What a difference a week makes. Last Senator Claire McCaskill and former White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri spoke, the jury was deliberating, and now the contrast of the two incumbents is in stark relief. The pair frame how to talk about running against an opponent found guilty on 34 criminal counts, and how desperate Republicans seem to be to undermine our judicial system and call for retribution, just to curry favor with Trump. Then, Kelley Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign joins to kick off Pride Month and zero in on what issues are most urgent for LGBTQ+ voters. And before signing off, Claire and Jen take a beat to lay out the hard but necessary executive action President Biden took this week to stem the flow of immigrants crossing the border illegally, as the GOP stand idly by.
Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
Jennifer Palmieri: Hello, welcome to “How to Win 2024.” It’s Thursday, June 6. I’m Jennifer Palmieri, and I’m here with my co-host, Claire McCaskill. Good morning, Claire.
Claire McCaskill: Hey, so where are you today?
Jennifer Palmieri: I’m in California.
Claire McCaskill: You’re in California. Okay.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: I’m in New York. So both of us are far away from our home base.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: And I got to tell you the truth. It’s always interesting when I come to New York because I love to talk to the cab drivers. So I took a cab in from LaGuardia when I got here. And, you know, I think we’re going to be okay. I do.
Jennifer Palmieri: Are the cab drivers saving us?
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, the cab drivers really know. I mean, they know way more than most pollsters at this point. And by the way, I might note that the pollsters were so wrong in India. It makes them look ridiculous.
Jennifer Palmieri: Oh, this is a good point. Explain what you’re talking about.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. Modi was supposed to win in a landslide, according to the polls. Everybody was saying this was going to be just a dominant performance by Modi in his election and he barely held on in India. I mean, he had to form a coalition government to stay in power, really took the shine off somebody who had autocratic tendencies, who was going after the press.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: So it was a victory for folks who really believe in a good old-fashioned democracy where everybody has a voice. So that’s good.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah. And speaking of like good old-fashioned democracy, President Biden just spoke in Normandy today. It’s June 6th. It’s D-Day anniversary. My dad, my father, who’ll be 93 in September, texted us all this morning to say like what it felt like to wake up that morning and hear that right now our husbands, fathers, sons are, you know, storming the beach, are risking their lives to save democracy right now. And that’s the moment we are all in.
Claire McCaskill: You know, it’s interesting, too, speaking of that, I thought his speech was amazing —
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: — that he gave today. I thought it was very strong. But it’s so interesting what has happened in our politics. And since this is about how you win and about images and campaigns, it’s interesting to me that they have clipped the picture of him walking on stage with Macron. And he walked by, Biden did, all of the veterans in wheelchairs and Macron stopped along the way to talk to them. Well, there’s a reason for that. And that is because Joe Biden spent time with them individually before Macron got there.
And it would have been weird for him to stop again after he had taken the time to do it individually before Macron’s arrival. But now they’ve clipped that video and they’re using that video to make it look like he just walked by and Macron was stopping to speak to them.
Jennifer Palmieri: Oh my god.
Claire McCaskill: So it is a lesson about visuals and how campaigns have to pay really close attention to what the visual is going to look like. He should have stopped again just for the cameras so they don’t have this moment that makes it look like he was ignoring them. It is really frustrating to me.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah. Because any and every moment can become the thing. So —
Claire McCaskill: Yeah.
Jennifer Palmieri: — it’s like you got a thing in three dimensions and all the time.
Claire McCaskill: And they’re looking for it, right?
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Okay, what a difference a week makes. Like last week at this time —
Jennifer Palmieri: Oh, my God. Last week at this time, we —
Claire McCaskill: The jury, they were deliberating. And then later that day, they found him guilty. So we’re going to spend some time about how this should be talked about on the campaign trail.
Jennifer Palmieri: And on a more positive note, Happy Pride. Pride Month kicked off this week to celebrations across the country. And this is an important voting bloc that no one should sleep on. So we wanted to check in with Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, about what issues are most urgent to LGBTQ voters and how the campaign should speak up about equal rights now and after Pride ends to keep this coalition engaged.
