The Democratic Party has its work cut out. Meanwhile, there’s a fundamental issue: the party doesn’t currently have formal power. It doesn’t have a majority in either House of Congress, it doesn’t control the executive branch, and the Supreme Court has a 6-3 Trump majority. And all of this is creating a kind of impotent rage, frustration and feeling that Democratic leadership hasn’t really risen to the moment. But how might Democrats stand up in this moment? Rep. Robert Garcia, is a representative from California’s 42nd congressional district. Before that, he was the mayor of Long Beach. He joins WITHpod to discuss his thoughts on whether or not we’ve lost the American republic, the unlawful nature of so many Trump 2.0 actions, ways Democrats can adjust messaging and more.
Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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Rep. Robert Garcia: I think that our party has become too complacent, too respectable, unwilling to say, well, you know, they stoop to this level or they do this or they do that. We’re above that. Those days are over. We cannot think in those terms. We have to push through, you know, this attention economy that you’ve talked so much about and so many other folks have talked about. We have to make sure that we are fighting fire with fire, that we’re being more aggressive than they are, that we’re using pop culture entertainment to reach other voters. That we’re doubling down on working class issues. That we’re not just leaning into all of our degrees and what we learned at the university and our graduate degrees, that we’re actually talking to, bringing in, and listening to working class people.
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Chris Hayes: Hello, and welcome to “Why Is This Happening” with me, your host, Chris Hayes. I’ve been out on the road for promoting my book, “The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.” And one of the things that’s been awesome about it, I’ve seen a bunch of you there. People have come up to me who listen to the podcast. And I’ve gotten to talk to thousands of folks who are the kind of people that are really, really desperately concerned about the direction of the country. And what I hear a lot of is, what are the Democrats doing? Where is the leadership from the Democratic Party?
And I’m speaking to you the day after the State of the Union. You’ll hear this, a week afterwards, where there was this sort of question about what Democrats would do. Some held up signs. Some walked out. Some didn’t go and boycotted. Representative Al Green of Texas got up with his cane and sort of yelled at President Trump, you don’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid until he was, I guess, removed by the sergeant of arms. There were different ways that people express their dissent, their displeasure, their distress, and concern about the status of American democracy.
But there’s this fundamental issue, which is the Democratic Party does not have formal power. It doesn’t have a majority in either House of Congress. It doesn’t control the executive branch, and the Supreme Court is a 6-3 Trump majority. So part of the frustration people feel is the frustration of a kind of impotent rage that they are sort of directing at the Democratic Party because it’s proximate and adjacent to them. Part of it, though, is also a sense that the Democratic Party and its voices in leadership have not really risen to the moment.
And so I’ve been talking to a lot of elected Democrats. I wanted to talk to one today who is a relatively new member of Congress. His name is Robert Garcia. He’s a representative from California’s 42nd Congressional District. Before that, he was the mayor of Long Beach. We had him on the show when he was the mayor of Long Beach. He’s been in Congress for a few terms. He’s also a member of House leadership, though he’s not speaking for House leadership in official capacity, but I think like many members trying to think through what his role is in the sort of opposition right now. And so Representative Garcia, good to have you in the program.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA): Hey, happy to be here. Thank you.
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Chris Hayes: Is that a fair characterization of how you’re thinking about things?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s pretty fair. One, I think people have to realize at this moment that it is very difficult and that we also have the realistic world view that we don’t have the White House. We don’t have the House. We don’t have the Senate. And we’re in a very, very tough spot. And I think whenever you lose an election as big as we lost, when it relates to probably the worst president of the modern era or ever, which is Donald Trump, we’re going to be in a really, really tough spot. And so I think that we have to quickly unite and figure out where we’re going. I think there’s a lot of ideas on how to do that. But I also think it’s a moment where a lot of folks, myself included, are encouraging a very aggressive perspective, a very aggressive platform in pushing back, and oftentimes much harder than I think a lot of folks would like or maybe are comfortable in doing, but I think that moment’s really important right now. I think that you captured it pretty well.
Chris Hayes: Let’s level set here to start, and I’ll go first. So on a scale of one to 10, one being politics as usual, everything’s basically fine, 10 being we have lost the American republic and we now have transformed into a non-Democratic order that’s fundamentally akin to something from abroad or from our own past history in the 1910s when we had a totalitarian one party state through much of the American South. For me right now, it feels like an eight or nine. It’s just about the worst case scenario. There’s still some room, maybe a seven or eight depending. Where are you on that scale?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah. I mean, look, I think we’ve got to be close to a solid nine. And I was going to say the same thing. And I think it’s different. One is, yes, I think we’re there. I think that all the makings of an authoritarian government and authoritarian in Donald Trump, I think it’s all there.
But at the same time, Donald Trump also has amassed different types of powers and influence that has ever existed for anybody ever leading the United States. And so he is, a president. He is an authoritarian. He is arguably trying to become a dictator of our country, but at the same time, I think a lot more than that, he has powers that he has taken or been given to him by folks like Elon Musk and billionaires in this country that no other person has ever had. And so it makes him, I think, even more dangerous than any president that we’ve had. Certainly in the modern era, and I would argue of all time. And so I think it’s hard to compare this moment to any other moment, but I think it’s the most perilous moment that we’ve ever been in.
