Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Pramila Jayapal:

I thought that change happened from the outside, but what I realized is I was looking at it all wrong, and that if I were to think about elected office as an organizing platform, an ability to organize both in Congress, and to bring the outside movement together in a coordinated strategy to achieve the kind of change I wanted to see, then that was definitely worth it.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal from Seattle. In only her third term in Congress, she has emerged as a powerful, progressive voice within the Democratic Party. As chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she helped broker the passage of both the bipartisan infrastructure package, and the Build Back Better Social Safety Net Bill. Jayapal joins me today to talk about her unusual path to Congress, the role she played in negotiating the Build Back Better agenda, and what it means to be a progressive in today’s Democratic Party. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.

Preet Bharara:

As we approach the holidays, a reminder to check out the CAFE merch shop the featuring some fan favorites like our signature Stay Tuned hoodie, and coffee mug, and signed copies of my book, Doing Justice. Head to cafe.com/shop. That’s cafe.com/shop. Now, let’s get to your questions. This is a question from Twitter use Shannon S. Brown who writes, would you describe what kind of support staff there is and their roles in big cases? We only hear big names such as the prosecutor. I’d like to hear the work that goes on behind the scenes, please, and thank you. Well, Shannon, that’s a great and important question, and I’m very glad you asked it. When we discuss cases here and on the Insider Podcast, often as a shorthand we refer to the person who gave the opening statement or the closing argument, the lead prosecutors in the case. But boy, let me tell you, it takes a lot of people in a lot of places to bring a case together. That’s true on the defense side as well. So, let me mention some of them.

Preet Bharara:

First, in any criminal case, there’s always an investigative agency, a law enforcement partner that could be the police department, it could be the FBI, it could be the DEA, Secret Service. There’s almost always an outside investigative agency, which by the way, they themselves have a lead agent, and then other support staff on the investigative side as well. Often at trial, and in my experience in every criminal case in federal court there’s actually at the council’s table not just the lead prosecutor, and the other prosecutors, but also the case agent. So, that’s a very, very important part of putting a case together. Then all prosecutors’ offices have a whole bunch of other staff including paralegals and assistants. They do all sorts of things from site checking briefs, to putting together PowerPoints, to arranging witness interviews, to putting exhibits together for court or for hearings. They are invaluable, and there’s a tradition at least in SDNY of many paralegals leaving to go to law school, and then coming back and becoming prosecutors themselves.

Preet Bharara:

Then in many places, including SDNY, there are internal investigators who either supplement the work of the outside law enforcement agency or do the work on their own. We were blessed in the Southern District of New York with one of the best kept secrets in the entire Department of Justice with 19 amazing, fabulous, seasoned, smart, hardworking investigators among my favorite people in the whole office. And they contributed to every case as well. And depending on the nature of the witnesses in the case or how you went about the investigation, we have interpreters who help you understand the testimony both at trial, and in preparation. If you have Spanish speakers or foreign language speakers, the interpreters are absolutely invaluable. And their skill is very much in demand and helps make a case much stronger. There’s audiovisual staff who help make exhibits for trial and for a grand jury purposes. And that can sometimes be very key to getting across points that are sometimes lost in the massive words. As they say is worth 1,000 words.

Preet Bharara:

Then depending on the nature of the case, there are victim witness workers. We at the Southern District when I was there had a wonderful woman named Wendy Olson, who would do everything from making sure that witnesses had a place to stay, particularly if they were victims of a crime, to something appropriate to wear, to making sure they were comfortable throughout the investigative process, and the trial process. And it can make a big difference in the quality of life for victim witnesses and for the way they testify to have someone taking care of their needs. And there are other folks too, there are the folks in the clerk’s office, the folks in the press office who also answer the questions, and make sure that filings go okay. So, there’s a lot of people. All of that staff, by the way, may not be clear to folks. It goes on behind the scenes. It’s rarely celebrated. So, I am really glad you asked the question. A lot goes in to not just large criminal trials, but every criminal trial.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from Twitter user with handle at @StJohn56, who writes, “Hi, Preet. If someone takes the fifth, does that mean they can’t be questioned for any prosecution, and therefore free to say and do whatever they want. And second, if they are pardoned by a POTUS and then questioned taking the fifth no longer applies? #AskPreet.” That’s a good question. Let’s go back to basics. What does the Fifth Amendments say? Well, it relates to a lot of rights, including due process and other things. But for purposes of your question, the Fifth Amendment says, “No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” So, it is thought to be a very, very important right, a very protective right for people who have been investigated or might be prosecuted in this country, and it’s a bedrock principle of our criminal justice system.

Preet Bharara:

Now, when you ask the question, if you take the fifth, does that mean they can’t be questioned for any prosecution? That’s not quite right. And people differ on the says by which a good faith invocation of the Fifth Amendment is done. As we’ve been seeing play out in the January 6th investigation, two people look like they’re pleading the fifth. They include Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official, and John Eastman, a former outside lawyer to Donald Trump. Now, in both of those cases, there is some controversy and dispute about whether they’re properly invoking their Fifth Amendment rights. The committee has taken the position, I think appropriately that you have to invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination with great specificity with respect to each question being asked because there are some things like your name, your background, your employment, and other basics that clearly are not incriminating on their own, and questions about those kinds of things should be able to be asked.

