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we're joined by tom hartman. a live nationwide daily that airs monday through friday on sirius xm radio. welcome to washington journal. >> good morning, kimberly. thank you for having me. >> thank you getting up early for us from portland, oregon. what was your take on the outcome of the election? >> my concern is that we are essentially sliding into oligarchy. several years ago, president carter pointed to citizens united when the supreme court said bribery of politicians is now legal because money is the same thing as free speech and corporations are the same thing as people. that it would be possible for very, very wealthy people to buy elections and politicians. now we have a billionaire coming in as president and the richest man in the world coming in as like his number two.

both of them have spent the last couple of years, apparently, regularly speaking with vladimir putin and viktor orban. viktor orban, the semi dictator of hungary, came to cpap a couple years ago and laid out what he had done in hungary within a year of his second election, his re-election. he destroyed all of the independent media. people post on facebook against him and they go to jail. i'm very concerned that that's -- that's the direction we're heading now when you get kash patel surrogates saying we're coming for you in the media. i'm very concerned that jimmy carter's essentially prophecy is coming true. we'll have a government by and for the very, very rich. >> and, yet, republicans and

donald trump in particular, showed a lot of gains in this election, including among people across demographic groups. he gained with latino voters and white women. how do you explain some of those gains? >> you know, i used to work in advertising 40 years ago i owned an advertising agency in atlanta. if you beat people over the head with a message often enough with enough money and enough saturation, you can largely convince them of anything. kamala harris never once mentioned trans people during the campaign. and has never really been a champion of trans people. she had that one interview many years ago where she talked about trans people getting surgery in jail. that's certainly not her position now as she walked that back years ago. the trump campaign and mostly the very, very large super pacs

that are funded or funded to the tune of literally over $100 million each by multiple right-wing billionaires poured so much advertising into and particular into the swing states arguing that that was her entire agenda basically. hey, let's elevate trans people. that, you know, a lot of people bought it which is perfectly understandability. advertising works. it's the reason why most commercial television networks and newspapers still exist. if it didn't work, they wouldn't be around. so, i think that the narrative was taken by this, you know, i understand there's roughly about 150 billionaire families who threw most of the money behind

trump into this campaign and, of course, they're looking for tax cuts and those who are in business in a big way, particularly in the polluting industry like the fossil fuel industry, they are looking for deregulation and more subsidies. we subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $1 billion a year and they want more. it certainly looks putting a fossil fuel lobbyist in charge of the interior department, for example, which trump just announced, it certainly looks like they will get. it will certainly pay back. my big concern is the department of government efficiency that musk and ramaswamy are supposed to run. there's talk they want to carefully evaluate our entitlements programs, which, of course, is social security and medicare and medicaid. i don't think the average americans realize how bad it could get. i don't know it will, but you

know, there are -- there are probably some practical political limits to what they can do. i'm just very concerned. >> so, i want to pull up a chart looking at some of these areas where trump gained voters including what we talked about. 46% of latino voters backed trump. that's up 7 points from 2020. trump won latino men, 55% to 53%. white women 53% to 45%. in the last two, non college graduates. 56% voted for trump and 42% supported trump. why do americans struggle with these groups in particular in rural america? >> again, to go back to the massive advertising that wasn't limited to television or radio, by the way, it was also the social media presence and elon musk tweaking his algorithms to

promote right-wing messages suggests because the democrats have traditionally been the party that defended the average working person, joe biden was the first president in the history of america to walk a picket line. it was democrats who brought us the five-day workweek at the 40-hour workweek and the weekend and unemployment insurance and medicare and medicaid. all of those things. also, democrats since the '60s, defended racial minorities and since the '80s defended gender minorities. that a character in the democratic party as i mentioned in the party kamala harris, has created this massive right-wing ecosphere that emerged since the '80s.

