The Country is Great when the Country does Good

Hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp are joined by political commentator Chris Matthews to discuss the future of the Democratic Party, lessons from Bobby Kennedy, and the importance of connecting with everyday Americans. They examine recent election results, challenges facing rural America, and how both parties can better serve working people. 

You will gain valuable insight into how Democrats can rebuild trust with rural and working-class voters. Chris Matthews shares stories about the Kennedys and offers advice for future leaders. You should listen if you care about democracy, dignity, and the future of 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/.

• (05:22) - Chris Matthews discusses how snobbery hurts Democrats in reaching rural America.
• (12:00) - Chris, Heidi and Joel debate the hypocrisy around immigration in Red states.
• (22:18) - Heidi and Chris highlight the importance of rallying for our country's democracy.
• (27:36) - Joel and Chris discuss how Senators need to speak up and use their office for the good of the country.
• (33:49) - Heidi and Chris debate Roosevelt's Social Security strategy.

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

Guest

Chris Matthews

Christopher John Matthews is an American political commentator, retired talk show host, and author. Matthews hosted his weeknight hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, on America's Talking and later on MSNBC, from 1997 until 2020.

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

Head of Production at Voxtopica

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.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:05]:
Welcome to the Hot Dish. I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:07]:
And I'm Joel Heitkamp.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:09]:
Every week we do a show that we hope you tune in and watch, but today is a special show because we're here at CrookedCon and doing a show with somebody who doesn't really need an introduction, and that's Chris Matthews. Welcome to the Hot Dish.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:24]:
Thank you.

Chris Matthews [00:00:24]:
Thank you, Heidi.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:25]:
Yeah.

Chris Matthews [00:00:25]:
Senator. No, Heidi, that was a good title. It's a good title, a good reality.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:30]:
You used to do your show on occasion, and it was fun and always fast moving. And we wanted you to come and talk about your new book, but also talk about the elections and what you think as somebody who's been involved in Democratic politics for a long, long time, what you think the next step should be for Democrats. And so first, let's just talk a little bit about the book.

Chris Matthews [00:00:54]:
Well, it's about Bobby Kennedy, of course. He was killed at the age of 42. Next, the 20th of November this year is his hundredth birthday, if he had lived that long. That's why they wanted me to write the book, Simon and Schuster, to commemorate the fact I wrote a book on him years ago, Bobby Kennedy, and sold a lot of books. And that's why they wanted more books. But it's about a guy. My theme of the book was America is great when it is good, when it tries its best to be good. And that's really true.

Chris Matthews [00:01:27]:
And if you look at our history, whether it's civil rights or whatever, or even peace and war, when we did the right thing, you know, we shouldn't have gone to war with Iraq. I mean, come on. I mean, I know, God bless his heart, Dick Cheney, but that we should not have done that. But I think the idea of, you think about one image, the train tracks from New York to Washington, from St. Patrick's Cathedral to Arlington Cemetery, where he was putting together with his dead brother Jack. And you think about the people along those tracks in Philadelphia. There were 20,000 African Americans who were singing spontaneously the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And you look at all the white people between the cities, between Trenton and Newark and everything, these white people, they all look like enlisted guys because all of them were saluting and had their family in birth order saluting, too.

Chris Matthews [00:02:21]:
It was so different cultures, the black culture, the working class white culture, totally devoted to, to Bobby Kennedy. And it's maybe the last time anybody's been able to do this or was able to do this. And that's because he was a tough liberal. He believed in law and order. He would say, I want, I want law and order. You know, I don't like riots and stuff like that. And he, but he was for the black opportunity for civil rights. He-

Chris Matthews [00:02:45]:
Southeastern Conference football, okay? Just a simple fact. The players, they, you tell those white guys stand there, you know, you didn't have any blacks in his school before Bobby Kennedy came along. Bobby Kennedy desegregated your college Ole Miss and desegregated University of Alabama against George Wallace. He did it. He brought in the army and made sure this thing happened. He brought in James Meredith, you know, people like that into your school. And now you have the best running backs in the world. I mean, it's not, it's not the only thing that you get out of black community, but it's a vivid reality and that, that's what's going on down there.

Chris Matthews [00:03:21]:
It's an integrated society in those universities. And he did it.

