How Washington Lost Rural America

Senator Jon Tester shares his approach to lawmaking in a divided Senate. 

Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, farmers across America overwhelmingly supported former President Donald Trump for reelection. According to an August 2020 Farm Journal poll, 82 percent of farmers planned to vote for his reelection.

But despite Trump’s rhetoric on his commitment to the American farmer, many have pointed out that he did little to help them. Montana Senator Jon Tester is one of those voices. A farmer and policymaker, the Democratic Senator travels home to Montana each weekend to tend to his family’s farm, and is a vocal advocate in DC for winning back the rural vote and trust.

The transcript has been edited for clarity. Published April 15, 2021. 

Preet Bharara:

From Café, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Jon Tester:

You’ve got different kinds of farmers, just like you’ve got different kinds of law makers or small businessmen or working folks, that really dedicate their lives to what they’re doing, and others that don’t. I will say this, you work hard on the farm, there’s no doubt about that. But I’ll tell you, I was a teacher for a while, those people work damn hard too.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Jon Tester, he’s the senior United States senator from Montana. He’s also a Democrat, which makes him a rare breed in Montana, a state that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump twice. Tester is unusual in other ways. He’s a third generation farmer and he travels back to Montana every weekend from D.C. to grow wheat, barely, peas, and lentils. Last year Tester published a memoir about his life and political philosophy. It’s called, Grounded: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America. As a moderate in a closely divided senate, Tester has become a crucial swing vote. Today Senator Tester joins me to talk about his life as a farmer, the state of the United States Senate, and how the democratic party can win back rural voters.

Q&A

Preet Bharara:

Now let’s get to your questions. As you may have heard there have been a few changes here in the Café family over the last few days. Café Studios, the company that publishes this podcast and our other podcasts, has been acquired by a terrific company Vox Media. At the same time, frequent Stay Tuned guest and my Café Insider cohost, Anne Milgram has had the honor of being nominated to be the next administrator of the DEA by President Joe Biden. Naturally, people have questions. I’ll have more to say about all this at the end of the show, but let me address some of the questions that you folks had this week.

Preet Bharara:

This is a Tweet from Cynthia at home using Twitter handle @s.large. “@PreetBharara, you are having an impressive week, will you have a new cohost now that Anne Milgram will be joining the POTUS team? #askPreet.”

As I mentioned, every week on the Café Insider, Anne and I discuss the news about law and politics and the answer is yes, she’s got big shoes to fill. We expect to have a new permanent cohost in place really soon and I think you’ll be excited about who it is.

Listener Peter Bale asks the question, “Crumbs, can she,” meaning Anne Milgram, “Can she be a discreet guest sometimes? Please?” Well, I’m going to work on that. I think during the pendency of Anne’s nomination and before her confirmation, she’s going to be a little quiet, not make a lot of public statements, not do any press or media. But once she’s in office, just like any other public official, we’ll be trying to get her on the show and I’m sure she’ll have a lot to share.

This question comes from Twitter user @4ytbin who asks, “Does my Cafe Insider membership transfer?”

Yes it does. Everything remains the same, you don’t have to do anything so rest assured, the transition for people who were Café Insiders will be smooth.

Here’s a broader question from @mynameisbeths, “I’m unclear what the ramifications are, will the current podcasts continue?”

Yes, I’ll make more clear at the end of the show, everything remains the same. Stay Tuned with Preet, we’ll be here every Thursday. The Café Insider podcast will continue every Tuesday. The newsletters that you’re getting if you subscribe, you’ll continue to get. The Doing Justice podcast remains in it’s feed and you can binge listen any time you want to all six episodes. Primarily what will change is we will have the ability to bring more content, more podcasts, more contributors due to our new association with Vox media.

For loyal listeners and readers of the material that Café puts out, it all will continue. Here’s another question about Anne from Linda who uses Twitter handle junebell. “Preet, does Anne’s new DEA position require Senate confirmation? My internet search has failed me. Thanks.” So Linda, the short answer to your question is yes, the DEA position does require Senate confirmation, in fact the leadership positions at most law enforcement agencies like the FBI, Secret Service, DEA, ATF do require Senate confirmation. I thought it might be useful to give a little background on the DEA since our friend, dear friend Anne Milgram will be soon heading up that agency.

Preet Bharara:

The DEA is a relatively recent vintage. President Nixon created the DEA by executive order in July of 1973 by combining several existent DOJ and Treasury department drug enforcement bureau through a proposal called Reorganization Plan number 2. The first DEA administrator, John [inaudible 00:04:42] Junior was confirmed by the Senate, way back on September 12th of 1973. However there’s been a long history of acting DEA heads who never got confirmed by the senate. For example, when the first DEA administrator, [inaudible 00:04:55] resigns in 1975, his immediate successor served as acting administrator for almost year.

Preet Bharara:

In fact, in the current day, there hasn’t been a Senate confirmation for a DEA administrator since December 2010. Over 10 years ago, when the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Michelle Leonhart who had been serving as the acting administrator since 2007. In fact, since Leonhart resigned in 2015, in the last five years and change there have been five acting DEA administrators, including our friend and podcaster, Chuck Rosenberg. So yes, it requires Senate confirmation, people don’t always get confirmed by the Senate. I expect Anne to be confirmed by the Senate. She’s a former staffer in the Senate. I think her record is immaculate and excellent.

Preet Bharara:

Even though this is a pretty polarized partisan time, I expect her to be well on her way. This question comes in an email from Marilyn Greenberg, “Preet, is Matt Gaetz still guilty of sex trafficking if Joel Greenberg, rather than Gaetz paid the underage girls to have sex with Gaetz? Obviously you’re referring to the thing that we’ve been talking about for a number of weeks and has been a focus of the news. Representative Matt Gaetz from Florida appears to be under investigation, that investigation emanates from an investigation and in fact indictment of his associate Joel Greenberg who has been charged with sex trafficking and a host of other crimes. Your questions a good one. I don’t think it matters. Matt Gaetz would be guilty if all the other elements were proven at a minimum, by way of conspiracy.

