Katie’s One-on-One with Senator Chris Murphy

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[00:00:00]They kind of know how irresponsible and reckless Trump is, but they think the number one goal is to eliminate the left from any chance to ever run the country.

[00:00:10]Why? Because we stand for multiculturalism. We stand for feminism and equal rights and to a big slice of his base. Um, they want this nation to be defined as a white Christian patriarchal nation. And any political movement that is trying to destroy America or trying to identify America as something other than simply white Christian and patriarchal um needs to be fully eliminated from the political ecosystem. And so that I think is why you know part of his base remains so sticky.

[00:00:49]>> Um great to see you all. Thank you so much for coming. and I'm really excited about this conversation. So, without further ado, great to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:59]>> This is so exciting.

[00:01:00]>> It's fun, right? In a beautiful space, I might add. Um, so, you know, we were laughing earlier when we were getting ready to come on stage about these sort of broad sweeping questions and Chris was bitching about somebody asking him a very generic broad question. I was like, that's my first question.

[00:01:20]So, we're off to a really good start, but um I'm still going to ask it because I think it'll frame our conversation in many ways. You know, this is called Crisis of the Common Good. So, I did want to ask you to give us your definition of the common good.

[00:01:37]>> Well, first of all, Katie, it's just amazing to be here with you. Sincerely, I can't think of any better way to kick off this book than in conversation with you. you have been just a hero at a moment when we need heroes to stand up and help protect our democracy and the moral core of the nation. You have been doing that. So, um, thank you again for everything that you have done for being here tonight. Uh, to McN Jackson, thanks for what you have built here and for sponsoring this. To my publisher, just been a joy. Um, yeah, what is the common good, right? Um, it's the idea that each one of us is healthier and happier if we live in a community that is also healthy and happy in a country that has been taught over centuries, but particularly over the last few decades that all that really matters is your individual health, maybe just your individual material health. In fact, what makes us happier and more fulfilled is when we're doing well, but our community is doing well, too. And we increasingly live in both an economy and a culture that is selfish, that involves a kind of rapacious me first individualism that in the end, I think, leaves all of us feeling kind of empty and a drift. And so this book is about kind of how we got to a point where we feel more disconnected from our community than ever before. Why we're lonelier than we've been in a long time. What's gone wrong in our economy and our culture, but then what we do to put it back together and that it's not just about an election beating Donald Trump, and we'll talk about Donald Trump. It's also about repairing um a culture and economy that has driven us into lives of isolation that has convinced us to care only about ourselves and not about others. I think we can do both at the same time. We can um do what we need to do electorally in this election and the election two years from now while also rebuilding an economy and a culture that cares about all of us in which we care about our neighbors more than we do today. You begin the book uh Senator with a story about your son Ryder's youth hockey league and how much youth sports have changed uh in recent years. Certainly from when you were growing up, certainly from when I was growing up. Can you describe what used to be a local community-based system uh run by a private equity company called Black Bear Sports Group? Can can you explain sort of why you chose to begin the book like that and and why the situation with your son Ryder and his his sports life is so emblematic of something that is bigger happening on a societal level.

[00:04:20]>> Yeah. The opening line of this book is, you know, something like my son is not going to play in the NHL. And an earlier interviewer today said, "Well, it's really bold for you to open the book trashing your 14-year-old son." Um, but the fact of the matter is he's he's not and and that's his decision. He wants to lead a more full life as a teenager. But what has happened in youth sports, I think, is emblematic about what is happening in our society at large. And that is everything that is not nailed down is becoming a commodity is is being sold back to us. Here's the the worst example of it. And this is the first story in the book. Um Ryder plays in, you know, one of these travel hockey leagues. He plays 60 games a year because that's just what you do now.

[00:05:16]He if you are a parent at one of his games, you are banned from using your phone to live stream the hockey games so that their grandparents can watch.

[00:05:27]You're banned if you do that. The team will lose points in the standings. Why?

[00:05:32]Why do they play 60 games? Why are parents banned from live streaming the games? because his league is owned by a private equitybacked investment firm and they make money by driving these kids to more tournaments, more games. They have a streaming service that they've installed in all of their rinks and so they sell that streaming service to the parents. They make you pay $25 to $50 to watch your child play his youth sport.

[00:06:00]And I think that's an example of what is happening all around the country that everything is becoming something we sell. Everything is becoming commoditized. And there just should be some things in our world like youth sports that are just run for the benefit of the kids, for the benefit of families rather than because somebody somewhere far off can make money off of it. That's one of the things I think that is making us feel a drift as a nation, the commodification of everything.

[00:06:33]>> And and you you in fact identify six different cults uh that you think are sort of responsible for where we are today. Can you quickly kind of tick off those cults and what you mean by each one?

[00:06:49]>> Sure.

[00:06:51]Yeah. I mean, let me back up for for a second, which is to say, you know, this book, as I said, is is Trump's in the book, but he's um as I describe, Trump is a symptom, not the cause of everything that feels wrong with the country. And and so I wrote this book because I think all of us have been feeling that, right? As much as we want him gone, we know that's not enough.

[00:07:15]That we've got to rebuild the social fabric that's been torn down in this country. And so I started to think about how to explain what's gone wrong. A cult is a false set of beliefs that benefits one person or a handful of people at the top of the cult. And I started thinking about all the things that don't feel right about my life and my community's life. And they all started sounding a little bit like cults. I maybe can't go through every single one of them, but here's but the cult of profit, right?