Joel Heitkamp [00:03:27]:
How did people, how did people have this image of him during his brother's administration where he was this tough enforcement?

Chris Matthews [00:03:35]:
They hated him. The white people in the South hate him because he -

Joel Heitkamp [00:03:38]:
Organized crime hated him. Well, and then, then you go from being this caring, caring person that everybody saw.

Chris Matthews [00:03:45]:
Well, I think he, I think he got to the heart of the guy. He was vulnerable. As Arthur Schlesinger, the historian, said, Jack Kennedy looked like a guy who didn't need protection. He had. He's the cool guy, the Sinatra, like, cool guy. Bobby was the guy that looked vulnerable, as always. In fact, when Jack was killed, Bobby said, I thought it would be me. I thought I would be the one they would get or whoever the bad guy was going to be.

Chris Matthews [00:04:14]:
And so he was like that. He was shorter than his brothers. He wasn't as good looking as his brothers. He didn't have it made like Jack and Joe Jr. And Teddy. He didn't seem like that. He was the runt of the litter. That's what his father called him.

Chris Matthews [00:04:29]:
And that's not an encomium you want from your dad. You're the runt. But that's what he was.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:04:35]:
But what a legacy. And you know, I keep thinking about the heritage of the Democratic Party and certainly the Kennedys are there. FDR. When people ask me, why are you a Democrat? I said, because my grandmother said FDR put food on her table. You know, it made a difference in their lives. And that's why we were. And I keep thinking, what would all those people say today about the Democratic Party?

Chris Matthews [00:04:59]:
Well, that's the problem. There's too much elitism. There's too much snobbery, to be blunt about it. It's snobbery. You get in the Washington bubble, like, I live in it. And I gotta tell you, I am tired of talking about Trump. It exhausts me. And there's too many points of attack, too many shots coming out of the plan he has put together or somebody's put together.

Chris Matthews [00:05:22]:
And there's a snobbery about it. You know, the working class guy, a guy. I was a capital cop for a while, for a few months. When I got out of the Peace Corps, it was a patronage job. I wasn't claiming to have worked my way into the job. I was given a job for a while and I had a .38 special, which is ridiculous. I was armed and dangerous. And there's a guy worked with LeRoy Terror, he's a white guy from West Virginia, and he knew I was the college kid.

Chris Matthews [00:05:46]:
He knew I was the patronage appointment. He called me aside one day and he's a very serious guy. He's a former MP. He's always talking about "smoke." We're gonna, I'm gonna bring smoke into this trouble, you know, he's like, okay, I got. I got your act. And he called me a mine.

Chris Matthews [00:06:00]:
He said, you know, Chris, you know why the little man loves this country? And I thought, no. It's because it's always God. And I said, I said, I hope I never forget that. You don't have a fine house. You don't have kids going off to college. You didn't go to college. You never thought about it. You don't have a lot going for you in your life, but you do have your country.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:06:22]:
Yeah.

Chris Matthews [00:06:24]:
So don't mess with me about it. I, I care about my country and a lot of the working people out there, real people, 70% of the country didn't go to college, aren't going to go to college. They're real people. And snobs in the Democratic Party, they got to stop this stuff, you know, I don't know where it comes. Who's the worst? I guess I could name some names, but it's like Dukakis, people like that. It's all academic.

Chris Matthews [00:06:48]:
It's all. We're the ones with academic credentials. And stop it. You're turning people off.

Joel Heitkamp [00:06:55]:
Well, I can tell you this.

Chris Matthews [00:06:57]:
Well, out in West, I'm sure. Out in North Dakota, I'm sure it's like real. But I'll tell you, it's right outside of Philly. If you look at the map of Pennsylvania, it's red, right up to the cities. If it's not for Penn State or Pittsburgh or Philly, it's red.

Joel Heitkamp [00:07:11]:
Well, and it's generational when it happened. Because in my particular case, back home, what we need, we need nurses aides, we need LPNs, we need Diesel Mex. We need all these great people that are going to technical school. Right.

Chris Matthews [00:07:25]:
Practitioner.

Joel Heitkamp [00:07:25]:
Exactly. And we need them desperately. Right. And when you talk to them and you talk to some of the people that head up the Democratic Party, they don't connect because it's like they don't feel appreciated. And you know what? These guys shower at the end of the day.

