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Richard Helppie
Hello, welcome to The Common Bridge. The Common Bridge is about building bridges from one side of the partisan divide to the other. We all been frustrated by people in Washington and state capitals not doing that, and we've seen immediate ecosystem pandering to those extremes; it's put us in a bad place as a country. It will take someone with some courage to come forward and try to break that, so we welcome to The Common Bridge today, three term congressman from the state of Minnesota an announced candidate for the Democratic nomination for the president United States, Mr. Dean Phillips. Dean, welcome to The Common Bridge. It's really an honor to have you with us today.
Dean Phillips
Great to be on your bridge, Rich.
Richard Helppie
Congressman, before we get into your bio, recent polls have shown that over 70% of Americans do not want Joe Biden re-elected and do not want to see Donald Trump returned to the White House. Two major parties are taking it in that direction. The Republicans are kind of like the deer in the headlights, hoping that somehow the primary voting is going to be different than the polling, that they'll have someone else at the top of the ticket besides Donald Trump. Democrats, they seem to be honing their party practices that put Hillary Clinton and then Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in the past two presidential elections, shutting down competition and open dialogue. You're the guy here that might be able to break through that. Not very many people know who you are so do you mind giving us a little sketch? Where did you grow up? What were some of your experiences? What led you to this point today?
Dean Phillips
I appreciate that. Well, my life started with losing my father in Vietnam. My dad already grew up very poor in St. Paul, Minnesota. He lost his father, my grandfather Victor, when he was just a little boy. My grandmother, Ruth, had to work at a department store to try to make ends meet - barely. My dad had to earn an ROTC scholarship to attend university at University of Minnesota. He graduated law school , was sent to Vietnam to serve our country just before I was born in 1968. He was killed in July of 1969, just three days after the US landed on the moon. I have to tell you, Rich, having just been to Vietnam and actually gone to the very site where he took his last breath, I thought of him looking up at the moon and seeing America at our very, very best and looking down at his boots in Vietnam, and recognizing he was seeing America at its very worst. And that is really the choice that we have to make today; which America are we going to be? The one that looks up to the moon and the heavens or one that unfortunately continues down this path of what I consider to be, ultimately, existential and destruction. I was very lucky though. My mom was 24 and widowed, I was six months old. We lived with my great grandparents for the first three years of my life. Then I got lucky, my dad Eddie Phillips adopted me, married my mother Deedee, brought me into an extraordinary family. I'm fortunate, most kids who've lost their fathers or mothers in war don't have the blessings that I had. I've lived on both sides of advantage. I feel it's an incumbency, if you will, on people like me to share that good fortune with others. This family was amazing. My grandmother became Dear Abby, my aunt was Ann Landers, so I got a lot of advice growing up. Our family had some businesses which I eventually entered. I graduated from Brown University, started my career at a startup business - learning what this is like, by the way, in a presidential campaign from scratch - joined our family distilling business called Phillips. We created Belvedere vodka; my father and I and our colleagues built it into the first luxury vodka in America and the world. Sold it to LVMH, applied the same template, if you will, to the ice cream category. I love taking on two big brands - which by the way I'm doing right now with Democrats and Republicans - we built Talenti into the one of the best selling premium ice creams in America, sold that to Unilever. And like so many on the evening of the election in 2016, I watched with my family, I had no idea that our country and our futures would change so dramatically that night, and I woke the next morning to the sound of my 16 year old daughter crying in her bedroom. Pia had just overcome Hodgkins lymphoma. She noticed, when she was in children's hospital in Minneapolis, that so many kids in rooms next to her did not have health care. Nor did they have parents who were able to come to see their kids during the work day because they didn't have paid family leave. She actually started an organization with her dear friend Abby, to help these kids; very much a big part of my life story. She's also a gay woman; I did not know that when she was 16 but she was crying that day because she was afraid, I saw fear in her eyes. My daughter, Daniela, was a freshman in college. I sat at the breakfast table and promised them that I would do something, because thank goodness, we live in a country in which you can. So I gave up my career in business, I ran for congress. People then, Rich, told me that you're out of your mind, you're going to lose, you're going to torpedo your career, because I was running in a district that had not elected a Democrat since 1958 and running against an incumbent who had won by 14 points. People thought I was nuts and that's exactly why I did it. That's exactly why I'm doing it again right now. I won by 12 points. I used invitation, not confrontation. I think, by the way, that is a theme of my campaign. That's how we actually repair and restore this entire country and its relationships. I can tell you a lot of stories about what I saw when I got to congress, which is appalling, because the systematic separation between Democrats and Republicans literally starts at the very top, and it begins on day one. Rich, we were put on separate buses going to separate events. I could tell very quickly how both parties wanted to ensure that we do not build strong relationships, that our entire free time would be occupied by fundraising, and that they would provide us with as little information and education as possible, so that none of us would present a challenge to the power structure. That's all you need to know about Washington right now; the perverse