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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. The official January 6th anniversary commemorations are over, but concern for our democracy persists, and so does a debate that's been breaking out over Attorney General Merrick Garland's approach to criminal investigations of Trump himself and others in his orbit, who may be legally criminally responsible, not just the hundreds of actual rioters who have now been charged. We'll have Morgan State Professor and Political Commentator, Jason Johnson on this question and more in just a minute, but I want to set this up with a couple of excerpts from a speech that Attorney General Garland gave on Wednesday.

I think it got downplayed and lost a little bit in the news cycle in favor of the more fiery speech that President Biden gave yesterday. Here's about a minute and a half of the attorney general addressing progressives unhappiness with him that Trump and others at the top of the January 6th food chain remain uncharged.

President Biden: The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators at any level accountable under law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. We will follow the facts wherever they lead because January 6th was an unprecedented attack on the seat of our democracy, we understand that there's broad public interest in our investigation. We understand that there are questions about how long the investigation will take, and about what exactly we are doing.

Our answer is, and will continue to be the same answer we would give with respect to any ongoing investigation, as long as it takes and whatever it takes for justice to be done consistent with the facts and the law. I understand that this may not be the answer some are looking for, but we will and we must speak through our work. Anything else jeopardizes the viability of our investigations and the civil liberties of our citizens.

Brian Lehrer: Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday, and I'll add one more clip of 13 seconds from that speech, where he refers to how complex prosecutions work when there are underlings and kingpins.

Merrick Garland: In complex cases, initial charges are often less severe than later charged offenses. This is purposeful as investigators methodically collect and sift through more evidence.

Brian Lehrer: With that, we welcome Morgan State University Journalism, Professor Jason Johnson, who is also a Political Contributor to MSNBC and TheGrio and hosts the podcast, A Word With Jason Johnson. He's also the author of the book, Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell. Dr. Johnson, happy new year. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jason Johnson: Thank you so very much. I am glad to be here. Although, it's been a rough way to start the year, and this is the kind of thing we're going to be dealing with all throughout the midterms.

Brian Lehrer: That is for sure, and we're going to definitely get to the midterms in this conversation, but could you describe for listener who may not even be engaged in this yet, the debate around how the attorney general is investigating January 6th, and how much his speech on Wednesday that we played the clips from there satisfied you or anyone who's been critical of him? I see you retweeted Dean Obeidallah, who was dismayed by what he saw as a lack of urgency in that speech.

Jason Johnson: Brian, the debate falls down to two basic sides. Do you have general trust in the government to investigate and hold the people responsible for the insurrection accountable? Do you believe in the government? You think, "Okay, the government's going to work it out." Or do you actually pay attention to the history of Merrick Garland and Robert Mueller and everything else that's actually happened? I tend to fall on the evidence-based side.

There is no evidence in Merrick Garland's past, his present, or anything that he said yesterday that would give anyone the impression that he has the heart, the fortitude, the political will, or the intention to hold people responsible, who endangered our very democracy last year. That's pretty much the fault lines, and the problem is that while he gave a speech yesterday, sort of in response to the public criticism that he's getting, there doesn't seem to be anything that will get him to show greater urgency.

Because what I heard yesterday was a ridiculous word salad with no dressing, where he didn't even have the commitment to what he's investigating to say that this is a problem that has its roots, its Genesis, and its catalyst in the Republican Party in Donald Trump. He still said things like, "This is not a one-sided political problem." Yes, it is. Yes, it is. We know where this came from. It came from the Republican Party. It came from Donald Trump. It came from his rally. It comes from Josh Hawley. It comes from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

You can't both sides in attempted [unintelligible 00:05:35] insurrection. That, unfortunately, represents an attitude that I think is going to endanger us all as this year continue.

Brian Lehrer: There's a difference between political culpability and criminal culpability though, right? He's the attorney general. He's only concerned with crimes. I think he was referring, and I almost pulled this excerpt, but I don't have it. In excerpt that you were just referring to where you talked about not one side being responsible, I think he was talking about a general degeneration into people being more prone to violence. I think he was saying on airplanes and in stores and January 6th is another, although obviously very extreme, and belongs in a category by itself, example of that.

