This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘How can Democrats combat Donald Trump?’
Gideon Rachman
Hello, and welcome to The Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast comes from Washington, DC. My guest is senator Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey.
President Donald Trump continues to issue a blizzard of controversial statements and executive orders. His political opponents often seem confused, even stunned. So how should the Democratic party take on Donald Trump?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Some of the most energetic opposition to Donald Trump is coming from the leftwing duo of senator Bernie Sanders and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, universally known as AOC.
News clip 1
A sea of people, shoulder to shoulder, outside LA city hall. The largest crowd so far for New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Bernie Sanders voice clip
There are people half a mile away.
Gideon Rachman
They’ve launched a Fight Oligarchy tour.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voice clip
Money in politics is the hand of oligarchy, Los Angeles.
Bernie Sanders voice clip
We’re fighting a president who undermines our constitution every day.
News clip 2
Both Sanders and AOC targeting President Donald Trump.
Gideon Rachman
But other Democrats, notably the California governor, Gavin Newsom, are taking a different approach.
Gavin Newsom voice clip
You are right. Unaccountable folks making a lot of decisions. And I don’t think that’s wrong, but yours isn’t much more.
Steve Bannon voice clip
You know what? I just had an idea. We should invite Elon.
Gideon Rachman
Engaging prominent Trump supporters like Steve Bannon in conversation.
Steve Bannon voice clip
Elon ought to take a California Doge, sit down with you so you can get the ground.
Gavin Newsom voice clip
We’ve been doing it for years . . . But our approach, Steve, is more like rego . . .
Gideon Rachman
So what is the right approach? As one of the newest members of the Senate, elected last November, Andy Kim brings fresh eyes to the problem. He’s a former U S diplomat and the first American of Korean descent to serve in the Senate. I began the conversation by asking senator Kim if Democrats are still searching for the best way to combat Trump.
Andy Kim
Yeah, well, look, I think the important thing to start with is understanding that the chaos that we see, that is Trump’s plan, that is intentional chaos, it is something that they hope overwhelms us. And I think on the Democrat side, I’ve really tried to think through how do we make sure that we are still building the core narrative that is necessary to be able to fight back against the current dangers, but also gearing up for the 2026 fight as well. You know, I was a candidate eight years ago when the last time that Trump was in the Oval Office, you know, how we were able to mobilise the fight back against that time was to make sure that we’re staying focused.
My mom used to tell me this saying when I was younger, she said, if you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing. And so I do think that the Democrats, while we need to make sure we’re addressing the wide breadth of what Trump is doing, we can’t give into the chaos. We have to make sure that we are focused in our message to the American people about what’s at stake.
So, for instance, in my town halls and the work that I’m doing in New Jersey, I often focus in on three things. One is about saving Medicaid and protecting our healthcare, stopping these tariffs and the high prices that Trump’s imposing on the American family, and exposing the corruption of this administration. And I know there’s lots of other issues and we’re gonna work on those, but in terms of a core message, those are the three that I have found really connect in with people, especially people who don’t live and breathe politics. So I do hope that the Democrats, I’m pushing the Senate Democrats and others to be able to make sure that we’re rallying around a core message, to be able to better communicate and to go on the offence.
Gideon Rachman
OK, well, I’d like to ask you about each of those priorities in more detail and also a bit about foreign policy because you’re one of the few, maybe the only ex-serving diplomats in the Senate, I think.
Andy Kim
Yeah, that’s right.
Gideon Rachman
But just while sticking to the generalities for now, it’s quite striking that Bernie Sanders and AOC, you know, their Fight Oligarchy rally, getting a lot of enthusiasm and some people sort of saying, well maybe that’s the way to go. You really need to be much more aggressive. On the other hand, you have Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, trying to engage some of the Trumpians, Steve Bannon, in kind of civil conversations, find maybe even some common ground. What are the merits or demerits of those two approaches?
Andy Kim
Well, look, I think we need all of the above. And I think I’ve learned that there is no one size fits all. And any time that the Democratic party has tried to find a one-size-fits-all message or approach, it’s failed. You know, I’m a father of a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old, two little boys, so I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Because I say, you know, let’s not play pee-wee soccer where we all just chase the ball. You know? There are different roles, different positions we can play. I think it’s good that we have energy at these big rallies and big events. But we also need to make sure we’re approaching it in different directions, because there’s a couple of different fights that we’re facing right now.
