-Welcome back to the show. -It is good to be back here.
-It's been a year. -It has been a year.
And a lot has changed in that year.
You are running for president of the United States.
You're in the Democratic primary.
Let's start with, um,
something that you've managed to do that nobody else seems
to have managed to do in the Democratic field, and that is,
everyone agreed in the beginning to be nice.
-Everyone said, "This is a race about great ideas." -Yes.
"And we all agree on many things, so we will be nice."
And then, two debates in, people were like,
"You're a moron! And you're this and you're that."
And you've been very vocal in saying like,
"No, I'm still not gonna do that."
-How's that going for you? -Um, look.
-(laughs) We're... -(laughter)
We're-we're trying to beat Donald Trump,
who is darkness, who is hate.
And one of my greatest heroes, King said, you know,
"Darkness can't drive out darkness.
"Only light can do that.
Hate can't drive out hate. Only love can do that."
-(applause and cheering) -And-and this is the mistake
I think we make in this country, is to think to be tough,
you've got to be mean,
to think to be strong, you've got to be cruel.
But we've taken on demagogues and bigots and fearmongers.
Every generation of America has had that. The...
I would say the gardens of our democracy
have never been free of those weeds.
McCarthyism, the-the Know-Nothing Party,
which was anti-immigration-- same language that Trump uses.
But how do we beat them in every generation?
Like, we didn't beat Bull Connor by bringing bigger dogs
and bigger firehoses and being like him.
We beat him because these artists of activism
were the exact opposite.
They fought his firehoses and dogs with unarmed truth
and relentless, fearsome, ferocious love,
and ignited the moral imagination of this country
and brought more people together.
But do you think that
that is what is driving the populace right now?
-Because it feels like... -Oh, well...
It feels like sentiment right now
is-is very much, we're fighting.
-Yeah. -People must be fighting.
You know, and as you said,
-the fighting must be from a negative place. -Right.
It's-it's not fighting for good,
but rather, fighting against a thing.
And you said, you're fighting
to beat Donald Trump, but you want
to do that with kindness. So what does that mean?
-Well... -He snaps you, and then you hug him?
-How does that work? -No, no, look. -(laughter)
First of all, most people who actually know
about my career know that I beat the toughest,
vicious political machine.
There's an Oscar-nominated documentary
you can watch on YouTube, uh, called Street Fight,
about me coming up through the tough, urban politics.
Through... Death threats on my life,
windows on my car smashed, phones tapped.
So I've seen the toughest of politics,
but we beat them and that machine,
not by being like the machine.
Uh, by giving an alternative
-and not making it about them. -Mm.
This campaign shouldn't be about what we're against.
It should be about what we're for.
It shouldn't be about, uh, you know...
Even, I say this to Democrats right now.
This is not a moment in American history
that the goal of this party is...
the end goal is not to beat Republicans.
It should be to unite Americans, and the way you do that...
-(applause and cheering) -is by calling
to the best of who we are.
Look, I-I love this... And it's not easy.
My-my campaign staff told me,
you know, when we started this out.
The polls were, "Yeah, we want somebody
-that's gonna go out there." -Right.
And-and so, I-I still remember running for a debate stage
in Iowa, and I'm about to jump up.
Big guy sees me, uh, uh, before the stage.
I'm a big guy. And he stops me.
He goes, "Dude, I want you to punch Donald Trump in the face."
-(laughter) -And... and I look at him.
I don't miss a beat, and I go, "Dude, that's a felony."
And... you know, we're not gonna beat him
-by being like him. -Right.
And-and... and that doesn't mean we're weak.
Look, th-this is really one of those moments, I think,
that this election is not a referendum on who he is,
one guy in one office.
It's a referendum on who we are.
And this is a moment in America
where people are fighting over chicken sandwiches.
-(laughter) -We need... we-we need...
-We need a revival of civic grace. -Mm-hmm.
We need a more courageous empathy for each other.
We need to see each other,
because too many of us feel left out
and left be-behind. This...
Let me... let me ask you then about the...
about the, um... the op ed that-that... that you penned.
Um, you wrote an op ed talking about
what the Democratic party needs in particular.