Chris Matthews [00:07:41]:
Okay, okay. Just remember I was talking to a labor leader from Iowa, and he said to me at the end of the conversation on the air, he goes, what's this deplorables thing? There is a word that has survived and shouldn't have survived. Whatever Hillary Clinton meant when she said it, how narrowly she defined it, they heard it.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:08:00]:
Yep. Yeah.

Chris Matthews [00:08:01]:
And it means I'm a deplorable.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:08:03]:
I think in spite of all of the criticism that we can levy, we had pretty good night on Tuesday. It was an amazing night.

Chris Matthews [00:08:11]:
Women, too. Women had a big night.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:08:13]:
Yeah. Well, you know, obviously the Republicans would love to define the Democratic Party now as the party of Mondami, but, you know, it's the party of Abigail, it's the party of Mikey. It is. And we've forgotten and we haven't talked enough about what happened in. I mean, I think that the Republicans are salivating to try and get that Senate seat away from Oslo. But, man, if you look at what happened in Georgia, that's a good outcome. And in Mississippi, all across the board, huge successes. And I attribute that to the fact that the Democratic Party came home a little bit.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:08:54]:
Came home to affordability. Came home. Yeah. Well, they trusted that. Hispanics trusted Trump when he said, we're only deporting the worst of the worst. And all of a sudden, they see their neighbors and friends and people are just working hard in this country being snatched up indiscriminately. And, you know, when you're afraid to walk out in the street, even if you're an American citizen, that does not bode well, in my opinion, for the direction of your politics. But if you look at the fundamental argument, the fundamental argument is regular people can't afford.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:09:32]:
I mean, you know, 60% of the people in this country could not, you know, afford a $400 hit to their. To their budget. And they feel it. And Trump is tone deaf on this. I mean, he Thinks it's because he wasn't on the ballot. I want to say he was on the ballot every place.

Chris Matthews [00:09:50]:
Well, his spending level, which is much higher than the Democrats, his push on tariffs and his push for a weaker Fed, everything points to more inflation. That's where he's heading. And I know it's odd for Democrats to talk about it, but it is inflationary and he has denied it. But everything he's done, I want lower interest rates, I want higher, higher tariffs, and I want to spend more money and bigger deficits. This is Trump's reality. He's not running a conservative administration. And I think the thing, look, I'm a more of a moderate on the border. I think nobody has complained about the border being closed for the last seven months.

Chris Matthews [00:10:32]:
Nobody, nobody. Not the loudest Hispanic community leader. Nobody's complained because they know that what Biden did was wrong, that the four years of open border did not work. It didn't work for the country or anybody. It didn't work for Hispanics. And yet when you said a minute ago the idea of rounding up people who have been here 20 years or 10 years is ridiculous. I heard an Hispanic leader the other day say, give us at least the 10 years. Give us, give us some history in this country of ours.

Chris Matthews [00:11:00]:
And I think if you just said we're just taking the people that came in under Biden, great, that we'll move on from there. Why don't they have a list of who overstayed their visas? Why don't they have a list? Why don't they round up those people? Why do you go into, have to go into Home Depots and stuff and pick up everybody looking for a job? Why they got, is there a better way of rounding up?

Joel Heitkamp [00:11:23]:
Why aren't they looking at the people that hired them? Why aren't they looking at the individuals that actually knew exactly what was going on? You know why? Because, number one, these people work incredibly hard.

Chris Matthews [00:11:33]:
I know that.

Joel Heitkamp [00:11:34]:
Oftentimes at jobs that other people don't want. And number two, they like the bosses. You know, they're not dragging them by the hair out in the middle of the street.

Chris Matthews [00:11:43]:
Well, I know that, too.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:11:44]:
And cynically, what we do know is that frequently bosses will hire people who are undocumented. And then just weeks before they have to pay him at the end of the project, call ICE. I mean, that's about as bad as it gets in terms of being cynical.

Joel Heitkamp [00:12:00]:
But, but those people that we talk about, they're in red states, too. I mean, they're, but you don't see Kristi Noem hunting in red states. You don't. I mean, you see ICE pulling these people from streets in Chicago and New York. And, you know, I can tell you this, in the Dakotas, if she wants to go after these people that are working their butts off trying to get ahead and make this their home, she could. But she doesn't want to do that because it'll make the red states look foolish.

