Howard Dean's Prescription for Democrats - CNN Political Briefing - Podcast on CNN Audio

CNN

21-03-2025

David Chalian
00:00:01
Hey, everyone, I'm David Chalian, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director, and welcome to the CNN Political Briefing.
'Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (clip)
00:00:09
This isn't just about Republicans. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us, too.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (clip)
00:00:21
And let us never forget: Real change only occurs when ordinary people at the grassroots level stand up against oppression and injustice and fight back.
David Chalian
00:00:38
'That's the Democrats' two most well-known progressive politicians speaking at a rally on Thursday in Las Vegas. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez booked stops in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado as a part of Sanders's ongoing "Fighting Oligarchy" tour. The Vermont senator told my colleague Kaitlan Collins this week that he's been hearing on the road how frustrated some voters are with the Democratic Party.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (clip)
00:01:06
In the Democratic Party, you've got a party that is heavily dominated by the billionaire class, run by consultants who are way out of touch with reality. It has — the Democratic Party has virtually no grassroots support.
David Chalian
00:01:21
That lack of grassroots support is also what my guest today sees as a core problem for his party. Howard Dean is a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, a onetime candidate for the party's presidential nomination, and he also served six terms as Vermont's governor. Before that, he worked as a physician in the state. He argues that his party has got to get back to basics and that rebuilding the Democratic brand can't be done without knocking on a lot of doors. Governor Howard Dean, thank you so much for joining me. Really appreciate it.
Howard Dean
00:01:57
Thanks for having me.
David Chalian
00:01:58
I have wanted to talk to you in this moment because there's a lot of talk, as recently as this week — Chuck Schumer was invoking this — of thinking about the current troubles in the Democratic Party, if you will, or the current conundrum that the Democratic Party finds itself in compared to 20 years ago, after George W. Bush's successful reelection effort in 2004 and where the Democrats sort of found themselves in 2005, and you may have some perspective on where the Democrats found themselves at the time. That was the time that you took over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and I'm wondering, do you see parallels to this moment for Democrats?
Howard Dean
00:02:43
'There are, but it's, you know, it's a lot further down the track now. I was elected by people who were outside the Beltway. In fact, the inside the Beltway people didn't want me, and they ran sequentially a whole bunch of different candidates against me, and they didn't last long. I had a hard time convincing the DNC that I should be their chair, but they gave in. And the first thing I did was just let the D-Trip and the DSCC know that they weren't getting any money from us because if you want to win races, you have to be out in the states, and it worked. We took back the house, and, you know, the House people were calling people who had financed their own campaigns, and we were calling up governors in places like Kansas and saying, who's the best candidate for this? You know, and we won, and we took back the House, and we took back the Senate, and then we took back the presidency. We also had a fantastic candidate. Barack Obama was a great candidate and had a great campaign. I will huff and puff a little bit. His data people were pirated from my campaign. My campaign, I hired them to redo all the DNC's data, which was pretty much nonexistent. And then Obama hired them away from me in 2006. The key thing that has to be done today is a much higher, more complete version of what we did. You can't — you're not going to win this in Congress. And the problem is, as I always like to say, that Congress is basically, or Washington is middle school on steroids. They work hard. They're smart, and it's all about them all the time. And they do not invest in city council races or school board races or, you know, those kinds of things. And if you don't do that, then the message of the Democratic Party is what the Republicans say it is. And that's exactly where we are right now.
David Chalian
00:04:22
So, right there at the end, you sort of tied the mechanics of it to where the brand finds itself. And we had a poll out this week at CNN — just 29% of Americans have a favorable view of Democrats. That's the lowest favorability number for the party, just a measure of popularity, in all of CNN's history of polling on that question going back to the early 90s. So, why?
Howard Dean
00:04:47
The Democratic Party brand is what the Republicans say it is. They're good at this, and they're on the podcasts and all this kind of stuff, and they have the, you know, an inveterate liar as the president of the United States now, and he's successful at it. I mean, you can say a lot of things about Donald Trump, but one thing he's incredibly skilled at is resentment politics. And he's really good at it.
