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And welcome to MEET THE press. Now online, nobles in for Chuck Todd. And as you just heard, President Biden responding to the Supreme Court rulings after coordination, a pair of six, three rulings on this final day of its term. The first, in support of a private business that refused to service same sex couples.
The second, striking down the Biden administration's massive $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan program. Speaking at the White House just a few minutes ago, the president announced new actions on student debt after that loss today. And joining me now to talk more about today's rulings is Miami senior's colleague, Julia Ainsley. And in a moment, we'll be joined at the White House by NBC's Kelly O'.
Connell. So, Julia, let's start with you. Obviously, this ruling was not something that the White House had intended. It did seem, though, that court just felt that in order to do something this big, a $400 billion forgiveness of student loans, the president just can't do this on his own, at least not under the law that they cited to make it legitimate.
Is that your read of it? Yeah, that's right, Ryan. And given the current makeup of the court, this was the most anticipated decision. This is what we expected of them.
They did hand down the sharpest rebuke of the plan that they could have. It could have been that they said, go back to the drawing board, find a different path, reach out for comment, follow the Administrative Procedures Act. But instead they said no, the statute that the Biden administration is looking to here, the Heroes act, which was started in 2003 to allow people after 9, 11 to have some forgiveness and was continued during COVID They said that doesn't apply. What that allows you to do is to modify or temporarily reduce student loans.
It doesn't allow you, as Chief Justice Roberts said, to rewrite the statute from the ground up. And that is why today the Biden administration is looking to a different statute. They're looking to Higher Education act of 1965 to context here. That was the one put in place by Lyndon Johnson.
It really overhauled higher education, as we know. And it's what gives the federal government authority under Title 4 of that act to administer federal grants in the first place. And so, yes, it gives the secretary of education broad authority in terms of how federal student loans are doled out and how they may or may not be forgiven. But it is a longer path.
And that's probably a reason why the Biden administration didn't go that route in the first place. And so Biden is trying to give some very worried borrowers out there, in fact, at least 16 million of them that already been approved for this relief, trying to give them some kind of peace tonight by saying, look, even though these payments are now due, come the fall, we're going to try to get some temporary measures of relief. We mentioned that borrowers would only have to pay up to 5% of their expendable income. That's after things like housing and food.
Again, only talking about federal loans. There are a lot of other kinds of loans out there. And then he also pointed to the fact that he thinks that the court really misinterpreted here. And so they think that with this new plan going forward, pointing back to the Higher Education act, that they would be able to provide some people some relief.
Also telling borrowers that if they aren't able to repay, he's going to try to give them some kind of relief so that they're they don't get into default or have their credit scores worse. All of these things may wind up back in court over this very issue. But this is really central to the Biden administration and their plan. This is a campaign promise.
This is one of those groups that they are putting front and center as they look toward 20, 24 young people who are looking to start families and who are saddled by debt. Yeah, that's such a great point, Julian. Let's bring in Kelly Odell now, who's at the White House. And Kelly, to Julia's point, this is clearly a priority for President Biden.
And it's also pretty clear that his administration was bracing for this loss because they were to be able to come so quickly with kind of a plan B. I just wanted to play the second sound. But that we have from President Biden in his address a few minutes ago that shows how prepared they were for this loss. Take a listen.
But today's decision has closed one path. Now we're going to pursue another. I'm never going to stop fighting for you. We'll use every tool at our disposal to get you the student debt you need and reach your dreams.
It's good for the economy. It's good for the country. It's going to be good for you and you'll. Kelly, the president had a lot of options here.
We've seen how he's handled court losses in the past. We're going to create a New group of legislative tactics, take it to Congress, see what happens there. But instead he's once again going the executive action route. Is this a demonstration that he wants to show this group of young voters that they're committed to actually getting something done before the next election?
Well, on its face, I think the President wants to deliver on that promise. And certainly young voters are an important part of a constituency he wants to have with him in the next election. So he believes in policy, officials will tell you. And then certainly politics help him as well, because younger voters, those under 35, we've seen a definite change in how the President's perceived in job approval among that group.
