Jake Auchincloss
Appearances
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
to force these social media corporations to uphold a duty of care to their users. Because right now, they are monetizing the attention spans of Americans, selling it off to the highest bidder, and have zero interest in fighting toxicity like, for example, deepfake pornography that's increasingly ruining young women's lives.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Ultimately, I think this thing is getting sold. But one, TikTok's lobbyists got to Donald Trump, partly out of flattery and partly because they've captured his inner circle. And two, I think Trump got concerned that he wasn't going to be able to control who the ultimate buyer was going to be, which is why you see this trend. really half-baked concept of the U.S.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
government having a 50% stake in TikTok, which I don't even understand what that means.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It's not that there aren't still champions on it. You're totally right that someone like Mike Walz, right, the current national security advisor to Trump and formerly a congressman, a year ago, he says, hey, if you think this pro-Hamas movement, propaganda on TikTok is bad now. Wait until China invades Taiwan. They're poisoning young minds.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Mike Wall is now singing a different tune now that Trump has changed his mind. So totally accept that premise. I don't think Congress's disposition has changed that much. What I think has changed is that we've just packed two years worth of political events into the last week, and there's Just only a certain amount of political attention that can be paid to any specific issue.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We got to worry about inspectors general being fired. We got to worry about the impoundment clause. We got to worry about the Paris Accord. Guy's going to try to invade Panama at some point. Like we have a lot of issues. And this TikTok one is not one that I think is as dangerous to the rule of law and to the politicization of the military as other things he's trying to do.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I think it's going to ultimately get sold for the very simple reason that I think Apple and Google are going to be unwilling to embrace the legal liability that would come from hosting it on the app stores persistently. And they're going to be worried about lawsuits down the road.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And that will ultimately degrade the user experience on TikTok sufficiently that a deal will make sense for both parties.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
As you and Chris Hayes said, attention is the most valuable currency in the world now. And it is controlled as maybe too strong of a word, but influenced very strongly by a dozen people right now. There has never been a time where more wealth and power has been concentrated in fewer hands. And I think Americans...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
sort of assume that most of those hands are American hands because, hey, we're the home of big tech. And what TikTok makes so plain and what you just laid out is that no, the Chinese Communist Party, and let's be very clear here, the TikTok and ByteDance report to the Chinese Communist Party that they actually have levers of influence as well.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Let me just underscore that, not to be too doomer about it, but Trump issued the Trump coin. And that Trump coin is the equivalent of issuing the account number for a Swiss bank account, telling foreign adversaries they can deposit funds into that account anonymously, but then come and show him the receipts privately to prove that they have so done.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It is the most brazen act of corruption of the modern presidency. And if you don't think that the Chinese and the Saudis and the Turks and the Qataris are buying some of that coin, I think people are deeply naive.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It is guaranteed that foreign adversaries will be purchasing the Trump coin. And frankly, the United States would do that too. If the Venezuelan president issued some coin in his name and we thought that we could gain influence over him by purchasing that and tying up his net worth in American interest and currency... that's a good national security decision.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We would do that to the Iranians and the Turks as well. You better believe they're going to do it to us too. So
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I'm concerned that bold-faced-named Democrats have been leaning into populism. They have said... Boy, Donald Trump has done what we dreamed of, which was building a multi-ethnic working class coalition. Biggest city in my district, Ezra Fall River, which is the exemplar of a multi-ethnic working class city, voted for a Republican in 2024 for the first time in 100 years.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Because it's part of the vibe shift that you've been raising. You are right that by revealed preference, by how much time people spend scrolling, they like this stuff, right? I mean, four to six hours of online or video content on average for a person under 40. But when I stand in a living room in my district, particularly with fellow parents, and I talk about...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
These corporations stealing from family time to create more screen time. When I talk about the fact that since 2012, when smartphones became ubiquitous with the front-facing camera, and John Haidt has spoken about this eloquently, we have seen a spike in mental health challenges for young women and antisocial behavior for young men. Every head is nodding.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
People are able to hold two competing ideas in their head at the same time. One, we're not going backwards, right? We're not getting rid of the television or the radio. We're not getting rid of social media. But this web 2.0 version of social media where these Leviathans are just attention fracking us, this is not sustainable and this isn't really what I signed up for. I feel that.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I hosted an app challenge basically where young middle schoolers and high schoolers can build their own apps. What was striking to me is even in the last four years that I've been doing this, the apps that they were building were about in real life community. The winning app created environmental cleanups in a way for people to sign up online, to go clean up locally. Gen Z gets it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