Jason Johnson: Here's the problem. We still know where most of this behavior comes from. If the vast majority of times that somebody's eaten up the vegetables in your garden, you don't make the world a better place by saying," This is a rabbit and a squirrel and occasionally, a [unintelligible 00:06:49] problem." No, it's rabbits. Rabbits are eating your lettuces. Rabbits are eating your carrots. You need to do something. You need to set traps and put out poison or call in animal control and deal with the rabbits.

If you're dealing with someone who keeps trying to spread the blame and say that this is a universal problem, it's not helpful. Here's the thing. We know that the violence against public officials is mostly from the far-right. We know that the violence and threats against local election officials, and school boards, we know that comes from the far-right. We know that anti-mask, anti-vax people who are causing fights in airports and attacking airline stewards and pilots and everything else like that, we know that comes from the far-right. We know this. To suggest that this is a problem that comes from the right and left is ridiculous.

It would be one thing if he said, "Hey, look, we've got political violence happening throughout the country, and we need to do something about it." He wanted to talk about protests last year. Okay, I guess, but remember those protests were in the context of state-sponsored violence did on Black people. Again, this-- or both sides, protection of the institution, as opposed to disruptive justice that seems to be the want and the will of people like Merrick Garland and Robert Mueller before him endangers this entire country because the Republican Party and the right-wing elements hiding within that party, they know exactly what they're doing.

They're perfectly happy to see an administration in a DOJ pretend that they may be part of the problem as opposed of the crux of the problem.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you from observing the Department of Justice in particular standpoint, whether you think there is a crime worth charging Trump with, or whether that would just lead to a political free for all that wouldn't address criminality and might be bad for democracy. I'll lay out with some other people are saying in this question, which asks, is it possible that Trump though he deserve to be impeached for inciting an insurrection, that would be a political act? Didn't commit any actual criminal acts in connection with that?

Yes, he perpetrated the big lie about a stolen election, but politicians lying isn't generally a crime or prisons would be bursting with them. Yes, he called that rally on January 6th, then told his followers to march to the Capitol and fight like hell, but lots of progressive movement leaders urge their followers to fight like hell. They say no justice, no peace, which I think you'll agree is not an incitement to riot. Trump also said, "Go there peacefully," in another line from the rally and refusing for three hours during the riot to publicly tell them to go home, where some legal analyst say that failure is heinous.

There's no law on the books that mandates a public statement. What's Trump's actual crime if you think Merrick Garland has one to prosecute?

Jason Johnson: Well, there are several, and I'll start with the crimes that he has right in front of him. Robert Mueller laid out 10 examples of obstruction. Robert Mueller gave the federal government a blueprint, a map with a big X at the end of 10 different instances of obstruction of justice [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: In the Russia investigation.

Jason Johnson: Right, in the Russia investigation. Those things are crimes. Donald Trump and many people in his administration including members of his family could be prosecuted for those crimes. Mueller himself said, "Hey, look," and I think he punted the ball on this. He's like, "All I can do is tell you these are crimes that are committed. It's up to Congress or DOJ or somebody else to handle this, but these are crimes." Merrick Garland, right off the bat, has plenty of things that he could prosecute Trump for. Let's not be crazy about the idea.

You're going to talk about Al Capone. No, they never caught him for being a mob off. They caught the guy for not paying taxes. We know that there are plenty of terrible, horrible, illegal things that Trump committed.

Brian Lehrer: And they're investigating him for that in New York state as you know and that might be the most likely thing for him to get prosecuted for.

Jason Johnson: Exactly, but here's the other problem with this. [unintelligible 00:10:59] instinct insurrection or trying to take over the government is actually against the law and Donald Trump didn't just send people to try to take over the government. Remember, Mark Meadows and his whole team had a whole PowerPoint, had a Prezi presentation on how to take over the government based on a lie that they knew was a lie. That's not complicated if you or I, Brian, or anyone listening right now, try to take over the government in more than just words.

