The Bulwark Podcast
Neera Tanden and John Fetterman: They're Playing With People's Lives
Thu, 06 Mar 2025
Donald Trump is hurting the American people. The DOGE cuts are not only waging war on jobs, they're also harming the American public and undermining the safety, health, and economic well-being of everyday Americans. And by cowering to his favorite bully in Moscow, Trump is prepping the US to be a subservient partner of Russia. Plus, John Fetterman joins Tim to share his opposition to the campaigns against both transgender athletes and soldiers, and to chastise Dems for the way they received the POTUS in Congress. Sen. John Fetterman and Neera Tanden join Tim Miller. show notes Fetterman's tweet after the Senate blocked a ban on transgender athletes Fetterman's video on Trump's trans military ban Fetterman's tweet after Trump's address to Congress Neera's Center for American Progress
Chapter 1: Who is Neera Tanden and what is her current role?
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a doubleheader today, Senator John Fetterman up in segment two. But first, I'm delighted to be here with the former Domestic Policy Council Director in the Biden administration. She's now back as CEO for Center for American Progress. It is the great Neera Tanden. What's up, Neera?
Well, we got a lot of problems. That's what's up. That's what's up.
We have a lot of problems. We're going to get into the problems. We're going to spend most of the time on the problems. I first have two backward-looking things for people. Number one, for newbies, for new listeners who haven't heard this before, my full origin story. I just want to remind people that Neera being denied a cabinet position for mean tweets was the beginning of my radicalization.
Chapter 2: Why was Neera Tanden's cabinet nomination controversial?
And now... We have Gropi McHairspluray leading the Department of Defense, but yet people couldn't confirm Neera to the cabinet because, I don't know, she said a couple deservedly mean things about Lindsey Graham. It was outrageous. And I just have to wonder how you controlled your rage watching these dopes be confirmed without any issue.
Well, if I had actually known that the cabinet nomination problem, that whole fiasco was actually contributing to your radicalization, I would have actually thought it was worth it maybe.
It was. I was ready to go into battle. I was going to put on a sword and shield with your face on it.
I mean, you kind of did. So I really appreciate it. My actual take on all of this when it actually happened was that it was kind of bullshit. Right. So what was really happening at that time is a bunch of Republicans who had just voted against Trump by voting for impeachment were scared shitless of the Republican base and
And so they used my nomination as a way to show that they were still Republicans. And the rationale, the rationalization was obviously ridiculous since each one of them just voted for some insane lunatic. Their mean tweets were like the nicest things about them, right? They were just... Wrong, scoundrels, corrupt, ridiculous people who don't care about policy.
In fact, really just want to use the government to hurt people. So, I mean, I think it just caused a charade, you know, but I knew it was a charade at the time. Like, it was ridiculous that people who were defending Trump and all of his tweets for the last four years before that somehow were able to read all of my tweets when they could never have read. Right, it is.
Yeah, it was. It was interesting. They were on some special Twitter where they're only getting what you were saying and not what Donald Trump was saying.
I know. That's why now I'm like, hey, I'm tweeting. Maybe a Republican senator will see it.
Yeah, they had you favorited. And you've been sending some good ones. All right. My other backwards looking thing. You're the first Biden administration official I've had on since January. And I'm just wondering.
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Chapter 3: What are Neera Tanden's reflections on the Biden administration?
That was a mistake for me. I know. Sorry.
Sorry. But like, I don't know, like you're looking back now. I just, I'm wondering how the feelings are.
I mean, you know, I mean, do we have seven hours? I feel like I need some therapy for this. I feel a range of emotions. I feel, you know, we tried to do a lot of important things. I do worry that perhaps we didn't solve enough problems. There were issues that we should have taken on or we took on too late. You know, I think we took on immigration too late.
And I think we should be self-critical about that. I don't think it's an excuse for the insanity we're seeing right now. But I also think that we should, you know, we have to be clear eyed about what went wrong, what went right. You know, the president did deliver on a lot of things. And we have to understand why some of that resonated and some of that didn't.