you have three television networks funded by ght-wing billionaires, one foreign, fox news. you have 58 dio stations. we have broadcast in spanish. this is news that just came up in the last four years. you have 700 or 800 christian stations which in many cases abandoned talking about jesus and started politics. you have churches ignoring the irs law and preaching politics from the pulpit. it is the massive cumulative evident and there's nothing like that on the left. we've never developed a strong, you know, we have air america for about five years. i was on air america and in 2008, you know, there was a broad consensus, actually, that

air america helped -- pardon me -- helped barack obama get elected. >> i don't know if you want to grab a drink of water or something. >> i'm good. >> i want to read something here. i'll go back to something you mentioned earlier. you mentioned since the 1960s, the democrats have been the party that supports racial minorities ccording to your assessment. i want to look at the chart here of the distribution of white voters in particular. the democrats have not won the vote among white americans since 1964. overwhelmingly over the years, white voters have voted republican. democrats have lost support among white voters since barack obama in 2008. what do you think that means for the future of the party and the party's dynamics? >> i think that reflects the deep racism that is still extent

among white people in america. you know, certainly the trump presidency and even his successful campaign in 2016, frankly shocked me. you know, i'm a white guy. i grew up with white people and i -- you know, i knew white racism is out there and i heard the jokes and slurs as a kid. i never realized how broad and how deep it is. 1964 was the year that lyndon johnson put forward the civil rights act and it actually passed congress. it was the end of apartheid in the united states. i'm old enough that i remember as a little kid, 7, 8 years old, my parents taking me to the jack tarr, i grew up in lansing, michigan. the fanciest hotel and the nice restaurant and for their anniversary when i was 7, they took my and my brothers there to dinner there. i remember the sign on the side of the building that pointed to

the colored entrance. this was in the 1950s. that all ended in 1964. that was when and over the next five years, you saw all these southern democrats, strom thurman and jesse helms flip and become republicans because the republican party was not taking a position on this. barry goldwater who ran for president in '64, actually opposed the civil rights act. his argument was this is the job of the states, not the federal government. the old states rights argument. when ronald reagan ran for president in 1980, the first speech he gave as the head of the party was in mississippi which was the site of the three civil rights orkers. his speech to the all white audience which was code back

then for we never should have passed that damn civil rights act and go back to apartheid in the united states. it has been that way since and trump has tripled down on it. i don't have an explanation beyond for this -- for this very, very clear racial divide that has existed since '64. beyond just the shocking reality of at least half of white america and arguably a little more of that, is just deeply racist. >> we'll take your calls for questions for our guests. 202-748-8000. republicans 202-748-8001 and independents 202-748-8002. tom, i want to talk about the coalition the democrats could potentially create moving forward given what they've learned. pete davis, co-founder of the

democracy policy network wrote after the election that democrats havefocus less relationships with neighbors and chapter leaders and emphasize fundraising and celebrities. i'llread a bit more on that. instead of funding through membership dues, the democratic party has parties and disrespectful texts for the rest of us. famous politicians are emphasized over relationships with neighbors and chapter leaders. when you go to democrats.org, clicking take action doesn't take you to the local committee meeting times and locations, the bolded call to action on the home page is donate, not join. what do you see as the future for how democrats can create a new coalition for themselves?

>> that is an accurate critique and echos one i have made over the years. what happened was in 1978, lewis powell, richard nixon put him on the supreme court and he authored a decision in which the supreme court ruled for the first time in a big way that money is -- that because corporations don't have a , if they want to speak, they use money. that is protected by the first amendment and the corporations are persons so they are entitled to rights under the first amendment. that kind of floated ronald reagan into the white house in 1981 on the ocean of oil by and large. it also confronted the democratic party how do we do fundraising and win elections if elections going forward are going to be about money. in '92, the clinton campaign

largely embraced the reagan's positions and started going for wealthy people and wealthy funders and embracing, you know, hot shot bankers and things like that. that's -- that continued right up until the election of joe biden. biden -- excuse me. pardon me. i'm so sorry. joe biden is really the first democrat since '92 to have repud yated near liberalism. reducing the size of unions and cutting taxes on wealthy people and free trade. allowing corporations to go anywhere they want to get the cheapest labor. both clinton and obama did and the party is still a near liberal party. still largely embracing that. although the progressive caucus in congress, about 100 members, have all said we're not going to take corporate money. we're not begging rich people

for money. we're going to be here just for the people. i think that's a very legitimate credit particular of the democratic party and they need to get their grassroots act together and become part of the 90% and stop with the movie stars and the billionaires. i think that probably kamala harris campaigning with beyonce and mark cuban, a billionaire, and liz cheney did not help her. >> let's get to the calls. john is on the line for independence. >> good morning, john. >> caller: good morning. i want to ask you a quick question, sir. if the vote's supposed to be unanimous, how do the polls come up with the percentage of people who voted for who? the 53% of white people voted

