Resisting Progressive Pressure (with Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez)

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark next level Sunday show. I’m your host, Tim Miller, with a special guest today, Democratic congresswoman Marie Glues in Camp Perez. Maybe the most are one of the top three or four most interesting Democrats in the House of Representatives. Great conversation. I’m gonna explain why in a minute.

I’m sure many of you this week have an insatiable desire for, news and takes and images of the supposedly two hundred fifteen pound LOL Donald Trump being arraigned for the fourth time and the parade of absurdity on the debate stage in Milwaukee this week. Well, the Bulllord’s got plenty for you on that. If you missed it, I was on with Charlie on Friday on the flagship podcast. Do check that out. Though I must warn you we did a lot of talking about how right we were.

Maybe about the most obvious thing in history to be right about Donald Trump, but nonetheless, on Thursday night week, Thursday night board for Bulwark plus members. If you’re not a subscriber, JBL, Mona, and and Bill Crystal gave a breakdown of the debate on Wednesday night, on on this feed, on the next level feed, We brought in Tom Nichols of the Atlantic and Ben Smith of Semaphore to talk about the debate, so you can go check out that there. Over on Snapchat or YouTube, we have mine not my party. Where I gave a live behind the scenes view from the MSNBC Studios in New York and, gave my takes about the debate and showed a little bit about what it’s like to be a pundit man on a big debate night. So just a ton of information for you there.

Also go to the Bulwark dot com, you know, and sign up for our newsletter if you have it. But the Democrats still have some stuff going on here too. I mean, obviously, the Republican party, Agita, is at a all time high, you know, the fights between this, you know, the small normie set and the growing maga set, Vivic versus Nikki, you know, Donald Trump and the arraignment. At least, Defonic tweeting Trump won. Plenty of drama on the Republican side.

But within the Democratic Coalition, you know, there is increasing concern about this question of how can Democrats win back some of these working class voters? How can the party avoid becoming just the party of college educated voters across all race Right? How can they do better with working class, white voters? How can they turn out working class black and Hispanic voters that are gonna be more Democratic aligned? How can they do better in rural America?

Well, Marie Gloos in Camp Perez is about the most interesting person to talk to about that. She is the owner of a car repair shop in in Washington. She defeated, you know, maybe the most notified candidate, Joe Kent, Iran, on the Maga America first platform in Washington in a red district, so she represents a red largely rural district in Washington. She’s gotten under some of the progressive skin. There was a big slate article this week saying that she’s a cursed in cinema of the house.

We talk about that. It is important that if we are gonna beat back the Maga authoritarian threat, you know, the Democrats need to make sure that they are appealing to as many different demographics as possible, rural, downscale whites, non college educated voters of all races really, but particularly whites, are the areas where the arrow is moving the wrong direction. Marie Guzman Perez has some thoughts about how to fix that. We get into some policies civic, some of her votes, areas where she’s disagreed with the party. You know, we do a little dunking on Joe Kent.

This is an important conversation. You should enjoy it. Up next, congresswoman Marie, losing Camp Perez. But first, our friends at Assetongue enjoy mugshot weekend. Peace.

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Sunday next level podcast and here is Tim Miller. I’m here today with congresswoman Marie Glues in Camp Perez, who coming at us live from Washington with our most beautiful backdrop I think we’ve had on the show so far. Congressman, I wanna acknowledge my bias is up top here. Okay? So you beat Joe Kent, the most noxious joke he f boy that were hand for conscious year in a pretty competitive category.

Like, that hate that dude. And you have you’re kind of like a Mavericky Democrat So, you know, you’re you’re already kinda tickling a couple of my pleasure centers here. So anyway, welcome to the podcast. Hopefully, we’ll be good. Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

You said, in our little green room there, you said you were competing at the Timber Festival this weekend? Where are you? Tell us about that.

Yeah. Yeah. So I live in rural Scamania County, and, it’s a, it’s a big timber county or it was. And We are in the Gifford pinchot National Forest. And, I see us.