Preet Bharara:

And then it gets more dicey if you start to get into communications with respect to the president, if there is a good faith belief that maybe criminal conduct can be ascertained from that, and a criminal case might be forthcoming. As Joyce and I discussed in the CAFE Insider Podcast this week, one other consequence of invoking the fifth, probably in this text means that so long as it’s a somewhat reasonable invocation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, it’s probably the case that Congress would be loath to refer that person for criminal prosecution of contempt of Congress. And I think it would be very unlikely for the Department of Justice to prosecute someone for contempt of Congress who was asserted Fifth Amendment right, even if it’s not fully clean. I think it just gets difficult and too muddy. And I doubt that it will go forward.

Preet Bharara:

The other possibility by the way, and this happens from time to time, and it’s a fraught decision that prosecutors and investigators make. Someone takes the fifth, you can decide to give them a form of immunity, and that happens in criminal cases. It also happens in Congressional investigations. Then you have taken away, if you decide to do that, you’ve taken away the possibility of their own words being used against them in a criminal case because you’ve given them immunity for that purpose. I don’t know if that will happen here. That’s a conversation for another day. And there are lots of considerations that are taken into account before you decide to do something that is not uncommon, but still a fairly serious decision.

Preet Bharara:

With respect to your second question. If someone’s pardoned by a POTUS does taking the fifth no longer apply? Yeah, that’s generally true because there’s no more criminal case in which your words can be used against you as the Fifth Amendment provides, but it has to be very specific. So, for example, if you robbed a bank and get pardoned for it, but during that same period of time, you committed insider trading. You can’t take the fifth with respect to the bank robbery because there’s no more criminal case, you’ve been pardoned, but you haven’t been pardoned for insider trading, and you can invoke the Fifth Amendment with respect to that conduct. So, it’s specific to the conduct in question, not just a broad invocation as to all things you may or may not have done in your life. And we’ll see how it plays out with Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, and perhaps others.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned, there’s more coming up after this. My guest this week is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. By her own admission, she’s something of an unlikely politician, but over the last year the one-time activist has become a key inside player leading the Congressional Progressive Caucus and helping to negotiate President Biden’s legislative agenda. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, thanks for coming on the show.

Pramila Jayapal:

Thank you, Preet. It’s great to be with you.

Preet Bharara:

We were just chatting before we started taping and I said, “How are you?” And you said, “I guess that’s the first question everyone has to ask each other these days still.” And how are you?

Pramila Jayapal:

I am good. Thank you. I wake up every morning, and I feel blessed that my family and my friends and my loved ones are okay, and that we’re moving in the right direction as a country. But obviously, it’s still a question, right? That never used to be more than just a formality several years ago.

Preet Bharara:

I noted in your bio we have some similarities. One is of course we were both born in India.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

My parents were not overly pleased at first when I chose to be a government major, and then went to law school, and I learned that you studied English literature in college. How did that go over?

Pramila Jayapal:

Not very well when you have Indian parents who use their last $5,000 to send you to the United States by yourself because you’re supposed to become a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer, three wanted professions.

Preet Bharara:

Those are only three

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s right. Those are the only three. And then you use your one phone call home that you get every year to call your dad from the dorm phone, and tell him you’re going to be an English literature major instead of an economics major. It is not a good day in the family. I had to hold the phone away from my ears. He screamed at me and said, “I didn’t send you to the United States to learn how to speak English. You already know how to speak English to speak English.”

Preet Bharara:

You know how to speak English. The only thing… I’m trying to think what would be worse in an immigrant Indian family, maybe art history.

Pramila Jayapal:

Art history. Yeah, yeah. I think definitely the arts, but I will say that even years later I was running. I had founded and ran a nonprofit organization. My parents came to visit and it happened to be the year that the Washington governor, Governor Gregoire was our keynote. And she came over to meet my dad, and he said, “Yes, my daughter really enjoys this volunteer work.”

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. It’s not a full-time gig.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s true.

Preet Bharara:

So, I learned also in connection with this interview, I believe there are only 18 naturalized citizens in the entire US Congress.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s correct, and it’s gone up.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think we need more?

Pramila Jayapal:

It’s gone up in the last couple of years. I think when I came in 2017, it may have been 13. Don’t quote me on the number. So, we’ve increased the number slightly, but the reality is that in today’s Congress and recently in the last decades, we have very few naturalized citizen that serve in Congress. I think that is changing, but it’s changing very slowly. And it’s a number that is only topped by the number of women of color in Congress, which is also extremely small. I think it’s something like it was 79 since the history of the founding of Congress.

Preet Bharara:

I get a question along these lines on a regular basis so I’m going to turn the question to you. And that is how’s your experience being an immigrant and a naturalized citizen. How does that color your outlook in government?

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, I think it really informs how we see the world, and the United States in relationship to the world because I did spend the first 16 years of my life outside of the United States growing up in India, Indonesia, and Singapore. And then I spent 10 years when I was not yet a US citizen working on international health issues. And so for me, the world is much bigger than just the United States. Our relationships on foreign policy, diplomatic relations, even international health. You look at the crisis of COVID that we’re facing today. And from the beginning, I have been focused on how do we address COVID in the world because it dramatically affects how the United States fairs. And so, I think on everything, including immigration, which is an area I spent 20 years on as an activist before coming to Congress, it has changed and shaped the way I see what the policy priorities are, what the solutions are, and what our responsibility is as a country to lead in the world.

Preet Bharara:

You said something at the outset of the interview that I want to come back to. You said America is moving in the right direction. A lot of people in this country don’t believe that to be so. Why is there such a disconnect?

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, when I said it, I meant it in the context of COVID.

Preet Bharara:

Well, people don’t really believe that either. I mean, a lot of folks don’t.

