Following last night’s complete blowout for the Democratic Party, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Jen celebrate and assess the victory. Democrats won all 18 key races, flipping multiple seats and strengthening a growing blue wave across the country.
However, the work is far from over. Democrats are up against Trump’s expanding authoritarian actions: weaponizing the justice system against political enemies, deploying troops on the streets, and strategizing to steal the next election by revoking mail-in voting and implementing rigged election maps.
Sen. Merkley and Jen break down what it takes to stand up against Trump and how we can fight back against these attempts at de-democratization.
Jeff Merkley is a junior Democratic senator from Oregon. Merkley is a member of the Appropriations Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Budget Committee, the Rules Committee, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Transcript has been edited slightly for formatting.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. I am delighted to welcome Senator Jeff Merkley from the great state of Oregon. Welcome, Senator!
Senator Jeff Merkley
Well, thanks so much, Jen. It’s very good to be with you.
Jen Rubin
It is a nice morning, isn’t it? What’s your reaction overall to the results from last night?
Senator Jeff Merkley
Well, Jen, this was not just a blue wave, this was a blue pulsar. We’re talking about statewide elections in Georgia that hadn’t been won in decades for the equivalent of a utility commission, people concerned, therefore, about electric rates and so on and so forth. We’re talking about Supreme Court positions in Pennsylvania, which a very fine gentleman, Bob Casey, lost his Senate race just a year… year ago. And then there’s the… the key governor’s races in, in, both, New Jersey, and in Virginia, and the… it wasn’t just the top of the ticket. I mean, you saw more House seats for the Virginia Assembly switched than we’ve seen in a very long time. I think maybe the largest majority they’ve had, perhaps, I don’t know, for a very long, maybe in my lifetime, I’ll put it that way.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely.
Senator Jeff Merkley
Well, it’s beyond expectations, even at the top end of the expectations.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. There seemed to be an overall theme, and that was they do not like what they see. They are angry about corruption, they’re angry about the denigration of their democracy, they’re angry about inflation. Is the message that Democrats need to embrace is…one that takes on Donald Trump, takes on the corruption, takes on, the issues that are animating voters?
Senator Jeff Merkley
I think the two big factors are certainly the quality of life. I mean, Trump has proceeded to have an agenda in which families lose and billionaires win, so people have seen 10 months of making the nation hungrier, sicker, and poor, and folks are saying, well, that’s not what we expected, we’re not okay with that. And then it’s the authoritarian takeover, and so many people are animated by seeing the fundamental norms, the separation of powers, checks and balances, being eviscerated. This is certainly an alarm bell. I’ve been trying to do everything I can to ring, because there’s still a sense among many, well, you only lose a democracy when men with guns storm the Capitol. No, you are seeing it around the world when an authoritarian president gets and secures a rubber-stamped Congress and a collaborative court, and the result is an authoritarian takeover. And we’re in the middle of it. It’s here right now, not down the street, not around the corner, we’re in the middle of it right now. So I think folks were saying, hell no to making everybody worse off, and hell no to, destroying our democracy.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. You gave a magnificent oration on the Senate floor that went on for 22 hours plus, I think, on.
Senator Jeff Merkley
Throw in those 37 minutes if you want.
Jen Rubin
There you go, not to be specific or anything, but that really kind of dug into this. What do you think, is the way to get people to understand that democracy is not something abstract, but is something that affects them, that they need to become personally invested in?
Senator Jeff Merkley
You know, a lot of my colleagues said, people are not going to understand this, but I think 7 million people turning out to the No Kings. Mark says a lot of people understand it. I had 5 times as many people coming to my town halls this year as last year, and last year was an election year. Normally, this would have been a year people wouldn’t have been mobilized. And they weren’t primarily coming to respond to economic concerns, though they’re certainly a factor. The primary impetus was, oh my goodness, what the hell’s going on here? He just fired all the referees, the inspector general. He just filled his cabinet with loyalists, who don’t have the ability, the competency, the character to lead the departments they’ve been assigned to. Oh, my, my goodness, what happened to the check and balance of the Senate, making sure that unqualified people don’t get in to these key cabinet positions? And now look what he’s doing. He’s using research grants to tell universities how to teach. He’s using security clearances to tell law firms how to behave. He’s using the licenses for broadcasts to try to change what type of comedian we have on late-night television, and in general, to intimidate the press, including a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion. And it’s like, oh my goodness, like, every single day, there’s some aspect of this authoritarian takeover, and then… The weaponizing of the judiciary against an enemies list, and then putting troops in the street to suppress peaceful domestic dissent, and then striving to rig the next set of elections in 2026 through gerrymandering and control of a national voter registration database, and by trying to stop vote by mail. So all of these things pile up, and people are going, what the hell is going on here? This doesn’t seem right. And they’re right. It’s not right. So I think there is an understanding that something’s amiss. But what we know from democracies around the world is if there isn’t both an outcry on the street and an outcry by electeds. Yes. People say, well, maybe this is not as bad as I thought. Maybe it’s more normal than I understood. And if there’s not a party willing to stand up and carry the fight, there’s not a vehicle for people to put their muscle into to stop the authoritarian takeover from becoming entrenched. So that’s really an important message for the Democratic Party.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. One of the aspects of authoritarianism is the abject corruption. And we saw this very visibly, pardon the pun, concretely, with the knocking down of the East Wing, and Trump selling part of the White House, in essence, to his billionaire buddies, the crypto bros, the big tech corporations. That seems to have really got under people’s craw, and, I think they’re waiting for, a response, from Democrats and even from Republicans. How important is the corruption issue, and how vital is it that you elevate that as a real, danger to not only democracy, but people’s pocketbooks, their livelihood, their everyday life?
