Special Session with Bryan Schott

>> Speaker A: Come one, come all to a beautiful show.

>> Bryan Schott: It's gonna be awesome.

>> Speaker A: and some other stuff.

>> Bryan Schott: Some other musical stuff.

Hello.

This is special session for the week

ending Friday, December 6,

2024. I'm Bryan Schott, managing

editor of Utah Political Watch.

On this week's show, we will run down the

top political news stories in Utah from

the past week. My guest on the show this week is Mike

Madrid. He is the author of the fantastic book, the

Latino How America's Largest

Minority Is Transforming Democracy. We're going to

talk to him about the Latino vote,

the 2024 election, and some of the things we can

expect when Donald Trump takes office in

January. Plus, Senator Mitt Romney is

riding off into the political sunset. I'm going

to tell you a story about Senator Romney,

some pancakes, and a fight over a $2 cup

of coffee. Remember to subscribe to

the show wherever you get your podcasts and if you leave a

rating or review, it will help more people

find the program. You can also sign up for my

newsletter for free. The website is

Utopolitical Watch, all one word.

UtopoliticalWatch News. And if you want

to support my work covering Utah politics,

you can become a paying subscriber as well.

Now, let's tackle the News.

During the 2024 election season, there

were a series of really nasty mailers

that went out attacking Democrats for

voting against a number of bills that targeted

the rights of transgender people here in Utah. That

included the bathroom bill that was passed by lawmakers in

this last legislative session that' said people had

to use restrooms in public buildings that

corresponded to the gender they were assigned at birth. And

bills that had bans on transgender athletes

in women's sports and also a

ban on gender affirming care for transgender

youth in the state. These mailers and text

messages came from a political action

committee calling itself the Preserving Utah

Values pac. We didn't know much about this

group. They did register as a political action committee

with the state, but they didn't disclose any spending.

They said they spent nothing prior to the

election. And that doesn't make any sense because they

sent out all of these mailers and text messages

attacking Democrats. Well, we found out this week

who one of the funders is, and it's House

Speaker Mike Schultz. He made a

$120,000 donation to

this political action committee at the end of

November. Democrats here in the state were shocked to

find out that Schultz is one of the funders of this group. In fact,

he's the only donor to this group. He's the only person

who's made a don that's been disclosed

as I'm recording this. And Democrats

in the Legislature were shocked to find out that

Speaker Schultz was the one or is the

only funder behind this group that sent out those

really nasty attack ads during the

2024 election. I spoke with

House Minority Leader Angela Romero, and she

was really taken aback when she found out that it was

Schultz who made this donation. Schultz has

really leaned in hard on anti transgender

messaging recent months. If you'll remember,

last month, he, Governor Cox, Senate President Stuart

Adams essentially, ordered Utah

State University to get involved in a

lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference

because another school, San Jose State

University, allegedly had a transgender

player on its roster. When I reached out to

Schultz about this, I got a statement back where

he said, defending Utah values is the right thing to do. These

principles are the foundation of who we are, and I will always

fight to protect them. Schultz did not get much of a return

on his investment. if you look at the election

results, of the 17 Democrats that were

targeted by the political action committee, only

two of them lost their reelection bids in

2024. And really only one of

them counts. That's Democrat Rosemary Lesser.

She lost to Republican Jill Coford

in House District 10 by just 309

votes. So it's possible that these

ads, these mailers and text messages

attacking her over the transgender could

have helped tip the scales in Coford's

direction. The other Democrat who was targeted by these

ads, that is Representative Joel Briscoe, he

lost his primary election, and

that was before this PAC even got involved in the

race. Now, because this political action committee has not

reported any spending, even though they did spend on the

election, the, Salt Lake Tribune reported that a

number of complaints had been forwarded to the Lieutenant

Governor's office for violating campaign laws. But

there's something even more insidious at work here. If

you go to their website, it says that

it's paid for by the Preserving Utah

Values Fund, not the political action

committee. And that fund was

incorporated as a business in

Delaware in late October. And it's

important to note that it was incorporated as a

business. It's not a 501C3, it's not a

501C4, those nonprofits

where they would have to disclose donors. Now, it was

Schultz who donated to the pac,

but we're never going to find out who donated to the

fund because it's incorporated as a business.

And so when you want to talk about dark money, that

is 100% dark money. It appears that

this group, along with House Speaker Mike Schultz, is

really playing fast and loose with Utah's already

lax campaign finance laws. And it sets a

really troubling precedent going forward.

Governor Spencer Cox unveiled his budget

recommendations for the next year this week.

