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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Just since Friday's show, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to finish the investigations of Donald Trump over the classified documents case in January 6th, maybe you've heard that by now. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries announced his candidacy to succeed Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader in the House, it looks like he'll get it. If he does, the Democratic leader of the House and the Senate will both be from Brooklyn. Jeffries will be a guest on the show tomorrow, by the way.

Officials in Qatar announced the last-minute new rule for the men's World Cup Soccer tournament, fans cannot drink beer at the games. It was announced over the weekend. They had previously said beer would be allowed, so never mind Qatar's human rights abuses, now they have the West's attention. Wealthy high-carbon-emitting countries promise this weekend to pay damages to poor countries that don't emit much but have suffered the brunt of climate change, destruction, truly historic if we actually pay up. Joe Biden turned 80 yesterday, so did the snowstorm in Buffalo as it hit 80 inches as recorded near the Buffalo Bill Stadium, that's nearly seven feet of snow.

There was the horrific mass shooting, of course, at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, five people murdered, at least 25 injured. Most of you know that that happened, but you may not know this. Someone threw a brick Saturday night at a gay bar in Manhattan while patrons and staff were inside. According to a video reported on and shown by multiple news organizations, the New York Post says it was the fourth attack on the same bar in Hell's Kitchen in the last week. Gothamist quotes the owner of the bar called Vers on ninth Avenue saying the police were dismissive.

Maybe you heard that the NYPD and the FBI's joined Counter-Terrorism Task Force announced this weekend that they uncovered a developing threat to the Jewish community in New York and arrested two men at Penn Station for allegedly making threats to New York synagogues. According to Channel 7 News, one of the suspects from Suffolk County in on the LIRR to Penn Station told police he operates a white supremacist Twitter group that he said "is really cool".

Maybe that Twitter group, if it's real, will get verified for 799 and get to continue its work. Elon Musk announced after Friday show that Donald Trump would be reinstated on Twitter, reversing the company's earlier position that Trump used the Twitter platform to encourage violence and should remain banned for that. No word yet on the Suffolk County guy's anti-Semitic Twitter status with his cool tweets, or the guy arrested in Colorado Springs. Hey, why not? Let him tweet?

A little context on this one, after Musk declared himself a free speech absolutist, even for presidents who incite riots apparently, Musk last week also fired nearly two dozen Stafford who had criticized him, some publicly, some only privately, according to the New York Times, and that was the weekend that was. Joan Walsh is with us now, Nation Magazine national affairs correspondent and co-producer of the Emmy-nominated The Sit In on NBC's Peacock TV stream. Her latest article, New York State costing Democrats Control of Congress, Will Anyone Be Held Accountable? Thanks for starting the week with us, Joan, with nothing much to talk about. Welcome back to WNYC.

Joan Walsh: Thanks for having me, Brian. I don't really know how we're going to fill the time, but I trust you, you're one of the greats.

Brian Lehrer: We'll do our best along with you and we'll get your article about who should be held accountable for New York costing Democrats the House. I think you and Mayor Adams have opposite takes. Let's start with Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel to finish the Trump investigations over the classified documents in January 6th. Here's the Attorney General explaining why and why now.

Attorney General Merrick Garland: Based on recent developments, including the former president's announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president's stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. Such an appointment underscores the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think, Joan? Does this appointment make any potential prosecution of Trump more credible or more just?

Joan Walsh: I think it's very hard to say that. In either direction, Brian, this is one of those cases where I am very opinionated as you know, I love sharing my opinions, but on this one, I don't have a law degree and I just am not one of those people who sits around and second guesses Merrick Garland. Very smart people do, I take my hat off to them, but that's never going to be me. I think, again, very smart people think he didn't have to do this, but he did do it. It is with an abundance of caution, which he is known for. The most important thing that I was able to glean in the days since he did this.

My question was, does this slow everything down? Does this somehow slow walk as they say any action against Donald Trump, and even people who are critical of the move say it does not. That's what I worried about. The special counsel Jack Smith, I love that he was prosecuting war crimes in the Hague before this because I don't know if this guy, the former guy committed war crimes, but it feels pretty close.