First and foremost, what we’re seeing with the Trump administration, the lawlessness that is happening, especially when we see others that are literally trying to basically rewrite how our constitution is founded, you know, there is a fight for our laws, a fight for our rules. On top of that, there is right now a fight for attention as well. You know, I’ve often said, you know, in the information world, information is not the scarcest resource. It’s attention. And we know Trump is unfortunately very good at getting attention and the Democrats, we need to make sure that we are fighting for that as well. And then another layer on top of that is not just a fight for our laws, a fight for our attention, but also a fight for ideas. It can’t just be what we’re against. We have to be putting forward a stronger vision of what we’re for, what it is that we’re fighting for, and put it up against what the Republican proposals are. If they are putting out their budget, we can’t just say we oppose that. What is it that we would want to see? And I think that that would be compelling to a lot of Americans.
Gideon Rachman
But I guess maybe the Sanders-AOC thing fits an emotional needle of a lot of Democrats and, you know, even non-partisan people are pretty outraged by some of what Trump is doing and feel you’ve really got to fight this with everything. And yet the Newsom approach says, well, maybe we should try and understand, you know, some of the Trump ideas, maybe even meet them halfway. I mean, surely it is a one or the other. You know, you either say these guys are sin and we’re against them or we’re going to try to maybe co-opt some of their ideas.
Andy Kim
Well, look, I can’t say I have a good understanding of what Newsom has been up to, but at least in terms of work that I’ve done over time is, you know, I was somebody, I was a Democrat that won a congressional district that Trump won twice. You know, so I thought about this a lot as somebody who, you know, in the year 2020, like Trump won my congressional district that year, but so did I. But there was only seven of us Democrats in the House that won districts that Trump won that year. And so I’ve deduced this a lot. You know, there is an element. Yes, you want to mobilise people who are very upset about what the Trump administration is doing when it comes to democracy, when it come to healthcare, etc. And we should be. But that is likely not enough for us to be able to have the kind of success that we need in 2026 to be able to win a gavel in the House of Representatives, hopefully in the Senate. So I just try to think through what is the coalition that we’re trying to build? The Obama coalition doesn’t exist any more in its fullest sense. You know, the Democrats cannot just win by replicating 2008, 2012.
Gideon Rachman
And the Obama coalition was what — man, women, minorities, college graduates?
Andy Kim
College graduates, yeah, more broadly. But like, you know, when we’re looking at this question about working families, not just white working class, but just more broadly, you know, the Asian-American community in New Jersey, elsewhere, we saw a lot of slippage and that’s something that we need to address. That takes work, that takes real investment. You know, and in my engagements with — whether it’s the Asian-American community, the Latino community, others — you’re not necessarily seeing them show up at these protests and these rallies right now. You got to try to engage them in a different way.
And so that requires real intentionality in terms of showing up. Not just the town halls I do openly, but the directed meetings that we can do to be able to target, to be able to engage. And that’s a level of sophistication that we don’t always see on the Democrat side in terms showing up to these communities. These are not communities where you can just win them over by blitzing digital ads and TV ads in the final two months of an election, the work needs to be put out there. But it isn’t binary in that way. It isn’t either or. I’ve seen how for me to be able to win the congressional district I did, I needed to both mobilise the base, but also be able resonate with small business owners, with working families that are desperately worried about whether or not they’re gonna be able to put food on the table.
Gideon Rachman
Coming to some of those bread-and-butter issues in a sec, but when we met in Munich back in February, you said to me that you thought that the real moment of crisis constitutionally would be if Trump refused to follow court orders. Have we reached that?
Andy Kim
Yeah, we’ve reached there and that has really put us in uncharted territories and we can see just how challenging this is at this point. So yes, we have reached it and unfortunately, we will probably continue to see Trump further digging in in that way. And when we’re in uncharted waters, it really does require us not just to think about ourselves as legislators and political leaders but we really do need a societal response here, and this is something that really should push us to think through and reimagine just the kind of work that we’re doing, not just contained within the walls of the Capitol, but more broadly.
