

It is true.

[Adam Friedland]

Like a rapper. Hello and welcome to the Adam Friedland Show. Guys, Adam Friedland here. Of course, I want to thank our members here on YouTube.com this show may very well turn be a profitable enterprise any day now. If you want to support the show, support what's happening on the show. If you're a fan of the show and you want to get the show early, you can sign up in the link in the description below or by clicking join at the top of your page here on YouTube.com and of course, we also have a Patreon. If you prefer supporting the show through Patreon, there's a link in the description. Also, if you want to shop our merch, the hats will be restocked very soon. We have T shirts up on our site and coming very soon for fall for layering season. We have hoodies coming up and they look fucking sick. So. So I'll let you know when Those are out. AdamFriedland show if you want to shop our merch, my guest this week is a United States senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy. Murphy's made a name for himself in the Democratic Party as an outspoken advocate against Donald Trump during his second term. Now, I know what you're thinking. Connecticut, seriously, the 48th largest state, like, big whoop, you know. And folks, I'd be lying if I didn't have many of these prejudices in my own heart. At various points in my life, I thought people from Connecticut were drunks, Neanderthals, criminals. We all know the saying, you know, watch your wallet. Here comes a Connecticution. We've all heard the joke. Should I say I don't want to? Okay, I'll say that. You know the joke. What do you call a man from Connecticut with a sheep under one arm and a goat under the other arm? A bisexual. It's not funny, but I implore you, dear viewer, not to look down on Senator Murphy just because where he's from. My conversation with Senator Murphy taught me an important lesson about the power of dialogue. And hopefully it does the same for you guys as well. Connecticut holds an important place in history and culture. For instance, it was the site of the world's first helicopter and the world's first hamburger. And of course, the world's first condom, which was made out of sheep intestine. And of course, people not from Connecticut improved upon it by taking the intestine out of the sheep first. So, guys, please enjoy my conversation with Chris Murphy. This guy is from Connecticut, might be the president one day. Would be good for the show. If you want to be the president, come on the show. Ladies and gentlemen, senator from the great state of Connecticut. Ok, State of Connecticut, Chris Murphy, everyone.

[Chris Murphy]

Hey, everybody.

[Adam Friedland]

Hi. Yeah, clap please, everybody.

[Chris Murphy]

Great to be here with you. Hi.

[Adam Friedland]

Thanks.

[Chris Murphy]

I walked out a little early.

[Adam Friedland]

It's been constant disrespect since this guy came here.

[Chris Murphy]

I wanted to know if it was like inspired by Dick Cavan or a direct reproduction.

[Adam Friedland]

It's ridiculous that this is my job, but it's really awesome.

[Chris Murphy]

It's fantastic.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, it's kind of. Does it feel demeaning for you? Do you feel like how far.

[Chris Murphy]

This is a new part of the job. This is a new part of the job. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You have to show your personality and authenticity, right?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. Like I gotta be a real person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It used to be that, like, you know, you could just do like two cable shows. Maybe if you were a big deal, you'd show up on late night tv and now, you know, now you have to talk about. You used to do a show called Cometown, right? Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You used to be from the Red Onion capital of America.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

[Adam Friedland]

So we both have a checkered past. Connecticut. I know it's your home state. I know you're gonna listen. You love your state. Yeah, but it's a little bit bullshit. It's a little bit bullshit to me.

[Chris Murphy]

Just because you sort of view it as being the obstacle between Boston and New York.

[Adam Friedland]

The drive, the traffic. I've never not had traffic.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, it's a popular. But it's a popular place. I mean, places that no one wants to be don't have traffic.

[Adam Friedland]

I understand. It's not like a real fucking city

[Chris Murphy]

over here in New York.

[Adam Friedland]

No, I mean, first of all, it has the Jersey thing where it's like either. It's either New York or New England. Boston, right?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. Like, we're both tri state and we're New England.

[Adam Friedland]

Was the Red Onion place. Was that a New York zone or was that New England zone?

[Chris Murphy]

New England zone. So, like, I grew up Wethersfield. Connecticut is like Hartford area. So I grew up in the south center of the state.

[Adam Friedland]

So you. So you're socks. You're Sox. Celtics.

[Chris Murphy]

I'm Socks. Celtics, but New York Giants.

[Adam Friedland]

So why. Why not Patriots?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, I root for whoever my father rooted for when he was growing up. Patriots didn't exist. So if you were, like, growing up in central Connecticut, you were Boston fans, but for football, you were New York. So. So, yeah, I've got both New York and Boston.

[Adam Friedland]

Wait, your colleague is. Was from the New York side? The other senator from Blumenthal. Blumenthal. Right. So do you guys kind of have, like. You guys cover different sides of the state?

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, you don't really need.

[Adam Friedland]

He covers the insider and trading side.

[Chris Murphy]

The state's like that big. You don't really need some. You don't need to divvy it up in half. So Blumenthal is like one of these relentless politicians who goes to everything. Right? He works, like, Saturdays, Sundays, so he. In some ways, he does the. He does the job for both of

[Adam Friedland]

us, really, so you don't have to do crap. Well, I mean, do your hot dog tour of Connecticut.

[Chris Murphy]

Connecticut. That's personal. But that's personal.

[Adam Friedland]

I was mean to you guys on that call. Can I apologize real quick? I mean, it was.

[Chris Murphy]

They said. They told me that you weren't going to say that you were not impressed by the hot dog tour and bring it up.

[Adam Friedland]

I said, like. Like, I was like, you know, like, I've been doing a lot of research. I was like, does he play guitar? Like, is there anything. And they're like, listen, listen. He is a. He does a hot dog tour. And I think framing him as a hot dog aficionado, super embarrassing.

[Chris Murphy]

That that was like, the go to.

[Adam Friedland]

And I'm like, I feel actively depressed after hearing that.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, that. That's what makes me interested my day.

[Adam Friedland]

And listen, you guys are professionals. I don't like. And I just want to. I want to take accountability for that, but that was one of the worst things I've ever heard.

[Chris Murphy]

It's not a reflection on them. It's a reflection on. They have, like, very. No, they have, like, very little material to work with their boss.

[Adam Friedland]

You got a Bruce Hornsby fan?

[Chris Murphy]

Yes.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

You took.

[Adam Friedland]

You took your staff to Bruce Hornsby.

[Chris Murphy]

I'm going to take Them to Bruce Hornsby. He's playing in D.C. next week.

[Adam Friedland]

So none of them know who he is?

[Chris Murphy]

I asked. No, nobody know. And actually, if you like, I sort of assume that everybody knows his signature song, the Way. The Way It Is.

[Adam Friedland]

Boys, what were we listening to before you came here?

[Chris Murphy]

But like.

[Adam Friedland]

No, what were you listening to? Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

Fewer people know even one of Bruce Hornsby's songs.

[Adam Friedland]

He played the Dead, right?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, he played for. He toured of the dead for like, 10 years. And he does like, really kind of like, interesting avant garde stuff now. He's.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, he tickles them.

[Chris Murphy]

Damn, he does tickle the ivories.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

Great pianist.

[Adam Friedland]

I like. Here's what I got on you, Hot dog Aficionado. He likes walking around. And Bruce Hornsby.

[Chris Murphy]

It sounds like walking around. I think that's as a fact pattern.

[Adam Friedland]

That's the BTK killer you got. We gotta do, like. I don't know, you gotta get a tattoo, a snake, a. I don't know.

[Chris Murphy]

I walk across the state from one end to the other. I don't just enjoy walking around.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, they made it sound like you were some sort of hobo searching through trash like a raccoon.

[Chris Murphy]

There was a guy, and I don't remember when it was, but like 100 years ago, Johnny Appleseed in Connecticut called the Leatherman. And he dressed in full, complete leather, head to toe, and walked the state nonstop, continuously. And so you would get really excited when you heard rumors of the Leatherman showing up to your town. And, like, people would rush down to see him.

[Adam Friedland]

You know, in New York, they have a couple, like, nightclubs, like, for leather, leather guys.

[Chris Murphy]

It would be much more interesting. My walk across Connecticut would be much more interesting.

[Adam Friedland]

So, like, growing up in the Red Onion. Red Onion town, Yep. It was a mark of pride. I saw the mascot you guys have.

[Chris Murphy]

Do we have a Red Onion mascot?

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, my God. You don't even know about your own place, dude.

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, I grew up there. I haven't lived there for a long time.

[Adam Friedland]

So you went to public high schools growing up?

[Chris Murphy]

Yep.

[Adam Friedland]

Were you. What was your vibe like growing up? Like, you were a cool guy? You got girlfriends?

[Chris Murphy]

No, I would be. I would. I would like. I'm who you would expect. I would be president of the class. Started a Young Democrats club when I was 16 years old. I know. I would know. I was like, listen, I was like the. I was a born organizer, right? So, like, I organized the, you know, touch football games in the neighborhood, and I, you know, organized the student protests against the dress Codes. So, like, that's just who I was.