Here's something you need to understand about the governor's budget. It really

doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

It's the legislature who sets the budget. It used to be

that the legislature completely ignored the governor's

budget recommendations. There were times during the

Levitt administration that, the legislature

just disregarded anything that the governor

sent forward. These days, the budget process is more

collaborative. Gary, Herbert and now Spencer

Cox try, to work with legislative leaders to

try and come up with something that both sides can agree with. But in the

end, it's the legislature setting the

budget and they don't have to listen to what

the governor has to say. There is one budgetary

item that it seems both the legislature and the governor are on

the same page about, and you need to pay attention to

this, and that is that lawmakers are

going to be coming after higher education in the

state of Utah. Deseret News reports

that when Cox was laying out his budget

proposal to them, he said that he is, quote, very

supportive of the legislature having a heavier hand

in deciding what courses colleges provide and

shaping alternative post secondary pathways

to fit a shifting economy. His quote was,

I'm, one who does believe that higher ed has lost their way

across the country in very important ways. They've

forgotten their core mission and become much more

in the advocacy business than the seekers

of truth. Another story in the Salt Lake Tribune this

week said that leadership at the University of Utah, they

are expecting that there's going to be

a lot more scrutiny on higher

education, especially the University of

Utah, and not just in terms

of the budget. You remember there was the

legislative audit that came out last month that said

colleges need to consider getting rid

of courses that don't attract a

lot of students or don't do much to

prepare students for the workforce. And this is on

the heels of the anti DEI measures

that were passed by the legislature in

2024. It's clear that higher education

is going to be targeted in this session. The drumbeat has already

started. You saw it in Governor Cox's

budget recommendations. And it's going to get

louder as we go through the 2025

session, which begins in January.

And you're seeing this in a lot of

states with Republican controlled

governments. They are worried about activism

on college campuses. And they're really

crack down on that. And that's what you're going to see as the legislature

gets back to work next year in their 45 day

session, which begins in January.

Speaking of the budget, Utah lawmakers may

have a budgetary problem on their hands in the next

session. They are staring at a budget deficit between

225 million and $700 million.

Under the constitution here in Utah,

income taxes from individuals and

businesses can only be used to pay for certain

things in the budget, and those are public

education, higher education, and some

social services. According to legislative budget experts,

revenues from those two sources over the first four months

of the current fiscal year are way

below projections. When lawmakers set the budget

earlier this year in February, they

expected individual income tax

revenues to increase by about

2.9% during the coming

year. But in the first four months of the

fiscal year, they've actually dropped

1.6%, which is almost

4% lower than what they had projected.

In real numbers, that means that individual income

tax collections are between

$146 million and

$576 million

below what they thought they were going to

be. And corporate income taxes are

even further off of what they projected them to be.

Lawmakers did expect that the corporate

income tax collections would drop by

about 4% this year. In reality, over the first

four months of the year, they've dropped more than 15%.

And again in real numbers, that's somewhere between $80

million and $135 million.

And that's where you get the $225 million to

$700 million deficit. And if these

numbers continue, they've got a big

problem on their hands as they set the

budget. Legislative leaders are going to meet on December 9th.

That's Monday, the

pre legislative session budget matters.

And that's where they'll also set the

framework for education funding

next year. Lawmakers have cut income taxes by

more than $600 million over the past

three years, reducing the future revenues

that could go towards education and social

services by that amount. Those income

taxes are already taken into account

when they set the projections, the

revenue projections for the coming year. So they were

already expecting those revenue projections to

be down. For them to be

trending below those projections, that's a

big problem. And you have to start asking the question, did

they get too aggressive when they cut income taxes?

If these trends continue, then

lawmakers are going to have a hard time finding

extra money for things that they want to do. They're already

talking about expanding the Utah fits All

scholarship, the private school vouchers program that comes out of

this funding. House Speaker Mike Schultz says he wants to

create more technical education education

programs in Utah's high schools that comes out of this

funding. And if they're staring a deficit

in the face, they're gonna have a really hard time finding that. Plus

they're also rumblings that they want to do more tax relief.

And if they're trending 225 million to

$700 million below projections, it's gonna

get really tight when they go to set the budget next

year. Now, we did face this situation

last year right before the 2024

session. Income tax collections were about

130 million. Do

what lawmakers thought they were going to be. But those numbers

turned around in time when they had got the final

revenue projections for the year in February.

So they didn't have any problems setting the budget. And so they're

hopeful that we'll see the same thing next year. Pay attention

to this issue. This is a big one, and we haven't

had deficits in a long time. We do have some

rainy day funds. There's more than a billion dollars in the state's rainy day

fund. So I wouldn't expect any drastic

cuts. But this is going to really impact

what they're able to do in expand

education programs if these things don't turn

around.

Let's rewind to the 2022

election. Senator Mike Lee is running for reelection.

He's getting a really strong challenge from independent

candidate Evan McMullen. And during the

campaign, a video from his

first run for office in 2010

resurfaces, where Mike Lee says that his

goal is to phase out Social Security and

pull it up from the roots and rid of it. I'm

here right now to tell you one thing

that you probably haven't ever heard from a politician.