Claire McCaskill: And we’ll take a minute to focus on the executive action Biden signed this week to seal the border. It’s been met with mixed feelings, and that’s understandable.
Jennifer Palmieri: Not as mixed as I expected, honestly.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah.
Jennifer Palmieri: Just saying, but go on. Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: That just shows you that’s where the American people are.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: They want something done. It’s getting to be a huge problem just to sheer numbers. And so it’s being met with mixed feelings in some ways. But when you’ve got Republicans in Congress that repeatedly refuse to work on the issue just because they want it as an issue for campaigns, then I think Biden has done the right thing. But we’ll spend a little time talking about that.
But first, let’s get to the strategy session, If I were in the room. Let’s talk about how Biden and the campaign should refer to the guilty verdict. Let’s listen to what Joe Biden said about it after the conviction was rendered by the jury.
Joe Biden: The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. After careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. That’s how the American system of justice works. And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict. The justice system should be respected and we should never allow anyone to tear it down.
Claire McCaskill: So I think that kind of sums it up, how they should talk about it.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: It should be about the jurors and about the system and not about Donald Trump. It should be about the principles of our rule of law and how they were strictly followed and how due process was given to the defendant. I honestly don’t think they should dwell on Trump’s convicted felon status because everybody in America knows it, Jen.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Everybody in America knows he was convicted. This is not something they need to be reminded of.
Jennifer Palmieri: So, and then the president did a private fundraiser in Connecticut this week. And this is what he called Trump a, quote, “convicted felon “ quote, “snapped.” And so let me just read to you what everybody said. For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency. But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice. The threat Trump poses would be greater in the second term than it was in his first. Something snapped in this guy for real when he lost in 2020. He can’t accept loss. He can’t accept the fact that he lost. It’s literally driving him crazy. He’s clearly been and I mean this sincerely, a little unhinged.
So I think the way I would look at this if I were the Biden campaign is you have from now until July 15th, which is the Republican convention, sentencing is July 11th and the debate is June 27th, right? So I would look at the next six weeks and think, okay, we have six weeks to get this thing, the convictions in this box, which is Donald Trump cannot accept democratic results. Don’t argue whether or not the underlying behavior. I mean, I think that this is important for some audiences, but don’t make your central argument about what the underlying behavior says about Trump or the fact that he actually is a felon running.
The more important argument is that this was a fair trial. He will not accept the results of the fair trial just as he would not accept the results of the presidential election in 2020. And as Hillary pointed out in a debate in 2016, he would not accept the results of the Iowa caucus because he lost that in 2016. He will not live by the rules of democracy. And the Republicans, by the way, have been, and we’ll talk about them next, but it’s very telling how unhinged they have been in responding to this because it shows panic, right, on their side.
And I think that if you put it in that lane of this is Trump not accepting democracy and his friends are going along with it, jumping on board, it’s a vulnerability not just to Trump but also to those Republican officials, you know, who should rightly be held to account for some of these people, the same people that voted to not certify the election. And these people should be held to account for also not accepting the democratic results in this time.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, I think they are panicking a little. And it’s unfortunate that even some of the what I call normies in the Republican Party have jumped on the bandwagon that this is a political prosecution.
Jennifer Palmieri: Like Susan Collins? Like, who do you mean?
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Those are folks that we typically expect.
Jennifer Palmieri: Even Romney a little bit.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, even Romney a little bit. And I think we need to understand that and I think the Biden campaign needs to keep that in the forefront that even though the majority of Americans in polling after the trial said they thought that Donald Trump was guilty, there is still a majority of Americans who think the prosecution was politically tinged. And that’s a reality that they can’t get away from. That’s why we have to spend, I think, more time talking about the system and how the system has checks and balances and how he got every bit of due process.
