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and i we are former congressional staffers took everything we had learned about how to operate on the hill and organize locally and how to be effective in moving your elected officials. and turned it into a do-it-yourself guide to organizing locally and put it on the internet as a google doc. in that moment it caught fire with thousands of people who were horrified by the election of donald trump who had already started organizing locally and picked up the guide and its name and started using that as the rallying cry. we formed an organization to support this grassroots movement people who were standing up against donald trump who fought to build the blue wave and 2018, fought to get him out of office the first time and who are getting ready right now to fight back once again. host: why do you think donald trump one 2024. guest: when we are looking at the victory we have to look first and foremost of the global context. this has been a year in which incumbent governments worldwide

are getting pummeled great if you look at people over 2021 and 2022, the post-covid inflationary there is very deep and widespread anger and frustration with how things have been going around the world. we've seen that and we knew that was the case heading in with fairly low approval ratings for the incumbent president. i think we all hoped the swap in candidates would give us a little bit of ability to out ride that wave. unfortunately in spite of a really valiant effort by a lot of folks it was not enough to overcome that overall level of anger and frustration. i think fundamentally we let donald trump present himself as desk doctor was ultimately able to present himself as the candidate of change, the candidate who is opposed to the status quo and able to portray us is in favor of the status quo e result. host: in retrospect was swapping candidates a good idea. guest: i absolutely think it was a good idea.

if you look at approval ratings, president biden at the time, looking at what harris was able to do, how she was able to harness an enormous amount of new energy and excitement, we personally have a ton of new people who have their share of excitement for the ability sport or a candidacy. i think she ran about as good as one could ask for with 100 days left which is a feat nobody has been asked to do before. did she do everything exactly the way i would have done it. no but that's not fair to ask of anyone fundamentally a think ultimately it helped us save three or four senate seats and prevent the down ballot bloodbath so it was a good decision on the part of the party. host: who is the leader of the democratic party in 2025? guest: that's a great question. i would answer it is people who start showing leadership. w we are not seeing a ton of leadership across the democratic party. we are seeing some people put

forward ideas and start organize but we are seeing a lot of people kind of go into democrats in disarray mode where we'll start questioning everything about ourselves because we have had in election loss. and that is not a helpful place to be. should always be thinking critically, thinking about what is our message and brand, what do democrats stand for, what kind of policies make people's lives better in ways people can feel and see and trust upon. what we are seeing right now is a lot of democrats who are kind of inching over to collaborating and supporting some stuff that is not helpful around donald trump's initiative and what we need to do is present a strong and coherent opposition party ready to fight back and articulate to the american people why donald trump's agenda will make their lives worse. host: what are some agenda items people are starting to enjoy over. guest: what we've seen with certain democrats flirting with the congressional -- with the doge effort.

the effort to theoretically cut $2 trillion from federal government which they absolutely cannot do without digging into social security and medicare and medicaid. i think any effort that validates that as a real and good-faith efforts to try and address government reform as opposed to a transparent cash grab by people who would benefit personally from gutting government services so they can hand themselves fat defense contracts and tax cuts, that's the kind of things where we need to be clear with people what's happening. this is a scam. >> your group published a new guide and it was that original guide that put your group on the map in 2016. this new guide for supporters, what's the message you're sending in this new guide. >> donald trump has made it clear he intends to come in and govern aa dtator but that's hi intention and that's not how power works in american society.

power is distributed, at the local level and the state level. if we all organize locally and we use every lever that we have got, our counties, our cities, our state legislators, our governors and we all play our roles because we'd have a role to play based on where we are we can block some of the worse of donald trump's agenda, some of the harm he intends to do to our neighbors. we can hold off that harm and make sure people understand how dangerous and harmful's agenda will be for them. we can protect elections so we can have elections in 2026 and we can beat them in the midterms that allows us to have a real check on them going forward. so the guide is about what you as a regular person wherever you are who was appalled by what's happening can do to exercise that power. organize locally, never give an inch, use your own elected officials to exert the power you have. >> how do you block that without

