Lamar Alexander on Saving Democracy, Standing Up to Trump, and Why Young People Should Run for Office.

Bill interviews former Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander about his memoir, The Education of a Senator: From JFK to Trump, and the Senate’s decline from bipartisan, amendment-driven lawmaking to today’s gridlock. Alexander criticizes Republican senators for failing to check abuses of presidential authority, argues Trump’s purges of GOP incumbents risk costing him a Senate majority, and calls a DOJ compensation fund for January 6 participants “Trump suing Trump” and an outrage, given assaults on Capitol Police. He contrasts Senate pushback in Trump’s first term with silence in the second, including cuts affecting USAID/PEPFAR and NIH research. Alexander says January 6 undermined the Constitution, praises public service as the best way to help people, prefers being governor to senator, and expresses confidence in America’s resilience.You can buy his book from Bookshop.org here. Today Bill reminds us that one great way to support the Democratic candidate(s) is through ACTBLUE.org See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.