93. DNC Special: The Veteran Congresswoman (Rosa DeLauro)

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0:20Welcome to The Rest Is Politics. I'm going to be Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And we're very, very lucky to have somebody I admire immensely, who's Congressman Rosa DeLauro. And Congressman has had an extraordinary career, including chairing the vital committee in Congress on appropriations and finance and introducing revolutionary policy on child tax credits, which was very important in terms of lifting people out of poverty. but we first got to know each other in relation to Afghanistan and your support for women in Afghanistan. And also as a very, very active congresswoman for Connecticut and New Haven, where my parents-in-law live and where I currently teach at Yale.

0:59So welcome and thank you. Well, thank you so much. It's such a delight to see both of you and be with you today in this really very exciting environment. It's going to be really an extraordinary and historic week in US politics. Congresswoman, just as we were coming down the stairs, we're in this big hotel where a lot of delegates go. You introduced me to the chief of staff of your congressional lead. Yes. Could we just for listeners explain a little bit about who he is and how this works and what's happening? Sure. Well, Gideon, who you met, is the soon-to-be speaker of the house. Hakeem Jeffries is his chief of staff and is with him on the floor of the house all of the time.

1:34When I can't get to speak to Hakeem, I talk to her. I call Gideon and tell him I want to talk to him, or I pass messages through Gideon to Hakim, who is very accessible, you know, as you might imagine. But Gideon is at the center of what's happening in the Congress, what's happening with our negotiations when we're dealing with appropriations, etc. You know, and everything that our leader Jeffries is involved in, Gideon is at the center of that. Now, you mentioned this week, here we are in Chicago, and I was talking to Dan Bolts this morning from the Washington Post, who said that he's never known a time when he went to two conventions where both the parties thought they were on their way to winning.

2:14He said the Republican convention, the mood was like that. And now the mood has changed. Well, you know, I think that, first of all, there's a very, very big difference in conventions. The mood, as I say, also the environment and the direction. And one dark and gloomy. And this is really a triumph. I think the Republicans did think that they were ahead. And, you know, we have an extraordinary individual who is our president of the United States, and that's Joe Biden. And he understood what was happening, as difficult as that might have been for him to make the decision to leave. He did it with grace, with courage, and with dignity.

2:54And he's an extraordinary, extraordinary man. I've known him a very long time. And he passed the torch to Kamala Harris. Now, this is something that my Republican colleagues were not anticipating. So they are in a bit of a sweat. Do you think that's because they would never do it like that? You couldn't imagine Trump doing that, could you? Oh, my gosh, no. No. If you listen to him, he says, you know, after you vote for me, this time you won't have to vote again. God help us, you know, with what he means in that direction and that he would be a dictator on the first day. So, you know, it's a very, very different direction.

3:29And if you take a look at the kind of seamless transition that we have had from President Biden to Vice President Kamala Harris now as our nominee. And again, along with him and his help, she was able to take on the nomination, which she did in a very short hour. It's 28 days. 28 days. They've raised over$300 million for the campaign. and she has unified the Democratic Party. She's really brought people together who were struggling. They were struggling. You know, I think we have to be honest with ourselves about it. And so now the energy, the momentum, the enthusiasm is palpable. And if I can just go on for a moment more, it's not just here because here, you know, it's just every Democrat in the country is here and we're all talking the same language.

4:27I live in New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale University and Rory's home for a while. But people who know me, they see me on the street, they'll say, hello, Rosa. But the next thing out of their mouth is we're going to win. She's great. We got to get people out to vote. That is palpable. I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned just before coming here. And the dental hygienist, you know, you can't talk when they're talking, But she is telling me about how excited she is about Kamala Harris's run for president and what it means. So I think it's just it is everywhere that sense of momentum, which continues.

5:07What more would you like to see in the Democratic manifesto or ticket which you think could really improve lives for Americans and guarantee this election? Well, what I'm very, very excited about is what Kamala Harris's message is. Americans are struggling. The economic insecurity in this country is something as well that is palpable. It's not a campaign slogan to say that people are living paycheck to paycheck. They are. It's the cost of health care. It's the cost of food. It's housing. Big, big issues. And they haven't had a raise in their wages in years and years and years. So you have to start with them from where they are.