Since the time this financial package of student loan relief was first introduced almost a year ago, the President's numbers with that group of voters have gone up and have been sustained at a higher level. So that is helpful to the President politically. He also believes it's good for the broader economy. It's been about six hours since the decision became public, but it's been many months since the oral arguments of this case.
And so based on that, the White House and the administration had a sense of what the concerns were among the court. They knew they had a 6 degree majority on the conservative side, so that gave them time to prepare. At the same time, they needed the hours to, to look for what was the concern expressed by the court? Where did this be?
Where was this determined be unconstitutional using that HEROES act that Julie and others have been talking about and looking for a different pathway. So this was one of the options that was on the table in that sort of Plan B list. And then once they had the decision today, looked at specifics, how could they move forward? What would need to be done?
And the hard part about this is that they're starting from scratch under that Department of Education law and looking for new rulemaking on policy. That takes time. It is not a fast fix. And certainly under the emergency authorities of the HEROES act, that would have been a faster timetable.
So we've got a situation now where we can't answer the basic question of who would qualify. How much loan forgiveness will there be? We just don't know those answers yet. It'll be some time before we do.
We do know borrowers will have to start repaying, and there are some steps to make that a bit easier. And the threshold of how much they have to pay has been adjusted unilaterally by the President, but expect more legal challenges. So the administration was prepared, but now there's a lot of new work to do. No doubt about that.
Kelly Ainsley, thank you both for so quickly getting on the story today. And we're going to get some instant reaction now to these Supreme Court cases and the president remarks. California Congressman MART Takano, who was very patient with us as we waited for the President to speak. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.
Just your initial reaction to this very quick move by the President to try and find another pathway to deliver at least some level of student loan relief. Do you think it's going to be enough and it's going to come quickly enough for the people who are looking for it? Well, certainly I was aligned with the President in his initial targeted loan forgiveness efforts through his executive actions. The court has put its substitution, it substituted its policy preferences rather than interpret the law.
I believe the Heroes act clearly gave the president authority to modify loans. They decided modify did not mean what modify meant. And the president clearly had the authority to do this under the statute. The court simply just decided that they were going in an unelected way, serve as its own legislature for the United States of America and become essentially the substitute the courts ruling for the Congress.
They became themselves the Congress and the President. And I assume that when you're talking about this issue having to do with student loans, you're also talking about some of the other decisions that came out this week, of course, by the issue related to the LGBTQ rights issue and freedom of speech with the website designed for a same sex couple. And then of course, the affirmative action ruling as well. Just in general, I know you've got a number of statements in this regard.
How concerned are you about the direction of this conservative court? And does Congress have any sort of role to try and rein in what you and your fellow progressive colleagues feels a problem? Well, I'm very concerned because these three cases together have some things in common. And one thing that jumps out at me was the aggressive way in which this court granted standing for the plaintiffs.
Standing as a legal term, what restrains the court from just becoming its own legislature to deciding questions before it willy nilly is this idea of standing. There has to be a real, a real something really at stake for the plaintiff. They really have to be harmed. So in the case of student loans, several states attorney generals brought the cases forward against President Biden.
Student loan relief hard for them to prove that their states or that they were being harmed. So it came down to a loan processor named Mohila, which is not even a state, to say, well, if President Biden relieves all these students from these onerous loan Payments, they're going to make less profit from processing those loans. They turned that into standing for the several states. Something similar happened with affirmative action.
A made up group, Students for Fair Admissions, not even a real student. Unlike the Bakke case and Affair of Action, there was not a particular student that was harmed and was granted admission to either Harvard or University of North Carolina. And again, 303, the 303 creative, very hypothetical issue over the digital creative artist. So look, the court reached out to bring these cases to them in my mind veritable reach of power.
The way we check that is we need to change the composition of the court. So when you say change the composition of the Court, does that mean that you believe that President Biden just adds to the current roster of nine justices? Is that the solution? Well, Congress has a role in this Congress.
