As progressives win U.S. primaries, what’s the direction of the Democratic Party?

0:00So who decides which authors are featured on your favorite book interview podcasts? Hey, I'm Ailee. I'm a producer on Bookends with Matea Roach, which means my desk is covered with books that might end up on your podcast feed. So this summer on the show, we've got Go Gentle by Maria Semple. It's about a stoic philosopher who gets involved in an art heist. We also talked to Maggie O 'Farrell about her new book. She's the Oscar nominated author of Hamnet, if you're a movie fan. Anyway, my desk is a mess because we want to make sure we're bringing you authors that actually resonate with you. So check out Bookends with Matea Roach wherever you get your podcasts.

0:36This is a CBC Podcast. Jamie, it is so wonderful to see you again in Washington. And I do see sitting beside you my very good, close, personal friend outside of work, Josh Wingrove of Bloomberg News, who he and I worked together in Ottawa. We were correspondents for competing news organizations. But, you know, we're friends. So, Josh, thanks for doing a favor. You're allowed to be friends with the competition. and you can just put down swords at 5 o 'clock and enjoy each other's company. Exactly, and then have a cocktail. That's right. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. This is a really big treat for me too because this is actually the first time that I've met Josh in person, but I've been a longtime admirer of your work.

1:17Well, it took me to Washington to make that happen. So here we are. I hope you're not melting in the heat. I am melting. Yeah, good. I am melting. The swamp is still not drained, as it turns out. It's still pretty swampy here and the summers are punishing, but it is what it is. So this week I am avoiding the punishing weather. I'm up in Ottawa, I'm hosting, guest hosting Power and Politics for another week. And that's why I'm not in studio with you two lovely folks. And this week we're going to have a conversation about the Democrats. We've been getting a lot of inquiries from Canadians about sort of the state of play heading into the midterms, what the party is doing and the direction of the party going forward.

1:55But first, I know that Canadians are pretty anxious and really keen to learn any details they can about what's going on with Donald Trump's latest tariff threat, as we are about a week away from the latest deadline. When this airs on Wednesday, it'll be one week until new tariff day. Mm hmm. Our colleague, Katie Kate McKenna, is I think right now outside in the heat, the Canadian embassy waiting to see any news because there are talks with Dominic LeBlanc and trade rep Jameson Greer, which I know we're going to get to in a little bit. And so we're we're on top of it. We're on top of it. Yes. So for Canadians who want to hear the latest that we have, that'll be coming up in just a moment.

2:40But like I mentioned, we want to spend most of this episode having a conversation about what is going on with the many Democratic primaries happening over the past few months. Primaries with results like this. We took on a machine. You're not supposed to be able to beat 70 million dollars of outside spending. a record amount of money spent in a campaign against a Democrat in a primary in any campaign. You're not supposed to be able to beat that. And what we showed is that the power of our many is greater than the power of their money. That is Abdul El-Sayed, who recently won the Michigan Democratic primary to run for a Senate seat this fall, a coveted open Senate seat with no incumbent in a swing state.

3:22These don't come up very often. And he did it with a much smaller budget and a much more progressive left of center platform than his primary opponents. And that's becoming a bit of a pattern lately in the Democratic Party at large. But while these wins are being celebrated by progressive voters, many political watchers are not so convinced that they will lead to victory in this fall's midterm elections. And so this week we are asking, what does the primary in Michigan say about the direction of the Democratic Party and about who might become the presidential candidate in 2028? I'm Jamie Poisson.

3:55I'm Josh Wingrove. And I'm Katie Simpson. And we're Washington Correspondents, two blocks and then some from the White House.

4:08okay so we are going to start really quickly with tariffs just to give canadians a bit of an update about what we know what's going on right now as i mentioned we're recording this around noon on tuesday so things could absolutely change between now and the time this is released wednesday morning jamie you mentioned our colleagues they're trying to track down dominant LeBlanc, who is the leader, the minister who is leading sort of the Canadian effort in this front. I understand he's in Washington. He just arrived this morning. What do we know? He got in this morning and he's supposed to be meeting with Trade Rep Jameson Greer today around 1.30.

