 You're listening to highlights from The David Feldman Show, heard nationwide on Pacifica Radio, or as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and now YouTube. Please subscribe to this channel. For more information, go to davidfeldmanshow.com. Thank you for listening. The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad pathetic humps. Back from Paris is the founder and treasurer of the Blue America Pack, which raises money for progressive candidates. And he writes the down with tyranny blog Howie Klein. Hello Howie, welcome back to America. Bonjour. You were away for a while. I was. I spend most of June in Paris, a city that I've always loved and have been going back to over the years. I first went there in 1969. I've been going back there on a very regular basis since then. But I haven't been there in a few years. And I got to go this time on a very different kind of trip because instead of a business oriented trip, I just rented a house from an artist in Montmartre and just hung out there and made it like my home for a while and got to basically explore part of the city very intensely that I had never spent much time in. And it's a really nice part of the city. It's a very artistic part of the city. And I just loved it. Today, we're going to talk about Nancy Pelosi. You say that the alternative may be worse, unfortunately. We'll talk about Dick Gephardt, who used to be the house leader for the Democrats. He's a prick. And Randy Bryce is running against Paul Ryan and you're supporting him. But first, you lost a good friend. I guess she was 94 in Holland. She was 95. She's a painter. She was born Hilda von Norden and she married a Frenchman named Renee Pomier. So she was also known as Hilda Pomier. Her daughter, Evelyn Pomier, was one of my closest friends in the world. When I was in my early 20s, I was living in Amsterdam and all of my friends were Dutch. And they insisted that I only, since we worked in a youth center where the common language was English, and they were offended that they had to speak English in their own country, I don't blame them, they insisted outside of work none of them would speak English, although they were all fluent in English. So for me to relate to them, I had to learn Dutch. And they all thought that was a good thing anyway. And it was, but sometimes you want to talk English and the only person who would talk English with me was Evelyn. And she was a beautiful young artist and we became very, very close friends. Her former boyfriend at that time, a guy named Tone, is still one of my best friends in the world. We sometimes go on trips together. And since I was the only one that had a vehicle in our circle of friends in Amsterdam, and Paris is just a few hours away and her mother and father lived in Paris, we used to go visit her parents all the time. They had a big, wonderful flat in Paris, plus her mother had a studio, and we would sometimes stay at the studio, sometimes stay at the house, and I got to be very, very close with her mother. Her mother, although she was an artist and she introduced me into artistic circles in France, and it was a wonderful experience for me, she was really well known for something else. When she was 22, which was around the age that I was at the time, she and her two brothers blew up a Nazi troop train in an incident that eventually became very famous. And she is a hero of the Netherlands. She was given awards and medals after the war and a lifetime pension. And in fact, in the last few years, her husband, Renee, had passed away. She moved back to Holland and lived in a retirement home. She was very, very frail for the last few years. And that was all paid for by the government in gratitude for her fighting Nazis. So we're talking about a 22-year-old girl with her two brothers, who I believe one was younger than her and one was older than her. I'm not 100% sure of that, but I think that's what it was. She was the middle 12, and here these three children went out, put a plan together to blow up a Nazi troop train, figured it out on their own and blew it up and got away with it. And to me, that was just so amazing and so inspiring. And I loved hearing Hilda's stories about those times, and it always meant so much to me, and I got to know her. And I never went back to Paris without visiting her. Eventually, Evelyn, who was very young, as I said, passed away. She went to India, overland, as I had done, and she wound up getting cholera and dying in India. And obviously her mother never got over that. But Hilda and I remained friends all these years. And anyway, this was the first time I had ever gone to Paris without seeing her. She wasn't there. She was in Holland. And then the day I got back from Paris and thinking the whole time, wow, I'm in Paris and not seeing Hilda, that next day Evelyn's former boyfriend, Tony, my friend, got in touch with me and said Hilda just died last night. So she is no longer with us. And the book I always thought about writing about her adventures is never going to get written. You had been wrestling with the notion of visiting her, driving to Holland and visiting her, but you did. I did, but as it turned out, Tony and his wife were in Albania. My friend Willie, whose art exhibition was opening, which was another excuse for driving there, it turned out his art exhibition wasn't opening until the day we had to be back in LA. So nothing was sort of working out for me to drive to Holland and I wound up not doing it. Obviously if I knew she was going to die, I would