Pramila Jayapal:

Yeah, no, there’s a big divide, and I think it’s really unfortunate that public health has become politicized, and that people thanks to Donald Trump really doubting COVID, not taking it seriously, touting treatments that were not real treatments, refusing to really come out strongly in taking on COVID initially with mask wearing, and simple things that maybe just a few years ago nobody would’ve contested. We are in this place where it’s a very divided country on what the facts are. And I think that’s the thing Preet that really bothers me the most is we don’t start from the same set of facts. And if you don’t start from the same set of facts, then you can’t get to the same conclusion because the facts are completely different.

Pramila Jayapal:

And so, I think there is a real disconnect in terms of what the science is, and taking the science seriously, and this whole question of… You and I were both born in India. I always say to people, if I hadn’t gotten vaccinated, I’d be dead. And the idea that we are questioning vaccines, particularly when it comes to something that is not just about yourself, but is about the broader public. If you don’t get vaccinated, it’s not just yourself that suffers, it’s the broader public. And because it is infectious. And so, I think that has been a real challenge for addressing what would’ve been a fairly benign in some ways theory of how you get better, and how you move in the right direction with COVID.

Preet Bharara:

If I can, I want to go back to your bio for a moment because we joked about your family’s response to your being an English lit major, but then you graduated and you worked at PaineWebber. You put the English literature degree to business use. How come?

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, part of it was my dad. He was really having a hard time and I said, “Listen, I’m going to get the same job with an English lit major that I would’ve gotten with an economics major.” The pitch I made to him, Preet, and it was the same pitch I made to a bunch of investment banks that ended up making me offers is if you can articulate in writing, and reading, orally, that then you really have everything you need to be successful with everything else. Everything else can be learned after that. And that was the pitch I made for a liberal arts major to go work in investment banking in the mid 1980s, and it was-

Preet Bharara:

It’s a good pitch. The older I get, the more… I was having this conversation with a professor the other day. The older I get the more I think that reading and speaking and communications ability is the absolute key to success. Whether you’re a doctor, or a scientist, or an investment banker. Obviously, these other skills, analytical skills, expertise in the particular field, understanding how the law works, but if you can’t communicate it, and I don’t mean at a podium necessarily, or on CNN, or on MSNBC, but I mean to your colleagues, and to your superiors, and to your subordinates, you’re just lost.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s exactly right. I still go by that. I still think that that was the right training for me. And then I also think, and I tell young people all the time that it’s really good to do things that tell you what you don’t want to do as much as things that tell you what you to want to do. Those two years of investment banking were incredibly valuable to me. I am very comfortable with numbers. That has stood me in good stead as a nonprofit executive, as a member of Congress on the Budget Committee. But it was clear to me that I did not want to continue to pursue that path.

Preet Bharara:

So, you’ve been… I’m going to congratulate you on your success as a member of Congress. I see you all the time. We’re going to get back to the… We’re going to get to the Build Back Better agenda in a few minutes, but you clearly have had a successful run in Congress, even though you haven’t been there very long, and you’re clearly respected by your colleagues, and you lead the Progressive Caucus. My question to you is if you could pick one of the skills or experiences that you developed, whether it was living in multiple countries, or studying English lit, or time in finance, or work at a nonprofit, what is the thing that you did before coming to Congress that helps you the most?

Pramila Jayapal:

I definitely think it was organizing. I mean, it’s hard to separate those out because I do think each experience builds on the other, and it just keeps adding to your arsenal of skills, and all of them come in useful in a different way. But I definitely think organizing and understanding how you build consensus across differing perspectives, how you build a campaign, how you work a campaign. That was the theory of change that initially compelled me to run for office. I never really wanted to be in public office, actually, and an elected official. I thought that change happened from the outside.

Pramila Jayapal:

But what I realized is I was looking at it all wrong, and that if I were to think about elected office as an organizing platform, an ability to organize both in Congress and to bring the outside movement together in a coordinated strategy to achieve the kind of change I wanted to see then that was definitely worth it. And so, that’s why I ran. And I think that I’ve been able to show that that’s possible inside Congress building up the Progressive Caucus to be the force that it is, but also working across the Democratic caucus, working with the White House to achieve what I think really will be transformational change for this country.

Preet Bharara:

What caused you to have that epiphany that change had to come from the inside?

Pramila Jayapal:

I think I got frustrated that I had spent so much time working with elected officials. Some of whom were excellent, but many of whom were completely oblivious to what was happening in communities of color and immigrant communities and poor communities. I was working on $15 minimum wage. Seattle was the first major city on the country to pass a $15 minimum wage, and I was proud to be a part of the committee that helped make that happen. There were so many things that we had fought for and actually had some success in, but it took way longer in my mind than it should have. And I realized that there just weren’t a lot of people like me in elected office. There weren’t organizers. There weren’t folks of color in broad scale. There weren’t immigrants, as you mentioned starting off the interview. And it seems to me that you can’t build good policy, whether you are in the law or whether you are in Congress if you don’t have a diversity of perspectives. And so, I think that was part of it.

Pramila Jayapal:

And then the other part of it was there’s some ego involved in running for office. And I think I looked at the people that were running, and had stayed out of the race, had stayed out. People could kept asking me to run. This was initially for my state Senate race. And I suddenly one day woke up and thought, “I can do better than that.” And I decided to step in, and it was very late, but it was great, and I became the first South Asian American ever elected to the state legislature, and actually at the time, the only woman of color in the State Senate. And so, I think I worked very hard to make sure that that was not the case after I left. And now we have multiple South Asians elected to the state legislature, and we have a very much better diversity of women of color in the state legislature, including in the state Senate.