David Chalian
00:05:06
And it works, apparently?
Howard Dean
00:05:07
'And it works very, very well. So here's our problem. If you want the brand of the Democratic Party to be what Donald Trump says it is, which may or may not be true, and it isn't true, but it's still a very — he's a great messenger. If you want it to be different, what you do is you have people knocking on doors not five weeks before the presidential election. You do it when some young guy or gal is running for the legislature, and then they get their brand of the Democratic Party. They're going to lose the first time in these red states, but eventually they're going to win, because the Republicans are not so good at running anything, and they're not very nice. And their rhetoric is really awful, and people get sick of that. You switch the brand from being politicians in Washington who are out of touch, which the Democrats fall into pretty easily, as we saw last week. And you switched that brand to, oh, this gal is knocking on my door. I remember teaching her in school, and I know her father, and that's now the brand of the Democrats: nice person, working hard, cheerful, knows the neighborhood inside out. It's expensive, and it's hard to do. And it's hard to get donors to fund that stuff because they, you know, they want to say, I met with the president, and I told senator so-and-so. That doesn't get you anywhere, and there'll be a lot less senator so-and-sos if we don't get the message and start doing things differently.
David Chalian
00:06:24
You mentioned last week you're referring to the vote that happened in the Senate that prevented a government shutdown, but, in doing so, advanced and allowed to pass a continuing resolution, a spending bill put forth by Donald Trump and Mike Johnson and the Republicans, that was, save one person in the House, almost uniformly rejected by Democrats in the House. But Chuck Schumer led the way for ten Democrats to actually join with the Republicans, to move that forward into law and keep the government open. Your critique was you saw last week that they were out of touch with where the Democratic grassroots are across the country. Are you suggesting a shutdown would have been the preferable outcome?
Howard Dean
00:07:04
I think not voting for a bill that violated a large number of Democratic Party principles and harmed our people that we support, you know, that was a mistake. And we voted for the Republican version, which basically takes money away from middle class and working people and gives it to their billionaire supporters.
David Chalian
00:07:23
But the alternative was a shutdown, right?
Howard Dean
00:07:25
That, well, that's correct. And the reason there would have been a shutdown is because the Republicans passed some ridiculous bill that had no business being signed into law. Now, look, I am not one of those people that thinks Schumer should leave or any of that kind of stuff. He's a very able leader and maybe close to the most able Senate leader, maybe since George Mitchell. The problem is, though, he is a leader in the Senate, inside the Beltway. And what's going on inside the Beltway is very different than what's going on outside the Beltway in the Democratic Party. And I don't think there are many people in Washington that get that, especially in the Senate.
David Chalian
00:07:59
One of the things, as you know, Schumer has been talking basically nonstop since the vote in trying to constantly explain his position and why he did it. But one of the things he points to, which I think, if I was talking to Nancy Pelosi, she might say the same thing. In addition to what you are talking about, your 50 state strategy and investing in these state parties and state legislative races and the like, they would say that, in 2005, after Republicans had a pretty sweeping election victory in 2004, they waited for this moment of potential overreach from President Bush at the time, privatizing Social Security, and you all collectively in the party in that moment seized on that and that that, according to Schumer's telling of it, is what unified the Democratic Party, leading to those 2006 midterms that were successful for the party.
Howard Dean
00:08:47
I hate to say this, but that is a classical inside the Beltway analysis because it was something they did. What won that was my going to every single one of the 50 states and seven territories and then putting money into those, each one, each single party, except for a few of them that were very big from big states, and they thought they knew better. We basically put data and computerized their voting lists and all that kind of stuff, and then we gave them, I forgot how much it was a year, on the condition they were trained five times, and they had to come to Washington, and we went out there. And if they didn't do the training, they didn't get the money. You know, you can have these quote unquote moments that people talk about in Washington. They don't do any good if you're not at the people's doors. And, you know, you cannot do this long distance through media. That's important. It's important to be in people's houses doing the kind of thing we're doing right now. But if you're not out there in person with a recognizable person that you know instead of a politician, then you're not going to win this race. I don't care how many podcast you do.