At various times throughout our history the court has been as large as 15, as small as 7. It's not been 9 for all the time. Our Republic Congress has adjusted the size of the Supreme Court several times. And in fact, when the New Deal legislation by President Roosevelt was threatened by an aggressive activist conservative court, he, you know, attempted to pass legislation to enlarge the court.
It's called a stitching time or switching nine saves. Switching time saves nine. It was an effort in 1936. So it's been complicated before.
It has been done before Congress by simple majorities in House can adjust the size of the Court. So you think that that's realistic given the current makeup of the Congress, that you could even with a simple majority get to a position where Congress would give the President the authority to have more justices? No, the court make up. Of course we have a House controlled by extreme Republicans.
They would never contemplate it. But the court needs to understand another form of restraint on court besides standing is the knowledge that they go too far. The political branches have the option of altering the size of the court and that's a legitimate check. It's contained in the Constitution, it's very constitutional.
And if the court continues to overreach in the way that it is done in these past recent three cases, that is going to become a political issue in November of 2024. So it sounds the direction you're heading in here is that this should be a campaign issue and you should go to voters and say, you know, the solution here to fix if you're unhappy with the Russian of the Supreme Court is to vote more Democrats in office. Do you believe that this is going to be something Democrats like you are going to go across the country and make that case in the 2024 election. How big do you think the recent rulings of the Supreme Court will play in the 2024 election?
I think they are huge rulings. I think the idea that you're not going to consider race at all, not as the only factor, but as one of many factors in college admissions, whether it's denying LGBTQ people the ability to be treated fairly out of business, that a business's beliefs can trump their obligation to serve everybody, that comes through their doors. The idea that we go back to the days of the green book that African Americans had to carry around with them because they were unsure whether a hotel or motel would serve them. That's the beginning of what's happening in the 303Creative case.
What is the abortion rulings of this court. These are extreme, out of touch rulings by this court, and they've done so in an aggressive manner. In at least these three cases. They've gone out of their way to bring plaintiffs into the court so that they could make these decisions.
And they're acting like a legislative body than a court that is restrained, that really waits for true adversaries to appear before them. They're seeking out people who have who match their policy practices to bring cases into their court. Okay. Congressman Connolly, I appreciate you taking some time out during your legislative recess.
I know you're very busy in your district right now, and I appreciate you rolling with the punches here on an unpredictable afternoon on this program. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. My pleasure.
Appreciate the honor. And as we just mentioned with the Congressman, in addition to the student debt relief ruling today, the other case the Supreme Court ruled on was the LGBTQ rights issue. The court side with a Colorado web designer who said that she had a First Amendment right to refuse service to same sex couples. And in his majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, quote, tolerance, not coercion, is our nation's answer.
The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. But on the other side of this, in the dissenting opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, she called the decision heartbreaking and compared it to the discrimination that blacks face before the civil rights movement. Joining me for reaction to the Supreme Court ruling in the 303 website case is Louise Melling. She's the deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Louise, thank you for being here. I think the ACLU has an interesting role in all this. Obviously, we're involved in the case, but you've also been a pretty fierce defender of the First Amendment as well. In fact, you've taken the position of groups like the KKK in the past defending their First Amendment rights.
Why was this situation different in your organization's mind? In some core ways, this case isn't about speech. This case is about people. This case is about whether a business can refuse to provide service to people consistent because of who they are and because of who they love.
It's the first time ever that the court has said that the Constitution protects your right to discriminate. The owner of 303 has a right to say whatever she wants. Nothing was stopping that. The question was, in her business, does she have to serve people?
Does she have to serve people consistent with anti discrimination laws? And this court made the rival ruling that for the first time ever, the Constitution protects your right to turn people away. The Constitution protects her right to say, yes, I sell wedding. I provide a service for wedding websites, but I don't provide that service to people because.
Because of who you love. And it said that you can. She's in essence able to put up a sign that says, your kind not served here. Or wedding websites for heterosexuals only.