Senator Jeff Merkley
Well, it’s very significant, and I think the tearing down the people’s house in order to make a Louis XIV gold-plated ballroom is certainly symbolic, kind of a parable for tearing down democracy and replacing it with an authoritarianWork of… work of construction. And people are going, wow, and, like, the law doesn’t matter. They may not have been as upset as they should have been over the law when the inspector Generals were fired and the law was not fired… was not followed. But now they’re going, well, doesn’t… doesn’t the president have a commission that’s supposed to approve these changes? And did he actually get… go through and get the building permits required? And it’s like… and I find it interesting, it’s just… it’s like something can… that people can get their hands around.
Jen Rubin
Oh, yes, yes. In a way that the more abstract.
Senator Jeff Merkley
pieces of law may seem, well, do I really understood? Did they really violate the law? Didn’t the Supreme Court say that was kind of okay? Maybe it goes with executive power? And, well, yeah, we’ve got a court that is handing more executive power. This whole decision of the court saying the president is unaccountable for crimes committed as long as it’s done with the imprimatur of a government act is just absolutely… I was just shocked. I was like, there’s no way the originalists who claim that they try to follow the original understanding of the law could possibly ever affirmatively say the president’s above the law. I mean, our founders were desperately concerned about a president becoming a king. They were very afraid that the four-year term limits wouldn’t be followed. They were very worried about a standing army being used against the people, and so there’s no way in hell you could read the Constitution and find a clause that says, and to protect the president’s executive power from fear a possible violation of law, we therefore make the president immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. And yet that is exactly what the Supreme Court found. So, but that tearing down of the people’s house. That is something that… that… that everyone can understand is a symbol of this broader tearing down of our democracy.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Before we come back to Washington, I want to talk about Portland. There’s been a tremendous, kind of, all-of-society response, from the mayor, the governor, the courts, the people who have maintained a peaceful and humorous, very Portland-like response to this, invasion. How, do you see things on the ground now, and do you think that this is, Perhaps a successful model of how, we fight back against the militarization of our cities.
Senator Jeff Merkley
You know, the, when the mayor called and said, we hear troops are going to get deployed, possibly tonight, let’s do a press conference immediately in an hour, I said, great. And, you know, I jumped in the car, and the mayor spoke, and then I spoke, and I started my comments by saying, welcome to the Don’t Take the Bait press conference.
Jen Rubin
That’s true.
Senator Jeff Merkley
The president is intent on creating riots and violence, and then using riots and violence to justify authoritarian power. We cannot help him achieve that objective. And so I encourage people to protest, but protests A ways away, without conflict, with the federal officers. Well, Portlanders did what they did so well. They said, well, you know, we might want to protest a little closer to the ice building, but we’ll do it by teaching crochet classes, and holding a wedding, and being on a unicycle with bagpipes, a unit piper, and we’ll teach people how to do the cha-cha slide, and we’ll proceed to have women in pajamas handing out pastries, and And so forth. And just… described it, and continue to describe it as protesting with, joy and whimsy. And…The only real instigation of violence we’ve seen has been from… there’s been a few fisticuffs between right-wing and left-wing demonstrators. But mostly it’s been violence started by the federal agents themselves, where they’ll walk up and just spray a person straight in the face with, with pepper spray, and then something bizarre happened. The president’s team decided to stage a fake riot, and they asked the crowd to move back some 3 blocks. Oregon Public Broadcasting was covering this and gave kind of a detail. There was no interaction, there was no… protesters followed directions, they backed up 3 blocks. The federal agents formed a line across the street. They had videographers, professional videographers behind them, and then on command. They created a fake riot, and that involved, flashbangs, which you throw them to the ground, and they create, boy, a sound like gunfire and, flashing lights. And, tear gas, so you have tear gas, which is, obviously, gets in people’s eyes, so they’re running, and then you have pepper balls being fired. And so, video… if you’re taking a videotape of this, you see people running, and you see gas, and oh my gosh, there’s a riot, we’re dispersing it. No, it was all fake. And when in the history of our republic did the federal government stoop to faking a riot to try to convince the court and other Americans that there was something akin to a riot or a, quote, war zone in Portland? I think it’s incredible, act of manipulation that we need to make sure America’s aware of. And then you have the President saying, I’m going to invoke Title X that allows me to federalize the National Guard. there’s out-of-control war zone. And after the facts are reviewed by the district court, the district judge says the presentation by the president’s team is untethered to the facts. I thought that was a very elegant fresh.