Chris Hayes: I mean, one of the ways I’ve been thinking about this is a lot of what Trump did the first time around was just steamroll norms, which were informal binding constraints on presidential behavior and exercises of power, hectoring the federal reserve chair to cut rates, publicly hectoring the attorney general to prosecute Hillary Clinton, which he did often. Lots of stuff like that. Some of it was explicitly, I think, unlawful, but a large part of it was just wrong but not quite unlawful. This time around, all of this seems to me unlawful. And by all this, I mean, giving Elon Musk the power that he has in violation of the appointments clause when he has not been appointed to anything under the Constitution, the impoundment and unilateral cutting of funds, dismantling an agency like USAID that was passed and created by statute in 1998. Is that your feeling too that a lot of this is just flatly illegal?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Flatly illegal. I mean, it’s more problematic that he wasn’t held accountable for any of the crimes that he committed in the past. And I think that’s part of the bigger issue, is we’ve essentially, as an as a justice system, as an American public, said in our election of Donald Trump that even though he committed crimes and continued to do illegal things, that it’s okay, he can still be the president. And I think that is a huge danger to our very fragile democracy right now. I think what Donald Trump has done also beyond that is he’s completely changed what we believe as our norms around even truth or fact gathering or how we believe in the media or how we trust our institutions. The damage that he has done in the institutions that have served as kind of fact checks or has served as places that can actually push back on the presidency, I think is unprecedented. And I think that’s the dangerous moment that we’re in, is he’s destroyed what we believe to be true. He attacks academia. He attacks science. He makes people and his supporters less open to new ideas or critical thinking. And so that creates, I think, a very dangerous moment, and I think what he’s doing, like he said, Chris, is illegal with little repercussions against it.
Chris Hayes: So let’s talk about that. One of the things like, I saw a piece of news. I know someone who’s an elected official in Nashville, and Social Security Administration was announcing that they’re closing a Social Security office in Nashville because Elon Musk wants to close it. I don’t know. Is the office useful? Is it not? I don’t know. I don’t live in Nashville. But it’s the kind of thing that you would catch hell from a member of Congress normally if that happens. This is like bread and butter Congressional constituent services, right?
When they announced this insane cut to educational research and university funding, which is a little complicated, but the University of Alabama is the largest employer in the state of Alabama, and the senators there have sort of, behind closed channels, raised a ruckus with the Trump administration. But, generally, what’s broken down here is Congress has the power of the purse, and members of Congress really do tend to doggedly defend things in their district and things that affect their constituents. And so far, maybe I’m missing this, but from your perspective on the House side, what is, A, your first person experience of these DOGE cuts, and maybe it’s not a lot, because your folks have been spared. And what is your experience of how other members are dealing with essentially unilateral, extralegal canceling and firings?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Well, let’s start with the first question. So, I think that one, there is massive damage happening right now to institutions, universities, to public institutions, all of the above, nonprofits. I remember on day one when Donald Trump put his executive order that he was going to freeze essentially grants, nonprofit grants across the country, federal funding for all sorts of nonprofits. When that happened, I mean, the next day, we hosted an informal conversation with nonprofits. We had 480 nonprofits across my district on that call freaking out about their ability to deliver services, arts programs, food delivery to seniors, and all of that disruption has caused enormous harm to this day to these nonprofits that are trying to figure out how they actually survive.
And so the damage has already been done. Even when you put a federal freeze in place on these grants, you have nonprofits across this country having to rethink how they’re going to provide basic services to seniors, working people, art programs, programs in our schools. So that’s one example of the damage that’s happening. What he’s doing, for example, on the public education side, all of his threats around eliminating the Department of Education, I’ve been meeting with superintendents. As you probably know, in California and other states, the single largest provider of support for students with disabilities in the classroom is the Department of Education.
It’s literally how school districts are able to provide services, special programs for kids who have real additional needs in the class. You have teachers, parents, and school districts in crisis trying to figure out how they are going to move forward if somehow that assistance gets shifted to the states, and states choose to send that money to private schools. And so those are all real concerns that we’re hearing on the ground, and the list, of course, goes on and on. As it relates to folks in in Congress and here in the House, you are hearing stories, and you’re even hearing some from Republicans.
You are hearing Republicans also that are quietly concerned, but the cowardice level right now is what’s incredibly concerning. You don’t really have, I mean, within Donald Trump, the entire Republican Party is basically Donald Trump. He is MAGA. He is the Republican Party.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: He is the House members. And so there is no principled Republicans. There’s no principled House or Senate members that are willing to stand up and say, actually, no, this isn’t going to work, or this is illegal, or, please, god, do not have Elon Musk come and start slashing everything, and that’s the problem.
Chris Hayes: Okay. This is one of the central tensions and paradoxes of this time. If that were the case, if Donald Trump effectively has complete unilateral control of Congress, okay, of the House, let’s say. Let’s just talk about the House majority. That’s where you serve. The Senate’s different. Why not just pass all this stuff? Like, they passed the budget by one vote. They could afford to lose one vote. They did in Thomas Massie, who’s kind of a gadfly, though it’s sort of against everything. They managed to browbeat Victoria Spartz who said she was a no. Trump called at her and yelled at her according to reporting, and then she switched her vote.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s all true.
Chris Hayes: Okay. But if that’s the case, if he has such control, then just pass all this stuff. Pass a bill that that gets rid of USAID. Why are they going this route? My suspicion is they wouldn’t actually have the votes in the House, actually, which speaks to something a little complicating about this relationship and how much power he actually has.
Rep. Robert Garcia: No. I think a couple of things. I think one, I think it’s moving very fast even for them, right? I think a lot of them are stunned —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — by what Elon Musk as just kind of coming in and just slashing, creating all sorts of chaos in the agency. So for a lot of them, it’s moving a lot faster than they even expected as it relates to the cuts. Some members of the Congress want even more. It’s not enough what they’re doing. In some ways, their world view of government is even more bleak than Donald Trump’s. And so there are competing interests, and then you’ve got a whole bunch of moderates who just, of course, want to just get reelected, don’t want to even have to vote on these issues.
Chris Hayes: Right. This relieves them of the burden.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Of course. I mean, look, some Republicans in those kind of Biden-Harris districts, but more so, you’ve got a group of 15 to 20 House Republicans that are going to be in some type of fight in their seat. They have zero interest in voting for any of these cuts and they’ll quietly kind of say, oh, DOGE is doing a great job over here, but then maybe criticize quietly something that Elon Musk is doing to their constituents. You’re seeing what’s happening in these town halls. It’s very real. People are upset. I’m talking to Republicans back home who are really upset. And so, again, they’re being cowardly. None of them actually want to take any responsibility, so they’re just going to allow Donald Trump and Elon Musk to do whatever they want.