4:42This is the third meeting between the two in the last three weeks. So you can read into that what you will. The August 19 deadline looms for those 50 percent tariffs that Trump slapped on a whole bunch of Canadian goods, cement, hockey sticks, some dairy, some antiques. And so that's where we are right now. I think we're all talking around noon on Tuesday. And so, Josh, walk us through your framing. I know that this is something that you have covered, given your time in Ottawa and your time in Washington. Can you give us sort of the framing of where things stand right now? Yeah, I think the big question, Katie, is are these tariffs leverage or does Trump actually intend to impose them.

5:24338 tariffs have never been imposed before. So they're a bit of a test case at minimum. But we've seen more talking in the last week or two than we have previously. And so it seems like things are moving in a direction. We just don't really know what that is. I think it's important to level set here. Look, I'm Canadian. I live in the States. You know, my friends and family back home, I'm well aware of the mood. We were just back over the summertime several times. But Trump has put tariffs on everyone. I think that that's sometimes lost globally. For instance, Canada has the lowest effective tariff rate of any country in the G7.

5:59It's got one of the lowest in the G20. Only the Russians are lower in Russia because that's a different kettle of fish with all kinds of other sanctions. And so that is sort of the base that things are starting at. That USMCA exemption remains in place. Of course, Trump could adjust that. But I think that that is important to note that a lot of trade currently going between the countries is going tariff free. A lot of countries aren't getting the benefit of that, or at least major economies are not. And so that's a starting point. And so I think that brings us to this week and the question of like, what is Mark Carney willing to give up?

6:32And to a different extent, what are the premiers willing to agree to, to get maybe half a loaf from Donald Trump, right? We, for instance, do not know if USMCA renewal is on the table or if Trump just wants to keep it in rolling renegotiation for a decade. And so there's a lot of moving parts on this one, but they are talking. We're going to see where it goes. Trump loves these sort of, you know, hairpin under a knife pressure points for negotiations. But I think there's a lot of options in front of us, including, you know, delays, half deals, fuller deals. It's just kind of too soon to say where we'll go.

7:08OK, so we will leave that part of the conversation there, though, Josh. I'm sure we could do a whole special episode where we just chat about, you know, what you've learned and your team's learned and lean on your knowledge. But we're going to pause it there for now. We will talk plenty about tariffs in the days and weeks to come. But we want to focus a little bit on something that Canadians have been emailing us and trying to get a better understanding of what's happening right now with the Democratic Party, especially with all of these primaries that are taking place. Josh, Michigan is a really great place to start.

7:43And for Canadians who might not, might have heard the name, but not really understand why, you know, this race was so important. Bring us up to speed on who Abdul El-Sayed is and why his win is considered such a big deal. Yeah, Michigan is a huge bellwether state. It is, of course, a swing state, but also a bellwether economically, demographically. And that's why people pay so much attention to it. The current senator, a Democrat, Gary Peters, is retiring. So this is open and it is probably the biggest pickup opportunity for Republicans in this cycle when, of course, things aren't looking great and Trump's poll numbers are in the absolute toilet right now.

8:18And so what the hope for Republicans is they can basically snake this away. The Democrats had a big primary that boiled down to three and then two candidates. And what we saw play out in Michigan has been playing out in other races where there was essentially one progressive candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, who won the race and one or more moderate slash establishment type candidates. And, you know, in different states that takes different form, but that's how it shook out in Michigan. And Sayed overcame a lot of spending in particular to beat Haley Stevens. The question now is that works in a primary of Democratic electorate voters.

8:53Does it work in a general election against, you know, pretty strong candidates? Republicans are concerned he's run for Senate before. He's sort of a known quantity. He's both Trump-aligned but not like overly Trumpy in a way. So it's like it's a pretty strong contest shaping up. And if you look at the splits, Syed did not great in Detroit where a lot of Democratic votes are. He did not great among black voters in particular who are, of course, a foundation of the Democratic Party. And so the question in Michigan and in all these other races is, is it is all the juice that is making progressives do well in certain primaries?