incentives that drive the behavior. I can talk a lot more about that but that's where I started. And right now I'm running for president because of two things. We cannot hand the keys back to Donald Trump. In my estimation, he's destructive, he's dangerous, I've seen it firsthand and the fact of the matter is you referenced 70-some percent of the country doesn't want Joe Biden or Donald Trump. I am running because we have an existential threat to the country and it starts with affordability and no one is listening. No one has propositions to solve it. When 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, 40% cannot afford a $400 emergency repair, we've got big problems. And 32% of our wealth is held in the hands of just one percent; that's all you need to know. We've got a lot of other challenges, and I would love to talk about them but at the end of the day, affordability, affordability, affordability - healthcare, education, and frankly, housing. Those are the three categories. I'd love to talk about those. But that's what I'm doing and I'm the second most bipartisan member of the congress, former vice-chair of the problem solvers caucus; the only way to fix this is by working together.
Richard Helppie
Well, you are the perfect guest for The Common Bridge, because this is what we set out to do. It's a platform to say where do we agree, compromise is not a dirty word, you're not going to get everything you want but can we make things better than they are today. Look, I've been a chief executive, you've been a chief executive and you know that you have to satisfy your constituencies, you've got to satisfy your customer, your customer has a choice, you've got to continue to satisfy the customer. You have to build a great workforce in order to satisfy the customer. And of course, you've got to watch your pennies and dollars or you don't get to play again. Listening to you I hear the voice of a chief executive. It had to be terribly difficult to go into being one of 435 after being the one...[chuckle] we used to show the apex of the pyramid, now we show the CEO kind of as the center with everybody rotating around. But out of the 330 million Americans we have, why are you qualified to be the president of the United States? What are the qualifications? If I were on an executive committee on a search for a CEO of an enterprise and I said, let me see the resumes and you came in, what would you tell us? Why should you be the president of the United States?
Dean Phillips
I think the best leaders combine both personal experience with professional experience and you package that together and you get good leaders. Starting with my personal experience, I've lived on both sides of advantage. I've experienced extraordinary success, tragic loss, and [I'm] very human. The fact of the matter is every leader, I believe, should lead with courage. And courage, the root of course is la coeur, the heart. I think we've lost sight of the fact that personal experience, empathy, understanding should be the key attributes of any great leader because if you can't listen and you can't empathize, you cannot lead. That's my personal life experience. I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a son and I'm a very proud American. As relates to professional experience, the truth is I would bring the broadest experience to the White House of any recent president; I've led businesses, I built them - most of them successful, not all - I was the board chair of the largest health system in Minnesota so the delivery of care is something I understand very intimately and why the system is so broken. I was a regent at a university in Minnesota, St. John's, I understand why our higher education system is struggling. And I've been the nonprofit board chair of a charitable foundation so I've worked in the philanthropic sector, the nonprofit sector, and of course, the business sector. When I contemplate what I think is most needed today in terms of affordability, healthcare, education, and housing; these are all market challenges. That's where my for-profit leadership actually comes in quite handy. And then the last three terms in congress I've learned a lot. When you reference how hard it is to go from a CEO to one of 535, of course it's difficult but the analogy is I started my life as a salesperson, I learned to listen, that's how you sell. And in congress, that's exactly what I've had to do again. The beautiful part of my life experience and my professional experience is that I've been a listener; I did that in my past life, I've been doing it in congress. That's the only way you can ascend to leadership, first by being a salesperson. That's, in my estimation, how the best leaders are formed, by listening, understanding and then leading, so I would bring that experience to the White House. Unlike Joe Biden, who has served only in public office for 50 years, I would bring nonprofit and for-profit leadership to the White House. Unlike Donald Trump, who has only essentially run his own business and started his life quite substantially higher than most in this country do; that's not a lot of life experience, not to mention his philanthropy was shut down by the state of New York for unethical behavior. So I would bring something different to the White House. But most of all, what I would bring - and this is probably the most important point - is something that hasn't been done essentially, I believe, since Abraham Lincoln. When he recognized that the entire future of the country was at stake what did he do? He didn't surround himself with people who all agreed and who were all on the same team, he created a team of rivals. That's exactly what I intend to do in the White House because that's exactly how every successful enterprise - nonprofit and for-profit - succeeds; surround yourself with great thinkers. If you wanted yes-people you don't need them all. I want great ideas. I don't care about your politics, I care about your principles. That's why I would have a bipartisan cabinet of the best and brightest. I would have a youth cabinet because so many of the issues we're facing today, I believe, can only be addressed by young people being at the table and sharing perspective about the issues that they will be facing in the 22nd century. So Rich, that's how I see leadership. That's why I'm qualified. I would bring a broader experience than any recent presidential candidate in my lifetime to the White House.