Chris Hayes: Then the question becomes the legislative agenda, and part of the reason I want to talk about this is it is a place where Democrats are going to have some power and some leverage. There’s two different tracks here. So the budget resolution sets up the reconciliation, which is the one big beautiful bill that’s going to have a bunch of stuff.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yes.
Chris Hayes: My strong sense, and maybe I’m wrong, is that that probably won’t get a single Democratic vote. I mean, it’s going to almost certainly have cuts to Medicaid. It’s going to have cuts to a bunch of stuff. It’s going to be pretty politically toxic. I think it’ll basically be a pretty easy no vote down the line for Democrats, but starting there, is that what you anticipate?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yes. I mean, I would be very surprised if that gets any sort of Democratic supporting. And let’s not forget, it’s not just all those cuts. It’s the giveaway. It’s the massive tax breaks and taxes that are going to go to Elon Musk and all the billionaires, right? And so it’s not just ripping away the health care. It’s a redistribution of people’s hard earned money. It’s all of these resources going to the large corporate. I think there’s a place for even kind of more centrist Democrats to say they’re not going to support these billionaire tax cuts and we’re surely not going to support cuts to Medicaid or cuts to other services that are important.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. And we saw that on the budget resolution, right? It didn’t get a single Democratic vote —
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: — which the party line knows.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: So that’s one track. There’s a question of whether they can hold all their members together to pass this thing, which is going to be an unpleasant vote for a lot of those frontline members. I don’t think it’s going to be popular, right?
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: And I guess the thing is that Trump’s just going to whip on them and they think they can do it. Is that basically the plan?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah. And I think often times, like, Mike Johnson kind of operates in this, like, let’s just do it and we’ll figure it out and Trump’s going to come save us at the end —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — which actually just happened, of course, in this kind of budget framework that just got passed.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. You jam people. You put them in a really high stress position. You say, we’re not going to wait and count the votes, we’re going to take the vote, and then you’re on the hook and everyone in MAGA world’s going to hate you, what all that entails, we should note.
Rep. Robert Garcia: A hundred percent. And look, I think Mike Johnson’s done this now multiple times where he’s kind of slammed through something that folks that didn’t have the votes or the Republicans objected to, they weren’t going to vote for it, and then he gets it in front of the caucus, it’s conference, and he gets it done. Trump’s on the phone calling. And now he has his secret weapon, which is Elon Musk. And I think we can’t underestimate the power that the world’s richest man has and the influence that he now has over the Republican Conference of House Republicans.
They worship the ground he walks on. They are scared and frightened of him. He is of absolutely will fund primary challenges for folks that do not support what Donald Trump wants and his vision. And so all of that is going to give Mike Johnson the ability to put something in front of his conference. Now he wants to remain the speaker, so, of course, he wants them to get reelected. But more importantly, he wants to make sure that Trump’s on his side. He wants to make sure that Elon Musk is on his side. And those two are going to make sure that those Republicans get in line. I’m convinced that he will do whatever it takes, and Elon Musk will do whatever it takes to get those Republicans to vote for that package.
Chris Hayes: The big bill?
Rep. Robert Garcia: The big, beautiful bill, right? And if it remains one big, beautiful bill, which I think it likely will.
Chris Hayes: So, you think they’ve got a shot at it?
Rep. Robert Garcia: I do because of Elon Musk. I think —
Chris Hayes: That’s really interesting.
Rep. Robert Garcia: I think that Elon Musk’s, the amount of money he has and the amount of money he’s shown he’s willing to put in front of and spend in elections is something we’ve never seen before in American politics.
Chris Hayes: Particularly if you’re talking about like, he dropped a quarter of a billion dollars in a presidential.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: If you’re talking about, like, a handful of holdouts, primary challenges, I mean, he could drop a million. I mean, it’s pennies to him. That would be like if you drop $10 million on the head of someone, we saw in the last cycle in democratic primaries with two groups, particularly the sort of APAC back group and the crypto book groups, both of which dropped huge amounts of money and got a lot of bang for their buck. Like, you can really, really have a lot of effect in a primary, in a district with money that is a pittance in the sense of what Elon Musk is worth.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah, and Chris, see what’s happened in these primaries where Trump makes an endorsement. I mean, most of the time, almost every time, the Trump candidate is going to win. Trump had made it his mission to get rid of anyone that voted to impeach him or not support him, and he’s pretty much accomplished that. And so, absolutely, that Elon Musk, that resource, and he’s only investing more money into these races. I think Elon Musk is going to be a big part of the strategy for Mike Johnson and for Donald Trump.
Chris Hayes: Now then there’s the government funding bill. So that’s a separate track, and this is where I think the Democrats have the most leverage, if I’m not mistaken. Now, I don’t want any leverage to say responsibility. Like, the Democrats really want everyone to know appropriately that it’s not their government. They’re in the minority. The Republicans can just pass whatever they want on a party line vote and keep the government open. They don’t need Democratic votes. But there is a strong sense they will need Democratic votes. Why is there that sense? Like, explain that someone is not tracking this as carefully as people that whose job it is, like, why is there a sense that they won’t be able to keep the government open with their own votes?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Look, I mean, it’s two things. I think the big concern kind of for Mike Johnson is making sure that his most extreme members also are on board. And he knows that he’s got a group of Freedom Caucus members of other folks that are always willing to gamble, to push harder, to seem tougher, where the budget has much reform as you’d like to see in it. And so I think he’s always concerned about that group of extremists. So that’s what Johnson’s thinking. And, of course, it’s a slim majority. One, two, three votes are going to make a huge difference. And so in that respects, he believes that he’s going to need some Democratic votes. I doubt. I think the moderates and all those folks on the Republican side, they’re all going to vote. He just wants to get the extremists on board, in my opinion.
