Don't Tell Jess Piper It's Raining

Jess Piper joins hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp to discuss the political climate in rural America, focusing on Democratic engagement and the challenges faced by local communities. The conversation covers economic issues, healthcare, and the importance of local political campaigns.

Gain valuable insights into the current political landscape and learn about strategies for engaging rural voters. You will learn about the significance of local representation and the impact of economic policies on rural communities. Jess Piper shares her experiences and perspectives, offering a unique view on the challenges and opportunities in rural America.

Join us on The Hot Dish every week, where we serve up hearty conversations that resonate with every corner of the country.

The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. To learn more, visit https://onecountryproject.org or find us at https://onecountryproject.substack.com/.

• (05:00) - - Political Climate and Rural Engagement
• (15:00) - - Economic Issues and Healthcare
• (25:00) - - Political Campaigns and Strategies
• (35:00) - - Conclusion and Call to Action

Creators and Guests

Host

Heidi Heitkamp

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp served as the first female senator elected from North Dakota from 2013 – 2019. he is the founder and Chair of the One Country Project, an organization focused on addressing the needs and concerns of rural America. Heidi was recently named the Director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, a university she has long been committed to and a place where she enjoys engaging with students over civic discussions while encouraging them to seek opportunities in public service to our country. Heidi also serves as a contributor to both CNBC and ABC News.

Host

Joel Heitkamp

He is an multi-award winning talk show host both regionally and nationally. Before radio, he served in the North Dakota Senate from 1995-2008.

Producer

Cheri Brisendine

Assistant Producer at Voxtopica

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

Head of Production at Voxtopica

Guest

Jess Piper

Jess is a fierce advocate for rural communities and public schools. She was an American literature teacher for 16 years and decided to run for a house seat in Missouri’s first district in 2022. Although she lost the race, she continues her activism. She is the Executive Director of Blue Missouri and writes a substack called "The View from Rural Missouri."

Producer

Richard Fawal

Richard Fawal is founder and CEO of Voxtopica.

What is The Hot Dish?

Former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp and her brother, KFGO radio talk show host Joel Heitkamp, engage in animated discussions with newsmakers, elected leaders, and policymakers who are creating new opportunities for rural Americans and finding practical solutions to their challenges. Punctuated with entertaining conversations and a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, The Hot Dish, from the One Country Project, is informative, enlightening, and downright fun.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (00:05)
I mean, you the old saying, you can't tell me it's raining, you know, while someone's pissing down my leg,

Heidi (00:13)
Welcome back to the hot dish comfort food for middle America. I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

Joel Heitkamp (00:18)
And I'm Joel Heitkamp, who are again joined by a hot dish favorite, Jess Piper. Jess lives on a small town or a small farm, I should say, on the Missouri Iowa border and was born and raised in rural America. After the 2016 election of Trump, Jess became politically active, ran for office in 2022. Way to go for state representative in northwest Missouri since then. You know what she's done?

She's become the executive director of Blue Missouri, a grassroots organization that generates donations for Democratic state house candidates. Jess, welcome back to the hot dish and thanks for joining us.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (01:00)
really appreciate you guys having me here. Joel, we got to meet in person not very long ago. Heidi, I just missed you by a hair. Thank you for having me on again.

Heidi (01:10)
Well, you're absolutely terrific. And I want to talk about today kind of what do we know about whether the Democratic Party has actually begun to start paying attention to places like North Dakota, like Western Minnesota, like Missouri, the places that we know that if you run people and if you run good people, you can be competitive. Are you feeling better? You're feeling worse? Or are you just, you know,

Where are you at right now, Jess?

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (01:42)
absolutely on fire. I am excited. I'm seeing excitement. And the crazy thing is, is when I report back about this excitement, I have a lot of Democrats who are trying to ⁓ to tamp me down and say, don't get excited. Things are really bad. Things are going to be awful forever. And I'm like, you know what? They are really bad right now. But the energy, the excitement, the enthusiasm that I'm seeing all over, you know, on the ground and I'm talking in rule spaces. I'm going into places where there's like 78 people in the town, right?

Joel Heitkamp (01:44)
Ha!

Heidi (01:44)
Ha

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (02:10)
I am seeing something that I haven't seen. I saw a little bit of it when we put Kamala in as the candidate, but then it's sort of, everything just fell apart. And now I'm seeing that enthusiasm coming back and I'm excited because I just saw that I'm sure you guys saw too. There's reporting that Democrats are willing to put seven figures into trying to recruit candidates in rural spaces.

Joel Heitkamp (02:36)
Well, I'm to say this before I ask you my question, which is knock it off. You came to to North Dakota. You spoke at the event and everybody expects someone to be that good now. So, yeah, knock it off. ⁓ What I would add to that is why? Why do you feel this good? Why are you this energetic? Why are you this hopeful?