[00:07:47]The idea that we measure a company, whether it's a good company or a bad company, simply by whether it makes a profit, not by how it treats its workers, not by whether it makes for a healthy community in the community that that it sits. That's a choice. We could decide to judge our economy by something other than just how much profit they make. But we've been led to believe that that's what makes a good or bad company.

[00:08:16]That's a cult. That's a that's a false construct. We could choose differently.

[00:08:20]I'll just pick one other. The cult of consumption. The idea that we've been told that to be a good American is really just to be a good consumer. That your duty as an American is to just sort of purchase things, the things, a new upgrade to your iPhone, um the clothing that you see on Instagram. And that if you do that, you're a good citizen and you'll feel happier. And yeah, there's a burst of endorphins that comes with buying something, but real happiness actually comes from joining together with your neighbors to make your community better. Real friend, real happiness comes from companionship and communion. But the cult of consumption serves those people who are selling you the stuff, the people who are making money off of convincing you that buying things makes you happy or buying things makes you a good American. And so just over and over again it seemed to me that we were being fed ideas that were false idols but that somebody benefited from and that's how the book is structured.

[00:09:20]>> Yeah. And I'll just mention uh mention them. You say uh a cult of sorry a cult of profit that punishes workers, a cult of globalism that weakens communities. A cult of technology that turns us against one another and poisons our young. A cult of consumption that undermines citizenship. which you mentioned a cult of credential credentialism.

[00:09:43]Credentialism did >> credentialism. Yeah.

[00:09:45]>> Thank you. That devalues those without college degrees and a cult of corruption that threatens democracy. and we're going to kind of dig into to some of these um in in this conversation and and one is I'm not sure what this falls under, but you you talk very movingly about growing up in Connecticut and you talk about these service clubs and you know I I'm older than you are, but I still a lot of the your writing about what life was like as a kid really resonated with me because it was so similar. Um, but you talk about the Kowanas and the Lions Club and and the role model they serve in setting community standards and sort of the role they serve in a community just writ large. And um, you point out that they weren't perfect. They were mostly white men until very recently, but you do talk about the role they played. And I've done a lot of interviews about loneliness. Bevc Murthy, the former uh US uh the former surgeon general wrote a whole book on this, but but talk about sort of what life was like for you growing up in a relatively small town in Connecticut and because it's in such sharp contrast to what it looks like today.

[00:11:04]>> Yeah. You know, I I talk about this book a lot about, you know, where happiness comes from. Um and actually I think as we celebrate 250 years we should remember that our founding fathers charged government with thinking about happiness. Right? The Declaration of Independence says government is supposed to guarantee you the right to pursue happiness. I say okay so where does happiness come from? It comes from having a sense of purpose when you wake up every day having a sense of meaning.

[00:11:32]What is my place in life? But also having um a rootedness having an identity. And one of the things that has happened in our world is that positive sources of identity are drying up. So people are grasping for less positive sources of identity. One of those less positive sources of identity is a political identity.

[00:11:54]>> And so our politics have become so fraught because more and more people define themselves first, second, and third as a Democrat versus a Republican.

[00:12:04]>> Local identity, right? Feeling connected to your hometown, feeling a pride in the place that you live. That's always been a real positive source of identity. But we're losing it as we wake up every day and shop at the same online retailers.

[00:12:22]We go to downtowns that are riddled with vacancies. Local journalism has disappeared. So, we can't even learn anything about the people that we live next to. And so I talk about the place that I grew up, Weathersfield, Connecticut, where, you know, all the stores that my family shopped at were owned by people who lived in our town. I ran home after school every day to read the Weathersfield Post to see whether my friends were mentioned in the sports section for their athletic exploits during the week. I felt like I belonged to a unique and healthy place, and I was really proud of that. less people have access to that today because we all shop at the same places. Our culture has become flat and downtowns are empty. And so I make this argument to confront this idea that we should all just be happy as global citizens. No, we should build healthy, independent, unique local places with local identities. That's a way for us to once again attach to a positive sense of self rather than some of these more dangerous ones that we've replaced that with.

[00:13:27]>> But what were the economic conditions that led to the demise of sort of these local gyms and and and had them replaced by something you call the cult of everywhere. You write one by one, the places that made Weathersfield feel like Weathersfield have disappeared, replaced by the same stores you'd find in any town in America or nowhere at all if you're ordering from your couch. So, so what happened?

[00:13:53]>> Yeah, I mean, a lot of things happened all at once. Um the first thing that happened is the transformation of our economy from a time in which we did prioritize local ownership and our the rules of our economy and government did a lot of this shifted over the years to promote the consolidation of retail the consolidation of industry so that it just became untenable for these independent operators to exist. The second thing that happened was we stopped caring about the size. We used to break up big companies when they got too big and the government stopped doing that. The technology obviously played a role here as you were able to more easily get goods online and then our decision to sort of enter into a global economy so that the industries that defined towns in Connecticut, New Britain's the hardware city, um Waterberry's the brass city, all of those industries that defined places got moved overseas. But those are all choices to stop breaking up big companies, to set tax rules that encouraged you to get bigger and bigger, to outsource those jobs. We decided to hollow out communities and now we're living with the consequences.