If we put together documentation to accomplish that task, if we sent people to assist us in that task, if we encourage other people to continue to give us information and plans to accomplish that task, they weren't just talking about ways to win an election. They were talking about ways to break the law.

Brian Lehrer: You are saying that there could be a criminal offense in, let's say, putting outlaws that encourage members of Congress to cast peaceful votes, to throw the election back to the states and those state legislatures to overturn the results.

Jason Johnson: What I'm saying is when you put together a PowerPoint that says, "Hey, we need to overthrow this," and then you'd say, "Try to intimidate the secretary of state in Georgia," and then you send a mob to do it. That is a conspiracy to overthrow the government, through extra-legal means. That's against the law. There's laws against insurrection. When people argue that, well, maybe he did something bad, but it wasn't necessarily illegal, I think they're being disingenuous.

That's like saying, "Well, okay, this person beat their kids and threw them down a flight of stairs and sold them out to drug dealers, but we don't know if that's illegal." Actually, child endangerments against the law.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. The phone call with Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State of Georgia is very interesting to me from a potential criminal standpoint and I wonder if you have any information as to whether the Department of Justice is looking at that because he was really suborning the secretary of state to fraud. He was asking, "Let's find," the number of votes that he didn't really get to make it look like Trump won Georgia.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Brian, it wasn't just Trump. Lindsey Graham did this same thing. If you or I, if we were calling the mayor's office in New York and saying, "I don't really think Eric Adams as mayor. You know what? I think you should get elected." If we were to do that, we would be arrested, bare minimum for it's attempting to intimidate or impede the accomplishment of state government. Do I know if they're investigating that particular call?

I do not know that, but as I said at the very beginning of this conversation, I don't have any faith that is being pursued aggressively because by comparison, and I pointed this out several times, there were more people arrested and prosecuted within six months of the largest protest rally after Breonna Taylor's death in Kentucky than we have seen from the number of people who arrested on the day of and received jail sentences or serious penalties from January 6th.

It has been a year and we still haven't moved our way up to members of Congress, who everyone has consistently suggested that there are members of Congress who aided and embedded this attempted to take or at least their staff.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite your calls for Jason Johnson. How much should the Democrats prioritize accountability for Donald Trump over January 6th? Separately, because it is a criminal question, not a political one for the Department of Justice whose job is to remain apolitical and the look at the law, how much do you see criminal activity and how do you hear Merrick Garland's urgency or lack thereof appropriate or not to the moment? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Further, how do you think democracy can best be preserved for the future, which is what we're going to get to next?

What do you think is the best way for either party you're in, let's say, to run the midterm elections or anything else relevant to Jason Johnson? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Oh, listeners, or tweet @BrianLehrer. I know you're not shy about that so tweet @BrianLehrer on this. Now, we get to the question of voting rights and preventing against a more successful attempt to overturn valid election results. There are various bills in Congress right now as, of course, you know.

None of which are getting the Republicans plus Joe Manchin, majority. My question is, do any of those bills stop state legislatures from doing what they're doing now, in some Republican states, making it easier for politicians to throw out election results?

Jason Johnson: They can. The John Lewis Voter Rights and before the People Act, they could potentially make it more difficult for, say, states like Georgia, where the Republican cultural legislature can now basically stop a vote count if they think a county is problematic and engage in an investigation that could all but in votes. Those bills could help in that, but here's the thing, those bills alone will not be able to protect voting rights. The reason is because you still have state legislatures and you still have secretaries of state, who can engage in easier local forms of voter suppression.

Like what we saw in 2018 in Georgia, where you simply don't provide enough voting machines for major metropolitan areas, where we saw over and over that there were whole storage sheds filled with voting machines covered in tarp and plastic that weren't being employed, where we see voting areas in North and South Dakota that were primarily used by native populations that were two and a half, three hours away and the people had to wait in line in the snow. Like, there are local things that are happening. The federal legislation alone won't solve those problems.

