The Exchanges

Q What is that, what is that like? Like, what does the pressure campaign look like? It's, because it's not just the president, exactly as you write in the book, it's people showing up at the house, it's people, With little kayaks with protest signs around your boat. It's pretty intense.

A It's pretty intense, Shammat, but I can tell you one thing. When every day, ah, the capital police call you and say, your death threats are serious right now, so we have to have, you know, we'll meet you down at where you live, and we'll bring you to work, and we'll take you back home. You know things are pretty serious. I never wanted to know the extent, but I knew they were serious, and then one time they said, this is really getting serious now, because now we got things, they know where your children go to school, they know where your grandchildren are, where your kids live, And I'm thinking, oh my god, this is crazy. And then I had a bunch of boaters come down, canoers. I had, I got attacked by canoes, and I just said, guys, listen, we just disagree. It was all climate people, and I said, listen, I, I want a clean climate. I just know we need energy to run our country, and there's got to be a balance. And, uh, so I said, come up to my office. They said, what? I said, come to my office tomorrow. We can sit and talk. You don't have to be out here in the water, but they thought that was the show they put on, and they came the next day. We talked, we agreed to disagree on some things, and we agreed on some things.

AI assessment note: “they know where your children go to school, they know where your grandchildren are”

Q that when they have a simple majority, they can pass any law they want. And there was a moment, I think, in that point where you came under a lot of pressure to get on board with trying to eliminate the filibuster. Can you just give us a window into that and what happened in How you made the decision and what the, what the reaction was from party loyalists?

A Well, let's go back to 2013 when Harry Reid, because of Barack Obama, couldn't get his appointments done for his, for his cabinet, and things of that sort, and some judges. So, the majority party can change the rules. If they want to blow it apart, they can blow it apart. Well, Harry Reid decided that he wanted to get rid of the filibuster. And, uh, I just said, Harry, I never do that. I mean, my goodness, you can't, just because you can't work with someone, I said, you and Mitch don't even sit down and talk. You don't have a cup of coffee, let alone discuss what should be important for both sides. And at that time, I even told Harry, I said, Harry, the only thing that the president's wanting He won re-election in 2012, gets reappointed in 2013, re-inaugurated, and here we go. He wants to put his team together. That's will and pleasure, and I always believe that will and pleasure, that will and pleasure means you're, you get elected, you're the executive, Shemoth, and you said, Joe, I want you to be part of this. I'm going to come and go. It's your will and pleasure. I'm not staying over. Once you're gone, I'm gone. Why not let you have your team unless I, and they can do an FBI background check, find out if I'm a Sound character and moral values, no criminal records, and boom, let me go. So I, I begged Harry, just go over and cut a deal with Mitch and say, Mitch, let's togethe…

AI assessment note: “I just said, Harry, I never do that. I mean, my goodness, you can't”

Q Let's talk about 26 just specifically. What do you think happens in the Senate and the House? What is the balance of power in your mind coming out of the 26th election?

A The only thing I have, I have said, and I will continue to say this, because my Republican friends are the only ones that are saying, we will not get rid of the filibuster in the United States Senate. And I hold that, I hold them to their word. These are my friends, John, John Thune and his, and his staff, and, and all of his people on his leadership team. And I hope the Republicans keep the Senate. Now for that, if you want a little bit of balance of power to change, challenge a little bit, calm it down a little bit, then you'd want the Democrats to win the House, the Congress. And if that could happen, then it might calm it down. We've got to calm it down. We've got to, we've got to turn down the temperature, and if that would turn it down, maybe fine, because when you have the trifecta, you can keep throwing stuff up there and pushing things pretty darn hard.

AI assessment note: “I hope the Republicans keep the Senate... you'd want the Democrats to win the House”

Q Do you think that we're now in sort of this intractable period where there can't be any centrism? There can't be this idea that you work and then you earn something, that there's that dignity of work. Instead, it's these extremes that are constantly about what giveaway can I give to people to get them on my side? Is that where we are?