Preet Bharara:

If Joel Greenberg and Matt Gaetz had a meeting of the minds to engage in this conduct, conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking, it doesn’t matter who did what as long as each had an agreement, a meeting of the minds and took acts and further into the conspiracy and certainly to actually have engaged in sexual activity would be an act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from listener Johnathon Slate who asks, “I thought it was widely believed that the jury in Rodney Kings trial was desensitized to the video evidence because the prosecution played it too many times, am I wrong? Without denying the horror of it, is there a risk of that in the Chauvin trial? #askpreet.” That’s a great question and it’s been discussed in a lot of places and I think there’s no perfect scientific answer. In part, because different people react to things differently. I don’t recall very well the issue that you’ve raised about the Rodney King trial, but I have been paying very close attention and watching pretty much everyday the Chauvin trial.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, I guess there’s a possibility that there’s some desensitizing going on with the spec of some subset of jurors but I balance that against I think, the importance of showing the video and the various angles that so powerfully overcome all the bits of evidence that the defense is trying to confuse jurors with and hide and rebut. I think it goes a long way to forestalling a lot of the defense arguments about what the cause of death was, about what the intent of Officer Chauvin was. About whether or not he was reasonable in the proportionality of force that he used. There’s no getting around what you see in the video. I think it gives a lot of ammunition to jurors in the deliberation room when people are pointing out things that the defense has suggested bring reasonable doubt to the picture.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned, we’ll be right back after a short break. My guest today is Jon Tester. He’s a democratic senator from Montana, and the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Tester is also a working farmer. He tills the same land that his grandparents homesteaded in 1912. He joins me today to discuss his unusual path to the Senate and his advice for the Democratic party.

Preet Bharara:

Senator Jon Tester of Montana, author of the book Grounded, a Senators Lessons for Winning Back Rural America, thanks for joining me.

Jon Tester:

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

Preet Bharara:

I will admit something to you which is we’re not morning people over here, we are recording this on Wednesday morning in the eight AM hour, but you’ve already been up for like four or five hours. That’s how you roll Senator?

Jon Tester:

That’s how I roll. I will tell you if I was in Montana and we were farming as we are right now, then you get up at daylight and roll with it until after dark sometime. Here I try to get up around 6:00 and then get out and get to the office in good time. Morning is when I do my best work and my best thinking.

Preet Bharara:

That’s been true during the pandemic as well?

Jon Tester:

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Preet Bharara:

Would you rather be known as a Senator or as a farmer?

Jon Tester:

Farmer.

Preet Bharara:

Why is that?

Jon Tester:

I don’t know, it’s just kind of who I am. I’m very fortunate because I’ve got two older brothers and neither of them wanted to take over the farm and I did from a very early age. I was able to take over our family farm, the land that my grandmother and grandfather homesteaded. It’s been an incredible opportunity for me and something that I dearly love. I love getting up in the morning and walking outside and smelling the air and listening to the birds sing. And getting out on the tractor and stirring the dirt, and planting and killing weeds, and watching the crops grow. It just continues.

Jon Tester:

Some years are diamond and some years are stone, and working with Mother Nature, sometimes it feels like you’re working against Mother Nature or Mother Nature’s working against you. It’s a continual challenge in making sure you end up with a piece of property that you can pass onto your kids or somewhere for the next generation that they can continue to feed the world with. I just think it’s really important and it’s been incredibly rewarding. It’s also a place and you know this Preet, having been in Washington DC, it’s also a place where you can get stuff done and look and see what you’ve accomplished.

Jon Tester:

Oftentimes in Washington DC, you work for an entire year and…[crosstalk 00:11:22]

Preet Bharara:

There’s no harvest.

Jon Tester:

That’s right, the harvest never comes. Or the 40 acres never gets worked, or however you want to do it.

Preet Bharara:

What’s the state of farming in America at this moment?

Jon Tester:

There’s tremendous opportunity but I think it’s in dire need of some attention. I think the consolidation that’s happened in the marketplace where you’ve got basically three or four companies that control 80% of the worlds food supply is not healthy. It doesn’t contribute to competition and capitalism and those kinds of things that are supposed to dictate markets. It’s the same thing on the input side. We’ve kind of become over the last 50 or 60 years, people who just… we supply the labor and the land and pay the taxes and the big guys really control our lives a lot.

Jon Tester:

I would tell you this, I converted organics in about ’86, ’87 and one of the reasons I did that, there was a number of reasons but one of the reasons was I was driving my old ’54 GMC into town with a load of wheat. I was 29 years old or so, and I thought, “This is not a lot of fun. I’m dropping this winter wheat off in town, they’re going to tell me what’s wrong with it. They’re going to dock my prices and then I’ve got to take the price, take it or leave it. I’m totally beholden to them. I would really like to get into a place where there’s actually competition in the marketplace. Where I can offer some wheat or lentils, or oil seeds, whatever it may be to multiple people and let them bid against one another as to who has the best price and sell it that way.”

Jon Tester:

That’s exactly what we did and that’s exactly what’s happened over the last 35 years in organics. Although it’s starting to consolidate in organic agriculture too which is very concerning to me. Ultimately in the end I think we get too many subsidies from the federal government, and this is a Democrat that’s saying this. Too many subsidies from the federal government…[crosstalk 00:13:17]

Preet Bharara:

Too many, when you say too many subsidies, how do farmers hear that?

Jon Tester:

When prices are bad we get subsidies. When you have a disaster, you’ve got crop insurance to take care of that. The crop insurance is fine and it is also tax payer supported. I think it’s necessary but I will tell you last administration for example, when President Trump got in all these trade wars, the price of grain dropped. At one point in time, we took over the farm in spring of ’78, the price of wheat was within a few cents of what it was when we took the farm over in 1978. That’s not sustainable and it’s not any way you can pass a farm onto your kids, but it’s because of the trade war.