I mean, he didn’t even use all his preemptory challenges that he could have used to remove jurors. And he had people on that jury that he was confident were in his corner.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: Trump. Especially the juror that we all know, who said primarily got their news from Truth Social. So the evidence is the evidence is the evidence. And it’s not a Democrat. It’s not a Republican. It’s not a communist. It’s not a fascist. It’s evidence. So the fact that the backers are calling for retribution against Democrats, you know, the fact that Trump’s people are saying, okay, red state D.A.’s go after Democrats. Here’s the problem they’ve got with that, Jen. There has to be evidence.
I don’t care if you are in the reddest county in America. When you put 12 jurors in a box with a judge telling them they have to listen to the evidence and decide unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt, they are not going to find somebody guilty without evidence. It’s just not going to happen.
Jennifer Palmieri: Jurors have not done that.
Claire McCaskill: Sometimes they won’t convict with evidence, much less without evidence.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: So, I just think it’s one of those things that it’ll be interesting to see if people take up Bannon’s urging to go after the backbencher state attorneys and district attorneys who need to be out there getting retribution.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: It’ll be interesting to see how many of them bring cases and if they do, whether they’re successful. I doubt it because they don’t have evidence. If they did, they’d already be bringing them.
Jennifer Palmieri: Right. Of course, I mean, it is scary because using Hillary as an example, after Trump won, Jeff Sessions at the time did appoint a special counsel in the Justice Department to look after Hillary and her e-mails. They spent five years doing it. I had the pleasure of being interviewed by that special counsel’s lawyers. Actually, they were totally fair and fine to me. And they found nothing after five years. But in 2025, Project 2025, Trump administration, he will not be appointing attorney generals that adhere to norms. He will be appointing attorney generals that do what he says, not follow the law.
Claire McCaskill: What about Hunter’s trial? What do you think?
Jennifer Palmieri: So I think, I mean, it’s terrible. I mean, it’s terrible for Hunter. It’s terrible for the Biden family. It’s terrible for the president personally, but could not be better timed in terms of convincing fair-minded, independent swing voters that the judicial system is not rigged because the week after Donald Trump gets convicted, the president’s son is on trial.
His entire family is paraded before the jury with like all sorts of horrible, personal, embarrassing details. And, you know, the president handled it great, right? He put a statement out, talked about how proud he is of his son. You know that he wrote it himself because it was grammatically incorrect, the statement was, I did notice that. So, you know, it’s how much he loves his son, but he’s the president of the United States and he’s not going to get involved in the case.
And so some people will still say, you know, if like Hunter doesn’t get convicted, that it was rigged. But I think, you know, as it turns out, what we’re seeing in the polls and from your cab driver friend, there are fair-minded people in America who are still looking for actual answers and believe in the truth. And I think this will, as sad as it is, help people see Joe Biden, as I saw you say last night, if Joe Biden is trying to weaponize the Justice Department on his behalf, he is doing a very poor job of it.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah, because Menendez is in court right now. The sitting Democratic congressman —
Jennifer Palmieri: What about that.
Claire McCaskill: — has just been charged by the same Justice Department. And by the way, I do want to say this about the Hunter Biden case. You’ve heard both Trey Gowdy and Lindsey Graham, both former prosecutors, criticize the bringing of this case. That is a chink in the Republican armor.
Jennifer Palmieri: Oh, really? I didn’t know that. Wow.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah. Both of them have criticized the case. And it is interesting to me that the Republicans are dancing around a prosecution that has to do with filling out a form for the federal government when you buy a gun, when every single Republican is opposed to even having to fill out a form for the federal government. So what he’s been accused of is a law that the Republicans want to get off the books. So there’s a certain irony to that also.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay, we have to talk about contraception. Okay, I do not understand. Okay, so yesterday the Senate had a vote to the Right to Contraception Act. It was designed to protect women’s access to contraception. Similar vote on ensuring nationwide access to in vitro fertilization could come as soon as next week. So they’re going to take up IVF next. Neither bill is likely to pass the Senate because you need 60 votes to do it, but much less the House.