5:55I said over and over again to some of my colleagues at the White House, you can't start by telling them that we have the strongest economy in the world. You can't tell that we've created 16 billion jobs. Even if it's true. We're moving in a direction. But their lives, they're not there. And I think if there were a criticism of President Biden, it's that sometimes he didn't fully acknowledge clearly the cost of living crisis. He seemed to want to talk about positive economic statistics, but wasn't as good as relating on it. He wanted to start from saying what he had accomplished. And he accomplished an incredible amount, took over the pandemic, turned the economy around.

6:33It's all of these things. Biggest investment in climate, all of the above, and jobs, no question. But if you are someone in any city or town, you haven't seen your wages go up in years, you go to the grocery store, you're finding that you have to buy a jar of mayonnaise that costs$9. You know, this is where the struggle is. And what we need to do is to acknowledge that struggle right off the bat. And she is doing that. She is talking about people need to have a job which pays a good wage, and so that what they can do is to be able to meet their financial obligations. And she talks about it's opportunity.

7:16But look, I authored the child tax credit, and so I'm being very self-serving about that. But 20 years I've worked on the child tax credit. President Biden put it into the American Rescue Plan. We had it for one year, and it expired. We had lowered the poverty rate to 5.4%. When we yanked the child tax credit, it went up to 12.2%. Hunger decreased by a quarter. It now has gone up again. And what the child tax credit will do, and she has picked this up, it's become the flagship of the Democratic Party. $6 ,000 a year at$500 a month for every child. We have found the antidote to poverty here. It worked.

8:02Why did Joe Biden drop it? It was because in the time we could only get it for one year. I started out wanting it to be permanent. I was told we couldn't do that. We couldn't afford it. Then I was told, okay, I said five years. No, five years. Then I said three. No, a year. And I wasn't going to let it go. I said, yes, we'll take it for one year. And in one year, we reduced that poverty level. Half of our kids were out of poverty in the United States. But it must have been deeply frustrating for you when it was dropped, because not only was this your signature policy, but also, as you say, you saw a real negative impact on many low-income families.

8:41Because, you know, I've rarely seen, and you are both students of government, I see federal programs come and go. I have never seen a federal program that worked as well and carried out the mission that it was intended to do. And we got$10 for every dollar invested. People bought child care so that they could go to work. They paid tuition for their kids. They bought school supplies. They bought food, et cetera. It was a new lease on life. And is this, Congressman, Excellent. Is this now guaranteed to be in the platform and is it going to be central to the campaign? It is now central to the campaign.

9:22She is going to expand and extend the child tax credit. She wants a$6 ,000 payment to families at$500 a month. And it includes a baby bonus, which we included, I included in my bill, because in the first year of life, it's very expensive of the rear of childs. It's diapers, everything that you have to get, the furniture, everything that you have to get. And she's committed to it. As I say, it's the first thing on the list. And I think that resonates with people. That resonates with people. She's also very clear about the cost of food prices. You know, there's no food shortage in the United States.

10:03So why are the prices so high? Sure, the pandemic was supply chain. That's done. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a minute.

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11:11Now, I know you better through your husband, Stan Greenberg. He's a well-known pollster and strategist who's worked for the Labour Party. And indeed, listeners won't be aware, but Stan is standing about 10 yards from us over there. Yeah, and so that's kind of how I know you. But looking through the lens of strategy, I was surprised at how slow the Democrats were to alight upon Project 2025. Really? Yeah. And even to this day, I don't think it's as well known by the public as it should be. I think you're right about that. I think you're right about that. And I wonder why the Democrats haven't sort of got that right into people's heads.

11:52Well, it's very, very interesting that there seems to be a much more messaging about this. And I find the local people know pieces of it. I think it's really their blueprint for the future. You dismantle the Affordable Care Act, national ban on abortion, that you replace civil servants with the MAGA activists, eliminate public education. You then overtime, no overtime. Well, they would say eliminate federal control of public education. Okay, yes. But let me just tell you. Now, if you think that this is a pipe dream, that this is a plan on paper, what I did, what I asked my staff to do, I'm happy to get it to you.

12:31We put together a document. I said, find out for me in the appropriations bills that we're currently working on. Track Project 2025 and tell me where 2025 is being enacted. I have a 20-page document, longer page document. I can tell you that, and the Department of Education, eliminate Title I, which is the bulwark of public education in the United States over the next several years. In labor, you cut back, no overtime, no project labor agreements, disastrous with regard to collective bargaining. And I'm witnessing all of this in the appropriations bills. And so I've gotten that out to all my colleagues.

