Annie Karni
Appearances
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
We understand that extreme MAGA Republicans have a strategy. They want to flood the zone with outrage. But we can't chase every outrage. I'm a Yankee fan, and Aaron Judge is my favorite player. One of the reasons that he's a great hitter is that he does not swing at every pitch. We're not going to swing at every pitch. We're going to swing at the ones that matter for the American people.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
I'm seeing a huge shift in real time. So I think when Trump was elected, Democrats really wanted to show part of our brand is that we honor free and fair elections. He won. He won the popular vote. You know, we're not going to just be opposed to be opposed. Right. We're going to go to his inauguration. We're going to consider his nominees like on his or her merits.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
That started to shift with some of the actions the Trump administration was taking. Federal funding freeze was the most obvious place where Democrats could stage on the merits a huge protest. Also, cutting off USAID, letting Elon Musk plug in his personal hard drive to the entire Treasury database.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Yes. So these are actions that now they feel differently. It's moving, and it's moving under pressure from outside of Congress. Reid wrote a really good story about Democratic governors calling Schumer and saying, oppose all of them, and him saying, no, it's better to pick our spots. That has already shifted.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
As of yesterday, Chuck Schumer now told his caucus, I'm voting against everyone now, and I urge you to do the same. Even someone like Chris Murphy, Mr. Swing at Every Pitch, He started out voting for some and he said to us, I changed my mind. Interesting. In real time. I no longer think that we can have any leg to stand on if we're saying yes to some of this stuff.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Well... There's a lot of younger senators who definitely see an opportunity to be the future leader of their party. The clip you played of Chris Murphy, that sure sounded like someone campaigning for president. And there's a lot of younger, by Senate standards, lawmakers who probably look in the mirror and see an opportunity in 2028 to be the future of the party. Yeah.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Yes, I've heard that argument a lot from DNC people, especially after the election. We're kind of saying, look, we actually outperformed in a lot of these districts. We did really well this cycle. And that was like a hard argument to take seriously. Like they lost the House and they're saying like, no, we actually won. Nancy Pelosi was a proponent of that.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
They did outperform like in a lot of districts where they should have done worse than they did. They outperformed the top of the ticket.
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Another person making that same argument is Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp Perez from Washington State. She owns an auto shop with her husband. She's been making the case that the Democratic Party does not respect the working class and that they need more working class people in Congress, that all these progressive policies like – Student loan forgiveness. She voted against it. Why?
The Daily
Where Are the Democrats?
Because no one in her district went to college. So she's saying that, like to Reid's point, some of this is for urban educated people and is leaving out large swaths of the country that Democrats aren't speaking to. That's what people like Perez are making.