Here's the other thing the federal legislation alone will not be able to solve. Much of the redistricting that we've seen happen, especially in high-growth states like Georgia, like Texas, like North Carolina, the redistricting is not only a politicized process, but it is based on a faulty census that was taken during the Trump administration, where we have consistent evidence that Trump intended to undercount or simply dismiss growth of non-white populations.

We have dozens of problems affecting our upcoming elections and a more aggressive administration would say, "Look, we might need to sue. We might need to conduct another census." We had a once-in-the-century crisis happening at the time and have evidence to believe that the-- Basically, if you're trying to put together an Ikea table, it's complicated enough as it is. If you find out that the instructions are not just in Swiss, but they're also wrong, you might need to go back to the store and get some more instructions.

That's what we should be doing and those are things within the Biden Administration's power. It may require some court cases, but they haven't done that. I have a lot of apprehension about the legitimacy and the effectiveness of the 2022 midterms to reflect public sentiment because there's so many structural and political impediments that are in place.

Brian Lehrer: I'll go to the Managing Joe Manchin question in a minute after a break, but what about the Republicans? You know well that if you go back to 2006, the Senate voted 98 to nothing to renew the Voting Rights Act, as it existed at that time including the pre-clearance requirements for states and localities that have been found discriminatory, racially discriminatory in the past before they could change their voting laws. 98 to nothing for that in the Senate in 2006, then, of course, the Supreme Court threw that out 2013, but can they not get one Republican?

Forget about Joe Manchin. All right, he has to run in West Virginia, maybe that's an excuse. Can they not get one Republican from a moderate state to vote for Voting Rights?

Jason Johnson: No, of course not, and this is the thing. At some point, you have to-- and I did a lot of push for this. They say, "Jason, you spend all your time complaining about Democrats and you don't talk enough about the Republican Party." I'm like, "Well, because the Republican Party has abandoned governing. They've made that very clear. They're not interested in actually governing. They're interested in turning the United States into a one-party state and eliminating any attempt at functional competition." No, you're not going to have any Republicans that vote for Voting Rights. No, you're not going to get enough Republicans to even vote that there needed to be an investigation into January 6th. The Republican Party is essentially the PLO to Hamas, the Sinn Féin to the IRA. They are our fig leaf to a white nationalist terrorist movement that wants to overthrow the United States. Any attempt to negotiate or function with them is a fool's errand and they've made that abundantly clear since long before Barack Obama got in the office, but now they don't even pretend to be engaging in any other behavior since we've gotten Joe Biden.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take a couple of Merrick Garland calls that are coming in before we go to the break and turn the page to some other things and in Brooklyn, you're on to WNYC with Morgan State University professor, MSNBC and TheGrio political contributor, Jason Johnson. Hi, Anne.

Anne: Hello, and thank you so much for taking my call. Great conversation and in terms of Merrick Garland, I think that he's, once again, just playing politics and trying to look like the neutral guy in all of this disaster. I understand he's attorney general, I understand he's not supposed to come across as political, but I think if you just remove the politics from it completely and look at it as criminality, which it's a complete criminality, it's a conspiracy to overthrow our government and I think that's pretty clear.

I just think that he needs to be much more aggressive and he needs to be steadfast in getting this resolved, but I'm afraid that we're going to start focusing on the midterms and maybe this is all going to go away and these-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, go ahead, Anne. I'm sorry. Finish your thought. Go ahead. Maybe it'll all go away. They hope and what?

Anne: Well, I hope that he just really pursues this with all of his might and stop playing politics and stop coming across as a neutral. It needs to be aggressive and that's really what I'm-- and I just don't want it to turn to another Mueller thing. Okay. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Anne, thank you very much. All right, we're going to Orlando and a story next, who might have a different point of view on Garland. Hi, Orlando, you're on WNYC.