[00:15:12]>> So, can you go home again? To paraphrase Thomas Wolf, I mean, can you turn the clock back? How do you how do you bring back some of the things that you clearly are so nostalgic for and that you think provides the glue of uh an American community? Yeah, I don't think we're going all the way back and nostalgia is always dangerous. Um because they're they're as you mentioned, there's a lot to love in those service clubs, but they were dominated by white men. They did serve to protect the patriarchy. So, we want to be careful about fake gauzy nostalgia for a past era. But let me just give you an easy example. Um what what's maybe one of the most important interactions you have in your life? It's your interaction with your local hospital, right? When you show up at that hospital, you are at your most vulnerable point, rushing a child to the emergency room, bringing your parent who's nearing the end of life. Um, why don't we just make a choice that hospitals are all locally owned, right?

[00:16:13]That that hospitals shouldn't be owned by some private equitybacked corporate behemoth. That the people who run that place, live in your community, are accountable to you. that would I think make the service better. It would make the product better um because the people who own it couldn't hide from the people that were being served. Um but it would also make people feel more connected to that place that's so vital to them.

[00:16:38]There would be a spiritual connection that would be restored. So there is an ability to do that. We could just make the decision, for instance, that hospitals can't be owned by big multi-state conglomerates, that they have to be owned by not for-profit boards represented by the community. That's just one example of something that's not out of our control.

[00:16:58]>> What's keeping you from doing that?

[00:17:00]>> Well, I mean, here we get to the last chapter of the book, the cult of corruption. I mean, the reality is that our politics is rigged. Our politics is rigged in favor of the people who are rolling up those hospitals in order to make billions of dollars. And if you don't fix our politics and get the influence of corporations and big money out, then you really don't have any shot uh to restore local ownership to hospitals or any other economic entity you care about. So the book ends up talking about this cult of corruption, but really you have to start there. fix the politics and then it's a lot easier to fix the economy and create a common good capitalism.

[00:17:44]>> You um write almost cinematically something taking shape just two hours south of Weathersfield. You write, "Rising out of the drizzle and fog that cloaked Manhattan on Valentine's Day 1983, stood the city's newest skyscraper, Trump Tower, the brainchild of Donald J. Trump, 36, the fourth child of the real estate developer Fred Trump and his wife Maryanne. You note that almost overnight Trump became a culture fixture embodying a growing national ethos organized around a different value than the selflessness that has inspired millions to join service clubs, greed.

[00:18:21]And you mentioned already, uh, Senator, that that Trump was a symptom, not the cause of this massive cultural shift, but he certainly exploited it fully, didn't he?

[00:18:33]>> Yeah. What's what's so interesting is that Trump becomes the early avatar for the shift in culture. Um, again, I argue in the book, while we've never been perfect, um, in the middle of the last century, we did have a greater emphasis on shared prosperity around a kind of social contract in our economy. And then because of a lot of the economic changes that I just mentioned, during the 80s, the whole economy starts to shift and we start to lionize greed.

[00:19:04]>> You you quote Gordon Gecko in your book, >> greed is good, right? Greed is good.

[00:19:08]We're watching Ra Wall Street and Risky Business and Secret of My Success, right? All these movies that start to tell you that your role in societies to just grab as much as you can. And Trump becomes, as I said, the kind of avatar for that shift that's happening in our culture and our economy away from let's make sure everybody has a bit of this pie to the guys at the top get everything and the rest of us just get scraps. And then 30 years later after the the the rot starts to seep in because everybody is simply left with scraps, Trump, the guy who is the symbol for that shift, ultimately exploits it, finds a way to prey upon the way that people are feeling empty and a drift and lonely as he builds his political movement. I mean, endless columns have been written about this, but but why do you think he's been so effective at galvanizing a certain segment of the population and holding tight to them even even now the the vast majority of Republicans say they still support him?

[00:20:20]So listen, I as someone who wakes up every day fighting this guy, right, and who is doing everything I can to get rid of him, I I do think you have to understand how he tapped into the nation's zeitgeist. And let me give you an example. One of the ways in which people um feel today is powerless, right? They feel they feel like they are not in control of their lives, that they're putting in more and more and getting so little out. They also feel like their government is impotent in the face of social media, AI, migration, outsourcing, drug flows. They just feel like their government can't handle anything. Well, along comes Trump and he talks in terms of control, right? I'm going to control our border with a wall.

[00:21:09]I'm going to stop the outsourcing with tariffs, right? He's talking a narrative of power. I'm going to make this country more powerful. Um, that's going to make you more powerful. And I think we just have to acknowledge that he and many times better than the left and the Democratic party understands the way that people are feeling. Now, his policies are racist and xenophobic and reckless and they don't end up ever working, but he is speaking a language that is very familiar to people. you are out of control of your life and the things I'm going to do are going to reassert our power over these big multinational forces.

[00:21:50]>> Well, we'll talk about him more in a moment, but something I didn't know about you is that every year you walk across the state of Connecticut what you call your annual public opinion bath, which I have to say sounds very unpleasant to me. It's a way it's it's a way to hear directly from people who don't follow politics and would never call their senator, but have a lot to say about how policies are affecting their daily lives. And in the book, you write about one man in particular named Izzy, who you met while making your way through the town of Willamantic. Is that right?

[00:22:23]>> You got it.

[00:22:24]>> In 2024, um, tell me why you told Izzy's story and what it seems to symbolize.

[00:22:31]>> Yeah, I've been doing this walk for 10 years. I take a week normally over the summer and I um walk from one side of the state to the other. Um when I started out I was doing it east west which is about 110 miles and then I had during the pandemic two screws put in my knee and now I cheat and go north south which is only 60 miles. Um but uh yeah I meet the most amazing and wonderful people. So I I told Izzy's story. Sorry.