It will be my objective to

phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the

roots and get rid of it. When that video

resurfaced, Lee said his comments were taken out of

context and critical details were left

out. When he was voicing that

opinion in 2010, he said

that he really meant that the federal government should not have

sweeping power over people's livelihoods.

And he said that Congress uses Social Security as a

slush fund and that Congress has a

responsibility to honor the commitments it made to

Americans who paid into Social Security.

It turns out those comments weren't lacking context,

because in a long social media thread this week,

Lee laid out a blueprint for dismantling

Social Security, and that he is ready

to make good on his promise to pull it

out by the roots. In that thread, Lee called

Social Security a, a classic bait and

switch and an outdated, mismanaged

system. And he made several arguments in that

thread. He said that Social Security is a tax that

the government can use for whatever reason it wants.

He said that the money goes into a big

pool, the Social Security trust fund, and

that the government routinely raids this

fund for other purposes. And

then the point of the whole thread is that the government

mismanages the fund, according to Lee, and that

Americans would get a much better return if

they decided where to invest. What Lee

is advocating for here is

privatizing Social Security. That idea has been

rattling around in conservative circles

for years. If you'll remember, President George

W. Bush pushed that really hard in

2005, and it didn't go anywhere because it

turns out people like their Social Security.

About 21% of the federal budget goes

to Social Security. That's $1.4 trillion

every year. And a report from the Cent on

Budget and policy priorities says that Social

Security has reduced poverty in every state

and it's lifted more people above the poverty

line than any other program in

American history. So it's a very important

social safety net. But what Lee is doing here is he's

laying out a blueprint for

dismantling the program. And if you

don't think that that is one of the

goals of the Trump administration, you're not paying

attention. Because less than half an hour after

Lee post his thread, Elon

Musk, who is in charge of

the figurehead Department of Government

Efficiency Doge, because he has a

junior high sense of humor. Well, Musk

amplified Lee's post by saying,

interesting. So it's clear that an

overhaul, dismantling reform, whatever you want to call it,

of Social Security, it is on the table. In the

new Trump administration. The left leaning group,

the Nationals Committee to Preserve Social Security

and Medicare said that Lee was attempting to,

quote, undermine public faith in Social

Security so conservatives can cut or

privatize it. You think that group pointed out that

Lee's arguments about Social Security were either

misleading or a complete disregarding of the

facts. As to Lee's claim that the government raids

the Social Security trust fund, they said that it's a

bogus claim that opponents of Social

Security often dredge up.

The Social Security trust fund, which currently has

about $2.8 trillion in

is invested in treasury bonds

which are backed by the US Government, and Congress

can spend the money from those

bonds, however they see fit. It's no

different than bonds held by Wall street or

mutual funds or foreign governments. But Congress is

not able to raid the Social

Security trust fund itself. And they've never

done that. What they've done is they've spent the money that the

trust fund has invested into the government bonds.

That's where they get that money from. But the act, actual

trust fund itself, Congress does not raid for

its own purposes. And as for Lee's

argument that people would be better off if they chose where

to spend the money, they say that it's true that

investments can sometimes pay off. But Social

Security is not an investment fund. It

is a collective fund. It's a social insurance

program that pays out benefits. And it's

been around for 90 years and it's never missed a

payment to beneficiaries. But despite all that, this

is something that is pushed by Senator Mike Lee,

and it's in service of, his

long stated goal to pull Social

Security out by the roots and get rid of it. He

laid out what he wants to do this week, so keep your eye on

that as we move forward over the next four

years of the second Trump administration.

The right wing group Utah Parents United

has a couple of big items on their to do

list for the next legislative session. They

want lawmakers to crack down on the Utah

Education association, which is the

state's largest teachers union, and

they want to get fluoride out of the state's drinking

water. This week, Corrine Johnson, who is

the president and founder of the group, was speaking to

another right wing organization, Utah Citizens for the

Constitution. She said that among their

legislative priorities this year are those

two items. They want to, crack down on the

uea and they want to remove fluoride from

the drinking water. Let's talk about the UEA first.