And, you know, in no uncertain terms, you have basically said
that the Democratic party is a diverse party,
and you feel that the Democratic leadership needs
to reflect that, right?
But right now, it-it's no secret
that the people leading in the polls, uh, happen to be white.
And you're saying, the party needs to be diverse
-in who it picks to lead it. -Yeah.
But-but what does that mean?
'Cause I'm-I'm always confused by that,
when-when people say it, because I go like,
"Diverse should mean that white could be in the lead." -Yeah.
If everyone is-is focused in the same direction, yes?
Well, let me make this point two ways. Number one--
everybody's talking about what I'm gonna do when I'm president.
I came to the United States Senate,
fourth black person ever elected,
popularly to that office.
And I got there, and I was shocked.
I was like, "Wait a minute.
This is the least diverse place I've ever worked."
I looked at the-the judiciary committee,
and I could barely find a black person,
uh, even on a staff position.
These folks are making decisions about laws
that disproportionally affect black people.
So I went to Chuck Schumer
with a great young senator named Brian Schatz, and we said,
"Chuck, can you make every Democratic senator have
"to publish the diversity statistics on their staff?
Reveal how many diverse-- gender and race diversity?"
And guess what's happened to gender and race diversity
on our staffs? It's actually increased.
Well, I know from Harvard case studies
that diverse teams are better teams.
We are at a point in America where we have to understand
that any great thing we do-- any great thing we do--
comes from broader and bolder coalitions.
-Mm-hmm. -When we wanted to go to the Moon,
we had to get "hidden figures" together with white astronauts.
Made us better, to compete with the Russians,
who had put up Sputnik.
And so in this presidential election,
I'm tired of hearing people define electability
about how can you recapture a white voter
who might have voted for, uh,
-Obama, Trump. -Barack Obama and switched over.
When... Look at the three midwestern states
that we lost by 77,000 votes combined: Michigan,
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Pick any of them. Wisconsin alone, in-in Milwaukee,
the African American vote declined from 16,
uh, to, uh, from 12 to 16-- it went down about 70,000 votes.
And we only lost that state, I think, by 10,000 votes.
-Right. -We have to have a candidate
that has an authentic connection to the full diversity
and can excite and energize all of who we are,
not just one faction of the party or another.
So what you're saying, if I understand correctly,
is that too much focus seems to be placed
on one specific type of voter.
People are saying, like, how do we win
the white middle-class voter who voted for Trump and Obama,
as opposed to saying, how do we win voters,
including black people, who also didn't turn out.
Because I imagine-- you and I have heard this
in the black community before.
I live-- I'm the only person in the Senate,
only person in this race that lives in an...
African American urban center.
And when... I hear this all the time,
people getting cynical about American politics,
that they don't feel like people are talking to them.
They have a lot of presidential forums.
I went to one speaking to formerly incarcerated recently.
And I was very angry. I got there--
usually, there's ten, 15... with 78 candidates
running for president right now, you usually can get a few there.
And there's only three of us, and I said at the end of that
to these formerly incarcerated people,
who face lifetime sentences-- they're out of prison,
but remember, once you have a criminal conviction
for a nonviolent drug crime, for doing things
that two of the last three presidents admitted to doing,
it's hard to get a job,
it's hard to get a loan from the bank,
it's hard to make it work economically.
And I just said candidly to them, I said: Look,
the Democratic Party has been wrong on this issue,
and the one thing we need from a president
is somebody that people can trust
is going to fight for these issues.
And that's what I think we have to have,
is a president that-that can evoke
sort of an authenticity of spirit with folks to say,
"Okay, I believe that you're gonna be with us on this."
But then how would you explain,
um, you know, polling in places like, uh, South Carolina,
where they polled African Americans,
and then in those... in that place, you know,
it's Joe Biden at number one, and then, like,
you go down the list, and it's, like, Elizabeth Warren,
and then it's Buttigieg and then it's Andrew Yang
and then it's you, how do you explain that?
That's amongst African American voters.
So that's black people going:
No, we're gonna go with Joe Biden.
Some have said, "Look, it's not about you, Cory.