9:28Does that translate to a general election? And if it does, does the mass still work the same for them to win? Right. Right. And and Jamie, Josh, in that answer there, he mentioned Haley Stevens. That is who Abdul El-Sayed was running against the more moderate establishment backed candidate. Um, let's talk a little bit about, you know, uh, where, you know, how her campaign was run. And, and again, it sort of speaks to why this win for outside was such a big deal. Yeah. I thought this race was so interesting in part because there was like an eye watering amount of money dumped into it. 60 million bucks, uh, spent largely by super PACs on behalf of Haley Stevens, half of that money was spent by AIPAC that we know about right now, which is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is this longstanding pro-Israel group, pro-Israel lobby.

10:26And it spent more than 30 million bucks trying to defeat L-Side. Interestingly, they ran all these ads that didn't talk about Israel at all, right? They talked about Haley Stevens' record in auto manufacturing. They talked about how Barack Obama was fond of her in 2018. And as said, like because of this, because of all of the spending, Israel and AIPAC became this incredibly central issue in the campaign. Stevens is quite supportive of Israel. Al-Sayed, very critical of Israel. One of his key messages was that the U.S. shouldn't be sending bombs to the Middle East, as he said, drop bombs on hospitals or schools and instead should be spending it on health care.

11:07So he was really kind of linking that to affordability issues. And anyways, the progressives are really framing this win by Al-Sayed as, you know, a guy that went up against big money, that went up against AIPAC and came out the other side. But of course, now, as Josh pointed out, he has to run against Mike Rogers and AIPAC has signaled that they're going to probably spend quite a bit of money here. Yeah. And I should note, El-Sayed frames his argument a lot of times in, you know, we shouldn't be involved in foreign wars abroad. And there is kind of a bipartisan consensus. You know, who agreed on that was J.D.

11:45Vance until Iran happened. And here we are. But he's also campaigned with Hassan Piker, for example, which is inviting attacks from Republicans. Piker has been much more vocal on Israel and Gaza. So it is brewing as an issue and will be both in the state race and nationally for the Democrats and Republicans. Well, it's going to be a nasty race, but we've already seen some of these primaries, the intra-party fighting. Josh, some have described it as messy. It is messy. So in Michigan, basically every Democrat supported Haley Stevens. None supported El-Sayed, who, by the way, is not a nobody. He ran for governor against Gretchen Whitmer, a two-term governor, a very popular one.

12:29So he's been on the scene before. And we're seeing this in other states, notably Maine, where the Democratic establishment tried to gin up a candidate to go against Plattner before Plattner imploded. And it was Mills, the governor. Like, there's this weird battle going on in all these states where the Democratic establishment is sort of trying and in some cases succeeding in getting what they think are good candidates. Ohio, Alaska, Iowa are all candidates that Democrats basically agree are perfect for them in those states. But in other states, it hasn't gone the way they wanted it to go. And so part of this conversation, it's not just about what's going on in Michigan.

13:04And Josh, you talked about the other states where some of these battles are playing out. Jamie, you know, can you give us a sense of sort of the battle that is shaping up heading into to the November midterm elections and sort of the test that these progressive candidates that, you know, they're building momentum, they're beating the establishment candidates. How will the midterms sort of serve as a test for the broader future of the Democratic Party? I would love to hear what you guys think about this. I was listening to Fareed Zakaria on the weekend talk about what he thinks the big issue is in the Democratic Party right now.

13:40And he was saying essentially that it's not that the left needs to move further left on economic issues, but they need to move closer to the center on sort of cultural and social issues on the woke agenda, but also on crime and on immigration. And Fareed was saying that, you know, while the progressive wing of the party has the heart and the momentum and, you know, the internet behind them, they don't actually have the votes. And, you know, obviously, I think that if you ask people in the progressive wing about this, they would say that in the last election, the Democrats ran a status quo Democrat and lost.

14:22And so they don't actually have their finger on the pulse of the electorate. But I mean, like, what do you both make of that argument that they don't actually have the votes to carry these states? I think I think it depends on the state. And this is in some ways new and in some ways isn't. The Syed Stevens map looks almost exactly like the Bernie Hillary map from 2016. Bernie Sanders won Michigan in that primary. And it's virtually the same county by county. I'm exaggerating slightly, but it is, you know, people struggle to differentiate. And so this has been going on for some time. And we are now, 2028 is underway, by the way, already.