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (02:57)
Because I live in a maga space, because I live in a red state, a ruby red district that has never elected a woman, hasn't elected a Democrat in 32 years, and I look around me and see people talking about economics.

I see them saying, what is going on right now is absolutely decimating my budget, which is terrible for people, but they know where the pain is coming from. And a lot of times that's on us to, when we're knocking doors and doing deep canvassing to try to connect the dots for people. I'm not having to connect the dots right now. People automatically know who is in power. They know the GOP in Missouri has had a super majority for 22 years. You can't blame a Democrat. We haven't had a statewide Democrat elected since 2018. What are you talking about, right?

And then you look at the federal level, they had all three branches, you know, and then they've got SCOTUS captured. There is no one to blame this pain on except for the Republicans.

Heidi (03:51)
Well, and pain it is. mean, you look at today, I was looking at statistics. We have record credit card debt. We have record credit card defaults where people aren't able to make their bills ⁓ and pay and they're putting necessities on their credit card. We have rising, you know, insurance costs. mean, and Trump keeps saying it's the best economy ever. It's like, and the thing is, is that if you

say something that people don't have personal, kind of a personal connection to, where they don't live it. But then when you say something that's totally contrary to what's happening in people's lives, you lose a lot of credibility. my sense is that Donald Trump is starting to gain a reputation of being out of touch. Isn't that what you think?

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (04:42)
do

think? It is what I think. I think that they are over their skis. You can't tell me that things are better when I can see my receipt from Walmart. You can't tell me that things are going great when I see soybean farmers, you know, with gravity wagons driving, you know, millions of pounds of soybeans to a bin where they're going to sit. I know this. I know people are talking about, you know, beef from Argentina coming in and what trouble that's going to make for our ranchers. So I'm just talking about issues that are here.

I'm someone who's on the ACA. I am self-employed. My insurance premium right now is a little less than $500. I just reapplied and it's $1,062 for next year. I can't do that. My neighbors can't do that. They're on Medicare and they're still seeing rises in costs. They're seeing their doctors leaving and going other places. You, I mean, you the old saying, you can't tell me it's raining, you know, while someone's pissing down my leg, right? I mean.

Joel Heitkamp (05:39)
Hahaha!

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (05:41)
I know what this is and it ain't rain. So you know, you can't lie to people's face. They understand. They see their grocery receipts.

Heidi (05:44)
Yeah.

Joel Heitkamp (05:48)
You know, Jess, the one thing I notice is when you're around a group of people and you used to just feel outnumbered, you know, when you used to bring up some of this stuff and you were like, man, you know, I'm the only one that's in this spot. That isn't the case as much anymore. You know, I call it the old man that are VFW all syndrome. You know, when you go there and Heidi knows a lot about this as well. ⁓ When you go there, you guys, what you find out now is because of soybeans.

most part. ⁓ They're ticked off. They're really ticked off. And then you add beef into it. And, you know, they don't want these emergency payments. Just they don't they want the market. They'll take them. Don't get me wrong, but they don't want them.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (06:35)
And that's what we've been saying the whole time. And people will say, well, they're going to bail them out. Maybe, maybe he will. But here's the point. If they don't have the market, how do you plant next year when you don't have a market for planting? So people aren't remembering that part. And I'm seeing people come together, too, just like you are.

I mean, it used to be kind of a quiet thing if you were a rural Democrat, if you're rural progressive. And now I see people standing up and speaking more. And you know why? Because other people are doing the same thing. When I would knock doors, people would whisper to me and say, I'm the only Democrat on the block. And I'm like, I just knocked a door, two doors down and they're a Democrat too. You guys just didn't speak. You didn't put out signs because you were scared or whatever it was. But now I'm seeing that.

turn around and people can be proud ⁓ of not standing with someone who's been accused of everything from pedophilia to ripping off investors and students. And so I think we're seeing a lot of people being proud not to be included in that sort of group. ⁓ And so, yeah, I'm seeing a lot of Democrats that are louder.