have gone, but I didn't know. And I'll see you next time. On The Down with Charity blog, you write that when you were in your 20s and living in Amsterdam, you went to a VW factory and bought a bug right off the line? Yeah, they had a special deal for American students in those days where for $1,500 you could get a brand new VW van and the deal was such an amazing deal, $1,500 for a van, but a fully equipped camper van, but you had to agree in writing that you would export it, that you couldn't sell it in Germany. So I took it with me to India and then, you know... You drove it to India. I remember you told me this when we first met. You actually drove... I drove that VW van to India. I lived in it for over two years. So it was like both a means of transportation and my home. And there were many, many times that I had no money at all and I don't know what would have happened to me, except I did have a home. How do you drive through the Khyber Pass? Yes, in fact, absolutely through the Khyber Pass. How safe is that? Well, there is an alternative way to go through Pakistan, but the Khyber Pass... There was something in those days, believe it or not, I know you're going to laugh when I tell you, called the hippie trail. And basically you leave London and everyone stops in the same places and you get to know everybody in those days. This was 1969 I'm talking about. You get to know everybody who's making the trek across Europe and Asia to India. Everyone stops for amounts of time in Istanbul, in one part of Istanbul. We call it the Blue Moss District. Everybody stops in Tehran. In those days, everyone would stop in Kabul, usually for a lengthy amount of time. I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. And so you get to know everybody else. And it's one big, giant, happy family, everybody who travels that season from Europe to India. It's different now. You can't make that trip. But when I was a kid, I was able to do it. I was barely 20. And it was the experience of a lifetime. It was safe back then. Now it's just wartime. No, no, no, no. It wasn't safe back then? It was not safe back then. It's never been safe since... I think it might have been safe because Alexander the Great went to Afghanistan. And that's when it was safe. I remember this one time where we were all standing with a bunch of guys with Kalishnikovs or whatever they had. And we were all standing there with our hands over our heads. And they were all making like they could shoot us. And the owl went by with our hands over our heads. It's getting kind of horrible. One of the Australian guys who was with us was on acid. And all of a sudden, he just started laughing hysterically and took his hands down. And then he's just laughing his head off and ignoring them. And I'm thinking, oh god, I'm going to die in that fucking Afghanistan. And as it turned out, they all thought this was the funniest thing in the world. They all started laughing, too. And then they insisted that we all sit around and smoke ash for the rest of the night. That usually solves a lot of problems. Yeah, especially made up ones. There was no problem. They thought this whole thing was very amusing. So you were in Paris for three weeks? Yeah, about that. And it was just, basically it was almost more like a trip to Montmartre than a trip to Paris. Although, you know, we got invited to an opening of, what's his name? An English artist who lives in LA in Paints. I mean, Pools, I've got his name already. But he had an art opening at the George Pompidou Center. We went to that. He and I have the same accountant. That's how that happened. And so we went around. And, you know, I went to some of my favorite restaurants around Paris. But basically, in terms of where I spent all my time, it was mostly in Montmartre. And, you know, the neighborhood that we stayed in was called Abès, which is named for an abbey. Abès means abbey. And that abbey has been turned into a townhouse that's owned by this artist, a writer. And we rented it. It's a beautiful three-story house with an elevator. And my office was on the third floor, a beautiful glass room, basically, that I shared with an incredible veranda with a hanging garden and all these wild birds. And it was just a wonderful way to integrate myself into Paris into just a normal life. And I sat there and did my blog and would eat French food and see French things. Great. David Hockney. I looked it up. Yes, that's exactly who I mean. David Hockney. He had a retrospective at the George Pompidou Center. And I've never really been much of a fan of his stuff. I have to be honest. But I went anyway because of my accountant who I like very much and she invited me. And I was shocked. The stuff was really good. And I, you know, I can't say like everything he's done. But he did a lot of really, really good stuff and a lot of, especially some of the later stuff that he's not famous for is very, very, very cutting edge and very inventive and creative. And I really enjoyed myself. And we went to the Picasso Museum. I have this great picture of myself on that post that you were looking at me with Picasso's goat. And good time was had by all. Yeah, you sound great. What's the downside to France? Downside to France. In other words, what made you glad to leave France? Nothing. I want to go back. Nothing made me glad to leave. You know, it was 99 one day and for half the trip it was in the 90s and they don't have a lot of AC there. So, so that is a little, that was a little bothersome. But generally speaking, I loved