Chris Hayes: Well, here’s where the Musk thing also becomes a little complicated. Because what we saw Musk do last time was blow up a deal on funding because he started tweeting out things he didn’t like. That blew the deal up. And, ultimately, his ask got met and not Trump’s. So this time around, it strikes me that, like, they’re going to be in a similar situation. Some random Twitter account is going to find something in the approp’s bill (ph) that they don’t like, that Musk is going to then blow up. So, it’s a different thing because Musk isn’t going to play the discipline enforcer if he’s also the one blowing it up. You see what I’m saying? Like, that seems part of the big question hanging over all this.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Correct. But, also we have to then go into this knowing that, I mean, Trump and in some respects, you know, Elon Musk, they operate in in chaos. I mean, they create chaos. That’s part of how they get things done is they create chaos.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: They create, you know, layered crisis on top of a crisis, and then they work through that and get their members on board when they need to do that. And I think Elon Musk is obviously a new factor. I think that he listens to kind of the worst corners of the Internet now, which I think is really scary considering he obviously controls one of the largest platforms in the world. But it’s something that I think is going to cause, I hope, going to cause them issues in the future, but honestly, up to this point, it hasn’t. They’ve been able to work through it, get what they want, unless the courts have pushed back on a few instances here with DOGE. They are steamrolling as a caucus. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and House Republicans right now are pretty united.
Chris Hayes: So you think they can pass a government. They’ll do it on party line votes?
Rep. Robert Garcia: I hope I hope to God that they don’t. Well, first of all, I’m not going to be supporting anything that they do. But I would not be surprised if Donald Trump and Elon Musk are able to get all their members in line. I mean, I just heard Chip Roy. I mean, Chip Roy, who’s supposed to be the defender and the true conservative of trying to keep the reform government, he’s out there now talking to Elon Musk and talking to Donald Trump about passing a CR. So I think that we are in a kind of upside down moment, and Mike Johnson always seems to find the votes because of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
Chris Hayes: That’s interesting. I mean, this is sort of a depressing conversation because what I’m hearing from you is, like, we have no power.
Rep. Robert Garcia: I’m not sure that that’s —
Chris Hayes: Is that self-serving? Are you saying that because you don’t want people to yell at you?
Rep. Robert Garcia: No. No. Because people should be yelling. I don’t think that’s true. I mean, look, I do think we have seen moments where we have been able to push forward, push back against Elon Musk, push back his own trip, and get some wins, right? Our attorneys general on the Democratic side are doing incredible work across this country. They are not getting enough credit for some of the cases that we’re winning in court. I think that some of the public push back on Republican members, Democratic members, whether it’s been on grants or some of the Elon Musk’s cuts, amplifying some of that that’s been happening.
We’ve actually had some wins and the administration has had to pushback on some of that. But as far as getting his caucus in line, I mean, so far, I think Mike Johnson has been able to do that. But we still have had some successes and we’ve got to continue to push as hard as we can. Look, I hope that we can derail things, but we don’t want the government to shut down. We don’t want people to be affected. But we also don’t want to rubber stamp a package that somehow tells the American people that we believe that what —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing is the right thing to do.
Chris Hayes: Well, there’s also a deeper problem, and this is the fundamental one which gets to this constitutional crisis we’re in. The Article I function of controlling appropriations and the power of the purse has been effectively taken by the Article II executive branch. There is no world in which Joe Biden is elected, and he on day one says, this is George Soros and he’s going to be shutting down ICE. No world. Everyone understands that’s not constitutional. Congress funds ICE. We just passed an appropriation. ICE exists as a matter of statute. George Soros can’t, I mean, I’m joking here. I don’t think George Soros necessarily want to shut down ICE. But point being, that’s just flagrantly unlawful, okay? You can’t work out an appropriations top line bill with the opposition if they retain the right to completely ignore the levels that you set in your approach, right?
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s right. But I think the difference in why Joe Biden couldn’t bring George Soros in like Donald Trump. What Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the Right has been able to do is to change a huge way that a chunk of the public gets their information.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: They have been able to turn that on its head. And so I think we’re —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — not operating. It’s not the same if Democrats were in charge because at the end of the day, Republicans have Fox News, which will essentially lie, say whatever they want to say, essentially tell untruths, lie to the American public, say that they’re a news channel and use it as a mouthpiece for the Trump administration for Elon Musk. They have control of social media platforms. They have the tech billionaires working on their side. They’re able now to essentially say, no, the sky is not blue, actually it’s red and people will actually believe them.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: So the tools that they have to actually then enact their agenda, at this moment, are incredibly powerful, and a political party has never wielded them in the way that Donald Trump is now able to wield. And I think that’s what’s different in in this moment, is it’s not the same because Donald Trump can say a lie and then make sure that everyone that follows him believes him.
Chris Hayes: But that was true before. You think the Musk factor is huge here.
Rep. Robert Garcia: I think the Musk factor is huge because Donald Trump now has been able to combine his echo chamber, his kind of dominance of the media, he of course is a master communicator in what he does, and able to take all of that, and now combine it with the type of money he wishes he always had, of course.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That level of wealth, and have someone who he essentially can command and direct to take out his enemies, go after people he doesn’t like, primary opponent. And Donald Trump, you know, a lot of people hope that they would kind of, at some point, have their falling out, I think. I think a lot of people have discussed that. I mean, I’m not convinced that’s going to happen anymore. I think that Donald Trump sees the value even though he may —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — not always like it in having essentially his lap dog be the richest man on the planet.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. It’s a useful division of labor too because —
Rep. Robert Garcia: Right.
Chris Hayes: — it’s not like he wants to do all that work.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s exactly right.