14:59And we are starting to see a play out again. And of course, we're seeing that with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative from New York, who is probably the top flag bearer for the progressive movement right now, even higher than Bernie, or at least on the same tier as Bernie, Senator Sanders, as well as Senator Elizabeth Warren. And the question right now is, is AOC going to run in 2028? Would Senator El-Sayed run in 2028 if he wins this Senate race? Who will the progressives put up to run? I think they'll put up someone. And so the question, I think, is like where you're going to see this sort of battle play out with a crowded stage of moderate slash establishment candidates slash harder to place candidates and at least one progressive.

15:40And you speak about, yeah, they maybe don't have the votes. They've got donors. They've got an ecosystem. There's a lot of left-wing new media, progressive new media that progressive candidates can go on. When people hear this, we'll know the results from Wisconsin, where a progressive candidate is the front runner for the Democratic gubernatorial election. That's an important swing state, and the governor will have an important role to play in the 2028 election. Remember, Trump, of course, tried to interfere in the recounts and stuff in 2020. So we're going to see this play out and we're going to see it play out at the national level.

16:12AOC on air this weekend distancing herself from what she called woke one. Woke one crazy. Uh-huh. And all politics are local. My understanding is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her electorate. Yeah, she's moved away from a lot of that. Right, she's moved away from it. And I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy. Woke one was crazy. OK, that's actually true. And I think that. So I think that that is notable, that we are seeing some progressives sort of reject the binary definition, right? Syed would reject, El Syed would reject it too, Dr.

16:53El Syed, I should say, would reject it too. And she's saying that was, you know, that was then, this is now. And moderates and Republicans are saying, well, I mean, I guess even if we say you're allowed to switch your positions, it doesn't necessarily mean you get to just kind of like walk away without any questions as to why. And so we don't really know where Representative Ocasio-Cortez will land on some of this stuff. But she is a major, major figure in the Democratic Party who I think basically everyone expects to either run against Chuck Schumer or run if he retires for that Senate seat or run for president or maybe both if the timelines work out.

17:26The other thing I think is worth pointing out is that watching the Democrats doing this in real time, it's not it's not unusual for a political party to especially a political party that's sort of out in the wilderness at this moment, try to find a way to rebrand itself. Can I, you know, Katie, how do you think, like, where do you think the Democrats' responsibility is here to write? Like the campaigns that they have run, which I think the left would say have been uninspiring, had no big ideas, were just status quo. And, you know, didn't speak to the frustrations that Americans really have this idea that the system is corrupt and ineffective and isn't working for them.

18:10I think that if your main point of a campaign is that we're not Donald Trump, that is not enough to galvanize voters. And we've seen that. We've seen that very clearly. That was the message of 2024. for. Also, in terms of the way that the Democratic infighting, the inability of Joe Biden to to recognize that it was time to go to give another person to give the party an opportunity to run a primary rather than, you know, this this campaign that was that did not end in success for the Democrats that we we have all seen. It's it's messy. It illustrates there's there's a lack of vision, there's a lack of leadership, and that control is being sort of, that the control and the decision-making process, it's a mess.

18:59It's a mess. I just don't think we know what a democratic campaign looks like, because we haven't had a true one in 20 years. You know, it was a coronation for Clinton. They had kind of won under Biden, of course, but that was an election about Trump, and 2024 was an aberration in many ways. There's a lot of Democrats who won statewide races, governor shapiro for instance uh with a playbook that works you know and so i think i think that people might be premature in writing off you know either party based on what happened in 2024 um one thing that i i think some democrats now they're looking at all this infighting infighting but like you know race internally between factions of the party and they think that their own party is missing the forest for the trees right trump started an unpopular war Prices are still very high.

19:48His numbers are Nixon level bad. I mean, there is a lot to campaign on if you're a Democrat, regardless of whether you're a moderate or not. As we sit here today, Republicans have more money. They've got the presidency. They've got the Senate. They've got the House. That is all a big advantage for them. A lot of Republicans will privately tell you they don't really expect to hold the House, if only because of history. and we'll see where it goes. They are rallying, meanwhile, behind Vice President Vance as the heir apparent. That could change. Who knows? But some version of the current status quo will lead the party through the 2028 cycle, it seems.