Chris Matthews [00:12:31]:
Yeah, well, San Francisco is getting it, cleaning up its act. A lot of Democrats are getting their act together, too. It's not just the voters about the problems of homelessness and drugs and things like that. And everybody who walks through the streets of San Francisco, where I used to work for the paper out there, you can see it. There's no argument about it. These retail operations have closed. These homeless swarm over the city. The stores close.

Chris Matthews [00:13:00]:
There's no future in that. And I think the mayor out there and the DA especially, are really doing the job. Maybe that's why Trump's staying out of there.

Joel Heitkamp [00:13:07]:
But can I, I want to back up one place, Heidi. We talked about what a big night it was the other night. This, as a former state Senator, I think the one thing that's always lost. I mean, you were Tax Commissioner. One day, nobody wakes up in the morning, says, gee, I hope to be Tax Commissioner.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:13:23]:
Well, I wonder who's gonna be Tax Commissioner in North Dakota?

Joel Heitkamp [00:13:26]:
And you grew that into being a United States Senator. As state Senator, I can tell you those jobs matter in terms of growth, you know, in terms of where you're going to go politically. In Virginia, at the Assembly, look at how they won. They won red seats and the blue took them. That, to me, was the biggest part of the night. That's what excited me. That's all I'm saying.

Chris Matthews [00:13:49]:
You know, that part. You know, I really, I'm older than you guys, and I got to tell you something I lived through. I was with Frank Moss from Utah, the last liberal Senator from, he was a liberal in many ways, from Utah. And that Sagebrush Rebellion that came across in the late 70s, swept everybody out of office. George McGovern, everybody lost in Montana, everywhere. And if we don't get the -

Chris Matthews [00:14:14]:
If the Democrats don't get the mountain states back again, we got problems because the geography just isn't there. I mean, why do we have a Senate except for those areas? Because they benefit from the small state advantage of a couple, two or three seats. And all of a sudden, you got as many seats as California or New York. That's what's going on? And I think Trump would like to keep the Senate, but get rid of the filibuster. But then he'd rule the world.

Joel Heitkamp [00:14:39]:
Are the Republicans in the United States Senate nervous now when they weren't before about losing control of the Senate?

Heidi Heitkamp [00:14:47]:
I think they're more nervous about alienating Donald Trump. I don't think that that changes. I think that they're trying to retrench, but I, you know, John Thune has never been in favor of killing the filibuster, ever, ever, ever. And Mitch McConnell is loathe to do it, but when you think about it, when, when Trump pushes him to do it, there's gonna be a bunch of people who have taken a contrary position, are gonna flip, but not enough. I don't think Thune has the votes to eliminate the filibuster.

Chris Matthews [00:15:20]:
Well, why would he want to do it? Just obey Trump.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:15:23]:
Well, yeah, obedience plus. Yeah.

Chris Matthews [00:15:25]:
Like a dog.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:15:26]:
Yeah.

Chris Matthews [00:15:27]:
Well, no, really, that's what you're talking about. Because you give up the filibuster, let's face it, it's the same as the House of Representatives. Why do we need a Senate if you really get into it, if there's no filibuster, there's no need for requirement. Why even have committees if the other party doesn't matter? What do you want to hear from them for? If you got a majority, you rule a place. That's what he's talking about doing. Every single appropriations bill gets passed. There won't be any more reconciliation bills. Forget all that.

Chris Matthews [00:15:55]:
You'll pass every single bill and you'll run the world. Trump wants this so badly. I will be king if I get rid of the filibuster.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:16:05]:
And he wants it because he knows he has total lock control on the Senators. You know, that would not have happened in the days of Teddy Kennedy. That wouldn't have happened.

Chris Matthews [00:16:15]:
How does Cassidy live with himself? I mean, these are. I know Cassidy's a good guy. He took me to lunch one time just to talk about life and stuff and tell us, give me a break. Til us and all these Senators that left in last November have already left the place. It's amazing how they can live with themselves.

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:34]:
People talk about the filibuster and when they say getting rid of the filibuster, they talk about when they're not in the majority, how this can come back and bite him in the ass.

Chris Matthews [00:16:43]:
Right.