for donald trump. how do you come up with the numbers if the vote is supposed to be unanimous? >> what do you mean unanimous? >> i'm sorry. secret ballot. nobody is supposed to know who you voted for. how do you come with the numbers of the percentage of people who voted for who? >> they do what are called exit polls where you stand out side polling places and people come out and they ask who they voted for. people who are willing to answer more questions, they ask how much do you make and where you work and things like that. you know, exit polls are actually surprisingly accurate. they're used all around the world. that is principally how they came up with those numbers. >> carl is in michigan on the line for democrats. good morning, carl. >> caller: good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: good to talk with you thom. i'm a fan of your show. as far as the rich people and

celebrities, i want to call everybody out. both -- what i wanted to throw out for the audience to talk about a little bit a few things i jotted down. freedom will destroy america. freedom to bear arms. average of three sguns guns pe. inching closer to the government establishing religion. congress and the supreme court. forcing religion in public schools and curriculum and book bans. >> carl, your line keeps jumping. >> caller: manipulating elections and legislation from both sides. i'll be a minute. pushing back regulations and protecting workers. shipping labor overseas to increase stock buy backs. last one, freedom of

press/media. divide us, manipulate us and insult us. >> all right. thom, you have any response to the ideas just laid out? >> yeah. back in 1936, franklin roosevelt famously said necessituos men are not free men. you are not free if you don't have a job. you are not free if you don't have a place to live. you are not free if you need an education and can't. that's been a mantra for the democratic party ever since that -- that opportunity and freedom are interchangeable. republicans, on the other hand, have been saying you are not free if you don't have a gun. you are not free if you have to pay taxes. particularly if you are very, very rich. you know, this word freedom

which has a deep almost dna resonance for americans has been used by both parties i think in very different ways. i think your caller's points are cogent and important. and kamala harris, to her credit, like i said, she wasn't campaigning on surgeries for trains people. she was campaigning on the idea that freedom, too, is as important as freedom from. freedom to have a decent retirement with a well funded social security system and freedom with good healthcare from a national healthcare system that provides for everybody. those kinds. freedom to get a good education. freedom to get good housing, things like that. you know, sadly, that message just got drowned out by billions of dollars.

we have never seen so much money spent on the political campaign in the history of america. i think it is a very important point he made. >> jeff is on our line for republicans from cleveland, ohio. >> caller: good morning. good day, sir. i'm from cleveland. my mom and dad were fdr democrats. i'm republican. mainly, i'm not racist. one of my daughters is married to somebody that's black. when you see those types of things, you enflame a lot of americans. the other thing you state is you go to the hotel in michigan in '64 and see the sign. you know perfectly well in '64 it was legal in michigan. you are enflaming the topic. it is unfair you an bias for the left. i see nothing in the conversation that is more centrist to pull us together.

please comment. >> i'm not sure what i said that is the "the left." i have been presenting american values. i don't think i'm enflaming anything. there are a lot of white racists out there. when you've got a presidential candidate saying that, you know, talking about s-hole countries and, you know, referring to people of color as rapists and murderers. that's pretty inflammatory. i'll give you that. please name one position i've taken or one thing i've argued that is radical left. >> we've already let go of that caller. if you had any further thoughts? >> you know, when you look at -- we used to get -- we the american people, all of us, democrats, republicans, independents, whatever. we used to get what we wanted

out of government. between 1933 and the mid-1980s, you know, we got medicare, social security, unemployment insurance, free college up to the 1980s. high quality schools. it used to be the insurance and hospitals were required to be non-profits. basically the stuff that americans wanted, we used to get. since the 1980s, since basically money was interpreted as speech by five corrupt members of the supreme court, and money came to dominate our political environment and wealthy people, right-wing billionaires in large part came to control one of our parties and arguably both, to some extent with the democrats. we're not getting what we want. you know, when you poll americans and say do you think rich people should pay fair share in taxes?