Preet Bharara:

So, when you give advice to young people as you mentioned you sometimes do, is your advice now that they should really, really think hard about running for office as opposed to doing outside activism?

Pramila Jayapal:

I think it depends on the person. I think you really need good people at every place. And so, it isn’t… I don’t think everybody is suited to run for office, but I think everybody should consider it as an option. And I think it is really… I tell young people that especially when they’re not sure what they want to do. I say two things. One, your path does not have to be linear. My path was very far from linear, and I think there’s a lot of advantage to having a path that is not linear, frankly, because you get a lot skills in different arenas. And then two, I tell them to just keep a little notebook with them, and to try a lot of different things, and to make notes about what energizes you, what depletes you. And that is a really good gauge for where you might want to apply your energy. So, I don’t tell a everybody to run for office. I do tell people that they should think about it. That it is a very viable path, particularly for activists and organizers, and people who never used to think of elected office as a way to organize. That is something I do talk about quite a bit.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. There are various ways to get a point across or to persuade folks or to defend a position that you have. And obviously you use analysis and facts and figures and evidence, but there’s also stories. And sometimes it’s a personal story that can have an impact on people and you in 2019 wrote a very moving piece that you published and you told a story you had never told before, and it seems even more relevant now. You talked about a very difficult decision you made years ago to have an abortion. Can you tell folks why you wanted to tell that story and what the story was?

Pramila Jayapal:

Yeah. One of the things that I learned in organizing is exactly what you said, that storytelling is really, really important. Now, typically I was working to get other people to tell their stories, not necessarily focusing on my own, but when I got into Congress I realized that part of connecting people to their elected officials is to be human and to tell a story. And of course we have a very big platform when we are members of Congress to do that. And so, this was the time when the abortion bans across the country were just beginning to come out in states. There were numerous dates taking on abortion bans. And I think I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I could perhaps make a difference in calling attention to this issue if I were to share a very personal story that I had never shared before for more than a decade. And so, I decided to write an oped the New York times about my abortion, which Preet, I had never told my mother about. And I had to call her before-

Preet Bharara:

Oh, my goodness.

Pramila Jayapal:

I wrote about it because I wanted to make sure she knew what was happening, and why I was doing what I was doing.

Preet Bharara:

What was her reaction to, A, the fact that you had had an abortion, and then B the fact that you were going to tell the world about it?

Pramila Jayapal:

It was more on the first, I think, that I had had one and never talked to her about it. And I think we spent some time talking about why that was. And I think it’s some of the barriers that exist to people telling their stories about abortion because we have made it a sort of shameful experience. I mean, before I published the oped I should say I made sure that I had increased security. I made sure I contacted Capitol Police to tell them that I was going to do this. We installed cam… Well, we already had cameras around the house, but we installed more cameras around the house because I all also knew that there was going to be a spate of violence, threatened violence towards me. That was a real possibility, and in fact it did happen. And so, I wanted to be prepared for that.

Pramila Jayapal:

But I think from a cultural perspective as well there is still a stigma to telling your story. And that is why so many women across this country are talking about feeling empowered when you tell your story because it shouldn’t be that case. I mean, it shouldn’t be that we should have to tell our story. Number one, this is a very personal decision, but we are in a reality where these stories are important. It’s important to not have women or pregnant people feel like they are in a closet somewhere, and they can’t talk about this. And there is such a diversity of experiences and nuances to everyone’s abortion story. For me, it was a difficult decision. It was a very difficult decision, and it is something that I still think about today, but that isn’t the case for everybody.

Preet Bharara:

Just so people understand, and maybe you can fill this in a little bit. The background of your decision was that you had a child who was born extremely prematurely. I think at a weight of one pound 14 ounces, and you made the decision, as you say in your oped that you would do anything to avoid getting pregnant. And as you say, those measures are not always foolproof, and you found yourself pregnant, and what did the doctors tell you?

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s exactly right. The doctors told me that there was no way. There was a very high probability that I was going to have a similar kind of birth experience, which I was still dealing with a very, very sick child. And I was still dealing with a lot of emotional trauma and post traumatic stress disorder that I had had from going through that experience. And they also told me that there was a real possibility of danger to my own health, which was the case in my first pregnancy as well. And I just knew there was no way that I could go through another pregnancy like that. I was still recovering from the first one. And as I said, I had done everything possible and was very regular and religious about my birth control, but it didn’t work.

Pramila Jayapal:

And so, I had to make that choice of whether I was ready to bring another baby into the world, knowing that that baby may not survive or may go through the same experience that Janak had gone through, and also protecting my own life, and I realized there was no way I could do that. So, I chose to have an abortion, and I was fortunate because I did not have income restrictions. I was able to afford it. My state, Washington state, has made it so that abortions are available and affordable compared to most other states, I had a very skilled provider, and I had the support of my partner who completely understood why I was doing what I was doing and had been a part of the decision making. And so, in every way I had it easy, but that’s exactly why I had to talk about it because that’s what it should be for every person.

Pramila Jayapal:

And these abortion bans, and now we’ve seen the worst of it, and with the Supreme Court arguments the other day. I think we are confronting the fact that we may go back to back alley abortions. That we may take away this constitutional right that was provided because the Supreme Court apparently is not going to consider precedent any longer or is going to consider it in a way that allows them to overturn precedence. And so, I think it has been a… It was an important article that I wrote.