[Adam Friedland]

Radical.

[Chris Murphy]

It wasn't much of a dress code. It was just that we couldn't wear. We couldn't wear baseball caps.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, yeah. And you said you took it to the man.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You fought all the way to the top.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, it was. It was justice.

[Adam Friedland]

You, like, were elected at 29 to the state senate.

[Chris Murphy]

Is that. I was 20. I was 20. I was 25.

[Adam Friedland]

25.

[Chris Murphy]

Elected to this. To the state legislature.

[Adam Friedland]

So you just never had fun.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, I mean, I've been doing this since I was. Yeah. Since. Since I'm an adult. It's a weird. Yeah, it's definitely a strange life, right, to live, like, your entire life in elected politics. I mean, I wasn't really in the public eye when I was a state legislator. But yet it kind of fucks with you to do this job. And only this. Only this job.

[Adam Friedland]

It's kind of like a pejorative these days, right? Career politician. The Republicans like to, like, say that having experience like that means you're bad.

[Chris Murphy]

No. And they. When I first ran for the Senate, I mean, that was the primary knock on me that I hadn't, you know, I was a lawyer and I passed law. McMahon.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Yeah. Having experience and having talent should be something that's celebrated in. For. For a position, like, in any, in any career field. And these days it's like we need, like, private equity, evil business thing that makes you better than someone that's like, knows how to do the job, you know?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And so it's just like, I think. Do you feel like that mirrors, like, kind of like the kind of the decay of, like, trust in, like, our elected officials or institutions? Like it's a bad thing that you, like, do something for 30 years?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. I mean, there's not a lot of evidence to people that a democracy is working writ large or that that experience does anything other than bind you to the status quo and to the powerful people in Washington. So there's a lot of evidence that the longer you stay, the more complicit you become in the project of just enriching the folks at the very top. But I've always opposed term limits, largely because I think it's kind of, you know, just this big act of surrender, like you're giving up on democracy. You're basically saying, democracy can't sort out who amongst those who have been there 10 years are good or bad. And so we're just going to be arbitrary about it. Why not instead fix the problems with democracy, fix the rules so it's a lot easier for somebody to run. And we just don't elect telemarketers, which is kind of what we're doing now. Right. Like you are.

[Adam Friedland]

Or someone that has a meltdown at cvs, on Facebook Live about masks. You can be in the House of Representatives, like, six months later.

[Chris Murphy]

Right. So if you know how to sort of engage in clickbait politics or you know how to raise money or you're super wealthy.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

Those are the three things that can qualify you for office right now. And maybe we should kind of diagnose that and try to change it.

[Adam Friedland]

You ever chill with Marjorie or.

[Chris Murphy]

No, no, I've never met her. Yeah, yeah, the House is. What if she's, like, really cool?

[Adam Friedland]

What if she's like. You're like, that chick's crazy. But, like, she's. Honestly, she's. She's kind of funny.

[Chris Murphy]

Like, I mean, we all had, like, super crazy friends that we would not necessarily want to represent us in Congress, but were. Right. Interesting to hang with.

[Adam Friedland]

She's like that guy. Yeah. That friend you have in seventh grade who's like, pure, like, has no attachment to morality, but that makes them, like, the funniest guy in the world. Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

Like, lots of my friends are totally unqualified to be in public service, but super awesome to get a beer with. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Those guys always go into rehab at like, 6:16. Right. They always, like, fall off. They're not phony anymore. My friend David. This won't go in the episode.

[Chris Murphy]

Okay, let's talk about David.

[Adam Friedland]

David gave a presentation in class and he, like, whispered to me. He's like, I have a boner right now. And I'm like, you're the same guy in eighth grade. And I'm like, you're a maniac. And then, yes, of course, his parents sent him to emotional problem school. Three years later, he really. I don't know where he is. You were elected to the House. I saw a campaign ad from your. You know which one I'm talking.

[Chris Murphy]

No, I don't.

[Adam Friedland]

I don't. Your first run at the house, you beat some old. An old lady.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

What's her name?

[Chris Murphy]

She'd been there for Nancy Johnson.

[Adam Friedland]

Nancy Johnson.

[Chris Murphy]

She'd been there for 24 years. Longest serving congressperson in the history of Connecticut.

[Adam Friedland]

She freaking hated you too.

[Chris Murphy]

She did not like me.

[Adam Friedland]

She didn't like you. Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you see the ad where it's

[Chris Murphy]

like, you're like, the fake me.

[Adam Friedland]

You're.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

The fake you. And you're like, high fiving A drug dealer?

[Chris Murphy]

Yes.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

A white.

[Adam Friedland]

A white man that's dressed like a black guy. Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

She hired an actor to portray going door to door, in which at the final door I'm welcomed in by a bunch of drug dealers because I had voted in the state legislature to equalize the penalties for crack and cocaine, which meant that I guess I lowered the penalties for crack.

[Adam Friedland]

She kind of made you look cool, maybe accidentally.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. The actor I think was. You only saw the back from him, but he sort of, he projected as better looking than me.

[Adam Friedland]

And you were dapping him. You were like, I'm good. Like, yeah, yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

People liked a guy. Yeah, I looked a little dangerous, you know?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. It's like when I was growing up, I'd hear like a rapper say like my Jewish lawyer beat the case for me. I'd be like, that's, that's right. We got him off of he commit a crime. Made me feel great.

[Chris Murphy]

That 12 year old, that ad didn't do well for, for her.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Where she's passed probably.

[Chris Murphy]

No, no, no, she's still alive. I just. She is, yes.

[Adam Friedland]

Nancy.

[Chris Murphy]

Nancy Johnson.

[Adam Friedland]

Where's she at?

[Chris Murphy]

She's living in Connecticut. I don't know if New Britain was Hartford, Connecticut.

[Adam Friedland]

We gotta hit her up.

[Chris Murphy]

I ran into her, I saw her at a church service like a year and a half ago. She goes to church? What's that?

[Adam Friedland]

You go to the same church as Nancy?

[Chris Murphy]

Well, I was like trying out churches like, so I was trying to find a new church and I just happened to be at hers one Sunday morning. But she was like a true 1980s era moderate Republican. She was pro choice, she was pro environment, she was a Connecticut Republican. She's a Connecticut Republican. And so I don't want to speak for any Nancy Johnson, but my impression is that she would be a classic kind of never trump Republican. There's just no home for her now in the party. And even back then, increasingly there was no home for her.

[Adam Friedland]

Who's your first enemy in politics?

[Chris Murphy]

My first enemy.

[Adam Friedland]

Who's the first guy that was like, I'm gonna fuck with Murphy. And you're like, ah, you don't, you don't.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, I mean, the first time I ran for the state legislature, I ran against another guy who had been there for a very long time. And I think he was equally pissed that at the time a 24 year old had beat him, that he moved out of town. I think within about 12 months of the race.

[Adam Friedland]

Whoa.

[Chris Murphy]

He was like a wild west showed up. Angelo Fusco.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, he's an Italian guy?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, he's Italian.

[Adam Friedland]

Maybe. Maybe with the fishes. Maybe with the fishes.

[Chris Murphy]

I'd never made peace with him. I never saw him again. But, yeah, he didn't stay in town for very long.

[Adam Friedland]

So was there an undercurrent of, like, kind of ethnic white tension?

[Chris Murphy]

There's no ethnic undercut.

[Adam Friedland]

Was there, like, Lower east side, kind of Ellis island?

[Chris Murphy]

Zero.

[Adam Friedland]

I was almost. I was. I'm supposed to be from Connecticut. You know that.

[Chris Murphy]

How so?

[Adam Friedland]

My deep shit ancestor from Lithuania, shuttle got literally on the wrong boat, was

[Chris Murphy]

supposed to go to Connecticut.

[Adam Friedland]

His eight brothers moved to New Haven. And one brother was like. Just got off the boat. And he was like, where is this New Haven? And they were like, no, it's Africa. You're in Africa right now. You're in Cape Town, South Africa right now. My brothers are from Cape Town.

[Chris Murphy]

And he gave up. He didn't make a second attempt.

[Adam Friedland]

He could maybe what, he can get another boat trip all that way? No, it must have been crazy actually, for those, because they were very uneducated. They were like. They didn't have color photography. They didn't like.

[Chris Murphy]

I wonder when he realized, like, you think when he actually got off, I

[Adam Friedland]

think he was like, yeah, like. Like Herschel or Yankel or. His brother was supposed to meet him at the place, and he's like, where the. Is Africa.

[Chris Murphy]

You could have been a Connecticution.

[Adam Friedland]

All right, so I first. I think you first came to, like, national prominence during Sandy Hook. And I remember in 2013, you did a. You did filibuster.

[Chris Murphy]

2016.

