his time in vietnam and the soviet union, among other things. >> reporter, interview, and publisher on peter as knows. -- osnos. listen wherever you got your podcast. host: we are joined by charlie cook, publisher of the cook political report. good morning to you. i want to start with the topic we began our program with today, the news last night that senate democrats announced the $3.5 trillion budget plan. the details are still to come. and the road ahead to move it through, budget reconciliation. what would the battle mean for election 2022 coming up in the politics of the debate coming forward? guest: just a thank you for

having me on. you have this in politics, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. the political party you have to , on the one hand keep your base satisfied so that they will vote. on the other hand, you have to reach over to the middle, to 10% or less of people that are true independents, do not lean either way, are not terribly political but are up for grabs. it is almost like a balancing act, not too hot, not too cold. when a party when they do enough , to delight their base, they know they are not helping themselves with independents. if they are with the swing voters, you knows they are not helping themselves with their base. so it is a delicate balancing act going on, and i think one of the challenges we have these days -- and i'm not saying this just because it is democrats, because it is true both ways -- we are in a period where the

parties look at everything as a zero-sum game. winner take all. no matter how small your election victory, you have a big mandate. you saw that with republicans in 2017-2018 and you see that with democrats now, that even a tiny mandate, or a tiny margin, they see as a major mandate to do big things. but i think democrats are having a hard time balancing. president biden, keeping both wings of the party happy -- that is a real challenge. and it will be a challenge in the next election. host: let's stay with that balancing act and go with a different issue voting rights. , president biden goes to the national constitution center in philadelphia, a big speech on voting rights. democratic members of the texas state legislature in d.c. to push that issue, to not be in texas, to avoid a quorum on the texas law.

but s1, the for the people act, all but dead in the senate? it doesn't seem to have the support to move on its own. do you see that balancing act there? guest: i wish parties would stop doing these kitchen sink bills where they put everything but the kitchen sink in so their individual aspects of individual legislation that people will hate, and rather take each one one at a time, up or down come -- up or down, each provision. and have a better chance of getting things like that through. i'm going to alienate both democrats and conservatives right here because i think the -- i think both sides have gotten a little bit over their skis. on both sides of the issue, fraught on one side, suppression on the other, that at the one hand there is very, very little voter fraud in this country. just look at the convictions under president trump and his justice department for four years. eight years under george w. bush.

but at the same time, very, very few people have, white, black, brown are encountering any , obstacles to voting. i was looking at a survey taken right after this election where the voter study group the democracy fund. they gave people a list of eight possible problems that they could have encountered voting. among whites, it was missing the registration day, unable to get to the correct polling place, requesting a ballot and it arrived too late or did not arrive. we're told they did not have the right identification, was told the registration was not on the list. among whites it was 1% to 2% for each of these problems. for african-americans, it was 3%, 4%, or 5%. for hispanics, it was 5%, 6% or , 7% with the leg which barrier probably accounting for that.

i'm not saying there are not some elected officials that seem to be more republican that seem to be trying to make it more challenging for certain segments of the electorate to vote, and that those segments happen to be more democratic. no question about it. but when you look at the voter fraud number during the four years under president trump, there were only 184 convictions during the entire four years. and these things about the election you had 90 different , federal and state judges, where nine of them were appointed by president trump. basically none of them found , anything here. think about the eight years under president bush. george w. bush. they did a major voter -- what they call the ballot access and voter integrity initiative. they only charged 119 people, 86

convictions, over five years. we have seen the heritage foundation do a study where they found that there were only 563 convictions in the last 10 years voter fraud or any kind of fraud , of any kind, election fraud or voter fraud. in the last 40 years, i think it was hoover found 1322 proven cases over 40 years. how many billions of votes were cast during that time? i think just to point out, we are at a point in politics where nobody ever loses anything. either i win, or i have been cheated. one way or the other. we see that in both parties on both ends of the ideological spectrum. and part this is political segregation. so many people live, work and