Heidi (07:40)
I think it's interesting because we talk a lot about the bailout and I think we all know that for a lot of these soybean farmers, these are folks who have incredible, like millions of dollars of assets. There are people who have had some very good years. You know, they have a lot of new paint on the farmstead. That's saying that they aren't contributing to the economy. But at the same time, what they're saying is we've got billions of dollars to bail you out, but we don't have any money.

to make sure that people can afford their health insurance. We don't have any money to help people afford their food. We don't have any money to do the things that would help a lot of the working class folks. And I always remind people, look, if somebody is making $15 an hour or $10 an hour, that's less than $24,000 a year for a full-time job. And so I think that those are the people who step back and say,

I don't know that they really understand that I can't afford the gas in my car. I can't afford the car insurance. And God forbid that my car would break down and I would have to buy a part that now is experiencing outrageous increases in prices because of tariffs. And so I think they get it. And I think Trump in some weird way gets it too, but he didn't have any solutions.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (09:05)
and you're talking about something that I was just thinking about today. They don't have solutions for anything. I saw them, you know, talking about a new plan, their healthcare rollout, which we've been waiting for for nine years. It was two weeks, you know, and it's been nine years. But it looks like Trump is going to do the same thing that the Democrats were asking for if he does anything at all, and that's extend the subsidies. And I'm like, why are you guys like this? Why don't you have any ideas about helping the people around you? And you're right to say,

that people like my kids, my kids did all the right things. They got apprenticeships for carpentry. One is a soldier, and another one was a teacher. And he's now quit teaching because he couldn't afford to live as a teacher in this state. And people like me, I finally got to the age where I thought I've got most of the kids out of the house. I can start saving for retirement. I can't save for retirement. My kids need me to help.

them. They can't get by. They can't buy houses. They can't afford child care and all of these things. And like I said, when all these things, you know, bubble up and people look around, you can really tell who is trying to, you know, help you in some way pass some sort of legislation, you know, to reduce child care costs or health care costs. And the other ones who are like, screw you.

We don't care about you. We're not working for you. And that's basically like in states like Missouri and probably North Dakota and a lot of places too where you can look at your representatives and they're like, I don't care. I don't care what you have to say. I'm not working for you.

Joel Heitkamp (10:37)
So two points I want to make. The first point being that we've all seen the polls. We know where the approval ratings are. I just think it's like a movie that you've seen five, six, seven times. You're sick of it. know, and the movie has a bad ending. Let me ask both of you this. I'm really curious what you think about this, because on my talk show, I said a number of times. Eighty year old man, I don't care what side of the aisle you're from.

shouldn't be president of the United States. If you're 34, you don't get to be president of the United States. Well, if you're 80, you sure shouldn't be able to. Is anybody noticing how physically he's breaking down? I mean, I don't care which one of you two answered this, but he doesn't look so good, you guys.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (11:26)
He's sleeping through interviews. I just watched an interview of him with Marco Rubio speaking next to him and he is dozing off. There's something very wrong with him. And when you talk about things like that, I don't wanna be ageist. I don't wanna come across as ageist at all. But you've got Chuck Grassley who will be 96 and has not said he's not going to run.

for Congress again. mean, something's gotta give. You've got Mitch McConnell, who has terrible health issues, falling down and passing out when he should be on the Capitol floor. So I see he's breaking down.

Heidi (12:05)
Well, I think the reason why he's falling asleep is because he rage tweeted a hundred tweets the night before. I don't think he sleeps. mean, I think he needs a melatonin or something that is going to put him back on. But I'll tell you, the reason why he gets by with that and Joe Biden didn't is because he'll walk to the back of the plane and mix it up with the reporters. The things that he likes to do,

which is to be in the limelight, to be talking, even if he says ridiculous things, he can still do those. And so, I think that people say, look, yeah, he may be taking a nap in middle of important meetings, but he's still mixing it up and making decisions that I either like or I don't like. so, Joel, I'm not, I mean...

I know this dust up with Governor Walz talking about, you know, what's the MRI? I think this is funny because my husband said, you know, when he said he had an MRI, no one, you get an MRI for a lot of reasons. No one doubted it wasn't an MRI of his brain. It was taken for granted, right? It could have been his knee. It could have been his, you know, chest. But, ⁓ you know, I think that there is some camouflage going on about his healthcare needs, but.

As long as he gets up and he's feisty and throws those punches, know, whether it's, you know, shut up, piggy or whatever it is, you know, people will say he's still able.

Joel Heitkamp (13:40)
Yeah, but he's always been good at drawing attention. I mean, he always has been ask his, you know, look at what his sister said about him. Look what his niece says about him. But it's different. I mean, it's just different. mean, all have lived that kind of life where we've worked outside, worked with our hands, you know, that type of thing. I don't believe he ever has. But, you know, so I think that there's bound to be a little less deterioration. You know, it may be a bone spur on your foot here and there. But what I'm talking about is just

the way he talks, just the way he walks. I might be overstating this. I don't believe I am. I think that they're not telling us something. ⁓ think we're going to find some things out.

Heidi (14:21)
Yeah, I agree with that.