the average billionaire is paying 3% of taxes and i pay a lot more than that. why aren't those taxes going up? they can fund a lot of good stuff. because the billionaires own things. you have a billionaire who will be president and the world's richest man beside him. he was funded by billionaires. harris' campaign was funded with $200 contributions from average people. when you look at the things people want, people like the national healthcare system where everybody's in. right now, millions of people don't have insurance at all. a half a million people a year in all of the developed democracies in the world, 34 countries, all of the developed democracies, 500,000 people declare bankruptcy because someone got sick. we're the only country, only

developed country in the world with student debt crisis. $2 trillion of student debt. 70% of people say college should be free. yes, everybody should have health care at a reasonable cost. these are not happening because the billionaires don't want to pay their taxes. they throw out the mexicans are coming to rape your wife and murder your daughter. let me show you an example of one that happened. you know, kamala harris wants to -- wants to do trans surgery and kids are going to school and coming home with the genitals chopped off. trump literally said that over and over again. these things are not only not true, but designed to be distractions from the fact that the gop, in large part, with the help of a handful of democrats, have basically been robbing us blind for the better part of 20 or 30 years. >> i want to get to a few more

callers. james in atlanta, georgia on the line for independents. good morning, james. >> caller: i hope i get to say what i called to say. mr. hartmann, i used to tune in to your show, but moved away. i don't think i need to hear that political -- i can't think of the name of the show. news newsmax. do you agree three hours on c-span is an important opportunity to hear these issues? why we never hear anything hardly ever about the outrage that is going on to women in afghanistan and elsewhere in the world? let me tell you my opinion, we don't get to hear about stuff because kimberly prefers we all get to hear everybody say good morning back to her. did you hear how many times she thanked the caller for asking how she's doing today? we don't need to hear that, sir. we need people who knows

something to say something about racism and all of this other outrage going on in the world. don't you agree people should be invited to say what you called to say? you shouldn't have to stop everything in the world so we all hear somebody else say good morning back to kimberly or hear john thank somebody for getting up early. >> james, do you want to make sure we take advantage of your time to get your opinion on this topic or a question for thom hartmann? >> i would like to respond, kimberly. >> sure. >> i think kimberly is doing a fantastic job. i've been around longer. i think it's important that we hear all of these voices and i think it is important that we hear, you know, people calling in and expressing their raw racism on the one hand and people calling in and objecting to that on the other. i believe that's what america is

and we need more of this. we need people talking with each other and to each other rather than, you know, across each other. so, i'm -- i have no objections to that and i think, you know, kimberly's doing a marvelous job and c-span hosts in general do a marvelous job of exhibiting good manners and being decent human beings. that's important role model stuff for particularly young people watching the program. >> january is in- bellevue, washington. good morning, january. >> caller:. good morning. i used to listen to air america. i miss it. if it is okay with c-span if you could say where we could hear you now on the air? i would love that. i called about the electoral

college. i live in washington state and it's obviously not one of the swing states and sometimes it's, you know, when you hear by and for the people, it's like for the swing states. it's like -- it's true. we do tend to always vote for the democratic party, but it's still -- i think we should be involved, all of the states that aren't swing states. we all want to be involved in the process to elect our leaders and i know it's a pipe dream to think that will ever be changed, but except for in the late 'the 80s or '90s with the candidate pat robertson in our state which

woke a lot of people up, i guess. other than that, you know, everything's been very predictable. i'm 78 and i always, always vote. it feels like we're just kind of stuck on the outside. we don't really matter and all. >> january, let's let thom respond first of all. would you like to let people know where they can find your show and programming and speak about the electoral college? >> thom hartmann.com or a list on sirius xm from noon to 3:00 p.m. east everybody ern time. freespeech.org which is carried on dish and direct.

if you use ither of those carriers. we're on 150 or 00 radio stations around the country. you have to find it on -- on thomhartmann.com. >> you have a podcast. >> yes, that's available, too. we've got an app just like c-span. there is a thom hartmann app. thanks. with regard to the electoral college, it's fascinating, you go back and read james madison's notes on the national convention and what was clear back then, it would take four days for news to get from washington, d.c. to southern georgia, for example. the -- the -- it would be very hard for someone in georgia to know who was running for president if all of the candidates were in d.c. or new york, which was the capital of

the united states until 1800. so, the idea of the electoral college is each state would elect some wisemen who would -- who would evaluate the candidates and go to washington, d.c. and cast their votes for the candidates. this is going to prevent a low moral character from becoming president. you can argue the first 50 years of the united states, there was value in that, although it largely protected the united states. it biassed the southern united states. it is an arc now. there is an effort to do away with the electoral college. states sign on and say whoever gets the most national votes u