Jon Tester:

What happened was the Trump administration took money from the Commodity Credit Corporation which is part of the USDA and sent out checks to the farmers. Which was fine, but you’d much rather get your checks from the marketplace. My folks always told me when I was growing up, they said, “Never count on those federal checks as your way to make this place pencil out. If you do you’re going to get in financial difficulty.” That’s all changed now. Subsidies are part of agriculture now because there’s no competition in the marketplace, so consequently prices are continually I think depressed.

Preet Bharara:

You mentioned Donald Trump who presented himself as a champion of farmers, I’m betting that you think he was otherwise, and yet I think it’s the case that he got the overwhelming farmer vote. How does that happen?

Jon Tester:

He absolutely did get the overwhelming farmer vote and the overwhelming rural vote. I think it happened for a number for reasons. I think that President Trump did a marvelous job of selling himself as something he wasn’t and it worked. The other thing that happened was partially because of the pandemic, but truthfully it’s been going on for many many election cycles is Democrats haven’t crafted a message that rural America can get on board with.

Jon Tester:

I think President Biden is starting on doing that, infrastructure, education, those kind of things I think are still very important in rural America. And very necessary by the way. We do it. I’m talking we as Democrats do it, but we don’t talk about it enough and we don’t talk about the benefits. We don’t sell it. President Trump is a car salesman, that’s all he does is talk about all the wonderful things he’s done. Sometimes they aren’t near as wonderful as he says they are and the American people believed it and they still believe it in rural America.

Preet Bharara:

You mentioned rural America a couple times, in fact the subtitle of your book Grounded is as I mentioned, a Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America. Why is that important for Democrats? If Democrats can win without rural America, make the case for why that project is significant.

Jon Tester:

I think number one, I’m not sure you can hold majorities in the Senate and the House without rural America. I think it’s really important that we try to make end roads into those areas because I think it’s important for the ability to hold majorities. Majorities are very, very important because you get to set the agenda in Washington DC if you’re in the majority. That’s what’s important because I think states change, and I think we look at the coast basically, and we do very, very well for the most part on the East and the West coast. And then a few states in the middle that we pick a few folks up on.

Jon Tester:

If you turn the clock back even 15 years, North Dakota had a couple Democratic Senator’s, very good ones too I might add. Montana had a couple, Arkansas had a couple. Those areas I think are important not only electorally to make sure you have majorities as I’ve just said, but also because I think the Democratic parties always prided itself on being a big tent. Being able to talk about issues that are important to rural America also not only is good for rural America, I think it’s good for urban America, and vice versa by the way.

Jon Tester:

When we quit talking to rural America, we as being Democrats, quit talking to rural America I think it’s just a mistake. If we focus on the big population areas and what’s needed there and that’s important to focus on, make no mistake about it, we should also be able to multitask here and focus on some of the challenges that are in rural America too. Take a look at this last pandemic for example, this is a prime opportunity to make some people think at least. We had telehealth and distance learning and in Montana, the broadband is just not where it needs to be to do those kinds of things or just basic business over the internet.

Jon Tester:

There’s been a lot of talk about building out broadband in an infrastructure build and important think it’s important and I think we need to talk about what the advantages are if we’re able to do that. The fact is at some point and time, people are going to realize it and it and I believe this too by the way, that the Republicans talk a good game, but they really don’t deliver to rural America like they say. There’s hot button issues they use like gun control and things like that pretty regularly, and Democrats don’t do enough to push back on that either.

Jon Tester:

There’s a lot of things out there. It’s a many faceted problem I think for rural America and it’s not going to be changed overnight. It’s going to take a lot of hard work by a lot of people that are willing to go into rural areas and talk to people about what the challenges are in rural America and what the solutions are for those challenges. We’re not doing that right now.

Preet Bharara:

Just wanted to ask another question about farming, and something you said a few minutes ago reminded me of what I wanted to ask you about. I have in front of me Paul Harvey’s speech back in 1978 to the Future Farmers of America Convention. This speech has been adapted into a car commercial a few years ago and every word of it is beautiful about why farmers are good and important. Here’s just one passage.

Paul Harvey:

God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school boards,” so God made a farmer.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think that’s a fair assessment of the importance of farmers? Do we mythologize farmers? Are they worthy of mythologizing? How do you react to that passage from Paul Harvey?

Jon Tester:

I think in some cases it’s very true and in other cases it isn’t. I think you’ve got different kinds of farmers just like you’ve got different kinds of law makers or small business men or working folks that really dedicate their lives to what they’re doing and others that don’t. I will say this, you work hard on the farm, there’s no doubt about that. I’ll tell you I was a teacher for a while, those people work damn hard too. We had a butcher shop on the farm, and I can tell you maybe the hardest work as far as physical work I’ve ever done is being a butcher.

Jon Tester:

We did it for 20 years and my body was about wore out to the point where we had to shut her down. I guess what I’m really saying here Preet, is there are no jobs out there that you couldn’t make Paul Harvey’s words fit to. I do think that there are certain things in agriculture that demand work to be done in a certain time and if you don’t do it you’re not going to be successful. For instance, we’re in the middle of planting where I live in north central Montana, and it requires 15, 16 hour days. If you’re not willing to work and that’s actually working 15, 16 hour days, if you’re not willing to do that, you’re going to lose opportunity and lose income. If you’re willing to get up and bust it, and it’s not forever, it’s for a couple weeks then that’s fine. Then you can sleep in some other time of the year.

Jon Tester:

But the truth is, I can say the same thing, I was on the school board for nine years in the little town I was raised in, Big Sandy, and I can tell you there are teachers that work 16, 17, 18, 20 hours a day and they work their tails off. They were pretty darn good, it showed in the classroom. Like I said, the Paul Harvey statement could have been easily said about them too.

Preet Bharara:

Very diplomatic of you. There’s also danger on the farm. Sometimes over family dinner my kids will ask, or we’ll discuss who I’m interviewing this week for the podcast and I mentioned that I was talking to you. I described some things about you at dinner. Here’s an event in your life that I’m sure you’re very, very tired of talking about but it was very interesting to my kids last night and many people may not appreciate the accident you had when you were nine years old. They asked me a lot of questions about it as teenagers might, what happened when you were nine?