Chris Hayes: So, well, I mean, what I’m hearing from you is, like, they’re pretty loaded for bear. They’re pretty in alignment. They have a lot of tools and leverage and power. There’s not a lot Democrats can do. I think what you’re saying is precisely the thing people are reacting against, which is this sense of, like, impotence and doom. Like, why is no one stopping this? Why is no one doing anything? And if you think that the crisis is as bad as I think you think it is and I think I think it is, what new ways of engaging in politics should you be thinking about, right?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Like, yeah.
Chris Hayes: That’s really the question.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And are Democrats institutionally too risk averse, too full of A students and people with the right credentialed pedigrees at good schools and the people that like raise their hand in the front of the class, and no shade to them because I was one of them too —
Rep. Robert Garcia: I was one of them too.
Chris Hayes: — to do what’s necessary. Yeah, no kidding. To do what’s necessary what the moment calls for.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That is exactly the question. And I think, look, I know we spent a lot of this conversation in doom scenarios here and rightly so, I think this has been a moment we’ve had to reflect and be honest about where we’re at. But there is hope and I think what you’ve laid out is absolutely what’s next. And I think that we have to first understand what’s happening. I think we can’t peeper over the seriousness of the moment. I’ve heard from a lot of people, many Democrats, some top consultants, the party leaders, the whole thing. Oh, well, you know, this happens since there’s cycles, there’s up and down. This is not normal. This is not like other moments, I think, in in my opinion, and the opinion of a lot of other folks.
And so I think understanding the seriousness of the moment, how close we are to losing our country and our norms and our democracy is really important. And even though it’s a bummer and it’s heartbreaking and it’s maddening, it’s important for us to recognize that. As far as, like, what’s next, I think that our party has become too complacent, too respectable, unwilling to say, well, you know, they stoop to this level or they do this or they do that. We’re above that. Those days are over. We cannot think in those terms. We have to push through, you know, this attention economy that you’ve talked so much about and some of the other folks have talked about.
We have to make sure that we are fighting fire with fire, that we’re being more aggressive than they are, that we’re using pop culture entertainment to reach other voters, that we’re doubling down on working class issues, that we’re not just leaning into all of our degrees and what we learned at the university and our graduate degrees, that we’re actually talking to, bringing in, and listening to working class people. And working class people are fighters. The people that are on the ground that are living paycheck to paycheck, they’re actually fighting week to week to survive and to take care of their families. Those are the people that should be driving the ideas of our party. And this idea that we’re not going to uplift, newer, younger, more aggressive, hungrier voices, I think would be a huge mistake. I got to Congress, last year was my first term. I was president of my class, and in my class, you’ve got folks like Jasmine Crockett, you’ve got folks like Max Frost, people that I think right now are lending their voice to what people want to hear and kind of the future of the party. And so I think that’s the moment. We’ve got to be more aggressive. We’ve got to be more aggressive.
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Chris Hayes: More of our conversation after this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: What do you tell people to do? You talked about a meeting you had. Are you having town halls?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yes. So we do town halls all the time. I haven’t had a town hall in the last couple of weeks. We had a big telephone town hall, which we had 8,000 people on. I had a Spanish telephone town hall that had 11,000 people on. And we’re having some in person town halls here in the weeks ahead. So town halls are important, and everyone should be doing them, especially, Republicans who are now choosing not to. But beside those, by the way, whether it’s the telephone town halls where I’m shopping at the grocery store, not one single person has come up to me and said, oh, by the way, you should lay back a little bit or be bipartisan or you should find common ground. No one has mentioned that to me. Everyone says, fight harder or thank you for taking on Elon Musk or please keep calling out Donald Trump whenever you can. Continue to be more aggressive or be even more aggressive.
That’s what people are saying, and I know that that’s what people are hearing. My other colleagues, by the way, are all hearing the same thing. People want people want us to be aggressive and tough.
Chris Hayes: Okay. I’m just going to make the argument on the other side, not that I believe it, but just to present it because I think it’s got some substance to it, which is the argument on the other side is this is precisely the problem that the Democrats have been captured by the part of their electorate that are the kind of people that vote in special elections, the kind of people that consume a lot of news, the kind of people who are totally locked in. That’s the core democratic constituency. It’s a constituency that went overwhelmingly for Harris, but precisely the reason that Harris lost the election is people who are the most checked out went for Trump. And so if you allow yourself to listen to that most in tune group, you will be alienated from the marginal folks that you need the most. That’s the argument.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah. I don’t buy that. I mean, look, I think first, we have to always excite the base. I mean, the base is something that I think we oftentimes don’t do a good enough job exciting, by the way. The reliable Democratic voter. Obviously, we’ve got to do that. We’ve got to do that by being tough taking on Donald Trump and do and being good Democrats. All the folks that I believe we actually have to reach in the election, those voters are casual voters. We don’t do a good job of actually reaching them because they’re not watching, like me or you. They’re not watching MSNBC or CNN or the cable news all the time. They’re not reading the “New York Times.” What they’re doing though is they’re watching maybe their favorite YouTube show or pop culture or they’re invested in entertainment media, and those are the spaces where Republicans have learned to reach that casual voter.
We can win those casual voters, but we’re not going to win those casual voters by just doing politics as usual. I think we’re going to win them by trying to get their attention by being a little bigger, a little bit more in different types of spaces, and bringing those folks in and winning the argument. Now can we actually persuade them when we have their attention? I think that’s something that we’re going to find out. I’m hopeful that we can. I think we have the right people to do it.
Chris Hayes: I guess the thing I’m sort of working through is, like, okay. So we agree it’s not normal. We know that Democrats are sort of locked out of power. So here’s my take on where things are, which is that elected Democrats are just not that important to this moment. That’s my feeling. My feeling is that, like, for all the people that say, like, what are the Democrats doing, and I have Democrats on my show. I’m interviewing you right now. What matters is mass public opinion in civil society. That’s really what matters. And public opinion probably more than anything. A world in which Donald Trump’s approval rating is 30%, a world in which frontline members are like, really looking down the barrel is a better world for the outcomes it produces than the world we’re in now in which its approval rating is 45%. Like, I’m using these numbers, they’re just sort of rough estimates, but public committee matters. And the most important thing to do right now is to move public opinion against the person attempting an authoritarian end to the democratic project.