They understand that this is not good for them. And their parents look at their kids and say, I don't think it's fair that they are growing up, that their adolescence is being warped by the bottom line of these companies. And I can't fight Mark Zuckerberg one-on-one, right? I got a full-time job and he's out there. You haven't been doing the UFC training.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And I think they like the idea that Congress will pick that fight for them. Section 230 was passed in the 1990s. It immunizes the social media corporations from any liability for what they host. The social media corporations will act as though it's some kind of sacrosanct First Amendment protection. It's not.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It was drafted in the 1990s by a bunch of congressmen and senators who are good legislators, but they're not James Madison. And this law is tailored to one industry. You don't get these protections anywhere. Radio hosts don't get these protections. TV hosts don't get these protections. This was a giveaway to an industry in its infancy that it no longer needs and that it has begun to abuse.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And Democrats across the country have been looking at cities like Fall River and have said, well, if they're doing populism, we got to do populism too, whether that's immigration or trans issues or the culture wars. And my view on that is... Voters who ordered a Coca-Cola don't want a Diet Coke.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And oftentimes I try to thread this across a number of different sectors where I say, in the 1990s, we also gave immunity to the pharmacy benefit managers from the anti-kickback statute. These are the drug pricing middlemen. In the early 2000s, we gave immunity to the gun manufacturing industry from being sued for the misuse of their guns.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Folks, if an industry comes to Congress and asks not to be sued for anything they're going to do going forward, the answer that Congress should give them is not, yeah, sure. The answer is, well, what are you up to that you are so afraid of standing in front of a court of law and having the facts made plain?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We got to revoke all of these immunities and hold all corporations to simple acts of corporate responsibility.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We use a phrase that I think hints at what this might look like. When you're scrolling on your phone and when you're looking at content, you are, quote, paying attention, right? You pay attention. And if you're paying attention, they are buying attention. In the real world, that could be subject to a sales tax, a value-added tax.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
There's two different parties, and we have to start by understanding who our voters are not and then understand who our voters could be and go and try to win them over.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
In the digital world, it's non-monetized and thereby is not taxable. And the degradation of attention and the greed for our attention spans that these corporations exhibit suggests that we need to update our tax code to reflect not an industrial economy but an attention economy. And these companies will come back and say, if you try to do a value-added tax, it's going to be unworkable.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And here's 55 reasons why it's unworkable. And is it going to be challenging to implement that? Yeah. It's also challenging, by the way, to do capital gains taxes on private equity. Right. Our tax code and our tax enforcers update themselves. But I think the core thesis is very well grounded, that when you are paying attention and they are buying attention, that has value.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And we know it has value because they go turn around and bundle it for a price to advertisers. And we simply say, you're paying a VAT based on that. And the VAT is not going to go to the general fund. The VAT is going to go to a separate chartered entity that disperses funds for local journalism.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
The exchange is not the paying of attention, it's the buying of attention. So the advertising revenue that you're describing ultimately gets taxed as corporate income for Facebook and the other social media corporations. They pay tax on that. What I'm talking about is... the value that they accrue by your time spent on screen, which is quote unquote free, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
If you're walking to the polls and your number one issue is guns, if you're walking to the polls and your number one issue is immigration, if you're walking to the polls and your number one issue is trans participation in sports, you're probably not going to be a Democratic voter. That's okay. There's two parties.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
You're not paying and they're not paying. And yet there is an exchange there. You are paying attention and they are calculating every single impression of that entire scroll. They then bucket up that data and they do a number of things with it. One, they sell it to advertisers. Two, they sell it to large language models and they try to figure out how we can monetize it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And they are incredibly good at monetizing it. I'm not talking about a VAT on the backend monetization of data. I'm talking about a VAT on the front end of how much time spent on screen. Taxed not to the user of the service, but taxed to the service provider.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Netflix is not a great example because Netflix is a subscriber model. And so that is actually a monetized exchange. What I'm talking about is the social media corporations who have thrived on network effects that brought people together. And then they took the free content that was created by users to attract more people.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
So if TikTok moved to a model where it charged me five bucks a month, they're out of this tax system? So what's interesting about this is that some jurisdictions actually require that the social media corporations offer a subscription. So they've already had to...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