A Let me give you the other thing about me and Bernie one time talking and Bernie wanted free tuition, right? Always wanted free tuition. And then they finally, they thought, well, we got, we'll get it free. If we go junior colleges. I says, I'm not for anything free. I'm for earning it. Here's what I'm going to tell you. If, for they talked about free college, I says, I says, Bernie, my son's, at that time, 47 years old. I said, my son's 40 years old. If you had free education, free tuition, he'd still be in school. He liked it so much. I said, he liked it so much, he'd still be there. And I said. So anyway, I said, no, I'm not for that, and I, so I said, let me tell you about free. If we, if we identified skill sets that were needed, and we can teach them in junior colleges, Have them sign up, get a Stafford loan, guaranteed federal loan. They don't pay it back until basically, you know, until they finish their education. So if they finish in two years, they took a Stafford loan, they took what they needed to get educated on, they took a Stafford loan in a two-year community college, they get a degree in a skill set, we forgive it. They've earned it. You didn't give it on the front end, because let me tell you what happens on the front end. Only half of them ever get through, maybe at 25%. You know, they go for four years, you know, and you know, I don't know if you know how th…

AI assessment note: “I'm not for anything free. I'm for earning it.”

Q But doesn't the message have to go from the White House? Like, doesn't Biden's team, somebody has to say, like, go.

A Oh, no, Ron, I'm going to be honest with you. Ron Klain, ok? Smart guy, good guy and everything, but he'd gone so far to the left and he pushed Joe left. Because I kept telling him. When I first went over to the White House, I said, Mr. President, I said, you have the most liberal staff that I've ever seen. First time I went over, and he said, well, Joe, they tell me I have the most diversified staff. I said, we're not talking about diversity, sir. We're talking about bat crazy. We're talking about people I've known, I've worked with in the hallway forever, and I know where they came and where they worked before. These are people real far left, and Ron put that team together, and I know that because I kept saying that your staff is pushing you too far left, Mr. President. You've never been that far left.

AI assessment note: “he'd gone so far to the left and he pushed Joe left”

Q So, I think we've failed in the last two decades, and socialism's on the rise. Why is that? How do we turn it around?

A Well, let me just say, the last, at the BBB, the last time President Trump, President Biden and I had met, where he calls me up into the White House, and he takes me up in stairs to the living quarters, and boy, when you go up there, that's really going to the woodshed, if you will. And we were talking and everything, and I said, Mr. President, I can't get there. I really can't get there, sir. And I said, you know, you and I are both at the same vintage. You're a little bit older, but not that much. And I said, we're, we're in the same vintage. And I said, I remember very vividly as a thirteen-year-old kid watching television, inauguration, nineteen-sixth of John Kennedy, asking all what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country. If we pass this piece of legislation you're asking me to vote for, the BBB, you're changing the psychic to the nation of how much more can my country do for me. I wasn't born that way, I wasn't raised that way, I don't believe that way, and I can't do it. You can put a gun to my head and say, I'm gonna pull the, pull the trigger. I can't vote for it. And then all hell broke loose after that. So, how it happened is this. My, my grandmother took everybody in. Okay, we lived by the railroad tracks between the crick and the railroad tracks in a little three-room garage apartment, and my grandparents had a little home right beside us. Sh…

AI assessment note: “you're changing the psychic to the nation of how much more can my country do for me”

Q been so honest today, and so, uh, you can be permission to be totally candid here. How close did you come to running as an independent for president? And you can be especially candid about this. How would you, now that you've got this great book and a great track record, obviously, Profile in Courage, how would you make the decision to run yourself in twenty-twenty? Walk us through both.

A I think about, first of all, I would have loved to have been, and I begged the Democratic Party to have a mini primary, thirty-day primary when Joe Biden Love it. I, I begged him. I said, you had to, you had to dispel some of the things that they were labeled with. Not every Democrat believed in that. That would have been a time to dispel a lot of that stuff. But boy, when he come double down and came right back within, what, an hour or two, and threw everything behind Kamala Harris, it was over. And, uh, you know, her, I knew we were in trouble then. Uh, I would have loved to have been on that diaspora.

AI assessment note: “I begged the Democratic Party to have a mini primary, thirty-day primary”