And people were like, oh, this is a messaging bill by Chuck Schumer just to embarrass the Republicans. No, this is a prudent thing to do if you’re the Senate majority leader and women’s health care rights are attacked, you know, from every corner that to vote to have a legislation to try to protect contraception and if it can’t pass, get people on the record for it is like the responsible thing to do right now.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah.
Jennifer Palmieri: Even accepting how crazy the Republicans are, I find it sort of bonkers that more Republican senators did not say, you know what, I don’t care that this is a messaging bill. I don’t care that this is never going to become law. I’m going to vote to protect contraception.
Claire McCaskill: And they act like they don’t do gotcha messaging bills all the time. When the Republicans were in charge and I was facing a re-elect —
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: — all Mitch McConnell wanted to do was bring up votes that were hard for me to make, you know, and even though he knew those bills weren’t going anywhere. So to act like this is some kind of violation of the rules is embarrassing for the Republican caucus. What would have been smart is for them to do what we often did when the Republicans did that. We all agreed to vote for it. And that’s what they should have done. And so now they have put themselves in this corner where we have evidence that they do not want to protect the right to contraception. It is nuts.
Jennifer Palmieri: Nuts. Okay. Let’s take a quick break. When we’re back, Kelley Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign joins us to kick off Pride and highlight what issues matter most to LGBTQ voters. Back with Kelley in a moment.
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Jennifer Palmieri: Welcome back and happy Pride. Each June, Pride Month honors the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan and focuses on the continuing fight for civil rights and equal justice for LGBTQ Plus Americans.
Claire McCaskill: So we wanted to highlight the issues that are most urgent to the LGBTQ Plus voting bloc. To help us with that, Kelley Robinson joins us now. Kelley is the president of the Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights Campaign Foundation. I might add, I was always proud to receive the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign in my elections. And it was always a fun day when I got that endorsement. Lots of hugs and smiles. And she was formerly executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Welcome, Kelley. We’re really glad to have you.
Kelley Robinson: Happy Pride. Happy to be here.
Claire McCaskill: What issues are front and center for the community or does that depend on socioeconomic status? What are people looking for most with the presidential race?
Kelley Robinson: I mean, everything. Lesbian, gay, bi, queer, trans people. We are everywhere and we care about a multitude of issues.
Claire McCaskill: Just Americans.
Kelley Robinson: We’re just Americans. Yeah. I mean, we’re thinking about the same things other folks are, you know, trying to afford a house in a world where, you know, mortgage rates are so high.
Claire McCaskill: Yeah.
Kelley Robinson: Making sure our kids have access to schools, not only that are going to give them the best education, but they are going to respect our lives and our identities. Trying to make it in this economic climate. So there’s so much of what’s happening here that like queer and trans and non-binary people, we are just regular people. I want folks to know that we care about everyone’s issues.
I think we’re also experiencing an escalated level of attack on us for being who we are. The waves of don’t say gay or trans bills across the country. Having a state like Colorado and their GOP try to burn pride flags, like this is scary. So I think right now our community is more motivated to vote than ever because we know exactly what’s at risk.
Claire McCaskill: You know, I think about this a lot. As you might imagine, during my political career, public opinion shifted dramatically around issues pertaining to the gay community writ-large, LGBTQ Plus community. And I realized at one point that I’m not sure I knew anybody that didn’t love someone that was a member of that community, that didn’t have a nephew or a daughter or a next-door neighbor or a work colleague, someone they cared about deeply that belongs to that community.
So it’s very interesting to me that this anti-gay movement has taken hold in the Republican Party. I’d love you to give us some contours of how big is this voting bloc and the adjacent voting bloc, mothers and sisters and brothers of people that are just trying to love who they love and be who they are. How big is that voting bloc and what are you guys doing to motivate that voting bloc? Because honestly, I think you guys could be the difference. Totally.
