Oregon Senator Ron Wyden on How Democrats Can Regain Influence
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is no stranger to wildfires or tough fights with Republicans. He's represented Oregon in the U.S. Senate for three decades, championing legislation on the environment, health care and tax reform. We'll

We'll hear how he plans to operate within a Republican-controlled chamber as the president-elect's controversial nominees face Senate confirmation hearings and as Trump threatens conditions on federal disaster aid to California. Join us after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Confirmation hearings for Trump's nominees are underway in the U.S. Senate, where hearings just ended for the president-elect's controversial pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth,

Meantime, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has confirmed a 25th death in the now week-long firestorm in the region.

Here to talk about all this and more and how Democrats should handle the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress is Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the second most senior Senate Democrat, who also has a new book called It Takes Chutzpah, How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change. Senator Wyden, welcome to Forum. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you.

You know, with Los Angeles experiencing these devastating wildfires, potentially the nation's costliest natural disaster, and with Oregon, of course, no stranger to the heavy toll of wildfires.

You must have strong feelings about what's happening here in Southern California, Senator. I do, and there's something else that is very timely. You have seen a variety of politicians say, well, we're going to tie any help for California to a whole host of conditions. And that would set a tremendous precedent for the whole nation. And for example, I can't believe...

as we are talking on this program, that you don't have people in the insurance business in Florida really very worried about this because this is going to set a big precedent for all future disasters. And of course, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, what we have historically said

is when it comes to disasters, we don't do politics. Period. Full stop. We're there for those communities where all Americans are more than 300 million of us. And if these people on the far right

are talking about something seriously to set new conditions on aid to California. This is going to set a big precedent so that in hurricane country and tornado country, in addition to fire country, people are really going to say, what in the world is going on here?

Yeah, so that's a national precedent you're talking about, the fact that you can politicize disasters, that you can not put disaster or give disaster aid to states, even if they are blue states, for example, states that did not vote for you. Some of these people who are interested in this are for states' rights if they think the state is right. And if they don't, then so much for states' rights.

Do you think Trump will do that? Do you think he will withhold disaster aid or put conditions on them in a way that would be very damaging? Well, he certainly talked about it in the past with respect to restrictions on California of various sorts. So I think we've seen discussion out of a number of legislators here in the last couple of days. And so you have to take that seriously. And that's why I mentioned

If you're in the insurance business in Florida right now, you should be getting to your United States senators and say, you better oppose this because this would really be bad news for us in hurricanes. Well, I guess that's my question. Where is the public concern about this potential crisis?

course of action, right? Where, if this would be a policy, or a precedent, as you say, where disasters are handled in such a politicized way, where is the public outrage about it? I feel like at this moment with this that's happening, this back and forth that's happening between Newsom and Trump, I'm not seeing it yet. Political change, in my view,

is rarely top-down, and it's almost always bottoms-up. And that's why I mentioned insurance people in Florida and people who are handling hurricanes in the Midwest in addition to fire. I think they're going to start saying, look, before this country walks back our commitment to handling disasters without politics, I think people are going to say, not so fast.

So, Senator Wyden, you've sponsored legislation known as the National Prescribed Fire Act and have repeatedly introduced it. The bill has never been voted on. Why? We've gotten a little bit of help on this through the bipartisan infrastructure fund bill. But first of all, what's going on in California tends to involve brush funding.

in this case, in particular, as opposed to traditional forestry. But yes, I think the basic thesis is you need more prevention and you need to go in there with a science-driven approach, particularly during colder weather, so it just doesn't get hot and dry continually. And then you have a lightning strike or somebody drops a match in our part of the world and suddenly you have an inferno. In terms of the West,

These are not your grandfather's fires. They're bigger, they're hotter, they're more powerful. You've obviously seen that in California. We in Oregon have seen it with fires leaping rivers. And we used to have a fire season that was sort of a week for a little period at the end of July overlapping into August. Now all of a sudden we're dealing with this year round.

You say our issue, and especially in this particular fire, has been highly flammable brush and scrub. So are you saying that your National Prescribed Fire Act would not necessarily help L.A. or what L.A. is facing?