control of the house, the senate or the white house. guest: i think we should be real about a couple of the underlying conditions. donald trump got elected by putting as much distance as he possibly could but between himself and his actual project 2025 agenda. he literally disowned it in a number of different settings and he was elected and one of the things and focus groups was a lot of voters did not believe he was going to do some of the things he said he was going to do. his coalition is not stable. there's a bunch of people who voted for him because they are frustrated about inflation. they did not vote for anything about project 2025 agenda. he's not actually got as stable a coalition as people are making out. he has a tiny majority in the house of representatives. when we were able to successfully block the affordable care act for the first time he had a majority of 43 republicans in the house of representatives. they are looking at a three-person majority right now

so that tips all the numbers -- members of congress who want to be elected and can't do that in everything they are doing is incredibly unpopular against the extremists in the house, the people saying this is our chance to slash every program and get rid of social security once and for all. as long as we hold democrats united they will have to fight that amount -- fight them out themselves. we might bable to stop with enough pressure and enough summoning of all the power we've got and make sure people know exactly how dangerous these things are ahead of time. host: leah greenberg our guest. the numbers to call in every 202-748-8001 for republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. joining us, of the house comes in at 10:00 a.m. eastern and the senate is in as well. you can watch that on c-span2. leah greenberg as folks call in,

let me just bounce this off of you this is congressman richie torres of new york in the days after theelecon. you write donald trump has a r friend than thear left which has managed to alienate historic numbers of latinos and blacks and asians and jews from the deic pty with absurdities like dehe police or from the river to the sea or latin xp. thermuchore to lose than twitch and tiktok -- there's much more to lose than itto gain politically for the far left which is wha represented of twitch and tiktok and twitter than of the real world. the working class is not buying the ivory tower nonsense that the far left is selling. guest: i think this has been one of the strains of the discourse and the hot takes postelection and we should be real that anytime you lose an election certain people who are making one argument on monday will say

on wednesday that's why we lost. i think it is a completely transparent exercise to kind of continued to grind the acts you were grinding before the election to go in and say a campaign that ran a really aggressive effort to reach out to centrist, a really aggressive effort that did a very intentional and very aggressive outreach on all fronts to try and broaden that coalition to look at that and say somehow someway this is the fault of the people who are totally not making any of the decisions in the democratic party. don't look at the people who made decisions about client -- deploying $1 billion, don't look at the people who set up for the conditions to put vice president harris in this last minute mad -- attempt to present herself to the voters. look at someone who is totally out of power and wasn't making any of the decisions involved in the campaign. again i think hot takes are a hot take. but we should be serious when we

are looking for answers about this. host: we will start on the line for democrats. out of the battleground state of michigan it is holly. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what's your question or comment for leah greenberg. guest: david hot -- caller: david hogg was on yesterday on another newscast and he was very frustrated with how he was -- the democratic leadership was responding to his questions and comments about the previous election, about the harris campaign. now what we've had. i feel like the democratic party really needs to embrace some of the things that you guys are talking about they are just not listening. guest: i think the democratic

party is a lot of different people and a lot of different places. and we talk by the democratic party we are talking about all of our own elected officials. we are talking about the dnc. we are talking about the president and everybody in his administration. i think what i would say is we are going to be in an intraparty conversation for the coming years and what we stand for and what we want to be and the single best way we will make people listen is we are going to organize and show our own power and then we will be at the table and say this is what we are seeing work on the ground and ultimately we will be able to push people in the direction by virtue of that power and organizing. >> the caller mentioned david hogg. do you think he should be in the dnc leadership, he's running for one of those vice chair spots as reported this week. guest: i represent a network of thousands of local groups and when we make a national endorsement of any kind we want

to talk to our individual groups. i think the democratic -- this conversation over the dnc is a healthy time to be talking about the future of the democratic party, of the ways that it can and should do a better outreach messaging reaching people in nontraditional ways. all of the stuff being brought up by this conversation. host: patricia in minneapolis, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. didn't you learn anything from the election? how did that lie about trump being for the project 2025 work out for you guys? how about the lie about the dictator thing you said. the other lies paid quit trying to scare americans, quit lying to us. they are not going to get rid of social security. you democrats have been saying that for decades. it's the biggest lie you are