Kelley Robinson: Absolutely. And I mean, you said it’s a power of visibility, the power of knowing someone in our community that dramatically changes people’s not only opinion of us, but their behavior when they go out to vote. You know, right now we’ve identified 75 million voters, 75 million who prioritize LGBTQ Plus issues when deciding who to vote for. And 75 million people, that’s equivalent to the number of registered voters in every battleground state combined.
These are not small numbers. And not only that, when you break it down by state, think about a state like Arizona, where Joe Biden won it in 2020 by about 10,000 votes. There are 1.4 million equality voters in that state alone. Also a state that’s going to be consequential to the United States Senate outcomes as well. So our job is to make sure that we’re talking to these people about what matters, reminding them of what’s at stake and also what’s possible when we have government that reflects us and represents our community and then getting them out to vote.
Claire McCaskill: And is there a program? Are you guys actually engaged in a what we like to call in this program, the ground game? What are you doing on the ground in these battleground states to motivate and activate these voters?
Kelley Robinson: Absolutely. We just launched a program called We Show Up. And it’s all about motivating these voters to get out to the polls, because at the end of the day, they care about and they have to hear from Joe Biden exactly about what his record is. We have to make sure we’re drawing that contrast between him and Donald Trump and being very clear that this race isn’t just about two candidates for president. This is about two fundamentally different visions for our country, different futures for our kids. We’ve got to make that clear.
But more so, they’re looking to us, organizations, their friends, their family to talk to them about the issues, about the policy matters. And this group of voters, also 70 percent of them have a high level of trust in the human rights campaign. That’s more trust than in any political party or candidate, right?
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah, that’s a big number.
Kelley Robinson: It’s huge. So that’s why we’re out there knocking doors, making phone calls. We have committed a $15 million investment in our We Show Up campaign, all geared towards this group of 75 million voters and turning them out to the polls.
Jennifer Palmieri: How are folks doing? How does the current political environment shape the well-being of LGBTQ people? I saw that there was a poll, 49 percent of LGBTQ voters reported experiencing real-world harassment or bullying caused by the current state of political discourse. Seventy-two percent experienced negative impacts to their mental health and emotional well-being.
Kelley Robinson: Yeah. You know, last year, for the first time in the human rights campaign history, we declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ Plus Americans. And that was in response to, you know, almost 500 anti-LGBTQ Plus bills had been introduced across states, 80 that were signed into law. But also exactly what you said, this culture of fear and harassment. I mean, one in five of every hate crime is motivated by anti-LGBTQ Plus bias.
I talked to trans women, especially Black trans women, who worry when they leave the house that that might be the day that they don’t get to go home again. I talked to pediatricians that are receiving death threats for providing gender-affirming care to people who need it. We have to be clear that this is a state of emergency, not for some of us, but for all of us.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Kelley Robinson: But the thing that really gives me hope is that it’s not just the crisis, it’s the opportunity on the other side, because we see more people showing up, more allies showing up, more people coming out and being visible about their identities than ever before. I mean, a third of Generation Z right now identifies as a member of the LGBTQ Plus community, a third of them.
Claire McCaskill: Wow.
Kelley Robinson: We have to harness that power into making the kinds of change that we need.
Claire McCaskill: I know that you put out a report this morning, in fact, one year after you declared a national state of emergency. What do you think is the most important thing in that report that our listeners need to keep front of mind over the next five months before the election?
Kelley Robinson: The absolute most important thing is that even though things are challenging right now, especially for my community, we are not without hope and we are certainly not without power.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Kelley Robinson: Over the last year, we have started to see the tides begin to turn. You know, there’s still been hundreds of bills introduced, bad bills for the LGBTQ Plus community, but a fraction of them have made it over the finish line. In fact, a state like Georgia got zero anti-LGBTQ Plus bills out of their legislative session.
Jennifer Palmieri: I’m really glad to hear that because it does sort of feel just in terms of, excuse me for saying like the vibe in the country. It does feel like Ron DeSantis is very 2022, you know, and that the hate is very 2022. And it kind of feels like that it’s losing steam. I’m glad I didn’t realize that about Georgia, that they tried and failed.