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:44]:
But it's different than that, too. It can bite them being in the majority. Because now you are responsible where the minority can't help you from hurting yourself. Or at least that's how I see it. I see what's happening in the Supreme Court right now. And with the tariffs, if the Supreme Court rules that what Donald Trump is doing is wrong with the tariffs, Donald Trump's popularity is going to go up. And the reason it's gonna go up is, you know, they're gonna save him from himself when it comes to the economy.

Chris Matthews [00:17:16]:
But he loses his leverage, his instinctive ability to do what he wants to do. But if I don't like China this week, I can screw China, I can screw China, I can screw Vietnam, anybody I don't like, I can go after Canada again. He can't do that if the Congress recontrols the tariff. I worked up there on the Hill, as Tip O'Neill says, hey, I gotta tell you, fighting about the tariffs was, you know, the Senate and the House controlled tariffs. He had a fast track even to bring up a Bill. It never worked out that the President called the shots on tariffs.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:17:56]:
Well, it's going to be interesting because his Secretary of Treasury is no dummy and he's already looking at 232 if they lose under the IEPA, which is the law that's in question in the Supreme Court, if they lose there going to retrench and do 232s, they're going to do 301s, they're going to do other kind of tariff authorities. And so it won't be as broad but they'll try and leverage as best they can.

Chris Matthews [00:18:25]:
Well, he's a smart guy. Yeah, the Treasury Secretary.

Joel Heitkamp [00:18:28]:
With Donald Trump, the thing that's ever going to make him unpopular in red states is going to be the economy. It is. Let me give you an example, Chris. He leans into the back of a plane and blows up ranchers markets by 300 bucks a head just by mentioning he's going to bring beef into Argentina. Those ranchers are pissed off.

Chris Matthews [00:18:49]:
Why is he, why is he more interested in Argentina than he is than American votes? Why isn't he interested in American votes?

Joel Heitkamp [00:18:56]:
Well, I think the Argentinian thing was he's getting beat up on grocery prices time and time again. So he needed a villain. He didn't want to talk about the packers where the real money is being made when it comes to beef. But he did want to talk about how meat prices are going to go down. You know, he couldn't ignore that. So what happens? Those ranchers, it was time to sell the feeders, it was time to sell those calves, right?

Heidi Heitkamp [00:19:19]:
Couldn't have been worse time.

Joel Heitkamp [00:19:20]:
It couldn't have been a worse time. I mean, they were going off. And so here we sit and they're losing 300 bucks a head. That's a lot to ranchers at a time when they're finally making money. He didn't care. We got soybeans laying on the ground in the Midwest that we can't move because he picked a fight with China. We're never gonna get a big part of that market back. And so my point in this is you can subsidize it.

Joel Heitkamp [00:19:44]:
You can send money out to these guys. You can say, look, you know, Wilbur Ross, we'll just buy you off kind of an attitude. But the ranchers are gonna remember this. And the ranchers are pissed off. That's all I'm trying to say.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:19:57]:
Well, and the question is whether, whether the Democratic Party can win some of those rural votes back. But you know, when you look at kind of the trend line, the best you can hope for, I think, is that there is a disillusionment factor that will curtail kind of turnout among that broad base. And they'll say, it just doesn't matter.

Chris Matthews [00:20:19]:
You know, when I travel around, I've done it recently. Pennsylvania. I'm a city kid. And we always were amazed. We went on a religious retreat one time in my senior year and we just went an hour and a half from the city. And all of a sudden every diner was playing country western. And we said, what part of the world are we in? And it's right here. The country's right here.

Chris Matthews [00:20:41]:
But then I more recently went around about Adams county and places like that near Gettysburg and all. There's no downtown anymore. I mean, there's no gift shops. Remember gift shops where you could go buy gifts? There's nothing like that. It's all, it's all Walmart and everything. Somewhere out of town, there's a gas station. There might -

Chris Matthews [00:20:59]:
There used to be a Blockbuster. At least you could get a movie. That's all gone. There's no newspaper. There's no local conversation. It's arid. The Western, I mean, the rural parts of Pennsylvania are arid.

Chris Matthews [00:21:12]:
There's nobody there except some angry people. And they are angry at the Democrats especially. And they talk about politically correct or whatever. They had a big store. All they sold was Biden stuff, negative stuff. That's all they sold. And so angry. And I got.