put forward what they think the monetary value is of sort of monthly usage, which is a pretty good indication of what it might end up being. But the short answer is no, I don't think that's a get out of jail free card. And you had mentioned, is it every single website? Is it, you know, a recipe blog? No, I don't think it is. And this kind of goes back to section 230.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Also, section 230 in the 1990s was created at a time when it was all recipe blogs, and it was web 1.0. And it It was a good idea at the time. So I'm not talking about, you know, you make some blog, pay and a tip, blah, blah, blah. No, we're talking about the clear dominant websites that are monetizing people's attention spans, pay a VAT on that.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And we try to support those people who are actually doing real journalism and can help reconnect our communities.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
But if you are a voter who went Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump, and you're walking to the polls and your number one issue is cost of living, boy, we'd better win you back.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It's going to have to be bottom up, not top down. And what that means is you're going to have to see civil society, local and state buy-in to these organizations, philanthropic. And we're seeing green shoots of this. I'm sure you're aware of it as well.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
In my own district, I see in Newton and Brookline and right outside my district in New Bedford, these sort of startup nonprofit news gathering organizations that clearly have communal buy-in. And yet the money is a problem. As you know better than me, The modern journalism era is a tough place to make money and tough place to make sustainable. And yet it's performing what I think is a public good.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I think it has positive externalities that need to be subsidized.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
They are about to take a chainsaw to healthcare funding. When you dig into the federal budget, what you very quickly see, and what the Republicans are learning, is that we're an insurance company with an army.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And Donald Trump has said, not touching Medicare or Social Security. Well, boom, there's about half the money. The Republicans have made clear they want to spend more on the quote-unquote army, right, the military. Okay. So where exactly are these $2, $3 trillion worth of savings going? that you need to satisfy your fiscal hawks that you can pay for these tax cuts?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And the answer is it can only come from one place. I mean, just arithmetically, which is Medicaid and SNAP and a few other... Affordable Care Act. Affordable Care Act. But functionally, what we are talking about is health care. I do not know whether they are going to be able to enact the full suite of cuts to Medicaid and ACA that they are talking about.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I think Speaker Johnson does not want his members going home to his constituents, to their constituents, rather, and finding out just how unpopular it is to make long-term care out of reach for the average American family. But isn't that assuming they pay for it? My default presumption is that they're not going to pay for it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
They're going to do the tax cuts, and they're going to use some monopoly math to claim that it's paid for. I don't know whether or not their fiscal hawks
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
are going to be satisfied by that i genuinely don't know i've talked to them and right now they have a spine we'll see when primaries get threatened and trump calls and we all know how brave congressional republicans tend to be in the long run against donald trump but let's for purpose of this conversation though accept the premise that they do take a chainsaw to healthcare let's say they take 900 billion out of medicaid for example over the next 10 years
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And Democrats are able to draw that clear contrast and have some success in the midterms. What's our big healthcare idea going forward? Because I don't think claiming that we're going to refix the federal Medicare match for Medicaid is the big idea. And I feel like as a party, we need to move away from equating health insurance with health care.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
For the last 15 years, the core thesis of the party has been everybody needs health insurance, pre-existing condition or not. And we are going to subsidize the health insurance companies to make sure that it's universal. And we've had a lot of success doing that. And it's critical that everybody does have health insurance in this country. But now the focus needs to shift towards cost.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We're not going to be able to convince Americans that we're the party to trust on health care if we don't have more big ideas on how we actually make, not Medicare for all, but how about community health centers for all, where everybody can actually access a doctor and a pharmacist and a diagnostician without having to go through the maze of health insurance.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Yes. As an example, of every $1 that is returned to a drug maker for a novel therapeutic, 50 cents of that goes towards middlemen. And so that kind of rent-seeking is riven through much of our healthcare system. I think the pharmacy benefit managers are a particularly extreme example of inserting yourself in the middle of an opiate. Do you want to say what they are?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I think we were seen as taking our eye off the ball on both kitchen table and front porch issues. That the notorious ad, Kamala's for they, them, Trump's for you, was not just about... the particular salience of trans issues in this election, but as a broader cultural thesis that Democrats have taken their finger off the cultural mainstream.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Pharmacy benefit managers, which are now owned by the health insurance companies, they're the ones who decide when a doctor prescribes a drug to you, what your copay is going to be, and also... Whether you need to try a generic first, all of these functions are useful, but they got greedy and they've been extracting about $300 billion out of the U.S. healthcare system on an annual basis.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
That is one example of it. And we have got to take out the corporate middlemen of many aspects of healthcare. But I actually think it even goes deeper than that. which is to say we need to stop focusing on subsidizing health insurance and start focusing on subsidizing the delivery of health care. And they are two different things.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