, socialize with people like themselves, so everybody they know votes, and their segment readership, , listenership, viewership, day -- they get to the point where they don't hear anything other than what they want to believe. it is a challenging time, no question about it. but, you know, i think it is deplorable to keep anyone who is a legitimate voter from voting, but the caller today who said if illegal immigrants have a drivers license they can vote. show that to me. don't just tell me that you heard it on a radio talkshow or learned it on the internet someplace. show me something concrete. there is not a state in the union who allows illegal immigrants to vote. it just doesn't happen. host: i do love it when the callers say that -- charlie

cook, the cook political report, his 176 appearance today, dating back to 1985, back when we were still calling you charles. it was november 1, 1985. if you want to join charlie cook this money, democrats can call in at 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001, independents, 202-748-8002. you were talking about razor thin majorities who govern as if they are not in razor thin majority. when did that start? you went back to republicans under the trump administration. but when did they act in the old days, as it were? guest: that's a great question, john. i think our entire political system basically started changing about 30 years ago. around 1991, 1992 -- this was sort of the ultimate reach.

the thing is, in the old days, you saw a fairly substantial percentage of people in one party which say they approve of the other party. eisenhower and kennedy, each of them had 60% job approval ratings among people in the opposite party. and starting in the early 1990's, we started seeing things get more and more partisan. the opposition to bill clinton when he was elected in 1992, over the next eight years, you had a positive view of republicans toward his administration. it reached proportions we had never seen before. during the next debate with george w. bush, you saw the exactly same thing happened the other way around, where the level of animosity among republicans. it keeps building and building from that point on.

so that now you have got the vast majority of voters that are just voting straight ticket voting, all republican, all democrat. now we are in a parliamentary system for the most part. i think it is remarkable that in 2016 every single u.s. senate race was won by a candidate of the same party that carried that race. every single one. then in november, it was all but one. 34 out of 35, with one exception. 96% of all members of the house represent districts that their party carries. so we are going one way or the other. if it is a between party vote, then one vote or the other side is taken as a mandate. but i think it is the culmination of escalating waves of partisanship that sort of

hits the system, and it used to be that we had, going into 1982, republicans had won four of the five most recent presidential elections, and i think it was seven out of the 11 at the end of world war ii. at the same time, democrats going into 1994, democrats had won the house 20 times in a row, and the senate, 42nd -- 30 consecutive years. in 1994, you saw partisanship kicking in. the political behavior today bears no resemblance to what it did before 1991, 1992. host: joe is up first out of maine. you're on with charlie cook, independent. caller: thanks for taking my

call. good morning, charlie. it's my understanding, you keep talking about past elections. in the 2020 election, there was one person charged with fraud. he was a republican from pennsylvania who had repeatedly voted for his passed away mother. that went through the court. he was charged and convicted. there was no hugo chavez that interrupted in the elections in 2020. there was no martian vote. there was no fraudulent vote. there was one case. could you comment on that? my other question or comment, quick is, the republican senators all took an oath during the impeachment to be a fair and impartial juror. i know that's not exactly what you're talking about.

but then let's say they'll use that for toilet paper. host: you bring up a couple of different issues. guest: i tend to forget what happened before. whether it is just one case, i was reading the other day about a case in texas where a guy had served some time in prison and was on parole. under texas law, while you are in jail and while you are still on parole, you are not allowed to vote, and afterwards you are allowed to vote. this guy was apparently at his local polling place, the last person in line to vote, was quoted on tv or something for having waited six hours to vote. he votes, and then it comes out somebody investigates and finds out that he shouldn't have because his parole wasn't over. when prosecutors have looked at a lot of these cases, and a lot of it is just that someone

thought they were registered to vote or thought they did and didn't. you know, the vast majority of these people were born and raised in the united states. there is no reason to challenge them, but people do. personally, i would go for a universal voter registration for anybody who is a citizen. when you get your drivers license or id card or welfare or whatever, you show it, and after that nobody can challenge you. you have to vote in the right place, but there is a lot. on the democrats' side, there is a feeling that people were having to walk over broken glass to vote, or that certain people are. on the other side, that people are stealing votes left and right, when there are very few cases. it is like the sworn affidavit. it is all garbage. host: go ahead and finish her

comment. guest: i forgot where i was going there. eight years under george w. bush with no republican justice department, four years under trump. if there was significant voter fraud in this country, i suspect that 12 years we would have seen more than the few cases we saw. host: we will head over to the chesapeake bay out of annapolis. scott, republican line. caller: i would like to challenge the idea that illegals are not voting in the election. i have a personal experience where i was renewing my driver's license at the dmv, and i was chatting with the lady behind the counter about it, and she goes, "oh, we give it illegals drivers license because they all have to prove residency. the next question on the screen