Chris Matthews [00:21:28]:
And I'd ask somebody how they're going to vote. He says, how are you going to vote? I mean, it was like a reaction was, tell me how you're going to vote. You know, like you're the bad guy.

Joel Heitkamp [00:21:35]:
I ride motorcycle. And when I went on my trip this year with my buddies, we went through northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin. We made the big swoop around, right? I couldn't possibly imagine with my mom and dad and with the way they raised us religiously, with the way we were taught to talk. You would have these flags out, and they have them out that are "eff Biden." Okay, yeah.

Joel Heitkamp [00:22:00]:
If we flew a flag like that, dad would have had it. He'd been kicking our butt till our noses bleed. You know, he would have been that mad. I mean, but these people are doing it, and it's okay culturally to do it. The school bus goes by that flag every day, and yet they're doing it. And I don't know how we got there, Chris. I don't.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:22:18]:
Well, there's a coarseness to all of this that I think has really discouraged a lot of people, but it also has motivated a lot of people. I mean, you think about the No Kings Rally, 7 million people across the country marching and not angrily, which is interesting. And I think that's probably more discouraging for the right than anything, is that these were not crazy people who were like, kill somebody. These were people who just said, look, we have an opportunity in the 250th year of our democracy to fight for our democracy. It's our job now. And this is how I can do. I think one of the things that we're missing all along is a call to action, you know, and that's what the Kennedys were so good at. I mean, you think about, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:23:14]:
That call to action is what we're missing. But I think it's coming back, certainly among certain people, unselfishness.

Chris Matthews [00:23:21]:
I have to tell you, I researched all the books on the Kennedys I've written, and I found out where that came from. So I went up to his prep school, Choate, and I got it. And I was very lucky. And I was being helped by the archivist of the school, a woman, and she brought out the Headmaster's chapel notes. And it was a Protestant school, and they always had chapel, chapel with the Headmaster. And in the notes was the line, ask not what your school can do for you, ask what you can do for your school. And I found it in there, and I go, bullseye. This is what I went looking.

Chris Matthews [00:24:01]:
Because Arthur or Ted Sorensen never said he wrote that for Kennedy. Nobody else said it. Nobody ever said, maybe somebody will. But I found it actually in the notes, and I go, this is where it came from. Kennedy remembered that he didn't like Choate much. He didn't like the Headmaster much, but he did listen to him. And that line, it was unique English, too. It's not regular English.

Chris Matthews [00:24:21]:
Nobody says, 'ask not.' It was from, from school.

Joel Heitkamp [00:24:24]:
But who's been able to deliver a speech like the Kennedys since the Kennedys?

Chris Matthews [00:24:31]:
Well, I think it's, you know, it came out of Adlai Stevenson in the early 50s. And then Kennedy evolved something else. He said he started to ask people, the Peace Corps. I was in the Peace Corps. I'm telling you, when you ask somebody to do something, you, you basically create a friend. Because as Machiavelli -

Chris Matthews [00:24:52]:
I dug this out in one of my books, too. Machiavelli said, if you want to make a friend, ask somebody to do you a favor. Because when you do somebody a favor, you become one of them. What's a Kennedy Person? Not somebody that got some welfare from the Kennedys, but somebody who worked for them. Somebody who was in the Army or the Peace Corps or anything else at the time of the Kennedy era. I think, I think when you get somebody to work for you, they become your guy, your person. And I think that that's what that was all about.

Chris Matthews [00:25:19]:
People will say to me, yeah, my daughter worked for Kennedy back in the 60s. Oh, yeah, you're a Kennedy Person. Yeah. And so if you ask people for, to do something, if you ask them to do something for their country, they're. They're patriotic. I mean, it is so true, though, as I was talking about the soldier, the enlisted guy who spent a couple years or four years in the military, he's very proud of having been in the military, and it may have been a rough time for him. It's discipline.

Chris Matthews [00:25:48]:
It's taking orders, and yet when it's over, you go, yeah, I was in the military and you weren't, or whatever.