[Adam Friedland]

2016, sorry.

[Chris Murphy]

Right after the Pulse shooting.

[Adam Friedland]

Right after the Pulse shooting, yeah. And gun violence is like, That's a shit fight, like. Or a gun, like, trying to fucking.

[Chris Murphy]

It's.

[Adam Friedland]

You guys got one during Biden, right?

[Chris Murphy]

You got one thing first. Yeah, we got the first bill in

[Adam Friedland]

30 years where it's like 1200 guys now. Can't. Or, like, have to get checked or something. What is the. What was the bill?

[Chris Murphy]

Well, no, there's like. The bill is like a comprehensive bill. It put like $13 billion into mental health and community safety. And then it made, like, five changes in gun. Gun laws, all of them small, but none of them insignificant. I don't. One of them closing the boyfriend loophole. So if you.

[Adam Friedland]

Your boyfriend could get gun.

[Chris Murphy]

No. So if you beat up. It used to the law used to be that if you beat up your wife, you couldn't get a gun. Your guns would actually be taken away from you. But if you abused your girlfriend, you could keep Your guns. So we closed that loophole. We said that, like we said, if you're under 21, you have to have a waiting period before you buy an assault weapon. We should just not sell assault weapons to 18 year olds. But at least now we've got a 10 day waiting period. But it's not a coincidence that since we passed that bill, gun violence has come way down in the country. So we kind of proved that if you change the laws of the country and you're a little bit more careful about who gets guns, you actually can save lives.

[Adam Friedland]

Duh. Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, it's just like not rocket science.

[Adam Friedland]

It's, it's. I looked up the length you did. It was 15 hours. You did your.

[Chris Murphy]

Oh, the filibuster was 15 hours. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay. And that you were. You're, you know what ranking you are?

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, I'm going down in the rankings. Right. So I assume. Am I outside of the top 10 now?

[Adam Friedland]

I think you're 10.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

How's that feel?

[Chris Murphy]

Top 10?

[Adam Friedland]

It hurts.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, but I'm top 10.

[Adam Friedland]

Double digits.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, so here's what happened with the filibuster is that we got what we asked for, so I, I had to stop the filibuster because we had a demand. And normally filibusters are truly performative.

[Adam Friedland]

What are the rules? Yeah, like, you can't pee.

[Chris Murphy]

You can't. Well, you can't sit down or leave your desk. There are rumors that when Strom Thurmond

[Adam Friedland]

was in a wheelchair.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, there were rumors that when he did his filibuster, first of all, there were no cameras, so who knew what the fuck you were doing in your filibuster. There were rumors that he was leaving regularly to go to the bathroom and come. To go be racist. To go to the bathroom and come back. But no, for mine, I had to stand at the desk for 15, 15 hours.

[Adam Friedland]

You pee your pants?

[Chris Murphy]

I did not pee my pants.

[Adam Friedland]

How. You had to hold it?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, you got to hold it. It's like your adrenaline is running and like your body's telling you don't pee your pants.

[Adam Friedland]

What shoes do you wear?

[Chris Murphy]

Regular black shoes.

[Adam Friedland]

It wasn't like, like a, like.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, like dress shoes.

[Adam Friedland]

Adult shoes.

[Chris Murphy]

Dress shoes. You didn't like, run when he did his. He wore. He wore sneakers.

[Adam Friedland]

You think that's.

[Chris Murphy]

Which is kind of cheating?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, it was kind of cheating.

[Adam Friedland]

It's kind of cheating. Yeah. Like John Thurman in a wheelchair.

[Chris Murphy]

That's in a wheelchair at the time. I don't think he was in a wheelchair at the time of Syllabuster.

[Adam Friedland]

I later in life he wasn't because when I saw that he did 24 hours. If it's a wheelchair, it shouldn't be like it's an asterisk.

[Chris Murphy]

No, I agree with that, but I don't think that's actually. But I don't think that's an accurate chip. I don't think it's an accurate historical representation.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay. So I'm sorry I disrespected the racist filibuster of Strom Thurman.

[Chris Murphy]

I'm glad. I think.

[Adam Friedland]

Thank you for your honor. As a member of the club of 100, you've done the honorable thing.

[Chris Murphy]

It was very moving to be on the floor for Corey's.

[Adam Friedland]

To have him stop. Oh, I thought you were saying.

[Chris Murphy]

No, no. When he broke the and so so so book. So Booker was on the floor for my entire 15 hours. And so when Corey did his 20 something hour filibuster, I stayed on the floor with him for the whole thing.

[Adam Friedland]

Do the Republicans try to like distract, like, like laser pointer maybe, or.

[Chris Murphy]

No, no. They're like, boo.

[Adam Friedland]

What if you get scared? It's such a stupid thing that you're describing.

[Chris Murphy]

Stand. Yeah, standing and talking. You can't stand for a long time.

[Adam Friedland]

It's literally like you're like something from Survivor where you're trying to get immunity.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, but they like, it's the rules of the government. But when, but when. But so mine again had it. Mine was not just performative because what I was saying is that I'm not going to sit down and let you move on to any other business until you schedule votes on gun measures. And the idea was we weren't going to win them, but at least we sort of show the country that Republicans were against common sense things. One of the things we were demanding was saying that if you're on the terror watch list, like if we think you might be a terrorist, you should not be able to buy a gun. And so we got Republicans to vote against that, which is part of what helped unelect at least one of them in the next election. So that's why I had to stop was that the Republican majority said, okay, we'll give you your votes on what you want.

[Adam Friedland]

You had to take a shit.

[Chris Murphy]

No, I got what I wanted.

[Adam Friedland]

Let's be real, dude.

[Chris Murphy]

I got what I wanted.

[Adam Friedland]

Paul Pierce too. We all know in the finals when he went in the wheelchair, we all know what that was.

[Chris Murphy]

He had to go. He had to go take A.

[Adam Friedland]

He pooped his pants.

[Chris Murphy]

No, he was serious, serious injury.

[Adam Friedland]

Have you. What, how many times have you met our number 45 and 47.

[Chris Murphy]

I met him a handful of times in the first term. I have not talked to him in the second term.

[Adam Friedland]

Is he just Trump?

[Chris Murphy]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I did a.

[Adam Friedland]

Just like on camera, off camera. He's just Trump.

[Chris Murphy]

Just Trump. So I did a 45 minute phone call with him after one of the horrible mass shootings during his first term because he was at that time pretending like he was gonna, you know, do a bill that changed the gun laws.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, good on that.

[Chris Murphy]

And for that 45 minute call, all he talked about was Rosie O' Donnell was what the name of the bill was gonna be. All he wanted to talk about was the name of the bill. Didn't. Didn't want to talk about the substance of the bill, how it was gonna be passed. All he wanted to Talk about for 45 minutes was the name of the

[Adam Friedland]

bill, the name of the bill.

[Chris Murphy]

So, yeah, he's Trump. I don't even remember what we came up with.

[Adam Friedland]

So you were like, word chopping names

[Chris Murphy]

with Trump, shopping names of the Trump gun control bill. And we never went any further. We never went any further than that.

[Adam Friedland]

Did he have any good ones? Do you remember, like, Mr. President. That's all right.

[Chris Murphy]

I don't remember. I do remember he didn't want gun control to be in the title, which was kind of patently obvious to anybody on the call. That's kind of smart. You're probably not gonna put that in the title, but I don't. I think he liked. Oh, I do remember. I think he liked. He did like the term gun safety.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Trump shot, you know, it's not bad.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, but that was it. Like, that was the sum total of our. Yeah, yeah, that was it. Just the name.

[Adam Friedland]

Why does the first term, from my perspective, it feels different. It felt different than this. I remember during the first term that the terms fascism, you know, Nazi were bandied about and, you know, the Steele dossier and the Mueller report, like, we were, like, waiting on, like, the smoking gun and, like, you know, Rachel Maddow, like, convinced my dad that Vladimir Putin was trying to kill him. And, like, you know, like, but, like, it seemed like he was more interested in just going to Buckingham palace and, like, going to dinner, doing the sword dance in Saudi Arabia. He just wanted to, like, go, like, be treated like he's the best guy. When Covid broke out, my assumption was like, if he wants to enact fascism, he could global Health crisis. He could just declare martial law to assume absolute power.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And I'm like, I think he's too lazy for fascism.

[Chris Murphy]

Yes.