Rep. Robert Garcia: I mean, that is a hundred percent. And I also think that that’s where elected officials or people with some megaphone —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — have a responsibility to bring him down, right? So, look, there’s two ways we’re going to actually start winning. I think one is, the issues are going to actually impact Donald Trump, right? His approval rating is going to be impacted by what? When he makes these cuts to Medicaid and people actually feel it. When tariffs actually raise prices, people are going to feel that. When eggs don’t come down and when people are going to the grocery store, those things are going to impact Donald Trump’s approval and bring him down and certainly keep at a minimum, it’s not going to let him go above where he’s at right now, and you can see his numbers continue to go down.
What else is going to bring those numbers even lower? Is those folks that have, particularly those that have big megaphones, Hakeem Jeffries, Alexandria. Now, folks that are coming up like Jasmine, other people that can actually take the mic and amplify a message of bringing Trump down and bringing truth the way he’s actually doing. He’s cutting Medicaid. He’s after Social Security. They’re trying to cut programs in your in your public school. That will also impact Trump, and it’s going to be amplified not just by a few of us, but by all of us. And so, where the Democratic caucus comes in? I agree with you. First, it’s events that are happening on the ground, his policies will impact his members the most. But where we can actually have an impact is to every single day is talk about in as many spaces as we can —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — and not just traditional media, what the hell Donald Trump is doing and its impact to your family. That’s what we’ve got to do.
Chris Hayes: But converting yourself into messengers as opposed to legislators, because you’re not going to get to do much legislating, like, you just aren’t. He’s cutting you out. So, at some level, I think it’s pathetic and weird that Ted Cruz has a podcast because it’s like, you do have a job. You’re a senator of one of the largest states in the union. Personally, I think it’s a full time job. But their other side like, the amount of podcasts those dudes are running and the amount of press, like, they’re constantly on Twitter.
I just wrote a book about attention, obviously, and so I have thoughts about this. But it is the case that, like, I think a lot of Democratic lawmakers don’t want to be content creators. They want to be legislators. And I 100% respect that. I’m a self-loathing content creator, so I have nothing but admiration for people that don’t want to be content creators. But you’re effectively being locked out of legislating. So, like, that’s what you have now.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yes. Look, obviously, in order to actually legislate, we’re going to have to win elections. And in order to win these elections, we’re going to have to be in this new era, content creators and effective communicators. But there you are seeing a shift. I mean, look, the State of the Union, I think for the first time post State of the Union, there were probably 30 or 40 content creators, TikTokers, folks with large platforms, interviewing Democrats, getting their message out there, talking to workers that have been fired, and they were brought in by the Democratic communications arm that are in Congress now, have pretty large followings on social media.
I’m connected with more folks on through TikTok than any other platform, and I have a pretty decent following on my platforms. And I’m communicating all the time to people out there that may not be following what I’m doing in a committee hearing. Clearly, they’re not.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: But you put the committee hearing on TikTok or you put your interview with you on your show, whoever else on TikTok, and you’re getting millions of views. I mean, some videos on TikTok that we’re putting up, millions of views. And so there’s an opportunity, I think, for us, to lean into this idea that we have to also be now effective communicators, and it’s a hard shift for some, but there’s just no choice. It’s the future. And at this moment, the president of The United States is also one of the most effective communicators that we have ever had. Even though we might hate his style or think what he’s saying —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — is idiotic, he knows how to communicate.
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Chris Hayes: We’ll be right back after we take this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: Will you map out to me a vision of things going well? Like, what’s the road map of, like, if things go well, if we pull the nose of the plane up, what does that look like?
Rep. Robert Garcia: I think what things going well looks like, Democrats continuing to kind of find their footing to understand that we have to be aggressive in calling out Elon Musk and Donald Trump every single minute of the day, and that we’re doing that as a united caucus, that governors are doing that in their states, that we’re working with the groups on the ground in partnership, not thinking that they’re somehow against us or them organizing is somehow not good for us as a party. All of it is good, bringing attention to that and us moving forward.
Hopefully, then, what you start to see is Donald Trump’s actions impacting his numbers and or amplification of his actions impacting his numbers. The single best thing electorally that can happen here in the next couple years is that we win the House back. If we can actually win the House back, I mean, that’s a game changer for our ability to actually stop some of the absolute worst decisions that Mike Johnson is going to want to make in these next few years, that Donald Trump’s going to want to implement through budgets, through cuts. So winning the House is going to be critical, because winning the Senate, as you know, is going to be tough. But winning the House, we can actually get done.
And so, calling on Donald Trump with the groups on the ground, making sure that we’re amplifying, communicating effectively over the next year and a half, and then having great candidates to beat those Republicans and winning the House, to me, is a great road map in in the immediacy. Long term, we got a lot of challenges. How we communicate, what platforms, how we build an ecosystem, how we take on Elon Musk long term, dark money. I mean, people are asleep at the wheel. This this election could have been a transformative moment in the way the right actually wins elections and essentially has an unlimited bank account to do so. We haven’t taken that, I think, into full account as to what Elon Musk’s impact could be. Chris Hayes: Yeah. There’s no reason for the richest man in the world not spend $10 billion.
Rep. Robert Garcia: That’s exactly right. And particularly if the Republican Party is not going to be any sort of check on him. So those are all constraints.
Chris Hayes: Right. I mean, particularly when he’s got billions of dollars in federal contracts and is given the keys to the whole kingdom and can go in and basically swap Starlink in for a Verizon contract at FAA. Like, the ROI here is pretty good. But let’s talk about this election thing because I think a little bit of people’s frustration and, again, I’m not saying you’re wrong here. I’m just trying to identify this frustration because I almost feel it viscerally, which is like, we’re totally off the map. There’s this, basically, a kind of constitutional crime spree going on.