David Chalian
00:09:46
And do you see the Democratic Party doing that right now? And I don't mean just the organization of the DNC that you once led and perhaps you, you know, maybe Ken Martin is doing this right now as chair of the DNC. But do you see, broadly, the Democratic Party heeding the advice that you're saying right now?
Howard Dean
00:10:01
Well, I have high hopes for Ken because he did come from a state which I think is important. He's not an inside the Beltway guy, and I think he's trying to do the right thing. But, you know, everybody in Washington who, except for the DNC, thinks that the DNC's job is to make you look good and get elected. It is not the DNC's job. The DNC's job is to win elections. And they can't do it by just spending all their time in Washington. And they can't do it if they don't fund people outside the state who aren't capable of funding themselves. I don't believe in the theory that this was the turning point, and it's some issue that got voted on in Washington. The turning point is 10,000 times when somebody knocks on your door from the neighborhood and says, I'm running for school counselor or city council or school board, would you support me? And whether they say yes or no doesn't always matter. And the interesting thing now is most of that work is done by people who are Democrats, but they're not associated with the Democratic Party directly. Run for Something is one of them. They've had like 1,500 candidates who are young people from every background you can think of who are running for offices in red states, a lot of them, and they're winning. Indivisible is another one. And so there's tons of people who are grassroots organizations. I think those people are more effective. What they need is coordination and some money.
David Chalian
00:11:20
We're going to take a quick break. We're going to a lot more with Governor Howard Dean in just a moment. Stay with us.
David Chalian
00:11:36
'Welcome back. We're here with former Vermont governor, former DNC chair, former presidential candidate Howard Dean. I guess I could say the doctor is in, as your campaign posters used to say. We asked in our most recent poll, an open question. We didn't give any names or options. We just asked a question about who is leading the Democratic Party and represents the — asking of Democrats — represents your values and who you know, who do you see out there that represents your values, leads the party? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came out on top in that, offered up as a name. Does that surprise you?
Howard Dean
00:12:15
It does, but I think it's great news. We can't win without the under 35 crowd, and she can mobilize them. I am really impressed with her. When she, I was very impressed with her opening campaign. She beat a guy who I know and like, and she did an incredible job. And in the beginning she was sort of out there. I mean, she's obviously a very principled person, which matters. But there are things you have to do in order to build coalitions, and she has gotten really good at it. I think she now qualifies as being one of the major leaders of the party, and I think that's a good thing.
David Chalian
00:12:46
I would imagine, given sort of the dry spell that Democrats find themselves in in this moment, that your party is going to have, I don't know, maybe up to 20 presidential candidates emerge for the 2028 contest. I mean, it could be a very crowded stage like it was four years ago. Do you think there was something that you observed in that 2019, 2020 Democratic primary that should be a cautionary tale for the Democrats, as they organize themselves to try and win back the White House?
Howard Dean
00:13:14
I don't think so. I mean, my theory of the case is that Biden won because people were exhausted by Trump, and then it came down to Biden and Bernie. Bernie is exhausting, too, because he's, you know, believes very strongly in what his message is. And I think it's a good message. But I think people were just and then, of course, they were exhausted by the pandemic. And Biden seemed like, you know, a good, solid choice that wasn't exhausting. Let me just defend Joe Biden. He did some things that were not right at the end. He should have probably not run again. But the fact of the matter is, I think he's going to go down in history as the most effective domestic president since Lyndon Johnson.
David Chalian
00:13:51
I wasn't planning on spending a bunch of time on Joe Biden in this conversation. But now that you've brought it up, let me just ask, though, don't you think the decision, as you say, which probably wasn't the right decision for him to run for reelection, given the threat that he and his team and the entire party was putting forth to the country, that, Donald, that a return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office presents? Don't you think then his decision to do that, the clear negative position that put in the party, the path it created for Donald Trump to go back to the White House, negates all of what you just said?