Jon Tester:

Well, I lost my fingers in a meat grinder. Like I said…[crosstalk 00:22:34]

Preet Bharara:

You just tossed that off very casually, “Oh you know, there was that time I slipped on the driveway. Or there was that time I lost three fingers in a meat grinder.” That doesn’t just happen.

Jon Tester:

No, it doesn’t and for your listeners out there, you probably would ask, how does a nine year old kid get close enough to a meat grinder to lose three fingers? I will tell you that my folks and me too by the way, it wasn’t just my folks, I wanted to do stuff man, I didn’t just want to stand around watch them do the work, I wanted to get in there and do it. Whether it was running a tractor or grinding meat or scraping steaks or whatever it might be.

Jon Tester:

So the whole story is this Preet, my dad we were feeding out some cattle and my dad took a load of barley to town to get rolled. He broke down a front quarter of beef to be wrapped into steaks, roasts, and boned out and put into burger basically. While he was gone my mother and I worked in there. My two older brothers, my middle brother was doing something else, I don’t remember what it was but he wasn’t on the farm right then and my oldest brother was 12 years older than me so he was off at college or working. He wasn’t around. It was just my mom and I.

Jon Tester:

We finished getting the beef wrapped up and the last thing you do is grind the burger. She was wrapping a few roasts and I said, “Well, I’ll just start grinding the burger.” She said, “No, no, no I’ll do it.” I kind of pestered her and I end up grinding the burger and I was done, literally done grinding the hamburger, and I will tell you to this day I don’t know why but it might have been hypnotism of the auger in the grinder that pushes the meat through the knives and the head. That’s what I’ve kind of attributed it to but I stuck my hand in the meat grinder. I don’t remember sticking my hand in, I remember pulling my hand out. All sorts of lessons were taught that day of course.

Preet Bharara:

I imagine. What were some of those?

Jon Tester:

Well, number one you’ve got to respect power equipment. You don’t want to get into a situation where you treat it less than with total respect. The second thing is, quite frankly, and this is going to sound maybe a bit bad but accidents happen and once they’ve happened, it’s over with. You better figure out how to live with it because it happened. By the way, it wasn’t my mothers fault, it was my fault. You have to respect responsibility and you have to move forward.

Jon Tester:

Now what my parents did for me that was incredibly important was they never let this be an impediment to my success. It was part of who I am. You accept it, you don’t feel sorry for yourself. You adapt to what you have to adapt to like tying your shoes became a big deal for me right after I lost my fingers because I didn’t have three fingers to tie the bow. But you figure out how to do it with two. They pushed me. The other thing that I had that was an incredible advantage, when I started school, I basically started with 35 kids that later I graduated high school with. There were a few that came in, a few that left but not very many.

Jon Tester:

Those kids knew me like family and they didn’t cut me any slack. By the way, if somebody else came in from another town, started giving me crap about missing three fingers, they were the first to come to my defense. That was incredibly important for me as I grew up because that’s when I found out if you got true friends, they got your back. But on the other side of the coin, they had harassed the hell out of me when we were out on the playground or playing basketball or whatever it might be. They never cut me any slack.

Jon Tester:

I just think that whole experience, even though it was really bad when I was nine years old in June of 1966, that whole experience probably is the reason why I’m in the United States Senate. It taught me how to adapt, it taught me how to fight. It taught me how to stick up for myself. It taught me all sorts of things that you never think of. I do not recommend anybody listening to this podcast or anybody else do that, because it might not hurt to begin with but I’m going to tell you what, I was in my 20’s before if I bumped a desk it didn’t put me to my knees with my left hand because of the nerve endings in my fingers.

Jon Tester:

But the bottom line is it’s become a part of who I am. When I got here to the United States Senate, there were stories written about it, my mangled left hand. I’ve never ever seen my hand as a mangled left hand. It’s a left hand with two fingers on it and I can do some things pretty well with that left hand with two fingers on it. It’s one of those things that man I’ll tell you what, when you’re working with equipment you’ve just got to show an incredible respect because accidents happen so quick, that if you’re not thinking about it, it can bite you. After it bites you it can be a difficult situation.

Preet Bharara:

I’m not sure you quite said this, and obviously you don’t recommend anyone intentionally losing three fingers on their hand putting their hand in a meat grinder, but if you could push a button and go back in time and undo that, which would seem to be what most people would say, would you?

Jon Tester:

Well, I can’t number one. Number two, of course I would. Hell, I’d love to have five fingers on my left hand. I’d be able to drive in basketball to the left a lot better than I can now. Who knows? I might end up being a banjo picker or something, which would be pretty cool. No, I absolutely would. Everybody wants to be normal and missing three fingers on your left hand makes you not normal. I’d take them back in a heartbeat although I will tell you, if you said, “Would you put them back on your hand today?” I don’t know that I could, I’d have to adapt to figure out how to do it. When you’re a kid you can adapt, when you’re an adult it makes it a lot tougher. I don’t know that I could figure out how to use them again.

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back to my interview with Senator Jon Tester after this. So I want to thank you for something and I mentioned this before we started taping, you are I think in some ways the proximate cause for my staying as a Senate staffer for two extra years. I started at the beginning of 2005 when the Democrats were in the minority for Senator Schumer, and then I had planned to leave, go back to law firm practice after the 2006 election. I stayed up all night, virtually all night, fell asleep on the couch in November of 2006 and the Democrats were down five seats I think, if my memory serves. No one thought that the power in the Senate would change hands, and I woke up early in the morning the next day and the results were not all in, I think we were waiting on Virginia and your race in Montana. Then ultimately just waiting on your race a full day after the election and I had told my wife I would leave for private practice. Then it looked like you were going to win and I said, “I think I’m going to stay in the Senate,” because it’s more interesting professionally and otherwise to be in the majority.

Preet Bharara:

You’re the reason I stayed and ultimately got recommended to be the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. So Senator, thank you. How was that night for you?