They’re shutting off money to ship peanut butter to starving children. They’re firing people willy-nilly. They’re going to take an axe to the VA. They’re going to take an axe to Social Security Administration. They’re going to do all this stuff, some of which is just bad policy, some of which is despicable and evil and will lead to dying, starving children, some of which is clearly unlawful. They’re going to do all this, and our job as Democrats is to try to get some good candidates and win some frontline seats. And I’m not saying you’re wrong.
Rep. Robert Garcia: No. That’s not it.
Chris Hayes: You understand why that sounds just sort of insane to people.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Well, of course, but it’s not just that. I think there’s two parts of it, though, Chris. I mean, yes, we have to win in 2026. We have to win to actually create a check and balance. But the second part, to actually have some sort of balance on Trump and Musk, but leading up to it, of course, we still have to stop as much of the bad things happening as possible. Our job right now, every bad thing that they put forward, we’re not going to be able to stop every horrific thing that they do to the world and to this country and to human beings. We’re not going to be able to do that. But we are going to be able to stop some of it or a lot of it.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Rep. Robert Garcia: And we’re going to be able to do that through the courts and then the public’s advocacy and pushing on the ground. So we can’t just, like, wave the white flag, actually.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: We got to fight really hard and then hopefully win elections to do a check and balance. Both of those things are important.
Chris Hayes: It also does strike me that, you know, I was talking to Philly the other night where the people that came out to that talk, they have a Republican member of the Senate. There are frontline members in California, in Southern California. There’s a there’s a bunch of them in Southern California, Republican frontline members. There’s frontline members in New York state. Like, again, it does seem to me that frontline Republican members feeling the disapproval of their constituents of these actions, at town halls, at protests, at phone calls, at letters, at people showing up at their constituent offices and exercising their democratic First Amendment rights to tell their elected leaders how they feel about them.
All of that seems pretty crucial, because even if Musk and them can steamroll it, they have to know that it’s unpopular (ph). Like, the town hall, all that stuff, the fact they’re closing the town halls is an indicator, but there are other ways to reach out to your member, whether calling the office or demonstrating outside their district office. Like, you’re an American citizen with First Amendment rights. You’re allowed to petition your representative. You should really use that particularly in those places like a Pennsylvania senator, a frontline seat like Mike Lawler in New York, right? That does matter still.
Rep. Robert Garcia: It absolutely matters. I mean, people do react and want to be a representative of the constituents back home. And for those that are frontline members that are in close elections, they want to get reelected. Their majority, their legislative priorities are all on the line. And so recruiting excellent candidates and ensuring that we win in 2026 is actually going to be really important, right? It is going to be really important. We cannot afford to lose the next election. We cannot afford to have Republicans completely in control. That doesn’t stop us from doing the work leading up to it, but it’s going to be critical. But you had mentioned the town halls.
Look, a lot of us actually, the group of us Californians especially, we’re going to start hosting town halls in Republican districts and open it up to whoever wants to come to call attention to the issues that people have, their Medicaid cuts, the tax on Medicare, Social Security. Those things are happening to Democrats and Republicans, and independent voters, and there’s got to be forums to kind of have and harness that anger. And so we’re going to be hosting town halls. We encourage folks to be calling their members. Those things all actually matter at the end of the day.
Chris Hayes: One question is whether this alternate reality machine they’ve built untethers their political fortunes from what happens in the country or the degree to which, which it does. How much do you think it matters whether, like, the tariffs kick off a trade war that send the economy into a nosedive? My instinct is that stuff still matters, but I’m curious what you think.
Rep. Robert Garcia: You know, I think that it does matter, but I do worry that there’s enough people saying that it doesn’t matter or that, no, the price of eggs aren’t up, even though they are, and if there’s enough people that will buy into that and believe that, even against their own self-interest, that in these kind of races that are won at the margins and these elections that are oftentimes close, that though that does make a difference, I think that it’s hard now to measure the impact that mass misinformation is actually having on voters and the public. And that I think is my big concern and what I try to ring the alarm bell here in to Democrats and in our caucus and the DNC and other folks, anyone that’ll listen, is I just don’t think a lot of folks around you will say, well, when we’re in the minority and when there’s the president of the opposing party, we’re going to win because that’s always what happens. I just don’t know that we can operate on the that’s just what happens —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — attitude anymore because —
Chris Hayes: No.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — we don’t have the same information environment. And you have so many people that are going to believe lies.
Chris Hayes: Also, he’s weaponizing the federal government. I mean, like, what happens when the U.S. Attorney’s Office announces a corruption investigation of every Democratic candidate in the top 10 frontline districts.
Rep. Robert Garcia: A 100%. Yeah, that’s exactly right. No. That’s exactly right.
Chris Hayes: I mean, I don’t want to be doomerist here, but, like, you got to understand that, like, they’re going to do, and again, I think there’s a way to react to that, which is just call it out for what it is, but like, people have to understand that what was formerly unthinkable is now thinkable.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yes. I mean, look, Chris, you know that I received that crazy letter from the D.C. U.S. attorney because I made a metaphor about Elon Musk, and essentially threatening to investigate me for literally using a metaphor about a bar fight —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — but it was a real —
Chris Hayes: This is an old metaphor. People have used a ton of it. It’s in from “The Untouchables.” Barack Obama used it, and they use it all the time. If they —
Rep. Robert Garcia: It’s crazy.
Chris Hayes: — they pull a knife, you pull a gun. It’s an obvious metaphor. It’s not an actual incitement of violence. You used it about Elon Musk.