So for instance, back in New Jersey, I really tried to think about how to build those coalitions. The big push right now is the fight to be able to save Medicaid. But people who are engaged in that fight, they’re also in parallel with those that are trying to stop these tariffs or trying to protect our constitution, this is all part of the same. So it’s unnerving. I just, you know, I never thought that I’d see our country at this type of precipice. And, you know, as you were saying, we met at the Munich Security Conference. I’m continuing to engage with a lot of the leaders that I met there. And you just from their perspective, I mean, it’s really humiliating to hear what other nations and leaders are thinking about the United States at this time. You know, one of them just literally told me, like, look, we can’t wait for you all to get your act together. You know we’re gonna continue to move on. They very much see this as a moment of American decline. And I’m still hoping we can arrest that slide and change course.
Gideon Rachman
You don’t sound very certain, hoping.
Andy Kim
Well, no, nothing is certain, and I think that that’s part of the hubris that has led to this moment. It’s like, we can’t just assume that America is on some teleological path towards greater prosperity and greater justice and equality. I think there is sort of this sense that, especially coming out from the 1990s and the end of the cold war, that America just, you know, we’re going to continue to do this for a long time to come.
You know, the prospects of decline is real. And look, it’s not just about what the United States is doing. This is a more multi-polar world than anything that America’s seen in a century. There’s greater competition. But what we’re seeing right now with Donald Trump is not just the dangers domestically, but the chaos and much of what we see internationally, to me, it is not chaos. I see a very coherent push by Trump and his administration to impose a neo-isolationism policy. That is really just trying to say that America first means America alone, that we are stronger by ourselves, and I just fundamentally disagree with that.
So yes, like I’m worried about this because unfortunately some of that has taken root. And I would hate to see us fall down that path of isolationism and one day wake up and realise that the rest of the world has just left us behind. That we thought we could be alone and be strong, but instead we’re alone and less safe, less prosperous. And that is unfortunately a real reality and unfortunately it’s a reality that my kids would have to live with and frankly I’m terrified about that prospect right now.
Gideon Rachman
And you worked also for USAID, didn’t you, which Trump has effectively destroyed. I mean, taking both that institution, but also the broader destruction of the kind of role that you want America to be playing, how easily is this gonna be reversed, if ever?
Andy Kim
Well, it’s not going to be easy. That’s why we need to win elections, that’s why we need to be able to gain back the levers of power. Otherwise all of this is just theoretical. And that’s, I think, something that’s become much more clear to me, especially when I was in the House of Representatives, cutting my teeth there, like power in the House of Representatives is binary, you either have it or you don’t. And I saw the difference that it makes when you have a gavel or not. That’s just a brute reality of the kind of democracy that we have. It’s not a sliding scale. It’s a not a gradient. The Senate is a little bit different, but it’s still very much the same in terms of who has a gavel or not.
But I was always taught, you fight on the battlefield on which you’re dropped, not the one that you wish you were dropped on. And so now we have to just deal with this and try to muster up as much power as possible to be able to change it. But it’s not just about that. It’s about the question of, well, when we get back power, how do we try to reassemble this? How do we reassemble it and not just, you know, make it seem like to the American people that we’re just trying to reassert a status quo that frankly a lot of Americans were frustrated with? They want to see reform. They want see an economy that works for everybody, not just the billionaires and the big corporations. And I think that that’s the kind of, again, fight for ideas that the Democratic party needs to show the rest of the country.
Gideon Rachman
I mean, and it’s easy to take aim at a lot of what Trump has done, and we’ll do this in a second. But I guess, you know, you said people want a change. And one change that it seems to me he has delivered is shutting down illegal immigration across the border. And isn’t that, in a sense, a kind of failure of the Democrats, that everybody wanted it done and Trump seems to have demonstrated, perhaps, by using brutal and maybe even illegal methods, but he’s done it?
And I’m struck, you know, I was in a session with Francis Fukuyama, he said you know one of the problems for the left generally — I think not just the American left — is that it can seem much more fixated on procedure than on results and that the right can say well we don’t really care about the procedure but we will give you results. And on immigration you can see they have done that.
Andy Kim
Well, no, because I think the question is: what is the actual goal? It’s not just shutting down the border for border’s sake. It’s about security. And that’s something I think a lot about as someone who’s been in national security my whole career. Yes, I want us to be, we are a sovereign nation. We should be able to have control over our . . . all of our borders — land, sea and air. And so yes, I do think that that’s something that we should assert, but that doesn’t then inherently mean that we are safe and secure. And we see that right now with just the equation that Trump has made between the border and immigration writ large.