Jon Tester:

Absolutely. The night for me was actually somewhat similar to yours. We were up and the results had not fully come in. By the way, this is the way it’s been at every one of my elections in ’12 and ’18, it was the same way. In ’06 we had worked hard. We worked really, really hard. Even on election day, I was glad to have it over with because we’d done everything we could do. At about midnight I said to my staff, I said, “Sharla and I, my wife and I, we’re going to go to bed. Wake us up when you find out who won.”

Jon Tester:

We went to bed, and I went to sleep too by the way. We were sleeping along and at about 4:30 in the morning there was a knock on the door and I woke up and I thought, “Wow, they know who won.” I went to the door and said, “Who won?” And they said, “I don’t know,” I said, “Why the hell did you wake me up?” They said, “You’ve got to do morning shows.” I went down and did morning shows. There’s actually a pretty good clip where I was sitting in a chair and waiting for the morning shows to come on and there was a roving camera and I was asking the person to my left, who was not my staff member either, but a press person. I said, “Who’s up?” They said, “You’re up by 5,000 votes.” I said, “That’s good.” Then I talked to him, “Now you’re up by 1300 votes,” because this precinct came in.

Jon Tester:

That’s kind of the way it went for I don’t know, seems like five or ten minutes, and then finally I said, “What precincts are left?” They started listing them. One of them that was left was Butte Silver Bow, which is Butte Silver Bow County which is very Democrat and there’s actually quite a few people that live there. When they said Butte Silver Bows out and the other counties are out, I knew I won. I got this look on my face like, “All right baby, this is over with. We cleaned up.”

Jon Tester:

It was an interesting night. By the way, 2012 was the same way and 2018 was the same way. We never found out the results of those elections until the day after election day.

Preet Bharara:

I’m confused about that, a lot of people are. Donald Trump won Montana in 2016 by what, how many points?

Jon Tester:

I think it was 17. In ’16 he won by 20 I think, in ’17 he won by…[crosstalk 00:32:17]

Preet Bharara:

By 20 points and then you’re up for reelection in 2018 as a Democrat and you won by three points?

Jon Tester:

Yeah, something like that.

Preet Bharara:

How does Donald Trump take a state by 20, and you a Democrat win by three? How do you keep winning in Montana?

Jon Tester:

And to add on top of that, President Trump came to the state to trash me probably four or five times. You win by working hard, and telling people what you’ve accomplished and getting around let people know that you’re one of them. If you’re able to do that, Montanans have in the past, been renowned for splitting tickets. Vote for a Democrat for this, and a Republican for that and just go down and vote for the person basically is what I’m saying. That’s why it’s so critically important. You got to do TV ads, you got to put up some road signs and stuff like that, but the most important thing you have to do, is to get out and let people know that you’re normal basically. And that you haven’t gone DC. And that you’re working for Montana and the country to make it a better place.

Jon Tester:

I’ve been able to do that.

Preet Bharara:

Would you prefer a safer seat or do close races build character?

Jon Tester:

Oh wow. Close races make you old before your time. No, I love Montana and I’ve never looked at it as, “Jeez, it’d be nice to be in Rhode Island or Delaware, somewhere like that,” because I just love the state. I’m not saying Rhode Island or Vermont or a place like that isn’t a beautiful place, I know they are beautiful places but Montana’s home.

Preet Bharara:

You talked about being on the school board, the Big Sandy school board.

Jon Tester:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

My wife spends a lot of time in the leadership position with respect to the local schools. Even in good times, it is a really hard thing to make everyone happy, it’s an impossibility and certainly during the pandemic it’s exceptionally hard because everyone has a different view. Was that job harder than being a US Senator?

Jon Tester:

Yeah, toughest political job I’ve ever had.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, how come?

Jon Tester:

The reason is you’d sit down and make a decision and if the people in the community didn’t like the decision, they’d meet you at the door as you’re walking out after the meeting adjourned. That’s a true story. They…[crosstalk 00:34:49]

Preet Bharara:

You’re a big guy, you can handle it.

Jon Tester:

No, they didn’t want to fight you but they did want to make you justify why you did what you did at that moment in time. It is the ultimate in accountability. The other thing is, when you’re dealing with other people’s kids, it’s a tough job and rightfully so.

Preet Bharara:

It’s a sign that people care about their kids. Do you think we made a mistake in the country with respect to closing schools during Coronavirus?

Jon Tester:

No. I don’t. The reason is because if I put myself in a teachers shoes, I would… if you’re a teacher you get every bug that comes into the classroom, you get. Sickest time I had was the two years I taught school because every time a kid came with a cold I ended up with it. With this virus being as dangerous as it was, I think it was important that we take that into account, not only for the teachers but for the fellow students that might catch it from one another and take it home to parents who could be elderly or could have pre-existing conditions and really put them at risk. So no, I don’t.

Jon Tester:

I do think though, once the teachers have had that vaccine, in particular use the social distancing, do the masks, do whatever you need but we need to get those kids back in the classroom. Distance learning is fine but it’s not like having a teacher there. Distance learn will learned moving forward and I think in rural areas it can be very, very helpful but the classroom is really, really, really important. I think the fact that we’ve got kids who have deficits in their learning right now is proof of that. It’s going to cost a few bucks to get those folks back so we have an economy that’s able to work 10 years from now, but no, I think that it was a prudent thing to do to keep them home. I do think getting them back as soon as possible is critically important.

Preet Bharara:

Can we talk about the Senate for a few minutes?

Jon Tester:

You bet.

Preet Bharara:

The worlds greatest liberative body. Is it broken?

Jon Tester:

Yes, absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

Has it always been broken or is it more recently broken?

Jon Tester:

I think… look, I’ve been in this position for a little over 14 years and it’s been broken since I got here.

Preet Bharara:

How do you fix it?

Jon Tester:

Well, different people will give you different reasons but I think you fix it by doing campaign finance reform. I think the amount of money that goes into these campaigns caused a real paralysis. You’ve got folks that are Republicans looking over their right shoulder every decision they make because they’re afraid they’re going to get primaried. You’ve got folks on the Democratic side, they’re looking over their left should every decision they make because they think they’re going to get primaried. By the way, it’s not just getting primaried, it’s primaried with somebody that has a lot of money behind them.