[00:22:59]I met him a couple of years ago in Will and Manic because um Izzy to me is a perfect encapsulation of what our economy has become. Izzy has led a hard life. His wife died at an early age. He moved to Connecticut to be closer to family from New York. He worked his most of his entire adult life in Connecticut at Walmart. And he he >> well and and also he had to put his career on hold because she got sick and he ended up being her caregiver. And so he couldn't really focus on building his career.

[00:23:29]>> Couldn't build his career. And so he finally gets back on his feet when he's in Connecticut. And he goes to work for Walmart. And he's proud to work for Walmart. He's good at his job. He's working full-time. He's greeting customers when they come in. He knows that store by heart. Um but he's making barely above minimum wage. He's not able to save a dime for retirement. And so when he finally leaves Walmart, he has nothing saved. He only has his social security check. And he finds that the only way that he can afford to keep a roof over her head, his head, is to put out an ad to find roommates. And he ends up living in a tiny little apartment with two men he doesn't know. and he just wakes up every day feeling like his life doesn't have dignity, feeling that like he played by the rules. He did everything that was asked of him and he is left living a life of poverty in retirement. And you know that's because that's Walmart's intention. Walmart pays its workers nothing. It doesn't allow them to join unions. It has really no retirement plan. And there are just millions of Izzies out there who think I did everything you asked me to do and I'm left with nothing while this cadre of economic elites jets around the world with trillions of dollars in their pocket. How can that be fair? How is that this country? And and so that's um that's the answer that we have to have for the folks that do play by the rules, for the folks that do put in that work day after day. How do we construct an economy that leaves them feeling like there is still dignity in their life whether they are working or retired?

[00:25:22]That's the kind of economy I think we used to have. Um but it's gone and it's not too late to rebuild it. And I think it's interesting you make the case that this tension uh between corporate power and and the effect it has on American life is one of the rare issues where there's actually growing alignment between Democrats and Republicans which shouldn't be that surprising because you had a lot of people supporting Bernie Sanders who and Donald Trump in you know previous elections but but talk about this idea of both progressives and conservatives glomming on to what just seems seems like a system that is unfair and a and this massive in income inequality which is at the root of so many of our problems.

[00:26:08]>> Yes. So throughout this book as I'm talking about solutions I point out how many of them if you're talking about how to create a common good capitalism and a common good democracy. Um how many of them have support on both the right and the left? Um, listen, I'm going to continue to fight like hell on guns and on climate and on civil rights. Those are issues that for the time being are kind of suspended in political gelatin.

[00:26:35]It's just a sort of doggy dog fight between right and left. But if you talk about support for labor unions, there's actually a lot of support on the right for labor unions today. If you talk about breaking up concentrated corporate power, there's a whole bunch of Trump's base that voted for him because they thought that he was going to go after the corporations. If you talk about getting big money out of politics, um, state constitutional amendments to for public financing poll really well on the right and the left. So I do think there is a realignment of foot in this country where there are a whole bunch of people who may not believe what I believe on social and cultural issues but do believe that the economy is rigged and do think that government should play a bigger role to try to even out the rough edges of the economy who believe that we should get this corporate influence out of politics. And so I make the argument over and over again that we might be a little bit more united as a nation when it comes to rebuilding this sense of common good than we think and we should seek a little bit harder to find that common ground. President Trump recently uh drew attention when he said he doesn't quote think about Americans financial situation and that rising gas prices are peanuts even as polls show his approval rating on the economy slipping uh precipitously. What goes through your mind when you hear him making a comment like that? Um, and and are you surprised that he is so profoundly disconnected from the troubles many Americans are are facing right now?

[00:28:12]>> Yeah, I mean, I was sort of surprised that it was news that Donald Trump doesn't think about regular Americans.

[00:28:17]Um, I thought that was pretty apparent by by now as he spent almost every single waking hour pouring over plans for this ballroom. Um, and thinking about none of us. Um yeah, I listen I think he is being exposed right now. Um I think many members of his base are seeing him for his true self. Somebody that only cares about enriching himself, his family and his cronies. The ballroom has become kind of the clearest symbol of that. This $ 1.8 billion slush fund will sit side by side with that ballroom for many Americans. Um, and again, I think this is our opportunity to go into his base and say, "Listen, this guy, you're seeing him. He He does not care about you. All he cares about is himself. I want you to take a second look at our movement, which actually has solutions to break up concentrated corporate power to raise your wages. I think this is an opportunity for us to um build our coalition, which will help us build elections, which will help us permanently eliminate his movement from positions of power.

[00:29:26]>> I'll get to your party in a moment, but let me ask you about Trump's Trump's grip on on the GOP. It it's remarkably strong, as you know. We saw in this recent midterm primaries and the latest New York Times Sienna poll uh that found that a majority of Republicans and Republican leaning independents want the next Republican nominee to follow Trump's lead on most issues. So what does that tell you about, you know, you said that it's interesting we just talked about how Republicans are receptive to some of the same thing Democrats are, but but how do you explain that? Yeah, I I think there's there's a bunch of explanations for it.

[00:30:04]Um, you know, one is just the closed ecosystem of our information today.

[00:30:09]There are lots of Trump voters who actually don't know much about the fact that he's stealing 1.8 billion. They um don't know that >> not if they watch Fox News.

[00:30:19]>> Yeah. Right. Not if they watch Fox News, but frankly, there's other sources that are even further rigged than Fox News.

[00:30:25]More in the tank for Trump. So, I think part of it is that there's a big element of his base who just isn't hearing the real story. Um, but I think it's also um due to the fact that um on the right there is a feeling that the left is kind of an existential threat to the country and it should be defeated at any cost.