So we compete every year in the Timber carnival.

What does that competition entail?

Well, so there’s, like, I think there’s, like, ten events two days. And I competed in four of them on Friday. I kinda choked on the ax throwing this year, which I’m super annoyed by, but I got first placed an obstacle poll, which would be, like, run up a twenty degree poll and the guys started chainsaw and, like, cut the end off, women tie a ribbon around it. And then choker setter, I got a third place. And then, yeah, I actually I bombed in axe throwing, which was too bad.

Okay.

So this is where I wanna start. I I wanna understand kind of, of whence you came. I’m a I’m a gay suburban boy who wouldn’t even I don’t think I could even throw an act. I don’t know know what would happen. If I would endanger myself if I if I picked up an ax, I think.

So, in your childhood, were you interested in power tools? How did you end up becoming a auto repair shop owner living out in the sticks and acts throwing competitions?

Well, so my mom’s side is all from Washington State since before it was a state, and They’re all loggers, you know, many, many loggers. And, I mean, I had a lot of respect for that world and the stories, and I love you know, I love being outside. I love, like, physical work. And so when I met my husband, I was a bike mechanic. I was running a little, like, bike co op, my college and he was a auto mechanic.

Doing fixies?

He’s a mobile mechanic. Oh my god. So many fixies in that era. Yes. Like, the Secret Podcast most bike mechanics actually wanna be Autumn Mechanix carburetors are, like, super cool.

So I started following him around and eventually got him to marry me. And, we moved out to Scamania County, built our house out here. And I heard about the accident. I heard about the Timber carnival, and I was like, oh my god. And my uncle gave me one of his axes.

I knew he competed. They do this thing, like, you go up a pole, pole climbing, to set the line to drag anyways. So that he he had done that. And so I knew about it from him. And, yeah, that’s how I got into it, but it’s fun stuff.

I I know this sounds like people like, whatevers. But I think that one of the things that’s going on under the rock of American culture is that there’s this mass homogenization and this real loss of, like, place based politics and things that actually, like, that stuff matters on a, like, a heart level. I think when we lose a connection to the specific things going on in our communities and everything becomes nationalized. Like, that homogenization allows for really the ugliest parts of political polarization and homogenization. And I think it’s our duty to fight that and to turn back to A place based politics.

Yeah. That kind of ties into where I want to go next, which was, so I mean, the Democrats have struggled so much. In in these types of communities. I may be a little less in Washington, but but then in in other places I’ve spent in Louisiana, obviously deeply struggling here, but John Bell Edwards a governor here who kind of has had success and has cut against that. Like, when you think about, you know, why the party has struggled in kind of rural areas and among working class folks and working people.

Do you think that that is cultural policy Both? Like, how would you kind of grade what the issue is and how, you know, maybe the party could do better?

Yeah. I think that there were some, like, dorks with calculators who got the math wrong and believe that we can, you know, govern by convincing college educated Republicans to vote, with any of that. Okay.

Okay. Call him down now. Now

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Tim.

Yeah. They they they picked up ones of us.

I mean, there

are dozens of us out there that you picked up at at Congress, anyway.

But so they just sort of washed their hands and said, like, well, we don’t need, you know, blue collar working class people. We don’t need rural America anymore. And and I think that a, the math is wrong on that. And I think b, like, when you narrow your focus that way and just say, like, oh, well, you’re not smart enough to get what we’re doing. Like, actually, I think the party is not smart enough to get what we’re doing.

Like, there’s a real wisdom, I think, in rural communities and in in blue collar, communities and and to just say, like, oh, you know what? We don’t need to understand that anymore, like, you know, and walk away. It’s a real impoverishment of of the values from the Democratic Party. And I think that, you know, a lot of it in Washington state stems back to timber policy, forest policy, Also, my mom’s from forks, Washington, which is the epicenter of the spotted owl fiasco. You know, they, like, shut down the timber industry.

