[Soft Guitar Plays] - Representing California's sixth district Congressman Ami Bera has served since 2013.

He joins us today to share his perspective on the major issues facing our nation and their impact on our region.

You've recently come under criticism for voting, along with nine other Democrats favoring the censure of fellow Congressman Al Green, who had some conduct during President Trump's State of the Union address.

What's your response to critics like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who said, Censuring our own is a betrayal of democratic principles?

- Yeah, so I've been home this week.

We've had a lot of interesting conversations with folks that are friends, African American leaders, others that took issue with with that vote.

Look, Al Green and I are friends.

I've known Al for a long time, even before I got to Congress.

I disagreed with what he did during the State of the Union 'cause we did have a plan and strategy to really keep the focus on what President Trump was saying and and so forth.

He wanted to distract us.

President Trump wanted to distract us by really provoking Democrats.

Now, in hindsight, could I have approached this differently?

Yeah, I mean, after conversations could have approached Al and had a one-on-one honest conversation with them, I think it did shift the focus of the story to Democrats are in disarray as opposed to what President Trump said he was going to do.

- Well Im curious, do you feel like it backfired, and Im asking you that question 'cause I went on Instagram last night and ElkGrovenews.net reported that at the time that they did the reporting, there were like over 3,500 comments and basically all of 'em were pretty one sided against the position that you took.

You talk about, you know, what you might, might have done different.

What do you think that that wellspring of, of such a, a significant and overwhelming reaction comes from right now?

- I think people are scared.

I think people are lots of conversations about, Hey Democrats, you need to fight back and so forth.

And we are, but we need to let people know what we're doing.

And I think the folks that supported what Al did said, well at least Al's fighting back.

So again, honest conversations this week.

The other thing that you know, did come outta those conversations are, look, Democrats need to, at this point in time, stay united.

And that was not Democrats staying and I'd -- so I listened to everyone and I take that back and, you know, help inform where I go from here.

- Well you used a term called radical civility.

Okay.

And I don't know whether this would be a part of radical civility or not, but another colleague of yours over in the Senate, Senator Schumer, has been under heavy criticism because of the fact that while you voted against the budget resolution that came up, he had essentially taken the position to support the budget, budget resolution over on the Senate side because he thought that, that the impact would be worse if the country shut down.

It does seem a bit that the Democrats are a little bit outta sorts and in disarray.

Is that just the aftermath of 2024 or is it that the ship really doesn't have a rudder right now?

- I think it's a couple things.

So certainly the outcome of the presidential election 2024 is not what we expected.

We passed historic legislation under the Biden administration, biggest climate change bill in in history, biggest infrastructure bill in history, you know, and a lot of folks still voted against us.

Now we have to understand why that happened 'cause these are all things that Democrats wanted.

We lost parts of the population.

On the term radical civility, though, I do think there's something going on in this country that is pitting neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother.

And we gotta figure that out, right?

I mean, I, I believe the American people are, are kind and, and generous folks, but right now we're not acting like it and - Not toward each other.

It doesn't seem like - Not towards each other.

And again, how do we get there on the budget vote?

I understand the dilemma Senator Schumer had because the government shutdowns not good for anyone.

But I do think that was the one piece of leverage that we had.

You know, could we have negotiated, say, okay, we'll get, give you the votes, but restore school lunch funding, restore, you know, some healthcare funding that you're taking away, restore international aid so people don't die abroad.

We should have at least got something out of it and had a negotiation.

And I think that's where a lot of the house Democrats were concerned that we really didn't negotiate and or certainly didn't seem like there was any negotiation.

- Now you've been consistent during your time in Congress in trying to reach across the aisle and find areas of common ground and have been part of the, one of the leaders of the problem solvers caucus.

Are there any problems that you and your counterparts on the other side of the aisle actually are coming together on at this point?

Because it seems like that radical civility is the equivalent of a candle in a hurricane at, at this particular moment.

- You know, it's a challenge.

This is the worst that I've ever seen.

And I came into Congress in 2013 at the height of the Tea party wave, but you had more traditional Republicans, you know, the, the folks that we grew up with, fiscal conservatives.

And that's changed, right?

I think over time a lot of the folks that would be willing to break with their party or at least find middle ground, many of them left, many of them have lost in primary elections and and so forth.

You know, of the 10 Republicans that voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6th, after that insurrection, only two of them are still in Congress and they all always have tough races now.

So I think there's been a hollowing out of some of the center, and you see it on our party as well a little bit, that said, we can't be a divided country, right?

'cause that's how democracies fall.