says, do you want to register to vote? she says i know for a fact there are illegals, many hundreds of thousands in americans that have come in, they get residency status, they get a drivers license, and then they also at the same time our signed up to register to vote." guest: have you personally witnessed a noncitizen vote? have you witnessed this, or is it secondhand? caller: i did not watch the vote, i watched a person sign up to vote at the dmv. guest: and you knew for sure that they were not a citizen? host: i think we lost the caller. guest: it is all hearsay. i heard this, i read this, somebody told me this or that. when judges, when prosecutors go to really look at the details, they find out that that doesn't wash.

you had nine different trump appointed federal judges look at these things. either hearing motions or cases. and we did not see anything. over half of the federal judges are republican appointed. why the heck happened they found more? host: gulfport, mississippi, is next. democrat, good morning. austin, are you with us? we will go to samantha in washington, d.c. go ahead, samantha. caller: good morning. two points. i am a navy custodian, six generations. i'm african-american, and at 1.i was a republican, and when the clan took over the party, i became a democrat and proud to be. i -- my concern is the lies that are being perpetrated by the

likes of the current governor. the lieutenant governor in texas, the governor doesn't run the state. the lieutenant governor runs the state. this guy is quite questionable, this dan patrick, who was -- who is out of the state american -- state of maryland, who has a shaming background and is coming to texas and had a talk show alex jones. is very racist and race -- it is very racist and anything beyond what democrats would give people their rights. he would tax the attorney general, who has been under federal indictment since 2017, i believe, maybe earlier than that, on criminal fraud charges and so forth. and of course trump's justice department did not want to press the issue.

these are people who are the worst kind of criminals you can possibly have. host: mr. cook? guest: my dog is in a nearby room and is not happy. host: we understand that. we get television. guest: when i am not talking, i will be muted. under the texas constitution scum of the lieutenant governor really does have more power, constitutionally, than the governor does. with the legislature and all this. so that is absolutely true. and the only exception to that is if you have a governor who is very assertive, and like george w. bush, a democratic speaker, sometimes a governor can become

-- constitutionally, technically speaking, that is absolute true. and the attorney general under indictment -- i don't know the d's case -- the details of the case. i'm not saying texas is getting more democratic, but it is getting less republican, and is sort of moving toward the middle. it has not moved as much as some people thought it might by november. as other people from other parts of the country move in, it becomes lex -- less texas, less southern. that's what you're seeing with north carolina and other places, the influx of other people from other parts of the country. and its suburbs are growing, and the small town rural areas, which are the most conservative republican right now, those areas are contracting. that's why you are seeing real changes in voter behavior in

some of these states. and conversely, in some of the midwest industrial states, democrats are having to peddle harder and harder because they are having more challenges with working-class white voters. there is a push-pull going on in different parts of the country. i know i didn't get into specifics, but i'm trying to stay away from subjective stuff. host: what is an example of one of the democratic states where they are pedaling harder? guest: look at pennsylvania and had -- what is happening in those states. they were competitive, better off than where they are now. we are seeing college-educated whites, specific college education white women moving away from republican centaur democrats for the last 20 years. at the same time, working-class

whites, particularly working-class white men, that are migrating to the other side. we are seeing that in state after state after state. we are going to a realignment. this country is not just an one direction realignment. host: fort collins, colorado. charles, an independent. good morning. caller: my contention about voting is gerrymandering. because what i see in gerrymandering, where a politician can make districts that severely favor them, then we get to a point where, ok, i'm a guy, a republican in a 90% district. and i want to vote against donald trump because i don't believe he is doing something great.

then everyone that districts yell rhino, and your career is over. to the extent that it was balanced, i think we would see more people coming across the aisle and be more pragmatic because their jobs are not on the line. and we we come to a better america where the republicans or democrats on either side to speak out, and that's why i'm so adamant about hr and sr one. i want to see that done. i want to see citizens -- thank you, charlie. guest: you made one of my points for me, that hr one, i think the mistakes made was because they put everything but the kitchen sink -- gerrymandering, finance -- they put all of it into one thing and gave lots of people different reasons to