Jon Tester:

That being the case, it causes people to do nothing. That’s exactly what’s happened. Look, if I had my [inaudible 00:37:34] I would say let’s put campaign donation limits, let’s make sure we don’t classify corporations as people because they shouldn’t be able to donate to campaigns and lets go back to the good old days where a campaign in Montana might cost five million dollars instead of over 100 million dollars. You can still get your message out with five million dollars in Montana. When you have 100 million dollars, number one, you’ve run so many TV ads that a furniture store or a car dealership can’t run any ads because all people are seeing is political ads.

Jon Tester:

Then the ads are there just to tick people off. They’re not ads saying, “Jon Tester‘s a great human being because of this,” they’re saying, “Jon Tester‘s really a horrible human being because of this.” I think it turns people off on politics. Just as we were talking about engagement with local school boards being important, I think engagement with elected officials are important at the federal level. But I will also tell you that engagement needs to be something that’s productive, not something where you’re sitting in an airport and somebody comes up and says, “You’re really a waste of time.”

Jon Tester:

Tell me why then, why am I a waste of time? “Nope, you’re just a waste of time,” and walk away. Whereas in the school board, you make the decision, they walk up and say, “Okay, why did you put this policy in? What were you hoping to accomplish? This policy, not you, I don’t have a problem with you, I have a problem with this policy.” That’s really where we need to get back to. I think that the countries divided, the senates divided, I think the campaign finance is a big part of the division.

Preet Bharara:

Does it matter that some bills are passing that are very, very important and very sweeping and have broad effects on the country, on the people of the country, is it a problem those bills sometimes are passing with zero Republican votes?

Jon Tester:

I think for the good of the country I would rather have a few Republican votes but if they’re good for the country, they should pass. I think oftentimes infrastructures a prime example, by the way, a few years ago Republicans had control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate and they talked about infrastructure but they never got it done, there’s no reason why they couldn’t have. There were plenty of Democrats that would work with them on infrastructure.

Preet Bharara:

We were supposed to have a whole week. Did that week ever happen? I don’t think it did.

Jon Tester:

Never did. Never happened. It was talked about during the campaign a lot. This was a priority, never happened.

Preet Bharara:

Why do you think that is? Is that for ideological reasons? Pragmatic reasons? Or just utter incompetence? Because it makes no sense.

Jon Tester:

Infrastructures great to talk about, but you’ve got to pay for it. You either pay for it with additional revenue coming in or with debt, that’s the only way you can do it. I think when it comes to paying for it, that’s a problem. I will tell you that my grandparents and my parents generation understood that if you’re going to have infrastructure, you have to write out the check. My generation doesn’t understand that and I think that’s criminal.

Preet Bharara:

What is infrastructure?

Jon Tester:

Infrastructure, it can be defined a lot of different ways. Most people think of it as roads and bridges, broadband absolutely is a part of it now. I think schools is part of infrastructure. Joe Biden putting his plan, childcare. Look, when I go home I hear a lot of people talking about childcare being too expensive and not available in a lot of cases. I would classify that as being infrastructure. If you don’t want to handle it in an infrastructure bill which I know some folks don’t, then let’s figure out some place out to handle it because it needs to be handled in this country. Just like housing which is also infrastructure.

Jon Tester:

It can be very broad, most people look at it as being roads and bridges and that’s it, but it is broader than that.

Preet Bharara:

Does it matter? This is what some of the debate has been centered on. You see Republicans mocking Pete Buttigieg and Democrats generally for throwing all sorts of things, including some of the things you mentioned, childcare, housing into infrastructure. Does that, as a political matter, and you’re a savvy politician, do those labels matter in terms of winning support and getting the thing across the finish line?

Jon Tester:

Initially I think if we’re talking point standpoint, they probably matter. But in the end if you can get them done so people can see the benefits, I think they would say, “You know what? This is a very good thing that happened.” Housing is a prime example, I think it’s deficient everywhere in the country, I don’t think we have enough affordable/workforce housing and I think it has real negative impacts on business expansion and business start ups. If you don’t have housing it’s pretty tough to have a business. If we were able to do some things with affordable housing, and there’s a lot of different ideas, some of them I agree with, some of them I don’t, on how you get affordable housing. Then I think that is a positive thing for the country and moving forward.

Jon Tester:

I just think it does positive things for competition, for building communities, for the vibrancy of communities. You can never get there to actually prove that unless you get the housing built.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think there could come a time if the Senate remains broken and at a standstill that you would support strongly, filibuster reform or ending the filibuster all together?

Jon Tester:

So look, I think the filibuster has been benefits and you know this Preet, I think if you can get Democrats and Republicans to come together and compromise on a bill, oftentimes that bill is better. But I did not come here to sit on my hands and not get anything done. I think things like making sure we have honest elections and campaign finance reform are important to get done. I think it’s things we can get bipartisan support for so I think we got to work for getting that bipartisan support. But in the end, with that, with infrastructure, with some other things that I think are important too, if we can’t get bipartisan support simply because the Republicans are being threatened by their big donors, and if Democrats succeed they’re not going to support them and they’re going to run primaries against them. Then you have to look at the filibuster and say, “All right, we’ll bid it adieu.”

Jon Tester:

I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope we can get folks that have enough backbone to be able to work with the other side of the aisle to compromise. But those will come up, the bills that are put forward, there’s always room for compromise in those bills. If you want to trash them and gut them, that’s a different story but if you want to compromise and tweak them here, tweak them there to make them better, I think there’s opportunities for negotiations.

Preet Bharara:

How’s my old boss, Chuck Schumer doing as majority leader?

Jon Tester:

He’s horrible. Just kidding.

Preet Bharara:

You’re going to get me in trouble. No everyone’s going to know that’s a joke.

Jon Tester:

Chuck has got the hardest job in the United States Senate. You want to talk about hurting cats, he’s got to deal with everybody from Bernie to Manchin. That’s tough. That truly is tough, it’s a job that I really wouldn’t want to have but he’s doing well.