I don't think that the Trump forces have anything to shake one another's hands about or high-five about. I think that this will proceed at about the same pace it would have, and he gets to see, use, enjoy all of the products of the investigation up until now. I am mildly encouraged by it because it is a formal indication that Garland really thinks something bad went on here?

Brian Lehrer: Some people say if he took this step, then it indicates that he thinks a prosecution, an indictment will come against Donald Trump. We will see neither of us are lawyers, but you are a political analyst. One effect this seems to have politically, at least in the short-term, is that just as a lot of Republicans and even right-wing media were going negative on Trump as a presidential candidate, after his impact on the midterm election results, they're rallying around him again as allegedly a victim of a politicized Biden administration. Do you think Biden's Attorney General just actually gave a boost to Trump's candidacy by giving him a new grievance to stoke?

Joan Walsh: I really don't, because they would've found one somewhere anyway. They would have found one. They were not fully moving away from him. We've seen this before, after January 6th, it looked like, finally. Many, many other times before, don't get me wrong, access Hollywood tape, et cetera, they were moving away, but they would find a way to come back.

I think that's true for Fox News as well with all the much-praised or whatever analyzed Fox turning on Trump and specifically The New York Post, The Murdoch Empire, they were going to turn back. There's just nobody who can compare to him, not Ron DeSantis for sure. I assume that it would've happened anyway. I don't really think this is something Merrick Garland did, it would've happened.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about Colorado Springs. It's not being identified as a hate crime at this point by police, but it has that look, and I see you retweeted something about ultra-right-wing Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert.

Joan Walsh: She's tweeting her thoughts and prayers for the victims, but she's done as much as anyone to create this climate of hate. The idea that they have turned on gay people as groomers, trans people as groomers, groomers of young children that they have wrapped them in what is really the Q&A on conspiracy. It's just all prominent Democrats are part of some sex trafficking ring, and they really drill down on that with their attacks on the LGBTQ community and their specific attacks on drag queens, trans people.

Please spare me, I mean, I always feel like spare me your thoughts and prayers when you are in the pocket of the NRA when you are in a major gun fetishist, but particularly Boebert because people, as you saw on Twitter, people can take 30 seconds and dig up all of her homophobic tweets that create a climate like this. We do not know what this young person, I gather, he's young, I think he's in his early 20s, why he did this, but we have seen a lot of this before, unfortunately.

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Brian Lehrer: Your retweet was of somebody who put two Lauren Boebert tweets side by side, the one from yesterday that said the news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful. This morning the victims and their families are in my prayers, and that's placed side by side with one of hers previously that says a North Carolina preschool is using the LGBT flag flashcards with a pregnant woman to teach kids colors. We went from reading rainbow to Randy Rainbow in a few decades, but don't dare say the left is grooming our kids.

Joan Walsh: Thank you. The grooming slur is the worst. I mean, it was used for decades against mainly gay men to depict them as pedophiles. There's nothing of the kind that's ever been proven to go on. Sadly, in my own Catholic church, there's more abuse of young boys than has ever been laid at the feet of gay men. It's just something they made up. It's not something that is real, but I'm sure it's something that is resonating and especially with very disturbed young men. We don't know yet. We're going to find it out. I don't want to get too far out ahead on this, but I assume we're going to find out that it is the result of a worldview like Lauren Boebert's.

Brian Lehrer: Here as a pastor, a lesbian as identified on Morning Edition today, from Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church in Colorado, Reverend Alycia Erickson blaming religion even though she's a pastor, in part for anti-LGBTQ hate crimes and narratives. Listen.

Reverend Alycia Erickson: Far too often, that is the narrative that is the rhetoric that is perpetrated against people in the LGBTQ community. It is the root of the violence that we saw last night at Club Q against members of our LGBTQ community.

Brian Lehrer: Reverend Alycia Erickson of Pikes Peak Metropolitan Community Church in Colorado. Taking a step back, Joan, what do you make of the Republican positioning on gay rights, or maybe we should say on the humanity of LGBTQ people? I see The Senate just passed an anti-filibuster motion on the way, apparently, to codifying same-sex marriage nationally with 12 Republican votes and 3 Republican co-sponsors in The Senate.