trying to instill fear, to divide americans and we are sick of it. we are absolutely sick of it. you and your far left crazy insane ideas and lies. guest: i think what i would say is i could've heard somebody call into the show and say the exact same thing about abortion five years ago. they are knocking to get rid of abortion, don't be ridiculous. that's the kind of things people were saying and in fact very smart people across the establishment were telling us don't worry about the right to abortion you don't need to be concerned about it and then they got a majority on the supreme court and they did what they have been planning to do for 40 years it was get rid of the right of abortion nationally and now women are dying for lack of ability to access basic reproductive care. so when we say they mean what they are saying, they mean what they are promising and they have been absolutely clear if you look at conservative writing and reading over the last few years

they 100% intend to, for the basics of the great society, the basics of the welfare state. like medicare and medicaid. host: one of our viewers on x wants to know how you are paid, how your group is funded. guest: we are funded by donations. our single largest group is small dollar donations through our emails and websites and social media. if you are inspired feel free to go to indivisible.org and sign up for our weekly email updates on what you can do to help support our work. host: is this your full-time job? guest: this is my full-time job. host: mark in wisconsin, independent. caller: thank you very much. i wanted to comment on the representatives cited the reasons earlier saying why the democrats lost the election and i think it is wise for the democrats to invest early now in

accepting why they lost and if they do not, 2026 is going to be a big problem. and i believe the democrat representative you had i can remove her his name but it was a very accurate in dutch accurate take on what happened. and to say it was a particular hot take on monday or wednesday or whatever, that is kind of denial to me. so that's all i really -- host: i'm trying term, the representative from last week he was talking about concerned about democrats on the issue of immigration and that's one of the reasons why democrats lost, is that what you're referring to. host: -- you're talking about richie torres. caller: yes. host: leah greenberg you talk about richie torres.

we did have -- on the show and he talked a lot about democrats not trying to understand why people voted for donald trump and talked a lot about the issue of immigration. what would your response be? guest: we have a lot of folks who organized in the district to elect him and work closely with the campaign to get him through and we are in organization that collectively is really clear but when it comes to general elections we are going to get in line behind the democrat and make sure we are collectively pushing to defeat -- select pro-democracy candidates. it would be -- regardless of whether we've got ideological disagreements we are always behind the person who ultimately we need to get into office at the end of the day. what i would say overall is i think we have to look at the terms this election was fought on. donald trump did a very effective job of being the anti-system candidate. and he appealed to people who do not trust the existing system is working.

and fundamentally if what we take away from that is about the ideological spectrum, left or right versus the like pro system anti-system spectrum people who don't trust the establishment, people who don't think the status quo is working for them and we talk about it in ideological terms in terms of how do we reach people who are sufficiently frustrated with how things are going that he feels about preserving democracy or institutions did not resonate with them that i think we are missing the boat. host: are democrats no longer the establishment party right now? guest: well i think when you are -- when you're president is a democrat you're kind of do factor responsible for the context and the outcomes that's the thing about running as an incumbent donald trump is about to become the incumbent and he is going to switch from a challenger candidate may change candidate to a guy who's responsible for everything that his administration is doing in his administration will be

stocked with radicals doing extreme and harmful and dangerous things that are directly impacting regular people's lives, security and well-being. what i would say here is a coalition built on frustration of the status quo is not a stable coalition. that is an opportunity for us to demonstrate we are on people sides to fight for their well-being, fight for their safety and reach out and feel some of those votes off the coalition and reenergizing our own base because that's the other thing in this equation is who was not sufficiently motivated and excited, ready to show up in november on our own side. host: who were those people in your estimation. guest: disproportionately we saw cities tended to underperform. i really don't want to be the person who has before we get that back in real and concrete terms about exactly which demographic group did what so i don't like to get into the

details until we have the data. but what we know is we had some real drop-off in turnout so that's the other side of this equation. who did we lose to donald trump and third-party candidates. host: this is nancy, a line for democrats, good morning. caller: good morning everybody. i would like to know, should the democrats use the filibuster to fight back? guest: yes absolutely. host: we will take the question. go ahead. guest: there are a lot of things with the existing institutional system that are pretty flawed and while we are in the in existing institutional system we should use all the tools at your disposal so absolutely i think a really core part of our work over the coming period will be blocking some of the most harmful stuff we can in the senate by holding the democrat