I agree with that. I think that there is more to the story than is being told right now. But the bottom line is he still holds the party with an iron fist. He still is making the decisions. It seems to be slipping a little bit. ⁓ Jess, I want to talk a little bit about Tennessee because that election, as we're talking right now, people are out voting and you've worked with

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (14:24)
I agree with that. think that there is more to the story than is being told right now. But the bottom line is he still holds the party with an iron fist. He still is ⁓ making the decisions. It seems to be slipping a little bit as and Jess, I want to talk a little bit about Tennessee because that election, as we're talking right now, people are out voting and you've worked with

Heidi (14:50)
the Democratic candidate in

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (14:51)
the Democratic candidate in

Heidi (14:52)
You've been working with that candidate, talking about how to talk about rural issues, and I want you to visit about that. But I think one thing that's remarkable about that campaign is the Republican has not embraced Trump.

They haven't run any ads saying, I love Donald Trump. I'm going there to, I mean, it's been very local. So are you seeing that trend kind of across the board in, ⁓ certainly in the South?

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (15:16)
mean, I am, and Afton Bain is an absolutely incredible candidate. You couldn't ask for a better candidate. She's very connected to rural voters. ⁓ She's worked in a space where she has gone out and tried to warn her constituents that ICE is coming. ⁓ She was thrown out of the ⁓ General Assembly Room when she was 19 or 20 because she was protesting.

the abortion ban and they have these crazy pictures of her like holding on to a railing and the state police pulling her away and they're like trying to make her some sort of criminal. And I was like, no, she was standing up for your rights. ⁓ But she understands ⁓ what it's like to live in a rural space and to be able to talk to rural people about what's going on. She's worked with rural organizing for a decade nearly. So.

She's a great candidate. And on top of that, you also have a very, very unpopular president. So you have, you know, her ⁓ opponent, like you said, not leaning into Trumpism because he can't, because he's, you know, he's embroiled in the Epstein mess because of the tariffs, because we are, you know, committing war crimes by bombing Venezuelan fishing boats. And that's really deeply concerning to Republicans. ⁓ He told them no more wars.

And what is he doing right now? So there's a lot of reasons this ⁓ opponent of Afton's can't latch on to Trump. And every single one of them is, ⁓ you know, real to his voters. So he has to distance himself. And like you said, I mean, this is a long shot. But if anyone could get it done, if anyone could get it done, it's Afton. And it couldn't be at a better time because of what is going on, you know, with Republicans.

Joel Heitkamp (17:01)
So, Heidi, my question is to you. What's a win here? As we have this conversation, know, voting is going on in Tennessee. ⁓ Obviously, a lot of folks that are going to watch and listen to this ⁓ here on the hot dish are going to know what the results are. I get that. But what do you think a win is in this election?

Heidi (17:21)
I think a win is for her to come within four or five points. ⁓ And certainly, you know, it would be earth shattering if she won in that district. But this has been a trend all along, including special elections in Florida, the special elections that we saw ⁓ in the elections that we saw in ⁓ New Jersey, which was a landslide that no one predicted. They thought it was only going to be three points. It ended up double digits.

Abigail did really well in Virginia. And so what I do is I look at the margins and how much of that has shifted. I also look at the rural vote and in all those places, there's been a come home or a tapping down of turnout. I wouldn't say necessarily people changing their mind, but Trump keeps saying, well, I wasn't on the ballot. Trump's always on the ballot. He's no matter what, he's always on the ballot.

But by the same token, wasn't, mean, ⁓ people are like, well, I don't care about that race. And so they are what we call low propensity voters. And so right now what you have is high propensity voters, i.e. motivated Democrats who are going out and making huge statements. And if that continues into the midterms, a ⁓ margin of five or less will scare the shit.

out of the Republican majority in the House.

Joel Heitkamp (18:52)
What do think, Jess?

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (18:55)
I think she's got a shot and I think that Heidi is spot on. The whole thing too about running everywhere is that is reducing those margins in places like where I ran. I didn't have a shot. Okay, I got 25 % of the vote. But the fact that we're telling people just leave that 25 % on the table is outrageous, right? The fact that we say there's no way that you can win so there's no reason to run is insanity because

getting all those people to run in districts that won't flip, still gets people out. They're still voting. you know, change happens at the top. And everyone's really focused right now. And we can focus on Afton because she's the only congressional race, you know, in the game at the moment. I think, I think there's, ⁓ there's movement for change. And even if she doesn't flip that tonight or tomorrow, it's still, it's going to scare the shit out of them, just like Heidi said.