Pramila Jayapal:

At the time, Preet, the thing that made me the most happy about it was that in sharing my story, it generated conversations at kitchen tables, and workplaces across the country. I got so many letters from people saying your article made me tell my loved one, my mother, my sister, my whoever, my best friend about the abortion that I had. And it forced a conversation also about folks of color and abortion because it is also true that when you limit abortion services, it is particularly difficult for women of color, for people of color, for poor people who don’t have the resources to fly to another state and get an abortion.

Pramila Jayapal:

And so, I think on so many love, it was an amazing opportunity for me to share my story and to generate conversation. And perhaps the best response I got was from a man who was a constituent, who was, I forget either a conservative Democrat or a Republican, a conservative Democrat who was not pro-abortion who said that he opened the article thinking, “Oh my God, here goes another liberal telling me why I should believe in abortion.” And in my piece, I made it very clear that I don’t try to convince anybody to have an abortion. That is not my place. The whole point of this is that it should be your choice. And he said, “I was just so grateful to see that argument. And for the first time I feel like I might be able to understand why we should not force this choice on anyone else.” I think that’s what you hope to do with a piece is just affect how people see it and think about it.

Preet Bharara:

Through a story rather than through political argument.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Congresswoman Jayapal after this. How do you explain to constituents? I might have this figure off, and we’ll double check it, but I thought I read somewhere in the past week that the level of support for the overturning of Roe is 27% or something like that. And here we are in the precipice of Roe being overruled. I think there’s a very high likelihood of it, and even if it’s not done explicitly, it will effectively be done based on what we saw at the argument that you just mentioned. How do you explain to constituents how it can be that a right that people have relied upon for five decades, and that only 27% of people wanted have taken away in a constitutional democracy how can that possibly happen? How do you explain that?

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, I can’t really explain it other than to say that these institutions that we have relied on to protect our democracy, and you have spent your life really making sure that those have integrity, that these institutions are now being politicized in a way that is extremely dangerous to our democracy. That’s true in Congress. It’s true of the Supreme Court. And that’s why I keep saying to people the power has to be in your vote and in the ballot box because we now need to make sure that we are electing a Congress that can implement the things that Americans want. But even that is flawed. I mean, we have to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate if we really want to have policies like gun reform, abortion rights codified. If we want to move forward on a $15 minimum wage, all of these things are blocked by a Senate that gives the power of… It’s really the tyranny of the minority the power to block a bill from even being considered because you need 60 votes because of the filibuster.

Pramila Jayapal:

So, I think it is difficult to explain, and I think it’s why there are so many people across the country that lost faith and don’t participate because there’s so much money in politics that affects what happens in Congress. And then people are seeing the way in which even the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land is simply becoming an ideological political reactionary court. It’s not just a conservative court. It is a reactionary court. And I think that is going to do an enormous amount of harm to our democracy. And I hope that Chief Justice Roberts, and others on the court are thinking about exactly what that means if they roll back or overturn Roe, which as you said looks very likely.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. I’m going to talk about progressivism. My first question is, do you prefer the term progressive over liberal for any particular reason?

Pramila Jayapal:

Not really. I mean, I think progressive has become a term that resonates for people that are more towards the left, particularly on fiscal issues, and I think on economic issues, that’s where some of the difference comes. And so, I think that’s the term we use, and obviously I’m a Progressive Caucus member. So, I use the word progressive. I’m the chair of the Progressive Caucus. And so that’s-

Preet Bharara:

In a broader sense when we use progressive, I want to ask you some questions about the caucus in a moment. How do you define progressive?

Pramila Jayapal:

I think the way I define it is an absolute unshakable focus on lifting up the majority of people poor and working class versus the very small minority at the top, and there are a whole host of things that come into that, but that I think is the core of what we’re talking about when we talk about progressive policies is what lifts up the most vulnerable, what lifts up poor people, working people who don’t have as much of a say as they should in democracy, and in government. That is true whether you’re talking about economics, whether you’re talking about social policy like LGBTQ equality, or whether you’re talking about immigration, and issues that directly affect Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.

Preet Bharara:

How big a tent is progressivism?

Pramila Jayapal:

It’s a very big tent, but I think I have always wondered how much better we would be if we had multiple parties versus just one Democratic Party and one Republican Party. But we have a two party system essentially in this country. And so, it is a very big tent. I think we have made enormous progress in moving the country to a much better place on so many policies like $15 minimum wage. 12 years ago, it was not a mainstream democratic principle. Today it is. That’s true of LGBTQ equality. It’s true less so of immigration. That has really seen swings back and forth, and back and forth. But it is still the case that the vast majority of Americans believe in really inclusive immigration policy.

Pramila Jayapal:

And so, I think it is a big tent, and it’s important that we keep it a big tent, but it’s also important that we recognize there are real barriers to implementing progressive policy. The majority of which come in the form of things that are xenophobic, and target groups like immigrants or Black folks in this country. And the second is economic policy. I mean, we are really stuck with the amount of money in politics that prevents us, even as Democrats from implementing bold prescription drug reform, or implementing bold tax reform. That has been a frustration because even if that is not just a Republicans versus Democrats issue. Don’t get me wrong. Democrats are 100 times better on these issues, but there is no reason that we shouldn’t as a Democratic majority be able to implement bold tax reform or drug form. Those are basic economic issues that would really help us to say to people across this country, “We’re for you. Whether you’re rural, whether you’re in a Trump district, whether you’re in a Democratic district, we want to cut your costs. We want to make sure that you can have a better life and opportunity.”

Preet Bharara:

Is Nancy Pelosi a progressive?