Orlando: Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my call. Love the show. Personally, I'm very worried about polarization in this country. I definitely want to see Trump completely brought to justice and all these people that don't care about our country or basically our values, the values that we've been brought up for. I don't know how we're going to win the hearts and minds of people that basically have been duped.

It seems to me every time we push hard, it's the extremism increases and I can see why Merrick Garland-- I don't know the reason, but I can see a reason for trying to not look so biased. To me, the bigger issue is how do we win hearts and minds because you can put all these people in prison and the problem is still there. This country is in danger and that's where I'm concerned, so thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: It sounds like you're a little concerned, Orlando, also that Trump would use the platform of a criminal trial to put on a circus that would just attract more people to him. Is that part of what I hear you saying?

Orlando: Yes, but it's not just about Trump. I have no faith in his ability to change himself, and I'm an idealist. I don't ever see him changing himself to any a better person. Even if he's gone, the woodwork, the worms are there to replace them, so what is it? How do we fix that?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much. Jason, talk to those two callers.

Jason Johnson: The first thing I'll say is, first thing, I believe her name was Anne. She makes a really good point. There doesn't have to be a contrast between neutrality and urgency. That's the problem. Like, Merrick Garland and his defenders have been trying to sell us the story that this has to take a long time because he's trying to be neutral. Since when? Justice delayed. He said in his speech yesterday is like, "We're going to take as long as it takes." Well, no, we don't actually have that long. Justice delayed is justice denied.

If the Republican Party takes over the house, let alone the Senate, by this fault, they will end the January 6th investigation. The additional information and won't be available.

Brian Lehrer: Right, but he doesn't say it's taking so long because he's trying to be neutral. I think he says he's taking so long because the analogy to the mob investigation always comes up. You go after the little fish who are more vulnerable, they flip the big fish eventually and people say that's what he's doing with all these arrests of people who are the actual Capitol rioters, we see some of them using a defense. Trump made me do it.

Jason Johnson: Here's the problem with that. Is he going to flip on Stringer Bell? No, Stringer was still having dinner with the mayor. You can chase all the corner boys you want, it doesn't necessarily-- That's a wire reference for anybody in the dinner. You can chase all the corner boys you want. The Viking Shaman probably can't tell you much about whether or not Jim Jordan was involved in this.

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people who they caught at the Capitol, who could be useful in that, but I'm also suggesting that the small fish that they're grabbing when you have the entire Mueller report next to you, that is a silly and unnecessarily long-winded way of going at the same problem. The second thing I want to mention, this is the second caller said, "Hey, do we change heart to minds?" No. You got to remember, America isn't that polarized. The majority of the country has said, "We want this policy. We want these Democrats."

What you have are small numbers of loud people. The 30% of the population that loves Trump, the two or three senators who don't want to provide people with free healthcare and additional access to resources that they need in the middle of a pandemic. That ain't how the majority feels. The majority of the country wants build back better. The majority of the country wanted healthcare reform.

The majority of the country wanted Joe Biden, but unfortunately, we have a media that sometimes suggests that polarization is happening when really it's only 30% that is dragging on the other 70 because people don't have the political will to say, "Hey, that 30%, sorry, you lost. Forget about it. We're going to hold you accountable if you try and take over the government and we're going to actually serve with the majority of the public wants."

Brian Lehrer: All right, we're going to pick up on that as it pertains to the midterm elections when we continue with Jason Johnson and your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer at WNYC with Jason Johnson from Morgan state, MSNBC, TheGrio, and his own podcast, A Word With Jason Johnson. Here's a tweet, Jason. In theory, can Biden create executive orders to protect Voting Rights and suppress state legislature's authority over election results? Do we have enough evidence? Well, there's two questions in there, so I'm going to stick to that one, so it's clear.

Jason Johnson: Yes, he can. There's a lot of things that the president could do if he wanted to be more aggressive about the voting rights. We saw this 60, 70 years ago during what we refer to now, collectively as the civil rights movement. When the United States government saw that states throughout the south and some of the midwest were refusing to honor and protect people civil rights, they sent troops, they sent researchers, they sent administrators to make sure that's the case.