[00:30:50]They kind of know how irresponsible and reckless Trump is, but they think the number one goal is to eliminate the left from any chance to ever run the country.

[00:31:01]Why? Because we stand for multiculturalism. We stand for feminism and equal rights and to a big slice of his base. Um, they want this nation to be defined as a white Christian patriarchal nation. And any political movement that is trying to destroy America or trying to identify America as something other than simply white, Christian, and patriarchal um needs to be fully eliminated from the political ecosystem. And so that I think is why, you know, part of his base remains so sticky.

[00:31:34]>> There's there's trouble for the Democrats though, as you know, uh just 36% of voters have a favorable view of the Democratic party. While while 55% have an unfavorable one, last week the post-mortem on the 2024 election was finally released and it really didn't deal with many of the core reasons why Kla Harris performed so poorly. That's leaving a lot of people wondering when the Democrats are going to actually get their together.

[00:32:09]>> Yeah.

[00:32:11]Yeah. I mean, this this is this is not a book of political analysis, but I'm I'm not easy on Democrats in this book because um I think we got to ask some hard questions about how this country elected Donald Trump the second time knowing exactly who he was. Um and I my prescription for the party is this a our ideas are not big enough. they're just not big enough. The problems that people are facing are enormous today.

[00:32:46]And and so I'll give you an example. Um we should be for as a party a constitutional amendment to ban billionaire corporate and anonymous money from our politics. Right? That's what we should be for as a party.

[00:33:04]A minimum wage increase to $17 is not enough. Right? People need a $25 minimum wage at least to live in this country.

[00:33:12]And we should tell people that we are going to be for a wage that allows you to work 40 hours a week and actually have leisure time. We should not just be for a level playing field in the workplace. We should tilt the playing field towards labor unions because a lot of things get solved when you have access to a labor union. You have common purpose. You get access to better wages, better bargaining rights. You find community. Um, I just think our solutions have to be bigger. And then second, um, in politics, it's all about narrative. And Democrats haven't had a real good narrative for a while. Trump tells you who he thinks is screwing you, and his story is wrong, right? He tells you that it's immigrants or Muslims or gay children. But somebody out there is screwing you. It's corporations and billionaires that have rigged the rules of our economy who have captured government. And Democrats have been a little reluctant to be pugilistic with power to tell that true story. I I say in this book, I still don't understand why the sort of mainstream of the Democratic Party perceives Bernie Sanders or AOC to be fringe threats to our electoral success.

[00:34:27]The reality is there's not a sing there there's no other Democratic politician who's getting 30,000 people to show up other than those that are telling the true story of who has power and who doesn't have power. So I think our ideas have to be bigger and I think we have to be more confrontational with the folks who have rigged the economy and our government. With all due respect to the person who cheered about AOC and Bernie Sanders, what about the the concern that a more centrist candidate? I mean, this seems to be the age-old problem. Oh, thank you.

[00:35:04]I mean, the big discussion is, you know, what will be more effective? Somebody who can get independence, which I understand are 51% of the electorate now. people who consider themselves independents or call themselves and and somebody who is more pro business and a little uh more centrist. I'm just curious how you feel about that conversation that seems to always be a part of a conversation about the Democratic party.

[00:35:32]>> Yeah, but but but breaking up these big corporate behemoths is pro business. I mean, it is. I mean what what we should want in this country is more millionaires and less trillionaires, right? I I mean we we want people to be successful, but success is being hoarded by a tiny number of people who own large swaths of our economy. I talk about Weathersfield, Connecticut in this book because there were lots of healthy small businessmen in Weathersfield. PE people who made a great living running a pizza joint or a supermarket or a dry cleaner that have all been put out of business because we've decided to just make a small handful of companies the winners.

[00:36:19]And so saying that I I I want to break up some of these enormous companies so that we have a distribution of success, a distribution of wealth amongst a handful of of powerful but not all powerful companies I think is very pro business. I just think we have to talk in those terms. I think people get scared that every one of us is gunning to socialize the entire economy. No, we're talking about a better version of capitalism that spreads opportunity and success more widely than it is spread today.

[00:36:53]>> You you write that the part how the part you talk about how the party itself has evolved from a pugilistic economically populist party to a marketfriendly technocratic political movement and I wondered if you could elaborate on that.

[00:37:07]>> Yeah, let me let me give you an example.

[00:37:09]So, um, what has been the Democratic Party's big idea on prescription drug costs for the last 10 years? Um, maybe one of the most vexing issues that families face, the cost of their prescription drugs. Okay? It's been the bulk negotiation of Medicare drugs. That is that we're going to um combine the power of the federal government to negotiate with the insurance companies on the 10 most expensive drugs to drive down those prices that look like you you've lost people. Like you've lost people. What do they want? They want drug prices capped, right? They want the profits of these big drug companies to be controlled. Um they want a simple but big solution. And so to me, um, the party just has to be more ambitious with, uh, with our policies. One of those big ambitious policies would be to say, "We're going to set a cap on what any drug company can charge for drugs.

[00:38:07]We'll allow you some profit, but we're not going to allow you the gross runaway profits that you have today. That would save the government a lot of money. That would save consumers a lot of money. And it would show that we see the scope of the problem. the cost of prescription drugs and going to do something big about it.