When I visit, though, community health centers in my district, what I see is medicine as it used to be practiced, which is a team-based approach that is patient-centric and where so much of the BS around insurance and administration has been elided. We need to have a caregiver-first approach, not a insurance company-first approach to healthcare.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Because I'm actually a supporter of private health insurance. Tell me. I... which is, based on what I just said, people might find surprising. I do. And yet, we need catastrophic coverage for people, right? There's two different types. This is a simplification, but I think a helpful one. Broadly, two different types of things that people kind of consume in the healthcare industry.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
One is things that are out-of-pocket affordable, and the other are things that are catastrophic. And the whole point of insurance is that you want it to cover things that are rare, unpredictable, and expensive. So...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
If you are an expectant mother and you find out that your child has Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, that is rare, unpredictable, and expensive, and you need insurance to be there to cover those catastrophic medical expenses so that not only are you dealing with the illness of a child, you're not also dealing with medical debt or bankruptcy. But you could have the government do that if you wanted.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And yet... The government's ability to discern value and price accordingly is highly suspect. I do not think, and I would say that the evidence supports this, that a one-size-fits-all, top-down, paternalistic approach to pricing things would be acceptable.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Between the time when Bill Clinton played saxophone on live TV and peaking, I think, with Obama's election in 2008, but persisting all the way through 2018, Democrats broadly were winning the culture wars, I would argue. And MAGA's big idea was, maybe we can win the culture wars. And to a certain extent, they did.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Where I would challenge, though, the status quo approach to, oh, insurance companies add value by saying no, is that in most states now, the providers and the insurers have become so concentrated that you've got—I'll give Massachusetts as an example—four to five 800-pound gorillas in the room wrestling. Two big payers and two big providers. And actually— They can't say no.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
They actually can't say no. Because if you're an insurance company, you can't take Mass General Hospital out of your network. People want to be able to go to MGH as part of the reason they're living in Boston, so they have access to those medical facilities. Because neither side can actually say no to the other,
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
You see what you would expect from a lack of competition and choice, which is inflation. What we need is much more granularity in those negotiations, such that it's not an entire provider system negotiating with an entire payer system, but rather different centers of excellence and specialties that have to negotiate on a granular basis with much more transparency in the pricing.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Competition and choice do work. But it only works when both sides can plausibly say no to the other. And the concentration we have seen has prohibited either side from saying no.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
As you said, in health care, the consumption function doesn't work as in other sectors. People are going to consume and consume and consume for very good reason, because the returns keep on being there for them. And you're right that covering the GLP- And their lives are on the line. Lives are on the line. Their loved ones' lives are on the line.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
The sort of the elasticity of demand, right, is very- My wife is a type 1 diabetic.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And this is where the buying power of the federal government can be brought to bear. We saw this even at the state level in Louisiana, for example, where they did a subscription model for hep C, where the state said, Medicaid more precisely, we have a lot of patients who would benefit from hep C treatment.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We actually think we're going to see return to value on this as a good investment for us to cover these drugs, but we are going to use our buying power to negotiate a better deal. That is absolutely, I think, a good use of government buying power, Medicare or Medicaid, GLP-1s or Hep C or these other miracle drugs that are coming down the line.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And I think Democrats now have to make very clear that that has been a mask for an agenda that is not actually going to help people. What you've seen in Donald Trump's first week in office is that he's siding with cop beaters and tech oligarchs. He's not doing anything on housing, health care and taxes for the typical American family. And we've got to drive that cost of living message home.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
There's absolutely a role there in basically the government getting more involved in the provider side, either the providers of biotechnology, the providers of medical device technology, the providers of primary and behavioral care by funding more of the community health centers.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
My challenge over and over again, though, is where is the value in us continuously subsidizing the health insurance companies?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
That too much of our economy has been captured by middlemen and rent seekers, and not enough of it is empowering individuals to build things that matter together. Everybody, when they think about playing with Legos, I think has this sense of creativity and empowerment.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And when you think about playing Monopoly, somebody always ends up throwing the board over because they get so frustrated that another person, out of, frankly, pure luck, ends up on Park Place, right? And is able to just extract rents every time you pass go. It happens, and this is sometimes tough politics. It happens in housing, too.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