In a lot of woods, over an owl that is still struggling today. Like, today, they pay people to go out with, like, potato guns and, like, bean bag barred owls to try and protect spotted owls. Like, it continues to be just a fiasco. And I

mean, nothing against the spotted owl, but just a prioritization balance.

Yeah. And, you know, it’s like, we’re I I feel like a lot of rural people we sense, like, we’re the first ones to pay for things all the time. And, you know, whether it’s jobs or you know, school quality or infrastructure or whatever it is. It feels like a lot of folks think like, well, if you were smart, you would have, like, moved to the city and, you know, gotten a better job.

It was a condescending element to it.

Oh, for sure.

So here’s my, like, one of my big pet thieves with my former party, the Republicans now is that, like, They’ve made this pivot to performatively act like they care about what, you know, the forgotten man, etcetera, in rural America. Like, the substance hasn’t backed it up at all. Right? I mean, it probably wouldn’t be the party for me if they went more populist economically and and on immigration and on foreign you know, and engaged in a more direct way. You know, I mean, Trump put Kelly Ann Conway in charge of his opioid commission.

You know, and it’s just all of this It’s just Bulwark. And, like, they don’t actually care about these people. It’s pretend, right? It’s a cultural pose, but in a lot of ways they’ve let these folks down, So that should be an opportunity for the Democrats, but it doesn’t seem like they’re taking it. And so I just, like, how could the Democrats seem like fill that void that I think that the Republicans are leaving?

Yeah. I mean, so I’m on the agriculture committee. And so when I’m home, I’m doing a lot of farm bill listening tours and farm tours and things like that. And One of the things that comes up over and over, it’s like, you know, these producers and farmers are not talking about kicking people off food stamps. They’re talking about market consolidation as what’s killing the family farm.

You know, it’s not that culture war Bulwark. It’s it is Listen, like, there are two corporations that will I can contract with to grow chickens, you know, and they are both going to crush me from either side of advice. And my kids don’t wanna take over the farm because they see what it looks like to be a player in a monopolistic economy. So, you know, I think that we should certainly be leading on some of these, like, fundamentally antitrust issues, like, like, right to repair is a really big deal. One of the reasons that compelled me to run for office.

It’s like you said, I own an auto repair shop.

Explain right to repair. I was gonna ask you about that, but just what did you mention it? Explain what that is.

Yeah. Well, so on background, like, we own an independent shop, which is a dying breed. It means we’re not affiliated with the dealership or a manufacturer. Like, we work on anything it’s not that these cars aren’t under warranty. They’re, like, from the nineties.

You’re doing those van remodels. Like, guys don’t wanna move out to the woods and, like, live out of their van, like, you’re doing those.

Actually, we do see a lot of those kinds, but we also see, like, the gambler five hundreds of the world. But right to repair sort of started with tractors. John Dear was one of the worst. They started putting these chips on their tractors, and only the dealerships could have the key to unlock that digital, you know, to get into the motor. And farmers at all, some unknowingly signed terms of service contracts that said you can only get them fixed with dealership.

Well, you know, there’s like not enough dealerships ever to service. And all of this one year make and model tractor all basically glitched at the same time. It was hang season. There weren’t enough dealerships to see repair all these glitches. And because they were locked out, farmers couldn’t do it themselves, you have a very narrow window to cut hay when it actually has nutrition value for stock.

It’s when the seed head is formed, but hasn’t fallen off the stock yet. And so imagine being like millions of dollars in debt, you’ve got a quarter million dollar piece of equipment sitting in the yard. As yard art now. And you can’t work on it because some asshole with an MBA, like, locked you out of it. And so half of them come out with, like, a, you know, pitchfork.

And demand rights repair. The other half, many of them actually go to Eastern Europe to get their tractors hacked. And there’s a lot of national security risk to these write your pair issues actually because that’s the

other person. In the military, you had an amendment to the NDA that was on this too. Yeah. Our military guys can’t even fix our shit in the field. Is that really true?