We just want to go with the person who we think can win."
Right. And-and that's because right now
that's the number one thing voters say they want.
-We're all... -They just want to win.
Yeah, and I think a lot of it's fear.
We don't want to mess this up, but we don't do things best
when we do them out of fear as a country.
we do them best when we do them out of faith.
And so let me tell you about Obama.
He was behind at this point, this exact point, back in 2007.
He was 21 points behind Hillary Clinton.
He was behind, uh, African American voters
in South Carolina just like I am.
In fact, we have never, in your and my lifetime,
in the Democratic Party, never has someone
who's been at the front right now in the polls
ever gone on to the White House.
-Oh, wow. -It has always been Jimmy Carter
polling about one percent now, Bill Clinton about four percent,
Barack Obama 21 points behind.
But ultimately what Obama challenged us for,
Kennedy-- I can go through the candidates--
is to not make fear-based, uh, decisions.
Let's be a country that understands that, dear God,
beating Donald Trump is important,
but it's the floor, it's not the ceiling.
It gets us out of the valley,
it doesn't get us to the mountaintop.
The-the leaders that we seem to understand,
that can ignite and energize us,
are not ones that are the safe bet, are the ones that call us
to something higher and something greater.
I-I'm running not the easy way.
I'm not running 'cause I want to punch Donald Trump in the face.
Oh, we're gonna beat him, and I look forward to being
on a debate stage if he tries to invade my personal space
-and things like that-- I will stand strong. -(laughter)
I, you know, I'm a former tight end for Stanford University.
-I could stand strong against the guy. -(applause)
But I'm not running just to... just to beat Donald Trump.
-I'm-I'm running because... 'cause in my community, -Right.
before Donald Trump was elected, we had lots of challenges
-in this country. -Right. So then tell me
about some of the policies that separate you in the field.
Because the Democratic Party has laid out a wide range
of policies that people agree on, uh, to a large extent
-but then the details is what... -Right, well, first of all...
So for instance, let's say, like, with, um,
-with Medicare for all, right? -Yeah.
You are for Medicare for all, yes?
I absolutely believe the best system in this country
-is the single payer system. -Okay, so would that...
would that eliminate people's private insurance?
No. So this-this is what I'm saying to you, is that...
on issues like this, we tear each other down
over a lot of policy details,
when we forget that the differences between us,
because everybody on that stage, every single one,
wants universal health coverage, every single one.
While we're competing against somebody
who right now is working in the court system
to take away the Affordable Care Act,
to take away preexisting conditions.
Yeah, but how does the voter choose
in the Democratic primary
if people do not distinguish themselves
-with their policies? -Well...
-Because I understand what you're saying -Yes. Yes.
in principal, but how does a Democratic voter go, like,
"Yeah, but I still want to vote for the person
who will enact, what I think, is the best policy"?
Well, first of all, I want to caution us voters
to think that we're gonna make a decision
by somebody checking every box on our, on our,
on our sort of list of things that we want.
-Interesting. -And I want to be very serious about that,
because, look... (stammering)
It's exciting to me.
A lot of people who are my friends in politics are running.
And I've learned things from other people
on the stage on policy.
I've got bills with a lot of folks on the stage
'cause there's a lot of us running.
And that's why I think the policy issues are important.
I-I'm excited to have been the only one
to put out a plan on child poverty.
170 plans-- We're not talking about
one of the most pressing issues in our country.
I'm happy that I was able
to move the field even a bit on gun licensing.
Those are really important.
But what we've got to understand is--
I don't know if you even remember
what the policy differences between Hillary Clinton
and Barrack Obama were on health care.
Because below all of those policies,
to make those things even possible
for the next president, has to be the president
that can best capture the spirit of this country
and build new American coalitions
to make things possible.
The next president of the United States
has got to be someone who can heal this country,
remind us that the lines that divide us
are not nearly as strong as the ties that bind us,
and call us to do things
that this country hasn't been able to do.
Because the things we even agree on right now...
We agree, 90% of us,
on common sense gun safety checks.
The infrastructure of this country's falling apart.
China just built 18,000 miles of high-speed rail.