Joel Heitkamp [00:25:57]:
An example of what I think you're getting at of our dad. I mean, our dad was constantly asking people in our hometown, and he was the leader of that town, small town. But here's an example, I think, of what you're getting at. In our church, the men took a great pride. No matter what the season was, the ground could be froze four feet deep. But the men were going to go out and dig the grave. They were going to go out and dig the grave anytime someone passed. They weren't going to bring a -

Joel Heitkamp [00:26:25]:
Pay somebody with a backhoe. And our dad would organize it, right? Sometimes they're holding the bar chipping away. Sometimes they got the ax chipping the dirt because it's that froze. But dad would call him and he'd say, here we go, at this time. They loved dad. They really did, but they had no choice.

Joel Heitkamp [00:26:41]:
They were going out in that cold weather, and you didn't want to be the guy that didn't come up.

Chris Matthews [00:26:45]:
I know.

Joel Heitkamp [00:26:46]:
And, and it was, "Ray called. Let's go."

Chris Matthews [00:26:49]:
You know, that's the right. My dad used to say, and he's talking about end of life. And he said, it's cold down there. You know, it's an Irish tradition, too, because I got called to be a pallbearer when I was like, 10 years old because they didn't want to hire somebody they didn't know. We don't hire pallbearers. No, we bring them in. And so I got called in to do it, you know, for some distant relative.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:27:16]:
So if you were gonna give advice to the next round of Senate candidates, Chris, and said, what should Democratic Senate candidates be doing right now and be doing during the campaign to build on this momentum that was created on Tuesday?

Chris Matthews [00:27:36]:
Well, I think they have to speak, which they haven't done, the Democrats haven't done. And I don't understand why you would want to be a Senator and not have something to say. I mean, after all the work of getting into the United States Senate, you would say, I've got something to say. Schumer doesn't seem to have much to say. I always attribute it to the enormous amount of human time that he spends raising money. And he's on the phone, I imagine, all day long. The Senate leader. That's what they do, just raise money, raise money, raise money.

Chris Matthews [00:28:09]:
You know, kiss the butt of somebody on the phone. You know, 'I think Israel's great' or something. Whatever that person wants to hear, you gotta tell them, and you're exhausted. And I think that, I think Schumer's like that. I'll just say this for both parties. One is David McCormick, get elected United States Senate from Pennsylvania, which is, to me, an amazing ambition. And not say a word.

Chris Matthews [00:28:32]:
He hasn't said anything since he's been in office. What is he, why do you, why do you want to be a Senator? For the honor of being a Senator, but not saying anything. Where are they? You know, Fetterman, at least in a strange way, is running around with shorts on and then acting like he's a yahoo. Like, where do you come from, you know.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:28:49]:
But he's got something to say.

Chris Matthews [00:28:51]:
He does. And I think the question is Chris Murphy's got things to say. Look, it looks like the next Democratic nominee for President is going to be a Governor. And I say that because the Democrats are tired of losing. They don't want to hear it. They don't want another oddball out there. They want a Governor who represents a big state or in any state and represents both parties, because you have to be able to talk to both parties to be a president. Bill Clinton could do that.

Chris Matthews [00:29:23]:
Maybe Gavin Newsom can do it. Maybe we'll serve J.B. Pritzker, maybe, maybe Josh Piro in Pennsylvania. Maybe Wes Moore, could be Wes Moore for VP. I think Wes Moore is VP material, because I think the Democrats are going to have to run a moderate, and it's somebody from the, what looks like somebody who looks like they're from the left as a running mate. They don't have to run a left winger.

Chris Matthews [00:29:45]:
I don't think that's necessary. But if you run an African American, people would say, well, he might be a left winger, he might be on the left, but they got to run a moderate, somebody like Josh, or they really have to run somebody who runs and takes the middle, just takes it. Because I think they showed they can get it. The, the, the Mikie Sherrill winning this week was like a Democrat of the old days. A Hubert Humphrey or somebody or somebody would win because he seemed like he was with the, the working people. He just seems like he's one of them.

Chris Matthews [00:30:15]:
He's ready to. And I think that. I think that they need to get that back. Obama couldn't do it. I love, I loved Obama, but he didn't seem to connect with regular people. And you got to find a way into the hearts of people and say, you know what? I don't know much about this guy, but I think he's with us.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:34]:
Well, part of that, that recipe you just talked about is what this is about, right?