So I still make every effort to reach out, get to know the Republican members, try to find common ground, try to understand their perspective.

And a lot of that is by, you know, asking their stories.

Like how did they get there?

One Republican I reached out to recently is Eli Crane, very conservative freedom caucus.

Hard right, MAGA individual.

But if you look at the story, after 9/11, he dropped out of college, joined the Navy, became a Navy Seal, went to war in Afghanistan.

And that was a hard isolationist, like, you know, let's not, he wants to get out of Ukraine, et cetera.

When I asked him his story, he said, you know, if you saw what I saw in Afghanistan, how we were wasting money doing things out there, you'd probably believe the same way I do.

So I somehow we've stopped listening to one another.

We've stopped trying to understand why people vote and see things the way they do.

- Well, can you even say that just within your own party that in some ways the Democrats have stopped listening to each other and and the reason I'm asking you the question is because a contrarian view might be this, that because of the hard right turn that this administration is taking in terms of its own policy objectives, that it may actually create an opportunity for Democrats to get its, get their house in order in a way that they couldn't prior to this particular moment.

Are there those opportunities - Absolutely.

So we just had our Democratic retreat where we wanna weigh as a, on the house democratic side, we've all gotta get on the same page, right?

I mean, we all care about the same things, the values we're fighting for similar populations.

Our tactics and methods might be different.

But again, going back to the Al Green censure vote, I understand the folks that said, Hey, you didn't stand with other Democrats.

Great, let's move forward.

I do understand we've gotta be unified as a party with the strategy ready if President Trump's policies fail, or if Republicans are like, Hey, wait a minute, you're, you shut down my school, you took healthcare away from my constituents.

That's not what we wanted.

We ought to be ready with a plan to say, okay, well here's how we would help you.

- I gotta ask you this question.

We've talked a bit about this whole center vote.

If it came up again and you had a do over, would you still take the same vote?

- I mean, I might think about it differently.

Al Green voted present, I might vote the same way Al Green did.

I would certainly sit down and talk to Al ahead of time as well.

And those are things that, again, I'm not a perfect human being and you know, I disagreed with what Al did there, but you know, could we have had that conversation in private maybe.

- Okay.

I want to ask you there was a lot on the table, not only in the State of the Union, but in all of the weeks leading up to it.

When you look at President Trump's 2025 agenda and beyond, what are the most important issues that are being decided that you think are going to directly impact the lives of everyday Americans?

- Yeah, so some of the things that, you know, I work on the foreign policy stuff and so forth.

I don't think the American public is paying attention to as much, but I do think it's weakening us on the national stage.

It is fraying our relations with our allies.

I would not pick a fight with our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico because our economies are intertwined.

I do think what he's doing around tariffs with our close friends is gonna have a real impact on the jobs economy.

I also think what he's doing with the federal workforce, these are folks that are working on our behalf.

Many of them are veterans who served in uniform and now continue to serve our country as federal workers.

Great, let's look for efficiency and so forth.

But to have a 20-year-old hand them a layoff notice or say justify why your job exists, that's incredibly disrespectful, right?

There's ways to do this work with us and you know, we can look at ways to streamline government.

- When you look at the administration's conduct in pursuing the end of the Ukraine Russian War, the way that they, that they have interacted with our allies, both in Europe and also in this hemisphere, what do you think is the biggest risk to America long term, by the way that they've gone about prosecuting the foreign policy of the United States?

- I mean, with the Ukraine war in particular, I'm fine, let's bring this conflict to an end.

But Vladimir Putin was the aggressor.

Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are the heroes here.

They're fighting for their own country.

Six months ago, I think Republicans would be aghast if a president said, Vladimir Putin was a victim here, so let's negotiate, let's try to find a peace that gives Ukrainian security.

They probably do have to give up some land, but don't do it on Putin's terms.

Do it on the Ukrainian people's terms.

- Let, let's come closer to home.

There have been a number of controversies related to executive orders.

They've been held up in the courts.

The administration has aggressively gone after judges and the like.

There are many that say that the institutions that make up the fabric of this country are under a, a, a pounding right now that has never been seen.

What do you think is the, the potential in terms of outcome for this continued strife between the, these what are supposed to be co-equal branches of government?

- I mean, we've never seen anything like this, right?

The, the fact that article one is congress, the Republicans, many of my friends, they're giving up our authority.

Our system is checks and balances that start with the Congress.

We control the purse strings, we control, you know, we authorize an appropriate funds, create programs.

The executive branch, the president then is empowered to implement those if he just disregards what we're doing in Congress.

We've never seen that before.