You know, he is making us less secure, in my opinion, by burning bridges with our allies and our partners, by weaponising our immigration system and diluting rule of law and making it such that, you know, neighbours of mine who are not US citizens when they’re leaving the country, they’re literally giving me their flight information in case they get detained when they come back into the country because they’re worried about that. How does that make us more safe? I don’t feel more safe right now because again, there’s a lawlessness that’s out there, a sense that this president can just do whatever he wants and break as much and the rest of us just have to live with that. It is distracting us . . .
Gideon Rachman
What happened to the famous checks and balances? I mean, I’ve been astonished by how much Trump appears to be able to do just by signing a piece of paper in the Oval Office.
Andy Kim
Yeah. No, and look, you know, I think that this is something that we’ve seen an erosion of over decades. When you see how he’s been able to, for instance, on the tariffs, a perfect example, something that should be and has in the past been the purview of Congress. Yes, there has been some delegation of that to the executive for purposes, especially during war and conflict, but for the Trump administration to now just seize that and one man is now able to take on the entirety of our global trade system however he wants to.
And you see that the gavel that you get in Congress, the power that you have, it’s not inherent. It’s not just that you got to have to use it, you have to wield it. But unfortunately, someone like Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated his responsibility. You know, he has placed the legislature as a secondary branch of government to the executive. And I just, you know, that’s what I find so sad. And when you look at it, you wonder why is that happening? You realise, OK, well, in part because the Republican party in an official structure, it’s not actually a party any more. It’s been co-opted and taken over by the Maga movement. And I think that that was important for me to understand as someone who’s working alongside some of these people on a daily basis. And you see that when in the Senate, we have the ability to confirm appointments, yet someone like Secretary Hegseth, we know is not qualified to do the job. People know that. But there was such a fear to vote against him on the Republican side.
Gideon Rachman
And in fact, Senator Murkowski actually said she was scared.
Andy Kim
Yeah, and I think that that’s indicative of just the capture that has happened to the Republican party by this Maga movement, this idea that it demands not just loyalty, but fealty to Trump, to the executive. And that is something that I hope everybody understands across the political spectrum is wrong. I mean, we literally fought a war about that 250 years ago to not have to have someone like that. That, and you see this in the private sector right now, the shakedown that Trump is doing of law firms and businesses and demanding that they come to him with whatever offerings they have to let him ameliorate the problems for them. That’s just a grift, you know? It’s not just bullying, it’s just like straight-up corruption. And you know, that’s something again, like we need to make sure it’s front and centre for the American people to see.
Gideon Rachman
Isn’t it a slightly difficult one for you given that your predecessor as senator is currently doing 11 years in prison for corruption?
Andy Kim
Well, it’s not difficult for me because, like, I stood up against the corruption in New Jersey. I stood up to challenge my senator. And I think that that’s another example to what you said earlier about are there messages that can cut across a wide coalition? And for me, standing up against my own party in New Jersey, to stand up against the machine politics, that’s something that resonated with Democrats that were just tired of a political party that was more interested in brute power and patronage, but it was also something that was very attractive to independents and Republicans. I can’t tell you how many independents and Republicans would come up to me in New Jersey and tell me like, hey, look, we don’t agree with all of your policies, but we respect you for standing up against corruption, standing up against even your own party when you think they’re doing something wrong.
I think that that’s the kind of new politics that the American people are going to demand. Whatever comes out from this Trump era, I think is going to be very much focused on anti-corruption, on reform, on just saying like, we’re done with this broken politics. I mean, it’s like the most popular legislation I’ve ever introduced is legislation that would ban members of Congress, senior executive branch officials, judiciary officials from owning and trading individual stocks, for instance. I’m going to introduce it again here in the Senate.
But that is something where it gets to the fundamental concern that people have, which is that they don’t think that their elected officials are working for them, trying to improve their lives. They think that elected officials are in it for themselves or special interest or their friends. And sadly, when you see this memecoin — blatant corruption by Donald Trump, where he and his family are literally making hundreds of millions of dollars right now. He’s got a gala that he has put forward for the highest . . . you know, people who are buying his memecoin at the highest level. Like that’s corruption. I’ve honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen a more blatant example of corruption than what is unfolding right now.