13:21We've gotten it to the press so we can actually look at it. It's happening right now, but the public needs to know it is happening and they need to be wary of it. Just as we come towards the end, I'd love a little bit of a sense of one of the things that really moved and impressed me is how committed you are to your local district. And I guess there are different types of Congress people. Some of them seem to be spending their whole time thinking about national security issues. Others seem to be focusing on local areas. You've done both. But I'd love, just for international listeners, give us a sense of the life away from Washington.

13:59Give us a sense of the kind of stuff you do in New Haven. I've seen you working with refugees organizations, with NGOs like Iris. I've seen you visiting. I mean, tell us about what the life of a congressperson is back in your district. Sure. You have to understand my own background. First of all, I'm the daughter of an immigrant family. Only dare dream I would be in this position someday. But both of my parents served on the city council in New Haven. They didn't write comprehensive legislation. Their brand of politics was, how do you make government work for people? Our kitchen table was a community room.

14:37People could come in about a job for their kid, and immigration problems, Social Security, wherever it was. So I grew up in that atmosphere of the role of advocacy, of how do you make government work for people. And my mother, when she ran for office, she could look at the voting list and identify everyone that she knew. And she knew when they came out to vote and what time they came out to vote, or she would go to pick them up to vote. So it was really the connection with people. And that's who I am. And so I go back every weekend, pretty much. I try to get to as many places, but the interaction is, it's exciting, you know, and it gives you energy.

15:25People find themselves in a position where they don't know where to turn to get something done. And we have the ability to help them to be able to do that. And so that's the way I perceive this job. That's what I love about it. And I love the interaction with people. Now, my last question. We've just interviewed a guy called Peter Malinowskis, who is the premier of South Australia. And he's trying to legislate to ban all political donations because he worries that money is too powerful in politics. And you mentioned there that as a great thing, since Kamala has become the candidate. $300 million.

16:04That's right. Is there not part of you that wishes that politics wasn't like that? First of all, I wish we were a little bit like all of you, that our election season were truncated. It was, you know, rather than a year, 18 months, etc. My God. So that's when you think about the amount of money that's involved, etc. But the issue here is the transparency in funding, where it's coming from, who is giving, etc. Which we should have many, many more restrictions on and what's happening. Money, unfortunately, does play a very, very big role. How much time do you have to spend fundraising? Not enough, my staff tells me.

16:43They really are always after me. You know, when are you going to make the calls? When are you going to make the calls? I have to do it, though. Am I right in saying that you're in a relatively safe seat? But if you were in a marginal district, people are spending four hours a day doing this. Every day. Every day. I know some of my colleagues are down at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. you know, every day at some period of time to make the calls. And the people who come from the coast are there because it's earlier, they're there in the evening, and then they make calls in. And we have to, you know, some of the legislation that's on the books now has to be reversed that allows people to give untold amounts without you knowing where it's coming from and so forth.

17:28So we need to do that but we do have a system now in which if you're going to run and you have to put ads on the tv you have to pay for those ads if you want to hire volunteers or you want to hire people and you want to you have to pay them and that's just a fact of life for some of these you know my first campaign cost me under a million dollars my god that's a bargain it's still a lot it is But nowadays, what do they cost? And my campaign was 18 months long. What do they cost now? So they've gone from a million up to... My God, it's so unseemly. You know, 15,$20 million, some of them. For a district?

18:09Or a state, you know. You know, I had someone four years ago who ran against me. She was a multimillionaire, you know, spent maybe, you know,$2 million or more, you know, so forth. And I had to, I had to scream, I had to make those calls because I didn't have the money to try to keep up. Very fine one. I'm sorry I said fine one. But one of the things that suddenly struck me listening to you is that I met you, Congressman, once with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. And it struck me that some of your story about sitting with your parents is a little bit similar to the Speaker Emerita story. It really is.

18:46And in a different way, as I say, you know, the speaker's parents served in the Congress. Her dad did. Her brother did. Her mom was the organizer in the family. So she grew up in a very political household in the same way I did. It was more at the local level than I did. But we do. We share the same background. You know, I'm often asked by the press, what motivates you? What makes you vote the way you do? take up the issues that you take up. And it's not for the blessed time I've spent in the U.S. House of Representatives, but it was growing up in an Italian Catholic household in New Haven, Connecticut.

19:27And for Nancy Pelosi, it was an Italian Catholic household in Baltimore, Maryland. So we come from the same background, you know, a little bit different, but with that same set of values about what public service is all about. Well, thank you for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Love it. Love you guys. Thank you so much. I'm delighted you're here.