Jen Rubin
Yes, yes.
Senator Jeff Merkley
And, said, no, the law says there has to be a riot or on the verge of a riot, there has to be an invasion, or the verge of an invasion, and people knew what those terms meant. The rebellion term meant a significant group, well-organized.
Jen Rubin
well-armed.
Senator Jeff Merkley
Planning to overthrow the government. So either they’re in the act of overthrowing, so you got an actual rebellion, or they’re planning it so you’re on the verge of it. Nothing like that exists. And invasion… people knew what invasion was, too, and it’s armed people on the border, or they come across the border to attack America. That didn’t exist either. We do have more court action to come. There is a larger panel a panel of 11 of the Ninth Circuit. I think they will back up the District Judge. The panel of three had two judges who did not back up the district judge, and they said there should just be deference given to the president. There is nothing in Title X that says anything about deference. It sets a standard. A rebellion or an invasion. I will say we should all be aware that there is another federal law, the Insurrection Act, in which there is explicit deference to the president. And this is very, very dangerous. But at least for now, it’s important the courts say that The law sets a standard. The standard has to be met. There’s no rebellion simply because the president says so, or fakes a riot, if you will. I certainly expect that’s what will come out of the Ninth Circuit. It’s what came out of the Seventh Circuit. Supreme Court will do that, will they decide to give more deference? I… I actually think there’s a good chance that they will actually say the words in the law, the standard of the law matter, and the standard has not been met. And I can’t say… I mean, this is the, kind of, two of the scariest things, and the kind of the rules from the authoritarian playbook. One is get the military trained to be used against your own citizens. That’s what Trump is trying to do. And the second is rig those future elections. He’s trying to do that. And we need to stop him on both fronts.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely, and I agree with your analysis. Not only did the, on one panel take the case, but they actually vacated that three, judge decision, which suggests they’re going to start from scratch, and, rethink that. Let’s bring it back to Washington, D.C. We’re well over a month into the shutdown, caused because the Republicans, refused to fix the healthcare crisis that they created themselves.
the president has tried everything, including turning off food, for children, for disabled people, for our seniors. What effect, if any, does last night have, and the realization that people are angry, they don’t want to take this anymore? What impact do you think that will have? President Trump seems to think that the shutdown is hurting Republicans now. How do you think that unfolds in the next few days?
Senator Jeff Merkley
Well, I think it should be helpful. There are certainly members of the Democratic caucus who have read the polls saying, well, we don’t think that the public’s really understanding our point about healthcare. And people are being hurt by the President’s actions, and of course, we’re empathetic to those people being hurt, people who are working and not paid, people on furlough not being paid, certainly folks who are going to go hungry because of SNAP not being granted danger to women and children through WIC program. And maybe we should call an end to this a different opinion, opinion that I would say I’m more associated with, is you have to understand what’s going on right now in the context of this authoritarian takeover. Yes. And so often, in countries where the Congress proceeds to say we’re not sure that this is the moment to protest and oppose, so we’ll wait for a better opportunity later. That greater opportunity doesn’t come later, and the result is that the authoritarian power gets more entrenched. Having been defeated early on. When, maybe things were actually in your favor, how likely are you to… to be the force that takes on the president later when things are less in your favor? So, that makes this an important moment, and it is not the Democrats who are cutting off the food. It is the president. There is a…There is a fund that Democrats and Republicans created together, a contingency fund, so that SNAP would never be cut. There is a… what’s called the Interchange Authority, which is a transfer authority that enables, certain, well, basically tariff fees that came through ag to be used to fund SNAP. And there’s plenty of money, different estimates range from $16 billion to $23 billion that are in that fund, so there’s certainly enough to make sure that people continue to get their full SNAP benefits. The courts have told the president you have the legal authority, and you have the money, and you have the legal responsibilities, so get it done. Fund snap. And the president has kind of thumbed his nose at that and said, well, we’ll fund it partially, maybe 50%. And, because that will require reprogramming of computers, a lot of states will have to change everything they do, all their calculations. It may be a delay of weeks or months, and they put this into their filing two days ago, that it would take weeks or months under the president’s plan to follow the court order, which said, get it done immediately.