Utah, Parents United came to prominence during the COVID

pandemic. They led, a lot of the pushback about

the mask mandates in schools. I think you remember

they had a campaign called, let me see your smile

because they didn't want masks covered up kids,

faces. And they also wanted to get kids back in the classrooms. They

didn't like a lot of the remote learning that went into effect during the COVID

pandemic. And they were also a

driving force behind the Utah Fits all

scholarship, which is the state's private school

voucher program that lets parents take money that's supposed to

go to public schools and use it for private school tuition

or to pay for homeschooling or any number of

other expenses. The Utah Education

association has sued to

block the Utah fits all scholarship from going

into effect, saying that it's an unconstitutional

program because Utah's constitution guarantees

funding for public education, and lawmakers are taking

money away from that to fund these private school

and homeschool vouchers. So it makes some sense that

UPU would be going after

uea. There are some anti UAE

union bills that they are

advocating for. What they want to do is they

want to prevent the UEA from

collecting union dues from their members

through paycheck deductions. And they

also want to make the union have to

recertify themselves with a vote every year

or every couple of years. And if they fail that vote, then the union

is disbanded. Lawmakers tried to do that during the

2024 session, but they backed off

after the state's union's members had

a big show of for, there was massive opposition

and they backed away from that. But UPU wants them

to take another run at it this year. The other thing

that is on their to do list

is a bill to remove fluoride from the

state's drinking water. Johnson said

during the meeting that they already have a lawmaker lined up

to run the legislation. She wouldn't say who it is,

but this legislation is going to, come

out during the 2025

session. Now, it's already illegal to put

Fluor in the drinking water here in the state because in

1976, the voters approved a ballot

initiative that said you cannot put fluoride in

the state's drinking water unless there is a

public vote approving it. Brigham City was the first city in

the state to have fluoridated drinking water. Voters there approved it

in 1966, and they seem to like it because

there was an initiative on the ballot in Brigham City in

2023 asking whether fluoride

should be removed from the drinking water system, and it got

crushed. Statewide, about 45% of Utahns

have fluoride in drinking water. That ranks the

state 44th out of 50. So they're near the

bottom. Nationwide, about 63% of Americans have

fluoride in their drinking water. Fluoride has

been a bugaboo, especially on

the far right in American politics. For a number

of years. Back in the 50s and 60s, there were

conspiracy theories about it being part of a

communist mind control plot. In more recent years,

there have been concerns that it may negatively

impact health of people who have

it in their drinking water. Now what you're going to

see is Utah Parents United saying that

There is a massive number of parents

who want these things, who want

lawmakers to pass these bills

attacking the, UEA and getting rid

of fluoride in their drinking water. One of the ways that they show

that is the results of their Legislative

Priorities Survey that they send out to parents

asking a number of questions, and then they present these

numbers to lawmakers. And this year on

their survey, one of the things they ask is,

would you like to see fluoride removed from the

water in the state? And there were several questions

on the survey attacking the Utah

Education Association. I looked at some of them.

One said, do you believe the UEA represents your

values? And another said, do you believe the UEA

has a negative influence on education

in the state? And then they asked whether they

would support getting rid of these special

privileges for the uea, such as payroll

deduction for dues and then requiring them to

recertify with a vote. And so you'll see

Utah Parents United go up to the Hill with these

survey results and they will loudly proclaim to

lawmakers that 85, 95,

100% of parents support this

idea. But it's not a scientific survey. If you're

not on their email list, if you're not in their social media channels, you're

not going to see this survey at all. So it is

a self selecting echo chamber

of people who already support what they want to do. This is a group

that is hostile to the idea of public education.

They are big advocates of homeschooling and

parental choice in school. So they are very hostile to

public education. They have a vested interest in

presenting these ideas as having overwhelming

support by parents in

the state, when really it's just a

small group of people who agree with them already. Watch

how this group, Utah Parents United, which has

a lot of sway on the Hill, presents these

issues saying that parents want this.

Well, parents who responded to their survey

want this. It's not a scientific survey. It's not an

accurate depiction of, what

the overall opinion of the group of parents in

the state is. It's just those who

responded to their survey and the large number of

those already agree with them in the first place.

They're not big organizations. There's not a lot of

people who are part of these groups or who support these

groups, but those that do are very engaged and

they are very organized. And that's why they, they

have so much pull on the Hill. And you need to understand

that because they are the ones who are driving a lot

of the decisions that your government is making. Right

now. So pay attention to that as we move forward in the 2025

session.

Joining me now on the show is Mike Madrid.

He is a longtime political strategist. He was the

political director for the California Republican

Party for a number of years. He is the author of the

tremendous book the Latino Cent How America's

Largest Minority Is Transforming

Democracy. And I'm really excited he had some time to

join us today. Mike, how are you?

>> Speaker A: Bryan I'm doing great. It's always good to talk to you. Thank you so much for

having me.

>> Bryan Schott: Let's talk about, what happened

in the 2024 election.

it seemed like towards the end that Kamala Harris

had some momentum, but polls

leading up to the election kept telling us it was going

to be a very close election. And that's what happened. We had a very

election and everything broke towards

Donald Trump. Why do you think that that

happened?

>> Speaker A: I think fundamentally, when we look back at the race, I think people

just were not happy with the direction of the country and the performance

of the administration. I think there's a lot of hand wringing

that goes beyond that. Teeth gnashing about

the future of democracy and racism and sexism.