[Adam Friedland]

Right. So what is in your estimation? I know there's a Supreme Court decision that has equipped them with the ability to liquidate the civil service. The guys he had the first time are different than the guys he had the second time. What's the difference here? Why does this feel different?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, so I think that's part of the answer. But you're sort of shorthanded. But this is Right. I mean, he just was not ready to do, I think, what was in his gut in the first term, which is to try to seize a whole bunch of power for the executive branch. But he was not surrounded by people who knew how to do that, and he hadn't thought at all about how to do that. So in the four year interim, the Republican Party kind of becomes dominated by two underlying dangerous ideas. One is that democracy is kind of outdated and antiquated. That becomes kind of a mainstream Republican idea that you can't keep up with China or Russia with the inefficiency of democracy, so we need something more nimble, like a CEO style. And then the second idea that becomes mainstream in the Republican Party is that the left Democrats are like an existential threat to the country, that America is really a white Christian country. And that Democrats who believe that multiculturalism is our strength are a threat and they need to be disposed with at any cost. So even if we have to get rid of democracy, which may be what we need to do to keep with China anyway, it's justified if it's what eliminates Democrats and the sort of mainstream left from our politics. So when he becomes president, you just have a whole bunch of believers that are ready to populate the administration who are actually enthusiastic about the project of destroying democracy, who, for a host of different reasons, and they put together a plan to do it, and from day one they start operationalizing it.

[Adam Friedland]

Is that Project 2025?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, I think, listen, I think Project 2025 is part of it, but I think a lot of their plans, you know, were so insidious that they weren't dumb enough to actually write them into Project 2025. I think they have always envisioned using the DOJ in order to try to hunt and silence their political enemies. They didn't write that into Project 2025, but that clearly has been part of their plan.

[Adam Friedland]

I think because of the Russiagate stuff. My assumption when Project 2025 was coming up during the election and we were told that this is the most important election ever. And then we saw that debate performance, and we're like, if it's the most important, then why the Democrats don't seem to think be taking it very seriously. And so when I heard Project 25, it sounded conspiratorial and it didn't sound like a real thing. And it took me a while to actually, like, realize at a. Very shortly before the actual election that, oh, this is actually, like, substantive, because it's coming from the Heritage foundation. And effectively the American Conservative Project has been. I don't know, is this right? But, like, since Reagan, to liquidate elements of the federal government and kind of sell them off to the private sector.

[Chris Murphy]

Correct. And then whatever is left, turn it into essentially mechanisms for enrichment of the corporate crowd and the economic elite crowd. So you might not liquidate all the regulatory agencies, but they just get turned into places that continue to flow money and resources to the very powerful.

[Adam Friedland]

My assumption was always, like, we can get through whoever's the president because we have a robust civil service. So there are enough, like, little old ladies that go to the Department of Health and Human Services and.

[Chris Murphy]

And like, running the vaccine program to make sure that our kids don't die.

[Adam Friedland]

And that's why planes don't crash into each other. And that's why, like, America can kind of function if, you know, if Bush is the president or Obama's the president or Trump's the president the first time. What is Doge now after Elon's gone, have there been more liquidations of. Of, you know, like, departments in the executive branch or. I mean, I remember hearing that they were going to give it to Palantir. Is that what happened? Like, well, they don't hear about that.

[Chris Murphy]

The fight. No. Yeah, I think you're right. You don't hear about it as much because you don't have a celebrity running the process of terminating public employees. But they are still laying people off. At hhs, for instance, in nih, there continue to be mass layoffs. A lot of it stopped because the courts stepped in and said they couldn't do much of it. So the courts have slowed down the process of mass firings, but they're certainly not hiring anybody new. And some of these agencies are effectively gutted and ceasing to exist in functional form.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. It's just funny, I feel like there are things that happen that are in the public eye and then they disappear so fast. Right. And we're, like, appalled by things when Los Angeles happened. Right, right. When we saw human beings being taken from their families, like, just, you know, and in the abstract, I understood that due process had been suspended and that we, people that are the most vulnerable members of society are being taken from their families and put in, effectively, cages. You guys are up against so much right now. And, like, how do you. How do you hand. There's like 18,000 different things that you have to, like, fix, Correct?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. So listen, I think this is the biggest struggle for all of us is to understand, you know, what is real and a persistent threat. What is Trump just trying to change the news cycle? And so I think we're starting to figure out where our power is. But it does affect how I spend my time. So I spend a lot of my time these days just trying to help stand up mobilization all around the country. So I, for instance, like, stopped raising money for my own political campaign. And I only raise money right now. I only raise money for protest groups all around the country. And I've given out probably close to a million dollars to protest groups just trying to help people organize around things like Jimmy Kimmel being taken down off the air so that we can give people some hope, that if we mobilize around, for instance, a boycott of Disney that we can actually start to save some of our constitutional rights.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, I want to try something, but I need my cell phone for this. I have an idea. Okay. I left my cell phone over there. Okay. So I'm sorry about this. It's unprofessional to me.

[Chris Murphy]

Props.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay, so. Okay, we're going to try something.

[Chris Murphy]

All right.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay. So making me nervous. No, no, no, it's fine, dude. Don't worry. Dude, don't worry. Okay. Okay. I'm from a foreign country. Okay.

[Chris Murphy]

Okay.

[Adam Friedland]

And I'm also stupid. Okay.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

This is in this hypothetical situation, not because I'm from a foreign country, just because I happen to be a stupid guy. Just to be clear.

[Chris Murphy]

Got it.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay. Could you please explain to me. I just arrived in America. Could you please explain to me what is the Democratic Party?

[Chris Murphy]

So you ready?

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. Right.

[Chris Murphy]

So the Democratic Party stands for the idea that everybody in this country should have the opportunity to succeed and that the economy today is rigged to favor billionaires and corporations over everybody else. The Democratic Party also believes that our democracy is rigged right now to support the powerful and not the powerless. What we stand for is giving more power to workers and making sure that the people are in charge of democracy, not the economic elites.

[Adam Friedland]

Thank you.

[Chris Murphy]

Okay. How long was that?

[Adam Friedland]

It's good. Let's play it can you play it? No pause. Sorry. I thought this was going to be really funny. Thomas. No. Now they want me to translate it. Just. Okay. How do I. How do I do the. How do I make it play?

[Chris Murphy]

What are you using? What app are you?

[Adam Friedland]

Google Translate, Thomas. It's gonna be a hilarious bit. How do I make it play in my language, Dude? This is so embarrassing. This is just so fucking embarrassing right now.

[Chris Murphy]

This is what editing is for, right?

[Adam Friedland]

This is the biggest opportunity in my life as a member of the club of 100. Your friend, you know. You know Lindsey Grant. Dude, you're like fucking royalty. This is so embarrassing. I told him I'm a tech aficionado when I booked him.

[Chris Murphy]

I got a heart out.

[Adam Friedland]

What time's your heart out? Where do you have to go? The island.

[Chris Murphy]

Come on.

[Adam Friedland]

I'm sorry, dude. I'm nervous and I deflected. I do it again. What do you mean do it again? It's mean to do. But he's.

[Chris Murphy]

Oh, but I gotta do it again.

[Adam Friedland]

Okay. Allow axa.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

So what's the Democratic Party? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, you put it in Greek, dude. I want it Chinese. Okay. And also it's Greek. Oh, shit, dude. Thomas, he's speaking English. I'm speaking. This is so embarrassing, dude. This is one of the biggest moments of my career.

[Chris Murphy]

What's supposed to happen here?

[Adam Friedland]

This guy knows. He knows John Thune. This guy, he knows a comma. So what's the Democratic Party?

[Chris Murphy]

I'm doing it again. All right. The Democratic Party stands for.

[Adam Friedland]

What is the Democratic Party? Just listen, okay? It's gonna be hilarious, guys.

[Chris Murphy]

Okay. The Democratic Party stands for the idea that everyone in this nation should have an opportunity to succeed, not just billionaires and millionaires.

[Adam Friedland]

That's good. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty good. And now play. I got it. Thanks a lot, guys. Let's give it up for that bit. How funny was it? I see that there are like a lot of. Like when you look at the popular sentiment of your voting base, you see 8% of Democrats support. You know, what's happening in Gaza. You see that ICE has a 13% favorability amongst you guys. And then we can link that to child separation policies were happening under Biden and Obama did take a small DHS program and expand it dramatically. And beyond all that, it kind of seems to me the Democrats voting base is not reflected in the actions of the party. More often than not.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. I mean, I think there's two things going on right now. One is that people are just pissed off that we haven't been more effective in stopping Trump's authoritarian takeover. So you've got our approval ratings in the toilet, in part because our own folks want us to be fighting harder. But second, I think to your point, you know, we over time became a technocratic party that advertised we could just run government well and we could make some adjustments to the market to make your life better, instead of being a moral party. Right. Which talked about the economy and the world in moral terms. And that means that we have looked illegitimate in the eyes of many when our solution to a fundamentally morally broken health care system was to just send more money to the insurance companies. And that we looked like we didn't understand what was happening in Gaza when we talked about trying to manage behind the scenes the number of Gazans who were being killed on any single one day, instead of just saying no, for the time being, the United States cannot continue to sell weapons to Israel until this carnage stops.