Right now, Joe Biden could say, "You know what? We have consistent reports and complaints of violations of people civil rights in the state of Georgia, in the state of Texas, we're going to send administrators now. We're going to send down federal troops. Now, they're not military. You don't have to shoot it, people. That's not what I'm talking about." What I am saying is that there are doctors that are part of the federal government. There are doctors that work within our armed forces and security systems.

You could send them down there to still provide people with abortions. In Texas, you could send them down to perform investigations in Georgia and say, "Wait a minute, this is a violation of people civil rights." Yes, the DOJ has filed lawsuits in Georgia and, yes, the DOJ has filed lawsuits in Texas, but those could take months.

What we have seen in the past when it comes to voter suppression laws is that oftentimes, by the time you get a ruling, a judge may say, "You know what? This is a clear violation of rights. This is a gerrymander district, but it's August and we don't have time. We would put an undue burden on the state to try to fix these laws before the election. I guess we'll have to do it for next time." The president can act in ways faster than our court system and he should be.

Brian Lehrer: Speaking of undemocratic things in our democracy, I see you retweeted an article about the midterm elections reminding us that because of the unrepresented of nature of the Senate, of course, two senators from big and small states alike, and because of house district gerrymandering by Republican state legislatures, we could well see an election this year in which a majority of Americans vote for Democrats, but Republicans control both houses of Congress. Do you think this is more likely this year than in the past?

Jason Johnson: Oh, it definitely is, and I think that the problem that I see long term in America, and I have this conversation with a couple officials from Australia and some other countries that I've been interacting with lately is that our entire system is based on maintaining an order and a representation that no longer exists. We have a system that's like, "Hey, we don't want the rebel to be running things too much." Think about the history of this country, Brian. We were around for 200 years and had only one election, where the president who won the popular vote didn't win the electoral college.

We've had that happen twice in the last 20 years. We're increasingly getting elected officials who are empowered above and beyond the number of people that they represent. That is not a functional democracy. Yes, just like Donald Trump could win in 2016, but with the electoral college, even though he got beaten by 3 million votes. We could easily see a situation, where because of new districts, Republicans don't even have to improve or increase the number of people who support them. They just have to win a bunch of new gerrymander districts and they'll take the house.

Brian Lehrer: Is there any remedy for this or do Democrats just have to go out there this year and win by that much more?

Jason Johnson: No, there's remedies. Again, there's the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, there's For the People Act, there are ways that the department of justice can be more aggressive, they can send down their own investigators. The Biden administration can send down investigators. The Biden administration can send down officials and administrators to look at local elections and force or demand them to actually improve resources and access to that a local level. No, the federal government can't make any individual state. They can't tell them how to run an election.

What they can say is if you are failing to run this election in a way that supports and protects everybody's civil rights, we will snatch your federal funding, we will snatch this, we will make your life very, very, very, very difficult. That's the thing that the federal government should be doing right now. I do not understand the attitude. I've heard this from activists behind the scenes when they've talked to this administration. This attitude from the Biden Administration on some levels of, "Well, you just have to organize beyond the suppression."

You cannot organize beyond suppression when a state legislature can simply stop the count if they don't like the result. You can't organize or pass that at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Mark in Bayside, you're on WNYC with Jason Johnson. Hi, Mark.

Mark: Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Mark: I just wanted to say that I think that one of the things is really missing with the Democrats and Biden and even Merrick Garland's speech is just this sense of fire and passion right now. I know Biden came in to lower the temperature in this country, but everybody's shivering in their beds right now. It's so cold. I mean, he lowered the temperature too much. We need some fire on this side. We need people to fight. I know there's legal nuances to bringing lawsuits and bringing people up on charges. I come from a media background. We really have to tell a better story.