20:26For Democrats, the downside for them is, of course, they don't really have a leader of the party. They can't really decide which faction has what weight. But they do have some money, even though the DNC is having a lot of financial problems. and they're going to have a tailwind because Trump has started an unpopular war and is presiding over an economy that people are unhappy with. And so that is the sort of position that both these parties are starting from. And then from there, we'll see. I mean, there still remains the structural advantage for Republicans in America under the current structures of the party.

20:59One, by the way, that will only sort of increase in the coming years, in part because they're going to continue redistricting for 2020 in the House. And the next census is probably going to move electoral votes southward into states that lean more Republican than those votes sit in right now. And so Republicans do have a leg up in that way that people shouldn't lose sight of.

21:28So who decides which authors are featured on your favorite book interview podcasts? Hey, I'm Ailee. I'm a producer on Bookends with Matea Roach, which means my desk is covered with books that might end up on your podcast feed. So this summer on the show, we've got Go Gentle by Maria Semple. It's about a stoic philosopher who gets involved in an art heist. We also talked to Maggie O 'Farrell about her new book. She's the Oscar-nominated author of Hamnet, if you're a movie fan. Anyway, my desk is a mess because we want to make sure we're bringing you authors that actually resonate with you. So check out Bookends with Matea Roach wherever you get your podcasts.

22:04You know, guys, we've been talking a lot about these ascendant left wing politicians, Al-Sayed, AOC. But I do, since I have you both here, I am so curious about some of these like potential 2028 contenders for the Democratic Party that are, you know, more centrist. that people seem to be getting excited about. One of them is John Ossoff. I don't actually know very much about him, but since being here in Washington, his name keeps coming up. Obviously, there was that TMZ. I can't believe I'm saying this. The TMZ clip the other day when TMZ, which now has, I think, a Washington bureau. Yeah, they do.

22:52They're doing politics now, cornered him and talked about how he has like BDE energy for those who might know what that means. It does not stand for boycott and divest. It does not. It does not. Just like that he has a lot of swagger, I think would be another way to say it, that he has a lot of swagger. And so, you know, where is like an Ossoff, a Buttigieg, a Newsom? You know, if we're going to sort of talk about potential presidential contenders here. I don't want to be a bummer, But do you all want to feel a little old right now? Because the Pauly market and Calci odds all have Newsom as the likeliest Democratic nominee in 2020.

23:34But then second place is basically AOC and John Ossoff, the senator from Georgia. AOC is 36 years old. John Ossoff, current U.S. senator, 39 years old. So just there is potential generational change coming to this Democratic Party. And we just don't know what that will look like. And we're already seeing it right in Michigan. Of course, all the candidates were like an entire generation younger than Senator Peters, who's retiring. And so Ossoff's an interesting case. We talk about why Michigan was so important this cycle. Ossoff is the only Democratic senator up for reelection in a Trump state period.

24:08And so Republicans had their eyes open on that race, but their primary kind of fell into a mess the way that Democrats have in other states. And Ossoff has just been such a prodigious fundraiser. And some polls show him up nine points. There's one that had him up 13 points. And now it just seems very likely that he will hold that seat. And so that's why people are putting a lot of stock in him as a potential candidate. Went to one of his rallies to cover that race a few weeks ago. There is genuine enthusiasm behind him. And I think one question for him and for others is, do moderates think you're moderate and do progressives think you're progressive?

24:44Can you kind of appeal to both? Is there the eye, the beholder factor? Ossoff has a bit of that. I should note he has said that he's not running in 2028. And of course, people always say that and then they maybe change their minds. But he is right now sort of running the moderate playbook. playbook. He touted endorsements from two Republican mayors. He touted an endorsement from a former Republican senator, Jeff Fleck, who of course is not particularly Republican anymore, so take that with a grain of salt. But he's going in that lane. And the question, I think, more immediately for John Ossoff is, can he generate a political environment enough that the governor's race also goes democratic?