Richard Helppie
If you go to the Lincoln Library and Lincoln Museum in Springfield and look at some of the press reports of the time, you think that our politics are nasty today, they attacked Mr. Lincoln, he was not applauded, but people that served in the Lincoln administration weren't doxxed, harassed, run out of restaurants. There was not an extreme that thought they could defeat him, save for the Confederacy, which of course, was the ultimate extreme. The way I look at Donald Trump is that he didn't have any operations bones; he's a salesman, he's the deal guy. You have to have engineers and accountants and lawyers cleaning up behind a guy like that. I'm sure you had your rainmakers. I had my rainmakers and you always had to have people to fulfill the promises. I understand Trump's appeal; we'll get into that but let's talk about some of the big items right now. [Previously] we had Greg Coburn on talking about housing. I've got a quote from you that you think that the rent vouchers are a band-aid, the solution is production; we've got to build more units. Professor Coburn, who also has a private equity background before he went on to get a PhD and is now teaching at the University of Washington, says we need both of them. What's between us and getting a reasonable housing policy in the United States of America?
Dean Phillips
Well, what's between us and getting a reasonable housing policy is great thinkers sitting down together, identifying the problem and ideating the solution. Right now those conversations are happening in silos if they're happening at all. So let's get down to it. First, you've got to set the objective; we need to build seven million housing units in the United States of America. We have about a six and a half million unit deficiency. In America, we can do that. What's standing in the way? Some say capital, I think that's actually the easiest access. The real issue is zoning and local regulatory issues that prevent a lot of high density housing from being constructed. In so many cases, the same communities that are desperate to end the homelessness crisis, to reduce the cost of housing, when those opportunities present themselves, many of them say "not in my backyard." So it's time for a national conversation and to be courageous. If we want to solve the problem it can't be done with a magic wand, it can't be done by the president alone or the congress, we need the participation of states and municipalities to change the zoning issues, the zoning laws right now; I think that's a big part of it. Would I like to see the creation of a federal housing bank to support private sector construction? Yeah, I think there's a way to amplify and make the construction more expedient. We also need developers at the table, we need financiers at the table and we need local authorities at the table to identify how to fix the system and to get to it. When I say all hands on deck approach, I think a massive seven million unit production offensive is what the country needs. It solves other problems; great paying jobs, mostly union jobs, it helps US manufacturing, it is a perfect intersection of what the country needs to identify solutions. And by the way, I don't have all the answers, the whole point of my leadership style is to populate tables with the best thinkers. I don't care about the politics, I care about the solution makers and that's how I would lead, that's how I would look at it. Rent vouchers, in a way, that's, to me, analogous a little bit as to how our current education system works because as long as you provide capital to people that doesn't put any downward pressure on pricing, or doesn't create any more competition typically, it only subsidizes, ultimately, the providers and that means landlords and the current colleges and universities. So that's why I say one is a short term issue, the market will take care of itself if we have enough housing. Frankly, if we have just a little bit more than we need, housing will be affordable, everybody will have one and we won't be like China that might have up to one hundred million empty housing units right now. We just need to have enough for everybody.
Richard Helppie
Indeed. The argument about neighborhood integrity, we've got vast swathes of land available in the urban core that could be rezoned, would be very attractive if you can solve the public safety and the education. I hope that you will visit us in Detroit. Detroit is doing some amazing things.