I think that what's hit California with the speed of the winds, for example, is a natural disaster. The kinds of approaches that I and others have advocated helps to mitigate against those natural disasters. But I don't think anybody should understate the amount of damage that is being done through the concept of a natural disaster and particularly the speed of the winds.

So how can federal lawmakers better support states like California and Oregon, you know, grappling with this devastating wildfire and with the constant threat of it? Well, quaint idea. But what legislators can do is follow the time-honored concept that these are disasters.

Every area of the country gets them, some more than others. We aren't going to play politics with it. Period. End of discussion.

So every part of the country can do it. And the reason I've made the case to you the way I have is that I think as people start to get their arms around some of these various ideas, I think setting a precedent like somebody is trying to do with California in terms of conditions will come back and harm people in hurricane country, in tornado country, and other parts of the country that also have disasters.

So what can you, what can Democratic lawmakers do if... First thing we can do is get aid out to California without all of the political, as my dad used to say, razzmatazz. He says, what's all this razzmatazz going on in Congress? And it's really his code for, you know, delay. What we can do

And it's always a little bit more boring to follow precedent and old rules, but it's sure important here. If there's a departure to basically politicize the rulemaking process and set up a set of standards for California, it's going to ripple all the way through the country.

Right. Well, President Biden has, of course, approved disaster aid and it's supposed to be coming. But the president has wide authority, as I understand it, to withhold aid and so on. I mean, what will you do if he does, in fact, stop the aid, if Trump, in fact, does stop the aid? Well, first of all, my hope is that Republican senators...

will share my view. And we're starting to talk to legislators of both political parties. But, you know, Florida certainly has had, you know, its whole array of, you know, hurricanes recently. They've got Republican senators, Republican governor. I hope they're going to see the threat I'm describing of setting such a flawed precedent involving California. We're talking with

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden. Republicans now control both the Senate and the House, and Donald Trump is about to take office amid incredibly challenging situations for the country and, of course, this state. And listeners, I invite you.

To join the conversation with your questions for Senator Wyden about what we're facing these next four years in his view, what questions you have about his 30 years in the Senate, what he's witnessed and contending with now, and what you hope the Senate will prioritize, you can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on our social channels, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, XRack, KQED Forum. You can call us at 866-733-6786.

866-733-6786.

And then more broadly, Senator, I know that you have championed legislation on the environment in multiple ways. And there are a lot of concerns, especially among Californians, about whether meaningful climate legislation is even possible in the next four years, the rollbacks that are potentially on the horizon related to climate. Talk about how you are thinking about that. Let me give your listeners a little bit of a catch up. I'm the author of the Clean Energy Tax Credits.

which passed in the summer of 2022. And this is the biggest investment in fighting climate change in American history.

more than $400 billion. And I set out to try to throw the energy provisions of the tax code into the garbage can. And we got pretty damn close. You know, what we have is a new kind of focus where the more you reduce carbon, you know, the bigger your tax savings and a brand new approach called technological neutrality, where we say, look,

Nobody knows what the big carbon reducers are going to be like 30 years from now in America. So let's create this kind of new lane that encourages science and innovation. Those two parts passed in my book,

It takes chutzpah. You referenced it. Now we have a whole chapter describing how we did it. And I'm particularly proud because it shows the value of one of my run's rules of chutzpah, which is play the long game.

You know, we had decades of efforts to have cap and trade to deal with climate or to have carbon pricing arrangements, a kind of carbon pricing or regulatory kind of models. And after cap and trade went down in 2010, I basically sort of went up to the attic and spent almost a year reading everything I can get my hands on in terms of how to break the gridlock.

And what the law I wrote does is arguably one of the most important things I've done in public life. So then these next four years, I mean, what kind of climate change?

you know, progress, climate change related legislation or progress can be hope for. We just have 20 seconds before the break, of course. First of all, we have 18 Republican members of the House of Representatives, conservative, all being in touch with the Trump administration saying, don't get rid of these clean energy tax credits. They're too important to my district and state. We'll have more with Ron Wyden after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking with Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden this hour, former chair of the Senate Finance Committee, now the ranking Democrat on that committee. He also serves on the Budget, Intelligence and Energy and Natural Resources committees and is the second most senior Senate Democrat. He has a new book called It Takes Chutzpah, How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change.