Pramila Jayapal:

Yeah, she is a progressive, and she comes from San Francisco, but you have to remember that Speaker Pelosi is also the leader of a Democratic caucus that is much more diverse. And so, I think that she has to balance all of the different pieces of the Democratic caucus. I’m not saying I always agree with every decision she makes, but I do think that that is a different role that she’s playing to be speaker.

Preet Bharara:

What about Jim Clyburn?

Pramila Jayapal:

I don’t know that that Representative Clyburn, Whip Clyburn would define himself as a progressive. I think there are a lot of issues that he is absolutely progressive on, and then some less. I don’t know how to answer that question. I’ve never really thought about that one clearly, but he also comes from a very different part of the country, and I think that all plays into it.

Preet Bharara:

So, let’s talk about the Congressional Progressive Caucus for a moment that you lead. Tell folks about it. How many members are there? how do you get entry? Is there a quiz you got to pass? Is there a litmus test?

Pramila Jayapal:

Yes. It’s a very difficult test that you have to pass. No, it’s a 96 member strong caucus. It was founded over 20 years ago, and it was initially founded more as a social club for people of strong ideological alliance to be together. Chairman DeFazio, Peter DeFazio, who just sadly announced his retirement was one of the co-founders. Bernie Sanders, of course, Maxine Waters, and several others were all co-founders of the Progressive Caucus. But when I came into Congress it became really clear to me that Keith Ellison who was co-chair at the time and Raúl Grijalva were both trying to change that to be a more disciplined sort of focused caucus, but that was still very much at the beginning stages of that.

Pramila Jayapal:

And when Mark Pocan and I took over as co-chairs and even before we took over as co-chairs, we started working on really building up the caucus and putting a new definition to it, updating our vision statement, our goals, our priorities, which was something that hadn’t been done in a long time, but also changing the rules to make sure that we were making it mean something to be a part of the Progressive Caucus. And so, that involved putting together a list of flagship Progressive Caucus bills, that if you were going to be a member of the Progressive Caucus, you had to sign on to at least 70% of that flagship legislation. That you had to vote with the caucus-

Preet Bharara:

You had to literally become a sponsor of that legislation.

Pramila Jayapal:

Correct. Exactly. You had to co-sponsor that legislation in Congress, and over the course of a year we would check to see that you had done that because those are the principles, and the policy positions of the Progressive Caucus, and it needed to be that you stood for those things. So, not every single thing.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. You were about to say another thing also that the rules now require members to vote with the CPC at least two thirds of the time?

Pramila Jayapal:

Correct. If it take a position, and to take a position you have to get to 66% or more of the caucus. And so, that has been, I think, a really important discussion, even though it hasn’t necessarily been used as much, but it is the theory that we are voting as a block. And that is what we were able to do in the Build Back Better Act. But also there were other things that we did to really encourage people to feel identified with the Progressive Caucus. So, attendance at meetings, it sounds like a really basic thing.

Preet Bharara:

You take attendance?

Pramila Jayapal:

We require that people at attend at least 50% of the meetings and you would-

Preet Bharara:

Only 50%, but that’s interesting.

Pramila Jayapal:

Yeah. Only 50%.

Preet Bharara:

That’s pretty forgiving.

Pramila Jayapal:

It is very forgiving, and it’s really, we also started doing… We added to the staff. We finally raised our dues. Progressives never like to raise dues. I came in and I was like, “Why don’t we have more staff?” For a 96 member caucus, we had one person. And so, people said, “Oh, well, we don’t have money because you have to raise dues from members in order to pay for staff. And so, I said, “Well, let’s raise the dues, and let’s get more staff.” So we now have, I think it’s five staff, a communications director, a policy director, a fellow, an executive director. So, we’ve really added to our capacity to service our members. And now we do you communications points every week, everyone gets communications points so that we can be disciplined about our messaging.

Pramila Jayapal:

That was something you saw that I’m very proud of and the Build Back Better fight over this last year. People were extremely disciplined on what our talking points were and how we were going to stick to them, and how we were going to use them to continue to build momentum. So, it’s been a really fabulous opportunity for us as a Progressive Caucus to show what happens when you leverage and organize on the inside, and really bring people in. So, that it’s not just three or four members, which as you know, Preet, with the slim majorities we have, you only need three members to stop, to block a piece of legislation, but we wanted something much different. I wanted to have more than half of our Progressive Caucus members for any big decision we were making. More than half to be on the same place, and that’s really what we were able to get.

Preet Bharara:

Have you had to kick anyone out?

Pramila Jayapal:

We haven’t had to kick anybody out, but there are a couple of members that because this is our first year with the rules that are going to be notified that they need to do a little bit of work over the next six months in order to comply.

Preet Bharara:

Come to more meetings, sign on to more legislation. So, let’s talk about in the remaining time, Build Back Better. And in that fight, you have been incredibly important, and influential, and a leader, and that’s been acknowledged. And so, congratulations on that. We’re not over the finish line yet. First pragmatic question, we’re recording this on Monday, December 6th. And so, it doesn’t drop until Thursday. Maybe things will become more clear. The odds of this thing getting through the Senate by Christmas are what?

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, I think they’re very good. I know that leader Schumer is committed to getting it done before Christmas. I know we all are putting enormous pressure on him and on the president and the White House to get it done before Christmas. And frankly, there’s no reason not to. One of the stumbling blocks right now is this, the fact that everything has to be run through the parliamentarian in the Senate, and the parliamentarian does have some health concerns. I can’t believe that we’re down to one woman having health concerns that’s slowing down the process here, but that is a reality of the system.