Dean Phillips
I'm happy to say on that subject, I'm coming soon. I would love nothing more than to do that tour with you, to be exposed to it. And I'm just wondering if I can take this one step further, I think it's a grand time right now to plan new communities. We have millions of acres of open land right now. Let's demonstrate to the world how we build 21st century cities. We can do so with a broad array of socioeconomics and communities. We can redesign cities like Dan Buettner, the Blue Zones guru, who knows how to build cities that force people to walk and be healthier and create more community. If we are willing to ideate, innovate and dream a little bit bigger we won't just solve the crisis, we will position the country for successes that we can't even imagine right now. So I'd love to do that when I'm in Detroit.
Richard Helppie
Well, I will...as a Minnesotan, I know you must love hockey so I'll take you to the Red Wings and I'll introduce you to our cuisine - a coney dog - if nothing else.
Dean Phillips
I cannot wait and I miss my Minnesota North Stars right now, as you well know.
Richard Helppie
Now you've got the wild, they're still out there. So healthcare, largest sector of the largest economy in the history of the world, we are doing amazing things every day with the people, with the technology, the innovations. If you're sick or injured, the place you want to be is the United States of America. In your home state, one of the pre-eminent clinical research facilities, the Mayo Clinic, there are other great health systems in the state of Minnesota, but we don't have a financing system, we have financing methods. I've had seven or eight guests on this show - if you count me in that number - as experts in healthcare whether coming from a public health perspective or coming from an absolute free market, we all ended up in the same place: employer sponsored health care as seen today makes no sense anymore. The way people move employers have made it a game not to declare somebody as an employee so they don't have to provide healthcare. If you get so sick you can't work, you lose your health care, which is insane and if you get so old that you retire, oh, now you're out of the risk pool. So in 30 seconds or less, what would the shape of a new health care financing system look like?
Dean Phillips
Well, let's start with the incentive structure. Right now we have a completely misaligned system. In fact, we don't have health care in America, Rich, we have sick care. That's where it starts, we reward procedures, we do not reward or provide incentives to invest in health, it's just the truth. So how do we...and by the way we spend $10,000 per capita, which is double any developed nation in the entire world, our outcomes are mid pack, and we pay three, four, five times more for the same pharmaceuticals, the same medicines and drugs than our friends in Canada, Mexico, England, Australia, Germany, France - you name it. That's why we pay more than double anywhere else and it's consuming 18% of our GDP. The fact of the matter is that too many Americans have no coverage, they use the emergency department as their access to care - the most expensive. We have people taking on medical debt who are surprised, they thought they had health coverage and then we have people going bankrupt. I'm sick of it. Having been the board chair of a large health system, I understand the delivery of care. The sad truth is I understand that the real problem is the payment of care.
Richard Helppie
What you've identified are problems. Look, Canada has an illusion of care, you know their system would not work absent the United States because like every centralized system in the world, the way they manage cost is "get in line." You're going to have delayed care and worse outcomes. We spend more money and there's more capacity so can we spend more efficiently? Yes. Can our system actually become a system? My proof statement that we don't have a system is this: during the biggest public health crisis of our lifetime, the COVID pandemic, had we not had special legislation, almost every health system in America would have gone bankrupt.
Dean Phillips
It's all you need to know. It's all you need to know. And that's why my proposition is this: I want to see the maintenance of the nonprofit and private provision of care, I do not think government should ever be involved in a product or service delivery, for the most part. But I believe the payment system is what's fundamentally broken, that's why I do believe we need a single payer system, a national health insurance program that manages this, if you will, for everybody. Now, by the way, just like education - I believe we need a much stronger public education system in America, it should be well resourced, first and foremost - but I do believe in choice. If you want to amplify that, or put your child in a private school, parochial school, charter school, this is America, I think you should have those choices. But just as we do the same in education, I believe we should do the same thing in health care, everybody should have coverage, everybody. I believe that would lead to a healthier America. We should move from fee for service to a capitated model, so that it provides an incentive for the health systems to actually invest in keeping people healthy. And if you look at this as like a membership model, if you knew that every American was...let's say it was $5,000 per patient, and you could you could apply that $5,000 to any system that works for you. Now, that system has an incentive to keep you healthy, because they want to earn a little bit of profit. And the best way to earn a little bit of profit is to keep you out of the hospital. But are they required to take care of you when you are sick? Of course they are. But I think that's the kind of system we should move to, we will never have a purely single payer model, we will be a multi-payer model. Medicare is one of the largest single payer payer systems in the world, the VA is one of the largest public delivery systems in the world. I simply believe the payment system is what is entirely broken. That's the only way to put downward pressure on pricing, increase efficiency. The administrative costs alone of this current system, Rich, would fundamentally and materially reduce the cost of care in America, that's the truth. I represent UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the world, a lot of my constituents work for them. They're really good people, they've done some really good things but they're also taking $21 billion in net income - $21 billion in net income - off the table, returning it to shareholders, frankly, at the expense of stakeholders, and it's all legal, it's perfectly legal.