The bill will also have an amendment recognizing religious liberty. Is that a fair both and diversity position? Yes, you can get married under the law even if the Supreme Court undoes its ruling, guaranteeing that under the Constitution. Also, yes, you don't have to do business with same-sex marriage if that's your religion.

Joan Walsh: I guess it just shows us where we are, Brian. I would not want that to be part of the bill, the law that's coming, of course, but if it's what it requires, I guess, I can live with it since so many LGBTQ advocates are living with it and saying it is a step ahead. I think in a country as religious as this one, we probably have to have certain kinds of carve-outs for people's personal beliefs. That does not mean if you are a county clerk, you can deny marriage licenses.

It does mean that if you are a church, you don't have to do these ceremonies. I think we're going to be feeling our way to the right answer for a long time, but this is progress. When you see the number of Republicans who joined on, and you look back at the Democrats who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act back in the '90s, you have to feel like we're making progress even if it's imperfect and incomplete.

Brian Lehrer: Colorado has a gay Democratic governor just as a footnote, Jared Polis. People elsewhere may not know that. Did you see the gun law aspect of this? I want to read to you and everybody from an Associated Press story. It says a year and a half before he was arrested in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting that left five people dead, Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb forcing neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering.

"Yet, despite that scare," says the AP, "There's no public record that police or relatives tried to trigger Colorado's red flag law that would've allowed authorities to seize the weapons and ammo the man's mother says he had with him." Joan, even where there are red flag laws, people have to act, or individuals who've already posed a threat will get to keep their guns. This may be one of the most tragic examples of that. Is there a policy response possible to that?

Joan Walsh: I don't know. We have the policy that just breaks my heart. Part of it is that Colorado has been through so much going back to coalmine, obviously, and boulder, so many mass shootings. The other part of this that is heartbreaking is that there is often a precursor that involves domestic violence, a threat, or an actual attack on a mother or a wife. I'm doing some writing about the 10th anniversary of Sandy Hook. Brian, so forgive me this weird digression, but I do remember--

Brian Lehrer: It's not a digression. I was going to bring up the exact same pattern, so please go for it.

Joan Walsh: Well, the first person that Adam Lanza killed was his mother, who had indulged his gun fetishes and thought that taking him to shooting ranges was going to bring him together. That is unfortunate. There are, I mean the Uvalde shooting. There are so many examples of these pathetic young men setting off on their killing spree by killing wives, mothers, grandmothers, or shooting, you picturing?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Do you remember the guy who basically assassinated the two New York City police officers, officers Ramos and Liu back in 2014, I think it was?

Joan Walsh: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: He had shot his girlfriend in Baltimore that morning then drove to New York and shot those cops. People forget the first part of that.

Joan Walsh: I almost did, to be honest with you. Obviously, this is a whole other [chuckles] show we could do sometime. If you track down all of the domestic violence and the fears and the complaints of domestic violence and treated them seriously, you might stop some of these or a lot of these mass shootings. It is really unbelievable to me. Colorado has some good laws, but as you said, if people are not going to use them, they are not going to be used. Here we are, it's just so depressing.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, will do a separate segment later in the show on the anti-Semitic threat arrests in New York and the actual anti-LGBTQ mass killing in Colorado, will do a separate on that later in the show, and Governor Hochul announcing more surveillance and police presence in response to both. For now, if you want to say anything about Colorado Springs or Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel, or as we're about to get to, Joan Walsh's article in The Nation on who's responsible for New York losing the Democrat's control of Congress, feel free with a comment or a question at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. We'll get to that New York angle and then meet two of the newly-elected members from the City and Long Island, one Democrat, one Republican, but more with Joan Walsh first right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we continue with Joan Walsh, Nation Magazine national affairs correspondent and co-producer of the Emmy-nominated The Sit In on NBC's Peacock TV stream. Her latest article, New York State Costs Democrats Control of Congress. Will Anyone Be Held Accountable? Joan, as I know you know, your article headline is the opposite of one that Mayor Adams had in USA Today. His was called, As Democrats Celebrate Averting Election Disaster, We Can't Ignore the Voters We're Losing. Make your argument. Why did New York lose Democrats the House and who's to blame as you see it? Then I'll throw some Eric Adams arguments at you.