This is a. This is not a good day for equality and fairness in that respect. So in your mind, you know, what does this really mean in terms of the broader conversation about freedom of speech? Does this support a person's First Amendment right to say discriminatory things as they see fit?
And what's the distinction between offering a service versus, you know, voicing your opinion, regardless of how offensive it may be? I wonder about. This is about business. This is about laws that our country passed.
And Colorado passed this law originally in the 1800s to protect newly freed slaves. This is about a law that says if you have a business, you can't deny services to people based on who they are. You can't deny services to people because they're what? You can't deny services to people because they're wrong.
You can't deny services to people because they're lgbt. You have this privilege. It's a public accommodation. Like the congressman was saying about the Green Book.
Where can we go to get our service? Where can we go to buy food? Where can we go to sleep? Where can we go to buy our wedding dress?
And that's what's at issue, not what you can say on your. On the streets. Whether the government can stop you from protesting or the government can stop you from opposing my right to access your business. That's not what was at stake here.
What was at stake was think of your storefront. Think of the store on the street, whether that store can say, I refuse to serve you because of who you are. And today's decision opens the door for businesses that provide customized goods to say that they have a right to deny services, historically disadvantaged people. So we already saw the Supreme Court weigh in on a case like this, of course, the Masterpiece Cakeshop versus the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
A lot of these cases originating out of Colorado. You know, what are the differences between those two cases? And what does this ruling mean going forward that's different from what the Masterpiece Cakes ruling told us. So Masterpiece Cake shot, that was the case with a right based on speech, based on religion to refuse to provide services for same sex couple, also customized.
Good. We shouldn't have to provide the service. The United States Supreme Court in that case did not rule that the business had a right to discriminate. So what's changed since 2018 in the composition of the court and from your perspective?
You know, we've heard from the congressman right before we brought you on about the composition of the court, that exact issue. I mean, do you agree with him that the solution for folks on your side of the aisle to change the trajectory of this court is to add more members? I'm here really to talk about what the court did today and to sort of say what's really important is that we don't want, we're going to keep fighting so that the court and other people can't keep punching holes into anti discrimination law. Nobody should have to worry.
When you walk into a sword, you're going to refuse service because of who you are. No one should worry about that. Okay. Louise Melling, thank you so much for being here.
We appreciate it. And coming up, coming up, Republican candidates court a conservative group that's been labeled as anti government extremists by civil rights watchdogs. You're looking at live pictures where former President Trump is expected to take the stage at any minute now to address the group's Moms for Liberty. Those details next.
Plus, the political fallout for 2024 after a historic series of landmark decisions from the court's conservative justices. You're watching me, the press. Now, did you know that everyday activities like ASMR can actually be healthy for you? Right now, you're improving your heart health, boosting your brain activity and lowering your stress.
Manulife wants you to see healthy living Differently so you can live a longer, healthier life. Visit Manulife Ca Health to learn more ways Manulife can help. Welcome back. As Republicans hail the triumphs of the conservative court, a party's presidential field is courting a controversial conservative group.
This is the scene right now in Philadelphia at a convention for a group called Moms for Liberty. The Southern Poverty Law center has labeled it an anti government extremist organization, which the group's leaders do reject. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke to the group earlier today, touting their conservative bona fides while also noting recent court rulings. They are making a lot of wrongs.
Right. We've seen it. They've made, you know, they corrected things on religious liberty. We're seeing that they're correcting things on student loans.
But the affirmative action is really important. We saw yesterday the Supreme Court uphold the Constitution and say no racial discrimination in college admissions. Florida's the first state to go even further than that. We have eliminated DEI from our public universities.
In practice, DEI better stands for division, exclusion and indoctrination. And that has no place in our public institutions. And Donald Trump is expected to take the stage shortly for his own remarks. And yesterday a Trump super PAC celebrated the affirmative action decision as a result of the former president's promise to, quote, appoint constitutionalist justices.