Joel Heitkamp (19:55)
Yeah, from my standpoint, you're first off, you're spot on right. Having served in the legislature for 14 years, the races that we didn't win for sure were the ones where we didn't have a candidate. We knew we were going to lose those ones. Right. And so, you know, we're looking for candidates in my home district. And normally people don't take meetings. They're taking meetings. You know, I and a couple others are on the search committee. And, you know, we've got

Heidi (20:08)
No

Joel Heitkamp (20:25)
a couple of really good people interested. And these aren't, know, boy, I'll just put my name on the ballot kind of guys. I mean, these are the guys that are willing to go find out if the little dogs bite. I mean, they're going to knock on doors. ⁓ So I don't know if you're seeing that. I know that that's what you've been working so hard on, Jess. ⁓ But I like it. I like that I don't feel like I have to beg people as much as I did before.

Heidi (20:52)
The one thing I want to say to Joel is when you run candidates, and you actually have a dialogue, you can change minds and people say, ⁓ you know, I, I agree with that. Jess, she's she's right about schools. She's right about what's happening with county roads. She's her township roads. And you know, so they may not vote for it because they're Republicans, but she normalizes the Democratic Party, she had done and when when the only thing that people see

who are Democrats, is Washington Democrats, we're gonna continue to lose. And that's why we need to run local Democrats, Democrats who understand these issues, Democrats who aren't walking lockstep with the National Democratic Party, people who have different ideas. We don't have litmus tests. And so to me, all of that is a rebranding. Getting people to run is a rebranding exercise that we desperately need in the middle of the country.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (21:52)
It really is. And you know, I knocked on a whole lot of doors and the difference between what I want and what a Republican wants is this much, that much. And people would always say, they would listen to everything I said and agree with it. And then of course, you know, they'd say, well, I'm a Christian, I can't vote for you, but ⁓ we can get, we can get past that. And that's what a lot of people know, need to know if they're, you know, paying attention to national politics and don't really know much about the heartland or anything like that.

Religion is very tied up in the politics and vice versa. So that's something that we need local candidates for. And people ask me all the time, what's the best candidate? What is your ideal candidate? The only ideal candidate is the candidate who understands their neighbors, who understands their community, who understands their district, because you don't have to have the crazy, wild, whatever it is.

to win. You just have to know your space. And that's why you said, Heidi, ⁓ when you're talking about national Democrats, what goes in DC is not going to go in Burlington Junction, Missouri. We've got to understand that. And that's why you have your local candidates knocking doors. Even if they're not going to win, it's still changing minds. When I knocked doors, people couldn't believe I was a Democrat. I don't look like what they show.

on Fox News or OAN or Newsmax. I don't fit any of those categories. They cannot believe that I talk like them, that I'm from where they're from, that I'm a gun owner, that I'm a grandma, that I do, that I'm, you know, we have cows and chickens and a little donkey that I absolutely adore because I'm from this community. I represent the community. And that's how we win is putting people on the ballot that represent their community.

Heidi (23:25)
Ha!

Joel Heitkamp (23:25)
You

I want to throw something into the conversation, though. The other it had to been about three weeks ago, I spoke at a Democratic event ⁓ just in Minnesota. Normally a crowd of 100, a crowd of 250. And it wasn't because Joel Heitkamp was going there. Trust me. They're energized. They're excited. They've got candidates. ⁓ But I said some things that night that tick some people off. And I'm going to throw this into our conversation, which is, look,

⁓ We can have social issues. We can. And those social issues, think Democrats will be there ⁓ to do the right thing on. But that isn't what these races are about. And if we focus on them, all we're doing is playing into the hand of what the Republicans want us to talk about. I think we did that in the last presidential race. I think we do that in the motivation why certain candidates come into the race. And, you know, afterwards,

Watch me get in trouble here. Afterwards, I had a mother of someone who is dealing with their sexuality ⁓ come up and just chew my ass and say, listen, you know, these are the issues. And I said, I could not possibly disagree with you more. Those are the issues that we need to be there and help. But if we're not talking about roads and bridges and water and sewer and.

As you mentioned, you know, the activities is your church and how you got to sing every verse at the Lutheran Church, whereas at the Catholic one, we don't, you know, if I mean those things, Jess, ⁓ that got me in a little trouble that night. But I saw a lot of heads doing this when I brought it up. I don't know what you see.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (25:21)
I see that obviously we support trans people. Obviously we support abortion rights. Obviously we support the LGBT community. However, when you're knocking on a door, and this works both ways, I never had someone come to the door and ask about the bathroom a kid uses at school. Never. I never had someone say, but my kid might lose out on a scholarship to Mizzou because of a trans athlete. Never.

So the things that we need to focus on are things that everybody is concerned about while also being completely upset, know, accepting of our party and what we stand for for everybody. And that means everybody. you know, rural people aren't marginalized people. However, they kind of are, right? They don't really matter to most people. And so I kind of, and because, you know, I have relatives that...

that fall all over the spectrum. I understand what it feels like to feel like you don't matter. And maybe that's what that mom thought. Maybe she thought that you said, my son doesn't matter. It's not what you said. What you said is, of course your son matters. But I don't know if I need to talk about trans kids when I'm knocking on a door, unless it comes up, right? But other than that, what you're doing is what Democrats do, have this huge umbrella where people can fit in and find

their group and know that they're supported and loved for who they are.