it. I mean, I was happy to be home. I love my house. I love my friends here and my life here. So, so that was a positive thing. I mean, Roland used to keep, he used to keep saying, well, at least we're not going to, you know, blank, you know, Cleveland, or whatever, but at least we're not going home to Cleveland. Because he was also loved, loves Paris. And, you know, you sort of have to make an excuse for the fact that you're leaving. Why are you leaving? Why are you just staying? Why leave Paris? Well, let's talk about Randy Bryce. How is the DCCC treating Randy Bryce? He's going after Speaker Paul Ryan's seat. Yeah. So, the DCCC has made a decision long ago to not go after Paul Ryan. So, when I say long ago, I mean about a decade ago. They've never supported any Democrats who have run against him. They have, in fact, done quite the opposite. They have literally, quite literally sabotaged anyone who looked like they might be a, you know, trouble for Ryan. And they've been really bad that way. They've protected him in a way that I can understand. And I said, you know, maybe Nancy Pelosi will put it in her memoirs one day after she's gone from Congress. But no one knows and no one understands. And because of that, none of the local legislators, because that's a very swing district, that, you know, Obama won that district in 2008 fairly handily. And that district has been a district where Democrats have, in recent memory, have been the Congressperson, Les Aspin, who became Clinton's defense secretary of defense. That was his district, longtime district. So it's not like it's some, you know, deep red district that can never be won. It's a swing district. And there are lots of Democratic, Democrats in the State Assembly from that district and in the State Senate. And those would be the natural people to oppose Ryan and to run. And yet, every time I would try to talk to them into running, they would always say no. And the reason they said no is because they couldn't get any support from the DCCC. The DCCC didn't want a candidate running against Ryan. And I finally learned my lesson. And we went out and we found someone with the help of Rob Zurban, who had been a candidate against Ryan, and with the help of a State Senator named Chris Larson, who's a good friend of mine, the most progressive member of the State Legislature in Wisconsin. And he and I have known each other for many, many years. We're both involved with people for the American way. And then we found, they recommended to me that I speak with Randy Bryce, who is an iron worker, but also very active in union politics and the head of the AFL-CIO's Outreach to Veterans in the State of Wisconsin. And he was a Bernie surrogate in the primary and later worked for Hillary. And I have to Bernie, Bernie won in Wisconsin, but after Hillary won the nomination nationally, he said, you know, we need to get her elected instead of Trump. So he seemed like the right kind of guy. I mean, everything that the Democrats, you know, cry about about the white working class and how we need to win it back and everything. Well, they decided they were not going to talk at any seats at all in Wisconsin. They wrote Wisconsin off for 2018 and we decided to shove it right up their ass. And we did with Randy. And two weeks ago when Randy announced, the day he announced that he was running, he had 7,000 Twitter followers that day. Last night he went over 101,000 Twitter followers. Randy has now raised more money in, well, in his first 11 days, he raised more money from small online donors. So no big donors, all, no, obviously no tax or anything like that, all just individual donors giving $20, $30. He has more of them than anyone in history running for Congress. So in 11 days. So he's caught on and now the DCCC is like freaking out and I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, I'm not supposed to be talking about this, but I don't care. They had a meeting of the recruitment committee and the recruitment committee pretty much fell in love with Randy in his video. They didn't meet him, but they saw his video. One of the members who favors him played it for them and they loved it and they want to throw away the old restrictions against running someone against Ryan and they want to get behind Randy. So that is a really good sign. So now it's going to be up to Pelosi. She's the one that the orders have come from of hands-off Ryan and she can tell them no and she may and I don't know if she will or she won't. But if the DCCC doesn't get behind this campaign to get rid of Paul Ryan, it's because of Nancy Pelosi strictly and aggressively. Well, we've talked on this show about getting rid of Nancy Pelosi. I don't understand. We have. Yeah. And so you said before the show started that the alternative could be worse? No, not could be. It would definitely be worse. So a little tiny bit of history. So Nancy Pelosi, I believe, was a true progressive. She was my congresswoman in San Francisco when I lived there and she was all progressive, progressive, progressive and then she worked her way up to be she was part of the Progressive Caucus. She was a founding member of the Progressive Caucus, which was Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders started it. She was part of that. I think she may have become chairman of it at one point after Bernie wasn't anymore. I'm not sure if she was chairman, but she was definitely a big player in the Progressive Caucus. And then she worked her way up to become the Democratic whip. So the Democratic