Trump appointed three conservative justices during his presidency. And joining me now from Philly while the action is is NBC's Gabe Gutierrez. Gabe, you know, Moms for Liberty, this is a group that's kind of risen to prominence seemingly out of nowhere. They're just a bunch of moms that were upset about the way the schools were handling things during the COVID pandemic.
It's now grown rapidly to the point now where they can court all these presidential candidates, but they're also pretty controversial. Tell us a little bit about this organization. Yeah, that's right. Right, Ryan.
This is the latest battle of the so called culture wars. And as you mentioned, former President Trump is getting ready to speak right behind me. He's about to be introduced. And this is a very controversial group since it started back in 2021, founded by several mothers in Florida to combat Covid restrictions and to push back against mass mandates.
But over the last several years, the group says it has grown exponentially and now has some 285 chapters across 44 states with more than115,000 members. According to the group, as you said, the Southern Poverty the law center has labeled an anti government extremist group. Several weeks ago, one of its chapters in Indiana apologized for Queen Hitler in a newsletter. Now, I sat down with the co founders of this group and I asked them about that.
Take a listen. The Southern Poverty Law center has labeled determination extremist group. How do you respond to that? We reject that.
They have labeled us an anti government extremist group. And all you have to do is look at our record from last year. We forced 500 school board races. Our chapters did.
There were 275 of those races. That is exactly what you're supposed to do in our political process, is get involved in politics, get behind your candidate work to get them elected so you can make changes. That includes policy in your community that is not anti government. That's Anti World bills itself as a grassroots movement.
But critics are questioning where the money behind it is coming from. The nonprofit is not required to report its owners. And Ryan, again, former President Trump just about to be introduced here, right? That's right.
Some of the other presidential candidates I spoke today, we've had a little bit of Governor DeSantis, Governor Haley. They talked about the Supreme Court eclipse that we show. But what are the other topics? Well, sir, like Governor Ron DeSantis spoke here this morning.
He got a lot of applause when he spoke on certain cultural warriors and he talked about education four. He also talked about his battle versus Disney. And this crowd does not see it as a battle between, you know, a Governor Ford and a business. They see it as an attack on their children.
They do Disney as the enemy here. And they got a lot of responses. He has in certain other parts of the country, of course, his standards isn't very controversial among other modern Republicans. But this is a very friendly craft for Ron DeSantis.
And many of the attendees that I'm stricken with here view it as indoctrination. That's what they're fighting against. And certain presidential candidates like Ron DeSantis, like Donald Trump right now and Nikki Haley know that they have to win over this constituency in this GOP primary. All right.
Hey, Roger goes. They're starting to begin that program. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
Joining me now on our panel is NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent, my colleague on Capitol Hill, Ali Vitale, senior advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, a guy followed around the country for more than a year. Fashion Cares got so sick me calling him and Republican strategist Jim Dornan to talk more about everything that's happening here today. So, Ali, you know, you've seen this play out. You covered Donald TRUMP In 2016, you've been on Capitol, you've been all around the country.
What have you seen play out here in the past couple days? Is this a culmination of all those issues that you covered way back almost eight years ago? Yeah. This is the seed that Trump planted then finally bearing fruit.
And now everyone else has to do the same thing. Right. I mean, we're watching Ron DeSantis almost try to out Trump Trump and try to run to the right of him on several issues, including affirmative action. Just yesterday when he pointed out in an interview with our colleague Chuck Cod in 2015, Trump said he's fine with affirmative action.
Now DeSantis trying to say that Trump's an advocate of that policy. Somehow we're watching those two campaigns really start to go out each other more. But I think again, this is going to be a primary that is largely fought along the lines of the so called culture wars. People like DeSantis and Trump will do well by that metric.
But that's not to say how that translates into general election, frankly. I was on campaign yesterday, New Hampshire. New Hampshire. I met voters who said they were concerned with that as the way the primary was going to play out because they want to put forward a candidate that's electable and they don't know if they can do that if it's Trump or if it's others based on the policies that they're talking about right now.