And now he's taken on the judiciary that is, this is a crazy scary time.

- What's the difference between an aggressive administration and literally autocracy?

- You know, I think we're headed down that path, right?

We've never seen a president calling for the impeachment of judges.

And so, you know, we've never seen a president directly just ignoring congress, shutting down programs like the Department of Education.

We created the Department of Education.

The president can't shut that down.

So we're gonna fight 'em in the courts.

The judges are ruling with us.

But again, I think the constitutional moment comes if he just chooses to ignore the judges.

- And with all this going on, I, I want to come back and, and ask you your diagnosis.

You're a physician, so, so make the American electorate and actually in particular the Democratic party, your patient for a moment, why did the patient die on the table in the last election for your party?

- So I, I'd go back.

I think we passed historic legislation.

I don't think anyone knew that we passed it.

And I think we did a poor job communicating.

I think there is a, a, a coming home moment where we look at the, how Donald Trump communicates, how Republicans ate.

There's podcasts, there's, you know, social media, TikTok videos, et cetera.

I have been listening to a lot of my constituents and they're saying like, Congressman, what are you doing?

It's like, I'm doing this, this, and this.

Like, we don't know any of that.

I think we're realizing that a lot of how people get their information now is on Instagram.

- So you think it's purely a communication issue, not a policy issue?

- Yes.

I think that's a big part of it, right?

So how is it that we lost the working class?

I think our policies are all designed to help those working folks help those families that are struggling.

You know, the, the legislation we passed disproportionately sent resources to red states and red districts.

'cause they're struggling.

- Well, well, well I want, I wanna go after this for a sec because there is a growing perception that the Democrats are the party of the elites, a bunch chilled shrimp and chardonnay sort of party goers who really would never hang out in the very neighborhoods that they purport to actually represent in terms of the working class.

How do you respond to that?

- I think that's part of the problem, right?

I mean I think that's part of how we lost talking to the, the working class and how we lost, how did we lose union voters when you had the most pro-union president, more union voters voted for Donald Trump.

So we've gotta get back to the basics, right?

Just talk about the American dream.

Talk about helping folks get away from the Chardonnay and get back to the beer.

- Which leads me to this.

Sacramento is a big beer capital not only in this country, but in the world.

When you look at what's on the docket for being decided in Congress and by the administration, the actions they're taken, what are your major concerns for your district and for this region and what is it that we should be preparing for?

- I mean, right now we're one of the most diverse regions in the country.

And Sacramento County has one of the largest refugee populations.

That's a population that's really scared right now.

'cause we're watching what's happening in the immigration area.

We rely a lot on healthcare.

If Medicaid gets cut 20, 25%, a lot of Sacramento residents are gonna lose their healthcare.

So those are two big things.

I'm gonna meet with the, the, the county superintendent of schools along with some school board members and, and others.

If they cut a billion dollars out of school food aid, a lot of kids are gonna go hungry.

For many kids in our region, that's the only hot meal they get a day.

How do we stop those things from happening?

But also how do we prepare as a community to come together to care for one another?

- Hmm, another big issue, you talk about the diversity of the region, it seems that there has been a very intentional focus on all things related to diversity, equity, inclusion, all of those sorts of issues to the point where it is that not only have executive orders dismantled older executive orders that have stood for like 60 years, but even to the point where it is that I guess the Department of Defense removed a display or exhibit related to Jackie Robinson serving in the service.

What do you think is behind the, this panoply of actions related to this issue and what does it mean for us as a region in California as what arguably is the most diverse state in the union?

- I think this is crazy what, what he's doing and what the folks around him are doing.

You know, it's a direct assault on the African American community.

You know, I was with leaders this week and I saw that fear.

I saw and heard what they were saying.

It's like you're taking our history out of the, the history books.

You're getting rid of the opportunities and the programs that actually gave us a chance to be successful.

You're rolling things back.

The African American community specifically feels a direct assault.

- You mentioned the African American community twice.

Why the focus on the African American community?

Because doesn't this affect a much broader swath of the population?

Just that - It does, but it does in some ways feel like there's some specific targeting when you talk about critical race theory, things like that, that, that I I never knew what that meant before.

So the, and you watch what they're doing to the history books and then you see something like the Jackie Robinson exhibit.

To me that makes no sense, but that, that sounds very targeted.

But yes, it's a lot of communities under assault.

The refugee community, the Hispanic community, you know, folks that are, you know, maybe here in and are undocumented, but they've been in our communities for 30 years.

They're small business owners and others, they're afraid to go to work now.