Rep. Robert Garcia: I used it on Elon Musk. And within days, I get a real letter from the U.S. attorney saying that he’s going to open an investigation and wants me to respond or come and see him in person. Look, when I got that, I’m like, this is real. This is a threat, but he also has the powers of any U.S. attorney even though this is someone that —
Chris Hayes: He’s enacting.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah. That he’s enacting and I know the kind of person he is. He defended January 6 insurrectionists. He was part of “Stop the Steal.” But this person are the types of people that Donald Trump empowers and appoints and puts in office. And so that is, I think, part of this new world that we are in. It’s mass misinformation. It’s weaponizing the Department of Justice. It’s doing God knows what they are doing. It’s accessing our private information. Does anyone think that their tax information is somehow now private or that they’re not looking into —
Chris Hayes: No.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — tax information from people in the media or in Congress or governors that they might hate or dislike? We are entering —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — a very dangerous time and I hope people are taking it seriously.
Chris Hayes: Let me tell you just to give some context. Ed Martin is the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He represented the Jan. 6 folks. He is a zealous right-wing activist who’s been named to this position. He was actually on both sides of a Jan. 6 case in which he filed to dismiss it while he was still defending the person, obviously unethical. He has ordered criminal investigations into nonprofits receiving climate funding that have caused multiple U.S. Attorneys to resign underneath him. He was even rejected by a magistrate judge when he tried to get a warrant. He has threatened the use of prosecution online and in other places against members of Congress, including Senator Schumer for things they have said. He is sort of the worst version of what you imagine a Donald Trump U.S. attorney is, and he’s acting. He’s not Senate confirmed, just to be clear. So what are you going to do about the letter?
Rep. Robert Garcia: Yeah. And you forgot the worst one where he just recently called himself Donald Trump’s attorney. He views himself as —
Chris Hayes: Yes. Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — Donald Trump’s attorney. Look, what we’re going to do is continue doing. I mean, we didn’t formally respond to that letter.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: It’s not worth a formal response.
Chris Hayes: No.
Rep. Robert Garcia: And we’re going to continue to speak out and call out Elon Musk, and I will continue to use metaphors in my life and in the halls of Congress. I think the best response is to continue to speak out and continue to do what they’re trying to stop us from doing. That letter was meant to intimidate, not just me —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — but it was meant to intimidate other members of Congress from speaking out. And I think that would be a huge mistake. We have to put ourselves. This is going to be also a dangerous time. I’ve been telling my colleagues in Congress, I think if we, personally, as members of Congress, aren’t at this moment willing to put ourselves also in some level, oftentimes —
Chris Hayes: Could danger.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — of danger.
Chris Hayes: Yes. You have to, yes.
Rep. Robert Garcia: I think this is not the right job for you at this moment. I don’t —
Chris Hayes: Correct.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — this is not the right job for you at this moment.
Chris Hayes: No. Absolutely correct. People have to take risks, and they have to understand that. And I totally agree with you.
Let me ask you, final question here for you. One of the things I like about my job is that I have an incredibly concrete and transparent work product every day. So, like, I’m never in a meeting where someone’s like, well, what did you do yesterday? The five things you did last week, e-mail, like, I make a show. We put it on air. You like it, you don’t like it, but that’s what I did today.
I also have a sense of when I feel good going to bed. Like, well, we gave it our best today or we did good work today. What is your version when you go to bed at night about, like, in this weird position you’re in in which you don’t have the majority, you’re in the minority against this sort of behemoth, this kind of lawless project, what feels to you like a good day doing your job at the end of the day?
Rep. Robert Garcia: I mean, look, the two things that bring me, I think, the most satisfaction or joy in the job, one is helping real people, and we help real people every single day. There’s people that call our office that may have missed the Social Security payment, or people that are owed money from the IRS —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — or someone who just needs one final additional level of support to get their application for temporary residency in the country. We help real people every single day navigate the federal process. That brings you —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Rep. Robert Garcia: — an incredible sense of purpose and joy. That is our job. And so I think that is important. And the second thing is I view this moment as there’s a real threat to our country in our ways of life in the world, and there are real bad guys that are trying to cause massive harm to people. It’s Donald Trump, it’s Elon Musk, it’s Nancy Mace, it’s Mike Johnson, it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, it’s all these people that we hear about everyday doing horrible things.
I go to bed at night feeling good when I feel like I’ve taken on one of those bad guys that day. If I feel like I’ve taken on one of these guys or ladies that day, either called them out, embarrassed them for something they said that was a lie, got someone to agree that what they did was wrong, work to support a court case that’s moving through the courts, it pushes back on something Elon Musk is doing. Whatever it is that is happening that is happening, that is doing something to get some attention on how terrible these people are and what they’re trying to do, I go to bed feeling good at night, even knowing that you might be putting yourself in kind of harm’s way of God knows what.
You figure you got the richest man on the planet now, the most powerful man on the planet in Donald Trump, these are some big enemies of us as a country, and we’ve got to take it very seriously.
Chris Hayes: Representative Robert Garcia is a member of Congress for California’s 42nd Congressional District. He’s the former mayor of Long Beach, California. Great to have you, Congressman. Thank you very much.
Rep. Robert Garcia: Thank you, Chris.
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Chris Hayes: Once again, great thanks to Congressman Robert Garcia of Long Beach, California, the 42nd District. We’d love to hear your thoughts about what’s going on, what you want to see Democratic politicians doing, whether you think Democratic politicians are interesting or important in this moment. So, let us know. Email withpod@gmail.com. You can get in touch with us using the hashtag #withpod. You can follow us on TikTok by searching for #withpod. You can follow me on Threads, Bluesky, what was formerly known as Twitter, with the handle @chrislhayes.
Be sure to hear new episodes every Tuesday. Also, check out the latest MSNBC premium bonus episode of “The Blueprint” with Jen Psaki. She sits down with the newly minted DNC chair Ken Martin about what he thinks the Democratic Party needs to do in this moment. “Why Is This Happening” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News. Produced by Doni Holloway and Brendan O’Melia. Engineered by Bob Mallory and featuring music by Eddie Cooper. Aisha Turner is the executive producer of MSNBC Audio. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to mbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.