Joan Walsh: [laughs] I can't wait for that. I guess I do blame Eric Adams partly because of the way in which he hyped the crime problems. We do have crime problems, Brian. We both live here. I'm not going to lie, but they are not what Adams creates when he describes the hellscape we're all living in, and they are not caused by the bail reform law that was passed. You and I have discussed this before. It's complicated, but the bail reform law is not by itself putting dangerous criminals back on the street. I would argue the worst thing about bail reform is that a lot of judges aren't even paying attention to the discretion they do have to keep people they deem violent or likely to reoffend behind bars.

At any rate, I think that those who created that vision of New York, like Adams, are partly to blame. I think that Jay Jacobs, I don't understand why, and I don't believe that she ultimately will, Kathy Hochul keeps Jacobs as the New York Democratic Party Chair. He's also the Chair of the Nassau County Democrats, which also did poorly. I think on both counts, he really ought to take some accountability and walk away. We'll see if he does. Maybe during the holidays when things are quieter.

I think that there were just a fair number of Democrats who played into the fears around crime and to some extent, inflation, and did not run campaigns they could be proud of or that touted what Democrats accomplished in terms of the pandemic relief and the CHIPS bill that's letting businesses expand their factories around the state and elsewhere, the infrastructure bill that is so crucial to New York as we look around our crumbling infrastructure. A lot of Democrats helped Lee Zeldin. He lost. He's not our governor. He's not going to be our governor, but it's crazy. He had coattails in losing, and Hochul had no coattails in winning. I think it is because they botched the prime messaging.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Here are a couple of the lines from Eric Adams op-ed. One says, "Though Americans did not speak with one voice, working-class voters sent a clear message. They are deeply concerned about the economy, crime, and inflation. They are also increasingly looking for leadership that acknowledges their concerns," I think that's his main point, "and defends their interests, regardless of party." He goes on, "Many of these voters are from previously reliable voting blocks for Democrats, including Black voters, Latinos, and Asians.

Those groups seem to be increasingly unenthusiastic about Democrats, and many voters have already switched teams." Then a little later, "If we fail to hear what working people are saying, to empathize with their concerns and take action on their behalf, we will lose that bond of social trust that holds small towns, big cities and multicultural democracies together."

I guess the question is, can progressives appear to be writing off rising crime rates as fear-mongering and exaggeration when people are feeling it, and the rates of most crimes are up compared to a few years ago? I guess Adams would say, "We can't just compare to 1989. We have to compare to 2009 and 2019 to acknowledge the current direction and people's experiences."

Joan Walsh: Well, I think that is true. I would not go back to 2009. I lived here in 2019. I will admit that it feels like a somewhat more dangerous and certainly more chaotic place, in places, at times, but you know what I found really interesting looking at exit polls. I want to give our listeners the caveat that exit polls sometimes don't turn out to be true when you get better data, but what we have right now are exit polls, Brian, and you saw it in many states.

I was in Georgia. I was not here in our great state for election day. I was in Georgia. You saw in Georgia that it's true that Black and Latino people were more likely than white people to say the crime was a concern, however, they voted for Democrats nonetheless because their idea of what needs to happen does not line up with the ideas of Republicans. They know that there needs to be better policing, perhaps more policing, but definitely not more brutal policing, definitely not police just liberated to do their thing. It's really complicated.

I'd like to know who wrote that piece for Eric Adams. I'm not putting him down like he's not smart, but that piece has some nice flourishes that usually come from professional writers. The fact is, his solutions don't line up with the solutions that Black and Latino voters want, and so yes, Democrats act like limousine liberals in the old parlance at their peril saying, "Everything's fine because I don't take the subway."

I do take the subway. Everything is not fine, but it's not the hellscape that Adams and others have depicted. The solutions that are desired by Black and Latino people, both in New York and elsewhere, are not let's do away with bail reform, let's throw a lot more violent police officers at this. Those things don't line up.