And you, our listeners, are invited to join the conversation with your questions for Senator Wyden at 866-733-6786, email address forum at kqed.org. Find us on our social channels at KQED Forum and on Discord. And I want to get into the Senate confirmation hearings that are happening right now, but I believe Brandon in San Mateo has a question about the fires. Brandon, join us.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Mina. So I would like to ask your guest. There was a very I think some people listen to our regularly here. Ron Johnson, the governor, I think he's a senator from Wisconsin. He was dueling with Steve Inskeep this morning.

and putting forth the rationale for the basis for withholding the California wildfire funding. And he was pointing out and talking about, well, back in the 1900s, they allowed a lot of grazing of farm animals. And I think something we always need to go back to,

I was cheering for Steve to just remember this and point this out. Anybody could Google this, what year we hit 3 billion people globally. It was 1927. To point out that techniques when population was below 3 billion, and you could re-listen,

should be applied today when we crossed eight billion in December of 22 is just complete apples and oranges. So I just think that some of this pushback, and I would ask the current guest senator to speak with your colleague in Wisconsin, just remind him that it's a completely different apples to oranges comparison to think that techniques of letting animals graze

But fundamentally, I agree with your guest, and I think all rational KQED listeners are agreeing that setting a precedent, a horrible precedent of withholding support in such urgent times, I mean, we could fault the people who are living in the path of tornadoes and insist on rebuilding over and over and over in the path of tornadoes. But that's their home, and they're our fellow Americans. We help them.

I think everybody needs to adopt that. Brandon, thanks for calling in. And of course, Senator Wyden. Brandon is right to point out that the idea of putting conditions on federal aid is being echoed by some Senate Republicans.

The caller, Brandon, is being way too logical for much of Washington, D.C. I mean, certainly the growth of the population is a factor. I just hope that Republican senators at the end of the day

It so often is a substantial portion of interest for your constituents, so you can explain it. I don't think people are going to be able to stand up in Florida or in the Midwest where there's hurricanes and tornadoes and say, look, we're going to make your life harder

when there's a natural disaster because something that happened in California really wasn't thoroughly reviewed, and we just decided to put these conditions on it and unravel an important national precedent, which is we're all in it together when it comes to national disasters. And I do hope that at the end of the day, I've already begun to talk to a lot of these scientists

elected officials who are in conservative states. They're in red parts of the country. They're used to dealing with disasters. And I'm hopeful that the arguments I'm making for not setting a deeply flawed precedent. I mean, sometimes you do something wrong and there aren't many consequences. And in the broad sweep of Western civilization, just because you made a mistake, it's not

going to be one of the big events. This is going to have huge consequences because if you tie these conditions, these arbitrary conditions, no hearings, nobody's really thought through, and suddenly it becomes the precedent for other natural disasters, this country will regret it. I'm going to do everything I can to fight it.

The Senate is center stage this week with confirmation hearings. Senator Wyden held yesterday for Pete Hegseth, of course, Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Defense. That hearing was very interesting.

What do you think of the way Democrats confronted Hexeth on his lack of experience about his conduct with regard to women? I didn't get a chance to follow the entire hearing, but I know my colleagues are trying to be objective about this. They're looking at his management experience, for example, which is virtually nonexistent.

and the past history and the fact that we're basically revising the advise and consent powers of the United States Senate. This was something the founding fathers thought was really important, but now we have a situation where the FBI isn't briefing most of the senators on what is really going on and what the FBI knows. And remember what is really at issue here.

The reluctance of the FBI to actually give the Senate this information has got to be considered in the context of the fact that in a few days, these FBI folks will be working for Donald Trump. These types of things. So one of the goals of your book is to encourage readers to engage in serious political action to stop this country from falling into what you call the abyss of

of fascism. And when you talk about some of the things that you are seeing that are so concerning for you, I think about how falling into the, quote, abyss of fascism is not likely to be some big, obvious, singular event. It will be more like these sort of chipping away actions of democratic norms and freedoms, potentially unrecognizable until after they're gone, really, right? So I'm wondering if