And I don't mean to diminish all of that, but when we're looking at

margins this small, and this was a historically close

election, very close, both in the popular and electoral

college, yeah, what you saw was a one, one and a half percent

break in one direction. It could have broken just as easily in the

other direction. But what we know from

campaigns is that when there are large swaths of

undecided voters, they tend to break away from

the party in power. Because if you haven't

closed the deal within four years, the

chances of doing that in the last seven to 14 days

is pretty, pretty small. So I think this really

just followed that trajectory. This was, you know, there

was a rightward shift in a lot of places, but they were not

so significant that they, I think, portend a whole lot more than

people were not comfortable with the performance of the

last administration from an economic perspective, and it probably wasn't

a whole lot more than that.

>> Bryan Schott: Did that surprise you that things

broke towards Trump? he

had been in office before, but

it's. It seems like voters viewed him as a

change agent, and that's why a lot of the undecided

voters broke his way, even though

he had been in office before. That's, a

really interesting, I guess idea

that Donald Trump, who had been the president for

four years, was seen as the change

candidate.

>> Speaker A: Yeah, that's not terribly uncommon, I think.

Surprised, no, disappointed I think is probably a

better word because people knew what they were largely

getting. And I think this is just a reminder to most people who

closely follow politics that, you know, the

closer you follow politics, the more intricate you are in

understanding the nuances of the different perspectives of both

parties. It's lower information voters, people that

are not as consumed by the obsession of politics that so

many of us are, that really don't know who Matt

Gaetz is. They don't really know what Trump said at

the last rally. They don't particularly care. They

don't particularly know. They don't take a lot of this terribly

seriously. And they are the ones who broke

strongly for Donald Trump, not because they're concerned

about democracy one way or the other, but because

they are concerned about the economic performance of each

administration and they remember better times under Donald

Trump. Yeah.

>> Bryan Schott: And you mentioned that, people were, dissatisfied,

with the direction of the country. And I agree with you. I think that

that's the thing that doomed Harris in this

campaign. Are now trying to

use people in Donald Trump's orbit. His allies

are now trying to paint this very close election

that was based on the economy as a mandate

for radical change in

government, overhauling the government. You have Elon Musk and

Vivek Ramaswamy doing their pretend

government agency that's going to look at cuts and things, and

you're just hearing all these plans for a

radical reshaping of the American

government. I'm curious your thoughts about trying to

paint pain it in that direction. I understand why. Because if you

control the narrative, you know, that this

was historically, that this was a

landslide election when it wasn't. If you control that narrative, you're able

to plant that narrative, then it's easier to

do what you want to do. But I'm trying to figure out

your thoughts on that.

>> Speaker A: Well, I'm of the opinion that Donald Trump would be doing this even

if he lost. Right. Remember, if Donald Trump

lost right now, we would be in the middle of a civil war with

his, his, you know, supporters taking to the

streets armed and, you know, saying this election was overthrown

again, unless they win, then, then. Then, you know, they're going to

throw a heated tantrum and would

claim a mandate regardless. So, look, Donald Trump, if

Donald Trump was the only person voting for himself, would be claiming a

mandate. So I'm not particularly concerned about,

about that. You know, they're going to do what they're

going to do with, the levers of power they have.

And so it's up to the opposition party and members who are

opposed to it in a democracy, as it's stands to

be just as vigilant, in pushing back

and arguing that this is not the direction they want to go. And that's fully

legitimate in the system that we have. In fact, it's

required in the system that we have. So, no,

there's no mandate. I think that's a very

overused word. But I think we have to remember who we're talking about

here. These are folks that are going to claim it regardless.

>> Bryan Schott: Your book, which came out right before the election, was

incredibly prescient in which you argued

that neither party was effectively

communicating to this very

large bloc of voters,

Latinos, many of whom grew up

in America. They are not immigrants.

They are disconnected from the immigrant experience.

and whichever party is able to figure out

how to effectively engage those voters and speak to

those voters, was going to have success down the line. And what

we saw is that Donald Trump, even

though he, he was talking about mass

deportations and has called

Hispanic immigrants rapists and

they're not sending their best, and there was that

terrible joke at his pre election rally,

about Puerto Rico. Despite all of that,

43% of Latinos voted

for Trump in this election. What's your take on

that? I mean, it basically is proof of

concept of your book.

>> Speaker A: Yeah, and again, I did not

necessarily write my book as a, as a prediction, although,

you know, it proved to be one. I wrote it as a

warning to the Democrats. So they, like you

guys, you better pay attention to what's happening here. And

unfortunately a lot of that was either

unheeded or culturally not able to get there. But I think it's still a good

roadmap going forward.

So to your question, we have to really

understand, that just the very nature of

equating this huge swath of Americans,

now the largest ethnic, minority in the

country, and rapidly, increasing,

equating this group, with the

immigrant experience itself, even when it gets

to talk about mass deportations or building a wall or setting

their own countries, is in many ways its own

ethnic trope. It's its own offensive category.