Richard Helppie
The big health insurers and big pharma are the two lobbying groups. In the Phillips administration, if you're looking for a health care adviser, consider my hand raised.
Dean Phillips
Let's talk about it Rich. Let me tell you two more quick things on this subject. As it relates to pharma, I believe we should absolutely have a law in place that you cannot sell any pharmaceutical in America for a price that is higher than it is sold in Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Australia or the UK period. Plain and simple.
Richard Helppie
Make everybody eligible for Part D. If you try to nationalize drug prices like that the result would be not lower prices, it would be lobbyists saying, we're going to put Lipitor in the formulary and they'll lobby for a higher price, whereas a private insurer can say, we're not putting Lipitor in, we're going to use Crestor if you don't get under our price point. Let's not get completely bogged down in healthcare. I'd be happy to have you back where we can do healthcare start to finish.
Dean Phillips
I'm the only member of congress right now Rich, the only one, who takes no PAC money, no special interest money, no lobbyist money, no money from fellow members of the US Congress, and doesn't have a leadership PAC, which is essentially a slush fund. Which means it's hard for me to find people to go to dinner with that are my colleagues in Washington because they're so busy raising money. That's why we have a problem. The biggest, most well organized, well financed enterprises, they're the ones, they have a chokehold.
Richard Helppie
You're a throwback to the old model. We used to say, hey, you've been successful at business, or you were a great academic, or you were a military person, will you be our leader? Now we have a class that comes out...so you can't be bought or controlled because you've already been a successful person elsewhere and came to serve. That's where we're out of whack, we have people that are there not to serve but they go in, they don't have much net worth, they come out and they're worth millions. The really sad thing is we used to say that something was wrong...you've got few examples now other than Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman, who clearly were there to serve and their lifestyles didn't change. Reagan's didn't either, but he was pretty wealthy to begin with.
Dean Phillips
Too many people not there to serve, they're there to self-preserve.
Richard Helppie
Right. Have you spoken much about firearms and firearm control? Anything that you've got there that you'd like to offer?
Dean Phillips
Sure, let me start by saying I'm an owner of firearms and I grew up shooting. As a young guy, the NRA taught me how to care for a firearm and how to treat it safely, and I learned how to take target practice, I remember it fondly. I wish the NRA was as invested in that right now as they used to be when I was a kid. I understand the Second Amendment, I understand how the Supreme Court has interpreted it. I also understand that through our history, we have put in some controls, if you will, we banned our automatic weapons in the 1930s. We put more regulation around firearms in the 1960s after political violence, as you well know. I believe in the Second Amendment, I believe that those who safely care for their firearms should be able to do so and not be at risk of the government taking them away. That's the truth. The other truth is, we are suffering from an epidemic of gun violence, suicides, crime and mass murders, of which every one of us is afraid. Whether you own a firearm or you don't, you do not want your kids shot in school, in a grocery store at a concert or in a movie theater. That's true. I'm really sick and tired of Democrats and Republicans, frankly, ignoring the real truth. How do we reduce it? Here's my answer. First and foremost, if you look at the Violence Project based in Minnesota - James Densley and Jillian Peterson - doing outstanding research on how we can actually reduce the incidence of violence. They've done actual interviews with the survivors who have created these mass murders and what they've determined is two things. We need to reduce suicide in America, which means we need a mental and emotional health care system, which we do not have. We need to reduce suicides. If we did, we would, by definition - by definition - reduce a disproportionate amount of the gun violence in America. That's a starting point. The other is red flag laws. They've determined that about 87% of those who commit these crimes, and especially the mass murders, they signal either implicitly or explicitly through social media or to friends that they intend to do this. The guy, the former veteran who killed so many innocent people in Maine recently - in Lewiston, Maine - he was screaming, screaming, about his intentions. Maine did not have a law that allowed authorities to at least temporarily remove his firearms while he was assessed and received care. Had they been able to do so and they did so, we would reduce this overnight. So red flag laws and suicide prevention are great ways to start. Now we get to the issue that...I don't like to lead with the notion of gun control, I like to lead with the notion of gun violence prevention because that invites gun owners to the table to sit with those who are opposed to gun ownership. The truth of the matter is I think we're out of our damn minds to allow 18 year old young men - who can't even buy a beer yet for three years - to buy semi automatic weapons, buy high capacity magazines and be able to carry around, essentially, weapons of war that we allocate to our military. It is just stupid, stupid and that is, by the way, most gun owners feel the same way.