[00:38:23]>> Um, I have so many more questions, but I only have five minutes, then I'm going to open it up to the smart people in the audience. But I have sort of a lightning round, and it's not kind of between a lightning round. Uh, it's too complex for lightning round these questions, but we don't really have time for really long answers.

[00:38:41]>> All right, got it.

[00:38:41]>> Okay, >> I'm picking up what you're putting down.

[00:38:45]>> Um, how are you feeling about the midterms?

[00:38:48]Uh I I mean very good for in part for the wrong reasons because this guy is just ruining the country and putting us redistricting.

[00:38:58]>> Yeah. No, I think we're I listen I I think that um thanks to citizens all across this country, our democracy is still alive today. Um I think that we are going to win the House and if I had to put money on it today, we are going to win the Senate as well.

[00:39:17]I have a longer answer, but I'm trying to >> No, no, no. Thank you. I really appreciate it. So does the audience so we can get to their question. So Josh Shapiro wrote a book. Gretchen Whitmer wrote a book. Andy Basher has a book coming out. Do you notice a trend here, Senator?

[00:39:31]>> I mean, uh, yeah, like good-looking guys are writing books.

[00:39:35]>> Gretch and Whitmer.

[00:39:36]>> Oh, I saw Gretch Whitmer. Yeah, good-looking, right? Men and women are writing books.

[00:39:39]>> So So are you thinking about running in 2028?

[00:39:42]>> I mean, okay. So Katie, this is going to sound like a copout. Okay.

[00:39:46]>> Okay.

[00:39:48]>> But um here's the honest truth. Like I don't know that there's going to be an election in 2028.

[00:39:53]>> Don't say that.

[00:39:54]>> Well, I think there is, but we got to do work. And so um I am spending all of my time trying to make sure that the democracy still exists, trying to preserve what we have. And so, um, I don't know what my future plans are, but I think it would be foolish for anybody to be doing anything other than trying to save our democracy, trying to make sure that these elections come off free and fair in 2026. For instance, I've been spending most all of my money that I raise online in the last year and a half sending out grants to local citizen-led organizations all over the country that are protesting what Donald Trump is doing and mobilizing citizens against his corruption and thievery. Um, I just think that like that's what we should all be doing. We shouldn't be raising money and hoarding it for the next election. We should be raising money and putting it immediately out onto the streets to help save our democracy. So, I've been trying to practice what I preach.

[00:40:57]>> Are you kind of thinking about it?

[00:41:01]>> Not yet.

[00:41:02]>> Okay. Uh, you mentioned the DOJ's quote unquote anti-weaponization fund. Um, it's without precedent, enormously controversial to say the least, but how do you stop it?

[00:41:16]Well, the the weaponsization fund um you know may may be the first time that he's right gone too far. So there's >> Republicans seem to have a few seem to be getting a spinal transplant.

[00:41:31]>> Yeah. a few a few right before we left for the break. We were going to offer an amendment to a pending bill that would stop that fund from going forward and Republicans sent us all home because they did not want to vote on that amendment. They did not want to put their votes behind Trump's fund. So maybe maybe there is some hope that Republicans finally, especially with election pending, will decide not to back him up on this sort of nuclear corruption that he's involved in today.

[00:42:03]>> But at the risk of violating your rule, give me one more minute because I want to connect it back to the theme of this book. So, I argue in this book that part of the reason maybe that this country has been quieter than you would have hoped on Trump's corruption is because we have become used to an economy in which the winners take all. Right? The people who succeed in our economy just to get to take everything and once again leave scraps to the rest of us. and we've somehow decided that that's a measure of a healthy economy. Well, I think that transfers over to our politics a little bit, Katie. I I think that we look at a politician winning and then taking everything, which is what Donald Trump is doing, and we think, well, if that's how how our economy runs, and that's okay, then maybe that's how our politics is supposed to run. So I think if we fix our economy and create a common good capitalism in which you just don't decide to make 900 times as much of the average worker if you're the CEO. Maybe that will bleed into our politics and we'll be less likely to look the other way when our political winners grab everything for themselves as Donald Trump is doing.

[00:43:23]>> I think we can open it up for questions.

[00:43:25]I'm going to call on someone because she gave me a little note card with her question and it was excellent. Claire Bler, Claire, are you here? Claire, first of all, do we have mics? You guys wait a second. Do you mind asking your question yourself? Thank you, Claire.

[00:43:47]>> Yeah. So, I'm 31. Um, and I I'm like thinking about how I phrase this question, actually. Um, I live in New York City. Uh, we have mom Donnie here.

[00:44:00]Um, I also am very aware of the fact that Chris Rob just run one in Philly, um, which is my home state, Pennsylvania.

[00:44:10]Um, and we're seeing flaters um, kind of rise to the point where there wasn't even a Democratic primary with Susan Mills in Maine. Um, at the same time, there seems to be a real reluctance from kind of the old guard of the Democratic party. And I'm thinking not to call anybody out, but the Schumers, the Pelosis, kind of these long-standing figures of the Dem Party to acknowledge this very real and growing divide um between younger progressives. And by younger, I mean 55 and under um versus 55 and over.

[00:44:43]>> Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm what passes for young in the United States.

[00:44:46]>> That's what I was gonna say. I think we have to think about that. Um, you know, so I uh I and so I'm I'm curious where you see the future of the Democratic party going. I I know I put on my question and I don't mean to make it sound so dramatic, but I'm seeing some of the old guard sacrifice Dem votes and at times elections for the sake of holding on to these very moderate ideals that people can't get behind. And I feel like the stakes are too high to not be acknowledging where the party seems to be voting on going. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

[00:45:17]>> Great. Well, thank you for the question.