Brian Lehrer: Statistics are complicated. Though it's true that more Black, Latino and Asian voters chose Republicans in this election in New York, or let's say chose Zeldin, it's also still true that 60% to 70%, which are big majorities of Black, Latino and Asian voters in the city, still voted for Hochul, not Zeldin. A local point to your point about what you saw in Georgia, I looked at the electoral map last week and talked about this on the show, it was almost as if the less crime an area had in New York, the more likely they were to vote for Zeldin based on crime. That was very interesting to see.

The deep blue areas of New York City with a lot of Black, Latino and Asian population continuing to vote deeply blue even though those tended to be, some of them, the highest crime neighborhoods in the city. Well, let's take a few phone calls for Joan Walsh on any of the things that we've been talking about. Who to blame for and what to do about the Democratic losses in New York in the midterms. Also, Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel, the massacre in Colorado Springs, and other things we've touched on. Annette in Laurelton, Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Annette.

Annette: Hi. I don't think our mayor has anything to do with the loss of those congressional seats in eastern Long Island. First of all, if you look at the communities of Cambria Heights, Laurelton, Springfield Gardens, St. Auburn, South Jamaica, Hachul she did very well in voting in those areas. Now it is very clear what Zeldin was doing was hyping the issue of crime, we all understand it. As I listened to him, he was catering to that old Willie Horton playbook.

Now, these communities are very, very middle class that I just mentioned to you and we understand the politics that are played by some politicians. You look where the vote was given to Hochul and you will understand exactly what I'm saying.

Brian Lehrer: Since you say none of the blame should go to the feed of the mayor and Zeldin was able to attach himself to the Democratic mayor and say, look, I have basically the same positions as he does, do you think Mayor Adams is also playing a Willie Horton game?

Annette: No because we understand exactly we know him, he's no stranger to the communities I just mentioned. We know him, we know exactly what his politics are when he was a officer and we understand exactly what he's trying to do for New York. His sincerity about all the issues we have with the mental illness and the crime and the things that he's trying to correct, but he has to look at realistic things. There are people who are doing wrong and they have to be dealt with.

I'm not speaking for the whole area of Southeast Queens but we trust the mayor, but for the other side they always run that, oh, New York he never explained to me when he said they had a problem in his neighborhood with some young people shooting outside of I think his house. I never heard too much about who those kids were, how they look or color or anything and as far as East End of Long Island they have a lot of problems with their children in those areas. As long as they can put the bad face on New York city, then it makes them look like that's where all the negativity is.

Brian Lehrer: I hear you.

Annette: I'm just speaking from my point of view.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much and please call us and continue to do that in the future. Here is, let's see, John in Rockville Center you're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hi Brian, how are you? In my district, we had Laura Gillen running against D'Esposito who used to be in the New York City Police Department. The problem I saw out here-

Brian Lehrer: Just for context for our listeners, that's a seed in Nassau County that was held by Democrat Kathleen Rice. In this election, it flipped to a Republican Anthony D'Esposito as you say. Go ahead, John.

John: Yes. While I agreed that the Republicans are great at Fearon Green and he was using that to great effect about crime, the crime is not the issue out here, number one. Number two, what does the Congressperson have to do with addressing crime that's the local authorities?

What I was upset about is out here on almost every lawn you saw signs for Zeldin, you saw signs for D'Esposito, they had trucks out, they had all sorts of support. We called to try and get a sign it took us forever just to get a sign to put up for Laura Gillen, there was no support from the Democratic Party at all. I thought it was disgraceful and she was a highly qualified candidate whereas D'Esposito he's just terrible.

Brian Lehrer: We'll give him a chance to see what he does in Congress but John, thank you keep calling us yourself. Joan Walsh, that's such a common complaint that we heard from Democrats even during the campaign and now certainly after the campaign considering some of the results where were the lawn signs, and doesn't that fall? Where were the flyers in people's inboxes actual physical mailboxes and does that not fall at the leadership? This is one where the manager might actually be responsible for the performance of the players if Jay Jacobs as Democratic chair for the state didn't coordinate that kind of campaign.

Joan Walsh: No, he did not try, he has not for many years, I got nothing, I'm used to just having my mailbox overflowing with mail around election day, Brian, and that did not happen. I was able to come home after five days in Atlanta and just take out some nice promotions from Central Park Conservancy and others for Christmas giving. That's insane. I've never seen an election like this.