Well, I talked about that moment with Trump and Donald Trump has lucky habit. We have it affirmative action, should we keep it? Yes or no? I'm fine with affirmative action.
Should be expanded or should be limited. Well, it should be. You know, you have to also go free market. You have to go capability.
You have to do a lot of things. But I'm fine with affirmative action. We lived with it for a long time. I've lived with it for a long time and I've had great relationships with lots of people.
So I'm fine with it. In addition to us amplifying this, I was Ron DeSantis super PAC. Probably not a surprise, but I mean, this does kind of define a little bit of the issue that Donald Trump has because, you know, his ideology has changed a lot over the course of his political career. Is he going to lean into these decisions that the Supreme Court is pointing out?
He's already even shown a little bit of reluctance to lean into the adopt decision as well. How does Donald Trump play this? So I think he probably skirts the line like he does with a lot of stuff. I mean, affirmative Action is part of our life.
I mean, it's part of our society. So I can see him why he said that. But he also, he was a Democrat and he probably he's not a conservative at all. That group, however, is very conservative and that's why all these guys are going up there.
And more importantly, what Trump did to women voters in the suburbs who voted Republican, we need them back. And so I think that that's a good reason for these guys want there too. But who knows with Trump? I mean, literally, I'll make a prediction and next day I'll be proven wrong.
I think we've all been there, right? So Faz, you know how Democrats play this. I mean, these rulings may be very popular, a place like Moms for Liberty, but what about the general electorate? Is there opening here for Democrats?
The thing about these rulings is they affect real people. Real. Any place you go in this country, you can talk to gay individual, you could talk to somebody who's suffering from student debt. You talk to a woman or families dealing with reproductive rights choices.
This is real. This is stuff that goes on. And so sometimes you know that there should be poor decisions that live in necessary bubble and are obscure. And only law professors understand this simple stuff to understand.
And they're so discoursed from the mainstream values in society. That's the other problem. They got the majority views on this, on choice, on lgbtq, affirmative action, you name it. The court is just completely out of set.
So this is an easy politics question. Very easy. Well, I'll challenge you on that. How easy is it?
Because what's the prescription? Right? We've seen some progressive members of. You line yourself with talking about packing the court, building the court to attack the court.
You attack these policies. I want to play another by from Chuck Todd, this with the vice President Kamala Harris about who the court is. Take a listen to this. Actually, we don't have this one, but this was after the Roe v.
Wade decision was overturned, the Dodds decision, she called it an activist court. We heard President Biden yesterday say it's not a normal court. Is the solution here to go after the court, to put that in the public sphere and then even suggest adding more members of the court. So two things on that.
One is, yes, this court is acting as a policy arm. And if people justices want to be policy arms, it just shut down from the court and she run for office. Justice John Roberts Alito, he guessed why. Stepping political.
Rena run from New Jersey, whatever. Number one. Number two is that I think you know, it's in your question. I understand your concerns on the court and the questions around the act of this court.
People forget that what you're actually asking for is a more active Congress. That's where you actually want this action to occur. You want Roe v. Wade and trying through law.
You want LGBTQ laws passed through Congress that ensure these rights. You've got a Supreme Court that's acting out of state. But if a Congress were step in and shine these things. So what's the question there, Ryan?
Do we want to fill buster? We get a majority? Do we start pushing on a legislative agenda? Let's go to a Congress expert.
Is that it's gonna get done? I mean. I mean, that's the problem we cover every day that we run into is that there's a desire, a will from the grassroots, but returning it in reality seems elusive. And you wanna do the same live shot every single time on any number of issues.
Which is, well, Democrats wanna do this, but we're in a state divided government right now. Or even last Congress, when it wasn't slick government and Democrats had both houses, they still didn't have the votes to do what they want to do. For example, on codifying reproductive protections. That's always going to be why you're watching them push to the next election.
I think you're right. It's not esoteric politics. Clearly, it's galvanizing people, especially in 2022. But sustaining energy and politics is always one of the really difficult things.
