MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's not exactly a secret that Democrats are in a world of hurt right now. They've lost control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. But one of the Senate's most senior Democrats says he knows what Democrats need not just to survive but thrive over the next few years - it takes chutzpah. That's also the title of Senator Ron Wyden's new book, and the Oregon Democrat is with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, senator. Thank you so much for joining us.
RON WYDEN: Hey. Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: You know, the form of the book is really interesting. And I just want to say the full title is "It Takes Chutzpah: How To Fight Fearlessly For Progressive Change." It's kind of part memoir. It's part strategy guide and also, I might say, part therapy session. I was just wondering what gave you the idea to write this book in this way.
WYDEN: I wanted to write something very different. You know, most political types write books that are sort of a mix between ego and a fair amount of bragging and usually say people are urging me to run for president and all this kind of thing. This book doesn't go there. It's about using chutzpah, being bold and gutsy, and you can improve your world and the world at large. And we offer what we call the 12 rules of chutzpah to use in getting it done.
MARTIN: Tell the story about why you decided or how you decided to get into politics to begin with.
WYDEN: What I wanted to do, Michel, was play in the NBA, and I went to Calif Santa Barbara on a basketball scholarship, but I got an offer from Gonzaga. And this was the really stunning moment because if I had gone to Gonzaga, I would've sat on the bench even more than I did at Calif Santa Barbara, but I could have proved forever that a Jewish kid could play with the Jesuits. So that didn't work out.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
WYDEN: And finally, I started studying. I had a girlfriend. We went up to Oregon to just look at this beautiful place, and I fell in love with it. I went to law school there. I started working as a volunteer for Wayne Morse, who was one of two senators who voted against the Vietnam War, and he assigned me to working with the elderly. That's how I got started, and I had never run for anything. And I was 29 when I had this dream of standing up for seniors in Congress, and I was one of the youngest people Oregon had ever elected.
MARTIN: One of the interesting things for me about the book is how you talk about how to maneuver. You know, a lot of people think of the Senate as the place where good ideas go to die. And I was thinking here about income support during the COVID pandemic. You want to talk about that?
WYDEN: Yeah, that was the example I was going to give because one of the rules in my chutzpah agenda is never miss an unexpected moment. And I wrote the $600-a-week unemployment assistance package. And essentially, what it came down to was the Republicans, particularly Scalia, not so much Mnuchin, but mostly Scalia.
MARTIN: The labor secretary, not so much the Treasury secretary - Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, who is the son of the late Supreme Court justice, and not so much Steven Mnuchin, who was the Treasury secretary at the time.
WYDEN: Yeah. When he claimed you couldn't afford it, that's just factually untrue, and we gave him examples of where they sent checks out. Mnuchin went very quiet. We took out our calculators and proved that the amount we were seeking - the billions that we were seeking for the unemployed could be paid for within the budget.
MARTIN: So one of the issues here, though, is that people really disagree about what's bad stuff and what's good stuff. But immigration - for some people, you know, immigration is a good thing. For some people right now, immigration is a bad thing. So when people really don't agree about what is good and what is bad, how do you navigate that?
WYDEN: I like our odds, particularly saying, helping kids get a good start is more important than a handful of additional points of tax reduction to the people at the very top. But I do think that this is going to give us a chance to talk about priorities that ought to be focused on. And even Trump talks about them, but after the election is over, he vanishes.
MARTIN: How do you define chutzpah?
WYDEN: Well, you know, chutzpah is inherently good, and what Trump is doing is a malicious imitation of it. Chutzpah is being bold and gritty and taking on the odds.
MARTIN: And so in your view, Trump doesn't have chutzpah 'cause some people would think that he's the definition of chutzpah. He just kind of goes for it - right? - out of the box goes for it. Some people would say he's the definition of chutzpah, and you say that's not true.
WYDEN: When Trump is baiting people and bullying people and pandering to people, that's the kind of malicious use of chutzpah that concerns me.
MARTIN: What is your sort of best advice for people who are worried about the next four years?
WYDEN: We're going to mobilize in every way in government. I mean, if you've got a safety concern in your community and you're worried that some, you know, big shot on a local board won't go along with your effort to make sure that kids are safe, you know, jump in. Look at what Trump is doing right now in terms of climate, and we saw the wildfires in California. We know the climate is changing. This is the time to show your chutzpah, to get out of the house and fight and use your boldness and use your energy to make a big difference in your community and in the world.
MARTIN: You were first elected when you were - what? - 31, and you've been at this for a long time now. You've had a lot of wins, but you've also seen a lot of effort to undo some of the things that you fought for. What's keeping you hopeful right now?
WYDEN: I always think that political change doesn't start in the top in Washington, D.C. And obviously, Trump is going to be, you know, sworn in here very shortly, but political change is not top down. It's bottoms up. And I'm sort of exhibit A for showing that it can make a difference. You know, when I got started and senior citizens were interested in, you know, taking on the drug companies, for example, to get generic drugs - I mean, we have example after example of being able to show that if you accept the proposition, the political change is not top down, but it's grassroots up. That's what we're doing. We're going to focus on working people, and we're going to make the focus at the local kind of level, mobilizing citizens. And we think they're going to be receptive.
MARTIN: That is Senator Ron Wyden. He's a Democrat from Oregon. His new book is called "It Takes Chutzpah: How To Fight Fearlessly For Progressive Change." Senator Wyden, thank you so much for talking with us.
WYDEN: Michel, a lot of fun. Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEFON TEL AVIV'S "FAHRENHEIT FAIR ENOUGH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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