Richard Helppie
Look, that's irrefutable. You mentioned the NRA. We had on Ryan Busse, who wrote a book called "Gunfight" - I highly recommend it and the two episodes we did with him. We've covered mental health a lot, and two thirds of the gun deaths in the United States are by firearm; obviously, would they occur if the firearm wasn't as helpful...I am not opposed to red flag laws, as long as there's a way to get out of it. I've come forward with a platform called graduated licensing. Everything else we do...when you get your first driver's license you don't get to drive a semi, you don't get to fly an Airbus when you get your first pilot's license. We have common sense ways to not infringe on the Second Amendment and keep the firearms out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them. That's one of the issues I have with the red flag laws is that the person that shouldn't have it has already got it.
Dean Phillips
If I could say a couple more things on this too. There are some countries...when it comes to semi automatic weapons, no, I don't think the government should take things away from people. I think that would only cause, frankly, more problems in some ways. But there are some countries, I think Switzerland is one, in which you keep your firearms at a safe facility - a hunt club or a gun club or a range - where you can use it for your target practice, for your sports, whatever it is you might do. There are some ways that we can, I think, accommodate both the desire to use these firearms and the safety that's required of them. Then lastly, if - as a constitutionalist from that perspective, reading the text as it's written - if anybody thinks that our founders would tolerate what is going on right now in this country, I think you're out of your mind, I really believe you're out of your mind.
Richard Helppie
It's to repel tyranny, (Dean Phillips: Exactly.) either in or out. Look, people have guns for personal protection. Los Angeles, which has had a lot of crime lately, has had two fairly highly publicized incidents where people finally had to shoot. I know personally there are areas in the country that never have a home break-in because there's generally going to be some kind of armed resistance. But the technologies that are available today do not make it difficult to keep a firearm secured and available in the unlikely event you'll need it.
Dean Phillips
Rich, I love this conversation because these are the ones the country needs to have respectfully, thoughtfully, and most importantly, from a position of solving the problem. That's why we've got to do it more often.
Richard Helppie
That's what this program is about. As the president you'd have these domestic issues to deal with and the foreign policy, international relationships that we have to have, the world's a hotbed of risk right now. I know that as things break out do I want the ego driven Donald Trump sitting behind the resolute desk? No. Do I want the clearly failing Joe Biden sitting behind the resolute desk? No. And particularly when you look at his depth chart, I don't think anybody believes Kamala Harris is qualified to be the president of the United States. But now as you go to run, ballot access for the primaries...and the voting blocks you'll appeal to...so in case this is one answer, I'm going to ask this all at once, how can people vote for you? What states are you going to be on the ballot? I know Florida's locked you out and the Democratic National Committee has decided they are going to give all the delegates to Joe Biden. There are blocks out there looking for an answer. Let's talk about a big one. If you can get on the ballot, you're going to need a lot of people from a lot of places. How would you appeal to a Trump voter?
