LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Now we turn to the opposition party. From immigration to trade to mass federal layoffs, the Trump administration is attempting to reshape the United States at home and abroad with brute force. Democrats are under pressure from their supporters to fight the Trump agenda but have few options as the minority party in both chambers of Congress. And they seem to be unable to wield the little leverage they do have, like playing obstacle to the president's agenda. That came into sharp focus when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted in favor of a Republican bill last week to fund the government. The move triggered a backlash among the party's rank and file and voters.
So how can the party stand up to Trump's agenda? Here to talk about that is Paul Begala, former chief strategist of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, and Waleed Shahid, who has played a key role in developing the more progressive wing of the party, working with lawmakers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Good morning to you both.
PAUL BEGALA: Good morning, Leila.
WALEED SHAHID: Good morning.
FADEL: So, Waleed, I want to start with you. We've been watching this infighting inside the Democratic Party on how to wield its very, very limited power. In light of Senator Schumer's move last week, is the party sort of blowing up from within? And how can they unite?
SHAHID: I mean, what Chuck Schumer did was an embarrassing blunder. You had House Democrats marching in one direction and Senate Democrats marching in the same direction until the very last minute and leaving the bag - leaving House Democrats holding the bag. But, you know, one thing is if the American public are waiting for Chuck Schumer or party elites or the court to save us, we're already losing. We need - the amount of social movement and activity we need in this country - if there's truly a constitutional crisis, if there's a billionaire corporate coup by Elon Musk underway, we need action.
In other countries, when democracy is on the line, the public doesn't just watch. They flood the streets. They shut down business as usual. They take nonviolent action. They engage in boycotts. That's not the scale of the action we're seeing - nothing close to what we saw in 2017, with Trump's first presidency, with - in 2020, with protests around the murder of George Floyd. If we're serious about defending democracy, we need to flex the muscle of American civil society.
And so while I'm incredibly angry with Chuck Schumer, we need leaders. We need people to get involved because history is made by those who fight. We can't just wait for Senate Democrats to do the right thing. We need to see the public engaged on these issues, and not just the political leaders.
FADEL: Paul, do you see it the same way?
BEGALA: Oh, slightly differently. I don't blame the public. The public is doing a great job, OK? Senator Schumer, I think, should have compromised. He didn't. He caved. He had something very valuable - Democratic votes to pass the continuing resolution the Republicans wanted - and he traded it for nothing, right? I think he should have forced the Republicans to the table, and he should have brought a menu that helps the middle class.
Where I slightly - maybe only slightly - disagree with Waleed is this is a tale of two parties, OK? In Washington, they're defeated. They're divided. They're directionless. Out in America, they're kicking butt. Democrats are winning special elections all around the country. There's a Senate district - state Senate district in Iowa, in the eastern part of the state. Trump carried it by 21 points, OK? A Democrat named Mike Zimmer just won it by 3 1/2 points, so you're swinging 25 points in a couple of months. We won special elections in Minnesota, in Virginia, in New York, in Oklahoma.
And the big one - the really big one your listeners all got to dial in on - April 1, Wisconsin Supreme Court. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is putting millions of dollars into that. I think the Democrats are going to win in part because - well, the liberal will win. They don't do it by party. But the progressive will win because Mr. Musk is putting so much money in. So there is a reaction out there in America. Go try to go to a Republican Congress member's town hall. They'll scream at you. So there's a ton of energy and excitement, enthusiasm, and we're actually winning elections. That's what - that's the coin of the realm for me.
FADEL: So I'm listening to you both. And I will say we've heard a lot of voters express extreme disappointment in Democrats - voters who support Democrats, who might have concerns about the Trump agenda - over their failure to stand up to anything, really. So for both of you, what is your sense of how voters - Democrats - feel about their party? And where should the party go from here? Waleed, if we start with you.
SHAHID: Well, I think the Democratic Party's job is not to defend institutions. It's to transform them. So institutions aren't sacred relics handed down from heavens. They're tools, and tools are only as useful as the work they're doing. And I think this past election, we saw so many Democratic leaders say, we can't just defend democracy or say we're defending democracy and say we're defending institutions. We - if you care about democracy, you don't protect institutions for their own sake. You protect the values they're supposed to uphold. And I think what we saw with Chuck Schumer this past week was kind of the knee-jerk way of going back to defending the norms, doing business as usual. I think Democrats need to get out there.
The most important thing that we need to do is focus on how we slow down this corporate coup by Elon Musk, how we gum up the works, and how we communicate to the American people. 'Cause I still don't think it's fully trickled down to the American people the scale and the speed at which Elon Musk has seized citizens' data, private companies' data, the way that he's gutting - he's the - one of the wealthiest men in the world is trying to gut your grandma's Social Security to pass a tax cut that benefits billionaires like him. These singular, laser-focused messages on affordability, on how - on the billionaire capture of our government, and also how they're trying to distract you with taking over - flooding social media with stories about how immigrants and the LGBT community or diversity is to blame for plane crashes in this country - I mean, it is the biggest scam in modern American history.
FADEL: Paul?
BEGALA: One word - betrayal. Not resistance - betrayal. Democrats need to go to the country, particularly those people who voted for Donald Trump. You know, he won the middle class. He won voters who make less than $50,000 a year. If my party doesn't serve the middle class, the working class, we don't deserve to exist. So rather than allowing our party to be distracted by elite, esoteric, woke cultural issues, get right back to the meat and potatoes.
And I think actually, Waleed and I are closer than you might think. I mean, Democrats need to go - the big, big fight here is going to be when we have the Trump budget in September, which will cut Medicaid, cut Medicare, cut Social Security, cut public education, by the way, and cut people in Trump counties, in Trump communities, in Trump states far more, frankly, than blue America. So I think we just ought to focus on folks whose names are stitched above the pocket of their shirt, not those whose pronouns are typed at the bottom of their emails.
FADEL: Democratic strategist Paul Begala and Waleed Shahid, thank you both for joining us this morning.
SHAHID: Thank you.
BEGALA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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