Howard Dean
00:14:21
No, of course not. Yes, he — it was a terrible mistake. In retrospect, he shouldn't have run, given what I know now about his health and what I didn't know then. But the fact is, you're never going to take away the achievements that he had.
David Chalian
00:14:36
I want to go back to what you were saying about the need to be knocking on these doors repeatedly, talking to people, identifying with people they know. My next question to you is, okay, you're at the door. You're having a conversation, you're invited into the living room or it's a community event and you're around with your neighbors. What is the message? What are Democrats offering in that conversation right now?
Howard Dean
00:14:56
A lot of it is the kind of stuff that Sanders is talking about. He's been talking about it for his entire life, but it is particularly resonant right now. We need to get you a decent health care plan that's not going to bankrupt you. We need to guarantee some job opportunities so your kids can go to college. We need to make sure that the education system works, works fairly, and we need fairness in this society, and I think that's a very important message. But it has to be delivered. And I also think my generation needs to get the hell out of the way. I hope the next candidate that we have is between 40 and 50, not between 60 and 80.
David Chalian
00:15:33
Why do you say that?
Howard Dean
00:15:34
'Because we got creamed with young people, and that's a disaster. Young people have always been the, sort of the light. You know, I'm 76 years old. I remember what it was like to be 20 and protesting against the Vietnam War. And we fought for civil rights. And the country has changed dramatically over the last 50 years for a lot, for a lot of what we did. The Democrats turned off that generation, and we can't do that. And so that's why I want somebody that all those young voters, anybody under 40, can really relate to. And it's somebody that they see as their leader, and I think it is — I am for term limits. That's that's an old conservative thing, and you wouldn't be surprised to have a liberal Democrat advocating it. I think we ought to have term limits in the Senate, term limits in the Supreme Court and term limits in the House. This is supposed to be a part-time job, this legislation. If you professionalize the legislation, then all you're going to do is create a class of people who are out of touch with the rest of the country, and I think that's true. And I think it's true of the Republicans, too. They're actually far worse than the Democrats, just much better with the dishonesty factor.
David Chalian
00:16:37
You were in your mid 50s when you caught lightning in a bottle with your presidential campaign. I know it wasn't ultimately successful, but you defined internet, online fundraising. You were able to generate enthusiasm. You were able to go at the more establishment picks for a while there. A lot of that was due to young people, but you were in your mid 50s. Does it have to be a young person that generates the enthusiasm from young people?
Howard Dean
00:16:59
It doesn't have to be young in terms of the number of years you live, but it does have to be young in your terms of your willingness to tell the truth without trying to manage every word that you say. That kind of cardboard stuff just doesn't go. Especially the younger you are, the less B.S. you want to put up with. And, you know, there's a lot of B.S. in Washington on both sides of the aisle.
David Chalian
00:17:21
And thinking about your presidential run, and it's like eons ago now, and it's a different media environment and everything — but do you think there's something in what you experienced in 2003 that you could offer as advice for this next generation of Democrats that will be seeking the top job?
Howard Dean
00:17:37
I think the time has long passed that people in their 70s and 80s ought to be giving people advice. You know, it's a whole different world out there in terms of how this all works. And, you know, what do I, what do I know about the media? I just had a bunch of smart kids working for me, because I told the truth about what was going on in Iraq, which was based on a lie. And I told the truth about what the Congress had been doing, including the Democrats. And that is — the truth is an incredibly attractive principle in politics because there's so little of it. And that's all I did. And, you know, my campaign had tons of faults. But it did change that generation. Now that generation's in power. A lot of them are county chairs, state chairs, in state legislatures. We need the generational turnover. I'm, you know, I'm not ready to sit in a rocking chair and do nothing. But I want the next president of the United States to be 40, if it's possible.