Dean Phillips
I'll tell you, because I will do so through invitation. And anybody who's listening, watching right now, who might favor Donald Trump, let me first tell you, I understand, I understand. I understand the frustration, I understand the anger, I understand the fear. I understand in Donald Trump you found somebody who said, I'm going to break it all apart. My only proposition to all of you is that I respect that perspective and I actually agree with a lot of the underlying foundational issues that are so broken right now. The only thing I'm offering that's quite different than him is I intend to fix those same issues in a way that doesn't destroy the whole country in the process. I think what you just mentioned about ballot access, Rich, it is true, both parties are, I think, destroying this country right now. I used to think it was only the Right that was doing it. I have discovered, in the last month as a candidate for president, that my own party is not speaking the truth. They are suppressing voters, they are suppressing candidates, and they're suppressing debate, which I believe are the lifeblood of democracy. I would argue that every Trump voter, most - and frankly every Biden voter - wants to have debate, wants to have the freedom to make a choice in our elections and believes that we should have more candidates and more competition, not less. Those are American values, I think, shared by the overwhelming majority of the country. So I do have animus towards Donald Trump because I've seen the danger that he presented to our country in a number of ways. But I do not have animus towards those who voted for him. As long as you care about your fellow American, if you're a true patriot that means you look out for each other, not demean, diminish and divide the country - just the opposite. That's why my appeal is to everybody. That's why I would build a coalition that I think would be unique in recent American history - of thoughtful independents, thoughtful conservatives, Libertarians, Democrats, progressives and conservatives who place principle over politics. Liz Cheney, the most conservative member of the Republican conference for many years, I did an ad for her in her last election because I saw principal on display. Pete Meijer, Anthony Gonzalez, some of my dear Republican colleagues who lost their jobs or even resigned or retired, I'm sorry, because of threats to their own lives, those are the principled conservatives I love working with. I think it's time to elevate principled progressives and conservatives back to positions of power. My appeal is to everybody of decency, of reason, of common sense, of common cause. I do not tell you I have all the answers. I have perspectives. I have life experience, professional experience. But this is a campaign of invitation and courage. I want you to join, I want your ideas, I want to hear your dreams, your challenges and I want your participation. I'll close with this. Both parties do not want you to vote in the primaries, they want to coronate a candidate and only have you come out and vote in the general election when they've already done the coronation. That's why we only have about 14-15% of Americans who vote in primary elections. The good news is, in America, we still have that choice. Whether you're in Michigan, New Hampshire...sadly, in Florida, you won't have that choice because the Democratic Party of Florida decided we do not need an election. I cannot believe I just said those words. In the United States of America in 2023, the Democratic Party of Florida decided that you do not have a chance to opine to select a candidate that you want to be on the presidential ballot. It's just the truth. You can't paint it any other way. New Hampshire, the president disenfranchised all New Hampshire democratic and independent voters because he said your delegates will not be seated at the convention in Chicago next year. It's appalling. We have problems on the far Right, on the far Left; the people controlling the levers of our politics have got to be addressed head on. The way to fix it is go vote in the primaries. I will be on the ballot in about 45 states. Let me tell you, it is the most difficult part of this entire campaign, millions of dollars, thousands of hours of labor, legal counsel, because the barriers to entry have been designed to prevent you from having a choice. It's as simple as that.
Richard Helppie
I find this refreshing on two fronts: first of all, hallelujah, that a leading Democrat has said I bear no animus toward the voters of Donald Trump and I understand where they're coming from. (Dean Phillips: Absolutely.) That to me was a big pivot in 2016. In prepared remarks, those voters are deplorable. In September of 2022, the infamous speech in Philadelphia that Joe Biden gave. I actually wrote a column after this and said, what's next, purges? And calling out what we now know about the Democrats under Joe Biden, it's clear he's been at the center of a pay for play scheme, that we have congressional hearings going on right now that are demonstrating a twisted way to get to censorship and shut down dissenting voices; literally have democratic representatives saying, well, we only shut down 35% of the speech. So I guess the First Amendment is not absolute anymore, it's only 65% good. People don't want that but they don't have the courage to speak up about the rot that's inside the Democratic Party. I look at the the Democratic Party which has just proven that they're corrupt and they're willing to follow anybody. I think the Republicans, my view is they're like a deer in the headlights, they want Donald Trump to go away, they want it to happen magically and it's not.
Dean Phillips
Well, Rich, I think I need to say this. It's really important that we cannot make blanket statements any longer about all Republicans, all Democrats. I've seen it firsthand. There are some really good Republicans with whom I work. There are some really good Democrats with whom I work, everybody deserves their day in court. You are innocent until proven guilty. Let's not use our screens, whether they're in our hands or on our walls, to make our determinations about the truth. Let's go investigate. Let's use a little critical thinking, let's open our minds or hearts a little bit. My goodness, we're all in this together. I think it was John Lewis that said, we all came over in different boats, some on slave ships, some on the Mayflower, some on dinghies, but we're all in the same boat now and I don't care about your politics. Let's unify behind principle. Let's disenfranchise that small handful of Americans on the furthest Right fringes and on the furthest Left fringes because, yes, they've always been the danger to this country. The system, sadly right now, is designed to actually to give them more power than the exhausted majority on the Right and the Left - the center Right, the center Left - thoughtful Americans who are sick and tired. You're my people. You are my people. The truth is you've got to run with a D or an R at the end of your name. That's why Donald Trump ran as an R. I'm running as a D. We are very different men, let me assure you.