[Adam Friedland]

Why hasn't the party. What we're seeing is, in terms of favorability ratings, Trump is more. Has a higher favorability than the Democratic Party, even with everything happening right now with, you know, like, a rise in political violence, like just him stoking the flames, you know, and say, like, you know, blaming it on the other side instead of saying, calm down, everyone. Like, it seems like there's, to me, like there's a grappling and like, you guys are fucking fighting each other, like, in. In the party to define what the message is. And it's. They're really good at falling in line. You know, they're like, okay, we're MAGA now, except for, like, Mitt Romney and, And, you know, Chaney's daughter.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. You basically kicked out of the party anyway.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Murphy]

They're a cult of personality right now. And so, of course they're going to have more sort of solidarity in terms of how popular the party is. Listen, people want to see us fighting, and they have not seen us draw that moral line in the sand about what Trump has done. We've had opportunities to do it. Back in the spring, we could have chosen not to fund the government unless there was some commitment that there was going to be a little bit less totalitarianism. We maybe shouldn't have all showed up to the State of the Union speech to have provided a nice bipartisan backdrop for, you know, to hurt his feelings.

[Adam Friedland]

To hurt his feelings.

[Chris Murphy]

And now we are, you know, two weeks away from another moment where the party could say we have no moral obligation to pay the bills for the destruction of our democracy. And so if you want our votes for this budget, then you've got to build some protections into this budget so that there's less of a chance that we lose our constitutional rights.

[Adam Friedland]

What are the discussions like within your caucus? Because it seems like, you know, like, why here in New York City, the biggest city in America? Like, we've. Like, why haven't we seen party leaders endorse the Democratic nominee for mayor?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. I mean, I can't speak for them, but it's sort of the same feeling that the party has historically had about Bernie. Right. That Bernie's politics are fringe, they're dangerous, when in fact, Bernie's politics and Mamdani's politics, to an extent, are the pathway to a crossover into Trump's base. Right. Legitimate populists, people that are actually talking about plans to take power from the corporatists and give it to regular people. That's the only way that you're going to reach into Trump's base and steal some of his voters who are coming to the conclusion that he's not a legitimate populist. So I just have always drawn issue with this idea that populism, hostility to market fundamentalism is a danger inside the party. I think that's our corporate crowd selling us a lie. And I think the only way that we're ever going to be competitive again in a place like Missouri or Ohio is being a true populist party that attacks corporate power. And that's the sort of route and the path that both Bernie and Zoran are showing us.

[Adam Friedland]

Two things. One is, like, to what extent is it his political message versus him being a young, charismatic talent that threatens entrenched powers that be? And the second thing is, like, what do you do about the corporatist side of the party? Like, how does one.

[Chris Murphy]

How do you.

[Adam Friedland]

Like, within your caucus, you have a tremendous amount of people that are opposed to that vision of path forward. How do you coalesce behind that? Like, you. Chris Murphy is trying to, like, trying to enact this. Like, how do you convince Chuck Schumer? Like, you know.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, well, I think, you know, part of it is taking a look at, you know, candidates who are running in swing states as populists and show that they can win. Part of it is to show that Zorn can get a very big majority in this upcoming election, to show that these are actually candidates who can win in general elections. I know New York City's not the same as Minnesota, but I think that's part of the test.

[Adam Friedland]

Are they Threatened by young talent.

[Chris Murphy]

I think they're threatened by the idea that people don't pay their dues. Right. I think the whole system is, you know, generally built on this idea that you sort of wait your time until you run. I didn't do that. I ran when I was 25. But, yes, I think that folks who have waited their time, moved through the ladder don't like the fact that somebody can just show up at 24, 25, 30 years old, run and win. That is a recipe for disaster for our party if we don't welcome new young candidates in. But, yeah, I think that's sort of a. I think, you know, you would feel that way if you were middle management at a corporation. You wouldn't love the young hotshot coming in and sitting at the desk next to you. And that happens in politics, too.

[Adam Friedland]

But what if he's, like. He could, like, beat Trump or like, he's like, good, like.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, is it more important that, like, he's not threatening to, like, Dianne Feinstein or, like, whoever. Like, people that have been there for. I know. She's. She's not there anymore.

[Chris Murphy]

She's not there anymore.

[Adam Friedland]

She's not. She's not around.

[Chris Murphy]

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not defending it. I'm just trying to, like, plug it. I'm just trying to, like, put it in context. That it's a. It is not a unfamiliar human emotion. Right. To be envious of somebody that is younger and perhaps smarter than you and perhaps being openly or subconsciously hostile, that doesn't mean that it's right. And that means you've got to build a party apparatus that. That actually welcomes in young people. Which is why, you know, what David Hogg has been doing is really, really important. Like directly confronting this idea that we are hostile often as a party to young people. More hostile, I would argue, than the Republican Party has been, I guess.

[Adam Friedland]

Like, do you get that treatment as like a. You're a young bull. You're like 52 year old senator.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You know, you're a sprightly young man.

[Chris Murphy]

Right.

[Adam Friedland]

They're like, what is this? What is this freaking millennial coming through with his cell phones and his tiktoks? I mean, like, I think, by the. By the.

[Chris Murphy]

I'm still in the young half. Yeah. I still think I'm in the younger half of the United States Senate.

[Adam Friedland]

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Now back to the show. You're. You're recently separated from your wife? The last couple years.

[Chris Murphy]

Yep. Last year.

[Adam Friedland]

Jesus. Like last year.

[Chris Murphy]

Right?

[Adam Friedland]

Like. Like this. Dealing with this right now and like, dealing also with, I would imagine, like a marriage.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

You know, like, how the fuck do you.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, it's got, like.

[Adam Friedland]

That's got to fucking suck.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, it does. Yeah. I mean, it's a weird job. I mean, the fact that you have to send out a, you know, public statement about your just stop.

[Adam Friedland]

The end of the world marriage breaking

[Chris Murphy]

down, and then you have to be in the middle of trying to save democracy at the same time.

[Adam Friedland]

You're a real freak, though. You're built different.

[Chris Murphy]

It's a lot. Yeah. But I have two. I have two kids, you know, who are teenagers, and they are going to inherit one world or another world, depending on what happens in the next, you know, two years. And so I feel an obligation, you know, not just as a human being, but as a father to stay in this. Stay in this fight. And, I mean, I had, for a lot of my career, I think I said this to you on the phone, I had a lot of sort of gray. I could sort of see both arguments in terms of, like, what the strategic direction should be for the party. I don't have that gray any longer. Like, I see this guy as a present threat. And I believe that if we don't draw a moral line in the sand right now, we're screwed as a nation. I see our party screwed if we continue to march down this neoliberal, market fundamentalist path. We have to be an aggressively populist party that talks about breaking up concentrated corporate power. So I also feel blessed that for one of the first times in my career, I don't have any question. Yeah, I know. I don't. I'm not. I'm not arguing with myself about the direction the country needs to go in or the direction the party needs to go in. And so, you know, no matter what's happening in my personal life, I'm definitely not walking away at this moment of peril and at a moment where I feel like I have something to say.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, I remember last time I went through a breakup, I had, like, most of my friends. I realized most of my friends had girlfriends or wives, so I had to start hanging out with my single friends. Do you start chilling more with the single senators? You and Lindsey going out to get some. Some tail?

[Chris Murphy]

I have not gone out with. I've not gone out with Lindsey Graham before or after.

[Adam Friedland]

That was just right there. It was tempting. Yeah. Is he chill? He's got to be a real.

[Chris Murphy]

He's not. Yeah, he's not, but he's chill. Chill would not be. I wouldn't say chill, but would not be the word.

[Adam Friedland]

He's got chops.

[Chris Murphy]

He's intense.

[Adam Friedland]

He's got chops, that guy.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. You mean he's a talented politician.

[Adam Friedland]

Frank Underwood, he's, like, got, like. He can make moves. Merrick Garland, I want to talk about. Because you guys. What was it? You could have gone nuclear, isn't that right?

[Chris Murphy]

No, we. We had option. No, we had no power to stop what they were doing. They were in the majority at the Time. And the majority controls the floor of the Senate. And they just chose not to bring a vote on Merrick Garland. We have no ability or power as the minority to force a vote on the Senate floor.

[Adam Friedland]

So was there also some sort of, like, hubris that, like, Hillary's about to beat Trump and we'll just get it next time?

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, I think in retrospect, like, we did not fight hard enough. We didn't sort of bring that case to the American people. I think that was why. No, I think that was why I think we. We did have hubris that we thought there's no way Trump was going to win. And so, you know, ultimately we were going to solve this through an election. We did not raise that issue at the crisis level. We should have because we were overconfident about the election.

[Adam Friedland]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, am I correct in remembering this? She said she didn't want to retire because she wanted a female president to replace.