David Chalian
00:18:32
About President Trump, and we're, you know, in, I don't know, what day we're at, but we're nearing at the end of April will be is first 100 days mark here. Are you seeing an administration that you anticipated? Is it worse than you expected? Is it about what you expected? You know, he still, while he's unpopular, and his numbers are upside down, he's still at his highest popularity in his entire career.
Howard Dean
00:18:56
The problem this time around is that he has really people who don't believe in democracy working for him. They have a blueprint to make sure that only white male Christians are allowed to run anything, and they're executing on that blueprint. You know, I mean, Elon Musk is the perfect example of that. The scary part is we really could lose our democracy this time. You know, I was pleased when John Roberts, who I have very little in common, nor do I like much, came out and talked about, you know, the need to not talk about impeaching justices. We'll find out what John Roberts is about after he, you know, voted for this ridiculous sweeping presidential immunity bill a year ago. We need somebody to stand up, and the Congress hasn't done it, and they're not going to do it until after the midterms, when we hopefully control at least one of the houses. So the courts are going to have to do it.
David Chalian
00:19:44
Do you see Democrats, I know they're not in power, but is any Democrat in your mind standing up right now effectively and capturing the imagination of the country?
Howard Dean
00:19:53
I do think AOC is, and Bernie always has for young people. And there are I think there are people who could — I'm very interested in Gretchen Whitmer. I'm very interested in Wes Moore, for president. I'm sure there are other people out there. I think Andy Beshear, although he comes from such a red state, I don't know, but he certainly is telling it like it is. We just can't have politicians who are willing to lie and say whatever the hell comes into their head or hedge the truth. That's just not an attractive principle. This country is going to be a wreck after a couple more years of Trump. Look what he's already done to the stock market. He's abandoned our Democratic friends. He's getting in bed with Vladimir Putin, who may be certainly in the running from the most evil person on the planet. This is ridiculous. And his presidency is a disaster so far, and we're only 60 days in. So there's plenty of time for somebody to emerge. And it's going to take some time. I don't think the race is really going to start until after the midterms.
David Chalian
00:20:51
I know you just named, obviously, as a former governor, you're right to only throw the names of governors out. But AOC and Bernie Sanders obviously serve in Washington. But what do you see as Hakeem Jeffries's and Chuck Schumer's responsibility and role in this moment?
Howard Dean
00:21:05
I think their role is to get — make sure Congress and the Senate continue to be Democratic or are Democratic. That's their role, and they're good at it.
David Chalian
00:21:13
And not to be, I mean, faces of the party nationally? They obviously are.
Howard Dean
00:21:18
Obviously that didn't work so well last week, did it?
David Chalian
00:21:20
I know. You — so even though you support Chuck Schumer, you don't buy his explanation that a shutdown would have been worse?
Howard Dean
00:21:28
'No, I do buy it. I buy his explanation. I just don't agree with it. I don't think he understands — look, I told you, he's a terrific leader, and he's very smart and very good on tactics. I do not think he understands the country as a whole. And, you know, it's very rare that majority or minority leaders in the Senate end up being presidential candidates, and that's why. So no, I'm not anxious that, you know, anxious at all in getting rid of the House or the Senate leadership other than, you know, the people who've been there for 109 terms. It might be nice to get some 40-year-olds in there, but I'm not I — and Schumer did a great job when he was majority leader, getting Biden's picks on the judiciary through. He even appointed more judges than Trump did. So, I am not one of the people who thinks that Schumer should be fired or any of that kind of stuff. He's very good at what he does, but I do believe that we have to figure out a way to win elections, and that is not going to be done from inside the Beltway. It is not.
David Chalian
00:22:28
Governor Dean, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
Howard Dean
00:22:30
My pleasure. Thank you.
David Chalian
00:22:34
That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. Remember, you can reach out to us with your questions about Trump's new administration. Our contact information is in the show notes. CNN Political Briefing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dan Dzula is our Technical Director, and Steve Lickteig is the Executive Producer of CNN Audio. Support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. We'll be back with a new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.