Event Takeaways: Punchbowl News Pop-Up Conversation with Sen. Jon Tester

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Thank you so much for joining our virtual pop-up Punchbowl News event with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). The event focused on the future of rural communities, as Congress focuses on investments in broadband infrastructure, climate initiatives, and other programs. Afterward, One Country Project Founder and former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp joined Anna for a fireside conversation.

→ Tester slammed the ‘defund the police’ movement as ‘garbage.’

This is a prime example of an issue that Democrats have been pegged with, maybe because one or two folks said it, that is totally unrealistic. And by the way, I don’t know anybody in the United States Senate, Democrat in the United States Senate, that wants to defund the police. And if they do, they’re wrong on that policy. Bottom line is we need police. It’s a very difficult job. And we need to make sure that they’re out there and able to do their job as best they can. 

In fact, I will tell you, this is something that Heidi Heitkamp knows about too, in Indian Country we need far more police. We don’t need to defund them. We need to get more folks out there on the ground because of poverty, crime is very high in those areas. So look, the defund the police stuff is garbage, I’ll just put it that way. And I’m being generous. The fact of the matter is folks don’t want to defund the police. This is a red herring that’s put up to try to put Democrats in a difficult situation. There is no truth to it.

→ Tester explained his support for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell:

I am a big Jerome Powell fan. I think he has done a great job. And I will tell you that I don’t think you could find anybody better to do the job than Chairman Powell. He’s been straight up with me. He’s told me good news. He’s told me bad news. He’s been responsive. And I think he’s done a great job as chairman of the Fed. And I think it would be the right move to reappoint him.

→ Tester on how Democrats can win back rural voters: 

Look, I think that 50 years ago, where I live, it was primarily a Democratic state. And it was very much Democratic. We’ve always had a libertarian bent to everything we’ve done since the homesteaders. But the bottom line is that Montana was once a Democratic state, a very blue state. And I think moving forward, I think it’s pretty simple to get those folks back. And that is you have to talk about what you’ve accomplished. 

It has been very popular in my lifetime to run against Washington, D.C., and to say these guys don’t know what they’re doing. And look, in some cases they’re 100% correct. But in other cases, in many cases, there’s a lot of folks back here who want to do right by rural America. We just need to let folks know that number one, it does cost money to do infrastructure, it just doesn’t happen without a concerted effort. And if you come back to Washington, D.C. to get things done: infrastructure, education, research and development, good trade policy, all of those things are Democratic values. And all of those things appeal to rural America.

→ Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp says Democratic inflation messaging was flawed:

I think the biggest mistake the Democrats made initially was denying that it was a problem, thinking that it was a short term, this is all going to break in the next couple months. I wrote an op-ed for CNBC, basically saying, ‘Hey, pay attention. This is real.’ And I think, yes, we’ve had supply side disruptions because of COVID. But don’t just put it on COVID. This is where we are reaping the results of Donald Trump’s trade policy, tariffs that increase costs for consumers… But as a message, they need to acknowledge it, which I think too late, they waited too long to do that. And then they need to set a benchmark and say, ‘this is where we’re going to drive things.’

→ Heitkamp on the best 2022 strategy for Democrats:

We need to know who the opposition is. The opposition has been progressives versus moderates and that’s dominated the cycle now for eight months. Guess who the opposition is? It’s Republicans who don’t want to help families with daycare. It’s Republicans who don’t care about climate. It’s Republicans whose answer to every problem in America is to scare people and say no. And so if we focus on the lack of Republican agenda, and the fact that the former president will get a toehold back into this economy and back into this democracy. And we can’t let that happen. I think we’ve got a pretty good shot at turning this thing around.

A big thank you to OCP for partnering with us on this event. Watch the full conversation here. Learn more about One Country Project here. 

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Team Punchbowl News