Chris Matthews [00:30:40]:
Yeah.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:40]:
Well, you talked about the train ride. You talked about stopping. You talked about people, you know, stopping and talking to everybody to the point where they all felt like they were part of it. In my home area, I mean, you got John Thune out saying what he's saying. He's talking, right? He's a leader. I've got John Hoeven.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:59]:
John Hoeven in North Dakota still hasn't said anything. I don't know what he's for. I get him on my radio show all the time, and we always laughed afterwards saying, okay, what did he say? When he's done with the interview, everybody I'm around going...

Chris Matthews [00:31:15]:
Because he didn't want to say anything.

Joel Heitkamp [00:31:16]:
He reminds me, he reminds me of the guy in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Remember, I dance a little sidestep.

Chris Matthews [00:31:24]:
Larry. Larry.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:31:26]:
Well, you know, there is no premium in taking a position anymore, you know.

Chris Matthews [00:31:32]:
Well, that was, that was, that was true with Ronald Reagan, who people liked. My job working for the speaker for six years was to come up with a Democratic member on the House side to respond to Reagan on the radio on Saturday. And I was, I would call the people, I'd say, you got, you got something to say. You're smart. I don't say you're smart. The guys would, they'd all say, no, I don't want to, I don't want to contend with Ronald Reagan. Cause people back home, whether it's Rostenkowski or anybody like that, you may be from a Democratic district, but they like Reagan.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:32:03]:
But people don't like Trump. That's the mistake.

Chris Matthews [00:32:06]:
I hope that's the case.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:32:08]:
No, that's absolutely the case. Even people who vote for him are disgusted by the behavior, don't like them, but they don't think they've been given an alternative, which is the failure of the Democratic Party not to provide an alternative that people can in fact see as a potential. He is not beloved. Well, the one question I don't not think Donald Trump is beloved.

Joel Heitkamp [00:32:30]:
The one question on my radio show that the right, which, you know, I come from right country, so I have a lot of politicians on that are from the right, and the one question I ask them that makes them the most nervous and now they know they're going to get asked it and they don't have an answer for it, is do you think Donald Trump's a good person? Do you think he's a great person?

Chris Matthews [00:32:52]:
It's a great question.

Joel Heitkamp [00:32:52]:
Then you hear this long pause and they wait for you to jump in.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:32:56]:
And say the long pause is, should I lie? Should I lie?

Joel Heitkamp [00:33:00]:
And to be honest with you, none of the people I've talked to have said yes. None of them have said yes. Now think about that. He's President of the United States and none of them think he's a good person.

Chris Matthews [00:33:14]:
Well, I think that's a great question. It's like I said in my book, if you want America to be great, start with the fact it's going to be good.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:33:22]:
I love that.

Chris Matthews [00:33:23]:
You gotta be a good country and that means dealing with immigration in a reasonable way, dealing with the bad guys, get them out of here. Fine. The people that have been causing trouble, fine. But respect the fact that somebody's been going to church and paying taxes and not getting Social Security and not getting Medicaid despite the lies of Michael Johnson. They're not getting it. It's not true. You can't get it if you don't pay in. I'm sorry.

Chris Matthews [00:33:49]:
That's how it works. And that was Roosevelt's genius because he said, I'm going to make sure this is a, you have to pay for it. I want people to pay for Social Security and I wanted them to get it. If they're a zillionaire, I want them to get it still because I want people with wealth to protect Social Security. I want them to believe in it, too. So he said, it's not going to be a means-tested program.

Chris Matthews [00:34:09]:
It's not going to be the way a real super liberal would want it. He just says, I'm going to make it a program that people want.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:34:16]:
Well, I mean, we have so much more to talk about, but we want everybody to know this is going to be a great book.

Chris Matthews [00:34:24]:
Thank you.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:34:24]:
It is, I think the, the, that in order to be a great country, we have to be a good country. It's something that calls to the higher angels. And so congratulations.

Chris Matthews [00:34:35]:
You sound like Lincoln.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:34:37]:
No, I don't. I wish I could sound like Lincoln. But thank you so much for being on the Hot Dish. One more episode and we're so glad you all tune in and we're hoping that you continue to visit us us. It's brought to you by onecountryproject.org.

Joel Heitkamp [00:34:55]:
And we want to know what you think. So please let us know what you think. I mean, this is a work in progress. This is something that we want to do with you. So do that, go to onecountryproject.org. That's onecountryproject.org. And both Heidi and I thank you for joining us.