I mean, I'm really struggling on the economy, for example. And just, you know, you know me, I'm 100 percent candid. You know, we had a message for working class people yesterday. That message was we have a trillion dollars investments. Most of those most of those investments are translating into jobs for working class people.
Seventy five percent of the jobs were for people who don't need a college degree. But that didn't resonate, you know. And why didn't it? I think, you know, this probably gets into the future of the Democratic Party, but I think we have to really. Like, you know, think through why some of the things we did didn't work, didn't resonate. You know, obviously, we had some messaging challenges.
Messenger's challenges or messaging challenges? Yeah.
I will say messaging. You can say messenger. That's up to you. I will say messaging.
What were your messaging challenges, do you think?
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Chapter 4: How does Neera Tanden view the current US-Russia relations?
That the nuclear umbrella of France would actually protect other European countries, which means that essentially they do not believe the United States will defend other NATO countries, other European countries.
Yes.
A rational decision, but also really horrifying. Yeah.
I mean, just unbelievable. Again, it's like the kind of thing that you imagine for a movie. Really, it's the French president saying, our nuclear umbrella will protect you from the Russians because we don't believe that America will anymore.
Yeah, and I think it's also important to remember, or actually for all of us to really try to focus on not just it's important that we have these alliances, but why these alliances matter, right? So why does it matter that we have this really strong relationship with Europe to people? And just as a reminder, we have intelligence sharing with many of our allies in Europe, right?
Americans' lives have been saved because we share intelligence. They have shared intelligence with us that have disrupted terrorist attacks that have protected American lives overseas.
And I just want to say, when we get to a place when European countries do not want to share intelligence with us because they are worried that we could possibly share it with Russia, that will mean Americans are less safe. When defense contractors in Europe, their stock is tripling because Europeans are going to buy from defense contractors in Europe.
I just want to remind senators from Alabama and Mississippi, that those defense contractors are going to be, you know, basically less profitable in the United States. Now, it's not like liberals love every defense contractor.
Sure.
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Chapter 5: What economic impacts are being discussed?
Now, a couple of weeks ago, most of those people were terminated on a Saturday night.
The ASPR people?
The ASPR people and some of the FDA people. And we have drug shortages all the time. A year ago, we had drug shortages of pediatric cancer drugs. So we have a drug shortage, and I genuinely don't know who is going to protect us from that. right? Who in the federal government is actually going to work on that problem? This is a whole issue with HHS. You know, they're playing with lives.
So I think that's the job of all of us. We're going to do a lot of this work at the Center for American Progress to really drive the stories of how a person who's terminated, what it means for your protection, your safety, your health, your economic well-being. And You know, I personally believe that when people, when you have the amalgamation of these harms, that that's the story we need to tell.
You were working on all this stuff closely, right? I think the other misconception, right, is like that all these people are upper middle class nerds that live in D.C., right? And when you're having like a huge cuts at the V.A., huge cuts at some of these other places, right? Like I was like one of my Uber drivers was driving me. I'm going to do a Tom Friedman was driving me.
And he was like he used to do background checks. The people that do the background checks for the government are everywhere, right? Like it's just like random jobs you don't think about, right? So like these are hitting all of these and obviously it's going to hit Maryland, Virginia disproportionately, but it's hitting all of these other communities too.
And I think that those are other like people to elevate, I think.
Absolutely. And look, they're now going after, they're going to shut down a range of Social Security offices around the country. Those Social Security offices are about how you get the benefits you're supposed to get, your earned benefits of Social Security. So, you know, I think the truth of this is that Trump's crazy, you know, his antics, his sort of everyday antics, can't let us fight.
forget the real harm to people. And again, you know, we have had some successes beating this guy. Things are different. They are dramatically worse than his first term. But I am really proud of the fact that the Center for American Progress was a real leader of the effort to defend the Affordable Care Act from Trump's assaults, his effort to repeal it.