Joel Heitkamp (26:50)
Well, I agree with all of that. I do. I'm just saying that every campaign I've ever seen win and Heidi, you did this when you ran for the Senate and you won. It wasn't 10, 15 issues. It wasn't. You had message and you stayed on message. And, you know, everybody has their own message. But what I'm telling everybody when I speak at these different events is.

Heidi (26:50)
Well, I think, yeah.

Joel Heitkamp (27:14)
find the message that connects with the majority of the people out there that's on their mind. You said that earlier, Jess, you say that in your book. ⁓ I just think we as Democrats fall into that rat hole way too many times.

Heidi (27:28)
Yeah, and I think that we don't know how to kind of respond. I always go back, Joel, to what our dad used to say when we come home and complain about somebody, say, well, how's that person hurting you? How's that person hurting you? I mean, you know, why do you care? You know, you should care about whether you can afford, you know, to put tires on your car. You should care about whether you can afford to send your kids to college. You should care about whether you can afford your health insurance.

Those are things that are ⁓ the economic issues that define us. you know, I always say that people say, well, what's the difference between Democrats and Republicans? And I always say Democrats believe in trickle up and Republicans believe in trickle down. I mean, they think if the money goes to the richest, eventually that will make the economy better. I said the Democrats have always been the party that invests in people. They invest in human beings.

And that's what we're about. We're about making sure that every child has a chance, that every child has a good start, that every family has an opportunity to be successful. And for us in rural America, that that challenge is getting tougher and tougher because not just because of what's happening with the ag economy, but also rural America is small manufacturers, the tariffs are tearing apart.

our small manufacturing base, the mom and pop manufacturers aren't making it. I mean, you hear story after story and, you know, debt is becoming a huge problem and it, you know, healthcare is gonna be a huge issue. And so there's a lot for us to talk about in rural America. Are we gonna win back rural America? You know, we're probably not gonna win in rural America, but I will tell you, if we pick up 15 points, we can win everywhere.

Joel Heitkamp (29:20)
Yeah, Jess, obviously we're going to have to go when you want to go because you're out there changing the world. But how do people find your book? Tell people about it.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (29:30)
So I haven't written a book yet, but maybe someday, but I do have a sub stack. So that may be what you're referring to, but I'm.

Joel Heitkamp (29:37)
Well, why did

my sister-in-law hand me a bunch of stuff to read that you wrote? What's this all about?

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (29:42)
So I write a sub stack two or three times a week. I put out an essay. So I probably should maybe combine those, but it's the view from rural Missouri. And I talk about what's going on in the heartland. ⁓ you guys, if you're not on sub stack, maybe you should think about it too, because we have a lot of friends on the coast who thought, you know what? People in Missouri just vote against their self-interest. And then I told them, you know what? I don't have anyone to vote for. And they're like, ⁓ my god.

I had no idea you didn't have Democrats running. So the view from rural Missouri, I'm on the platforms except for Twitter. I ghosted 160,000 people. I am done. And you guys know about that big dust up about how all those accounts were actually from other countries. So I'm glad I left now. But I really do appreciate both of you and thank you for having me on even with my technical difficulties because I live in BFE.

Heidi (30:25)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha

Joel Heitkamp (30:39)
Maybe

Heidi (30:39)
ha! ⁓

Joel Heitkamp (30:39)
that's why Renee gave me a stack of papers too. So Jess, thanks for joining us here on the hot dish. Appreciate it.

Heidi (30:43)
No, I think.

and you are just absolutely the right solution for the problem that we have in rural America. Keep it up and if we can ⁓ kind of, if we can get one of you in every one of these states, guess what? The world will change. There's no doubt about it.

Jess Piper -- Blue Missouri (31:04)
Thank you, friends. And I guarantee you, there is one of me in every state. They just, they weren't obnoxious enough online. Thank you. ⁓

Joel Heitkamp (31:11)
Thanks,

Jess. Thanks for joining us.

Heidi (31:14)
Take care.

Joel Heitkamp (31:23)
So, Heidi, I want to talk about loyalty. ⁓ In this case, it isn't so much the loyalty of ⁓ a person to the president of United States like Pete Hagseth does. I'm sure he mows Donald Trump's yard. I'm talking about the other way around. I'm talking about the loyalty that Donald Trump has to people that he knows are trouble. In this case, Pete Hagseth. I mean, what we saw happen ⁓ in the high seas is disgusting.

is nothing but disgusting. And where do you see your old friends in Congress, in the United States Senate taking this?