Kelley Robinson: Absolutely. I love that. Ron DeSantis is so 2022. I need a T-shirt that says that. But you’re right. They tried these horrific attacks on our community. They’re particularly trying to attack trans people as one of our most vulnerable communities and populations and it’s falling flat. I mean, look at the 2023 elections, right? There were horrific anti-trans ads put up all over the country trying to stop us from coming out to vote. But still, you had Governor Andy Beshear handily win in Kentucky and defeat those attacks.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Kelley Robinson: You had the Abortion Rights Amendment handily be a part of the Ohio’s Constitution with our people turning out to vote. You had somebody like Danica Roem become the first state senator who is out and transgender in the state of Virginia. That’s because people aren’t standing for this bullying, especially of our community and especially for our kids.
Claire McCaskill: Speaking of abortion rights, Roe was the precedent for the rights of gay marriage. All my staff members who were hoping for that outcome, I gave them all the afternoon off that day. I sent a memo around to everybody in my Senate office and said, if you love this decision, no matter who you love, take off and go have a glass of champagne.
So when that decision was based on Roe and Roe fell and Clarice Thomas referenced that historic decision that allowed people to marry who they loved, regardless of gender, how worried are you about the rights of gay marriage after this decision in Dobbs? And what are you all doing to monitor the lawsuits that may be brought to challenge gay marriage in America? Because I know they’re busy trying to find the right vehicle to challenge gay marriage in America so they can try to undo that historic decision that most of America celebrated.
Kelley Robinson: Look, we should all be concerned, right? I feel like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a precedent that had been on the books for over 40 years, right? It showed the fragility of all of our rights that are only affirmed through the Supreme Court. Not only did Clarence Thomas say that he encouraged the court to re-evaluate Obergefell, he also said that they should re-evaluate Lawrence and Windsor as well, cases that fundamentally not only protect our right to marry, but our basic civil human rights to love who we love in this country.
So one thing I’m very clear about is that this is another thing that’s at stake with the next president of the United States of America. Donald Trump in his four years was able to appoint three conservative Supreme Court justices that made the overturning of Roe v. Wade possible. We have to be clear; the next president is quite likely to be able to appoint people to the Supreme Court and either they’re going to be closer to being a more balanced court or be in the trenches of conservatism for another generation to come.
This is something that should be on everyone’s minds. So it’s another reason that we’re fighting back, not only against the state laws, but also mobilizing our communities in every state in the country, because this isn’t just a battle that’s happening in battleground states or on the coast. This is something that’s affecting every single person in every state and every zip code.
Claire McCaskill: So let’s talk about, I told you before we started that you do such a great job on television. You’re like such an effective advocate, also just like compelling and fun to watch. I also had the microphone need to note that Kelley’s communications director, Christopher Huntley, is a friend of mine, and he just texted me to let me know that you left a stint in MMA fighting and joined Obama in 2008 in Missouri, I think. Is that right?
Kelley Robinson: That’s right, M-I-Z-Z-O-U.
Claire McCaskill: There you go. How about that?
Kelley Robinson: I know. We have that in common.
Claire McCaskill: Wow, I didn’t know that about you. So, you were like very well prepared to have a fighting role in this campaign. One thing we obsess about here is how are you actually reaching voters, right? You were on “The Saturday Show” with Jonathan Capehart, and in that interview, you talked about Black and LGBTQ Plus voters in particular. The harder to reach people who are not consuming a lot of mainstream news, what are you finding works?
Kelley Robinson: I mean, the biggest thing, the most important thing is to actually find people where they are and talk to them.
Claire McCaskill: Is that social? Is that like door knocking? What is that?
Kelley Robinson: It’s all of it. I mean, I think social and door knocking matters, but we find that conversations between real human people, especially somebody that you know is the most effective strategy in motivating people to take an action. So oftentimes we’ll call it relational organizing, but we’ve got over three million supporters and members across the country. The Human Rights Campaign does. And our job is to make sure that those people are talking to their neighbors and to their friends.