You know, what can be done? What actions people are supposed to take in light of the concerns that you raise? Well, here's an example. I'm going to be going home to Oregon here in a day or so, and I'm going to be having town hall meetings with my constituents. I've had more than 1,100 of them when I was chosen to represent Oregon in the United States Senate. Nobody had ever done this to agree with

to have an open to everyone town hall meeting in each Oregon county each year. And it's particularly important to get out

and be available to constituents to talk about just these kinds of issues. So I would encourage listeners, the first thing I would do is say at the federal level, and remember I'm recommending ideas for government at every level, for the private sector, for philanthropy, and talking about chutzpah, this indispensable instrument in my book, With Ron's Rules, how you can take your inner chutzpah and sort of polish it with the rules that

And nothing is more important than holding your members of Congress more accountable and insist that you have transparent government and that they're available. Not as many do these meetings now. And I think it's one of the first things that is appropriate, given your question, about making sure that folks are informed at the local level. Well, with regard to Republican senators and Pete Hegseth,

You know, being put in a position of leading a massive defense department with an $850 billion budget and 3 million employees, they seem quite unswayed by concerns about credible accusations of sexual misconduct, excessive drinking, lack of

competency comments about how women should not be in combat. Even Senator Joni Ernst, a combat veteran and sexual assault survivor, just came out last night to say that she's a yes on HEGSETH.

What do you think we need to understand about why Republicans have aligned so squarely behind? Well, first of all, and I'm not going to speak for Republicans. I don't think Republicans are sitting there waiting for me to give my thoughts. But I think first and foremost, one of the big concerns is having a primary election if they haven't gone along with Donald Trump, because Donald Trump constantly says that.

He often says to Democrats in the past, you know, we're coming after you if we don't, you know, see you agreeing with us. But there are a number of Republicans in states like North Carolina and Iowa, their whole

group of them that are concerned about the prospect of a primary if they don't stand with Donald Trump. And I make the point in my book that the way to counter that is to be for the right policies. The best politics are the right policies and then getting out and being proactive and explaining them to your constituents. But I get...

what some Republicans are worried about in terms of prospective primaries. And that's what you get an election certificate to do, is to do the right thing and get out and involve your constituents. And my experience is if you are doing the right thing and you explain it to people, sometimes even when they don't share your view in all the particulars, they say, good, you're doing your job the way it ought to be done. There is reporting that with Ernst saying that she would confirm Hegseth that his...

confirmation is all but certain. But do you think that's true? Well, it's clear that there's going to be a push for additional information. I continue to just find it jaw-dropping that we're continuing to try to justify having hearings when most of the committee can't see the crucial documents. And I think that

We understand why the FBI might be sensitive, but the founding fathers were pretty sensitive, too. And they thought that the advice and consent power was one of the most crucial powers they were dealing with. We're talking with Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who has a new book out called It Takes Chutzpah, How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change. He's served in the Senate for three decades and on many powerful committees, including serving on the Finance Committee, Congress.

on the Budget Intelligence and Energy and Natural Resources Committee. And you, our listeners, are sharing your questions, comments for Ron Wyden, and also what you'd like to see from Democrats with regard to working with a Republican-controlled Congress and with the Trump administration. 866-733-6786, the number. We're on Blue Sky X, Facebook, Instagram, and threads. We're at forum at kqed.org. If you want to email us,

Lorraine writes, California is one of the four states that contribute the highest amount of federal tax money. If the new administration chooses to politicize disaster relief aid or withhold it altogether, California should reduce payment of federal taxes to cover its disaster recovery needs. Another listener writes, I love the title of your book.

How did you come up with it? Senator, how do you define chutzpah in a way that because I get to people associating chutzpah, you know, if it's bold and audacious with our norm breaking president as well, you know?

Well, first of all, I'm happy to explain it. Somebody came up to me. I went to school on a basketball scholarship, dreaming of playing in the NBA. It was a ridiculous idea because at 6'4", I was too small and I made up for it by being slow. And somebody came up to me and said, Ron, I'm really looking forward to reading your book.