Yes. Yes. They have to get a technician to come out with their, you know, with their scan tool. Like, it’s crazy. With the purchasing power of the US military, we are still vulnerable in this way.

You know, it is crazy to me. And so it’s gone way too far, and we’re really at this fulcrum point where we have to start, assuring our right to to fix our own stuff. And it’s not just about the pocket book issue or the morality of it, you know. Again, it’s one of those cultural things of, like, we are a nation that really believes in DIY. Other countries aren’t like this.

My husband’s German extraction. Like, in Germany, people don’t, like, paint their own walls or, like, fix their own plumbing. Like, America is actually pretty unique and where we believe, like, people should all you should be able to do all this stuff. That’s our cultural heritage, and it’s being eviscerated by, you know, these terms of service and these monopolistic behaviors. And so I believe in capitalism.

Like, I believe that, you know, you should be able to take your truck to get it fixed anywhere you want. And it’s one of the most pragmatic ways that you can support the trades and support rural communities is by supporting rights repair legislation.

I mean, this is just tickling my former pickle. I know you don’t, you know, you don’t wanna recruit us over, but, that one that one is I don’t wanna line. So I think it lines working class from Democrats and people that have the independent American, you know, streak, that libertarian streak. I wanna ask, though, it’s interesting. Here you talk about that.

You have a adept of knowledge that comes from the experience. Right, that you’re bringing to the table. And I I was reading I could set this memo by a Democratic staff for Morgan seriously who had worked in politics, and she interviewed a bunch of staff And it was like, what’s wrong with the Democratic campaigns? One of the things that they focus on, which is a fair point is that, like, Democrats’ staff still doesn’t reflect their coalition. You know, and that, like, there were cases where maybe there was a mid level Bulwark staffer that, like, flagged, why, an ad that the campaign wanted to do was be kind of offensive in in the black community and that the, you know, kind of leadership didn’t understand it.

And I and I think that’s totally probably right and legit that that the Democrats, you know, kind of side should be rec making sure that they reflect America. They’re obviously doing better than Republicans of that. But, like, not mention that memo ever is we should recruit more working class people. We should recruit people more people from rural America. Like, you know, we should recruit more people that go to church twice a week.

Right? Have you expressed that internally? Like, what’s your take on that?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s one of the biggest problems is, like, there’s a lot of lip service for egalitarianism, but actually in in the Beltway, it is this super snobby, like hyper credentialed, and it just becomes, like, groupthink of of who’s qualified and who’s smart. And, you know, people never consider, well, you know, actually maybe somebody with a reading disability is actually really brilliant. And many other ways that you don’t have the intelligence to understand.

Their concept of what makes a good candidate, it’s like somebody with a JD and a trust fund and a built in donor network and no

And talking points and good at talking points.

Yeah. Good at dodging questions, you know. I think people are tired of that. I think people want a Congress that looks like America. And, you know, to your point, like, often in DC, there’s a real homogeneity to the kinds of people that wanna be in DC.

And so, you know, to me, like, you know, when I’m trying to recruit stuff, like, I want people that don’t really wanna be in you know, that’s not their light, you know, they haven’t been trying to do it since they were seven. That have experienced in the trade or didn’t go to college, or I have a bipartisan staff.

Firstly is important, but, like, I have a bunch of races of and everybody went to Princeton. Like, it’s still limiting the the diversity. Element. You have a bipartisan staff? You’ve hired Republicans?

I do. Yeah. I have a bipartisan staff. I have a staff, you know, not everyone in my staff went to college at all. You know, I have a broad range.

And I think that’s really important. Like, if you are right about something, like, you should be right in any context, like, you don’t need to have an echo chamber around you. I think it actually is, like, leads to a lot of narrow mindedness to not have dissent in your own office.

This is gonna provide more fodder for something that I wanted to ask you about. There was there was a slate article this week, some, a woman, a Democratic activist named Melissa Byrne. She said about you. She’s a cinema wannabe. How many votes has she taken that Joe Kent wouldn’t have taken?