[Chris Murphy]

I don't remember that. Maybe there were reports that she said that behind the scenes, Obama should have yelled her, but I don't remember. She certainly was and said that on the record, but. Yeah. How little was she? I mean, we don't hang out with the Supreme Court. How, like.

[Adam Friedland]

But you see her at the State of the Union.

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, she's got. But I wasn't like, measure. I wasn't like, she was like three,

[Adam Friedland]

five, maybe three six. That's what it looked like.

[Chris Murphy]

She's taller on tv. Maybe she's a big personality.

[Adam Friedland]

A big personality. Which. Yeah. She used to, like, work, like, lift weights. Like, like, remember that? I hated those T shirts, though.

[Chris Murphy]

They're still out there.

[Adam Friedland]

The Notorious rbg.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

What the hell are they talking about? She's just some lady.

[Chris Murphy]

It is true. Like, if you remember, I mean, at the beginning of that campaign, none of the sort of mainstream media people even covered Trump as a presidential candidate.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, they covered him. Those debates, those are box office.

[Chris Murphy]

They were. No, and that's. And that's in part why he's getting away with this corruption at scale, because he's doing it in front of everybody for people to see it. Yeah. And I hate to say it, but there does seem to be an element of the country that is more forgiving of the corruption as long as they're watching it, which is wild to me, but I even think my party sometimes feels that way because if this was uncovered, you know, the crypto scheme, that he was doing it behind the scenes. Shit.

[Adam Friedland]

Coin.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, yeah, we would.

[Adam Friedland]

We would.

[Chris Murphy]

We would be talking about it every day. But because it's happening in front of everybody, because he's admitting to the corruption just like he was admitting to giving to both sides. Everybody seems to wave it away, which we shouldn't.

[Adam Friedland]

Or he could lie, and his guys are like, of course he's lying, but he's our guy. He's lying for us. That's like. That's why the media, every time they'd be like, excuse me, fact check. Like, it never worked because they're like, his fans were like, yeah, we. Like, he's lying for us.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, and it's a lie. And again, it comes back to this. This thing that the right wing believes, not everybody, but a lot of them, that the left is this existential threat to the nation. And so we need to do whatever is necessary in order to defeat him, including electing somebody that we know is likely a fraud, who we know is lying. But if he's the guy that is going to rid us of the Democratic Party, then we're on board.

[Adam Friedland]

I think he was more like just a virus that they couldn't control. Because I remember Reince, when we were saying everyone had one week, Reince would just throw another one out there, because at first it was Jeb, and then he'd be like, just try. And then they get smacked down in a debate. But, like, what it was, was like, the structure of the RNC was kind of crumbling. Like the kind of Reince Priebus as their, you know, the leader of their party, whatever. What is the DNC like? What is the DNC at this point?

[Chris Murphy]

Well, but the other thing that was happening was that he was onto this message that the Republican Party couldn't understand the power of which was this anti China, anti outsourcing message. Right. So he actually, it wasn't. It wasn't just that he had a brand. He actually did figure out that the sort of big middle of the country wanted somebody who was going to aggressively attack the old rules that allowed for the outsourcing. And no other Republican was willing to do that. And the Democratic Party, frankly, wasn't willing to do it at the level that we should have.

[Adam Friedland]

I saw you've talked a lot about how you've gone to, like, the middle of the country. You've got a Missouri, you've kind of spoken to people that are Republican voters, and it's kind of like, kind of clarified your populist economic vision for the party moving forward. I saw real quick, I saw you on Hassan Minhaj. He did this game that really pissed me off with you, the island thing. And you were about to be like,

[Chris Murphy]

can I, like, not do it?

[Adam Friedland]

Well, you were like, can I, like, critique the premise of this? But, like, he was saying, like, well, you know, would you allow people that don't take the vaccine into the tent if they, like, support your economic populist message? It kind of, to me, represented kind of how Democrats talk about electoral politics. Really? Instead of you saying, I'm going to lay out, this is my case. Right. You vote for me. I'm sure, like, a racist has voted for you, but before. Right. You don't. What are you gonna do about it? He thought you were the better candidate. Right. Like, every time there's a postmortem of an election, it feels like the Democrats treat the electorate as, like, Treat themselves like victims of the electorate. Like, we. This last time with Kamala. Kamala, she was like, we were screwed over by Latino men. And it's just like, there's a vision of electoral politics as like, you owe me and not like, we owe you. Is that right? Or am I missing something? Because that's what it looks like to me.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. Listen, I just think we need to be in the business of winning elections rather than being super particular about who votes for us. And so that's why my argument is that the party simplifies its message that we become a party that stands for unrigging the economy so that it works for regular people, not corporations, and unringing the democracy. And then we're not as particular about who comes in and joins our coalition, if you believe in those two things. And guess what? Like, 75% of the country would sign up for those two projects. But because we've applied all these litmus tests as a party, I mean, on issues that I really care about, like guns, we have forced a lot of people out who otherwise, based on their belief in a fairer economy and a better government, would sign up for our project. But because, you know, they aren't with us on choice or they aren't with us on climate, or they aren't with us on guns, they vote for a fraud, for a Charlotte.

[Adam Friedland]

I feel like it's a little backwards. I think it's like, to me, it feels like you guys only have that, right? You guys only have, like, let's be nice to gay people because there's no substantive transactional offer. Like, like, you can go to the hospital. Like, if you're sick, you can go to the doctor.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. There's got to be this. You're Talking about a moral core. There's got to be a moral core to the party.

[Adam Friedland]

Of course we should be nice to gay people. Right. But, like. But that's like a. It feels like a papering. Papering over, like, a lack of substance.

[Chris Murphy]

So it's like. No, like, what we did. Like, our. Like, what was our position on prescription drugs? For a decade, we had this plan where we were going to put the Medicare in charge of renegotiating prices with the drug companies on the top 10 drugs to try to get a better bulk price. Like, you lost people.

[Adam Friedland]

Right. Shut up.

[Chris Murphy]

Cap the cost of all drugs in this country. Cap the amount of profits that any drug company can make. Simple, big ideas that transfer power from corporations to regular families.

[Adam Friedland]

You could go to the doctor. I mean, it's like, just. It works.

[Chris Murphy]

Yes. That nobody should get sick or die in this country because you are poor. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

People, like, people lose their life savings because they have cancer. I mean, it's just like, it's up.

[Chris Murphy]

Yes. And listen, I. I actually would argue that if you create that bigger tent party that, for instance, brings people in that don't agree with us on transgender rights, that at least they're, like, in the tent now and, like, they have a commonality with us in economics. And now we have an opportunity to talk to them about why transgender kids or gay kids aren't a threat to them personally. But when they just sit in this Fox News closed ecosystem and we don't make any effort to bring them in, we're just continuing to sort of put up the walls.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. You've investigated a lot of online conservative culture as well, and you talk a lot about loneliness and the loneliness epidemic. And I want to get into that. You've read conservative writers like Yarvin and Deneen.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. Curtis Yarvin, who's kind of a more radical conservative.

[Adam Friedland]

He's like a monarch.

[Chris Murphy]

He's a monarchist. Yeah. Patrick Deneen is, you know, is. Is an author who sort of just critiques liberalism more. More broadly from a. From a Catholic conservative perspective.

[Adam Friedland]

And you read, You've listened to pot, a couple of conservative podcasts. Red Scare. What is. I've heard a lot about that. Yeah. What is it? What's it about?

[Chris Murphy]

Red Scare.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah. What is it? I've heard people talk about it all the time. What? You talk a lot about loneliness. It's been a. Like, something like a topic that you've been highlighting, and I saw somewhere that you wanted to have a minister of loneliness.

[Chris Murphy]

I didn't want to have a minister of loneliness.

[Adam Friedland]

I saw that. Which is. But first of all, that's English. We have secondaries.

[Chris Murphy]

It might have been characterized as a minister of loneliness. No, I wanted. I have proposed that you should have an office at the White House and the federal government that thinks about how policies make it easier or harder for people to connect to other human beings.

[Adam Friedland]

And is it just one guy sitting there?

[Chris Murphy]

No, not one guy. It was going to be a committee. I'm not saying it was going to solve the problem. I just think that you should have some place where you talk about the fact that the thing that matters most to us when it comes to our happiness is not our job or our career, how much money we make, but our relationships. And it's a little weird to me that we spend no time in government talking about how our policies increasingly make it hard for people to find companionship. So, yeah, there was like a headline that was like, chris Murphy wants the government to help you make friends. Okay, that sounds like a bullshit. That sounds like a bullshit use of government power, but I'm a great guy. It is true that we should probably think more about the way in which government is making it harder for people to connect with each other.

[Adam Friedland]

Did you ever think about who you would make the Minister of Lowlands?

[Chris Murphy]

There's no Minister of Lowlands.

[Adam Friedland]

I was thinking extentacion, but he's dead. Jeb Bush would be good.