leader, the minority leader was Dick Gephardt, a conservative-ish Democrat or a little union guy. So when I say conservative, he wasn't like a conservative the way Newt Gingrich was a conservative at the time, but he was definitely an establishment Democrat. And where the split came between them, she worked for him, remember, he was the leader, she was the whip and they worked together closely. But the split came over the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq. And when that came up, he wrote it with Bush, with George W. Bush, and said he will deliver the Democratic Party to vote for it. And Nancy got one whip for that and she went crazy and she said, I'm not getting on board with that. I am against it. And she was able to rally a majority of Democrats against the war in Iraq. And so most Democrats voted against it. Gephardt voted for it who was the leader of the party at the time and he had a substantial number of blue dogs and new Dems. So basically the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, they went with him, all of the progressives and plus the normal Democrats went with Nancy. So she beat him by quite a bit in that fight. And then that became obvious at that moment that he was never going to be the leader he wasn't going to be the leader again and that it was over for him. It didn't happen overnight, but that was the clarifying moment when it became obvious that she was the next leader and he was on his way out. He was never going to be speaker and as it turned out, she became the first woman speaker of the historic figure and that was his life's ambition was to be speaker and also another life's ambition of his was to be president and instead he's a lobbyist he's a dirty filthy lobbyist. Really dirty filthy? Absolutely dirty filthy lobbyist. Now I want to know something do you know any corporate lobbyists who aren't dirty and aren't filthy? Well, but Dick Gephardt I just read is against single payer and is a lobbyist for health insurers and he's a Democrat supposedly. He's a super delegate. He gets paid for his to have an opinion. Are there no good lobbyists? I would think don't they have lobbyists for the environment and for I use the modifier which was corporate lobbyist. So I said to you do you know any corporate lobbyists who aren't dirty who aren't filthy and yes, they're all lobbyists who do God's work and they lobby for the environment and they lobby for things that they believe in but that isn't what Dick Gephardt is Dick Gephardt is a lobbyist who lobbies for anybody who pays him to do anything. And the Democratic bench you say is weak. It's not that it's weak it's very conservative. So Nancy felt because she was and she wasn't the only one who felt this it was generally felt that because she was a progressive caucus they had to surround her with conservative Democrats in the leadership. So Steny Hoyer who's a conservative Democrat became the whip. So she was number one, he was number two Jim Clyburn was number three also kind of conservative not as much as Hoyer but pretty conservative. So these are establishment people and all of the others around them tended to be so you wind up with a leadership that's pretty conservative and then there's Nancy who has gradually turned into a conservative herself. That's what the problem is. So now that she's 300 years old and Hoyer is 400 years old and their time where they're going to be leaders is coming to a close and who you turn to. Well the next person in line after the ancient regime was Joe Crowley who recently became the head of the Democratic House caucus. So he's one of the most corrupt people who's ever served in the United States Congress. He's a Wall Street whore he would have probably gone to jail but Nancy saved his life a number of years ago. He was caught taking bribes from Wall Street delivering Democrats to Wall Street and selling his vote on the Ways and Means Committee real scumbag in every way imaginable he's never had a race he was given the seat literally this guy the head of the Democratic machine in Queens County New York Queens County New York didn't tell anyone he was retiring until the last second and then it was announced that he's retiring and that Joe Crowley is taking over and there was no time for anybody to challenge him there's no chance of a Republican ever winning in a district like that that's a solid blue district as you can ever find. So this guy doesn't know anything about running for office he doesn't understand that at all and he's just an old time hack political boss he was then the chairman of the New Dems and just constantly making deals with Republicans and that's his career in Congress and now he's in line to probably be the next Democratic leader and perhaps someday speaker so that's pretty horrible so if they get rid of Nancy people think well we should get rid of her she's terrible let's get rid of her but just remember who you're putting in her place someone who's 8 trillion times worse than her on her worst day someone who's 8 trillion times worse than her on his best day and that's the problem does she deserve any credit the alternative to him is Debbie Wasserman Schultz you know we've talked about about her and you know people may think you know well why can't Pramila Jayapal be the next leader yeah I'm for that but it's not the way it works in the house people who get votes from the members of the house are people who have raised money for those members of the house and who's giving them money Pelosi gives them money Hoyer