I wanna give you a chance to, talk about both sides of that question. How do you respond to, to being compared to Kristen’s cinema and, and how many votes have you taken that Joe Kent wouldn’t have taken. He Joe Kent’s a white Jonathan Last, so I would assume quite a few, but I’ll let you answer it.

Yeah. Well, is unhinged to strong language. I have voted with my party eight up ten times. I believe I’ve always ten out of ten times, I voted with my district. And that’s my job.

It is not to be a cheerleader for ideology. It’s to reflect my district. And what they got so mad about was my, really pissed about my student loan vote. You know, I don’t know where this Melissa person lives, but It’s not Scomania County. You know, the state that would have benefited the most from student debt forgiveness was actually Washington DC.

Because everyone’s young there and everyone’s got multiple degrees. Washington state, my state was number forty six on beneficiaries. And in my district, I think it’s one out of four people in my district has a college degree. Like, I have Seattle in Washington State, Right? So my district was just on the very tail end of who would have benefited.

And, like, I was just spending a bunch of time with, para educators from rural schools, We don’t have air conditioning in many of our rural schools. And, like, you, you’ve got kids trying to learn in a classroom that’s ninety degrees inside. And somebody believes that we should be spending six hundred billion dollars on forgiving post secondary and, you know, graduate degree. Debt. I just have a I have my special guest here.

It’s just Oh,

I was I was like, is it gonna be a chicken? Alright. I know it’s a ch hey, buddy. What’s going on? My my five year old has made a couple appearances on this podcast.

So it’s all good. What’s his name?

This is Siedo. Siedo.

Want I wanna ask you about student loans, but just, you know, on the side with the I mean, is there somebody that you look at and you’re like, man, they’re doing a really great job in Congress, like somebody that you are trying to model yourself after, or

I didn’t come to Congress because I’m, like, trying to model myself after politicians, you know, like, That’s not who I, you know.

Is there somebody you’ve really got along with?

Oh, yeah. For sure. So I am now co chairing the blue dogs with Jared Golden and Mary Paltola. They are the only Democrats that hold seats that are more trumpy than mine. Jared’s been doing it since twenty eighteen.

And so we are all from fishing and and timber communities. So it’s good to have people that, you know, know how to run a chainsaw. I’m like, know what know what it means to try to find daycare in a rural community and, like, all of those things.

Yeah. Obviously, the daycare issue is, is happening live here. Yeah. It’s not cheap. We just moved from Oakland to New Orleans.

And, yeah, the childcare thing is definitely real. Really quick back to the student loan issue, really. Everything that you said I’m totally in line with, I disagree with the Biden executive order. And I do think that, a, college has gotten insanely expensive, and there are certain jobs, also important jobs, nurses —

Oh my god.

— teachers. Prosecutors and defenders, you know, publics are, like, they need to go put a second, secondary degrees, and then their salaries can’t afford them. Right? So, like, Is there another thing that you think that we should be doing in that space that is different from what you voted against?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that is the biggest story that no one’s talking about. Thank you for pointing that out. Can you push him on the swing that’ll help? I was born in nineteen eighty eight, and Since I was born, tuition has increased four hundred and eighty one percent, which is crazy.

If you look at something like think it’s something like four percent of people enroll or, employed in higher ed are graphic designers. Only thirty three percent of people working in higher ed are actually educators. Like, there’s been so much administrative bloat, so much bloat in terms of recruitment and advertising and just fundraising, like, all of these things. And it’s been really frustrating to feel like somehow The narrative went from like, how do we make college affordable and demand accountability for to, oh, like, let’s just write a blank check and hope problem goes away for this discrete set of people. It’s like I don’t want party favors for discrete age ranges.

I want systemic reform of education. And I think that there are ways that it could have been structured to be actually, like, progressive, but the way that Biden wrote that bill. It was it was a regressive policy.

Some people throw out, and I think Biden’s for this too. Like, I might have the number on, but something like, you know, there’s five percent of your salary cap that you have to pay back. You don’t just get it wiped away, but if you’re a teacher and you’re only making forty grand a year, then you only have to pay five percent of that. Right. Like, there are other ways to kind of model it.