[Chris Murphy]

Jeb. He seems like a nice flat. He seems like a nice guy.

[Adam Friedland]

Apparently. I was looking up. I was looking up good ideas for Minister of Loneliness. Apparently, Dwayne the Rock Johnson has been very open about his struggles with depression.

[Chris Murphy]

So, yeah, I'm open for applications for this position that doesn't actually exist. And I haven't proposed.

[Adam Friedland]

I could do it.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, you could do. You could dual hat.

[Adam Friedland]

I'll do that and do the show.

[Chris Murphy]

Ambassador of Brazil and do the show and the show.

[Adam Friedland]

Jewish YouTube talk show ambassador of Brazil. Loneliest man in America.

[Chris Murphy]

But when I. When I. The first time I ever wrote anything about loneliness was like this short little article called the Politics of Loneliness, basically saying the government should pay attention to how lonely people are today. I had more feedback to that article than maybe anything else I had written. Because, like, in their daily lives, especially parents, are seeing how catastrophic it is that we spend, in some instances, 50% less time with friends than we did just 30 years ago. And that has consequences for our health, for our politics. A lot of those folks who showed up on January 6th were pretty lonely, lonely people.

[Adam Friedland]

They didn't have any friends.

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, some of Them, I imagine.

[Adam Friedland]

Come on, dude.

[Chris Murphy]

Some of them, I imagine, had some. Some struggles and struggles socially, you're saying?

[Adam Friedland]

Absolutely.

[Chris Murphy]

I'm saying that loneliness, that when you

[Adam Friedland]

feel lonely, popular guys were there too.

[Chris Murphy]

When you feel lonely, you feel sad, but then you feel angry and you're looking for an outlet.

[Adam Friedland]

Well, I think beyond loneliness, to me, I think that. I think it's a seminal issue of our time, genuinely, but I think that it needs to be viewed as a symptom.

[Chris Murphy]

Perhaps data will tell you that people have been retreating from companionship since another seminal event, which is the invention of the smartphone.

[Adam Friedland]

I think it was trending that way, and I think it fell off the cliff when people were at home for two years.

[Chris Murphy]

No, no. 100%. I mean, so I experienced it. I experienced it as, you know, human being and as a parent, and I saw the damage did to my kids and their friends. So when we wrote the sort of COVID rescue bill right after Biden was sworn in, I really spent all my political capital pushing for one thing, and it was a fund for summer camps, just to put as many kids as we could that summer of 2021 into summer camp, especially as many poor kids as we could who had really been

[Adam Friedland]

home alone and their families were dying

[Chris Murphy]

and their families were. Families were sick, or their parents were essential workers. So they, you know, the kids were home alone. Right. So that's all I was focused on, was like, get kids into summer camp. Yeah. So it's a. And I remember talking right after the pandemic to these kindergarten to first grade teachers who are getting kids back from the pandemic, and they were just like, we will never be able to make up for the lost time that like a 3, 4, 5 year old lost

[Adam Friedland]

a third of your life.

[Chris Murphy]

Socialization. Right. They basically showed up at school without basic socialization skills, which meant they couldn't learn, and they were just behind, without really the ability to catch up their entire career. And that's the reality for millions of kids in this country. Yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

So I think, like, the way we discuss a lot of these problems is like, we're trimming leaves and that there's something at the trunk. And I think, like, when we talk about incels or like when we talk about basement dwellers or we talk. We're talking about people that are kind of squeezed out of the economy. You know, the economy can absorb labor at the same rate that it used to. And we're talking about people that have kind of been squeezed out of society by various circumstances. And, like, I think it's like a little bit like we're just addressing the, you know, the result and we're not addressing like in a kind of human way or like a, you know, moral way, you know, like what people, what has led people here, you know.

[Chris Murphy]

But don't you think it goes even deeper than that? I mean, I do think that there's this transition that happens from the middle of the century to later in the century where, you know, we cared much more about our neighbors and the community and the common good. And we eventually got taught that really the only thing that mattered was profit and efficiency and our personal achievement. And we started to sort of separate as a, as a, as a culture, as we became obsessed with our own individual achievement. This is not helped by kind of like the self help revolution where we're told that if you're feeling bad, what you need to do is just retreat into yourself instead of joining with others. And we just over time become a culture that is, that is really self obsessive and, and we don't see as much health, personal health in socialization. And so I think you, and you layer smartphones and the pandemic on top of that, that cultural shift that happens and we're, we need China, we need

[Adam Friedland]

China to take it, take Twitter away.

[Chris Murphy]

I don't know that.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, I think Xi. So just say it to him right now. He's watching Xi just come over, take the phone.

[Chris Murphy]

It would be much better if it went away, but it will be replaced by something else. So the only solution here ultimately is for, I hate to say it, but for government to come in and say, here are the rules. Right. I mean, here's who can be on social media, here's how kids can interact with it. Here's what it can deliver to kids. Give at least young people a fighting shot so that they're not addicted when they become 18.

[Adam Friedland]

You've been in Congress 20 years, the legislative branch, 20 years. Right. And the perception of that as an institution is that it's decayed or crumbled in that period. Does it feel that way for you as someone that goes to the office there? Does it feel like it's.

[Chris Murphy]

Sure, yeah. We very rarely pass legislation. Much more of my life now is about critiquing the other side than sitting down and actually passing things that make people's lives better.

[Adam Friedland]

How does it feel like as a guy, like to be part of like something like that do.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, it's not what I signed up for.

[Adam Friedland]

I feel like we suck.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, I mean, I, a couple years Ago. I mean, I really deliberately decided to bend over backwards to try to get in those rare rooms where the deals get cut. And I. And I did that for a handful of years, and I got good at it. And for that period of time, whether it was on the gun bill.

[Adam Friedland]

Cigar place that you go to. The cigar. Those things.

[Chris Murphy]

They're not. Yeah, there. There are legitimate. Still back rooms in that place.

[Adam Friedland]

And you do cigars.

[Chris Murphy]

No cigars. But there's booze. Booze, yeah.

[Adam Friedland]

And you hit. And you and McConnell are like, this is.

[Chris Murphy]

McConnell was not in any of the rooms that I was in. But no, there are still places, they're much more rare where deals get cut. And I decided to very deliberately try to get in those rooms for a period of time. And then Trump got elected and those rooms completely disappeared. And it felt like the job was just to try to protect democracy. But, yeah, I made the decision to be more purposeful about that work because the job was feeling pretty empty.

[Adam Friedland]

You feel like it's the hardest era, you know, like in the NBA, they're saying, like, there's a lot of debate between the eras. Like Jordan versus LeBron.

[Chris Murphy]

No, there was an era.

[Adam Friedland]

You feel like you're playing in the hardest era.

[Chris Murphy]

There was an era where, like, senators were getting caned over the head. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

Was that.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, I would imagine. I would. I would argue that.

[Adam Friedland]

Have two senators ever hooked up or, like, congressmen or anything?

[Chris Murphy]

Sure.

[Adam Friedland]

Really?

[Chris Murphy]

There were two Congress people that were. They were married.

[Adam Friedland]

They got married. They met at Congress.

[Chris Murphy]

I think this is. Right. I think. Didn't son. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

Who? Sonny. Sonny Bono.

[Chris Murphy]

Sonny Bono and Mary Bono. Oh, right.

[Adam Friedland]

Oh, and he died in the. In the skiing accident. I got you, babe. I want to kind of get into some. What, like the bigger kind of existential questions. Like. It's breaking.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, right.

[Adam Friedland]

Do you think. Can you. Can it. Can you fix it? Is it really you? I know you're. You're gonna say yes, but, like, actually, like, yes, you can.

[Chris Murphy]

You can actually fix it. Right.

[Adam Friedland]

So what is the first structural thing that you would. That you would, like, change about?

[Chris Murphy]

Okay, so you're not talking about how do you defeat the sort of slide to totalitarianism. You're talking about how do you fix the actual.

[Adam Friedland]

There's. There's shit.

[Chris Murphy]

That project of democracy.

[Adam Friedland]

There are a ton of things in the rules that are implemented that fuck shit working in the legislative branch or the executive branch now.

[Chris Murphy]

So there are some things that you can do internally. Right. So I am a believer that the Senate should be a Majoritarian institution, ultimately a place where 50 votes passes a piece of legislation. So you can't blame should the Senate.

[Adam Friedland]

Yeah, I think it's kind of bullshit.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, I think the Senate should probably

[Adam Friedland]

say, but why is it Wyoming gets as much as California? It's not fair.

[Chris Murphy]

We. We decided. Right. The founders decided to make it really hard to pass legislation in this free slaves. And the design. The design was they made it really hard. The design was likely to make it hard to free the slaves. But the design was also because they believed that a faction could very easily corrupt a single parliamentary system and transition democracy into autocracy. So by setting up a really complicated system of government with two houses and a president, they thought it was actually protective of democracy. And I think 250 years into the experiment, you have to come to the conclusion that they were right, no matter how inefficient having a House and the Senate and a presidential signature is.