Hoops-pa, because it's going to be all about basketball. It sounds great. I know you were a star in school or some such thing. So chutzpah is Yiddish, and it means to me that grit and nerve and being willing to take on the odds is really fundamental. And I consider chutzpah to be the indispensable instrument

to producing good for individuals and for the world. And in fact, some of our most striking moments, some of the moments that we're proudest of. Abe Lincoln certainly had a lot of chutzpah. Martin Luther King had a lot of chutzpah. The Founding Fathers had a lot of chutzpah. Wilbur and Orville Wright had plenty of chutzpah. So much of what has been important today

was basically set in motion by people who had nerve and grit and were willing to show all the skeptics that they could make breakthroughs that were good for our country. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, you'll have a chance to question Tulsi Gabbard. Is that right? First thing we got to do with Tulsi Gabbard

is find out what exactly her views are. For example, she was a longtime opponent of FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And apparently a couple of days ago after talking to Republicans, she just did an about-face. So I'm going to want to figure out what her position is and why.

And Republican Senator John Barrasso said Sunday that the confirmation hearings for Gabbard are being held up by a, quote, paperwork problem with the Office of Government Ethics. What can you tell us about that? Well, the ranking Democrat is Senator Mark Warner, a veteran and fair individual. And I've seen

nothing but cooperation on our side. We have a bipartisan committee we historically have, and we have rules in terms of the documents that ought to be available. And Senator Warner feels they haven't, and I share his view. So do you know when hearings will happen? And would you say she is in jeopardy at all? She certainly does not have

the traditional experiences of a person in this position. So let's see what happens at the hearing, but I just want to get to the bottom of where she stands on these big issues. We have some extraordinarily important questions right now. Salt typhoon, for example, you know, you got the Chinese climbing all over our telephones and the like, figuratively, and the

The reality is one of the most conservative members of the Senate said this is the biggest hack in American history. And I'm trying to get a law passed to change it. So we've got high stakes matters. And that's why the committee is so important. Let me go to Philip in Oakland, who's on the line. Hi, Philip. Join us.

Thank you. Yes, Senator, first of all, thank you for your service. And I have a question. I'm almost 75 and paid attention to politics most of my life. I've never seen a period like this, even remotely like this. And I'm wondering if the character...

of the American people, well, our representatives in the Senate and the House, if it has changed to a degree that there's not an underlying desire for doing the right thing for the American public anymore,

Certainly on the Republican side, do you feel that or do you feel like there's still an underlying current of ethics that may save us? I do believe, and I say this in the book, that I believe that America is made up of individuals who,

who get up in the morning and overwhelmingly want to do the right thing. Now, certainly there are outliers, and I get that. The challenge in politics is we are much more divided than divided.

during the years when I was coming up. For example, there were 10 or 12 Republicans in the United States Senate who consistently worked with people like myself on some of the ideas that we're talking about. Now we're down to just a couple. Sometimes people say one, and I get that. And there are a variety of reasons for...

the kind of heading back to their individual corners kind of politics, social media is a part of it. But that's why in the book I talk about principled bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is not taking each other's crummy ideas. It's about taking good ideas. And I was talking to the moderator here

about my work in getting the clean energy tax credits, biggest investment in history in fighting climate change. Well, what we have always said is that both sides have got a valid point.

A number of senators believe, as I do, that we have to have a lower carbon future. Other senators believe that it's important to hold down energy prices because households are getting hit so hard by it. I agree with that too. So what I did was write a bill that reflected both.

We're going to have a lower carbon future. We understand that there's a lot more to do besides this bill, but this broke 50 years' worth of gridlock, and it's holding down energy prices when you're using heat pumps and a variety of things that have been shown to lower prices, and there's tax incentives for it.

We're talking with Senator Ron Wyden, hearing how Democrats might make progress in a Republican-controlled Congress, given the fact that Senator Wyden has worked in the Senate for three decades. His new book is It Takes Chutzpah, and we'll have more after the break. I'm Mina Kim. ♪

Hi, I'm Bianca Taylor. I'm the host of KQED's daily news podcast, The Latest. Powered by our award-winning newsroom, The Latest keeps you in the know because it updates all day long. It's trusted local news in real time on your schedule. Look for The Latest from KQED wherever you get your podcasts and stay connected to all things Bay Area in 20 minutes or less.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Republicans now control both the Senate and the House, and Donald Trump is about to take office. The situation is challenging for Democratic lawmakers, and with us is Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who served in the Senate for three decades, the second longest serving Democrat in the Senate chamber.

and also former chair of the Senate Finance Committee. His new book is It Takes Chutzpah, How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change. And you, our listeners, are sharing your thoughts and questions about what we're facing these next four years with Senator Wyden, what you hope to see the Senate prioritize, how you would like to see Democrats work with Republicans.