And the busiest rail corridor in America
that goes from Boston to D.C. through this city--
I'm not exaggerating-- runs half an hour slower
than it did in the 1960s.
We-We agree, we...
-Well, steady wins the race. -Okay.
We-We agree that we love our children,
but why are we the only nation without universal prenatal care?
We now lead industrial nations in infant mortality,
maternal mortality, complications at birth.
I could go through the things that we even agree on
that we're not doing well.
So, to me, the issue is, yeah, I want to talk.
I'm a policy wonk.
And I love, on the debate stage, talking about policy,
but there's something beneath that.
Who is the president
that can create those new American coalitions?
Not tear down the other side, but call to them.
When I first got to the Senate-- I'm not exaggerating--
and I started talking about criminal justice reform,
people in my own party told me
you can't get a big bill passed that liberates people.
They were telling me about Willie Horton,
if people come out of prison, and I said, "Okay, no.
"I'm sorry. I'm gonna start working-- do the hard work
of building coalitions across the aisle.
And a few years later, the only major bipartisan bill
to pass under this president, uh, is The First Step Act
that I led on the-on the Democratic side in the Senate
that's liberated thousands of people from prison.
About 90% of those are African Americans.
This is about who can get things done.
And right now, we're a country that is so gridlocked
because we hate each other
just because we vote differently.
I'm in airports all the time, and people will come up to me
and say, "Oh, you're that politician guy."
I go, "Yeah." He goes, "What party are you?"
Because the next-- they're gonna judge me by what I say.
Everything I say after I say I'm a Democrat
is gonna fall into whether they believe they should stand
with me and believe what I say or not.
That's not the way we get big things done.
Let me tell you. The last time
I was in what's called the skiff.
It's where senators go in a basement below the Senate
to read confidential documents.
That's where no one hangs out with Ted Cruz. Yes?
(laughter)
Um, and...
(laughs)
I've got some Ted Cruz stories I'll tell you after the show.
And the last thing I read
was a-a document, a series of documents
about the Russians interference in our election.
And I was, I was-- I-I got so angry when I read one section
about one of their strategies to destroy our democracy,
'cause it reminded me-- I'm a history buff--
of what Khrushchev said as how he was gonna beat America.
He said, "We're not gonna beat America tanks
"or missiles, we're gonna beat them
'cause they're gonna corrupt from within."
Well, you know what this document said?
The Russians are trying to make us corrupt from within.
They're gonna try to use our social media platforms
and more to just drive up the level of hatred in this country.
'Cause they know no democracy can function
unless we find a way to put more indivisible
into this one nation under God.
Right now we face an existential crisis in this country
where even the things we agree on,
we're not moving them beyond.
And, meanwhile, in our parent's generations,
we created these coalitions.
The Civil Rights Movement wasn't just black people marching
for rights to help liberate African Americans.
Somehow these leaders were able to get suburban folks,
white folks, people of the whole spectrum to become
a new American consciousness to move us forward.
This is a moment in America where we are at a crossroads.
And it's-- The-The choice isn't between Donald Trump
and not Donald Trump.
The choice is are we going to continue to lead this planet
on the issues that matter, from climate change
to setting a standard for quality of life,
or are we going to descend to be the first generation
of Americans where our life expectancy is going down?
Baby boomers, 90% did better economically than their parents.
For millennials, it's down to 50-50.
Other countries are looking at things
we used to be the best at and saying,
"Ha-ha. We're going beyond you,"
on lowering the cost of college
-and the percentage of college graduates. -Right.
And more. So this is the choice we have.
And I'm telling you it's not all about Donald Trump.
I want to beat him, defeat him.
I want to replace him and get him out of office,
but that's not why I'm running for president.
I'm running president because I believe in us,
and I believe this is the moment that we, as a country,
have to see that we have common cause and common purpose,
'cause we certainly have common pain.
The president that can get us there,
that's the one that doesn't just beat Donald Trump.
It's the one that gets us to the mountaintop,
and that's what I believe our destiny is.
(cheering and applause)
Powerful words.
Good luck to you in the rest of the race.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Senator Cory Booker, everybody.