you see concentrated groups of NIMBYs who are rent-seeking, sometimes quite literally, but more abstractly, they are rent-seeking on capturing higher property values by preventing the building of new housing. And this speaks to a really core challenge that we have in our housing sector, which is we go out there and we say two things simultaneously. We say... Boy, we need more affordable housing.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Housing should be cheaper. And then we say, you should build wealth by owning a home. Well, which is it? Because the two things can't beat you at the same time. You can't have housing be a commodity that declines as a share of wallet over time and have housing be an asset which you expect to appreciate over time. Now, my answer is quite stark.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Housing should be a commodity that declines in price over time. And there's other ways to build wealth. In fact, there's myriad ways to build wealth. but one of them should not be in rent seeking off land value appreciation. Also, we need to talk about free enterprise. I'm a believer in free markets and free enterprise.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I just view the fact that markets can be captured and constrained not just by government power and red tape, which certainly they can be. And we talk about housing development. We talk about energy generation and transmission. You can talk about the production of novel therapeutics. They can also be captured and constrained by corporate power. And both are true.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Both can warp the functioning of a market. And we should attack power wherever it's undermining that Legos economy. And it can be corporate or government.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It's not just corporations that have power. And I think this is a awkward reality that Democrats are going to have to confront as well. It's special interest groups across the board, whether they are ideologically or financially motivated, there is I think a challenge in which They hold claim to debate and discourse way out of proportion to what I think the average voter is actually keyed into.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
So, yes, that can be the pharmacy benefit managers tanking the PBM reform bill at the end of last Congress. Yes, that can be big tech preventing Section 230 reform by going to leadership and claiming it's going to destroy California's economy. But let's be blunt.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It can also be some of the groups that resist immigration reform or resist, on the right, gun violence reform that even actually a majority of Republicans secretly want to be able to vote for. So it's not just corporate power. It is, I think, more broadly understood as ideologically correct. animated interest groups, and they don't make their money on corporate contributions.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
They make their money on small dollar email list contributions.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
At its core, primaries. There's 435 members of the House of Representatives, and 400 of them are more oriented towards their primary election than their general. Only about 35 seats are competitive in a general. Between gerrymandering and the closed or semi-closed primary system, we're not giving voters actually... what I would consider fully open, free and fair elections.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
What we need is some combination of what Alaska did, where you have a fully open primary and every candidate is trying to campaign for the median voter. Some combination of what New Jersey did, where they have a redistricting system, where both parties have to compete for an independent arbiter to decide what's fair. And it has actually worked fairly well.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And some combination of what Maine is trying to do, where Maine is trying to cap contributions to independent expenditures to super PACs at $5,000. If every state did those three things, you would totally obviate much of the power of these interest groups because every campaign would be totally fixated on that median voter.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And that median voter, from an ideological perspective, is between the 40-yard lines.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
If you had asked me a year ago, whose dance moves were going to become culturally mainstream, Kamala Harris's or Donald Trump's, I would have said Kamala Harris. She's a pretty good dancer. But no, it was NFL stars doing Trump's dance moves in the end zone. I have been surprised by that.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Nothing. It's all exactly what you thought it would be? I didn't have the play-by-play laid out. But he campaigned on what he's doing. He said he was going to use the impoundment clause to freeze federal funds. He said he was going to save TikTok, quote unquote, save TikTok. He said he was going to pardon the January 6th rioters. He said he was going to rip out DEI.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
He said he was going to take us out of Paris. In the Marine Corps, there's an expression, a commander can be forgiven for being defeated, but never for being surprised. I'm not surprised. This is what he said he was going to do.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Number one, going into the midterms, discipline. And Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, is embodying this. We are not going to play the outrage Olympics. Americans know that this guy is morally bankrupt. They don't want him sitting at their kitchen table with their kids. They get that he's not a good dude and he's a bore.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Americans understand, I think, broadly speaking, he's probably captured by a lot of different interests, as we've discussed, between meme coin and Christian nationalism. We are not going to chase every single ball that he throws. We're not going to play fetch.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We are going to constantly, with discipline, be drawn in contrast between who is he helping and who is he working for, and who are we helping and who are we working for.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I think it's, and you have made this point, we have to be careful about over-reading the results of one election. Every single incumbent party throughout the developed world lost vote share, center-right, center-left. were no different. And in fact, House Democrats modestly outperformed what you might expect to have been the case.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It's not that we are, and I talked about this earlier, we shouldn't give on immigration, we shouldn't give on the rule of law, we shouldn't give on climate action and gun violence prevention. I've been very clear about this. In fact, I've rejected this idea that we need to move radically to their side of the court on these issues. It's that we can call it for what it is. This is illegal.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