gives them money Clyburn gives them money Crowley gives them money Wasserman Schultz gives them money and that's who they're going to vote for they're not going to vote for someone like Pramila who's got the only perfect record in the entire House of Representatives she's scored by progressive punch 100% she's the only one and uh I'd like to see her as the leader she's got the chops to do it she was the leader in the she was one of the leaders of the Washington state legislature before she came to Congress but it's not going to happen I'd like Ted Lew to be the head of the Democratic Party it's years before he's going to be someone who's successful for a job like that to the other members she's really terrible it should never be let's just get rid of Nancy Pelosi let's get rid of Nancy Pelosi and put someone better in her place and the two things should be tied together let's get rid of Nancy Pelosi and whatever happens happens because whatever happens could be a lot worse a lot worse does she deserve any credit for making this? yes much there are a lot of good things that she's over but she's done a lot just a historic point of view we owe her a lot she's been incredible and she's got a lot of she has had her chops down really well she's an effective fighter against them but her day of long past what is that called the label when the due date has come and it's time to say her expiration date her expiration date is done I'm sorry Nancy if you're listening to this but time to go honey she said that several years ago herself what people have told me on the inside is that she knows how bad Hoyer would be Hoyer is again a corporate whore he's owned by K Street the lobbyist firms every single bill that would come out we'd go right through K Street and she doesn't want to see him become the leader and he's older than her and so she's hanging in there she'd like to go, she's tired she feels that she deserves to get out of that place and she almost left but she was talked out of it is Schumer doing a good job standing up to Trump especially on the health care bill I mean it does feel like I don't know in Southampton this weekend with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Monroe's and Kellyanne Conway they're all dancing around in a circle at Mnuchin's wedding or I don't know, some rich person's house in the Hamptons Google it after we get off the phone but it was all over the New York press this weekend the Democrats are marching in lockstep though right, against Trump they're no defectors yes they are well I mean it depends what you mean by that I mean I don't consider someone who enables Neil Gorsuch to become a Supreme Court judge to be working in lockstep against Trump and we had three members of the three Democrats in the Senate vote for him Manchin was one of them Heidi Heitkamp was another one and Joe Donnelly was another one and how about Scott Pruitt, I mean there are some people who think that Scott Pruitt is worse than Trump and the worst thing that ever happened to the American government, the head of the EPA now and Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp both voted for him and they're both up for re-election and when you give money to the DSCC you might be thinking you're giving money to help Tammy Baldwin but unless you're giving the money directly to Tammy Baldwin you're not helping Tammy Baldwin you're helping Joe Manchin you're helping Heidi Heitkamp if you want to re-elect Tammy Baldwin which you should want, she's wonderful you should give money directly to Tammy Baldwin or to Sherrod Brown but if you give money to the DSCC if the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee if they tell you we got to save Sherrod Brown we got to save Tammy Baldwin they'll say that in their letters and then the money goes directly into the coffers or into a campaign for Heidi Heitkamp who can't raise her own money or she can't raise grassroots money and into the coffers of Manchin again people like Tammy Baldwin can raise grassroots money because people appreciate what they do in the Senate people like Heidi Heitkamp can't raise, they can only raise corporate money they can't raise grassroots money because they vote with the Republicans they voted for Scott Pruitt they voted for Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch who wants to give them money people see take your money and give it to them Howie Klein is the founder and treasurer of the Blue America PAC which raises money for progressive candidates around the country he also writes the down with charity blog glad you're back, we'll talk to you next week Before we go, can I say can I plug something? Sure I'm going to be doing a Reddit AMA an AMA means ask me anything so I was invited by the Bernie for president and it's going to be on Friday at 1pm Pacific time so I'll be answering any question anybody wants to throw at me so I was thinking your listeners hear me babbling on and on all the time and they don't get a chance to ask me questions and they could come to this subreddit on Friday, just coming Friday and ask me any question they want and I have to answer it Very good and this Friday's drop I will plug it again Thank you I'll talk to you next week, thank you Bye David You're listening to highlights from The David Feldman Show heard nationwide on Pacifica Radio or as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher and now YouTube please subscribe to this channel for more information go to DavidFeldmanshow.com Thank you for listening The David Feldman Show