You can call us at 866-733-6786. You can email us, forum at kqed.org. You can post on our social channels at KQED Forum. And Senator, to the caller's point just before the break, too, just about what we're seeing as something different, you have talked about how this crisis

Congress, this Senate is a new type of establishment, is a MAGA infrastructure in a way that is different from the establishment of your earlier years and your history of working with Republicans. So what specifically do you think Democrats need to do differently if they are trying to get good things passed or if they are dealing with some extreme elements,

in the chamber? Well, the first priority for me is dealing with the economy. Like at these town hall meetings that I'm going to have this weekend in Oregon,

People will talk to me about what's important to them. And the second word of what they're discussing is almost always bill. It might be a medical bill. It might be an energy bill. It might be a housing bill. It might be an insurance bill. Too many people, particularly as we've been wrestling with inflation, are walking on economic tightropes, trying to balance a food bill against a fuel bill and a fuel bill against something else.

and they can't keep up. And I've told my colleagues on social issues, and I talk about this in the book, I'm kind of a live and let live Democrat, but I was the first in the Senate to support marriage equality. And I did it with one sentence. I said, if you don't like gay marriage, don't get one.

And I think it's important to keep the focus on these economic priorities. And I think that's been part of the challenge for Democrats in the last year. Well, this listener on Discord writes, please have the senator campaign to have Democrats do a weekly podcast. Seriously, the Republicans do this kind of stuff. One of the biggest issues in Democratic politics and politics is...

And politics is, in general, is visibility. The lack of it really hurt Biden and Harris for that matter. Senator, how do you explain Trump's relatively decisive win, winning nearly 50% of all voters in this last election?

Well, as Gerald Ford found out many years ago, President Gerald Ford, you do not whip inflation. And sort of that really was the trigger kind of issue. And I think on some big issues like food prices, it really wasn't clear enough.

what Democrats were up to. For example, I was one of the ringleaders in the Albertsons-Kroger, blocking the Albertsons-Kroger's merger, which would have been the biggest food merger in American history. There wasn't enough visibility and talk on it because I think it's time to dust the antitrust laws off and apply them to the food business. And when people asked me what ought to be done, I said, look,

I'm the chairman of the Finance Committee, which I was then. I believe deeply in markets. Sometimes you have problems with markets. You can have supply chain issues, a variety of other things. And so you've got to have guardrails for consumers.

And then people would ask me, well, how do you do that? And I said, first thing you do, look at the states, because 30 of them have some kind of guardrails. And people kind of looked at me when I explained it. And they said, boy, this is like practically inventing toilet paper or something. This is a remarkable kind of idea. And I said, well, we're trying to get it out. Spread the word. Well, Chris Wright, thank you for your service, Senator Wyden. As a member of finance and budget committees, how will you work with Russell Vogt?

Of course, that's Trump's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget. Well, his Project 25 effort certainly is full of extreme positions. So we'll see how many of those positions he continues to defend when he comes up for hearings in the Budget Committee. I go to Colin in San Francisco. Hi, Colin, you're on. Good morning. Senator, my question is about the Lake and Riley Act. I understand that Majority Leader, then Majority Leader Schumer,

declined to put that measure up to a vote. Now it apparently looks like it's going to pass with the support of at least seven Democratic senators. The bill has some measures that seem pretty draconian, including mandating deportation proceedings and detention for undocumented persons who are even arrested for shoplifting.

And secondly, what's the case for Congress continuing to fund sanctuary jurisdictions in an environment where more people voted for the candidate behind mass deportations? Let's try to unpack the state of play. And I'm not going to put everybody to sleep with Senate procedure, but I think there's got to be a little bit of context here. In the last Congress, there were a group of us

Democrats and Republicans who said, let's get together and put a bipartisan bill on the floor. And we were proceeding very well. And I said, look, there are ideas in this bipartisan proposal that I wouldn't necessarily be for, but we've got to get it moving. So Donald Trump, who of course was running for president, barked and suddenly the Republicans vanished.