This is a giveaway to the gun industry. Withdrawing from Paris is against our values about climate action and a clean energy transition. That can start the conversation. We can call it out for what it is. But the people for whom that is resonant largely... Our Democrats who are voting for Democrats, we also now need to then bring this back home and draw the contrast.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It's values, it's policy prescription, and then it's a contrast with the other side. And how about the corruption?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Which is why Democrats are not well served by chasing every one of those one things. But the candidates that I saw in frontline Democratic House districts that were most effective were not just talking about Trump as a cultural phenomenon and, oh, isn't he the worst? It was always crystallizing that for issues that felt like they had local impact.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Here's why it matters that he's in the pocket of the health insurance lobby. Here's why it matters that he's in the pocket of foreign adversaries and what it does for national security or what it does for cost of living. those candidates were the ones who were most effective.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And what do you mean by that? That when we either roll our eyes or we shrug our shoulders, we are stopping the conversation before it can start. People are not going to listen to us about economic theories of cost disease and how we're going to lower the cost of living if they don't first feel heard about shared values, meritocracy, fair play, hard work.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And what they have felt like is that rather than being enlisted to a party, they are being lectured to by elites.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
So what I'm concerned about is that Democrats basically reach for economic and cultural populism in a way that is going to be
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
As I'm sure you've noticed in your years of coverage, there's no CEO of the Democratic Party who says, hey, everybody, we got a plan, huddle up. There is no one big thing. It is an attitudinal shift that each one of us, elected and otherwise, needs to make manifest by how we go out and do it. A couple weeks ago, as you said, I'm a proponent of divesting TikTok.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I went on a TikTok show, very popular content creator in the Boston area, and debated about why we should force TikTok's divestment. They had real concerns. They're about to have a kid in the next couple of weeks. They make most of their income off this show. not a home field conversation, I would say, but you got to go out there and shatter echo chambers.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And particularly in places where maybe the thrust of the conversation is not normally about politics, normally about sports, or it's normally about cultural current events, but you're able to insert 10 to 15 minutes about housing or healthcare. Gone are the days of The big broadcast networks having this linear domination of our attention economy.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
It is now a go everywhere, talk to everyone, balkanized media landscape. And so we're going to need individuals who can execute. And then always our final question.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
One is an article, How Mathematics Built the Modern World on Works in Progress, one of my favorite long reads of the last several years. The second is Radical Markets by Glenn Weil and Eric Posner. And if readers like that one, they should read Glenn's next book with Audrey Tang, the Taiwanese digital minister, called Plurality, about how to build social media better in the 21st century.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
uninteresting and unpersuasive to voters as opposed to carving out in this party system that we're in our own view of things, which is that, yeah, we are a party that stands for the rule of law and that stands for a nation of immigrants and that stands for climate action and gun violence prevention.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And then the third is What Hath God Wrought, which is the Oxford history of the United States. And it discusses how Andrew Jackson built the Democratic Party in 1828 as a Christian nationalist anti-elitist party. That sounds familiar to people. And then how the Whigs came to contest him and ultimately won in the 1840 election.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And I find that template to be informative for the political era we're living in now. Congressman Jake Alkencloss, thank you very much. Thanks for having me on.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
But you're going to trust us on these noble abstractions because we're also going to be able to build trust through performance at the state and local level, in particular in these years that we're in the wilderness. And that means bigger ideas than we have right now. But the core democratic economic message... is that taxes plus housing plus health care is less than half your wallet.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
That is our economic telos. And that requires treating cost disease where it afflicts sectors across the U.S. economy, most notably housing and health care. What is cost disease?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Cost disease, I think, is the most important economic concept that policymakers are unaware of. In sectors like housing and health care, they are afflicted by Bowman's cost disease, which says that because they are very labor intensive and low productivity, they are going to inflate faster than GDP. So haircuts are a good example of this. Haircuts are non-automatable, service intensive.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And yet the wage for a hairstylist has to be competitive with the wage for somebody in a sector that has higher productivity gains. And so you're going to see more and more share of wallet going towards these sectors. Imagine if you were going to build your car.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And instead of buying a car at a dealership, you stood in your driveway and you called up a general contractor and you had them subcontract out the various parts of the car and people came to your driveway and they built the car piece by piece. Imagine how much that car would cost. A lot more than the typical car, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Well, that's how we build houses, and it doesn't actually have to be that way. And in fact, it is tied to the abundance agenda that I know that you and Derek Thompson and others have been pushing to the front of the policy conversation. The abundance agenda...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