And so there is this across the board assault, but it does seem like there's something specific to the African American community - That, that's interesting.

So you, you were at a retreat and you all started to have conversations.

What is it that we can expect to see from the Democrats in terms of their program?

Because there are some who critics who say, well, you can't fight something with nothing.

And, and they're, see there is a perception among some that the Democrats have essentially sat on their hands since the inauguration because either they're so shellshocked or they're so out of ideas that they don't know what to do.

- I mean, so initially there was, there probably was some shell shock, like just like, what the hell is he doing?

And it was every hour then there was activation.

I mean, we filed over 150 lawsuits and, and have active cases.

For the most part, we're winning all these cases.

Now that doesn't sound sexy, but that's the tool that we have, right?

Because we think a lot of what he's doing is unconstitutional and the courts are siding with us on that.

The third part is actually winning elections, right?

I mean, we have to understand why we lost, but the best way to stop him, the best way to preserve our democracy is actually to win the next election.

So - There's a lot of daylight though, between now and the midterms, right?

There's a lot that can be done.

So I mean, you're not giving you and your party a whole pass up until - No, but, so again, this is the nuts and bolts of right.

We know they're gonna go after Medicaid.

We know we have to flip three Republican votes.

So my colleague David Valadao, who's down in central California, has over 400,000 Medicaid recipients.

We're targeting his district.

We're going in advertising, talking to doctors, talking to hospitals that are saying, if you cut that, that hospital's probably gonna close.

How do you bring the heat on?

You know, those most vulnerable Republicans to say, you know what, I'm gonna stand up to Donald Trump.

I'm gonna stand with my constituents.

- Let's go back.

You touched on a little bit earlier you were talking about the government workers.

Let's talk about Doge and Elon Musk for a second.

Overall, just from a general standpoint, what do you think of the Doge initiative?

Because, you know, it stands to reason that any institution deserves kind of a, a forensic exam every once in a while.

Your own thought about whether or not it, it took something of this disruptive nature to look at government and how it provides services.

Or is this just kind of like a bull in a China shop?

- I mean, if you look at Elon Musk's history, and I would tell everyone to read the Walter Isaacson biography of Musk.

This is how he operates.

But he's been given carte blanche.

He wasn't elected to anything but President Trump's given him carte blanche.

So he's brought in a lot of what I call would call tech bros.

These 20 year olds.

That isn't how you go about doing this.

You empower your cabinet secretaries to then work with Congress to say, okay, we've gotta find 20% in terms of cuts.

Great, let's look at that.

Let's go program by program.

You don't just close the department and lay everyone off and then say, oh, we made some mistakes, lemme bring you back.

And then, oh no, we're gonna lay you off again.

This is chaos right now.

And it's creating a lot of fear, not just in the federal workforce, but fear across this country.

It hasn't gotten real for folks, but how do you justify laying off 80,000 VA workers when we've got a sacred promise to our veterans, they go fight for us.

They protect us.

We're gonna take care of you.

It's already a stressed system.

You have 80,000 fewer workers there that veteran's not gonna be able to get their doctor's appointment.

You're probably gonna see doctors leaving.

It's gonna get worse.

- I also want to ask you about this coming back, coming back home.

Recently.

Gavin Newsom, our governor, made some news because of the fact that he started his own podcast and one of the first things he did was talk about that he's effectively had a change of heart on trans gender folks playing in girls' sports.

And some say, well bold leadership, stepping out and getting past, you know, sort of the commonality of, of democratic politics.

Others would say, just bending in the wind, let's say you, - I'd say sounds like someone's run for president.

I look, I, I hate seeing what's happening to transgender kids.

This is already a population, it's a small population of folks that are struggling and then to make them a target, that's cruel in my mind.

That said, I would leave it up to sports leagues.

I would leave it up to parents and families in those sports leagues to say, okay, how do we wanna do this?

And how do we wanna approach this issue?

It's not what we should be talking about right now.

Federal government shouldn't be involved in that.

That should be up to, you know, communities and, and, and families.

But I do hate seeing how you're creating a target out of this very vulnerable community that that isn't who we are as Americans.

I hope that's not who we are.

- Alright.

And I think we'll leave it there.

Congressman Bera, thank you.

And, and good luck.

- Thank you.

-Alright.

-Be well.

- And let's be kind to one another.

- There you go.

Thanks to our guest and thanks to you for watching Studio Sacramento.

I'm Scott Syphax.

See you next time.

Right here on KVIE.

[Soft Guitar Plays] All episodes of Studio Sacramento, along with other KVIE programs are available to watch online at kvie.org/video.