To ask, like, how can you be bothered by that?

When we don't ask, you know, that same questions of white

Europeans about European politics is the

point I think people really need to grasp. It is

absolutely okay and appropriate to talk about

border security in the way that I think Kamala

Harris did, for example. That's not racist. Trump

is doing it in a racist way. I think we can all agree on that.

But the point is Trump is viewed as a much

more strident, protector of the borders, whatever

that means, which was ultimately what he was aiming for. And I'm

not, certainly not excusing him. I'm trying to explain it.

And when you have second, third, and now a discernible fourth

generation Latino voter that doesn't have any personal experience with

the, with the immigrant experience, to have

them equating this talk,

this language, these policy suppositions

any differently than the average white

American really should not surprise.

What should surprise us is, again, our continual need to

say, why aren't you reacting as

an immigrant would? see the world? that I think

has turned off a lot of Latinos. And, it's that

unrelatability that I think is particularly damaging to the

Democratic Party at this moment in time.

>> Bryan Schott: One of the things that we're seeing now in the

aftermath of Trump's win is just a ramping

up of the rhetoric

and the amplification of the plans for these mass

deportations that are coming. But there's also

this curious phenomenon that is happening where

you're seeing in media reports and

interviews and in social media a number

of Latinos who may have

immigrated here or may have families who are

undocumented here in the United States.

And their thought is,

it's not going to affect me. They're only going to get the

criminals. They're only going to come after those who are breaking

the law, ignoring the fact that being here illegal, legally is

breaking the law. but it's.

And I think that that goes to one of the

central points in your book, is that a lot of

Latinos are disconnected from that

immigrant experience. And, you know, you've

seen a lot of this on social media where people are saying it's f

f o f around and find out.

I think a lot of people are going to be really shocked when we get to the

find out stage of this. Meaning that you're going to see people

who didn't think they would be targeted by some of these

policies, finding, that their families

are being rounded up and put

and deported.

>> Speaker A: let me say maybe. And I'm not suggesting, first of all,

and I've written extensively on this on my substack too, if

there are these mass deportations, which, by

the way, we have done twice before in our

history, we did it during Franklin Delano

Roosevelt Hoover actually began

the process as the great, Depression began.

We rounded up what was called the Mexican

Repayment repatriation, which is a sane washing way

of basically saying we, we remove

1.8 million Mexicans, half of

which, by the way, over half of which were U.S. citizens. Rounded

them up from round them up, California deported

them, even though they were U.S. citizens. And we did it again under,

under the very racist term Operation Wetback during the

Eisenhower administration when, the bracero program

was started, again, over half of the people rounded up and

deported were U.S. citizens. So we have a bad history of this

in the first place. I think what the

difference here is, and we will see

if this does happen, if there are camps set up and

millions of people are rounded up, I do believe that there

will be very, very significant pushback,

broadly, not just with Latinos. I also think, by the way,

I also think there will be very strong support for the

program in the Latino community as well, and we should

examine that. But, and here's where really important.

The main reason why I'm not terribly

sold on the idea. I wouldn't be shocked if he did it, but

I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't do it, is because of the

extraordinary economic impact that this is going to have

on most of his rich friends who are going to say, there's absolutely no

way you can destroy our supply chains or

destroy the agricultural economy. This is incredibly

inflationary and we're reliant on this labor

stream. In fact, we need more. We need more

labor, not less. So I think the

jury's really out as to whether or not, this will happen. Now,

do I believe that he will begin deporting people

based off of a certain criteria? 100%,

I do. Is he going to start with the most violent offenders

amongst us? Absolutely, he will. And I will tell you

what, if Democrats start to oppose

that, they're going to hit the find out stage really,

really quickly, because the American public has zero

tolerance for that. If you are here illegally

and you've committed crimes and you are being rounded up by

the Trump administration, Trump's numbers are going to go through the roof,

especially if Democrats start opposing it. So we got to be

really careful. And like I said, we need to be vigilant.

And I don't know what the plans are,

but I do know that we have never successfully done this as a

country without including US

Citizens. I also know that this would have

a massive, massive impact on

our businesses and our economic

interests, many of whom are very close to Donald Trump. And

that's distinctly different than what we were

experiencing when we did it for the first time m in the

1930s and the second time in the 1950s

when agribusiness and by the way, and the

Mexican government were both complicit in both of those

mass deportation movements because they needed the cheap

labor too. So we're gonna have to wait and see.

like I said, would I put it past that's Trump? Of course

not. would I be shocked if he did or didn't

do it? I wouldn't be either way. But I would also caution

people to remember this guy promised to build a wall and have

Mexico pay for it. He did neither of those

things. And so when Latinos look at this guy and say,

yeah, he's doing this tough talk thing that he does the cowboy

talk, but he never really does it. There is some

rational basis for it.