Preet Bharara:

Isn’t there a deputy parliamentarian?

Pramila Jayapal:

There is, but I think that it still has to be run by the parliamentarian approving everything. And so, it’s a ridiculous system in my opinion. Not because there’s anything wrong with her, she’s just doing her job. But the idea that we are pushing all these major decisions to one woman who is unelected, one person who is unelected is ridiculous in my mind, but that’s the situation we have. So, there are certain things that have to be run through the parliamentarian because of what is called this bird bath. This is the argument that in order to use 51 votes instead of 60 votes, you’re using a process called budget reconciliation. And so, only things that dramatically affect the budget and cue to certain parameters are the things that can be included. And the parliamentarian is the person who decides if that is the case.

Pramila Jayapal:

So, most of the legislation was actually pre-conference agreed to by the majority of… Actually, all of the senators and House representatives. We’ve obviously passed it through the House already. So, we are now just waiting for the parliamentarian to sort of approve the things that are in there. And then of course, there’s the constant discussion with one or two senators, but I believe that part is less the issue. The procedural parliamentarian issue is the thing we’re worrying about now. And then we just need to move forward.

Pramila Jayapal:

This is the president’s agenda. It’s much scaled down, unfortunately, but the reality of not having more of a margin in the Senate and the House means that even if you have 96% of Democrats in the House and the Senate with the president of the United States, that’s not enough. You need to have essentially 100%. And so, we scaled it back because of senators Manchin and Sinema, and we came to a pre-conference agreement, and it is still a transformational package that we passed in the House. And now we just need to get it through the Senate because the American people desperately need this assistance. It will lower costs for Americans across the country. It’ll provide universal pre-K universal childcare, cut prescription drug pricing costs for families across the country, extend the child tax credit. I mean, we could go… Invest in housing, biggest investment.

Preet Bharara:

Well, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about a phenomenon that is somewhat related to one we talked about a few minutes ago, and a few minutes ago we talked about how the vast majority of the public doesn’t want Roe to be overturned, and yet here we are. And this is not quite that, but you have particular policies here. You mentioned the lowering of prescription drug prices, which is enormously popular, hugely popular, overdue, people really want it. Popular with conservatives, progressives, all sorts of folks in between. And the phenomenon I’m talking about is even as Joe Biden is trying to enact, and is enacting popular policies, his own personal popularity doesn’t seem to be benefiting. And there have been political scientists and other observers who are saying, “We’re reaching a time when there’s just a disconnect between the popularity of policies and the popularity of the people who are responsible for getting that done.” It strikes me that that’s anti-democratic and dangerous. Do you subscribe to that theory or have any explanation for it?

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, I think it is true, and I think it goes to the question of facts, again, and the use of social media to distort what is true when it comes to COVID. And I think when it comes to Joe Biden, I think the reality is we’re coming out of these massive crises, but it’s not fast. I mean, it’s slow going to come out of the biggest economic devastation that we have seen since The Great Depression. Some might argue worse than that. I think it is we’re coming out of a health crisis with COVID that is slow. It is extremely difficult because is such a massive issue around the country, such a tiny percentage of people around the world have been vaccinated thanks to vaccine equity and global health inequity.

Pramila Jayapal:

And so, I think these things take time. And I think if you had a country that was willing to acknowledge that we are moving in the right direction, and that doesn’t make healthcare partisan, COVID partisan, it would be a different situation. But I think the other piece is that we have such slim majorities in the Democratic Party. And so, we were able to institute the American Rescue Plan. We immediately went on to trying to get Build Back Better done. We’re not very good about talking about what we’ve done and celebrating what we’ve done because there’s so much we have to do, and I think we have to be much better. Remember during the WPA, there were those big signs everywhere provided for by your taxpayer dollars, the United States government. Whether it was new highway or whatever. We need a real public campaign around the fact that Democrats have cut child poverty in half. The fact that we have vaccinated more people than people thought was possible when Joe Biden came into office.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think part of the reason that that’s not being done better by the Democrats is that more of them were not English lit majors?

Pramila Jayapal:

I do think we need good communicators. And I think that that is something I’ve spent a lot of time on. I was not anticipating I would spend so much time on network television, but I feel like it became an opportunity to talk about what’s in Build Back Better. I just think simpler messages. People talk about inflation all the time. I’m like, “Stop talking about inflation.” Talk about when a family has a fixed income and fixed budget, you got to make costs down, and some costs go up. If your cost of gas goes up, then make the cost of childcare go down. That’s how people deal with their budgets. Most of my families are not talking to me about inflation. They’re talking to me about the rising cost of diapers or the rising cost of childcare. And so, that’s the way we need to talk about stuff, and I think we have a hard time doing that as Democrats sometimes.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. I mean, I worry, and I take your point on messaging, and I think that’s very, very important, but I worry that because of tribalism, and all sorts of other things, people are just not giving credit to policy makers for good policies. That people have made a decision about Biden, associate him with a party, some of whose elements they don’t like, and no matter what good comes of it, he doesn’t get credit.

Pramila Jayapal:

I agree.

Preet Bharara:

If that persists, and I don’t know what to do about that.

Pramila Jayapal:

Well, I think that will change though the sooner we can get… What happens is a lot of the 24/07 new cycle focuses on process. It does not focus on outcome. It focuses on process, and process is messy in a democracy with narrow margins. And so, everybody’s focused on process, process, process, but the reality is I kept saying to anybody I would go on TV with I was like, “You have to let me talk about what’s in the bill,” because you’re going to ask me about process, and I want to talk about what’s in the bill. And so, I think we have to recognize that that’s part of the problem here. And it is part of the challenge with the Democratic Party that is not wholly behind the agenda that the president has laid it out.