Heidi (31:52)
Mm-hmm.

I will guarantee you that there are pullaways. By that I mean people going onto the floor of the Senate, pulling people aside and saying, really, you're going to let this happen? This is what you think is appropriate. And I think Roger Wicker ⁓ this weekend stood tall and said, you know, this needs to be investigated. I think that Mike Rogers said the same thing over in the House. And so I think

It just, the look of this is just so bad. And you saw what Hegseth did. He threw the Admiral under the bus. What a great leader he is. And I didn't see it. Mr., I'm the Secretary of War, somehow doesn't know what's happening with something absolutely that significant. so my concern is at what point do

The other Latin American countries say enough is enough. This is, I mean, you might expect this from Russia. We never expected this from the United States of America.

Joel Heitkamp (33:10)
And I think it goes further than the Latin American countries. think it goes to ⁓ Europe. I think that they look at us and say, you know what? You can't trust these guys. You can't trust them with information. You can't trust them as allies. They turn on you in two seconds. I think it goes beyond that. But I don't trust these guys, the Republicans, to actually do what's right on this. They can talk on the Sunday show is all they want. ⁓

their one phone call away from waking up afraid again and wetting the bed. mean, I hope you're right. I do. I pray to God you're right that they actually start doing their job as Congress. But I guess we're talking about six years. then if you add in the four of Biden, that's that's, you know, 11 years or nine years, I should say, that you're left scratching your head. You know.

Heidi (34:07)
Well, you know, it's interesting. I think the Tennessee race that we just talked about, you know, where people are starting to distance themselves from Trump, they're starting to see, and the poll numbers are horrible. Of course, he's going to dispute that and say he's got the best poll numbers, the best economy in the history of the world. But you can't hide a lot of the stuff that's been going on. the...

This may be inside baseball because, you know, is the average person in America going to think blowing up two people floating on a log or on a piece of a boat in the ocean is a loss to humanity? you know, remember this, this comes at the same time that this president has pardoned a known drug runner from El Salvador.

You explain that to me and pardoning fraudsters. mean, this is the biggest grift. And so I think that you've got to look at, know, kind of widen the aperture to get people to really start thinking about this. He's blowing up, you know, I'm not going to say innocent people, but certainly helpless people in middle of the Caribbean and then pardoning known drug dealers. Explain that to me.

Joel Heitkamp (35:27)
Well,

and I want people to know what I was getting at with my math, just so you know, I can do math. mean, he started and entered our life in 2015. He did. I mean, he was been part of our life politically since 2015, which, you know, look at that that kid you got that's, you know, was just born then and see how tall they are now. That being said, it also comes at a time.

⁓ when former colleagues of yours and new members of the Senate and the House that served this country in uniform, that are Democrats, said to people in the military that, you you don't have to do this. If it's an illegal order, you don't have to do this. And so to me, to have the timing be such that that's all still a controversy where Donald Trump's saying that they're traitors and they should be hung.

and then shortly thereafter, it's one of two things. Either they committed a war crime or they murdered. I mean, it's one of those two things, Heidi.

Heidi (36:32)
Same thing.

Yeah. Yeah, no, mean, by any code of international justice or military justice, you do not murder helpless people in the sea. And without a declaration of war, I mean, think about this, there's no declaration of war. The so-called emergency is that they're running drugs. We've never seen any proof that they're running drugs.

⁓ I wouldn't dispute it, but let's see the proof. And the last time there were two survivors, guess what they did? They sent them home. Why would they send them home? What are they afraid that these folks are gonna basically talk about? I mean...

Joel Heitkamp (37:15)
Yeah. The other the other

thing I would add is, you know, you you've got connections to south of Tucson. And I did a radio show or two down there where we talked about and visited with the farmers and ranchers. I shouldn't say farmers. were all ranchers. ⁓ And the one thing that these very, very conservative men and women said to me was that the individuals that are crossing the border, bringing in drugs, doing all this are being forced to.

that they've met them, that these individuals are being forced to do this because their families are being held hostage back home. So why would that be any different than what these individuals in the boats are doing if, and this is a big if, if you assume there's drugs in those boats? I mean, Heidi, we don't know who the people in the boats are.

Heidi (38:14)
I, you know, it is, it is the classic kind of legislation by ramble, right?

You know, there's no rules, no rules apply to Donald Trump as he deploys his international strategies. And I will tell you, and Jess hit on this too, that a lot of people, and I've met, you know, I was at the Iowa caucus, I listened to the arguments of Trump over Nikki Haley. And one of the strongest arguments that people made were from veterans who said he doesn't believe in forever wars. You think he's pretty close to going to war in Venezuela?