[Adam Friedland]

But haven't we seen, especially during the McConnell reign, like, it kind of be a bottleneck.

[Chris Murphy]

Yes, which is why ultimately you should get rid of the filibuster and allow for 50 votes in the Senate to be able to pass something. But really the foundational reform is the way the campaigns are financed. And you've got to pass a constitutional amendment to do that. And I think the only way the Democrats are going to be able to interest people in this country in saving democracy is to be really specific about what we're going to change. And I think that requires either a constitutional amendment or a constitutional convention to essentially allow the legislature to ban private money, corporate money, lobbyist money, anonymous money from politics. I think if you did that, that's probably the most sort of significant balm on the system.

[Adam Friedland]

I agree with you. It seems to be the first order of business. But it seems like, could you even convince the Democratic party as a whole, your caucus and Congress? Because I think a lot of Democrats are kind of entrenched in that.

[Chris Murphy]

There's still a ton of billionaires who fund our party. There's still a ton of Democrats who take and rely on corporate contributions. I mean, I'm lucky. And so it's easy for me to sort of talk about getting rid of corporate and PAC money, because I am one of these candidates now who has, you know, thousands of people give me three, five dollars at a time. But what I found was that when I swore off PAC money, more people, regular people, were willing to give me money because they wanted to reward me for not taking PAC money.

[Adam Friedland]

They trust you, too.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, they trust Me, they trust me more and they want to get behind somebody who's going to say I'm not taking pack. I think that would be the case for other candidates who did it. But yes, yes, our party has become reliant on that sort of corporate PAC and billionaire trough and it's what makes us a little sclerotic when we try to rally around efforts to change the campaign finance system. That's just the truth.

[Adam Friedland]

What is it like just walk me through like you're, when you're trying to fundraise like a, you're talking to a billionaire. Like what, what, what's the vibe like? Yeah, I mean when like I'm giving, I'm give you this change just cuz.

[Chris Murphy]

But well so, so I'm talking to. So I don't have to do that. But like I don't have to do that anymore. But I used to do a lot of it.

[Adam Friedland]

Right.

[Chris Murphy]

I used to sit in a cubicle in the Democratic National Committee when I was a House member for three, four hours a time just right. Calling people for money. Who you calling? You're not calling people who are making $30,000. Of course you're calling somebody who's making $3 million.

[Adam Friedland]

The monopoly man.

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah. Now you're calling Democratic donors by and large. So they, so they're, you know, they're not, they're not racists and they do believe in a progressive tax code. But not that progressive. But not that progress. No they're not. No they're not.

[Adam Friedland]

Yes they are.

[Chris Murphy]

But maybe not that progressive. Yeah. And maybe these donors are not super excited about labor unions getting a lot stronger.

[Adam Friedland]

Right.

[Chris Murphy]

And maybe they don't want everybody to have health care through a single payer system because they make a lot of money from their investments in the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry.

[Adam Friedland]

It's transactional.

[Chris Murphy]

Therefore it's not like you think it's transactional. It isn't like house of cards in the sense that a donor says I'm only going to donate to you if you support this, if you support this policy. It's not, it's a lot like. But it's not as much as you think. It's pretty much exactly. But different. But it is.

[Adam Friedland]

And I will have the power.

[Chris Murphy]

But it is just corrupting to be on the phone with billionaires and millionaires instead of being on the phone with, you know, janitors and you know, teachers.

[Adam Friedland]

You talk to a lot more janitors now that you don't take. Take.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, I mean I didn't, I didn't start, like. So you were driving. I walk, but I, you know, I do this thing where I, you know, walk across the state every.

[Adam Friedland]

How long does it take?

[Chris Murphy]

It takes a week.

[Adam Friedland]

A week?

[Chris Murphy]

You know, I don't know that I had that. I don't know that I had the time to do that back when I was spending all my time raising money.

[Adam Friedland]

Dude, I bet you that lady that you beat your first run at Congress. What's her name?

[Chris Murphy]

Nancy Johnson.

[Adam Friedland]

She could beat that. I bet you Nancy could get it.

[Chris Murphy]

Do it in less than a week.

[Adam Friedland]

Five days.

[Chris Murphy]

Do it in less than a week.

[Adam Friedland]

No, that's. I mean, like, I. I think that

[Chris Murphy]

I don't want to, like, make it more than it is, but it's just. I think in this job, what I realized is that you have to, like, actually make efforts to get out of the bubble and to, like, not just think of the people who call your office or the people who donate money to your campaign are the voices that matter. So I know, like, the walk across the state looks, to a lot of people, like a gimmicky thing, but it is actually useful to me to, like, make sure, like, this. I'll tell you, like, you were talking about this before the summer, that the Mueller investigation was, like, everything that MSNBC was talking about. I walked across the state right at the height of that Mueller fervor, and I probably talked to a couple hundred people on that walk. One person brought up Mueller to me. 1. Like, nobody bought it. Nobody was plugged into it.

[Adam Friedland]

And he was actively using the office to make himself richer, which is, like, clearly, like, out in the open.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, and it was.

[Adam Friedland]

I mean, it was clearly. And also against the law. They had to make it about James Bond shit.

[Chris Murphy]

It just. It just. It distracted us from actually being connected into the stuff that people really were talking about and caring about. Yeah, I'm not saying it wasn't important, because I actually do think that there's a pretty awful story there. Whether or not there was, like, daily coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, the Russians clearly had an impact on the election. But the fact that we obsessed over that, instead of actually learning our lessons as a party as to why we lost to this guy was, you know, is a big part of the reason

[Adam Friedland]

why we're here today, I guess. Like, I mean, like, I really appreciate sitting down with you and, like, it makes sense why you have this vision for, you know, economic policy. Because the most popular person in the party right now is Bernie, basically. Right. And this is, like, it reflects popular Sentiment. How can you get the rest of the Democratic Party to fall in line?

[Chris Murphy]

Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't know that I'm winning this argument right now. Again, that sort of. That legacy of connection to the party, to that corporate crowd is real.

[Adam Friedland]

You have Chuck's number. Let's hit him up.

[Chris Murphy]

Well, I mean, I think we should. I don't know why we don't pay attention to the fact that the only people that can command 50,000 people are Bernie Sanders and AOC. And I just think it's there for the taking that there are these Republican voters today, people who support Trump who are seeing him for who he really is, but are waiting for the Democratic Party to offer them something meaty. So I guess I don't have the secret sauce in terms of how to make this argument. I do think it will be important for us to nominate a handful of those candidates.

[Adam Friedland]

You chilled Bernie

[Chris Murphy]

again? Like, again, he doesn't hang.

[Adam Friedland]

Have you got a laugh from him? Yeah. Really?

[Chris Murphy]

What'd you say? I know you're gonna ask me what I said.

[Adam Friedland]

What did you say?

[Chris Murphy]

I don't remember. What. I don't remember what I said. I think I've. I've. Bernie. Bernie laughs. Bernie. So you talk about, like, what is. What are these people behind. Like, behind the scenes, Bernie is like, he's.

[Adam Friedland]

Bernie.

[Chris Murphy]

He's burning. Like, he's burning. Yes. That's why it works, because he's super authentic everywhere. And Trump is Trump behind the scenes. So, you know, people can smell insincerity a lot more, a lot better than they could.

[Adam Friedland]

So, yeah, you're doing authenticity right now. How do you feel about authenticity?

[Chris Murphy]

I mean, you have to talk to this fool. But this. I mean, this. This job does. This job does mess with you, Right? Because especially if you started before Trump when you were taught that you're not supposed to be authentic, it's supposed to be practiced. Yeah. And so if you're kind of. If you're kind of my generation or generation before me, it's a hard pivot, like, from. You know, don't say anything unless it's been vetted by 16 communications professionals to say whatever the hell you want, even if it's not popular or not PC, because people want to see the real you.

[Adam Friedland]

So just say it. Bruce Horsby is the best musician of all time.

[Chris Murphy]

I do say it all. I do say. I'm not going to apologize.

[Adam Friedland]

You should be ashamed.

[Chris Murphy]

Brilliant musician by your staffers. He didn't stop making music in the 1980s like most people think he did. He's got a just killer catalog of music that continues to this day. And that's why I am bringing my entire staff of mostly 20 year olds to go hear Bruce Hornsby in D.C. next week. Because if they hear him, they are going to be opened up to the genius that is Bruce Horsby. And I'm going to meet him.

[Adam Friedland]

What do you mean? Because you're in the Congress.

[Chris Murphy]

I know. I got his manager's info and I asked if I could meet him.

[Adam Friedland]

Who's manager?

[Chris Murphy]

Sam?