Richard Helppie
One of the things that you share in common is that you're a subject in the media ecosystem. Since I started this program I said there are three bad actors: the Democratic National Committee, the GOP's Central governance and the media ecosystem that continues to fuel this partisan divide. I've read how they've tried to dismiss you instead of saying, what's the policy, what's the character, what's the qualification for Dean Phillips as a potential chief executive. The Politico says, "he is a gelato tycoon turned backbench congressman and attractive alternative to Joe Biden." I said, well, this is interesting coming from a party in a media ecosystem that fawned over an Illinois legislature backbencher with 150 days in the United States Senate and no management experience. As we move to our close here - I would love to have you come back on, we could go deeper on many other topics - a bit about what we should expect our media ecosystem to do. How have they been treating you? Because you've been on a lot of the big outlets and the big channels, and frankly, I see them coming loaded with a narrative, not with a curiosity about hey, who are you and what can you do.
Dean Phillips
Alright, let me start at the very top; we have an anger-tainment industry, anger-tainment. It's an industry dedicated to dividing us because they prey on the human condition. Doesn't matter if you're an American, doesn't matter if you're living in China, doesn't matter where you are in the world, humans are programmed to respond to fear. The media environment anger-trainers have realized that the more fear that they can inspire, the more wealthy they become, the more eyeballs they attract, the more revenue is going to be generated. It's as simple as that. That's why we have a perverse incentive that's part of the human condition. We are rewarding people and rewarding anger-trainers, who would have us believe we are far more divided than we really are. I see the beauty in every American with whom I visit, whether you are a dyed in the wool, grizzled Trump supporter, whether you are a bleeding heart liberal, I can find some common ground with you. That's the beauty of America. That's what makes us so darn unique. That's what Ronald Reagan talked about so regularly. We're the only country like that and if we cannot convert that to a strength and we're going to allow anger-trainers to convert that into our end, frankly, of our democratic republic, you know what, it's our fault. So that's why my closing words are this: this is a time for courage. Everybody has it. The most courageous people in the country I know are not the industrial Titans or the celebrities, the most courageous people I know are the people getting up at midnight to go work the overnight shift at a plant, and the people who have to go get their chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer and still go home and make dinner for four kids and the people who are trying to make ends meet in the face of rising prices for everything - housing and education and health care and groceries. You're the courageous people. I don't care if you vote R or D or L or I. I don't care about the letter at the end of your name, how you pray, how you eat, how you think, how you live; I do care about creating a place that's safe for our children, that has opportunity for everybody and that restores what I consider to be what I talked about in the first place - the America that literally shoots for the moon and goes there. Not the America that sends too many of our young people to places all around the world for reasons that many of us cannot understand, the America that spends a trillion dollars a year on our military while people are starving and people are homeless and people are suffering, and we have diseases of despair while our our plants closed and our kids don't have futures in rural America. We see the wealthiest getting wealthier and the poor getting poorer and we don't care about it. That's what we're trying to face. And to answer your question directly Rich, am I treated fairly? Fairness is relative. The pain that I'm feeling based on the treatment I'm receiving from fellow Democrats and from the media is nothing compared to the pain that people are feeling every day in this country. So if I can take those arrows and take those punches and take those attacks for so many people who are suffering a whole lot worse than anybody, believe me, I'll do so. This is where it ends if you have the courage to give me a chance, you're going to have a voice in the White House, you will have access to the White House, you will have access to your president. I will do so in a different way though, respectfully, gracefully, with strength, with courage, with conviction. I think that's what America is all about. That's why I would ask no matter your politics, give some thought to voting in the Democratic primary to make a fundamental change in the future of the country. Forget about the letter at the end of my name, please look into my character, my competency, my experience, and my policies, which I'll be rolling out here in the next number of weeks. I love this country. I love everybody listening right now and cannot wait to meet you and answer your questions.
Richard Helppie
We've been talking today with three term congressman from Minnesota and announced candidate for the Democratic nomination for the president United States, Dean Phillips, a fresh approach that sounds very much binding to me, bringing us together. America, we can do better. Those loyal listeners, readers and viewers of The Common Bridge, you've heard policy experts come forward on so many issues and say, here's a common sense way to do things yet we can't get the political class that is empowered to make those changes to take action on our behalf. We've talked with many luminaries on the new media model that's emerging and the frustration with the narrative driven model. Guess what? The power is in our hands by showing up, by voting, by not believing the lesser of two evils, and consuming media reports that we know are coming from a righteous and factual place. With our special guest, Dean Phillips, this is your host, Rich Helppie, signing off on The Common Bridge.
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