Joel Heitkamp (38:54)
Well, that's about oil. ⁓ That isn't about drugs. The whole thing is about oil. It's about money. It's about the people that he surrounds himself with. ⁓ Let me ask you this. ⁓ The economy today on a scale of one to 10, where do see it?

Heidi (38:56)
Undeclared.

It depends on who you are.

Joel Heitkamp (39:12)
Well, let's assume I'm not a billionaire or not somebody who's in

Heidi (39:15)
Okay, let's assume

that you're somebody making less than $150,000 a year. This economy is really bad for you. Number one, you have job insecurity. You don't know. You aren't feeling secure in your job and you are not, as we have saw in kind of during the Biden years, people were job moving. You know, they were going, oh, I can find a better opportunity here. There were labor shortages. And now people are hunkering down. They're taking a smaller

bonus or a smaller pay increase and the bottom quartile or the bottom third, their wages aren't increasing enough to keep up with inflation. And they're already in debt. There's an interesting chart that I saw today of the amount of ⁓ defaults on consumer debt. And so we're gonna see what happens and the consumers so far have been spending money this Christmas and people will say, high camp, you're so full of it. Look at that. And I wanna say,

How much of that's getting paid by cash and how much of that's getting put on the credit card? And when does that come home to roost when credit card interests are 28 %? I mean, it's untenable. We talk a lot about debt and deficit for the federal government, but I'm really concerned about consumer debt.

Joel Heitkamp (40:23)
Yeah.

one tell for me in what you just described is how many 28 year olds are you seeing buying a home? know, how many people are buying a home at that age? ⁓ My wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to do it, you know, but you're not seeing people like my producer who has a fairly good job ⁓ be able to buy a home. It's just not in the cards for them. So that separation continues to get

Wider and wider. There's no question about that.

Heidi (41:04)
Yeah,

I I think that at some point, the analysis on homeownership is how many people want to actually own a home, have the responsibility of owning a home. But the bottom line, when you look at kind of trying to make ends meet, you know, it's the old hamburger helper example. You know, when ground beef is six, seven dollars a pound, they're going to try and stretch that as best they can.

They aren't going to eat out. McDonald's has seen a dramatic reduction in lower income Americans actually eating at McDonald's. And you're going to see those trends continue because people can't afford it.

Joel Heitkamp (41:44)
Yeah. Well, I think for the most part, people still in America want to want to own a home. And we're to find out where that goes. And it's really sad to me that they're not able to right now. ⁓ You know, but at least you could take out what is it, a 50 year mortgage that he's proposing now? I mean, in other words, you'll you'll never own it, but you can borrow money.

Heidi (42:03)
Yeah, ridiculous. I think I

and I think when you look at the numbers, it's like $200 less a month, and you're to pay for 50 years. It's just it was boneheaded to begin with that absolutely boneheaded. So Joel, when you when you question people always ask is, are do you see any trends? I mean, you talked a little bit about more people stepping up wanting to run more people coming to meetings.

Joel Heitkamp (42:11)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Heidi (42:30)
But do you see any trends in terms of the break in and kind of the ⁓ president's overall, for lack of a better word, of popularity?

Joel Heitkamp (42:41)
Well, living here where the hot dish is, you know, in the middle of this country, I think that the two biggest mistakes he's made economically have been soybeans ⁓ and beef. And you could throw corn in there, too. I mean, you could throw Mexico and Canada and everything that goes with it, because all of that relates back to something that farmers value a lot, which is their equipment.

And if they're not making money, they might be able to buy that hamburger you're talking about. I'm not trying to pretend they're going broke completely. What I'm trying to say is they're not able to do what they have been able to do for the previous four years. And so they're starting to admit that. And what I always remind them of and, Heidi, I know that you always kind of roll your eyes at me on this, but I call it the bathroom test, ⁓ which is

When you go to most public bathrooms now, there's advertising. I'm sure there is in women's stalls. Certainly there is a bit of men's urinals. But those those ads used to say help wanted help wanted help wanted help wanted. I mean, this is how I did my research, folks. ⁓ They don't say that anymore. You know, I mean, go to a pub, look at those signs and what you're going to find is they're not saying help wanted anymore.

Heidi (43:56)
you

Joel Heitkamp (44:04)
⁓ that people are trying to sell things and they're trying to sell them cheap. And so I just think, as you say, the economy isn't doing well for the people that hang out in the bars and restaurants that I do. How's that? Yeah, well.

Heidi (44:18)
Yeah, I think that's true. Well, listen,

another episode of The Hot Dish. Thanks for joining us today on The Hot Dish brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington, D.C.

Joel Heitkamp (44:34)
You know, learn more at onecountryproject.org. That's onecountryproject.org. We'll be back next week with more hot dish comfort food for rural America.