[00:45:19]>> Thank you, Claire. Well done, Claire.

[00:45:23]>> Um, yeah, I have historically not gotten involved in Democratic Senate primaries, but I've gotten involved this year. Um, because I think there are a handful of races out there where there are some candidates who see the world, like I see it, as a contest between worker power and corporate power. I think there are candidates out there who are ready to come to the Senate and fight as hard as is necessary to preserve our democracy and that means breaking norms uh in order to respond to their incessant breaking of norms. So where I've seen you know that difference I've weighed in in Michigan and Minnesota as examples places where I just think um there's a clear difference between the candidates.

[00:46:11]I will be honest with you. Um there have been a bunch of moments over the last year and a half where I have looked around at my caucus and been disappointed um by our inability to seize the moment. Um and so I just think we need to be creating really clear contrasts between what we stand for and what he stands for. And so I'm going to get involved in those races where I think that there are going to be real fighters um ready to come join me in the Senate.

[00:46:46]H >> how about some other folks here? I'm having a hard time seeing but Kate, do you have the mic? Yeah, there's some there's if you go down this aisle there are a bunch of people.

[00:47:01]>> Hi. Um my name's Eliza. Um, and a long time ago, I was a volunteer in your freshman congressional office.

[00:47:11]>> Hello, Eliza.

[00:47:12]>> Hello.

[00:47:14]Um, lately, given the political climate, I've been thinking so much about picking up the phones in your office. And although there were a lot of differing opinions and people from Connecticut 5 have a lot of opinions, um we were all getting our news from a few of the same newspapers and a few of the same television shows. And these days, uh not everyone is doing themselves a favor and only tuning into Katie Kirk media. So, uh, I really want to have faith in the common good, but how can we believe in the common good if we don't believe if we don't agree on common information?

[00:47:57]>> Yeah. Um, great question. Um, and and let me give a little bit of an answer in the here and now and then connect it a little bit back to what I talk about in the book. Um, part of a big story of Trump's corruption is the capture of media, right? Every wouldbe dictator knows that their first job has to be the state control of the main organs of information. And that's what Donald Trump is doing by using his regulatory power to um approve mergers on the condition that they take down his critics and they put forward his propaganda. Um I have been pretty clear about this and I would argue that the party should be crystal clear about this. I think we should say to all of these big new media companies that have been made possible by Trump's corruption that when Democrats are elected and when we run the Congress and the White House, we are going to break up every single one of those newly constructed media conglomerates.

[00:49:06]But we have to do better. We have to also find a way to help rebuild local journalism. We have to have organs of information that are run by local citizens so that you have an opportunity to get information that is just about the place that you live rather than having to only plug in to a national conversation. So, one of the things that I talk about in this book is, you know, are there ways that we could use government resources or government tax policy to give incentives to local journalism? Now, that's fraught, of course, anytime that you talk about public dollars being mixed with uh with private media, but I don't see a path forward if we don't have some purposeful policy to rebuild the ability of local storytellers to be able to bind communities back together. So yes, job one is to break up these big media conglomerates that right now are helping to destroy our democracy, but job two is to be proactive and try to find some ways to rebuild local journalism back to what it was when I picked up the Weathersfield Post on Friday afternoons to learn about my community, helping me feel bonded to that community. And people who have a vibrant local news environment or sources are also more likely to participate in national elections. I mean, they've done real studies on that. Kate, there's some people like back there. Um, lots of people. There's a gentleman in a light blue shirt with white pants. It's right there. Please uh ask your question in the form of a question. Thank you.

[00:50:49]uh during your definition of the common good I you talked about community and for a reason I thought about marketer there's no such thing as society and I in rand capitalism does not tell men to produ uh to sacrifice for the common good but to produce in profit so um America is the country of indivism so my question for you is this country ready for healthy common good or is the country of individualism. Maybe maybe there is no such thing as common good in this country.

[00:51:25]>> Um the the acoustics here are not >> I was gonna say I feel like everyone sounds like they're underwater and I need my hearing checked which my husband tells me all the time anyway. But I hope you can hear that.

[00:51:37]>> Yeah. No, I think it's a good No, I mean I think it's a it's a >> it's not your fault. It's the >> acoustic question. Listen, we we are a nation that was defined from our start as a rugged individualistic entrepreneurial nation. Right? So we are never going to be um a nation that isn't defined by um you know a bit of of of sort of rugged entrepreneurship. And this is what Alexis Alexis Dtoqueville talks about in his early survey of America is that it's a miracle that this country holds together because everybody is out there grabbing for their own. And what he says is that it will be democracy that holds people together.

[00:52:22]that people will see this thing democracy as the place where they all step out of their sort of individual entrepreneurial silos and join together to create a common fate together which is why I think our primary project has to be improving and reforming the democracy making the democracy work again a lot of the people young pe a lot of the reason young people don't feel any hope is that they see the democracy is rigged. They don't see that they have any voice. And so if we were to get billionaire and corporate money out of politics, um I think it would cause a lot more people to come back into the enterprise. Second, I think there's really interesting historical precedent for this country deciding to care more about the common good. Um so we had this era 100 years ago called the Gilded Age that looks that looked a lot like this era. a handful of people with enormous enormous power. A lot of people left with the scraps. Well, the country decided that it couldn't sustain under that order. And so it along with governments and governmental leaders um decided that they were going to pass child labor laws, decided that they were going to pass an income tax, decided that they were all going to join these service clubs and mass. That was the progressive era. um the country decided that it had had enough of gilded wealth and changed to a much more communitarian nation. And so there are these moments in history in which we have recognized the rot underneath our feet and we have decided to do things necessary to come back together and build a nation defined by the common good and and you see some of the early signs of that right now. I mean in the end I hope this is a a hopeful book. What do you what do you see right now? You actually see people returning to church. People looking for a place to find community and communion.