The public perception in this country is that the Republicans are consolidated, they're unified, and they have an inspiring, according to them, leader. Who is our leader going forward? Who's inspiring the Democrats to show up at the polls in two years and four years? Barack Obama did it. He was an incredible speaker and Dave chills when he spoke. I would sadly argue, is Biden the future of the Democratic Party? Is he the one that's going to fire people up to come out in two to four years and if not, who is?

Brian Lehrer: Mark, thank you. There's our quote of the day. Biden lowered the temperature so much. People are shivering in their beds. Jason, is the question he asks about who the inspirational leader is, if not Biden, relevant for right now? Is that the question to be asking for 2022 or should that one wait?

Jason Johnson: I think it's the relevant question to ask now because if Biden can't set up the roof on fire, if he can't get people high, if he can't get people moving, he will drag down Democrats' chances. Look, the first midterm election of any first-year presidency, that president tends to lose the house. They tend to lose at least one house of Congress. That's already what history suggests will happen this year.

If Joe Biden, by June or July, this year is still hovering in the low to mid-40s because not just Republicans who will adamantly stand against him no matter what, but your independence and some wavering Democrats are like, "Dude, you didn't do anything that you promised you were going to do. You didn't restore this to the good old days nor have you given us a vision of better days ahead," then that is going to be a problem. I'll also say this very quickly because he talked about inspirational leaders in the future.

I don't think that Democrats have much of a bench right now. I'm telling everybody that, yes, I think Joe Biden is going to run in 2024. There's no history of a white man with that level of power and influence stepping down for the good of the country. He's going to run. Even if they have to weaken and Bernies him, he is going to run in 2024.

If for some reason he could not, the Democrats are in trouble because I don't see a Vice President, Kamala Harris or Mayor Pete being capable of putting together the coalition necessary to stop a Donald Trump or even a Ron DeSantis if they get denomination in 2024.

Brian Lehrer: Let me end with you on a coalition question for 2022. How do you think Democrats can thread the needle in the coalition that is fragile and that they built for the moment, that they're always trying to thread the needle between maximizing turnout by the passionate base, let's say, and not alienating the white suburban swing voters who did give them their congressional majority in 2018 by being disgusted by Trump in those districts but might see the Democrat's agenda as progressive overreach?

Jason Johnson: I think the white suburbanites are overstated. The reason I say this because the suburbs in Detroit are full of all sorts of kinds of people. The suburbs of Indianapolis aren't just white folks. The suburbs are now full of the emerging population. We got to remember that. The majority of people in this country under the age of 15 now. They're not white and their parents are living in suburbs.

What the Democrats have to do is stop their unnecessary and ridiculous obsession with these mythical white suburbanites in their Lululemon, and their pumpkin spice, and their crops and recognize that the suburbs are filled with Black and Asian and Latino and all sorts of different kinds of people. The number one issue that suburbanites have been concerned about for the last 18 months is what the heck are you going to do about my kids in schools when it comes to COVID?

You need to have a coherent and consistent national plan. You need to have a coherent and consistent idea for what kids are going to do with schooling. We don't hear enough of that from the federal government. If the head of Delta, and I don't mean the variant, I mean the airlines to make a suggestion that quarantine should go from 10 days to 5 because they want to force people back into schools. That's the thing that leads people thinking there is no leadership.

Address things like education, give voting rights for Black people, do something about police reform which was more than in Joe Biden's power. You can't give extra COVID money to police departments and then let the George Floyd Policing Act die in the same two weeks. These are the clear, low-hanging fruit that Democrats could accomplish in the next six months to improve their chances this fall.

Brian Lehrer: Jason Johnson, Morgan State University, journalism, professor, political contributor to MSNBC and TheGrio. By the way, it was good to see you hosting some on MSNBC in the last few weeks.

Jason Johnson: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Nice job filling in there.

Jason Johnson: Much appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Good to see you in the host chair. He's also the host of his own podcast, A Word With Jason Johnson. Look forward to keep having you on the show. Thank you so much.

Jason Johnson: Thanks so much, Brian. Happy new year.

Brian Lehrer: You too. Brian Lehrer on WNYC, more to come.

 

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