Preet Bharara:

Who’s the biggest pain in the neck Senator that he’s got to deal with?

Jon Tester:

Probably Tester, he’s really…[crosstalk 00:44:48]

Preet Bharara:

I knew you were going to say that. It’s not you, it’s definitely not you.

Jon Tester:

I wouldn’t throw anybody under the bus like that, but I will tell you and you know this, Democrats tend to go their own way and it is a big tent and there’s a lot of folks in our caucus that have different views on the way things should be done. Chuck’s job is to make sure the place doesn’t blow up and that people are working together to move the country forward. It’s a hard job. It’s really a hard job.

Preet Bharara:

Would you want that job?

Jon Tester:

I can’t imagine ever wanting the job, although I will threaten Chuck every once in a while.

Preet Bharara:

That you’ll run against him?

Jon Tester:

Exactly.

Preet Bharara:

He was very proud of that class of 2006, he was the head of the DSCC back then.

Jon Tester:

I’d like to think he’s still proud of us. He is. Chuck’s a good guy and I like Chuck. We don’t always agree but in the end, I will tell you that being the leader, whether you’re Harry Reid, or Chuck Schumer, I’ve only had two during my tenure here. It’s a tough job. Harry’s leadership style was totally different than Chuck’s.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, though they were very close.

Jon Tester:

They were very close.

Preet Bharara:

And Schumer would tell you that Harry Reid was his mentor.

Jon Tester:

Yeah, no doubt about it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, yep.

Preet Bharara:

You’re a Democrat in a very Republican state, Trump won by a lot of points. Joe Manchin is the same, Trump won West Virginia by even more points, do you see yourself as a Senator in a similar position as Joe Manchin? Do you identify with him? I don’t think people think of you in the same way they think of Joe Manchin, how do you compare the two of you as members in the Senate, sharing that somewhat common dynamic in your home state?

Jon Tester:

We’ve got, of course, we’ve got different styles. Joe’s a good friend also. I appreciate what Joe does. As a teacher I learned you never put down, never draw lines in the sand. If I had any recommendations for Joe it would be don’t draw lines in the sand. If you lay down an ultimatum and say, “If you do this, I’m going to do that,” it really doesn’t leave you any room. I think that’s probably the biggest difference. Joe and I line up a lot on policy the same, but in the end, Joe has said, “I’ll never move the filibuster.” I just think that any time you lay down ultimatums like that, you don’t know what the future’s going to bring.

Jon Tester:

It’s kind of like saying, “The next time you talk to your neighbor, you’re going to get swats out in the hallway.” I guarantee you, you’re going to have to give swats then. That’s a problem. I would just say, don’t do the ultimatum stuff, work with people as much as you can work with them to try and get things done. Ultimately, stick with your values and stick with your goals. But in the end, and part of this is because I was here during the Affordable Care Act debate, you were too, I watched Max Baucus go the extra mile trying to get folks on board. It was obvious in the end that Max was not going to be successful in getting any Republicans on board on that because somebody had figured out that they were going to be able to use this as a political tool to get back in the majority. And they did.

Preet Bharara:

They did.

Jon Tester:

The truth is, part of that problem is we spent a year negotiating on a negotiations process that was doomed from the beginning I believe.

Preet Bharara:

We had an insurrection at the Capital, as everyone knows, on January 6th. We’re three months on from that, do you have raw feelings about it, and in particular do you have raw feelings about any of your fellow Senators on the Republican side?

Jon Tester:

I still have raw feelings about what happened on the 6th of January for all the reasons that people have talked about. The fact that this has been a beacon of freedom that a bunch of folks went in claiming they were doing their constitutional duty when I’ll bet you none of them ever read the constitution and did some bad things. Initially I will tell you that I had some pretty raw feelings for the folks I serve with in the Senate. Those have subsided. I still will not forget what the folks did that I believe enabled the insurrection to happen instead of telling the truth, they jumped on this political bandwagon of saying the election was stolen.

Jon Tester:

I remember that. But I don’t have the… I wouldn’t call it hatred but certainly I don’t know what word to pick out of my vocabulary which is pretty darn small. I just will tell you that I was very disappointed in what some of my fellow Senators did leading up to that.

Preet Bharara:

Does it effect whether or not you would go out of your way to co-sponsor a bill with for example, Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley or someone else?

Jon Tester:

Initially, it absolutely did. Now, I’ll be honest with you, time is the greatest healer. I’m more inclined if it’s a good bill to overlook the person behind it and look for what the value of the bill is itself and sponsor it based on that and try to put the insurrection and the things that led up the insurrection out of my mind. I think it’s really important the country comes together and I think if I stay divided, how can I expect the people that I serve not to stay divided?

Preet Bharara:

Do you believe that the United States of America today functions as a meritocracy and whatever your answer is, should it?

Jon Tester:

Well, look, I don’t know if I’m answering this question the way it should be answered but I will tell you I’m very concerned about this country moving forward. I think there’s an old statement that oftentimes great countries rot from within. I will tell you, the vaccines are a prime example. When I was a kid my folks took me to the doctor and we had a sugar cube and they’d give you a shot in the arm and took care of smallpox and whatever else it was. There was no questions asked. We have so much vaccine hesitancy in this country for no good reason whatsoever. This is a very safe vaccine that doesn’t have side effects. It’s very effective against the virus.

Jon Tester:

That’s the things I’m really concerned about this country right now. Campaign finance is important, make sure we have a functional United State Senate’s important. But when you have people that witness 550,000 people dying in this country because of a virus, they continue to see how it’s shut down the economy across the world, the United States, we’re certainly not immune from that and say, “No, we’re not going to get a vaccine because,” whatever reason they have. I don’t know what it is. I think that’s scary and that’s scary for the country moving forward and the fact as Bernie said in caucus yesterday, 40% of the people in this country don’t believe the democracy works. That’s also very scary.