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Chapter 6: How can the Democratic Party respond to Trump's policies?
And my view of that is you should prove him wrong by actually trying to engage your friends and neighbors and telling them there is actually a Senate race and he actually is accountable to the entire state, not just the Republican base.
Are the Genocide Joe people in your top three, or do they fall a little lower?
I mean, they're not in my top three because, you know, I honestly believe many people were anxious about the war. I just wish they would be a little bit more vocal. I mean, I do think people should be protesting against
Trump. Trump. Sometimes. That'd be an interesting idea. Maybe protest Trump. I mean, he's trying to purchase Gaza. Okay. I joked earlier about whether you were worried about your legal status here since you've been banned by Russia. But like, seriously, now you're the head of a, you're a target.
And a lot of people out there are worried about, you know, Ed Martin and Pam Bondi and the lawless kind of actions that we're seeing. How worried are you about this administration coming after political foes?
I am very worried about this administration coming after political folks. But I really want to separate this out because I do think their fear and intimidation is a tactic to silence people. And I do think there are Democratic leaders who say, oh, maybe we shouldn't protest because it'll be an excuse for them to use martial law. And we cannot have pre-cowering, pre-obayance.
So, you know, I'm a little worried that the more effective we are, the more they'll come after us. But I think, you know, you cannot be scared. If you let them get into your head that they will... scare you, you will, you know, you'll come back a little bit from your criticism. You'll not protest instead of protest. You'll take actions. And, like, this is exactly how democracies fail.
So my view is I'm going to fight like hell. I'm going to act like this is still a democracy and I can fight like hell. And if they come at, you know, I'm not going to be insane, but if they come after me, then, you know, I'm going to expect...
that there are other fighters in this army that we're in, and they will use that as an argument for the rest of the country that we've gone off the deep end.
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Chapter 7: What are Neera Tanden's thoughts on effective political messaging?
But but for me, but it turns into an issue that is more appropriate to be handled on a very hyper local level and not dropping them into a meat grinder and a national finds and weaponizing that. And I know I'm not dumb. I know that there'll be commercial saying, you know, Fetterman's for they them and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, hey. You know, like bring it in.
I'm not I'm not afraid to stand for my side on that, because for these kids, for me, how difficult that it is. And now in this kinds of a world, nuance goes to die and having a more meaningful conversation on that. It's difficult right now. So for me, I made that choice and I could have tried to kept my head down like a lot of my other colleagues decided to do that.
But for me, even though I know it's politically unpopular, I think that's the kind of time to do that. And I do believe that a person's character is defined by the things that they're willing to do, even if that moves against their political interests.
Well, I appreciate that. Maybe I should have got married in Braddock because it was like not till five years later that I got my gay marriage. You know, it is just one more thing on the nuance of this. It's just worth saying, Martina Navratilova, not a liberal. I saw her tweeting at you on, you know, saying that, I don't know, it's different for teen girls.
And Gavin Newsom, big progressive, said that he is breaking with Democrats on youth sports. So I don't know.
You know, he's in my opinion, he's going to get the worst of both worlds of that. I mean, he's going to be seen as just flip flopping and he's going to he's going to anger like his progressive base. And then and we all know why he's doing those kinds of things. So and then and then on the other side are going to know why he's making those kind of changes.
So for me, like it's like he's going to own the worst of both of those worlds for that reason.
To me, the clearer one is the trans military thing. That's the one that, like you, I see the nuance of the youth sports issue.
I did a video. I'm like, look, I mean, it was not, there was a time when it wasn't controversial. Desegregating the military was incredibly controversial at the time. I'm not going to serve. I'm not going to fight. I'm not going to bunk with black soldiers. Now, of course, that needed to change. And then there was, I'm old enough to remember when don't tell, don't ask thing.
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