makes the case that if you're trying to lower cost of living for the typical American family, you need to unlock supply rather than subsidize demand. You need to build more stuff. I agree with the abundance agenda and I agree with it across different sectors, but I think it's incomplete. You can't just unlock supply if it's a supply of a sector that has low productivity gains.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
You first have to turn those services into products and then unlock supply. Yes, we need zoning reform to expand supply, but we also need to lean into offsite construction to basically turn housing production away from stick-built, where it's highly service-intensive, and towards modular construction, where it's more factory-intensive.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Sometimes we're actively hostile to it, as is the case in the healthcare system, where if you are serious about cost disease in healthcare, it's inflating probably 2x of GDP. What you really want to promote is biotechnology and medical device technology. Those are things that turn a service, which is all the people at a hospital who perform services, to care for people into a product.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And yet, in many ways, Democrats have turned very hostile to the medtech and biotech industries. And yet we look forward to the year 2050 when 15 million people are going to have Alzheimer's disease. It's going to require three caregivers per person around the clock. That by itself is going to be an affordability crisis.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And the way to attack that issue is not through expanding the supply of caregivers. Yes, we're going to have to do some of that. The way to do it is to prevent people from getting Alzheimer's disease in the first place. But your point about modular is well taken, which is why I think... We need bigger ideas than we have right now.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
You've pointed out in California, and I've seen myself in Massachusetts, that despite the liberalizing land use restrictions, successes that we've had at the state house level, we haven't built that much housing, have we? What about a governor-sanctioned charter city in these states? Massachusetts has two bases that have been demilitarized, Fort Devens and then also Union Point.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Tremendous amount of land there that is interstitial to local zoning regulations. Why don't we have the big idea of... The governor in the state house, either in Massachusetts or in California or another blue state, starts a new city and says, we're actually gonna build 200,000 units of housing here. And we're gonna ban cars and develop it where it's more organic and walkable.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
That's a big idea that I think could arrest some of the demographic backsliding that we're seeing in these blue states that are losing population and can't provide housing affordability to their populations. What about education?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
Had not heard education as part of the discussion for the last two election cycles, and yet we know that the school closures have been a catastrophe for a generation of kids. And we need to, one, apologize to voters for that,
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And two, make a commitment that we are going to deliver excellence in education because we have seen backsliding across math, science, and reading comprehension in basically every place we're measuring.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
And the charter school debate has grown stale. What do you mean by that? What I mean is that... The pro-charter side is demoralized and the anti-charter side is no longer actually making that case anymore. At least in Massachusetts, we see that the conversation has moved on to other issues, legalizing teacher strikes, for example, or other things.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
To me, it's another invitation for big ideas that Democrats can put forward because Republicans don't have them. I mean, Republicans are obsessed with what books are in the library. I just...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
One of the things I've been tracking very closely about AI, and I tend to be a bit of an AI skeptic, candidly, is that we have seen that Khan Academy and others have been able to deliver one-on-one tutoring using AI to students and are showing measurable and persistent gains in math and reading comprehension in particular.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
What if we made the commitment that every single kid is going to get in-depth, one-on-one tutoring, both AI but also teacher-delivered? And we just flipped the script entirely on what it means to have education because we've got a factory model view of what education is really based on the 19th century of students listen to a teacher lecture.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
We have technology now that can make that an entirely different paradigm. We're not talking about or delivering that.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I take a position sector by sector. I am very pro-biotech. I want to see us develop the larger small molecules that cure Duchenne's muscular dystrophy or Alzheimer's disease. As we talked about with housing, I'm very pro-off-site construction and innovations in delivering housing as a commodity.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I recently visited an aerospace and defense factory in Los Angeles, and what they are doing with automating the production of high-mix, low-volume parts for the aerospace and defense industry is super exciting. It's how we're going to be able to build the materiel we need to compete in the Indo-Pacific.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
I'm also relatively pro-blockchain because I think it can empower creators in a digital economy. People who have a thousand true fans, whether they're musicians or visual artists, may be able to lay claim to that without being intermediated.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently
But I have become revolted by the social media corporations and their abusive Section 230 and their attention fracking of an entire generation of American kids. I got a four-year-old, a three-year-old, a one-year-old at home. I know you have two little kids too. And the way I view it, I'm in a race over the next four years before they can start scrolling on their own.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
30% of Kentuckians are on Medicaid and I'm sure they're gonna be thrilled with Andy Barr's viewpoint that what they really need is to be kicked off the rolls. Those new moms who are just so darn lazy, they don't wanna go back to work during that 12 weeks of maternity leave or those families raising children with intellectual or developmental disabilities who rely on Medicaid as a lifeline.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