>> Bryan Schott: You've seen some people in the incoming administration,

Stephen Miller in particular, start talking

about ending birthrights to citizensh

about denaturalization.

that seems, you know, that's

a terrifying thought. that they would

strip citizenship from people who were

born here. And you know, and birthright

citizenship came out of the post of Civil War

era. But that's a terrifying idea.

Again, I think there's a lot of risks

in doing that. And I agree with you. There would be a lot of

pushback. do you think that that is going to happen or do you

think it's just rhetoric that's going to

quickly run into

reality?

>> Speaker A: That's a great question. And look, I think that there is no doubt that

there's going to be a very heated discussion about

repealing the constitutional amendment that

guarantees birthright citizenship. And I've heard

this on, my entire 30 years of working in Republican politics.

In fact, it was one of the main issues that I heard Republicans

talking about in 1992. 1992. Right.

Is saying we need to revoke this relic of the,

of the, of the Reconstruction era. Birthright

citizenship was, was put in the Constitution to protect

the children of slaves. That's why it was.

There is. What they were basically arguing was you weren't a

citizen if you were a slave. So to protect their

children, we automatically granted citizenship to anybody

born on the soil. There's a different consideration than what

we're seeing right now. I, I believe very

strenuously we should continue birthright

citizenship. I, think it brings up a lot of interesting

questions. So for example, if you're a combination

between a recent migrant and somebody who's been here for two

or three generations, and, that child is born

here. What does that mean, talking to you, Baron

Trump? Right. Like your mother's an immigrant. What

does that mean? What does that mean? Right. What are we talking about

here? And so we need to be very careful.

But changing the Constitution to

get there is another consideration.

Now, what that means legally as it works through the legal

system, I do believe the Trump administration is going to

advance a lot of these issues to challenge some of these

notions.

But unless you repeal the constitutional

amendment for birthright citizenship, it's very,

very explicit on what that means, which is, regardless of

the intent of the amendment, if you are born on

this soil, you are a U.S. citizen.

>> Bryan Schott: Well, we all know that there's no

way that they're going to be able to repeal an

amendment. But one of the things that the Trump administration is

talking about, and I've seen multiple reports on this, is they're going to try

to do it administratively. One of

the things that they've said is they refuse to

issue documents like Social Security numbers or birth

certificates to the children of

immigrants who are here illegally. and that's a way

to administratively accomplish

something that they're not going to be able to do through the

mechanisms provided in the Constitution. So there's a lot

of ways, ways that they could try to go about this.

And, you know, once it gets to the Supreme Court,

we, who knows how they would rule on this sort of thing.

so to me, it still seems like something that we need to

be aware of and worry

about, because if they can administratively do these

things, then, you know, that's

a whole nother can of worms.

>> Speaker A: Yeah. I'm not suggesting this isn't a very, very,

very serious concern it out.

>> Bryan Schott: Yeah, no, no.

>> Speaker A: Even if they weren't doing it administratively, just the sentiment

that somehow they could do it is deeply troubling.

Unfortunately, we're kind of way past that at this point, in American

history. But I do believe the courts, as conservative

as they are, you know, if you ruled

against something like that, which is very explicit in the

Constitution, you're basically saying the, Constitution doesn't

exist anymore. Are we at that point? I don't think that

we are. if we are, then, you know, that will be another

conversation that doesn't diminish the

seriousness of the question. It is. This is a very deeply

concerning issue and question. I think it's actually

a legitimate conversation to have an understanding why

we, as Americans, as a unique nation, as a unique

country, have birthright citizenship and

should, and I would argue should continue it. but.

But there's no doubt there's a wide swath of people. If you polled, by

the way, if you polled birthright

citizenship, it is not popular. People wants

to get rid of it. now, as that becomes

more real and as human story starts to be told

and people begin to understand the nuances and the complications and

the history, that changes. But he's

not on shaky ground in the, in the court of

public opinion on this. He would be, shaky in the court

of the law, the legal system. But again, we know that

that's not, anything he's afraid of taking.

>> Bryan Schott: He is Mike Madrid, his book, and if you haven't

gotten it, you should go buy it. The Latino

Century. How America's Largest Minority Is

Transforming Democracy. Mike, where is your substack?

I'm also, a subscriber to that. I'm sorry I didn't

mention in the open, but people should also subscribe to

that. Where can they find you?

>> Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, Bryan And again, I write about these topics

almost daily as we're kind of barreling down into this new era

in this new age. Myself, Substack is called the

Great Transformation with, Mike Madrid.

talk about everything from, the changing concepts of race,

gender, currency. I'll be doing some

stuff on Bitcoin. With Bitcoin hitting $100,000,

what that means in our changing institutions. a big

top part of what I talk about. Bryan you and I have these conversations offline,

too, is this country is changing. Whether

Kamala Harris won or Donald Trump won, our

institutions need some dramatic

transformation. we have to change the way we think as, as

Americans going forward. I'm certainly not happy with

where we're at this moment politically, but I am optimistic.