caucus united to stop it via whatever tools are at their disposal. host: do you think joe biden should've appointed additional members of the supreme court? guest: i think court reform is absolutely a topic we should have been trying to move with more speed and alacrity across the democratic party. i don't know if it would be realistic to say the conditions would've been right in the term. joe biden doesn't have the ability to do it unilaterally. you need to have $.50 -- 60 senators voting for it. the real organizing effort to move democratic senators and the broader into alignment with the understanding that the courts are fundamentally and air were terribly captured by right-wing interest. that's taking some time, unfortunately that was not something we were able to get broad spread democratic appreciation for an agreement with during this term. but i think as the years go by and as we see repeatedly devastating decisions that the

courts are simply moving to roll back some of our greatest legislative achievements, some of the greatest protections for americans for clean water and air, not to mention our own fundamental rights, i think we will see a groundswell of people asking why are we treating this court as legitimate when it does not treat itself as accountable to us. court reform can look at a lot of different things. if you start with this fundamental question of why do we have a right wing court that's been captured by extremist federal -- federalist society hacks, how are we going to move forward. you could talk but ethics reform because we have seen enormous ethics scandals involving members of the court who are not reporting large amounts of money , a large gift, a luxury vacations they are getting from donors. you can talk about term limits because we operate in a modern society and we don't have to

consistently stick with the system of everyone stays on until they are no longer physically able to do so. you can talk about members at -- expanding the supreme court. because we want to recognize or create a system where the supreme court issues -- you would want to create a system where which president adds how many seats is standardized rather than a matter of chance. all of those are things that are options that one might consider under the bucket of supreme court reform but fundamentally the first thing is democrats have to recognize the existing court is fundamentally captured by the republican party and we have to talk about what we should be doing about it. host: this is norman, republican line, good morning. >> good miss greenberg. enjoy listening to you and him glad you participated in the system by forming a group.

however, you seem to be completely against the incoming administration. i would like to know what you think about the immigration policy of the current administration that allowed so many people into this country and put them into the states so the states have to support them and those people that are american citizens don't get what they should be getting as american citizens, thank you. guest: what i think is we have a broken legislative system that creates the kind of checkpoints that means congress is not able to flexibly adapt and respond to crises in order to address real and pressing needs for americans and immigrants alike. what i think is if we had the functioning system that was able to adjust and recognize that a significant number of people are coming in that they needed to handle that influx and was able

to create a coherent response that observed our obligation under international law and helped to support the people who are working collectively to support the folks arriving then we would be in a different situation right now. but fundamentally i think that is one of many ways in which the difficulty in making government work for regular people is leading to a level of cynicism and frustration that is causing folks to look for solutions outside or opposed to the system and that part of how we ended up with donald trump. it is a broader and systemic issue with how government not being able to deliver and flexibly address our problems is prompting a level of frustration under the current conditions. host: this is david, democrat. good morning. caller: yes i'm a 77-year-old man been a democrat all my life and it is kind of amusing how the democrats are saying they

are for the american public people, which they are not. they don't care about us and letting in millions of immigrants that has harmed, murdered, frightened people to stay in their own house or apartments and we are taking care of them and as far as i'm concerned, biden and democrats they should be held responsible for every rape and murder, they should be prosecuted as well and real quick, you say you are taking care of people or you are taking care of people let me rephrase that. i grew up with a mom and four siblings and the government helped -- the democrats help the poor people. you don't help people know more. you take care of them you say we need all of these immigrants to

do the work that the americans won't do and that is true to a big extent, why are we telling people hey have kids and if you don't want to do the work let us know we will give you more food stamps, we will take care of your housing cost and we will give you a welfare check and that's on the back of the working american person who is black-and-white, republican, democrat and honestly the democrats are phonies and they are the ones wanting to spew the hatred host:. host:got your point. leah greenberg a chance to respond. guest: i think we have a big challenge in american society because i think a set of people who are very wealthy and very powerful across corporations across silicon valley, across a number of concentrated interests are telling a story whereby we plane each other. >> we'll leave this here to go live to the