I just want to say and I want to thank John and Annette our callers because they point to a couple things. John lives in my old district I grew up in Oceanside in Nassau County, it was a hotbed of white backlash in the '60s and '70s when I lived there I just have to say that. It's gotten more diverse and more liberal over time and it should have stayed blue.

Suffolk County is a different story, somewhat different story that I was in Zeldin's district about a week before the election and it was total Zeldin signs, flyers, sides of barns, everything. Both those places were primed for the crime message even though obviously they have very little crime there. Some people's identities are predicated around we don't go into the city anymore it is too dark in both senses of the word and I certainly saw that in Suffolk.

I think that Nassau could have been better with a better campaign but I wrote about that in my piece, I look at these places as ground zero for the white backlash against the changes of the '60s. Democrats haven't taken seriously how much work they need to do to bring those places and those voters along with them and they were basically abandoned this cycle and we know what happened.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, I should mention, since Anthony D'Esposito came up in a series that were about to launch in a few minutes with one Democrat and one Republican who were just elected for the first time. We're doing a series inviting all the newly elected members from our area of the congressional delegation to come on the show. Anthony D'Esposito was scheduled for next Monday week from today Monday after Thanksgiving. Let's get one more call on this for Joan Walsh and it's Jane in the Bronx. Jane, you're on WNYC, hi there.

Jane: Good morning. I'm hoping for and you started to get into it a little bit more of a deeper analysis that goes way before this current election and begs the question of what does the Democratic Party stand for? How come they didn't support the voting changes on the ballot last time which would've made voting easier and enfranchised men easier?

How come they participated in the redistricting, can we say, debacle? How come there aren't apparently organizing efforts among the really vibrant things that are happening in New York State among young people, people who are unionizing, the LGBTQ community, et cetera, why not? I'm wondering whether you agree with what some analysts say that Jay Jacobs, the Democratic party, and I would say probably the funders because where's the donor money going?

That the Democratic party is way more interested in knocking down the progressive wing, didn't support India Walton the Democratic Party candidate in Buffalo for mayor, et cetera. More interested in knocking down the progressive wing of the Democratic party than getting more people to vote for the Democratic Party itself. I'm no big fan of electoral politics nor the Democratic party I think you can tell from my question I'm way more progressive than that. That's where the energy is right now so let's go back more and get deeper than just "messaging" which always sounds superficial to me. It's not about the money.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say, Jane, to the argument that some people in the party make, who may be more in the centrist part of the party, that it's the perception that the progressive have taken the party too far to the left on policing, on taxes, on some other things that helped lose on some other things. I don't want to go down a list, that helped lose so many elections for the Democrats, rather than that the party didn't go far enough to the left and embrace the progressive positions more.

Jane: Well, what's the evidence? I guess that's the first thing I would say. Where is the donor money going? That's the second thing I would say. Going back further even than this election, where's the donor money? I would take some things like the Democratic Party allowing Delgado to become a lieutenant governor candidate after a very, very good organizing effort to get him elected in a very difficult place to get Democrats elected.

Brian Lehrer: He run for Congress in the upper Hudson Valley there and then he left that seat, and those areas were redistricting, where we district it, but part of that area definitely went to a Republican after Delgado abandon it. Joan, we have our next guest standing by, give us 130-second thought on Jane's call, and then we're done for now.

Joan Walsh: I think Jane is totally correct. I mean, I assume Jane is a little bit to my left, but I think she's right about it's not just messaging, it's deeper. It's about organizing, it's about staying involved in communities, and also, the number of people including Joe Biden, who plucked Democrats out of various seats to serve in his cabinet and then Hochul to be lieutenant governor, that was really bad. I wish that the Democrats had more of a brain trust and even a smoky back-room, Brian, where they stop [unintelligible 00:42:30] doing stupid things like that. I'm all Jane.

Brian Lehrer: Joan Walsh, Nation Magazine, national affairs correspondent and co-producer of the Emmy-nominated The Sit In on NBC's peacock TV stream. Joan, it was good to have you. Thank you very much.

Joan Walsh: Glad to be back.

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