But again, when there’s so much chaos and everyday, every 10 minutes there’s a new alert on my phone for something insane that this president has done, like, I think it gets lost. So again, we need to focus and really help people see like, hey, look, I know there’s 10mn things that you’re worried about, you know, but let me point out some of the ones that we think are gonna . . . (overlapping speech)
Gideon Rachman
And you mentioned tariffs and Medicaid. Let’s talk a bit about both of those. Do you think those are the two issues that really will cut through? Because essentially they make people poorer or, you know, take away their health.
Andy Kim
Well, it is cutting through. I mean, right now it’s small business week and like I can tell you small business owners that run the political spectrum are unanimous about their fury — I’ll use the word fury — over what’s happening with the tariffs. And just the economic sabotage that is happening to our country right now, like Trump is leading us into recession. It’s not just theoretical. People can see that. You know, they’re not going to fall for the, oh, that was Biden’s fault. No, like, you’re the one that created the tariffs. So yes, I see that.
With Medicaid, you know, I think Trump was hoping that Medicaid doesn’t have sort of a cogent voter base, like Social Security or Medicare, which are more senior. Medicaid, it’s low-income Americans, people with disabilities, seniors that have very significant problems. But I think what they fail to understand is that like, look, it’s a very large group of people and 2mn out of my 9mn constituents are on Medicaid. But it’s not just them. And this is what we had to hit home. I went back to New Jersey and I had this terrifying conversation with a hospital leader in New Jersey who was saying that Medicaid is such a large percentage of their reimbursements for their hospital that if there’s major cuts in Medicaid, this hospital might close down. And that’s gonna affect everybody, not just those on Medicaid.
Gideon Rachman
What is actually planned for Medicaid? Because some people will say oh this is a scare, Trump will never do that. I mean . . .
Andy Kim
Well, you know, that’s very much up for debate right now and this is why now is the time to raise the concerns. Because the Republicans are feeling the heat in the same way that Trump reversed himself on the tariffs, which I thought was the most important moment for this fight against what he’s doing because we saw him actually reverse himself because he was feeling the pressure.
Gideon Rachman
Not completely.
Andy Kim
Not completely, but a major part of that, right? And I think that gave a lot of exposure to the fact that, oh, wait, you know, he is still able to be brought down by gravity, right? And same thing with Medicaid, it requires people to get out and speak out about that. Not just those on Medicaid, but recognising that this is going to impact all of us, affect all of our costs of living. And you have Republicans that are now very wary of this. They are worried about touching this third rail of Medicaid now in ways that they weren’t just a couple of weeks ago. And so I do think that that needs to grow, that snowball needs to get larger. And I’m hopeful that we’ll actually be able to stop the Republicans from putting forward proposals that will gut Medicaid in the ways that we’re fearful of.
Gideon Rachman
Yeah, so it sounds like passively for slightly alarming reasons, but the Democrats will have a lot to work with come the midterm elections, which is still a long way away, 18 months or so. But are you confident that the midterms elections will be free and fair?
Andy Kim
Look, I can’t say anything for certain right now. I will say that I know that there were a lot of concerns about the Maga movement trying to put people into certain types of positions for the 2024 election, whether it’s secretary of state positions or polling station. I did not see any serious violations. So the fact that elections are managed at the state and local level, it’s not something where we can see sort of the federal government being able to be so directly heavy-handed, like what Elon Musk has done with Doge.
But do I have concerns? Yes, I have concerns. I think that that’s more of a reason why, again, the American people need to stand up, pay attention. In New Jersey, for instance, we have a governor’s race happening this year. So if people are concerned about the elections, about our democracy, well, look, I hope they think about that when it comes to the governor’s race because the governor will appoint the next secretary of state who will oversee the elections in 2026 for the state of New Jersey. So look, it’s scary. It’s difficult right now, but I wouldn’t be doing this work if I didn’t think that there was still hope, that there’s still ways in which we can fight back. From the experience we had winning back the House in 2018, I still think that we absolutely can have the kind of credible elections we need to and be able to win back control.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Gideon Rachman
That was senator Andy Kim of New Jersey ending this edition of The Rachman Review. Thanks for listening and please join me again next week.