Those seniors who are at home getting care that only Medicaid provides. $60 out of every $100 spent in this country on at-home care comes from Medicaid. They're not lazy. They're not shirking responsibilities. They're individuals who need access to primary care and preventative care and at-home care, and Medicaid provides it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
These Republicans are touching a hot stove in slow motion, and they are going to get burned.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
Ben, I'm glad you raised the chaos, the corruption of Doge and the attempts by the president to play fetch with our attention span, because Doge is a magic trick. It's not saving money, as you know. It's misdirection.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
It's trying to direct Americans' attention spans towards what one hand is doing so that they're not gonna be paying attention to what congressional Republicans are doing, which is taking an ax to Medicaid. Donald Trump doesn't have to face the voters again. So I understand what he's doing.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
He's trying to hook up all these tech billionaires who invested in his campaign and who probably bought all of his meme coins that he issued. He owes them tax cuts. But for the life of me, I can't understand why congressional Republicans are allowing Donald Trump to frog march them off the gangplank. Because when they go home to their town halls,
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
And they have to explain to new mothers and to kids and to seniors that they cut off their lifeline to health care in exchange for Elon Musk firing some federal aviation administration staff or FDA staff. They're going to get thrown out of town.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
I want everyone who's listening right now to go and take a picture of their most recent home insurance bill and their most recent car insurance bill. Save that in your photo library. And then a year from now, I want you to look at the bill that you get. I will sit here and virtually guarantee you that those bills will go up by double digit percentages. Why?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
Well, homes and cars are basically bundles of steel, aluminum, semiconductors, and lumber. And President Trump wants to add taxes to all of those things indiscriminately. And then he's going to harass or deport the workforce, particularly for housing, that constructs them. And our home and our car insurance, what they are is they're messages from the future.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
They are messages saying, here's what it will cost to rebuild or repair your home or your car in the future. And that's why Americans' insurance bills are going to go up now for the actions that Donald Trump has taken that will affect the economy later. We're going to see not just inflation and insurance costs, for home and auto, but also insurance costs for healthcare.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
Because when he kicks millions of Americans off the rolls of Medicaid, those Americans don't stop getting sick. They just go to emergency rooms. And those hospitals have to cross subsidize the cost of those ER visits by raising the rates they charge commercial insurers. So individuals who are getting their health insurance through their employers will be paying more...
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
higher prices on health insurance along with car and home insurance. This economy, under Donald Trump's current direction, will see inflation.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
But Ben, he missed a clear business opportunity because what he should have done is he should have required these gold card applicants to buy his meme coin. That is the key is you got to buy Trump coin.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
And when you show him the crypto wallet with Trump coin in it, then you can come into this country because monetizing citizenship goes hand in hand with monetizing the presidency, which he's already done on day one in office.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
No, in seriousness, this gold card idea, it's typical Trump in that he takes this kernel of legitimate bipartisan policy, whether it's the NIH and saying, hey, we need more research efficiency or it's... the DOD and saying we need more procurement efficiency, or it's immigration and saying we need to figure out a way to fix our high talent immigration system.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
And he takes it to this weird and cruel and unproductive place. We absolutely do want to attract people who create jobs, who are entrepreneurs or engineers or scientists. We have a system for that. It's called the H-1B visa system. We should expand it. We should improve it. There's bipartisan support to do that. What we shouldn't do is...
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
have people spend $5 million so that they can go play golf with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and, you know, commiserate with Vladimir Putin.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
What do you make of all of it? There are measles outbreaks right now in Texas and Georgia. I'm on the Committee of Jurisdiction for Health and Human Services. And just yesterday, we were in a hearing about our oversight responsibilities for the next two years. And Ben, congressional Democrats had this
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
outlandish idea that one of the things that we should be overseeing was Secretary Kennedy's viewpoints on vaccines, given the fact that for the first time in 20 years, a child in the United States has just died of measles, that we have measles in at least two states and outbreaks elsewhere, and that the top public health official in this country believes that chicken soup
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
is more effective than the mmr vaccine for preventing and treating measles and rfk's own words when he got measles as a kid he took vitamin a and had chicken soup and that is the preferred approach for dealing with these outbreaks he refuses to tell parents to get their kids vaccinated even now that the outbreak is spreading so congressional democrats just said to congressional republicans hey
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on GOP Blunders
Should we bring RFK to Congress to explain to us what exactly he plans to do about a measles outbreak? Congressional Republicans did two things. First, they laughed. And second, they voted down the proposal. They are just as accountable as Donald Trump and RFK is for any more children who die of measles.