Michael Bennet (Senator of Colorado)
Appearances
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I'm Michael Bennett, and I approve this message because now it's time to clean up Washington.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
They were 9, 7, and 4, Mark, and they're 25, 24, and 22 now. Yeah. And what do you think in looking at that spot? Have you seen that lately? Yeah, I haven't seen it for many years. And I think, first of all, that was a fairly insightful thing to say back then. It turns out it wasn't even close to the truth of how screwed up this place is. Yeah.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I mean, it's the most important thing that I've ever done and the most satisfying thing that I've ever done. I'm so proud of my daughters, like every parent is. And I think also, Mark, the time that I spent as the school superintendent in Denver, where two of my three daughters or actually all three were students.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
uh has made me feel that their lives are deeply connected to the lives of other kids in my community across the country and that we all rise and fall together i don't mean that politically i mean that and my kids feel that way themselves you know they have a sense that the world is much bigger than their world.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
They have a sense that there are a lot of people in America who struggle with things that they really have not had to struggle with. And they've struggled with things that lots of other kids struggle with.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
When I see the mental health epidemic that is raging across my state among young people and across the country among young people, I think about the challenges my own kids have had throughout COVID and And with the effects of social media and their poisonous algorithms, you know, like any parent, I worry about those things, too. So for me, it's been a motivation of my wife.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
It's why I became the superintendent of schools to begin with and why I went to the Senate, I guess.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
It's fun. How old is your kid, Mark?
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Eight. Yeah, so yours is actually the same age, basically, mine were when I came here. That is a... Every year is incredible. When I thought... When my kids were first going off to college, I thought how devastating it would be to have them leave the house. And, of course, what you realize is they have to go.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
There's not one minute that they should stay with you, and it becomes a whole other relationship. But there's not much better than having an 8-year-old kid. And the answer to your question on the busy jobs, it's interesting. I just had that discussion because when people – There were a couple of people that came to see me and said, we think you should run for governor this time.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And my first reaction was, there is no way I can go home to my kids. And it explained to them, having been away 50 percent of their childhood in the Senate in D.C., that I'm now coming home after they have gone, which they are hopefully momentarily. from Colorado and they said, are you sure about that?
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And I checked and Caroline, who's the oldest one of those three girls said, are you under the illusion that we, uh, that we wanted to see more than we did? Uh, you know, from their perspective, it was great having me gone half the time. And, uh, it's, you know, they, they've obviously thought about that themselves and were encouraging about my running. Yeah.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Bobby Kennedy, the HHS secretary? Yeah, HHS. Yeah, I think he... Well, I think he left probably for craven reasons, which were his own ambition. But in the end, he found himself a place in the Trump administration that's allowing him to do what he wants to do with respect to the vaccines and other things. I do think that his...