That was the end of it. This big effort to be bipartisan. Chris Murphy and very conservative Republican James Lankford.

And many of us said all through the campaign season, this was part of the problem, that people weren't given the freedom to actually go out on the floor and have a debate to actually talk about the priority issues. So that is what the Senate has now voted to do. I have voted for it, to send this topic out on the floor. There are parts of this bill that I don't like. There are parts that I would like to reform.

But that's, heaven forbid, what constitutes this effort to come up with a principled, bipartisan approach. Sometimes you call it bipartisan, but it's really just trying to collect an ideological trophy. I think there are opportunities here to bring both sides together, but it's not going to be easy. And it's certainly not going to happen without a big debate, and that's what the Senate has voted to do.

How are you planning to build bipartisan support for a bill or for something you introduced in September? It was a Supreme Court reform bill which would expand the court to 15 justices. Here's the state of the Supreme Court debate. For most of my time in public life,

The Supreme Court has been treated with great reverence. Usually like 70%, sometimes more, Americans agree with the court and they understand its role in our unique system of government and it gets very high approval. In the last couple of years, that approval rate has dropped dramatically by something, I believe, in the vicinity of 20 percentage points. And I think it's because there is a sense that

that the court, particularly in terms of justices taking trips and the like from people who have business before the court and are enormously affluent, that the court has really lost some ethical moorings. I mean, you have the justices who said that they would appreciate the Roe versus Wade deal,

history, and immediately they came to the court and voted to throw it aside. So I think that there are some substantial ethical questions. I've offered a significant proposal that would ensure that over several terms, so that you could have several different presidents, we would add some justices to the court.

And is it getting a reception? So far, the election is still being discussed in terms of what the real messages were. But I will tell you, I'll be hearing at meetings that I'm having this upcoming weekend in my home state, people wanting more balance in the Supreme Court. They're part of

The group that have had some real questions about ethical rules and the like, John Roberts, made a statement here just a couple of days ago blaming the court's problems on all kinds of external factors. And I think they ought to be looking at themselves.

This listener writes, you are involved with the passage of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. I should tell listeners better known as the 26 words that invented the internet. This listener wants to know how it should be updated. Well, there's not a law on the books that you can't improve. And what I do believe is you want to make sure that you're

New ideas are not going to create more problems than you have today. For example, I think it's well understood that most of us get very angry at some of the filth that's on the internet.

I've got children, when I wrote this, had very young children. And so often people say, what are we going to do about the internet? Let's go after Section 230. That's the reason we have so much hate speech and filth on the internet. And at one point, the New York Times wrote a long story about this and said, Senator Ron Wyden and Chris Cox are responsible for so much hate speech.

Usually I don't do this, but I looked at this and I said, this is just factually inaccurate. I pointed out that more than 90% of the stuff that Americans don't like on the internet has nothing to do with Section 230. It's about the First Amendment and the First Amendment right to free speech. So we've got to

make sure that we're looking at the real issues. And I continue to believe that the heart of Section 230 is still very valid, and that's that it gives voice to people who don't have money and power and clout. The big guys can take care of themselves. In fact, we saw Mark Zuckerberg toadying up to Trump just in the last few days in terms of some of the things that suggest to me he's interested in reconsolidating, like we had before the internet, all the big companies.

We're talking with Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, author of It Takes Chutzpah, How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change. And Senator Wyden will be speaking at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Saturday, January 25th at 6 p.m. So you can see him there. And let me remind listeners, you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

So the book, Senator, has Ron's 12 Rules of Chutzpah. And you mentioned this one, in a world where everyone thinks and acts for the short term, always play the long game. What's an example of this? Well, the clean energy tax credits were a long game. That was about as long as you can get. There'd been gridlock for 54 years. And I figured out how to break the gridlock. I'm really proud of the fact

that it got us started on tackling climate change. There's so much more to do. We're looking at a border adjustment kind of pricing system because some countries try to undercut the fact that our companies and our businesses are trying to do the right thing. So playing the long game is very key and important.

One of the other kinds of principles is I call it coaching is leading. I talk about some of my history with basketball and what I learned from my coaches. I use a lot of it in the Senate when I'm trying to work on a bill like reducing the role of middlemen in American healthcare. We've got these people called pharmacy benefit managers. We've got practices like prior authorization, which just infuriate people who are trying to get coverage that they've paid for.