And although we see in the polling right now, the intensity on things like guns and on repro are with Democrats and sustaining that and is always really hard. And she just. She just named the reason or the solution to the problem. Win elections.
That's how you solve the problem in the Supreme Court. Yeah, but part of the problem, Jim, is that we don't contest these elections in the general election anymore. Right. I mean, so much of us, we don't.
Yeah. So much of this is now fought at the primary level where there isn't really an incentive or a motivation for these candidates to come to the middle and cut deals and find the kind of most popular option that most Americans are thinking about is that one of the biggest problems is seeing real systemic changes that we're fighting on the margins right now. Yeah. I mean, the country's incredibly divided.
We all know that. And it's far left and far right. And the people in the middle don't exist anymore. We're fed up now that we need them or Adam Kinzinger.
You know, they're gone. Right. So, so I think, I think you nailed it. Also, it is tougher for the very reason you just stated.
Right. I want to show you and tell me if we don't have this one, but we have a poll about primary voters who have earned a college degree are higher to kind of show you the divide between where we are with Republican Democratic voters. And we do have it. And this tells well in the point we're making, 51% of Democrats who are primary voters have a college degree or higher, 35% of Republicans.
This isn't, you know, this is not, you know, a character assassination on either side here, but this is show the difference between the perspectives of these two groups and the messaging that's going to be different. Talk about the American workforce, Ryan. Two thirds of them do not have a college degree. BULK Americans making $100,000, those are the people who increasingly we've seen blue collar voters moving from a Democratic Party that should be their natural home and increasingly moving towards the Republican Party.
I do think that Republicans done a fine job of making themselves under Trump being populace and railing against some issues around corporate America. They see that Ron DeSantis faux populists running against Disney. And what I think a Democratic Party needs to do to rebrand what you know from us, what we're finding for printing standards is to be much more affiliated with working class people, organized workers who are fighting to improve their jobs, benefits and get respect in the workplace. And I think that's what Jovan, I think is trying to bring to the Democratic Party to be clearly cancellation up.
Is this, is this working class message or not? If you lean into working class messages say yeah, people are struggling with debt, they're under 100,000, their nurses, working hospitals, we fight for you. That's the opportunity that's presented here is to get some of those working class learners back. And you think that's where the will is in the Democratic Party right now that we covered today.
Think about the Democratic Party that we covered last Congress. The reason they couldn't put student loan debt forgiveness in the inflation reduction act, which was previously held back. Better but still is Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema. We covered that ad nauseam back and forth between those offices.
So it's not just all Democrats want X and all Republicans don't want it. It's much more complex than that. When you look into actual people within the Democratic Party right now in Congress. And it's why you're saying the message isn't just elect Democrats, it's elect Democrats in a large enough margin that we can get rid of the filibuster that we can caught by road.
We can't do all these other things we want to do because the people we have there now are not Democrats in a sense that will help them do that. And we talk a lot, Jim, about the difference between the primary vote and the general election vote. What we're seeing play out in Philadelphia right now is clearly designed for a primary voter. Is the Republican messaging here.
Is it possible for them to win a general election, especially at the presidential level? Well, I think the culture war is eventually going to hurt them. I mean, the base, whatever that is, 20% of primary vote, 30, 40, 50% of primary votes is not going to translate into general election at all. And I think that.
But I don't think that they're thinking far enough ahead right now, honestly. And do Democrats have what it takes to take advantage of that? Yeah, I think. I mean, I was chuckling about the anti government label yesterday.
You had Ron DeSantis, anti government. It's not going to abolish commerce, education. IRS party actually is like what you're trying to advocate for. I don't think that's a joke.
I don't know if that's a mainstream. I don't think that's successful. Okay, great conversation, guys. Thank you for being here before holiday.
Enjoy your weekend. Enjoy your fourth of July. Appreciate you here. Ali Faz, Jim, thanks so much and thank you for being with us this hour.
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