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
there are, even though I think his vaccine denial is really dangerous. And as a former school superintendent and a parent, I really feel that way. I think the fundamental frustration with our healthcare system that Bobby Kennedy has is something that I also believe.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I mean, the American people are being crushed by our healthcare system, which is in many ways the worst system in the industrialized world. And all the time when I'm home, You know, I am meeting people who are experiencing our health care system on behalf of their children as an exercise in scarcity, scarcity, scarcity.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Whether it's the mental health care that I was mentioning a minute ago, which they desperately need for their kids, or it's being stuck on a telephone. fighting an insurance company to get paid or it's taken care even of a parent who's been prescribed a drug that they can't get.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
You know, our families in this country are fighting against a system that that no other country, no other parents in the industrialized world are fighting against. And I think Bobby Kennedy, you know, in some ways has called the question in this election on that. And I think he's been rewarded for that.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Well, I think we should be open to outside opinions. I think a much more important question for the Democratic Party was whether Joe Biden should have run for reelection. And I don't think he should have run for reelection. I think that was a huge mistake. In some sense, the original sin of the Democratic failure in this election, not the only sin, not the only sin, but an important one.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Should he not have run because of mental decline or for some other reason? I think he shouldn't have run because he was, I think that he had gotten to a point, I wouldn't say a mental decline, but of decline that put him in a position of not being able to wage a vigorous campaign against Donald Trump. And there's no way you can beat Donald Trump unless you can wage a vigorous campaign.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And he couldn't do it. Why wouldn't you say mental decline? Did you not see that publicly? I didn't see. Well, look, when the first thing that I really saw other than one visit to the White House on an immigration matter, there was about, I think, six weeks before this was when I saw his debate with Donald Trump.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And I think I was the first Democrat to publicly say on on network television that we were going to lose in a landslide if he stayed at the top of the ticket.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Well, I think that, again, I have not made a personal assessment, you know, at that time, certainly of Joe Biden's mental decline. I think he was not in a position to wage a vigorous campaign against Trump, whether it was mental or physical. And we paid a heavy price for his decision to run again.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I would say that part of it is her origin story, which I think is really appealing to Democratic voters and American voters generally. I think that she's also a very effective communicator and politician. The fundamental point, though, I think is that the American people want a radical transformation of the economy that's not working well for themselves or for their kids.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And I think in the end, and I think she's with her roadshow with Bernie Sanders, in some ways, that's the... That's the vision that she's appealing to do. Whether or not that's a vision that can build a broad coalition of Americans that can defeat Trumpism, I think is a really open question. And I suspect that it probably can't.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I think it's an important part of that coalition, but not enough to be able to defeat Trumpism in a general election. And same question. What's the source of political strength of Kamala Harris? I think that her source of political strength was providing a newness to Joe Biden's ticket. That's what I think it was.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Well, I think the fact that she's well-known and was on a national ticket would be the source of her political stride.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I think it's not just working with the legislature, but working with county commissioners all over the state of Colorado, many of whom have jobs. you know, something relevant to say. And working with the private sector, we're going to have to work in a collaborative process to make housing cheaper, to make it more available, and to be able to build it faster.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I don't criticize Jared Polis, our governor, on that. I think he has made some incremental efforts that have been important on housing, but it's not enough to deal with what we're faced with. You mentioned the word crisis. I mean,
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I would say where we are in the state is that there is not a county in my state, there's not a neighborhood where people feel like their kids are going to be able to live in the neighborhood that they live in, that they're going to be able to afford to have a house in the neighborhood they're in. That is the economic pressure, I think, that it has created.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
the chance for Donald Trump to win an election twice in this country. And if we don't solve for that, this country is going to continue to elect people who, as Trump, you know, said, we don't need a democracy. I alone can fix it. You know, you should expect your public sector and your private sector to be totally corrupt and totally bankrupt. That is a very natural conversation.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
thing for someone to run on in a world where people have lost a sense of economic opportunity for themselves and their families. I think we've got to work together to figure out how to give the American people hope that their children can prosper in this country, or in my case, in the state of Colorado, that they can actually live there.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I think that if you take what I just said in terms of objectives, let's build it more cheaply, let's build it faster and let's build more of it and let's do it. with a serious collaboration among every level of government that is aligned with each other and in partnership with the private sector. I don't think we've seen that in any state in America yet. Same thing with education.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