But I don’t is is there anything in particular that you’ve heard about or just Yeah.

I mean, so income based you know, that’s one thing. Actually, I just heard about a program in Korea that I thought was super inter I mean, whatever. This is kind of but so in Korea, like, say that there are a hundred graphic, you know, there’s a spots for a hundred graphic designers. When they graduate, when those hundred people graduate, the next round, like, if only eighty five of them get a job as a graphic designer in that first year after graduating, the next class entering is limited to eighty five. So that there’s more of like a market when you’re investing reasons that if people aren’t being misled that there’s all these jobs out there when there aren’t.

There’s just a huge lack of transparency and accountability and like, what is an interest rate? What does compounding interest do to you, you know? What does the job market look like? What are your chances of actually graduating? More transparency, more accountability, for institutions that are taking federal dollars is really necessary.

I wanted to ask you running out of time. But the big Tommy Tom, really, the abortion issue, you know, there’s been a lot of discussion around this. I know you ran as a pro choice candidate. I think another thing that some, to you on the left were mad at you about was kind of this vote about the broader military budget, you know, because it it included this Republican fix where it’s like, no, the military shouldn’t pay for people to travel to abortion to have access to abortion. I I what is your just take on that whole controversy, both at the Tommy Tuberville and and kind of what’s in the bill.

Yeah. I mean, so the way that billed Nyea, you know, it came to the floor is like, There’s the bill texts, and then all these, like, crazy amendments that came in. He’s, like, very toxic, like, Chip Roy now. And I voted against every one of the crazy amendments. But ultimately, we know, like, the legislative process is that it’s going to the Senate.

Where it’s gonna get cleaned up, and we’re gonna get a rational defense bill back. And so I ultimately felt like it’s a mistake to not fund our military into, like, this posture of, like, we’re gonna be torn apart and not fund our military and give the troops the raise that they deserve. So, you know, ultimately, I, you know, expect that we’ll get a cleaned up version back in the senate. And I look I look forward to voting on that. And, you know, like, cinema and Teverville talking about some kind of whatever.

We know that Biden’s never gonna sign a bill that actually restricts abortion access. It’s not fact based thinking.

And just the policy on the merits, it’s just insane.

Oh, yeah. It’s terrible. I mean, yeah.

I love this. We out abigail Spamberg on a couple months ago, and she was citing a positive thing with Chip Roy. And, like, now you’re slagging them. So I’m like, Chip Roy’s just catching strays on this podcast all the time. Okay.

You’ve got your child. We do a we do a rapid fire at the end. Two rapid fires, I’m gonna let you get back to parenting. Alright? Are you ready?

The first one everybody gets. Something that you’ve changed your mind about as a grown up.

Well, I didn’t think I was gonna join any ideological caucuses. And then I found this opportunity and did, and I really enjoyed the blue dogs and what it’s becoming, which I think is a very powerful. So that’s one thing. But, you know, six months in, it’s more about, like, learning more than necessarily changing opinions son.

I don’t know. Tell Jared to come hang out. I’m I’m very I’m also interested in in the stuff you guys are doing. Alright. The final one, on on the website for Dean’s Car Care.

It says, preventative maintenance is sexy. And so I’d like to close by asking what is the sexiest type of maintenance that you can do on a collar?

Changing your oil. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but change your oil. Tim, is it you?

Yes. It’s me.

I can’t tell you how many new cars I’ve seen blown up because people don’t change their oil. Check your oil regularly.

So I lost connection with congressman glues and k. Perez, right as I was being mocked for my inability to change oil or change a tire. Gonna say maybe that was on purpose. Maybe it was an accident. We’ll never really know.

I’m so appreciative, though. That, she came on the pod, find her super interesting, and we’ll see you on Wednesday for the next level with me and JBL and Sarah Longwell then in two Sunday, for our next special guest. Peace.