we will give all of our votes to that person because individual states can decide how the electoral votes are cast. most of them right now say whoever wins our state gets all of our electoral votes. nebraska and maine are the exception. they have two regions where they do that. same kind of thing. right now, there are 200, roughly 200 electoral votes that are signed on for the interstate compact. when they hit that, that will be the end of the electric oral college. we exhausted the blue states. now what is left is the red states. the red states is the only reason george bush became president or donald trump became president. they both lotsst the popular vo. the red states and the republicans are hostile to that. back in 1971, we came within one

vote of ending the electoral college. it wasn't a big deal back then, the electoral college hadn't decided an election since the 1930s. it is political now. if you live in a state that has not signed the internet compact, you might want to talk to your state representative or state is senators. >> bob is in norwalk, connecticut on the line for republicans. >> caller: good morning. thom, earlier, i think i heard you say that the billionaires pay a 3% tax rate. that -- that's grossly misrepresenting what the billionaires pay. i don't know if you recall during the president biden's state of the union speech, he said he was compared with the billionaires pay to the firefighters and the teachers. he said at that time it was 8% they paid. that's grossly incorrect, too because it was based upon a white house study of the white

house budget management study that included unrealized capital gains for the billionaires, including on stocks and on business valuations and on real estate. and, so, there's no credible study that comes up with any numbers like that. i'm a cpa. i stay -- i know this stuff inside out, upsidedown. the 1% pays 45% of the taxes. let me put it in perspective. that 1% amount that the billionaires -- the top 1% send to the irs exceeds the bottom 90% of all taxpayers. in other words, the taxpayers in the 11% category to the 100% category. 90%. 1% of the taxpayers pay more

than 90% of the citizens of the country. they're said to pay they didn't pay their fair share. you also probably know, thom, that nearly 50% of the bottom 50%, which is okay, they pay nothing. they pay zero income taxes. >> this mitt romney thing and pointed out. you are right. it also highlights the saying that figures don't lie, but liars can figure. when you say the top 1%, you are talking about basically everybody who makes over $350,000 for $400,000 a year. that, yeah, surgeons, lawyers ourks professional people who make hundreds of thousands. $600,000 a year, they're getting whacked. they're paying almost half of their income in income taxes. donald trump never paid more than $700 a year in income taxes if my memory is correct for

decades. many wealthy people. the same, i believe the same thing was done with looking at the taxes of jeff bezos, i could be wrong. instead of taking a paycheck, which is taxable as income, they borrow against their assets for -- for living expenses and they borrow at 3% or 4% or 5%. functionally, they are paying 3% or 4% or 5% income tax. that is not money going to the government. it is money going to the bank. in some cases, they own the bank and make a profit on that. billionaires, by and large, don't take paychecks. don't need to take paychecks. of course, if you make your money by investing, you have an entirely different tax category as you mentioned capital gains and if you are in the hedge fund

business, you've got, you know, pass through income and lower rate than capital gains. you know, instead of talking about the top 1%, which is all the people who are doing very well who are really getting tax whacked, we should be talking about the 100th of 1% or arguably the 1/10 of 1%. people making over $1 million a year. when you start to get into the categories, there are 100 different ways as any cpa can tell you, to basically avoid paying income tax or pay very little. >> let's get one more caller in before we let you go. katharine is on the line from illinois on the independents. >> caller: hi, thom. i listen to your show every day. i recommend it highly to everyone. i have a quick question. what do you think the impact of elon musk with his support of

the republican party, what impact do you think he's going to have on the democrats and how they govern? >> well, he's already taken the largest social media site in the world or maybe the second largest. i'm not sure how twitter compares to facebook. x, excuse me. different kind of media. he has already taken that and swung it hard to the right and turned it into a massive propaganda operation. that can't help but influence both republicans and democrats. so, you know, i'm concerned about it. like i said, you know, jimmy carter said we're sliding in oligarchy.oligarchy, and i would say we, as of january, we will have officially arrived. the morbidly rich, the extraordinarily rich, are running our country now, and typically -- the thing that concerns me the most. i wrote a book about this, "the hidden