There is not a state in this country where people can say, you know what, that's a place where you can send your kid to school and propel them into the American economy. That does not exist out of 50 states. I hope to make Colorado the first one.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I think it's creating more density in our housing and supporting the efforts that we've already made to try to build more transit in the state and to make it more efficient. We have a regional transportation authority called RTD that I think could use a governor's help, let's put it that way, to be more effective and more efficient.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
In politics, they try to label you. Okay, call me an idealist, a pragmatic idealist. You can't fix a broken Washington if you don't level with the American people. It's time for a new era of progress to reform our political system.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
You know, you should stop including me on the list. I'm going home to Colorado for a reason. I think we need a place that can answer the questions that I was just talking about. And I'm looking forward to leaning in with the folks there to be able to be able to say this is the best state in America to raise a kid. And we need it, Mark.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
We have got to find our way to a place that's better than just chaos and more chaos.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I don't have the name on that list. Honestly, I think we're going to have to have people go through to the go through the grueling competition of of winning this nomination. I suspect that the person who wins would be somebody that we won't even come up with today. You might you might come up with them, but I'm not smart enough. OK, though, is J.D.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I think he would be formidable as president. Why? Because I think he has the theory of the case that is a response to the economic dislocation that people feel. I don't think it's the only one. I think that I think Donald Trump's response to the economic dislocation in the end is going to be really bad for the American people and really bad for the prospects of this country.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
What we need is a Democratic Party that has a vision for how to make this country better. for our children. And if we, as we talked about at the beginning of this conversation, and if we are able to do that, it's not just that the Democrats will succeed, which is interesting to me, but not compelling. It's that our country can succeed.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And the kind of stuff that we're squandering right now in terms of our leadership in the world, in terms of running an education system where the kids today are actually Their reading scores are worse today than they were 20 years ago. A health care system that is, you know, creating nothing but headwinds for the American people and for American business.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
You know, we could do a hell of a lot better than that, Mark. And that's that's the world we're living in today, in part because the Democratic Party was repudiated because it could not figure out how to compete with the economic message that Trump and J.D.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
The way he won is through the economic unhappiness of the American people. Look at the polling at the beginning and the end of his election, and you'll see that 70% of the American people say we need a radical change in the economy. And he was the one providing that. not the Democratic Party.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I also think, as I said earlier, that there is a place where people feel that lack of opportunity and a strong man shows up and says, you don't need the democracy. Follow me. I will lead you to a place where you're going to be able to support your family, even if it doesn't feel all that plausible, even if there's stuff that rings hollow about it.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
The idea that there's somebody there that wants to basically rain chaos on our institutions and bust stuff up becomes appealing. And that is what Trump, that's a playbook that he ran twice. And the second time, which was even more obvious than the first time, he had four years to prepare for an election that he knew he was going to win. for that basically at least half of that time.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And we're seeing the fruits of that now, which is why it's not okay. If you start to see a Democratic Party that's saying, well, it's just that Joe Biden was too old. It's just that Joe Biden shouldn't have run. It's not at a party that's actually saying, how could we have possibly lost to this candidate who, among other things, stripped away a woman's right to choose in his first election?
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
And we still lost to him his second election. I would have thought that I would have. disqualified him out of 330 billion Americans. And yet he not only came back, he won more decisively than he did the first time with a broader coalition of Americans than he won with the first time.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Actually, I think that it's the way I hate to say this, but I hate to say this, but the joy he takes in trolling the Democratic Party. You know, it's like it is like Lucy in the football with him. And and and it's and it's and we've got to stop. We got to stop showing up with the football in a way that Donald Trump, you know, it. can have the result that he has day after day after day.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
I think he's doing basically a terrible job. You know, he is destroying small businesses because of the tariff war he's put on. He's got now his latest drug company stuff that to me seems totally fake when the American people actually need us desperately to address this drug crisis. He's got a reconciliation bill that I think in the end,
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
is not going to support working people in America well, and it is going to absolutely destroy any remnant of fiscal balance that we have as a nation. That's not it. And he's alienated our allies and created a go-it-alone strategy for America. I mean, I...
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
All of that stuff is is is it is much worse than we should be expecting out of an American president, much less than we should be expecting from an American president. And yet we're getting it because the Democratic Party has twice failed to beat this media star from New York City. And that's not his fault. I blame him for many, many things.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
including for the fact that he's got no theory on education over health care or how to build an economy that works well for everybody. I blame him for many things, but getting elected is not one of them.
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Biden's Cognitive Decline Cover-Up "Original Sin" Involves the Author, and Trump's Unusual China Strategy
Let's hope that doesn't happen too soon during your term.