We help them to do that. There’s some of the tools that we’ve got. They can tell us who their friends are, and we’ll help them to create a list to make sure that they’re talking to them and telling us how those conversations go. But I think that we’re in a moment, especially on our issues, where people are feeling so afraid and you can’t meet fear with a fact sheet or with a stat or with a memo.
Jennifer Palmieri: Amen.
Kelley Robinson: You just can’t.
Jennifer Palmieri: Right.
Kelley Robinson: You just cannot.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Kelley Robinson: If somebody says that they’re feeling scared, it doesn’t matter what data I give you. That’s their experience. And that’s why I think that these person-to-person conversations, whether it’s done through knocking on the door, a phone call, a text message, it really does actually help to break down that fear, remind people of their own power and give them the opportunity to take an action and go out to vote. Especially when I think about these equality voters. Let’s be real. Almost a quarter of them are at risk of staying home or voting for a third-party candidate if we do not talk to them.
But if we talk to them and have meaningful conversations, especially about what’s at stake with another Donald Trump presidency, we see them shifting their attitude and behaviors and turning out to vote. So that’s the work of the next few months for us. I always say this. If you’re feeling concerned, if you’re feeling afraid, the antidote to that is taking an action.
Jennifer Palmieri: Kelley Robinson, thank you so much for your time. It’s great to speak with you. Happy Pride.
Kelley Robinson: Happy Pride.
Claire McCaskill: Kelley Robinson is the president of the Human Rights Campaign and Human Rights Campaign Foundation and was formerly the executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Thanks, Kelley. We’re going to take a quick break here, but when we’re back, we want to spotlight President Biden’s executive action on the border. Back with that in a moment.
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Jennifer Palmieri: Welcome back. We know immigration is a key issue for voters this fall across party affiliation as the surge in border crossings continues to be a real problem, as well as migrants coming to cities. But Republicans, under the urging of Trump, have been doing everything they can to block any legislative progress to fix the issue so that they can point to Joe Biden as failing to solve the border crisis.
Claire McCaskill: So after months of wrangling for Republican votes and, frankly, giving up territory that if you would have asked me before the process began, when they were working on a bipartisan bill, I would have said, there’s no way the majority of Democrats will support this. They got agreement —
Jennifer Palmieri: It’s amazing. I know.
Claire McCaskill: — for some really aggressive changes to the asylum law and to other issues that have plagued border enforcement for decades. So after that, when Biden realized this was a political game they were playing and he has a problem to solve, he can’t play a political game right now. He did an executive action and he’s restricting asylum to stem the flow of migrants. He is also taking action to shut the border when the number of migrants that come across without authority to do so, when they actually come across the border illegally.
It is really time that he is doing this, and I’m glad he did it, and I think it was the right thing to do.
Jennifer Palmieri: Okay. So let’s start by looking at the numbers. CBP, this is the Customs Border Patrol numbers for April. While the numbers are still high, they have gone down significantly since December’s record high of over 300,000 border crossings. So from CBP in April 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 128,900 encounters between points of entry along the southwest border. In April, encounters were 6% lower than in March 2024 and 30% lower than April of 2023.
Claire McCaskill: It shuts down the asylum requests once a certain number come across illegally. It went into effect immediately. The border will only reopen when the number of immigrants that are crossing illegally fall to 1,500. There are limited exceptions to this for minors who cross the border alone and victims of human trafficking, and they would like to get the resources from Congress to be able to hear these asylum claims more quickly so this process can become more efficient. It is the most restrictive border policy ever done by a modern-day Democrat.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah, and it is similar to Trump’s 2018 efforts to block migration that was, of course, you know, panned by Democrats, and it was blocked by the courts. The ACLU plans to file a lawsuit on this one as well. And Biden said he was forced to take the executive action because GOP blocked bipartisan legislation. So, one thing that I thought was smart about what he did, and I just know it’s such an issue for governors and mayors, and it’s not just governors and mayors along the border, right?