I do believe that we are headed towards better times, even though the road to get

there is going to be very perilous.

>> Bryan Schott: He called what was going to happen in the

2024 election. He's been right on pretty much

everything that he predicted that was going to happen

leading up to this moment. So there's absolutely no

reason why you should not buy his book and subscribe to his substack.

Mike Madrid, thank you so much, Bryan

>> Speaker A: I always love being with you, love the conversation. Thank you for having me.

>> Bryan Schott: Senator Mitt Romney said Goodbye to the U.S.

senate this week. He delivered his farewell address.

And because of that, I'm going to tell you a

little story about Senator Romney that involves some

pancakes and A fight over a $2 cup

of coffee. Ah. In January of 2018,

Senator Orrin Hatch announced that he would not run for

another term in office. And up to that point, there

was tons of speculation that Romney was going

to jump into the race to succeed him. And

he finally made it official about a month later in

February of 2018, announcing that he would run for

that seat, which made him the odds on favorite. As you can

guess, everybody in the Utah media was

clamoring to sit down and interview

Romney. So in early March,

his campaign set up a series of

interviews with local media outlets. We would go

one by one and sit down and talk with him. We'd each get

about 15, 20 minutes, and they were going to be held at the

Little America coffee shop downtown. So

on the day of the interview, we all showed up

and waited our turn in the lobby area of the

hotel. And when my turn came, one of his

campaign staffers came and got me and escorted me towards

the back of the restaurant. And we turned a

corner and Mitt was sitting with his wife

Ann, and he was absolutely

housing a plate of pancakes,

just putting these bad boys down. Mitt

apologized for eating during our meeting time, but he'd

been at this for a couple of hours already, hadn't had

breakfast yet. I said it was absolutely no

problem. And I, ordered a cup of coffee to have

while he finished his breakfast. And

then Mitt started to expound

on his love of pancakes for several

minutes. It was amazing. He said that they

were one of his favorite breakfasts, but nobody made

them quite as good as his wife Ann could. And

he just went on and on and on about pancakes.

It was absolutely delightful and also kind of surreal

because here was a guy who, just six years

before that was the Republican nominee for

President of the United States, and he's going on and

on and on about pancakes. Sometimes we forget

that politicians are people, too.

They have lives away from the political arena like

the rest of us. They have families, they

have high hobbies, and some of them

really, really love pancakes. After we finished our

interview time, I asked the waitress for my check

for my coffee, but Romney said it was already covered.

He had already paid for it. Now, this may

sound like a brag, but my personal

ethics as a journalist dictate that I do not

take free stuff from anybody that I'm

covering. I don't take free tickets to

events. I don't let someone else buy

me lunch. I buy my own

coffee. The problem was Romney had already paid

the bill, which included my cup of coffee.

I didn't have any cash on me at the time and you might be saying to yourself,

it's just a two dollar cup of coffee. Why didn't you let it

go? I can't. I was a journalist. I

don't, I don't want to owe anybody anything, even if it's

just a two dollar cup of coffee. So what happened was

one of his campaign staffers and I had to go to the front

of the restaurant and reverse

Romney's Bill, take my $2 cup of

coffee off of it, recharge Romney's

card, and then I paid my bill for

the $2 cup of coffee. And yes, I

gave a pretty generous tip because I knew

that I was causing a problem and some frustration over

just a two dollar cup of coffee. I've covered Mitt Romney

on and off since he headed up the 2002 Winter Games

in Salt Lake City, and I'm going to miss him.

He's always been gracious with his time.

I've enjoyed our interactions over the years,

however brief they have been. He's always

been forthcoming. You may not agree with his politics,

but the sense that I got is that he

took his public service job

seriously. He wanted to do

things. He wanted to get things accomplished that he felt

would help people, that he felt would

make a difference. And he did that while he was in the

Senate. He found a sweet

spot where he could work with people on the other side of the

aisle and passed a number of really significant

pieces of legislation during his one

term in Washington. I wish him well as

he retires from public life, and I think one of the things that

he's looking forward to is he won't have to deal

with reporters like me

anymore. Godspeed, Senator Romney,

and thank you.

And that's all for this week. My thanks again to Mike

Madrid for joining me on the show. His book, the

Latino Century How America's Largest

Minority Is Transforming Democracy

is a great read. I cannot recommend it

high enough. His substack is the Great

Transformation with Mike Madrid. Buy his book.

Subscribe where you can. He is a very smart person and worth

your attention and will help you understand some of the things that

are happening in our current political moment.

Remember to rate and review this podcast

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Special Session with Bryan Schott is written and

produced by me, Bryan Schott. Thank you

so much for listening. We'll talk to you again next week.