Pramila Jayapal:

We’ve wasted a lot of time getting to Build Back Better, and I think had we done this six months ago, it would’ve been a heck of a lot better, but we tend to in politics focus on the things that are easier. And it was easier to get a bipartisan win on infrastructure. And then to just leave out Build Back Better, which is 80% of the president’s agenda. And we weren’t going to let that happen. But then that did lead to a public negotiation that was very much into the details. So I don’t know, I have more hope, Preet, that as soon as we pass Build Back Better, we will have a full eight months to be out there talking about how we’re lowering prescription drug costs, how we’re getting childcare to every family, and those things will affect how people see President Biden.

Pramila Jayapal:

But I also think we have to tout. I mean, look the president under his leadership, we have brought unemployment down to 4.2%. That’s a quarter before the CBO projected we would get to that level, two percentage drop. We have created six million new jobs under this president in just 10 months. We have cut child poverty in half through the child tax credit. So many things that we have, and we need to talk about it instead of talking about what we haven’t done. And we need to have a positive outlook on things because there’s too much trauma and negativity and hate in the world today. And people want to know what’s possible and what’s good out there that we can look forward to.

Preet Bharara:

I mean, they need to feel it.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

It’s one thing to say prescription drug prices will go down, but it’s quite another thing to go to the pharmacy and pay less for insulin.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s exactly right.

Preet Bharara:

And that hasn’t happened yet. And I think there’s so much… I mean, so I am optimistic for that reason, and maybe that reason alone that just because representatives and a president are saying this is going to happen. People are so cynical. They don’t quite believe it until it happens, and until they feel it in their own personal pocketbook.

Pramila Jayapal:

That’s exactly right. And that is the difference between the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which don’t get me wrong. It’s great. I love it.

Preet Bharara:

It’s going to take a while.

Pramila Jayapal:

Lots of great things in it, but it’s very different for somebody to say, “Okay, well, I’m going to get a new road versus I’m going to be able to get childcare so that I can get on that new road and get back to work.” Those are two different things. And I think Build Back Better Act has the things that people will feel. They’ll wake up in the morning and they’ll say, “Wow, my life feels different today because I have childcare, because I can pay for my insulin,” all of these things. That is what we’re trying to get at, and that’s what the Build Back Better Act has that frankly I don’t think the infrastructure bill has as wonderful as it is.

Preet Bharara:

Representative Pramila Jayapal, thanks for being on the show. It was a real treat.

Pramila Jayapal:

Thank you, Preet. Great talking to you.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Congresswoman Jayapal continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership free for two weeks head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

Preet Bharara:

So, I’ve noticed lately that there have been a lot of questions about how you take care of yourself in the midst of these terrible new cycles, and with the worry about creeping untruth and the undoing of elections, and the breakdown of some of our institutions. And it has people anxious and worried not to mention the scourge of Coronavirus, which is still with us, and people ask how do you deal with that? Here are two examples. This is a tweet from Twitter user @Forbestonow, is there any way not to get depressed and still stay focused on the erosion of democracy? Not just in the States, but everywhere. #AskPreet. Here’s another one from Twitter user @Ronniewaidelich. How in the heck do you decompress with all the awful news? #AskPreet.

Preet Bharara:

For me, it’s a few things. It’s music and comedy. I like to laugh a lot. I watch and download lots of shows, and my family, but I had the same question in the last few days. I put it slightly differently. And so, maybe I should get some of the answers that you all gave. I posted simply on Twitter, what keeps you sane? And we got literally thousands of responses on that social media site. I’ll note a few things. One of the most popular categories of answer as to what keeps people sane were their pets. There were a lot of dog and cat pictures, which we appreciated, even a few horses. A lot of people talked about quilting more than you might have expected. People also mentioned books, hiking, cooking, friends, dancing. That was one of my favorites. And of course, some people agreed with me about laughter, comedians, and music.

Preet Bharara:

Here’s some of my favorite responses maybe give you some ideas for yourself. Here was a cheeky re response tweet that said, “Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.” I guess that’s true. I don’t know if you’re sane or not. This answer came from Connie Schultz who happens to be married to Senator Sherrod Brown. What keeps her sane? She responded, love flowing in, flowing forth. This response was from Amy Parker, chocolate, rye, books, music, and my quilting business. I spend a lot of time face first in beautiful quilts, and their gorgeousness keeps me sane. That does not mean I’m not thoroughly terrified also, and I think both can be true at the same time. Here was another answer, which focused on nature. This person said, “I live in the country on a quiet rural road. Deer visit every day. It’s quiet. Oh, there is honking geese, but no honking horns, no sirens. The neighbors are few, but kind and caring and fun.”

Preet Bharara:

People talked about their hobbies. One person talked about photography. My coping mechanism, this person wrote, is photography and digital art. It pushes back what I can’t control, but is dominating my thoughts as I focus on what is within reach of my eyes and hands. And we’ve got so many other beautiful responses as well. I think the important point of all of this is please do worry about your country. Please do think about how you can make a contribution. Please do think about how to get other people to register to vote, and vote when the time comes, but it can’t be 24/7 just like work can’t be 24/7. You have to do things for yourself to keep calm, to keep sane, to keep focused, so you can do all the other hard work that needs to be done to help the country.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. If you like what we do rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the #AskPreet, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338, that’s 669-24-Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dos. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.