[00:54:27]You find some young people giving up their smartphones and picking up what are called dumb phones, right? Phones that actually stop them from constantly strolling. Um, McNal Jackson is a miracle, but there's actually been hundreds of independent bookstores that have opened up all around the country because people are seeing those bookstores as a place to find that community. So, um, the people are starting to realize that we we slipped too far away uh from neighborliness, from communitarianism. And if they have a government that does a handful of things, as I lay out in this book, to make that retreat to communitarianism easier, um I think there could be a real symbiotic relationship between the private sector deciding to invest in the common good along with the government making it a little bit easier.

[00:55:20]>> Whoa. We have Kate. Okay, Kate's back there.

[00:55:25]>> Hi, Senator. Um I have a question about your global trade. Uh how do you balance onshoring and bringing back manufacturing to this country while also maintaining our influence in the in the world economy and like maintaining partnerships with our with our allies.

[00:55:44]>> Yeah. So this second chapter in this book is called the cult of everywhere and it is this argument about the importance of localism and local identity. Um and I do think that it is important um to have a domestic economy decide to just decide that we are going to make a handful of things here in part because I do think identity comes in part from the manufacturer of goods.

[00:56:13]Pride comes from the manufacturer of of goods. We feel better when we're making things locally and we're buying things from companies that are local. Um but also for national security reasons. So, we saw how exposed we were during the pandemic when our supply chains for key medical goods um were outside of the United States, sometimes in China, a country that may not always wish us well. So, what I would argue is that, you know, we don't seek to bring every good back to the United States for manufacturer, but that we seek out some key products that we want to make here, like batteries or solar panels or syringes. Um, and I think that that will have the impact of um, of buttressing the nation's security, but I also think that by reshoring those jobs, it helps rebuild a little bit of pride in the communities that make those things.

[00:57:07]>> Um, we're we're about out of time, but just in closing, I'm so sorry we couldn't get to more questions, but you know, I I want to ask you the question I get asked all the time. every time I do an interview on Substack or I have a clip on YouTube or in our newsletter, go to katiec.com to find out more. Thank you. Um, but everyone says, "What can we do?" And I think there is this overwhelming sense of powerlessness among so many people who really are very upset about the current state of affairs who really believe that we are experiencing a crisis of the common good and yet they don't know really what to do about it. You talked about some of the steps you're taking to ensure free and fair elections. Um, what would you recommend to this crowd of people who are very engaged, obviously concerned and and want to contribute and and make this country better and really save democracy.

[00:58:07]>> Yeah. Well, obviously I have a feeling I'm preaching to a bit of the choir here. There's no doubt that part of our salvation, how we rescue the common good, how we make this a country that cares more about our neighbors and a little bit less about our own individual success is um to engage in politics and to elect leaders that have these um big ideas that I talked about about how to rebuild connection with each other. But of course, there are individual things that we can all do in our daily lives that collectively could have an enormous impact on stitching back together a very disconnected culture. You can make the decision, as many of you, I'm sure, do shop at small local retailers, to make a choice that we want to stand up and support businesses that are owned locally. You can invest in your community and do something audacious like throw a block party this summer to try to make sure your neighbors know each other. You can do something as simple as just get to know the new neighbor across the street, something that fewer and fewer people do these days. Um, there are all sorts of small acts that you can do that collectively will start to rebuild this tissue, this connective tissue that we've lost. Um, I end the book by talking about a really personal example of of that for me. So, last Thanksgiving I was home in Connecticut and it was a hard Thanksgiving for me because it was the first Thanksgiving after I had separated from my wife. And so, I was alone in my house in Hartford um by myself. My kids were with my wife in um in in Washington. And I was doing what you might suspect I was doing. I was scrolling through my phone and not feeling terribly good about myself. And I said, "You know what? I should do something different." And I remembered that on the green that I live near in Hartford, every Thanksgiving morning, there's a family that comes and just sets up a card table and hands out coffee and donuts to the homeless people that live in and around the green. And so I put down my phone and I walked up to that green and I just spent 20 minutes with them helping them hand out some donuts. I think I went to the Dunkin Donuts and bought a couple gift cards to give out. And as I was walking back to my house, I noticed that that feeling of doom and anxiety and sadness that I had, it hadn't totally lifted, but it wasn't as deep as it was before I walked out of that house. That simple act of just walking out my door and deciding to engage had changed my mood.

[01:00:59]>> Just 20 minutes.

[01:01:03]>> I mean, it was probably more than 20 minutes.

[01:01:05]>> Okay.

[01:01:06]>> But I guess I'm I guess I'm using it as like a small example, right? A small example of what happens when you decide to step outside of your comfort zone and and just exist in communion with other human beings. And we can all do a little bit more of that. We can all set that example. We can encourage our kids to do more of that. So yes, politics is a big part of the story as to how you rebuild the concern for the common good. But there are things that we can do in our towns, in our neighborhoods, in our economic life that can signal that we believe there is a possibility for that return to communitarianism to happen not just from the top down, but from the bottom up as well.

[01:01:52]>> Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much.

[01:01:54]>> Thank you.