How Mitch McConnell convinced Michael Bennet to run for president

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2019

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I’m not sure what I expected Sen. Michael Bennet’s answer to be when I asked him why he was running for president. I didn’t expect it to be “Mitch McConnell.” Since arriving in the Senate in 2009, Bennet has built a reputation as a senator’s senator. He’s smart and measured, thoughtful on policy, and good at working across the aisle. I’ve had colleagues of his tell me they wish he’d run for president, that he’s the kind of guy the country needs. But Bennet’s been radicalized. He believes America’s government is broken. So what happens when you radicalize a moderate? How far will an institutionalist go to save the institutions he loves? And at what point do you decide the problem is inside the institutions themselves? That’s the conversation, and at times argument, Bennet and I have in this podcast, and it’s an important one. His critique is angry and sweeping. But are his solutions as big as the problem he identifies? We also talk about his plan to end extreme childhood poverty, which I think is one of the most important proposals in the race, his view that rural America is the key to passing climate legislation, why he opposes Medicare-for-all, what to do about the filibuster, and much more. Book recommendations: There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir by Casey Gerald Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Whatever you want to say about McConnell, at least he's been strategic.
0:03.0	We have been completely feckless, I think.
0:05.7	And I'm tired of it.
0:19.7	Hello, welcome to this is Clancho on the Box Media podcast network.
0:22.3	My guest today is Senator Michael Bennett, who is now in the presidential race,
0:26.3	one of now within 20 candidates in the presidential race.
0:29.0	But I think it's worth paying real attention to Bennett.
0:32.0	A lot of people don't know his name, not a not a high name recognition candidate.
0:35.7	Senator from Colorado, he is absolutely one of the most respected members of the Senate by
0:39.9	his colleagues. I actually had somebody, one of the presidential candidates, one of the major
0:44.1	presidential candidates years ago, I was talking to them about 2020 and asked who they wished would run
0:49.3	and Bennett was a person they named to me. Now I don't think they're going to drop out and
0:52.7	endorse him, but he's held in really unusually high esteem by his colleagues.
0:56.8	And he has been radicalized. I don't think I've seen anyone else in my time covering politics,
1:01.6	who has moved as far from coming in and honoring the institution and its norms and decencies.
1:10.0	By partisanship, he was a member of the gang of athe came up with the immigration bill,
1:13.2	then I forgot a vote in the house, but did clear the Senate, which was a big lift in and of
1:17.6	itself. In the past couple of years, he's just really moved. He's really seen the way Mitch McConnell
1:23.7	runs a Senate. He's really seen what the Freedom Caucus is doing. And he's really come to see
1:28.7	their Republican party as much as he is somebody who is good at working in a bipartisan way,
1:32.6	who wants to work in a bipartisan way. He's come to see their Republican party as a party that
1:37.0	cannot really be worked with, a party that is centrally the problem for American governance.
	...

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