The 12 rules are basically the kind of principles that I've found that no matter what walk of life you're in, you can use to improve your world and sometimes the bigger world. What about how it relates to your fight for access to the abortion drug Mifepristone? It's how you open the book. Well, Mifepristone is part of rule number one. If you want to get

get stuff done. You got to make some noise. And Mephepristone, I had the first hearings on the medical alternative to surgical abortion. We had to fight people like Jesse Helms, who was the legendary far-right anti-abortion crusader from North Carolina, one of the senators. And

We held off George Herbert Walker Bush, if you can believe it. Bill Clinton came in and he raised the same point that's relevant today, which is we ought to make these decisions on the basis of science, not politics. And it also shows that government isn't particularly linear. It doesn't just go from point A to point B. It makes...

various stops along the way. And in many cases now, I'm fighting for the same thing that I fought for 20 years ago. Right. The effort to reverse the FDA's approval of Mifepristone. It's true. I don't know if I find solace or just accept the fact that it does feel like change is very elliptical. It's sort of the word that... Well, and people now say, well, what about so-and-so's leaving the country and just giving up? And I say...

That's not what the founding fathers would want. The founding fathers would say, "We have something special here. We have an idea.

We're going to stay and fight, and we're going to work for the kinds of things I'm trying to lay out in the book. Maybe people have different ideas, but they can lend themselves to the concept of saying we're going to be willing to try to find some common ground. We're going to be bold. We're going to have grit, and we're going to build on some of the tremendous successes. And if Abe Lincoln were here today, I think the last thing Abe Lincoln would want is for us to say, would give up and quit. Let me go to Rob in San Francisco. Hi, Rob. You're on.

Thank you. Oh, my God. This guy is great. I wish everybody that was in Congress were like you, because you actually talk like a regular, normal person with some common sense. And I'm so glad to hear that you blocked the merger between Albertson's supermarket, because that was going to be horrible for consumers. But it reminds me of how

disillusioned I'm becoming with government. And the perfect example is the reform of immigration. Number one, I think it's really influenced way too heavily, like everything, by special interest groups and lobbyists. The big ag and big businesses want to keep

illegal immigrants illegal so they don't have to pay them very much and they won't complain about working conditions. And so that's been guiding the lack of reform in immigration for years. But to top it off, you throw on Donald Trump, who came in before the election and said, don't you dare vote for something. I want to take credit for something, or at least I want to use it as a campaign issue. And that, on

On top of that is making it feel like, is there going to be anything meaningful happening in Congress anymore with these two things looking over everyone's shoulder?

And Rob, thanks. What I hope, Rob, and I touched on it maybe before you got on, is that there's a recognition that political change usually doesn't start in D.C. And that's because of what you said, these lobbies and powerful interest groups. So it doesn't usually start in D.C. and trickle down. It's got to be just the opposite. It's got to be grassroots up change.

as people really see what it means for their communities, their friends, their neighbors. And I continue to believe that's principled bipartisanship. We didn't talk too much about health care, but that's one of my big interests. I was director of the Senior Citizens of the Great Panthers for seven years. I think when it comes to health care, apropos of your point about how both sides have been part of the challenge, I think on health care, Democrats are right.

Unless you get everybody covered, you're not going to have enough cost containment. There'll be too much cost shifting. Republicans also have a valid point, and that is that we need a vibrant private sector, particularly in terms of cures and therapies and medical breakthroughs. So you try to bring the two together, which is what I've done, and I write about it in It Takes Chutzpah, then you can make progress.

So I want to ask you about your eighth rule, pay attention to your friends because they can be far more unpredictable than your enemies. Where did that come from? And sorry, Senator, we just have 30 seconds. People don't like to be ignored. Your friends don't either. It's that if you have a relationship with somebody, you know, they still want to be checked with and they want to have a chance to say their piece and they don't want you to just take them for granted. You shouldn't.

Show your chutzpah. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democratic Senator, thanks so much for being with us this hour. Thanks for having me. Bye now. Bye. You can catch him at Corte Madera on Saturday, January 25th, and the book is It Takes Chutzpah. My thanks to Susie Britton for producing today's segment. This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

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