Jon Tester:

That means as Angus King once pointed out to me, democracy’s the exception, they’re not the rule. Dictatorship is the rule. We need to be careful, what we have today is something that’s very, very special and it’s there because the forefathers did a marvelous job in developing the institutions that continue to be strong in this country. If we continue screwing around with some of this stuff, whether it’s an insurrection on January 6th, or whether it’s not taking vaccines, or whether it’s a campaign system that’s dictated by a few many people in this county, I think we have a chance of losing it. We need to be smarter.

Preet Bharara:

Okay everybody, Senator Jon Tester says, get your vaccine please. Get your vaccine. He’ll come to your house.

Jon Tester:

Pretty please.

Preet Bharara:

He’ll go to people’s houses.[crosstalk 00:53:01]

Jon Tester:

With sugar on top.

Preet Bharara:

Jon Tester, Senator, it’s been an honor and a privilege to have you here. The book is Grounded, the Senators Lessons in Winning Back Rural America. You should pick it up, it’s inspiring and thoughtful. Senator Tester, thanks again.

Jon Tester:

Preet, it is indeed a pleasure. Thank you very, very much.

Preet Bharara:

I want to end the show this week by talking about something that struck me in the news. Of course, it was news about us and the acquisition of our company by Vox Media as I mentioned at the top. As I said, for folks that wonder why we did it and what it means for our content, rest assured, our content continues. Everything that we’re currently doing, we will continue to do. Ellie [inaudible 00:53:55] podcast, the Insider podcast, the Doing Justice podcast, clearly the Stay Tuned podcast. Every week will be the same. We have the same team, the entire Café team who helps put this together is coming to Vox Media.

Preet Bharara:

I’ve spent a lot of time with the leaders of that great company, the CEO Jim Bankoff and the president Marty Moe, I’ve started to meet other folks at Vox Media. They have an award winning podcast network. I think they’re the premiere producers of podcasts in the country and one reason we’re taking this step is that we will have editorial autonomy. They’re acquiring us because they like what we’ve done so far. What they want and what we want, is to do more of it. We’ve grown so fast over the last three years, we didn’t have an expectation that we would have this much content, this many products just three years and change into our existence.

Preet Bharara:

We keep having ideas, we keep wanting to start new podcasts to bring on new contributors, and it will just be easier to do that with a great company with all the assets and resources that Vox Media has. I think it’s going to be terrific for everyone, not just for us, but for you and I can’t wait. It’s especially heartening that a company that does such high quality programming is aligned with our values and our mission, who care about thoughtful intelligent content that helps educate, inform, and explain while also being entertaining, which I hope we are.

Preet Bharara:

I want to thank the Café team as I mentioned, they’re all coming to Vox Media, from Tamara Sepper to all the other names that you hear in the credits. Vox Media saw the value not just of particular podcasts, but all the people who make the podcasts and the newsletters and everything else possible and available and relatable.

Preet Bharara:

I want to thank one more time, Anne Milgram who’s on her way to becoming the next DEA administrator. As some of you know I met Anne 16 years ago and we’ve been buddies ever since. I’ll miss having an hour of therapy with her, and there’s no replacing her of course, I think you’ll be excited to hear who my new co-host will be. I think we’ll be announcing that very soon and I’m excited about that also.

Preet Bharara:

Finally, I want to thank one more person who’s probably the central and key reason why we’re at this point, why we’re growing the way we’re growing, why we’ve been so successful and it’s not me. But it is a Bharara. It’s my brother, my kid brother although he’s not a kid anymore, Vinit Bharara who we don’t talk about that much, he’s a behind the scenes guy but he’s the CEO of Café Studios. He’s the one after I got fired by Donald Trump back in 2017, and was beginning to write my book and teach at NYU Law School, I had some conversations with my brother the CEO of a company called Some Spider, which is still thriving and in existence and oversees a number of parenting brands like Scary Mommy, you may have heard of it. And The Dad.

Preet Bharara:

There’s also a fledgling brand within that company called Café. He said, “Why don’t you take it over?” And we started by doing this modest podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet which we did a little bit on a lark. I would talk to people every week, I would answer questions about what was going on in law and politics, and Government, and democracy in the Trump administration. It would be a little gig that I would do week after week. It became immediately popular. Of course, while my brother will say, and has said to me, “Of course you were going to be successful. Of course lots of people were going to listen,” it did take a leap of faith on his part. He’s a business man so just because I’m flesh and blood doesn’t mean he was going to be necessarily doing me any favors. But he had faith and confidence that doing this new thing, which is different from issuing subpoenas and trying cases, that it would work.

Preet Bharara:

And he had enough confidence in it that he put his money behind the project and substantial time and effort, and resources. And low and behold, we grew, the audience grew, we then launched the Café Insider. We brought on new contributors, and all the while, although you folks don’t know it, my brother was in the background supporting it, building it, helping to do all sorts of things that are invisible to the audience to make this the success it has been. I couldn’t be more proud to be working with him and to be his brother.

Preet Bharara:

I use the word brother a lot with folks, with friends of mine, “Hey brother. Thanks brother. Talk to you later brother,” but of course, I have only one real brother. It never would have occurred to me when we were little kids growing up in Eatontown, New Jersey, and fighting over the remote control and who would get to eat more dessert at the end of a meal, that Vinit and I would be business partners decades later and have achieved this kind of success. I’ve learned a lot these past few years, not just about how to become a podcaster or how to interview somebody, but about leadership and business, and judgment, just by watching my brother.

Preet Bharara:

We’re not the kind of brothers who say these things to each other, so I thought I’d say it here on the podcast for all of you to hear it as well. I’m so proud of Vinit for everything he’s accomplished and everything he’s done for me because he didn’t have to. I love you bro. See you next week.

Preet Bharara:

That’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest Senator Jon Tester. 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 hashtag, 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 staytuned@cafe.com.

Preet Bharara:

Stay Tuned is presented by Café Studios. Your host is Preet Bharara. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The technical director is David Tatershore. And the Café team is Matthew Billy, David Curlander, Sam [inaudible 00:59:53], Noah [inaudible 00:59:55], Matt Weiner, Jake Caplin, Jennifer Corn, Jeff Eiserman, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, and Margo [inaudible 01:00:03]. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m Preet Bharara, Stay Tuned.