Like Kathy Hochul was there, the governor of New York, at the White House when he announced this on Tuesday. And they are never going to make this a positive issue for them. Trump’s got something like a 30-point advantage for them over Democrats on this issue. But you can neutralize it, and you can also make it an argument about how Trump is, everything is about him.
So Biden has done more to request more money than anyone from the Congress for border agents. He has supported this bipartisan legislation that Congress did not pass because Donald Trump did not want to give him a victory. He has taken executive action that may or may not take effect because of the courts. And the only reason why the problem is not getting solved is because Donald Trump makes everything about him. And Biden is the guy who’s actually getting the job done.
Claire McCaskill: I want to say that this new policy weighs a little heavy on my heart. I do believe what it says in the New Testament, that we have an obligation to take care of the least among us. And if you’ve ever been to the border and you see the people crossing, you realize they’re not coming for a vacation. They’re coming for a better life, for survival in many instances. They’re trying to take care of their families. So this is hard stuff.
But having said that, it had gotten to the point that our infrastructure could not handle the intake. And in the long run, that’s not good for those families either. So this is the right thing to do. The Gallup poll showed that for three months running, which is really something, immigration was the top issue in America. And that is different than typically it has been.
Jennifer Palmieri: Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: And so I think Biden looked at the reality here. And the other thing to remember is he’s not doing the same kinds of things that Trump did. He’s not ripping babies out of their arms.
Jennifer Palmieri: He’s not separating kids. Yeah.
Claire McCaskill: He’s protecting victims of trafficking. And maybe most important is how he talks about the immigrants. He doesn’t talk about them poisoning the blood. He doesn’t make immigrants the enemy. He is dealing with a real problem in a way that is straightforward. And I think he will be politically rewarded for it. And I’m sure this wasn’t an easy decision. I’m sure that’s why it didn’t happen as quickly as many of us thought it should have. But the right thing has occurred and I do think he’ll be politically rewarded for it.
Jennifer Palmieri: And the other thing is, I think part of the timing, well, first of all, it’s like the Mexican presidential elections are over, waiting for that to happen. And then I think also Biden wanted to have all this established before he got on the debate stage with Trump, you know, because it is not as if this one action that Biden took this week is going to break through and, you know, solve his messaging problem around immigration. It’s going to take a lot of repeating. It’s going to take the governors and mayors that were at that event on Tuesday to go back to their states.
And now when they do get asked about, and I continue to use Kathy Hochul as an example, because, I mean, if you don’t live in an area that is seeing local news around migrants coming to cities, you may not understand why this is the number one issue in the United States. And it is because, you know, people still watch local news and a lot of cities are dealing with this migrant problem. And let me tell you, it dominates in terms of issues that get covered.
But now those mayors and governors can say, they don’t have to say, I’ve talked to the president, I’ve pushed him to do more. They can say, I talked to the president, he delivered, he’s done everything he can. And that alone is going to help get this thing in a box. And it’s, you know, it’s an odd thing the president said, I’ll close on this, is like he said, kind of acknowledging that it’s a tough thing to do and some people are going to be upset about it.
But he said, you know, patience has run out in the country. And as president of the United States, it’s his job to deal with problems, but also represent where people are in America. And people, Americans, want this dealt with as best he can, understanding the only way to really do that is Congress.
Claire McCaskill: Okay.
Jennifer Palmieri: Thanks so much for listening. If you have a question for us, you can send it to howtowinquestions@nbcuni.com or you can leave us a voicemail at 646-974-4194 and we might answer it on the pod. And remember to subscribe to MSNBC’s How To Win newsletter to get weekly insights on this year’s key races sent straight to your inbox. Visit the link in our show notes to sign up.
Claire McCaskill: This show is produced by Vicki Vergolina. Janmaris Perez is our associate producer. Catherine Anderson and Bob Mallory are our audio engineers. Our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes. Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio and Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC. Search for “How To Win 2024” wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.