This is, a… I know, I think of the word sneering. This is kind of sneering at the court and saying, you can try to make us, but, you know, we’ll find a way not to actually do what you said we’re supposed to do. Another symbol of an authoritarian takeover, but one with massive consequences. I mean, you think about our most vulnerable families. In Oregon, I have over 700,000 people who are SNAP beneficiaries. If you line them up on the 300-mile length of highway from our northern border of Washington to our southern border with California, there’d be a person every 2 feet for those 300 miles. You could drive for 5 to 6 hours, and you see a steady line of people, basically, toe to heel. Wow, that’s a lot of people, and about every one-third person would be a child. Those children, their physical development is affected, their mental development is affected without food. No way they’re going to learn a damn thing in school. This is a horrendous attack on the health and welfare of our citizens, done voluntarily, deliberately, by the president, saying he wants a bargaining chip in the shutdown negotiations. I… there’s… I’ve tried to hesitate from reusing even more pejorative terms, but this is immoral. It’s damaging, it’s wrong, and it will never happen in a of and by for the people democracy. It will happen in a by and for the rich and powerful authoritarian government, and it’s happening right now.
Jen Rubin
And in the history of SNAP, no president has ever attempted this, has ever attempted a deliberate policy of cruelty, of starvation, of men, women, and children. It’s rather, rather shocking. Well, Senator, I certainly hope your colleagues who are very well-meaning in wanting to find a solution out of this. Have their spines stiffened by the results of last night. They let the Republicans figure out, how they’re gonna get themselves out of this. It seems to be that they have the power to end this anytime, as long as they come to the table and negotiate, a reasonable resolution so that people’s healthcare doesn’t double or triple next year.
Senator Jeff Merkley
No, and it’s such a modest request. To say, let’s keep the tax credits in place. So that we don’t have 20 million people facing an average doubling of their cost of healthcare. And when you double the cost of healthcare, not only for people of modest means does this mean there isn’t the money for taking care of your kids, or for your rent, or for your mortgage payment, or who knows what. But… Also, a lot of folks will go without insurance. And that means that a lot of folks will end up in the emergency room with problems that are much worse. A small lump may be become a metastasizing tumor that threatens your life. It’s more expensive to be treated in the emergency room. It’s not just more expensive, but it’s the most expensive setting, the emergency room. So you’re more… the diseases are worse, the setting’s more expensive, and then because people can’t pay the bill, the revenue to the clinic or the hospital is less, that compromises the possibility of keeping programs open, especially in rural areas, so it could affect the healthcare for everybody in the community. So it’s bad effects, and bad effects will be multiplied in January of 2027, which is really not that far away, when the full attack on the Medicaid program begins. And so this is the exchange, the healthcare exchange, but there’s more bad news to come on healthcare if we don’t fix it. But the Democrats’ request really has been, hey, let’s… if you… for right now, if we can fixthese tax credits on the ACA.
Jen Rubin
I know it will not fix everything that was in the big, ugly bill.
Senator Jeff Merkley
What the president called this big, beautiful bill. We’re not fixing all of it, but the things that are most of, happening right now, let’s just fix that. That’s actually good for the Republicans, because this is going to hurt them badly in the 2026 elections. So, and most of the beneficiaries of these tax credits the bulk are in Republican states. So this is not Democrats fighting for blue states, this is Democrats fighting for American people throughout this nation, regardless of what party they belong to, or how they’re represented in the House and Senate. It’s the right thing to do for the people in our nation.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Well, I think if we had 51 Jeff Merkleys in the Senate, we would be in very, very good shape. Unfortunately, the numbers aren’t there yet, but you’re absolutely right. I think Republicans should take a look and say, gosh. Is it really a good idea to follow Donald Trump down this path, or are we next, in 2026? So hopefully they will get the message. I think the people have spoken. Thank you so much, Senator, for all you’re doing for democracy, for the rule of law. It is magnificent to hear someone on the Senate floor echo the sorts of themes that we try to emphasize here at The Contrarian, and thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. We will love having you back soon, and hopefully, the Republicans will be… begin to see the light.
Senator Jeff Merkley
Thank you, Jen. Take care. Let’s ring the alarm bells.
